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Fahrenheit 450 (William D. Neumann) writes "Developing Applications With Objective Caml was originally published in French by O'Reilly, and later translated into English by a group of volunteers (note that the reviewer was a volunteer proofreader during the translation effort), and graciously made available online as HTML or PDF at the Caml website. For those not familiar with Objective Caml (or OCaml, as it is commonly called), it is a strongly, statically typed (but don't be thinking about Pascal-style typing), eagerly evaluated language with a functional core that also offers many imperative programming features. OCaml also has full support for object-oriented programming that fits in completely with OCaml's strong type system. On top of that, OCaml code can be interpreted for simple scripting, compiled to bytecode for portability, or compiled to native code for speed and resource utilization that rival even that of Intel's C++ compiler. Intrigued?" If so, read on for the rest of Neumann's review. Developing Applications With Objective Caml author Emmanuel Challoux, Pascal Manoury, and Bruno Pagano pages 742 publisher O'Reilly France rating 8/10 reviewer William D. Neumann ISBN 2841771210 summary A comprehensive book on Objective Caml, covering not only the core language, but also modules, objects and classes, threads and systems programming, and interoperability with C.

The Book The book itself is quite comprehensive, clocking in at over 700 pages and covering material ranging from an introduction to the language to concurrent and distributed programming. To organize all of this material, the book is broken into four main sections that build upon each other. Each section has a set of chapters that present some related concepts, followed by an "Applications" chapter that uses those concepts to create a few small applications such as a minesweeper game, a graphical interface library, a couple of different two-player games, a distributed robot simulation, and a basic HTTP servlet. These four sections are as follows:

I. Language Core
This section serves primarily as an introduction to the OCaml language, with chapters on the functional core and imperative aspects of the language, a chapter on the differences between the two styles that shows how the two can be melded, and a chapter on the OCaml Graphics module. The introduction to OCaml is complete enough that anyone with a background in programming should be able to achieve a good understanding of the basics of the language. Especially when combined with other freely available resources, like Jason Hickey's Introduction to Objective Caml , and Richard Jones' Learning OCaml for C, C++, Perl and Java programmers, one should be able to obtain a strong OCaml foundation to use while reading the rest of this book.

II. Development Tools
The second section covers, as the title states, the OCaml development tools. The chapters in this section provide information on the OCaml compilers, interpreter, and interactive toplevel environment; some of the libraries included with the standard distribution; OCaml's garbage collection mechanism; Ocaml's debugging and profiling tools; OCaml's versions of lex and yacc; and interfacing OCaml with C. This is perhaps the most valuable section of the book, as it provides good coverage of some important topics that are covered a bit too briefly in the OCaml manual.

III. Application Structure
This section covers the OCaml Module system, and its interface and functor (parameterized module) facilities. Also included in this section is a well written chapter on object oriented programming in OCaml, and a chapter comparing the two models of program organization, offering a brief look at how the two systems can be combined to reap the benefits of both.

IV. Concurrency and Distribution
The final section covers the topics that many folks might consider to be the "real world" programming topics: File I/O, process management and communication, concurrent programming using threads, and distributed programming. The coverage in this section is, again, well done, but perhaps a bit light, and it would have been nice to see more time spent on this subject matter. However, the book is already quite hefty, and the services provided by OCaml's Unix module should look familiar enough to most programmers that the material that is presented should be sufficient to get a competent programmer up and running.

The Upshot For the most part, Developing Applications With Objective Caml does a very good job at presenting the OCaml language in more of a "practical" light than other books on languages in the ML family (and functional languages in general). And while the applications that are constructed throughout this book aren't anything particularly great or interesting in and of themselves (a simple BASIC interpreter, a rudimentary database, a client-server toolbox, etc.), they aren't the primary purpose of the book. What the applications are used for is to illustrate how the concepts presented earlier in the book are used in within the framework of an application, and not just as isolated examples. This is especially important, as most people who might read the book will be unfamiliar not just with Objective Caml, but with the entire functional programming paradigm. Repeated exposure to working OCaml code helps to familiarize the reader with functional programming and OCaml idioms while reinforcing the book's material.

There are, of course, some problems with the book. For one thing, Developing Applications is nearly five years old, half a lifetime when dealing with most computer related topics. This issue is first brought to light in the introduction where it's mentioned that chapter one tells how to install version 2.04 (OCaml is currently at version 3.08), and then in chapter one, when the reader is warned that, "Objective Caml only works under recent versions of Windows : Windows 95, 98 and NT." Fortunately, the information presented about the language remains valid (and Appendix B presents some of the features added to the language by version 3.04, the release that was current at the time of the translation). There are also a few spots where the code in the book contains minor errors, but both of these issues can easily be overcome with the help of the resources listed earlier in this review, or with the help of the OCaml community. Other minor issues crop up as a result of the translation, with the occasional odd sounding phrase popping up in the text and examples. These problems are, however, few and far between and do little to detract from the material or the presentation. And so this book still remains one of the best resources for learning Objective Caml. I used it when I was learning the language, and I still turn to it from time to time as a useful resource.

Will the book turn you into an OCaml guru, or teach you all sorts of advanced type system trickery? No, of course not. But it can teach you enough about the language to start you writing real apps in it. And it will allow you to add a fast, flexible, and powerful language to your toolbox.

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Anonymous Coward writes "The Courier-Journal in Louisville is running a story today about a new handheld sonar device that lets blind people "see" by hearing. It gives audio feedback that changes in pitch according to the distance of objects. The story begins... "Fred Gissoni, who has been blind since birth, was using a hand-held sonar device to examine his back yard when a bird landed on a wire. The device began emitting tones, and Gissoni could tell where the bird was and how it moved. He even noticed the quivering of the wire.""

going_the_2Rpi_way writes "There's an ongoing argument as to whether wind farms actually are as environmentally friendly as is generally imagined. Opponents argue that the effect these farms have on local wildlife (birds, bats, etc.) may range from disruptive to devastating. Well, it seems they've hit a nerve and ecologists are beginning addressing the issue and have begun to found some encouraging results: Birds not being killed. The debate goes on ..."

UnixSphere writes "Sun has been quoted to have said, 'Sun's Java is developed more in the mode of the bazaar than Linux is,' which has prompted OSI President Eric Raymond to correct Sun's view of what open source really is."

shonagon53 writes "The BBC reports that quite a few young European tourists stick around in India to work for eSolutions companies who contract outsourced work from European companies. The salaries are mediocre, but you get free housing, great food, snacks à volonté and a free taxi ride to work each morning. Is this the first wave of the much anticipated reverse-migration which will be a hallmark of the 21st century?"

adityapandey writes "It's happened again. Yahoo News has another story on exploding cellphones. Most of these mishaps are blamed on counterfeit batteries and chargers. Recently, Kyocera recalled about 40,000 cellphones for free replacement, because of batteries overheating and venting superheated gases. Yet, cellphone makers claim that such incidents are too rare to care about. Shouldn't cellphone companies be making people aware of the hazards of usage?"

It's not new, but it's getting noticed: Jordan writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that several printer manufacturers are now and have been for some time embedding (nearly) invisible serial numbers in every document you print with their color laser printers, allowing law enforcement to track any such document back to the printer which printed it. The technology, ostensibly created to track down money counterfeiters, was created by Xerox about 20 years ago. A Xerox researcher says that the number-embedding chip lies 'way in the machine, right near the laser' and that 'standard mischief won't get you around it.'"

gollum123 copies and pastes: "AP has a story on how as Google rapidly rolls out new products, the company best known for its wildly popular search engine is muscling into the software giant's turf, including its stronghold: the computer desktop."

jackelfish writes "The non-profit organization IdéeVerte Compétition has created a 'space age' race car that runs on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (propane or butane) and is lubricated with sunflower oil. Sponsored by the European Space Agency, the car recently broke the 'LPG powered vehicle' speed record of 315 km/h. The car also utilizes space technologies such as a titanium fuel tank, heat shielding developed for the Ariane launch vehicles and an EGNOS satellite navigation system to determine the speed, acceleration and position of the car in real-time." And reader gkbarr writes "Is the DoD feeling the crunch of sky-high gasoline prices or are they being overrun by a bunch of Greens? Who cares, the latest Humvee looks to be a more capable and greener machine than its predecessors."

koa writes "We have all seen articles on building a Space Elevator on the earth, how about this article about experimenting with the Moon first since the technology we have available to us is sufficient, as the Moon's gravity is 1/6th that of Earth's (the cable weight would require less exotic materials such as carbon nano-tubes). One could make a very good argument for commercialization of Space if getting materials to and from the Moon's surface was vastly cheaper and easier."

buhatkj writes "Some former AOL staffers have come up with something interesting. Namely, a P2P/instant messaging/groupware tool called Grouper. Sounds to me a bit like the GAIM plugin suggested by downhill battle..."

empraptor writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley have crunched numbers and determined that 130,000-260,000 excess votes went to Bush in Florida. They have held a conference and posted their findings online. You can find articles on their research from CNet, Wired News, and many other sources. While the research used statistical analysis based on past elections and demographics, how else do you verify that a paperless voting system is working properly?"

gollum123 writes "Reuters reports Taipei city planners are building what they say will be the world's biggest Wi-Fi network, making cheap, wireless Internet access available almost everywhere in the Taiwan capital. The project will build on the network available in Hsinyi, an up-and-coming shopping and financial district that is home to the world's tallest building, the 508-meter (1,667-foot) Taipei 101, and the city government headquarters. The city-wide network will be built by Q-Ware Corp., a unit of the Uni-President group, which also holds the 7-Eleven franchise in Taiwan. Q-Ware will deploy at least 20,000 access points throughout Taipei at a cost of US$70 million. Q-ware is aiming for a basic monthly fee of T$150-T$400 (US$4.5-US$12), far less than the T$800-T$1,000 (US$24-US$30) that fixed-line broadband providers demand in Taiwan. The network will cover 90 percent of the city by the end of 2005."

Ant writes "This Yahoo! News story mentions Fuji, a mother dolphin that lost 75 percent of her tail due to a mysterious disease, being able to jump again with the help of what is believed to be the world's first artificial fin. The 34-year-old dolphin held at Japan's largest aquarium in the southern island of Okinawa wears the rubber fin for about 20 minutes a day allowing her to jump and to swim at the same speed of other dolphins."

Matt writes "Has Hollywood's staleness finally rubbed off on Sam Raimi & co.? Get this, Sam Raimi is remaking 'Evil Dead', the 1981 horror cult classic. Oh and if that wasn't shocking enough, he won't even be directing it... But somehow Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell are onboard as well."

kurtz_tan writes "Creative Technology is spending 100 million in a marketing blitz to 'regain its rightful place in the audio industry' by trying to dominate the MP3 market which is now led by the Apple iPod (54% of the market last year for MP3 players that use hard disks). Creative is second with 16.5%. Does Creative Zen sound as cool as Apple iPod ?" And reader TheMediaWrangler writes "The Register reports that Apple will build a stockpile of flash-based iPods to be shipped as early as January or February of 2005. AppleInsider had the original scoop."

gillbates writes "Today Microsoft warned several Asian countries that using Linux could subject them to lawsuits, claiming that Linux violates '228 patents'. Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia." Ballmer is presumably speaking about this story. So, companies which sell insurance against lawsuits and companies which make competing products both warn of the dangers of using Linux. Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?

gollum123 writes "Reuters reports China plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to watch every corner of the country, state-run China Central Television quoted a government official as saying Tuesday. A "large surveying network" would be set up to monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society," a government official said without elaborating. "The aim is that, at any time and any place, we can obtain necessary data on any event through watching the Earth from space," said Shao Liqin, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology."

scubacuda points out this CNET story, writing "In addition to beefing up its storage (100MB -> 250MB), Yahoo! Mail has implemented Domain Keys to find spam. The idea is simple: give email providers a way to verify the domain and integrity of the messages sent. Sendmail, Inc. has released an open source implementation of the Yahoo! DomainKeys specification for testing on the Internet and is actively seeking participants and feedback for its Pilot Program. Yahoo! has submitted the DomainKeys framework as an Internet Draft, titled 'draft-delany-domainkeys-base-01.txt,' for publication with the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The patent license agreement can be found here."

scubacuda points out this CNET story, writing "In addition to beefing up its storage (100MB -> 250MB), Yahoo! Mail has implemented Domain Keys to find spam. The idea is simple: give email providers a way to verify the domain and integrity of the messages sent. Sendmail, Inc. has released an open source implementation of the Yahoo! DomainKeys specification for testing on the Internet and is actively seeking participants and feedback for its Pilot Program. Yahoo! has submitted the DomainKeys framework as an Internet Draft, titled 'draft-delany-domainkeys-base-01.txt,' for publication with the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The patent license agreement can be found here."

darkCanuck writes "A year and a half ago, three guys wrapped up a Flash-based story taking three years of work, spanning twenty-four chapters in twelve hours. This afternoon they began offering Broken Saints as a DVD set (four discs), the entire series at $39.99 US. It's been tweaked, to say the least, to 5.1 surround sound, updated art and effects for more than half of the production, subtitles in six languages and voice narration from such people as Cancer Man from the X-files (William B. Davis), among other notables. It's an impressive feat for any studio, in my opinion, but three canucks in their spare (and not so spare) time ... that's incredible. If you haven't seen it, check it out since the chapters are still available at the website." Just as pressing -- An anonymous reader writes "You can now buy all 100 Strong Bad Emails as a boxed set of 3 DVDs. If you live under a rock, Strong Bad is freakin' awesome. You can buy it here."

caffiend666 writes "A news article at Yahoo states NASA is planning on testing the first laser-based interplanetary communications system on the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter to be launched in 2009. 'Unlike radio frequency signals that wash over the entire Earth, Fitzgerald and his colleagues will be shooting for a much smaller target - the southwestern corner of the United States.' Does this mean we will soon have telescopes outside of our homes soon to pick up high definition TV signals instead of our current 18 inch dishes?"

PhosterPharms writes "The ATT Wireless ogo is a new device on the market which allows unlimited instant messaging, e-mail, and SMS for a $99 purchase, $20 activation, and $15-24 a month service fee depending on options. The idea of having access to my e-mail and AIM no matter where I am is very alluring, but the only review I can find seems somewhat negative. The ATT Forums seem mixed. Does anyone have any experience with the ogo or any suggestions for alternatives? I don't need another cell phone, just a cheap e-mail and IM client - the $300-400 that service providers want for Sidekicks and Blackberries (Plus $40 a month) seem a bit too much."

The sequel to Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has been released to consumers. Details on the sequel can be found via a Gamespy hands on look or a Gamespot review. A snip from the review: "If you've played Metroid Prime, you've essentially played Metroid Prime 2. Retro hasn't mucked with the original, winning formula, so veterans of the first game will feel quite at home resuming their position behind Samus' computer-enhanced visor."

belmolis writes "As they promised, Novell has filed suit against Microsoft over WordPerfect. Here's the complaint, and here is Microsoft's press release in response. From what I know of the history, it seems very likely that Novell will be able to prove that Microsoft engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior. Indeed, the complaint cites some of the same acts that figured in the US government case against MS. What isn't so clear to me is how much of the loss of market share they will be able to show was Microsoft's fault, since there seems to be a diversity of opinion regarding the relative quality of WordPerfect and MS Word." Reader tekiegreg points out Reuters' story on the new suit, as carried by Yahoo!.

belmolis writes "As they promised, Novell has filed suit against Microsoft over WordPerfect. Here's the complaint, and here is Microsoft's press release in response. From what I know of the history, it seems very likely that Novell will be able to prove that Microsoft engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior. Indeed, the complaint cites some of the same acts that figured in the US government case against MS. What isn't so clear to me is how much of the loss of market share they will be able to show was Microsoft's fault, since there seems to be a diversity of opinion regarding the relative quality of WordPerfect and MS Word." Reader tekiegreg points out Reuters' story on the new suit, as carried by Yahoo!.

DaViking writes "Over at Yahoo Movies there are a few more pictures, including one of the Heart of Gold, and an updated trailer for up coming Hitchhikers movie." I'm hoping this film will inspire some sequels, too!

DaViking writes "Over at Yahoo Movies there are a few more pictures, including one of the Heart of Gold, and an updated trailer for up coming Hitchhikers movie." I'm hoping this film will inspire some sequels, too!

unsupported writes "Just days after news that AOL will be breaking up into 4 business units, AOL is telling existing broadband customers in 9 Southern states to find a new carrier. This news comes after AOL stopped selling broadband services earlier this year. AOL plans a similar phase out of existing broadband customers for the rest of the country over the next year."

Walkiry (and many, many others) writes "In yet another copyright bickering lawsuit, Marvel is suing NCSoft and Cryptic Studios over their MMORPG City of Heroes due to copyright infringement, apparently because of the costume creator. "Marvel argues that the game's character creation engine easily allows players to design characters that are virtual copies of its own superheros, including 'The Incredible Hulk'. Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters." There are quite a few people suspicious that this is nothing but an effort by Marvel to undermine Cryptic Studios' successful game to prepare for the launch of their own comic book based MMORPG." USA Today has the story as well.

Magnavox writes "In Boulder, Colorado tonight there is going to be a rather unusual announcement about the DaVinci Institute's effort to create a Museum of Future Inventions. This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing, instant sleep, genetically engineered Velcro sheep, and metric time. Pretty creative stuff. Some of the people they have involved are Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor of the Gossamer Albatross and Paul Dusenbery, Founder of the Space Science Institute. This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum."

98neon writes "This story from Yahoo! News tells of a Shell hydrogen refilling station that has opened in Washington D.C. Six minivans will be the only vehicles refuelling anytime soon. Apparently some of the neighbors are concerned about having a large tank of hydrogen near their homes. Oh come on, what is there to worry about?"

carpoolio writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday has an interesting series on bridging the PC/home entertainment gap. The solutions are fairly complicated, and very Windows-centric. As I store more media on my PowerBook, I'm finding more ways I can't listen to or view it on my stereo and TV. One example: TiVo Desktop won't stream AAC files - only MP3s - from iTunes to TiVo. That's an easy fix, but still: how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?"

carpoolio writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday has an interesting series on bridging the PC/home entertainment gap. The solutions are fairly complicated, and very Windows-centric. As I store more media on my PowerBook, I'm finding more ways I can't listen to or view it on my stereo and TV. One example: TiVo Desktop won't stream AAC files - only MP3s - from iTunes to TiVo. That's an easy fix, but still: how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?"

carpoolio writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday has an interesting series on bridging the PC/home entertainment gap. The solutions are fairly complicated, and very Windows-centric. As I store more media on my PowerBook, I'm finding more ways I can't listen to or view it on my stereo and TV. One example: TiVo Desktop won't stream AAC files - only MP3s - from iTunes to TiVo. That's an easy fix, but still: how do you get stuff off of your computer and onto your TV, stereo, etc.?"

Reuters has an interview with LucasArts President Jim Ward up, and it goes into a good deal of depth about the present and future of Star Wars gaming. He suggests that Jump to Lightspeed is doing well commercially, mentions that there will be a Star Wars RTS in the next year or two, and again comfirms that there will be new Star Wars properties on TV. From the article: " We will have new live-action and animated TV shows over the next few years, and I think there's a bright future there for games based on these new properties as well as original Star Wars games like a new real-time strategy PC game that Petroglyph is developing for next year."

GvG writes "Yesterday, Ekush version 0.10 was released (binary only, no source). Ekush is a relatively new attempt at cloning Microsoft Windows. The ReactOS project has the goal of creating a GPLed OS that is compatible with Microsoft Windows applications and drivers. The release of Ekush caused some uproar in the ReactOS community, since it soon became apparent that Ekush was not much more than a repackaged version of ReactOS. Doing a simple string search for ReactOS on the Ekush binaries showed a number of hits. (Read on for more.)

GvG continues "Shortly after this was reported on the ReactOS mailing list, the Ekush website went down "for maintenance". Today they are back with a slightly altered set of binaries, which no longer contain the ASCII string "ReactOS". However, they forgot to search for Unicode strings... Ekush is not only violating the rights of ReactOS by deriving a product without releasing the modified source, they also derive code of (and are violating the rights of) Wine, FreeType and QEmu."

Larry Snyder adds "Additionally, at the time of this writing, their binary floppy diskette driver appears to be a near exact copy of the Windows 2k pro fdc.sys driver, with the copyright string and header changed."

CatsCradle writes "The Seattle Times has an article about Microsoft's Foundation and their new partnership with Comcast to provide a TiVo-like service."

gollum123 writes "AP reports that: A disparate group made up of dozens of state attorneys general, labor unions, retailers, professional sports leagues and others urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to hear a claim brought by the recording and film industries against two Internet file-sharing firms. In legal briefs filed with the court, the petitioners stressed the justices should take the entertainment companies' case and finally resolve conflicting lower court rulings on file-sharing, said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America."

crumley writes "The Educational Testing Service just announced a new test that is designed to measure information technology literacy. The test is supposed to measure the ability of students to use software to solve problems, and not just how to use particular programs. So has anyone out there taken a test like this? Did it seem to measure critical thinking and problem solving skills?"

unsupported writes "AOL is apparently dividing into four units to provide a clear direction for each. The four divisions are as follows: Audience (Advertising, and AOL IM, Moviefon, Mapquest, Netscape.com), Access (dial-up, highspeed), AOL Europe (for the foreigners), and Digital Services (Premium services, phone and music subscription). "

stallard writes "Yahoo! news reports that "The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) Monday is releasing a three-year road map for Bluetooth short-range wireless technology that includes a tripling of bandwidth and the ability to multicast signals to seven other users.""

gollum123 writes "Yahoo reports that about 3,000 students from 75 countries registered for the 2004 IBM Linux Scholar Challenge before registration closed Oct. 31, the largest turnout in the competition's history. This year's winners will be revealed in January at LinuxWorld in Boston. Each entry consists of a 1,200-word essay that can describe the solution to one of 29 Linux-related challenges IBM poses as part of the competition. Entrants, who must be enrolled full time at an accredited university, aren't limited to these challenges and can suggest and solve their own problems. The IBM-provided challenges include asking entrants to identify deficiencies in Linux and propose solutions, describe how to build a high-availability application that would provide failover capability across multiple IBM servers, and improve boot time on a Linux-based IBM ThinkPad."

fenris_23 writes "The AP is reporting that President Bush has reiterated his opposition to the Kyoto Treaty despite President Putin's acceptance of the treaty and recent scientific evidence directly linking greenhouse emissions to arctic warming. 'President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost,' said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality."

fenris_23 writes "The AP is reporting that President Bush has reiterated his opposition to the Kyoto Treaty despite President Putin's acceptance of the treaty and recent scientific evidence directly linking greenhouse emissions to arctic warming. 'President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost,' said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality."

Mihg writes "Try searching Google Images for abu ghraib, lynndie england, or Lynndie's boyfriend charles graner and note how you don't get any pictures of US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners of war. Now try it with some of their competitors, like AltaVista, Lycos, or Yahoo!. Google used to be able to find them, as is discussed in this AnandTech forum thread." I'm guessing that this is another case of our administration confusing "National Security" with "Politically Undesirable". Update: 11/07 20:18 GMT by P : Google has a reasonable explanation.

daveywest writes "According to the AP, "SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan accepted the Ansari X Prize money, along with a 150-pound trophy, as a chase plane flew over the ceremony in a field adjacent to the St. Louis Science Center.""

An article on Blue's News brings the happy news that a third game in the Dragon's Lair franchise is in the works. There are screens, a press release, and a demo of the game to be had. From the press release: "Dirk the Daring, the brave yet bumbling knight, is ready to venture back into the Lair in this adventure! The Evil Wizard Mordroc has again kidnapped the fair Princess Daphne and Dirk is her only hope. Save the princess, defeat Mordroc, and watch out for the treachery that lies at every step!" Good to know the genre hasn't changed since the last game.

madcowbrit writes "J2SE 5.0 Source code bundles are now available with SCSL and the new and exciting Java Research license! Coders have been asking for Java J2SE source code access under new terms. The new Java Research license gives people more access and options to work with the Java J2SE source code."

commiesubverter writes "Slate.com has an article up about humor in games. It's a decent summary of where the gaming industry has been and is going with its humor. From the article: 'Comedy is typically marginalized into background sight gags and interstitial cut scenes. Even games that generally strive to be funny incorporate humor into window dressing: In Grand Theft Auto, you can sow mayhem while listening to a mock-NPR that's broadcasting a roundtable discussion on violence.'"