Slashdot Mirror

WebGangsta writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that Electronic Arts and Sony are collaborating on cross-promoting music and videogames. The just released EA title NFL Street 'will feature an original score from Sony artists X-ecutioners and tracks from Sony musicians including Korn, Fuel, Killer Mike and Three 6 Mafia. Two songs from the soundtrack will be turned into music videos featuring gameplay footage and will be released as singles for radio. To promote the game, EA said certain Sony Music releases would come with a bonus disc featuring a demo of NFL Street, and the production of the game and involvement of Sony artists will be featured in an MTV special.' This is just the beginning and an ideal way for Sony to cross-promote their artists with gamers (Amplitude, SSX3, DDR, etc)."

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing Marvel's renewed focus on videogames based on their properties, with the announcement of "a new division [that] will oversee the creation of all games based on Marvel licenses", ensuring quality control. These products will still be licensed out to external developers/publishers, however, and the announcement press release lists previous and future titles, including Spider-Man II, X-Men Legends, Fantastic Four, and Iron Man from Activision, The Punisher from THQ, and The Hulk II from Vivendi. The GI.biz article also notes: "One of the most exciting products in the pipeline for the company... [is another] Vivendi title - a massively multiplayer game featuring a wide range of different elements from the 'Marvel Universe', which encompasses the entire spectrum of the company's franchises" - this MMO title will doubtless be compared to Cryptic/NCSoft's unlicensed, currently Beta-testing City Of Heroes. What as yet unused Marvel property do you think would make the best videogame?

Mynister writes "The AP has a story about the windows of the future they can go from clear to opaque and the can also act as an LCD TV or Computer Monitor. They accomplish it by placing a LCD Screen over the window and embed the speakers in the frame."

jkcity writes "In an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan on IGN Cube, she claims: 'We basically won 2003 [in the U.S.] and moved ourselves to the number two spot, and Microsoft's Xbox to number three', also noting: 'Year-on-year we were up 68.5% [in December] based on units sold. We sold about 1.1 million GameCubes in December... For the whole year we were up 35%. Our competitors were both in the negative.' But an analyst quoted in an [overly harsh?] BBC News story is less impressed, suggesting the console 'did not do as well as I would have expected'." Elsewhere, a Reuters story notes that PlayStation 2 sales in the U.S. "fell 27 percent to 2.94 million units in November and December from four million units a year earlier", but the console still seems to be outselling the GameCube's increased Xmas volume.

jkcity writes "In an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan on IGN Cube, she claims: 'We basically won 2003 [in the U.S.] and moved ourselves to the number two spot, and Microsoft's Xbox to number three', also noting: 'Year-on-year we were up 68.5% [in December] based on units sold. We sold about 1.1 million GameCubes in December... For the whole year we were up 35%. Our competitors were both in the negative.' But an analyst quoted in an [overly harsh?] BBC News story is less impressed, suggesting the console 'did not do as well as I would have expected'." Elsewhere, a Reuters story notes that PlayStation 2 sales in the U.S. "fell 27 percent to 2.94 million units in November and December from four million units a year earlier", but the console still seems to be outselling the GameCube's increased Xmas volume.

Thanks to Planet GameCube for its news that Nintendo has announced a series of 10 re-releases of classic NES games for the GameBoy Advance in Japan. The titles include Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Pacman, and will be released alongside a Famicom Edition GBA SP, previously only available in a slightly modified, limited edition. Elswhere, orthancstone writes "Gamespot is reporting that Microsoft is releasing two new limited-edition Xboxes in Japan, an Anniversary Edition in 'pure white', and another in 'Kasumi blue'. The blue Xbox will be limited to 5000 consoles, and will come bundled with Dead Or Alive Online, while the white Xbox will be limited to 1000 consoles, and will only be available online."

Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting the press release revealing Warner Bros has created a new videogame division, headed by Monolith co-founder Jason Hall, which "will focus on the creation, development, production and distribution of games that will be marketed to consumers under the Warner Bros. Games brand." This represents a change of attitude for Warner Bros, who previously licensed titles such as Harry Potter and The Matrix for external game development, and GameSpot provides some background for the move, noting that new WBIE boss Jason Hall "...was CEO of Monolith Productions, developer of Tron 2.0 and No One Lives Forever 2... There were previous ties between the two companies, since Monolith is currently developing the Matrix MMORPG, The Matrix Online." Update: 01/15 04:22 GMT by S : Game Informer has an interview with Jason Hall about his new position, in which he hints on "...some interesting developments throughout the course of this year... things like the Harry Potter titles."

securitas writes "This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ, and there's more at NASA and the New York Times among others."

Thanks to Yahoo News/Reuters for their story discussing the problems associated with online gaming addiction in MMO-crazy South Korea. According to the article, a 12 year-old named Lim's "love affair with the fantasy game [Lineage] saw him fall foul of the law after he stole $16,000 from his father and ran away to feed a passion for online gaming." This issue is particularly marked in Korea since "...about 70 percent of South Korea's 48 million people have access to the Internet, with 11 million using high-speed services, the world's highest broadband penetration rate." The article ends with the note that, "while some game industry alliances have been pushing game makers and distributors to provide purchasing guidelines, the likelihood of authorities imposing regulations that may pull the plug on a lucrative 500 billion won [$420 million] industry seems unlikely."

cloudscout asks: "Palm users are slowly being cut off from Instant Messaging networks. In July of 2002, changes to the Yahoo! Messenger network effectively disabled the service's PalmOS client and an updated version was never released. Now the same fate has befallen ICQ users. Changes to the ICQ network have disabled the PalmOS client. This happened in September and since then, ICQ has responded to all bug reports with an irrelevant form letter. This leaves Palm users with AIM whose official client is a couple of years old, buggy and costs $20. Is there a future for Instant Messaging on Palm? One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority."

Anonymous Coward writes "Novell today said it intends to indemnify its enterprise Linux users against possible legal action by The SCO Group and/or others. According to eWeek Novell's new Linux Indemnification Program is designed to provide its SUSE Enterprise Linux customers with protection against intellectual-property challenges to Linux and to help reduce the barriers to Linux adoption in the enterprise. Under the terms of the program, Novell will offer indemnification for copyright infringement claims made by third parties against registered Novell customers who obtain SUSE Enterprise Linux 8 after January 13, 2004, upgrade protection and a qualifying technical support contract from Novell or a Novell channel partner."

Minnesotan writes "According to a Twincities.com article: If you need discounted inkjet- or laser-printer cartridges, Wisconsin's LaserMonks say they'll give you a doozy of a deal while you 'support prayer for the world'. The Cistercian priests - yes, they're actual Catholic monks - oversee a novel e-commerce enterprise out of their rural abbey. Proceeds go to maintain the monastery and finance charitable works around the world."

carpoolio writes "One of the most-talked about gadgets at CES last week was the OQO ultra personal computer (uPC). TechTV gave it a Best Mobile Device award, and deservedly so. It's a fully functional PC that fits in your pocket. Running on a 1 GHz Transmeta Crusoe processor, the uPC packs a 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB of RAM, and has a color screen that slides up to reveal the keyboard. The price? Sub-$2,000. Photos available on OQO's Web site. Similar devices have come and gone in recent years, but this one really looks nice." OQO seems to be slowly migrating from vaporware to a release date - a CNET News article notes that "OQO said Thursday that it will begin selling the device in the second half of 2004."

Greyfox writes "SCO has issued a response to the earlier OSDL legal aid announcement. Basically the same old story, noting: 'If vendors feel so confident with the intellectual property foundation under their massive contributions into Linux, then they should put their money where their mouth is and protect end users with true vendor-based indemnification.' The release also refers us to their SCOSource web site, which they claim in their announcement shows 'proof' of infringement. I was unable to find any such 'proof' other than their claim that they own errno.h. Since I'm obviously too much of an idiot to find the 'proof' they claim they're showing, maybe someone else could go look and tell me where it is."

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Slashdot recently covered Lego's plan to stop producing its Mindstorms line in response to the Danish company's worst financial loss in history. While the original article linked focused primarily on Lego's plans to cease production on various toy lines, Yahoo News now has a follow-up article that looks in greater detail at Lego's plan for the future. 'We are returning to Lego's former concept,' says Lego owner and president Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. 'We're going to focus on building bricks as our main product, concentrating on little kids' eagerness to assemble.' Kristiansen goes on to blame the company's financial woes on its attempt to follow trends rather than focusing on its more traditional products. In turn, the company's plan for 2004 will include a renewed marketing push for Lego bricks as opposed to licensed products like the Harry Potter and Star Wars lines. Toy researcher Joern Martin Steenhold also notes the following in the article: 'All research, including my own, shows that computer games and other electronic games take up only 20 to 30 percent of children's play time. Boys play with traditional toys up until the age of eight or 10, and it is in the zero to seven age range that Lego has its niche.' Zero to seven? What about the Slashdot crowd?"

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Slashdot recently covered Lego's plan to stop producing its Mindstorms line in response to the Danish company's worst financial loss in history. While the original article linked focused primarily on Lego's plans to cease production on various toy lines, Yahoo News now has a follow-up article that looks in greater detail at Lego's plan for the future. 'We are returning to Lego's former concept,' says Lego owner and president Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. 'We're going to focus on building bricks as our main product, concentrating on little kids' eagerness to assemble.' Kristiansen goes on to blame the company's financial woes on its attempt to follow trends rather than focusing on its more traditional products. In turn, the company's plan for 2004 will include a renewed marketing push for Lego bricks as opposed to licensed products like the Harry Potter and Star Wars lines. Toy researcher Joern Martin Steenhold also notes the following in the article: 'All research, including my own, shows that computer games and other electronic games take up only 20 to 30 percent of children's play time. Boys play with traditional toys up until the age of eight or 10, and it is in the zero to seven age range that Lego has its niche.' Zero to seven? What about the Slashdot crowd?"

Hack Jandy writes "AnandTech has some pretty interesting follow up information to last week's sneak peek and discussion concerning VIA's attempt to penetrate the console market. By the looks of it, the S3 DeltaChrome GPU is horribly incapable of making VIA/Apex a formidable gaming console." More on vaporware at CES: Bob Gortician points to this "interesting, if terse, piece on the Phantom game console's debut..."

hodet writes "From Haaretz.com, in predictable fashion, looks like a little tough bargaining with Microsoft is all that is needed to get your way. As many predicted after this story, looks like all you have to do is threaten to move to an OSS alternative to make them relent. Maybe it's time to stop getting excited about every little announcement that comes out." The upshot of the story is that Microsoft is willing to split the components of Office in order to sell it to the Israeli government's Finance Ministry. Reader blunte, though, links to a story that discounts the importance of MS's move: "Israel re-iterates: No More MS Software. This is round two. MS has made an effort to reconcile with Israel, and Israel still says No. Israel govt's purchases account for 3-4% of MS Israel's annual revenue."

Vellmont writes "Slashdots favorite Cyborg, University of Toronto Engineering Professor Steve Mann has an AP article about him out. You can read the article on Salon or Yahoo (as well as many other places). The article is well done, and I particularly love Prof. Mann's way of dealing with stores who prohibit videotaping. Slashdot ran a previous story about Prof. Mann's troubles with Airport Security in March 2002."

MSBob writes "Seems that SCO is seriously hinting that their next victim is going to be Google. SCO said that they held what SCO described as "low level talks" with Google executives with regards to licensing SCO's alleged intellectual property within the Linux kernel. The full article is on Forbes.com." The Reuters story is on Yahoo!, too.

nick58b writes "Lego, in response to the worst financial loss in its history, has announced they will stop making the electronics and movie tie-in products. This would include Mindstorms, one of the greatest educational toys ever produced." It saddens me greatly to see the toy that was such a mainstay of my childhood to be in such dire financial straits. If I were a more qualified sociologist, I'd think it may have inspired by the way that our children play today versus how they played twenty years ago.

kiwimate writes "Two Linux distributors (one each from China and Japan) are building a common Linux platform for Asian companies. Using Oracle software to create the product, which is dubbed "Asianux", they have declared they'll create a common kernel so that the two companies' offerings can interoperate with ease."

John Gaule writes "Earlier it was mentioned on Slashdot that Sony has introduced the worlds thinnest laptop, the Sony X505 which weighs just under 2lbs. Designtechnica has reviewed this system and compares it to the JVC Interlink 7310, Panasonic W2 and Sony TR1A laptops. Apparently Sony had to have a custom motherboard configured to get the CPU and hard drive in the right position for cooling. There is also no integrated WiFi but it uses an 802.11g WiFi PC Card."

An anonymous reader writes "Linksys has announced a progressive scan DVD player with 802.11g and ethernet. Users can stream MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, MP3, WMA, and other formats from their PC to the TV. Sure I can do this cobbling together other tools, but this is a self contained box even newbies can use. Think how many people could install and config a router and an AP, versus the number of people that can plug in one of the self-contained wireless routers? "

bobcows writes "Yahoo is reporting about leading technology companies urging Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday not to impose new trade restrictions aimed at keeping U.S. jobs from moving overseas, where labor costs are lower. 'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"

bobcows writes "Yahoo is reporting about leading technology companies urging Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday not to impose new trade restrictions aimed at keeping U.S. jobs from moving overseas, where labor costs are lower. 'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"

hcg50a writes "AP has a story on Yahoo about a theory that a blast of gamma rays from a distant supernova destroyed the earth's ozone layer, allowing normally shielded intense UV radiation from the sun to kill life on earth. The second-largest extinction in the Earth's history, the killing of two-thirds of all species, may have been caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun after gamma rays destroyed the Earth's ozone layer. Astronomers are proposing that a supernova exploded within 10,000 light years of the Earth, destroying the chemistry of the atmosphere and allowing the sun's ultraviolet rays to cook fragile, unprotected life forms."

hcg50a writes "AP has a story on Yahoo about a theory that a blast of gamma rays from a distant supernova destroyed the earth's ozone layer, allowing normally shielded intense UV radiation from the sun to kill life on earth. The second-largest extinction in the Earth's history, the killing of two-thirds of all species, may have been caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun after gamma rays destroyed the Earth's ozone layer. Astronomers are proposing that a supernova exploded within 10,000 light years of the Earth, destroying the chemistry of the atmosphere and allowing the sun's ultraviolet rays to cook fragile, unprotected life forms."

morris57 asks: "In the past few months, I have had at least 3 brand new compact disks or DVDs not work right out of the box. I don't mean that any sort of copy protection on the disk prevented me from using them; they were simply defective disks. I was able to exchange my DVD of 'The Matrix Reloaded' at Best Buy for a working copy, but some disks I got for Christmas I just recently opened and they are either unplayable or garbled. It is not a hardware issue, either. I've tested the disks in several types of players: new, old, component, computers, etc... It seems to me to make a very good case for downloadable media files, although I know these tracks are not available on iTunes or audible.com. So, I guess I'm wondering if the Slashdot community has noticed a decline in quality control of CDs/DVDs. What can be done (individually or communally) to not get burned by defective disks?" The solution for this particular type of problem boils down to simple consumerism. If you get a defective product, return it! If manufactures notice a high rate of return (and they should), they'll hopefully address the quality of what they ship. Has anyone else noticed an increase of non-working DVDs or CDs?

kewsh writes "There's an excellent piece from the LA Times via Yahoo! News which explains the interworkings of the movie, music, and software piracy scene, including quotes from former and current scene members: 'Common to most groups is a disdain for selling pirated goods in favor of giving free access to anything and everything'." The article also notes: "Not everyone in the scene is so pure. Some players... are suspected of selling pirated movies and music to commercial bootleggers."

kewsh writes "There's an excellent piece from the LA Times via Yahoo! News which explains the interworkings of the movie, music, and software piracy scene, including quotes from former and current scene members: 'Common to most groups is a disdain for selling pirated goods in favor of giving free access to anything and everything'." The article also notes: "Not everyone in the scene is so pure. Some players... are suspected of selling pirated movies and music to commercial bootleggers."

Boomzilla writes "Pioneer has released a digital audio and video turntable (the DVJ-X1), which allows you to manipulate and playback synchronized digital audio and video. You can manipulate DVD visuals in the same way as you would music i.e. real-time digital video scratches, loops and instant cues. The video and audio streams will stay in sync, even when they're being reversed and pitched. I guess this is the logical, commercialized version of that which has been done before. It's being shown at CES, and there are several pictures on the official Pioneer site."

Anonymous Coward writes "Microsoft has launched a new ad campaign that purports to give 'objective third-party information' comparing Windows to Linux." See the ad campaign website for more, uh, facts.

unassimilatible writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting (paid subscription required) that Yahoo! plans to dump Google as its primary search technology. In a major revamp, Yahoo will also add personalization and customization features to extend the usefulness of searches and expand its use of "paid inclusion." Yahoo news has picked up the story. Might be time to rethink that IPO."

inode_buddha writes "This article describes SCO's recent letters to its UNIX licensees, asking them to certify that they '...are not using Unix code in Linux.' It also notes another set of letters '...outlining additional evidence of copyright infringement to a subset of 1,500 global Linux users that SCO first contacted in May about copyright infringement.' There's also a decent breakdown of the company's balance sheet and some quotes from company officials. I hope to see one of those 'other' letters; could anyone post it? SCO better have asbestos underwear." Ask and receive: idiotnot adds "Here's the article from the Sydney Morning Herald. Here is a PDF Copy of the letter." "Yours truly"?

madmancarman writes "Following California's lead, Ohio has also passed a law making recording in a movie theatre a crime. A first offense would be punishable by six months in jail and up to $1,000 fine, which is lighter than the legislation introduced in Michigan that would bring up to 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. The most interesting quote concerns a study by AT&T Labs: 'Their conclusion: 77 percent of the films came from insider sources, either motion picture companies or theater employees taping from the projection booth.' I searched Ohio Gov. Bob Taft's press releases, but couldn't find any mention of it."

Fill Dirt writes "Mike Langberg of Knight-Ridder newspapers wrote an interesting article on the the hidden costs of bargain priced consumer electronics. I saw it in the Seattle Times business section with the title Can't lose with bargain DVD player, but low cost carries price ."

Sandeep writes "This article tells of an initiative in rural India, to provide internet access for farmers. The initiative is called e-choupal, a name taken from the Hindi name for village square. An incongruous image when you consider they still use bullock carts for carrying the produce..."

yohaas writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that AOL blocked more than 500 billion spam messages for its users in 2003. That comes to 40 messages a day per user. The company regularly blocks 75-80% of all incoming mail as spam! The article also lists the top 10 spam phrases for the year, including such come-ons as: 'Viagra online', 'Online pharmacy', 'Get out of debt' and 'Get bigger'."

Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release announcing Nokia has teamed up with Eidos to give away over 70,000 copies of the N-Gage version of Tomb Raider at this year's Sugar Bowl college football game. An Eidos spokesperson oddly opines: "Lara [Croft] has always been the number one video game heroine, and it's appropriate for her to be present at this year's Sugar Bowl where the national champion will be crowned", and insider suggestions that Nokia are pulling an Atari of sorts, in the face of allegedly limited demand for the N-Gage 'game deck' are, of course, fatuous. Meanwhile, GameSpy weighs in with some reasons to like the N-Gage, still suggesting: "Nokia's game deck has a lot going for it, and is in many ways superior to the system that has dominated the portable gaming market for over a decade: Nintendo's Game Boy (now Game Boy Advance)." Update: 01/02 16:46 GMT by S : According to a L.A Times/TribNet article, Tomb Raider on N-Gage sold around 3,000 copies in October, the last stats available to the reporter.

teambpsi writes "BusinesWeek Online has an opt-ed piece on the trend in offshore programming pricing going up, with domestic rates going down. As a contractor, I've seen the downward pressure on contract gigs now to rates lower than what I was charging over five years ago. Dell Computers recently announced that it was bringing its customer service back on-shore, I wonder if this might be the start of some bigger trend -- maybe 'buy american' could be our new battle cry ;)"

cuppm writes "Yahoo! News has an article on the The Eight Biggest Tech Flops Ever. 'What distinguishes a simply bad product from the truly awful? Sometimes it's a dreadful user interface. Other times it's a product that successfully addresses a particularly daunting problem - yet one shared by relatively few people. And often competitive or financial pressure forces new products to market before they're ready - full of bugs and horribly unusable. Still other times, the products arrive too early. Eventually they become a success, but often after the founding company has been ruined.'"

cuppm writes "Yahoo! News has an article on the The Eight Biggest Tech Flops Ever. 'What distinguishes a simply bad product from the truly awful? Sometimes it's a dreadful user interface. Other times it's a product that successfully addresses a particularly daunting problem - yet one shared by relatively few people. And often competitive or financial pressure forces new products to market before they're ready - full of bugs and horribly unusable. Still other times, the products arrive too early. Eventually they become a success, but often after the founding company has been ruined.'"

Thanks to Yahoo/Chicago Tribune for their article charting the continued rise in popularity of videogame music. The piece quotes a music agent as saying: "Record companies are realizing that this is the new radio", and another commentator points out: "Consumers would rather download than pay $15 for a CD, leaving the record industry scrambling for revenue. How do they monetize music? License to video games." However, when it comes to stand-alone game soundtrack CDs, "sales aren't earth-shattering yet", and specific numbers are referenced for the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack, of which "...the most popular CD, 'V-Rock,' sold 42,300 copies."

Shockmaster writes "Yahoo! has released their top searches of 2003. Google also has a year-end Zeitgeist wrap-up for popular search queries." Elsewhere, TheFairElf writes "The Miami Herald has Dave Barry's annual roundup of the year's main events titled 2003: A Dave Odyssey. The most significant events include the release of the fifth Harry Potter book 'Harry Potter Reaches Puberty and Starts Taking Really Long Showers' and the discovery of large quantities of sugar in Iraq which the CIA claimed 'is a leading cause of tooth decay'." Finally, wideangle writes "'Calling all metrosexuals: Get rid of that bling-bling - or at least find another word for it. In its annual compilation of language irritants, Lake Superior State University singled out 17 words and phrases that it says ought to be banned as overused, trite, euphemistic or just plain inaccurate." LOL, we wish everyone an Xtreme New Year from Slashdot, OMG.

Shockmaster writes "Yahoo! has released their top searches of 2003. Google also has a year-end Zeitgeist wrap-up for popular search queries." Elsewhere, TheFairElf writes "The Miami Herald has Dave Barry's annual roundup of the year's main events titled 2003: A Dave Odyssey. The most significant events include the release of the fifth Harry Potter book 'Harry Potter Reaches Puberty and Starts Taking Really Long Showers' and the discovery of large quantities of sugar in Iraq which the CIA claimed 'is a leading cause of tooth decay'." Finally, wideangle writes "'Calling all metrosexuals: Get rid of that bling-bling - or at least find another word for it. In its annual compilation of language irritants, Lake Superior State University singled out 17 words and phrases that it says ought to be banned as overused, trite, euphemistic or just plain inaccurate." LOL, we wish everyone an Xtreme New Year from Slashdot, OMG.

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting article published by SD Times: "Application Security Goes National" discusses some of the talking points generated by a federal task force that will make recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security. One of these talking points is to license software developers and make them accountable for security breaches. Licensed developers would get paid more as well. The article also mentions that "Executives" might not wish to work with smaller undiciplined partners and a little further down that "Hobbyists create Web services [and] professionals create them" and that "companies relying on critical infrastructure Web services need confidence". Would OSS have to be writen entirely by licensed developers to be considered secure? . Yahoo Finance has another article on the subject." The SD Times article is current, despite the incorrect date on it.

Phoe6 asks: "Last year, at Hexadecimals discussion group we shared a news that Worst Technology of 2002 was TIA (Total Information Awareness by DARPA). What is the Worst Technology of 2003? For the Best, Time Magazine seems to have adjudged Steve Jobs' iTunes as the Invention of 2003. What are your ratings?"

mskfisher writes "Yahoo! News is running an AFP story on Australia's efforts to control the carp population using a 'male-only' gene. The gene will prevent the carp, considered a pest in Australia, from producing female offspring. The carp has wiped out some 90% of the native south Australian fish population, namely perch and bass. They do not, however, mention any ways of controlling the spread of this gene in the wild, besides the obvious death of any affected population."

Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release revealing Majesco is bringing a GameBoy Advance video player to the U.S for Spring 2004. Although there are similar products available in Japan, there's been no attempt to launch a GBA video player Stateside until now, and the press release mentions: "Majesco's new video compression technology presently allows viewing of approximately 45 minutes of quality color video." It's noted that "approximately 12 video titles are scheduled to launch at retail", unfortunately proprietary, with no ability to import movies of your choice, and the Majesco CTO comments that this is "a significant advantage over most competitive technologies that limit viewing to black & white video", a dig at the currently available stand-alone VideoNOW player from Hasbro.