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ScentCone writes "Of course it was bound to happen, so now it's mostly a matter of discussing why Lucas does or does not deserve to make the proceeds, or whether people would or would not have gone to see it now that the usual path has been carved around the opening weekend box office." I've yet to find a blockbuster movie that isn't readily available on the net after it opens, but somehow this is still news. It's still usually worth shelling out the cash to see a version that isn't fuzzy with garbled sound, though.

Yesterday's Nintendo press conference was probably the most subdued and honest of the three major events this week. While they didn't have anything really earth-shattering to offer up, the Gameboy Micro, the Revolution's game-downloading capabilities, and the new Zelda Trailer were all welcome news from a company that has been very quiet of late. Commentary, photos, and speculation available from: Nintendo, Engadget, USAToday, GamesIndustry.biz, 1up.com, Gamespot, Cube.IGN, NYT, BBC, Gamasutra, and CNN. Specific coverage on the new Gameboy Micro is available from Gamasutra, GamesIndustry.biz, and CNN. My two cents about Nintendo's conference are available below. Last night I took in G4's E3 coverage, and their discussion of the Nintendo press conference struck a chord with me. This last console cycle, with the Gamecube, Nintendo really missed the boat. The GC wasn't released until many months after the PS2 was already in homes lighting up screens, and their attempts to carve out a market share were always muddled by confusing choices. The most confusing choice of the current generation, by far, was their almost complete refusal to participate in online gaming. While the Xbox sailed by with the Live service and the PS2 limped into the arena with the broadband adapter, the GC quietly sailed on with only Phantasy Star to break up its lonely voyage. At last year's E3 Nintendo very specifically said that they were not going to miss the boat this time. They were going to release the next console right around the same time as the other two companies and make sure their name was out there.

I have high hopes for the Revolution, but to be honest Nintendo's press conference was very underwhelming. Even given that the PS3 isn't going to be on store shelves for another year, what Sony showed on Monday was literally jaw-dropping. Even if there was some liberal use of pre-rendered footage in the presentation, the press conference put on by Sony was designed to fire the imagination and get people excited about the possibilities of the next generation. Nintendo offered us Nintendogs. And a new Game Boy Advanced. Yes, I think that downloading old games onto your Revolution is a cool idea, but a...uh...friend of mine tells me that I can emulate those games on my PC for free.

Perhaps all this is just worrywortism. Nintendo has never failed to be innovative in the past, and their support of the DS and quirky games like Warioware is proof that not everything has to be same-old same-old in this ever more business-like industry. They have more than a year to get their ducks in a row, but I'm afraid that Sony and Microsoft may have already beaten them to the punch. In the end, it's not just about making fun games. You have to sell them too.

Yesterday's Nintendo press conference was probably the most subdued and honest of the three major events this week. While they didn't have anything really earth-shattering to offer up, the Gameboy Micro, the Revolution's game-downloading capabilities, and the new Zelda Trailer were all welcome news from a company that has been very quiet of late. Commentary, photos, and speculation available from: Nintendo, Engadget, USAToday, GamesIndustry.biz, 1up.com, Gamespot, Cube.IGN, NYT, BBC, Gamasutra, and CNN. Specific coverage on the new Gameboy Micro is available from Gamasutra, GamesIndustry.biz, and CNN. My two cents about Nintendo's conference are available below. Last night I took in G4's E3 coverage, and their discussion of the Nintendo press conference struck a chord with me. This last console cycle, with the Gamecube, Nintendo really missed the boat. The GC wasn't released until many months after the PS2 was already in homes lighting up screens, and their attempts to carve out a market share were always muddled by confusing choices. The most confusing choice of the current generation, by far, was their almost complete refusal to participate in online gaming. While the Xbox sailed by with the Live service and the PS2 limped into the arena with the broadband adapter, the GC quietly sailed on with only Phantasy Star to break up its lonely voyage. At last year's E3 Nintendo very specifically said that they were not going to miss the boat this time. They were going to release the next console right around the same time as the other two companies and make sure their name was out there.

I have high hopes for the Revolution, but to be honest Nintendo's press conference was very underwhelming. Even given that the PS3 isn't going to be on store shelves for another year, what Sony showed on Monday was literally jaw-dropping. Even if there was some liberal use of pre-rendered footage in the presentation, the press conference put on by Sony was designed to fire the imagination and get people excited about the possibilities of the next generation. Nintendo offered us Nintendogs. And a new Game Boy Advanced. Yes, I think that downloading old games onto your Revolution is a cool idea, but a...uh...friend of mine tells me that I can emulate those games on my PC for free.

Perhaps all this is just worrywortism. Nintendo has never failed to be innovative in the past, and their support of the DS and quirky games like Warioware is proof that not everything has to be same-old same-old in this ever more business-like industry. They have more than a year to get their ducks in a row, but I'm afraid that Sony and Microsoft may have already beaten them to the punch. In the end, it's not just about making fun games. You have to sell them too.

jeepliberty writes "CNN has a story that the invasive ground cover vegetation Kudzu is being tested to curb binge alcohol drinking. In the health story posted Monday, researchers at the Harvard-affiliated McClean Hospital in Boston stated that volunteers who were given kudzu drank about 50% less beer in a 90-minute period than the group that was given a plecebo. The kudzu group got just an intoxicated."

The PlayStation 3 was unveiled yesterday afternoon in a press conference at Sony Pictures Studio. The event was full of beautiful demonstrations, specifications, and talk of the games of tomorrow. The machine is certainly impressive, with backwards compatibility, support for up to seven Bluetooth controllers, multiple HD signals, and intimate interactions with the PSP. Coverage, screenshots, and specs available from 1up.com, Gamespot, Joystiq, NYT, Voodoo Extreme, Gamespy, BBC, GamesIndustry.biz, Engadget, Anandtech, Kotaku, Gamasutra, and CNN Money. The only downside I see so far? The controller. Update: 05/18 21:35 GMT by Z : Gamespot has up a comprehensive look at the console based on what is known so far.

t35t0r writes "CNN/Money/Tech reports that 2004 and early 2005 Toyota Prius models have software bugs that cause them to stall while traveling at highway speeds. While no accidents were reported to have been caused by the software glitch, could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?"

sheepoo writes "CNN has a story stating that, according to a WebSideStory report, Internet Explorer has slipped below 90% usage share for the first time." From the article: "Firefox, an open-source browser collectively developed by the Internet community under the Mozilla Foundation, had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October."

You may or may not have caught the Xbox 360 unveiling on MTV Thursday night, but the internet will provide. A plethora of sites have photos, videos, commentary, specifications, and interviews about the new system. Your fellow readers have pulled together to provide links to: 1up.com, Joystiq, Gamespot, The BBC, CNN, NYT, Gamespy, Team Xbox, Voodoo Extreme, Anandtech, and eToyChest. The official Xbox 360 site opened last night as well for word straight from the source. For more official images Ourcolony.net has been 'solved', and now features an OurColony specific video preview. Finally, for commentary on the event, the Video Game Ombudsman provides an alternative to the press releases. From the post: "Kyle Orland (9:28:42 PM): The future of gaming is a girl in a blue dress? Dan Dormer (9:28:47 PM): The future of gaming is a girl with a bag? Kyle Orland (9:28:57 PM): She's the Xbox! OMG!"

93,000 writes "CNN is running an article featuring Gates' prediction that the iPod is on the way out. From the article: 'As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run.' His prediction for a successor? Mobile phones-- powered by none other than Windows Mobile 5.0, of course."

blacklily8 writes "CNN Money is running a story about Pac-Man's 25th birthday. After going on a bit about the history of our favorite pizza sans one slice, the article waxes a bit on why the game was (and is) such a success, with some quotations from Namco's marketing manager: 'He's very colorful, very safe. It's definitely different than the trends going on in games. He just has an appeal.' I think it's because the game is just plain fun, with no need to rely on tech-demo thrills to attract attention. Time to dig out the X-Arcade." It's also *hard*, proving that challenging games are what people have always been looking for.

TheSync writes "California has banned Internet hunting. Emergency regulations will be put in place by the California Fish and Game Commission, and legislation (SB 1028) is in the works. West Virginia is considering legislation against it as well. Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."

DoubleWhopper writes "This time it's Time Warner Inc. According to this CNN article, an 'outside storage company' is to blame for the latest significant loss of personal information. From the article: '...the tapes contained names and Social Security information on current and former Time Warner employees and some of their dependents and beneficiaries dating back to 1986.' Fortunately, the tapes are said to have no customer information, at least."

antispam_ben writes "Last week's Slashdot article linked to CNN's coverage of the LEGO League robotics competition. LEGO League was only part of the event. I gave a short description and links to the original FIRST Robotics, LEGO League, and new Vex Robotics competitions in this comment. New from the local robotics mailing list is this page of pictures from the Vex competition."

The Breeze writes "Driving along San Diego's freeways, I often passed a large Lockheed Martin facility that had big ATLAS and TITAN logos on them - it looked like it was still operating, even though I thought the Titan missile had been retired years ago. Well, according to CNN, the last Titan to be launched from Florida just took off with a classified military payload. I had no idea that they were still using 50-year old technology to launch stuff into space. If you are not adverse to MS Word documents, Patrick AFB, (the Air Force station at Cape Canaveral) has some press releases about the launch. Interested parties might want to click here for more info on Titan, along with links to the Titan Missile Museum where you can actually see a Titan in a silo -- and where Zeframe Cochrane launched his first warp ship from."

freakmn writes "CNN reports that Dr. JoAnn Difede, an associate professor for the department of psychiatry and the director of Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies Program at Weill Cornell Medical College is working to help heal the wounds of 9/11 through virtual reality. They claim to use video games to re-enact the events that happened on 9/11 as part of the therapy." From the article: "The program is basic compared to slick video games on the market, but the developers say the simplicity allows patients to fill in the blanks."

In the past few days there have been several new developments in the Massive Gaming market. Jessica Mulligan's departure from Turbine now has an end destination, with the announcement that she'll be the executive producer for Nevrax's Saga of Ryzom. In a swashbuckling tie-in, Disney announced they'll be adding to their Massive Gaming portfolio, with a Pirates of the Carribean MMOG joining Toontown Online sometime next year. The always excellent CNN Money column Game Over has word that Sony Online is planning a new Action MMOG, a possible strategy title, and some new non-mmog titles. From the article: "Though the numbers for massively multiplayer games aren't bad, they remain a niche in the gaming industry. To expand SOE's potential audience, the company will soon announce smaller puzzle games for two and four players. While those games won't be massively multiplayer or have any sort of persistent world, it's not out of the question for the long term." Finally, there are many stories over on Gametab discussing the "I'm cancelling because of the WoW Honor System" thread on the official World of Warcraft boards. They were likely sparked by this Kotaku post about the thread. I just want to put in my two cents and state that this isn't news. Forums are not an accurate way to get a picture of a game's user base. Doom may be coming to Blizzard's game, but the subscriber charts are the only real way to know for sure.

getling writes "Looks like Steve Jobs is almost as unhappy about personal details being publicized as he is with Mac secrets. The book publisher Wiley, who is releasing a new unauthorized biography of Jobs has had its entire line of books banned from Apple stores as a result of their unhappiness with the content of the book. Wiley, publisher of the popular Dummies series of books, as well as the Bible series, is quite surprised, due to the fact that they view the book to show Jobs in a largely positive light ..."

loid_void writes "It's being reported on CNN that a space capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian-Italian crew has landed safely in northern Kazakhstan, following a mission aboard the international space station. Search-and-rescue helicopters spotted the capsule as it floated toward its designated arrival site and made a soft landing, upright. It had undocked with the orbiting station less than 3 hours earlier. Mission Control said the crew reported feeling fine. Remaining behind on the space station are Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and American astronaut John Phillips."

Nicholas Roussos writes "Playboy is jumping on the PSP bandwagon . CNN reports, 'Playboy Enterprises will announce plans Wednesday to offer nude and non-nude photo galleries that have been specifically formatted for viewing on Sony's Portable PlayStation.' Will the porn industry spearhead the adoption of the PSP like it has with so many other new technologies?"

Neuropol writes "CNN tells us our favorite locking building block company, LEGO, is hosting a Junior Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA this weekend. The event expects to pit hundreds of grade schoolers ages 9-14 against each other in a 9 task Olympic Style face-off with each teams robot. Twelve year old Taylor offers 'NASA works with a lot of robots and when you build a robot you need to know what goes in it,' says Taylor. 'And when you're working with FIRST LEGO you have to figure that out -- how to set stuff where it needs to go.' While this is too young for most of us to participate in, it's great to see the attention being focused on such a potentially great generation of robotics developers."

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "CNN is reporting that scientists have solved the problem of unpopped popcorn kernels left in a bag or bowl. The short answer is that unpopped kernels have leaky hulls (seed coats) that prevent the buildup of sufficient pressure to cause the pop. The research has been published online and will appear in the July 11 edition of the journal BioMacromolecules. From the article: 'In the varieties popped, the percentage of unpopped kernels ranged from 4 percent in premium brands to 47 percent in the cheaper ones.' So buying the good stuff for home use is probably worth it."

kyndig writes "Just what is the 'spirit of internet naming?' ICANN can tell you, as they are the naming experts. In a recent CNN article, ICANN states EnCirca Domain Register is violating the spirit of internet naming by reselling .pro names. The report states that in early 2000, ICANN allowed 3rd level domains (foo.bar.pro) to be sold. Later, ICANN allowed 2nd level domains (foo.pro) to be sold for .pro as well. The restriction to this selling was that a user must have the 3rd level domain first. There are no reseller checks or usage enforcement other than the request to own a 3rd level domain from ICANN. EnCirca president plans to continue reselling 2nd level .pro domains, unless ICANN places a restriction on doing so."

Rollie Hawk writes "Worldwide law and news sifter LexisNexis has some bad news of its own this time. Actually, "bad" might sharply understate the situation. More than a month after disclosing information on a database breach that led to 32,000 customer IDs being stolen, the results of an internal review showed that in fact the damage was nearly ten times worse than previously thought. LexisNexis is already "offering free support services, including credit bureau reports, credit monitoring for one year and fraud insurance" to the nearly 300,000 additional victims it will soon be contacting, according to a Reed Elsevier statement to the Regulatory News Service. So far, no identity thefts have been reported by earlier victims, at least some of whom had private information such as addresses and Social Security numbers unwittingly divulged."

Rollie Hawk writes "Worldwide law and news sifter LexisNexis has some bad news of its own this time. Actually, "bad" might sharply understate the situation. More than a month after disclosing information on a database breach that led to 32,000 customer IDs being stolen, the results of an internal review showed that in fact the damage was nearly ten times worse than previously thought. LexisNexis is already "offering free support services, including credit bureau reports, credit monitoring for one year and fraud insurance" to the nearly 300,000 additional victims it will soon be contacting, according to a Reed Elsevier statement to the Regulatory News Service. So far, no identity thefts have been reported by earlier victims, at least some of whom had private information such as addresses and Social Security numbers unwittingly divulged."

Rollie Hawk writes "Worldwide law and news sifter LexisNexis has some bad news of its own this time. Actually, "bad" might sharply understate the situation. More than a month after disclosing information on a database breach that led to 32,000 customer IDs being stolen, the results of an internal review showed that in fact the damage was nearly ten times worse than previously thought. LexisNexis is already "offering free support services, including credit bureau reports, credit monitoring for one year and fraud insurance" to the nearly 300,000 additional victims it will soon be contacting, according to a Reed Elsevier statement to the Regulatory News Service. So far, no identity thefts have been reported by earlier victims, at least some of whom had private information such as addresses and Social Security numbers unwittingly divulged."

AveryRegier writes "CNN is reporting that Congress has added an amendment to the Energy Bill to extend daylight-savings time by two months. They expect to "save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day." How long it would take for the associated energy savings to overcome the cost to make, test, and deploy the necessary code changes? How would the cost of this change compare with Y2K? Does most date routines' reliance on GMT make this just an issue of presenting the right time to the user?"

Gamespot has a heads up about a new possible Alternate reality game celebrating the Xbox 2 E3 unveiling. The game site, Our Colony, has a countdown meter running down until just a few days before Microsoft's pre-E3 unveiling of the Xbox 2 console. From the article: "The countdown will ends at 8pm PDT on Thursday, May 12, nearly four days to the hour before Microsoft's pre-E3 presentation on the evening of May 16. What will happen on May 12 remains unclear."

hpulley writes "The shuttle's new fuel tank, supposedly redesigned to be safer, has a crack in it. Pictures were sent to the manufacturer who decided that it is too small to be worrisome. Hmm, what caused the Columbia disaster, pieces of foam? Meanwhile, there will be a second shuttle on standby, just in case the first one has problems after being hit by foam, etc. If the first shuttle has a design flaw, what's to say the second one isn't afflicted by the same problem? Won't there be a good chance of them stranding the rescue crew in addition to the original crew? If an aircraft crashes and the redesign to fix it crashes, would you send another of the same type to rescue it? Of course not! The ISS is going to be a smelly, scary place with the regular complement and two shuttle crews onboard and no way home but a Russian Soyuz capsule that isn't slated to launch again until September and has seats for just three..."

mr_don't writes "Apprently, CNN is reporting that Dreamworks might be in talks with Michael Bay (who directed the bomb Pearl Harbor) to direct a live action Transformers movie. The article says: A November 17, 2006, release date has been set. Bay's credits include the two "Bad Boys" movies, "Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon" and "The Rock." Well, as a child of the 80's I must admit I am interested, but could the movie be directed by Robert Rodriguez instead?"

Christoph writes "CNN reports that a man's website, http://www.bosleymedical.com, criticizing the Bosely Medical Institute does not infringe the institute's copyright on its name. The man's attorney is quoted as saying that the court's decision 'is an important victory for free speech on the Internet. It makes clear that consumers can use a trade name for a company they want to criticize.' The appeals court, however, reinstated part of the lawsuit in which Bosley alleged that Kremer is violating a so-called cybersquatting law by allegedly attempting to sell the site to Bosley in exchange for removing the disparaging material."

gripperzipper writes "CNN reports that a Korean company created a small car powered by compressed air. ENERGINE created its PHEV, or Pneumatic-Hybrid Electric Vehicle, which uses a two-stroke compressed air engine for start, acceleration, and uphill climbs. The car switches to an electric motor when its speed reaches 20-25 km/h (32-40 mi/h). Although major auto manufacturers have invested heavily in gasoline hybrids, it will be interesting to see if a market will open for this type of vehicle." Update: 04/04 17:18 GMT by T : Reader Tapsu spotted the incongruity here, writing "Interesting post, but the speed conversion has gone wrong way: "20-25 km/h (32-40 mi/h)". ... Thus the correct speed range in miles would be something like 12-15 mi/h."

jambarama writes "MGM seems to have given a little in the Grokster case. After getting nailed on the possible implications of banning P2P software, they've now admitted it is perfectly legal to rip one's own CD and store it. Is this a return to the stripped down 'fair use' rights or a temporary court concession?"

karvind writes "New Scientists is running a story about how the move to electronic record-keeping is making it harder to check if a device has already been invented. From the article: '.. even though most online patent archives are incomplete, parts of the paper-based collections that preceded them are being destroyed.' We ran a story earlier on how to fix U.S. patents. Maybe I can patent the wheel again."

theonetruekeebler writes "CNN reports that NASA has reached a final decision for the Hubble space telescope: De-orbit. At some future date a liquid-fueled rocket will dock with the telescope and fire, hurling Hubble into the ocean. However, "Our best estimate is we probably will be able to continue to do science as we're doing it ... somewhere into 2008," according to program executive Mark Borkowski."

djp928 writes "A study commisioned by Congress in 1998 to report on internet traffic has finally been published -- 7 years, two presidents, and one internet boom/bust later. Some of their findings include "DNS is good" and "We should probably have some more TLDs""

illumina+us writes "CNN is running an article about the recent space walk taken by the personnel of the International Space Station. On today's walk the two astronauts 'carried out a 1-foot-long, 11-pound satellite called Nanosputnik, designed for experimental maneuvering by ground controllers.'" The article also has some tidbits on the ISS's gyroscope problems and how the thrusters used to compensate have caused problems for spacewalks in the past.

bblazer writes "CNN Money is running a story about a new IBM service that spams the spammers. The idea behind the technology is that when a spam email is received, it is immediately sent back to the originating computer - not an email account. From the article, ""We're doing it to shut this guy down," Stuart McIrvine, IBM's director of corporate security strategy, told the paper. "Every time he tries to send, he gets slammed again."""

flaws writes "A CNN story details how phishers are using Internet Phones to expand their identity theft endeavors. The article demonstrates the use of caller-id spoofing to companies such as Western Union to thwart their verification system and successfully launder money. Western Union commented on the situation, stating at this time it's the only way they know how to authenticate the call. The anti-phishing working group states that telecommunications abuse is being used to fool home users into revealing their bank information over the phone."

n1ywb writes "CNN and others are reporting that 'News agency Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc., alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.' This means they're suing in America this time, not France, which means Google might actually care if they lose."

DigitumDei writes "The British Phonographic Industry has been busy over the last half year. Their recent success which netted them £50,000 in out of court settlements is certainly not going to be the end of it with the UK courts forcing 6 ISP's to release information on a further 31 file sharers. The ISPs have 14 days to comply. And once located will be offered the opporunity to settle out of court. 'We would particularly advise parents to check what their children are doing on the internet and make sure that they are not breaking the law by filesharing illegally,' said Geoff Taylor, BPI General Counsel." And in other news, the oldest and largest ISP in Sweden, Bahnnof was the subject of a raid that netted what looks to be the biggest results in Europe ever; as well papper writes "The Swedish organization Antipiratbyrån, which has nothing to do with Swedish goverment, recently got hacked. This was both revenge for and an attempt to stop similair raids like the one who took place this friday, against the ISP Banhof. During the raid several FTP-servers were seized. On the hacked site the responsible group, AUH, posts some private e-mails about an alleged informer and makes threats to release more information and of course there is the mandatory braging. The site is located at Antripiratbyran with a mirror elsewhere and a translated verison also online (although it seems unreachable at the moment). "

An event anticipated all week by many of the conference attendees, the Keynote delivered by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was informative and inspiring. He spoke early on Thursday morning to a packed room that broke out into pleased applause several times during the speech's delivery. His talk spoke of the future, Nintendo's vision, and a commitment to reaching out beyond the current crop of game players to folks beyond the hardcore. Read on for a bevy of coverage and my own commentary on the "The Heart of the Gamer". (And some Zelda footage, if you care about that.) Before I discuss my impressions of the talk, there is quite a bit of coverage to spread around. Chris Morris at CNN Money has details from the talk, as does Che Chou on 1up.com, Matt Casamassina on Cube.IGN, Alice on the Wonderland Blog, Ben Zackheim on Joystiq, and Tor Thorsen at Gamespot. Gamespot in particular has something you might be interested in checking out, the second Official Trailer for The Legend of Zelda.

President Iwata began the talk by announcing that he has some conflict within himself in his role as president. He's only a President on his Business Card, he said. In his mind, he's a Game Designer. And in his heart, he's just a gamer. He began programming games on his pocket calculator, with no games, and became attached to Nintendo by being a part of the small Hal design company. Hal, he stated, came from the computer in 2001 a space Odyssey because the name sounded cool. The company created the Kirby and Earthdawn titles, and as time went on he found himself working full time for Nintendo.

He's been making games, then, for almost two decades, and he discussed some of the things that have changed and some of the things that have stayed the same in the business since then. Overall, he saw most of the changes be to size. Bigger budgets, bigger complexity, bigger attention from worldwide media. On the other hand, there are fewer risks, fewer visions, and fewer ways of thinking about players and games.

To respond to this, Nintendo has committed itself to not abandoning the core gamers. Metroid Prime will be out later this year, and the demo shipped with the DS system. Geist is going to be a new and interesting version of a shooter, Zelda appeals to hard-core gamers and regular gamers alike, and Resident Evil 4 is a GC exclusive.

On the other hand, Nintendo is really trying to push out of the current player base and into the market beyond. The DS is their flagship for this effort, and they've currently sold 4 Million units (with the European launch of the system today). Mario Kart DS is an upcoming title for the system, will bridge the gap for both new and old gamers, and is going to utilize wireless play to let up to 8 people play together. Beyond that, though, they really want to give players more than just what they already know they want.

To that end, DS Wifi will be rolling out by the end of the year. The goal of the system is to allow gamers to play together over large distances, simply and seamlessly. Most importantly, the service is going to be completely free of charge. This service will hook people who have never used wifi services before into a new arena of technology, and their new style of games will reach out to people who don't really want to play "games". Nintendogs has already received a lot of press, and is one of these tools to reach out to the non-gamer. If you'd like a look at a portion of the Nintendogs presentation, you can view that here. They didn't reveal anything terribly new, but did show off the microphone capability of the game. The person demoing Nintendogs would whistle, and the dog would come running. By issuing voice commands that he'd pre-selected the virtual critter would perform for him. Even more interesting was the non-game they showed off entitled ElectroPlankton. The music/sound experiment utilizes the microphone as well, and you can see three portions of the game here, here, and here.

The Revolution was only mentioned, but they did give out some new and interesting information. It will be completely backwards compatible with the Gamecube, ensuring that the most popular of the current stable of games will be available into the future. As with the DS, it will also be wifi enabled for mysterious purposes that they didn't really go into. Their chips and technology are completely on track, and more will be revealed at E3.


Overall President Iwata was a very arresting speaker. He had excellent delivery, his message was one of change and a new look at gameplay, and he was promising more of what we already know to be good gaming experiences. As they were two of the largest events at the conference, comparing the Nintendo and Microsoft speeches is a must. In general, the "yay Nintendo" aspect was just as much of a commercial endeavor as existed in the Microsoft keynote. Iwata was taking the opportunity to promote his company's vision of the future, and that naturally trends towards the products and services fo the company he represents.

At the same time, though, I felt a lot more hopeful listening to President Iwata than I did listening to Allard. The "HD Future" isn't much to get excited about. A Gamer's card and higher resolution isn't something that really leaps beyond the norm of what we have today. Incremental changes are needed, of course, but keynotes are meant to fire the blood. Iwata did that more effectively through the invoking of something that everyone in the room had in common: "The Heart of a Gamer". Nintendogs and Electroplankton may not be the way to make this industry sell its first 20 million unit title, but like the analogy that Iwata used in speech, they're definitely not of this gaming world. And exploration is something that I think is on far too few peoples minds in the gaming industry today.

MacDork writes "CNNMoney posted a short article this morning about new Ohio regulations set to become effective May 2 this year. If you are in the state and selling on eBay, you will need to pay $200 for a license and post a $50,000 bond or face possible fines and jail time. Getting the license also requires a one-year apprenticeship. When asked to which eBay users this bill applied, the bill's author, Larry Mumper responded with these very specific guidelines.... "It certainly will not apply to the casual seller on eBay, but might apply to anyone who sells a lot.""

hende_jman writes "How much should you be allowed to say in a public blog? There's an article on CNN that looks at different situations in which people have been fired for blogging about their company. The main issue brought seems not to be one of a lack of trust (blogs, after all, are most often public), but rather a lack of policy outlining repercussions for negative blogging about one's company."

ThosLives asks: "With oil again pushing historic nominal prices and all sorts of articles on alternative power, what are people doing practically to reduce their energy consumption? It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'. Has anyone come up with really nifty ways to cut their energy consumption without sacrificing their technical lifestyle? What methods work best for you? At what point (price of gasoline, electricity, etc) will you start to change your behavior?" "Take me, for example. I'm looking to cut much of my consumption, including moving closer to work to cut my commute, possibly putting a throttle restrictor plate in my car, buying fluorescent lights, and even trying to build a small wind/solar generator. I love technology, and I'd love to see how it can be used to reduce demands for power rather than just being able to make more power more cheaply (conservation arguably being the better side of the energy coin). I'm even interested in how folks conserve other things too - I'm always amazed at how many plastic (or paper) bags the grocer insists on giving me every week and how much waste society generates in the form of packaging."

williamw83 writes "CNN is reporting that the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith trailer will make its debut during none other than Fox's "The O.C." The article is candid in pointing out that 'as an avid superhero fan, Seth Cohen, the main character of "The O.C." played by Adam Brody, would likely relish the event.' The trailer will air during the March 10 episode, at sometime between 8 and 9PM EST. The article also makes note for those not wishing to tune into the TV drama that "the new trailer will be released in movie theaters beginning March 11.""

EvilStein writes "CNN reports that "A judge dismissed a felony spamming conviction that had been called one of the first of its kind, saying he found no "rational basis" for the verdict and wondering if jurors were confused by technical evidence." Legal groundwork being set? Will other convicted spammers now have grounds for an appeal?"

An anonymous reader writes "Turns out the sun itself zaps the ozone that protects us from the sun. LiveScience is reporting that the record-setting string of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 (including an X28 flare) set off a cascade of events that depleted the ozone layer over the Arctic in early 2004. In a nutshell, more nitrogen was created, and an unusually strong vortex of high-speed winds aloft brought the nitrogen down, where it contributed to cutting ozone by 60 percent over the polar region. In January, the a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun. While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."

bigtallmofo writes "Reuters is reporting that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (Senator from Alaska) is pushing for decency standards to apply to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio. You may recall Senator Stevens for voting against a measure to criticize the FCC in 2003 for loosening its broadcast ownership restrictions. Maybe he thinks profanity provides an unfair advantage to his broadcast-company constituents?" We touched on this last year, in the attempt to apply decency standards to satellite radio.

Jason writes "CNN's always enjoyable Game Over column has an interesting story up about Nintendo's plans to launch its next generation Game Boy in 2005, as opposed to the expected 2006 release. The column predicts official word on the new GBA will come during Satoru Iwata's keynote at GDC. As yet, no features are known, but author Chris Morris speculates this could just be an incremental step, rather than a full-fledged generational leap."

Jason writes "CNN's always enjoyable Game Over column has an interesting story up about Nintendo's plans to launch its next generation Game Boy in 2005, as opposed to the expected 2006 release. The column predicts official word on the new GBA will come during Satoru Iwata's keynote at GDC. As yet, no features are known, but author Chris Morris speculates this could just be an incremental step, rather than a full-fledged generational leap."