'Bully' banned in Brazil by courts
The video game "Bully" has been ordered to be taken off the shelves in South America's largest nation following a Thursday ruling.
Produced by Rockstar Games, it is distributed by JPF Magazine in Brazil. A local youth support center requested a ban, which Judge Flavio Rabello granted. Retailers in the country have been given 30 days to comply.
Amazon to ease pain of format war win
Those who purchased an HD DVD set-top player through Amazon will be eligible for a $50 credit towards a future purchase..
Customers can choose to spend the money in any way they see fit, including putting it toward Blu-ray player. It is not the first time a retailer has attempted to appease those who may have bought into HD DVD: Best Buy and Wal-Mart have done the same.
Paragraph against ISP throttling hailed as users' rights victory in EU
A simple recommendation that the European Commission consider not passing laws that help ISPs throttle Internet traffic, is being heralded as a stick in the eye of French President Sarkozy, who has aims to require ISPs to do just that.
What passed the European Parliament yesterday was not a bill or a new law. But a single paragraph of text added to a simple parliamentary report, at no less than the last minute, is being treated as a huge symbolic victory for users who don't want their ISPs throttling or cutting off their Internet access.
Symantec buys AppStream, but what took so long?
Yesterday, Symantec announced its acquisition of application streaming specialist AppStream, one full year after buying AppStream's long-time partner, application virtualization vendor Altiris. So what kept AppStream waiting?
"I'm just surprised that Symantec didn't acquire AppStream earlier -- or that Altiris didn't do so even before that," said Brian Madden, president and technical analyst at The Brian Madden Company, during an interview Thursday with BetaNews.
SlingCatcher will be ready when it's ready
In response to unconfirmed reports that Sling Media's SlingCatcher would be delayed until late this year, the company told BetaNews SlingCatcher will ship when it's good and ready.
Slingbox is a piece of hardware that saw a lot of hype last year that connects to a user's television and the Internet, allowing TV programs to be viewed in the SlingPlayer from anywhere the user signs on.
NVidia ups the ante in a platform battle with AMD
On Thursday, NVidia introduced its newest graphics processing units and media and communications processors, and it's hard not to notice that the company is adopting a platform-based focus for its graphics product line...perhaps to counter ATI.
The Santa Clara-based company today re-announced GeForce 9800 GX2, joining forces with the GeForce 9800 GTX and GeForce 9600 GT GPUs; along with the nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCP chipset.
ISO takes full charge of Open XML, sets up 'harmonization' group
It will now be up to a new working group, yet to be given an official name, to manage the process of making OXML play nice with ODF. It's out of Microsoft's hands.
We can't call it "Office Open XML" anymore, because it no longer belongs to Microsoft Office exclusively. As of yesterday, International Organization for Standardization committee SC 34 passed a resolution that effectively assumes stewardship of Open XML, the document format standard originally produced by Microsoft, and which is now officially under new management.
Parallels releases beta 3 of its Mac virtualization software
Virtualization company Parallels has released a new beta of its server virtualization software for Intel-based Macs.
Parallel's application allows an enterprise IT department to virtualize server environments, thus saving money on hardware needs. By definition, the platform is a "bare-metal hypervisor."
A leaner Intel sells off more of its assets
Intel today sold off more of its optical platform to Emcore, continuing on with a strategy of dumping unprofitable assets and activities that detract from its core business.
Today's sale includes the enterprise and storage assets of Intel's optical storage unit, as well as its Connects cables business, to Emcore, a fiber optics networking supplier in Alburquerque, New Mexico. Last December, Intel sold Emcore the telecom portion of its optical platform.
White hat hackers infiltrate a power grid in one day
A team of experts headed by security guru Ira Winkler was hired by an anonymous power company to test the security of a power grid's network. The door was practically held open for them.
In a matter of hours, the team infiltrated the grid's supervisory, control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks using simple phishing tools: social engineering and browser exploits.
IBM enters the data protection and recovery business
IBM today filled a hole in its storage product line-up by buying FilesX, a rising star in the category of continuous data protection (CDP) and data recovery software for Windows.
The Armonk company plans to use the enterprise-oriented FilesX technology as a complement to an existing product called IBM Tivoli Continous Data Protection for Files, IBM officials said in a statement. CDP for Files is geared to individual PC users and small and mid-sized business (SMBs).
MySpaceTV tries once again to branch out to real TVs
The online video provider from Fox Interactive Media is looking to take its Web-based shows to TV screens internationally with a newly announced deal with Shine.
Quarterlife, a short-form program featured prominently on MySpaceTV, made an attempt at breaking into the US broadcast television schedule last February on NBC. To say it was a catastrophic failure would be generous; the series not only ranked last among other shows in its 10 pm time slot, but received the lowest ratings NBC has seen in that slot for 17 years.
iPhone 2.0 will bring contacts search, meeting invites
Development begins on US emergency text message system
The FCC has begun the process of establishing a nationwide emergency SMS alert system, laying down the foundations yesterday of technical standards that participating cell phone carriers must observe.
While participation is purely voluntary, AT&T, Verizon, Alltel, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile have reportedly all contributed favorably to discussions toward the formation of a system similar to the US' current Emergency Alert System for broadcasters, though which would relay national emergency warnings to cell phone users.
Yahoo's 'strategic alternative' surprise involves AOL, Google
The way the game of mergers and acquisitions is typically played involves the carefully measured use of speculation seeding -- the fine art of making the other side wonder what you're going to do, without having to actually amass the real tools to do it.
ANALYSIS Yesterday, Yahoo revealed it can play this game quite masterfully. In an almost effortless stroke of gamesmanship, the Web portal leader announced it would test giving Google an extra outlet for its AdSense for Search, and then in the same statement pronounced quite sternly that by no means should anyone take this to mean anything permanent is taking place...because after all, Yahoo maintains the right to explore all its alternatives.
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