Comment What else to do? (Score 1) 1276
What would he have us use if not Google? Bing?!
Comment Follow the money (Score 1) 597
Given the size of corporate lobbies in Washington, D.C., and the assets any one of them -- whether pharmaceutical patents or music copyrights -- would stand to lose, I highly doubt any of Obama's economic recovery efforts will involve weakening the United States' IP regime.
I'm just sayin'...
Comment Chapter 11 != Liquidation (Score 1) 88
Several people have commented about Midway's Chapter 11 filing possibly leading to other companies purchasing their IP rights to various franchise, but it's important to keep in mind that there's a big difference between Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Under Chapter 11, reorganization, the organization is given time to restructure its debt, retain its assets, and negotiate deals with creditors. It still has to pay off its debts, but possibly over a longer term or with a lower interest rate. This is a very different beast from Chapter 7, where the firm's assets are sold off (liquidated) to pay off the creditors, after which the firm ceases to exist.
Under some circumstances, a company in Chapter 11 can be forced into Chapter 7, but as it stands now, the proud Midway name will continue on down the road.
Comment Did S-E even play Supreme Commander 1?? (Score 1) 70
It wasn't a bad game overall, but it had bugs, balance issues, and became quite repetitive as compared to other RTS titles. And instead of working to correct the issues fans had with the title, it went ahead and rush an expansion pack out the door (which sold far worse than the original title) and moved on to the equally abysmal "Space Siege."
Oh well, at least it'll have some awesome looking cutscenes!
Two New Class-Action Suits Against EA Over DRM 336
In September, we discussed a class-action suit filed against Electronic Arts over the DRM in Spore. Now, two new class-action suits have been filed that target the SecuROM software included in a free trial of the Spore Creature Creator (PDF) and in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage (PDF). If this sort of legal reprisal continues to catch on, EA could be seeing quite a few class-action suits in the future. One of the suits accuses:
"The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used ... [SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled. Once installed it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio ... EA's EULA for Spore Creature Creator Free Trial Edition makes utterly no mention of any Technical Protection Measures, DRM technology, or SecuROM whatsoever."
FTC Wants To Straighten Out IP Law 97
coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld:
"What do you get when you mix the government, the court system, company lawyers and Joe Consumer? A serious mess that would send most people screaming into the night. But the Federal Trade Commission is no such entity. It wants to straighten Intellectual Property (IP) out and today said it will hold a series of hearings — the first in Washington, DC on Dec. 5 — it will use to examine IP law and the myriad issues surrounding it. Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players. The patent system has experienced significant change and more changes are under consideration, the FTC said."
The FTC held some different, but related hearings this week which addressed topics such as copyright law and DRM interoperability. Transcripts, podcasts, and summaries of the talks are available on the FTC-hosted "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade" site.
USB 3 in 2008, 10 Times as Fast 381
psychicsword writes "Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires." "The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second." This should make USB hard drives easier and faster to use."
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