EA and BioWare have officially announced a new Star War: Knights of the Old Republic game at E3 2008. A third KOTOR game has long been rumoured but this is the first confirmation that EA has given on the subject.

The mega-publisher didn't just stop there though, going so far as to confirm that the next KOTOR game will also be a massively multiplayer online RPG - making it the first Star Wars MMO since the ill-fated Galaxies.

Wow, so like, take one of the last few great single-player games and pimp it out, that's, that's nice. Superb. Now you and, like, a million of your pals can save or damn the galaxy simultaneously. That sounds grand.

Oh, and take Obsidian off the roster, you know, the guys that made the game cool, different, and not a Star Wars-themed total-conversion of Baldur's Gate. This is going to be mind-blowing--I'm so excited I can taste the vomit.

Actually, there's one possible saving grace: that this gets the Neverwinter Nights treatment; that it's actually just a single-player game with a buttload of free developer tools for anyone to use. If this doesn't happen, I'm just going to keep playing KOTOR II, most certainly once the Restoration Project wraps up.

Lets just say Square-Enix recognizes how much meat there is on the carcass that is Final Fantasy VII. This title has received more direct sequels, prequels, side stories and general fansterbation than any other title in the series. I won't go into the quality of these titles, but they are out there. Now there is a rumor that says the Squeenix may be bringing the title to XBL and the PSN.

This all likely started as the result of the statement hinting at a "big FFVII-related announcement" that will come at next month's DKΣ3713 event. 'Inside sources' (I love how important that makes someone sound) stated that not only will the original be available through the Playstation store as a PS1 original download there will "definitely" be a remake or spin-off announced. I don't know where the XBLA release fits into this but that's the rumor anyway.

I wouldn't mind playing through this again. I don't remember how it ended. Does Cloud kill Sephiroth or just woo her? What about Jenova? She get some Zach-dupe lovin'?

It would actually be screwed up if they don't re-build the game from the bottom up. I'm not talking typos, either, and I don't care if they continue to use the same 12-polygon models for everyone, but the thing had better be widescreen, 1080p, with re-mastered backgrounds. Actually, some extra polys wouldn't hurt.

Dollars to doughnuts, though, Barret will exude less T-derived 'sploit. I mean blaxploit.

Curious as to just how the Netflix functionality is going to work on the Xbox 360 when it's added this fall? Major Nelson just posted a video of him going through it, showing off just how it's going to work. Essentially, it looks exactly like the interface on the Roku Netflix box.

You can't search through the entire Netflix database, instead needing to add movies you want to watch to your instant queue. It's a bit annoying, but as you can add as many movies you want to the queue, not that big a deal. If you own an Xbox 360 and bought a Roku box, however, get that thing to eBay ASAP, as you won't be using it anymore come this fall.

I've been using a Roku for some time now, and my review in brief is: there are a lot of other options out there. I mean, it's pretty cool if you're alright with the idea of a home theater being a TV and a DVD player. It'll fit right in. But if you don't really think that there should be any difference between you TV and a gaming workstation, well, save the hundred bucks and use it to buy movies you won't get on Netflix this decade.

the above image the result of the search terms "a third wheel" which roku is about to be, yeah, pretty much. and it's dark knight themed! go see it already! it's almost less full of bat-love than that photo

Despite having said it was done negotiating a number of times already, Microsoft appears to find Yahoo's search business too tempting to stay away for long. Yesterday, Yahoo released a statement that rejected yet another offer from Redmond, this one made jointly with Carl Icahn, who is engaged in a proxy battle for control of the company. The deal would have handed Yahoo's search division to Microsoft, leaving the remainder of the company in Icahn's hands.

C'mon Yahoo, nobody takes you seriously anyways, you may as well give all your base to the apeman.

image above the result of "icahn loves microsoft" in google image search.

President Bush's signature had barely dried on the FISA Amendments Act, which the Senate approved Wednesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would mount a constitutional challenge to the new law, claiming that it violates the First and Fourth Amendments....

Lawyers have also filed a motion with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, explained the ACLU's Melissa Goodman, making four requests for transparency. In the event of proceedings that might yield significant interpretations of the FAA, or rulings on its constitutionality, the motion ask that the FISC notify the public, that it allow ACLU to file briefs and participate in the arguments, that it require the government to file a public version of its own legal briefs, and that the Court issue a public version of any ruling. "Otherwise," said Goodman, "we will literally never now how the FISA court interprets the new law.

The idea that we could have a secret body of Constitutional Law is more Kafka than America."

It's really hard to argue against personal encryption when stuff like this happens. Yeah, it's illegal, just like these wiretaps. How much time do we have left under these people? Can someone please tell me why Obama signed off on this, too?

I sort of want a bumper sticker that tics down the time left until the next Presidential election. I mean, 'cause it would be really cool just to have something like that. Anyway, this is depressing, I'm going to go read 1up for a while...

After scoring three successive independent hits (Uplink, Darwinia, and Defcon), Introversion is taking an uncharacteristic step back: revisiting its greatest critical and commercial success. Darwinia was an odd duck in many respects, but only one failed to count in its favor: it was an exclusively single player real-time strategy. Darwinia overcame what would have been a crippling weakness for any other game in the genre with the sheer force of its charm. In fact, we hardly missed the nonexistent multiplayer. Which leaves us wondering now "did it ever really need it in the first place?"

After some hands on time with two of Multiwinia's multiplayer modes, it's apparent that a great game could have been even better.

Holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap Multiwinia!

Actually, I found out about this a while back, but the words tailored to the kind of glee I get from this game have been hard to string together. I'll be happy to repeat some of the ones 1up uses: "titular, spritely Darwinians."

I cannot wait to get my ass returned to me in pieces by Korean masters in Multiwinia.

Ah, Netflix. Killer of brick-and-mortar video stores; red-jacketed savior of people having a crappy day who come home to find that at least there's a decent flick waiting for them. These days, the rent-by-mail company offers around 100,000 tiles, sends out some 1.9 million discs per day (another 10,000 movies are available for instant download) — and passed the billion-discs-shipped mark last February.

And the outfit is quite efficient: According to the company, some 96% of customers clicking around the site receive their movies the next day. This basically means, barring some major mail-ending catastrophe in your ZIP code (in which case, hoarding nonperishable food and bottled water may be a more pressing concern than seeing Will Smith's most recent magnum opus), any disc ordered on a Monday morning will most likely appear in your mailbox by Tuesday — unless all copies are at far-away distribution hubs, which occasionally adds a day or two to the delivery date.

Yeah, if the engine's so great, why does it keep telling me I want to watch Great Expectations? Also, I don't like old movies. You'd think that would be figured out. And I honestly like Canadian TV, which, yes, features a high percentage of transvestitism, but I'd swear that 'flix was trying to force me to watch movies likethe Iron Ladies. I mean, I'm not the type to read into things, but damn.

the above image the result of the search terms "wth net flicks". twenty-four point four kay bee pee ess modem!

"Basically, you've got a lot of guys in their 30s and older who are not really contributing that much in terms of innovation," says Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. "They should clear out and let the 25 year-olds get going again. If you look back at AOL, it had many purges in the post-bubble period, but by and large, it flushed out the people who had been occupying senior management posts for a long time and they didn't make much of a difference to the business."

Of course, the sticky question is whether Yahoo can still attract the whipper-snapper 25 year-olds, given its murky future and uncertain leadership.

Wow, thirty-somethings are useless, eh? Remind me to never hit the big three-oh, since I'll obviously start drooling and forgetting things.

Actually, I forget things a lot now. Like about once a week, I go to work without my laptop. I lock myself out of my car so frequently I keep multiple spare keys, like, everywhere. Once, I assembled an entire PC without a processor... Suffice it to say, Detatchable Penis has been a long-time favorite.

Anyway, if you work for Yahoo!, and are looking to help the company, here's a handy tool to assist with your resignation.

Changes will include improvements to search and navigation, a new-look homepage, improved profile editing and a better video player, including support for high-definition programmes and full-screen playback. The overhaul is seen as critical in enabling MySpace to wrest back some of its share of the social-networking market from websites such as Bebo and Facebook.

And if you go to MySpace right now (why not tell 10 friends to join you while you're at it!) they'll throw in a new advertising campaign with McDonalds. Biggie sized!

Some argue that the DMCA powers are being used to infringe upon users' online freedoms -- and frequently. The latest and perhaps most thought provoking DMCA battle is building between the Associate Press (AP) and The Drudge Retort, a social news/blog owned by Rogers Cadenhead, over the reposting of AP article snippets. Interestingly, the AP is attacking both the owner for his news posts that occasionally contain small excerpts of AP text linked to the original story, and his users who similarly post snippets from various web stories on the internet in the contents. In both cases, the AP says this makes these pages in question DMCA takedown fodder.

This is a touchy subject, and I understand both side of the argument. AP works hard to report accurate and timely stories and charges for access to those stories. Online news sites help get the word out about such stories - usually including a snippet from the article when doing so. Just look at this post - we took a snippet from DailyTech and we're linking to them in return. It's standard protocol for posting news, really.

I think there is an important distinction to be made between a free-access publication and a subscription-based publication. In any case, it will be interesting to see how this one unfolds.

The Asus Eee is a fine computer and everything, but we never expected it to run the game-rig-melting Crysis at a high frame rate. So how is it possible? Forgery? Magic? Deal with the devil? No, just a new version of StreamMyGame that now supports UMPCs, mini-notebooks and all those tiny little wimp computers–over 100 models in all. Still don't believe it actually works?

This is worth investigating. I've no doubts about it working in the same building, especially over gig E, and I'm sure that you can "play" other games over wireless. But for me to go to a coffee shop, even one in walking distance, and get my game on... Well I would doubtlessly be impressed. There are other considerations here, also. What about driver-level video tweaks? OK, that's pretty much it. Guess the only way to find out is to drop the twenty bucks and jump in, feet first.

By the way, playing PC games on your PS3 is retarded.

If you're in a hurry like me, to upgrade, set a download record, and still get work done, without being afeared of bleak crashes, but need all your swanky plugins and add-ons, here's what you gotta do:

Before you install:

Get Nightly Tester Tools. It lets you override compatibility code, which is essentially just a list of Firefox builds an add-on will work with. These codes aren't hard/ fast rules; most add-ons will work just fine, they're just not, er, enableable.

Install FF3. Yay!

Go ahead and run Firefox. Your add-ons probably won't work, so go ahead and click "Override all compatability", and restart Firefox. If it works, great. You may never need Nightly Tester Tools again. But I doubt it.

When it inevitably crashes, run FF in "Safe Mode", and disable all add-ons like in the image above. Run FF normally, and one by one, enable your add-ons, preferably in their order of indispensability. Some will work, some won't, but lather, disable all, and repeat until you've got things going smoothly.

This isn't a guarantee; some add-ons won't crash FF, but they won't work, either. I'm looking at you, Tab Mix Plus. But whatever, at least you have your precious Adblock going. (We're currently shilling Nokia stuff, Microsoft Office, and Netshelter. Ha!)

i had to whitelist ttl to find that out...

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

By the way, the official date for the launch of Firefox 3 will be posted here soon - so check back! Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

To continue yesterday's lecture about taking care of your own computer, the first sign that you aren't is if you're using Internet Explorer. You can use this as an excuse, like "I couldn't use my work email right with Firefox, I've been waiting for version three to come out of beta," and make the switch then.

Plus, you can congratulate yourself by lifting a cool, malty pint of the world's favourite porter stout to your bandwidth-parched lips. It's like distributed computing, you can pat yourself sore on the back.

CBS agreed to pay $11.50 per share for CNET, an online technology information network that also owns properties such as TV.com, Urbanbaby, Chow, and Search.com. The offer represents a 44 percent premium above CNET's closing price yesterday.

CBS is going forward with the purchase of CNET Networks to the tune of $1.8 billion dollars, or $150 million more than Google paid for YouTube a year and a half ago. It seems that CBS is pushing for a lion's share of internet presence that will place them in the "top 10 biggest internet properties". I love The Big Bang Theory and Criminal Minds as much as the next guy, and CNET has fed my gadget hunger for years, but I don't think match.com would have lined up these two for a blind date. Who knows? As they say, love is blind...

Until now, the only graphics cards supported by the Folding@home GPU client were ATI’s Radeon 16xx, 18xx and 19xx series cards. However, a new beta version is now available from here which will allow owners of HD 2xxx and 3xxx cards to contribute some of their graphics processing power to the project. The Folding@home project is run by Stanford University and simulates protein folding in the hope of finding cures for diseases including Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and many Cancers.

The best comment has already been said: "ughghghghgghg nvidia PLAY NICE!!!"

Thanks to the guys at Google (yay!) I’ve had a go at Google App Engine to see if I can port Yaki atop it and, eventually, migrate this entire site into the Google cloud. And yes, I think it’s doable, but it’s bound to take a while.

Yaki has, at its core, a little above 3800 lines of code right now (that is excluding Snakelets, extra Python libraries and HTML). That relatively meagre amount of code has been holding this site together for almost a year with nary a hitch (save those I cause myself from time to time) and manages nearly 5000 Wiki pages (including 2000 blog posts and a little above 500 linkblog items).

All in all, it’s one of the pieces of code I’m most proud of (although it should be said that the codebase that is currently up on Google Code is woefully outdated – something I cannot see getting fixed anytime soon).

Someday I'm going to find the secret device that Google has that converts things given away into money. And I'm not sure what I'll do with it in the long run, but I think I'd start with obliterating Second Life.

Just go to Woot.com.

I was approached today, while meandering through the red light district that is my inbox, and at first, I thought he was just another Chinese sales rep, trying to cut me a deal on v 1gra and essential herbal enlargers--for hiking her twin peaks, if you catch my meaning. But there was something different about this guy, and not in the freak-weird way that one bastard who pretended to be me, reminding me to check out that awesome mortgage refinancier was, but that he was serious. Practically legit.

After he whispered what I thought was a sincere apology, but just as well could have been flagging me like some mark, he pressed an envelope into my hands. Sure, it's that funny money you can only spend on subscriptions, but with the prescriptions I get flashed with, who wants drugs? Movies don't pay the bills, but they sure make my HTPC grin like it's got a new lease on life.

The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.

But the ads were a hoax. Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave.

The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.

On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.

When I was in high school, I put an ad in a paper for... someone's... classic Thunderbird. But I was in high school, and that was completely different!

But, call it a hunch, if something like this happens to you, you are a complete d-bag.

the "d" is for douche. the image the result of the search terms "someone's classic douche", and holy crap, cthulhu circus!

It came to me in a sign.... build a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and put it on the courthouse lawn in Crossville Tennessee so that others can share in its beautiful image and learn about Its story........ Read about my journey below.

the pictures say a thousand saucy words