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Submission + - Mastercard to phase out manual card entry for online payments in Europe by 2030 (cnbc.com)

Submitted by storkus
storkus writes:

Instead of the 16-digit card number we’re all accustomed to using for transactions, this will be replaced with a randomly-generated “token."

This story, as currently written, says nothing about their plans outside Europe but in the past the USA in particular has been dead last in getting this kind of tech.

Comment Re:Good Luck (Score 1) 123

by cbensinger (#40813853) Attached to: GameStop Wants To Sell Secondhand Digital Download Video Games

I've got Charter's Ultra100 service (was Ultra60 originally) and I've had a couple of service issues - one was a hardware issue at some box a mile or two from here and one was supposedly some card at the "head-end". Both times I've had to escalate the issue to get it addressed; but beyond that I've pretty much gotten the advertised speed the entire time I've had them.

That being said, I was not amused with the "caps" as while I've never hit them - we specifically asked about that when we signed up and were of course promised that the Ultra60 tier wouldn't have any.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Gears of War 3 Officially Confirmed For April 2011 76

Posted by Soulskill from the worst-kept-secret dept.
A few days after an untimely leak on Xbox Live, Epic Games has now officially announced Gears of War 3 for next April. Details are scant (though Edge speculates on possible new gameplay features), but it will contain 4-player co-op and be an Xbox 360 exclusive. A trailer was released for the game, and designer Cliff Bleszinski had this to say: "When we released Gears of War more than three years ago, we set out to tell the world an unforgettable story of bravery and sacrifice in the face of insurmountable odds, and a year from now, players will get the chance to experience the final chapter in the story of Marcus Fenix and his companions in Delta Squad. This is definitely the biggest and most dramatic chapter yet in the Gears of War saga, and we can't wait to deliver it."

Comment Re:Designed Obsolescence (Score 1) 252

by cbensinger (#31740876) Attached to: Blu-ray Proposes Incompatible BD-XL and IH-BD Formats

Agreed. I've got a XBOX360 HD drive and a couple of stand-alone HD-DVD players that gather dust while we watch movies on the PS3's and/or PC's with Blu-Ray drives...

Blu-Ray burners and discs still (at least in my opinion) aren't to a price point where they are common; but yet lets throw another format into the mix. How many of these do they really think the market will bear? These guys never learn....
Networking

Ubisoft DRM Causing More Problems 279

Posted by Soulskill from the there's-a-lesson-here-that-nobody-will-learn dept.
Joe Helfrich writes "Ubisoft's Settlers 7 servers have been causing problems for over a week for users worldwide, and Australian gamers are hardly able to connect at all. 'The problem reportedly strikes after the game has already confirmed an active Internet connection, and prevents the user from playing even the single-player campaign, returning the error "server not available." But they are available, because other people are logged into them and merrily playing away.' Wonder how they're going to describe this one as an attack."

Submission + - Chase "rips off" charities in Facebook Contest (nytimes.com)

Submitted by ssv03
ssv03 writes: As reported in the New York Times: Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has released a press release here and is calling for a boycott.

Comment Re:It is their right, but aggressive move nonethel (Score 2, Insightful) 254

by cbensinger (#30321242) Attached to: Modded Xbox Bans Prompt EFF Warning About Terms of Service

I have no problems with what they did; but I question their logic. Those consoles that are banned from Live for being "modded" can still obviously play pirated games. What they *can't* do is go on live and among other things purchase things. So while they will undoubtedly sell some more consoles (Craigslist and eBay are full of banned consoles) and probably some more games - I don't really see this as doing much to stop piracy - I only see it stopping any legit spending from those consoles.

Seems to me that there must've been a better way to handle this; but that's just me.

Zune Team Getting Amnesty for iPod Use 303

Posted by Zonk from the ooooh-free-ipods dept.
MsManhattan writes "The Zune development team at Microsoft is apparently offering amnesty to employees who give up their iPods in favor of using the Zune MP3 player. An MSNBC employee has posted a photo on Flickr of the company's 'iPod Amnesty Bin,' which sports an image of a bitten green apple and the words 'Bite me.' Whether it's to be taken seriously or is a joke to boost employee morale is anyone's guess, and naturally no one at Microsoft was available for comment. From what can be seen in the photo, only a few early-model iPods have been deposited."

Games Are No Cause For Murder 112

Posted by Zonk from the there-very-rarely-is dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At Gamers With Jobs, Shawn Andrich speaks out against pointing the finger at videogames as a causative factor in a murder cases. He makes the excellent point that, though we may enjoy the metaphor, life is not a game. There is no simple connection between event A and event B. Our actions are dictated by experiences from a lifetime, and they should be addressed that way for good or ill. 'Life can't be framed up like a game of billiards. There is no easy eight ball, corner pocket shot to be made when trying to draw a line between cause and action ... Lasting, positive change will only come when we stop reaching for causes and start creating conditions that will support kids and teenagers who need it. We can't make anyone put the pin back in the grenade, but by supporting active, caring people who want to help, we might be able to influence some of those fateful decisions before it gets that far.'" GamePolitics on Joystiq has an editorial up looking at a similar question.
Communications

Is Email 'Bankrupt'? 387

Posted by Zonk from the knew-i-shouldn't-have-bought-all-that-stock dept.
Gary W. Longsine writes "The Washington Post writes about a Venture Capitalist and blogger, Fred Wilson, who recently declared 'e-mail bankruptcy', wiping out his inbox and starting over because he couldn't keep up. Spam is cited as one reason. There have been several public incidents, some cited in the article, where the flow of email is just too much to keep up. 'If there is a downside to completely turning a back on e-mail, it's not one many former users notice. Stanford computer science professor Donald E. Knuth started using e-mail in 1975 and stopped using it 15 years later. Knuth said he prefers to concentrate on writing books rather than be distracted by the steady stream of communication.' Is email just too hectic a communication form for some people? Is email dead?"
Sony

Sony Sued for Blu-Ray Patent Violation 153

Posted by Zonk from the how-shiny-is-too-shiny dept.
Jaidan writes "According to a Gamespot article, a California-based company named Target Technology is suing Sony over patents it allegedly holds for silver based reflective surfaces. The suit claims that products marketed under the Blu-ray name infringe on a patent it owns for reflective layer materials in optical discs. Target is seeking a permanent injunction preventing Sony from violating its patent rights in the future, as well as damages with interest, multiplied due to what it characterizes as deliberate and willful infringement. ' The patent addresses what Target called a need for specific types of silver-based alloys with the advantages (but not the price) of gold. According to the patent, the alloys are also more resistant to corrosion than pure silver. Target does not specify in its suit whether it believes all of Sony's Blu-ray discs infringe on its patent, or the suit applies to just a portion of the discs manufactured. The patent was filed in April of 2004 and granted in March of 2006.'"

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