A Toxic Shroud: "China is choking on its own success” and endangering neighbors and American cities

 
Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley of the New York Times, on August 26th, produced an excellent story on China’s industrial success/toxic pollution nexus. The situation is dire, and China’s difficulties overcoming the Victorian England-like pollution troubles in order to host an Olympics palpable to the rest of the world are well known, and have been [...]

Read Full Post »

The HD Molehill/Spitwad battle; and, Paramount and DreamWorks choose HD-DVD

Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG–including, inter alia, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies, and MTV Films–announced today (Monday Aug 20th 07) that they will release their next-gen DVD titles exclusively on HD-DVD, dropping the Blu-Ray format. Want to watch Transformers, Shrek the Third, and Blades of Glory? Gotta do it in [...]

Read Full Post »

Confirmed: Xbox 360 Price Drop / Rumor: HDMI to all SKUs?

Xbox’s Major Nelson confirmed Monday that there will be price drops come August 8th–the 360 “Premium,” as we’ve known it (20 gig) will drop $50 to $349. The Core (without hard drive) will drop $20 to $279, and the Elite will drop $30 to $449.
Official MS Press Release HERE.
Also, ArsTechnica reports that a “source” [...]

Read Full Post »

UPDATE: $50 Xbox 360 price cut details emerging

Yesterday (the 24th of July), AO updated the 1 August $100 price cut rumor with news from XboxScene, which vaguely commented that the 360 would see a price cut of $50. No further details had emerged from that original rumor about a 1 August price drop, and the news from XboxScene seemed not worthy [...]

Read Full Post »

Exactly who is buying the Wii???

2 stories were released today that seem to be a contradiction in terms. Both stories involve NPD – a market research firm. Taken together, they could indicate that Nintendo’s recent dominance will eventually evaporate.
The first is from TG Daily. They are reporting that NPD’s latest data indicates that Nintendo’s Wii outsold both Xbox 360 [...]

Read Full Post »

An open letter to Bethesda Softworks

From: Aidyn
To: Bethesda Softworks
Re: Fallout 3 – please don’t fuck this up.

First of all, I do want to thank you for all the work that you did in the first place in keeping my love alive.
After the demise of Interplay due to bankruptcy, you bought the IP rights to make a single player game. [...]

Read Full Post »

Boba Fett May Find Work With the IRS: Bounties Double Under 26 U.S.C. § 7623

Lime, you had better make sure that you completed your W-2 correctly, or you could be on the receiving end of a qui tam action filed by yojoe.
The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, (26 U.S.C. § 7623), provides additional incentives for those who come forward [...]

Read Full Post »

Intemperate Punditry: why (some pundits can’t see that) the Xbox 360 can’t help but lead in next-gen gaming

Politics is rife with it: witness, on opposite sides of the spectrum, Glenn Greenwald and Rush Limbaugh–blind opinion-marshalls of opposite corners of the political ring. According to Rush, the better known of the polemicists, everything “Liberal” is ripe for scorn. Rush has been around long enough that most listeners know that he’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Nintendo is so crazy, it just might work (again)

I have to admit, I got this one wrong. Really wrong. I had no clue that Nintendo would even survive, much less thrive in the competitive market that is somewhat known as the “next-gen” console wars.
In case you’ve been living under a rock (or just don’t care), Nintendo was considered a distant third [...]

Read Full Post »

In Memoriam: Hadley v. Baxendale

Lawyers of the world, rejoice! Cultural heritage is yours/ours too–and if we can contribute to the general good/commonweal, we’re not all bottom feeders. (Just most of us, eh?)
Time has come for commemoration of that seminal Contracts-law case. Gloucester (pronounced “gloss’-ter”) England authorities are going to place two plaques on the (below) City Flour Mills building [...]

Read Full Post »

Xbox 360 Chatpad, Pink/Blue Controllers, Halo SKU Release Dates

The 360 Chatpad is due out in the U.S. Thursday, September 6th, at the announced $29.99 price. It clips onto the bottom of your 360 controller and allows you to IM and send e-mails without using the on-screen keyboard. I was aware that the package included a wired headset (the original 360 wired [...]

Read Full Post »

$100 price cut on all Xbox 360 SKUs, 1 August? (RUMOR) [UPDATED 24 Jul 07]

I post this with a note of caution, I know nothing about the source. Nonetheless, Zero Iscariot over at Destructoid reports news today from
a very good source within a major Canadian retailer that guarantees that despite the lack of a cut at E3 this week, the Xbox 360 will drop $100 across all SKU’s. [...]

Read Full Post »

MS/PS3 News Roundup PLUS a Prediction: a Xbox 360 Price Drop at Tuesday’s E3 (or soon, soon, soon!)

After the RROD/3 year warranty enhancement news, “other” news has just poured out of Redmond, or at least about the Redmond giant Microsoft.
First off, though, the PS3 news: for those of you in caves, be aware that on July 9th, Sony confirmed rumors of an upcoming new price structure for the glossy box. Effective [...]

Read Full Post »

Microsoft’s Savvy or Setback? The $1 billion writeoff, 3-year “Red Ring of Death” Warranty Enhancement

[UPDATED 8 Jul 07: Transcript of MS' conference call on 5 Jul 06 with Robbie Bach is HERE.  "Open Letter" from MS' Peter Moore to the Xbox 360 community explaning the new warranty terms HERE.]
By now the news has coursed across the globe, Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday, 5 July 07, that it would take [...]

Read Full Post »

June 07 Comparison: XBox 360 Graphics vs. PS3 Graphics

Gamespot editors have just published a second iteration of their comparison of XBox 360 and PS3 graphics, wherein they post photos from identical games from each of the two systems. In December 2006, one year post-360 release and just after the November 06 PS3 release, Gamespot conducted a similar comparison. The December 06 comparison [...]

Read Full Post »