Barbara St. Hilaire spends about 50 hours a week wielding a machete, dismembering demons and battling a slew of thugs, zombies, and other nasties of the video-gaming world. Having recently nailed a 100% score in Outlaw Golf 2, she’s now focused on mastering the top levels in God of War. It’s a passion that has [...]

That requirement could appear as an amendment to a draft digital-television bill currently scheduled for a committee vote on Thursday, said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican. The existing bill calls for a "hard deadline" of April 7, 2009, by which all analog broadcasters must give up their piece of the spectrum and switch to [...]

Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that’s scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.   "The Internet is likely to face a grave threat" at the summit, Coleman said in a statement on Monday. "If [...]

Jon Lech Johansen, the 21-year-old Norwegian media hacker nicknamed DVD Jon, is moving to San Diego to work for maverick tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson in what can only be described as the most portentous team-up since Butch met Sundance.   A world-famous reverse engineer by the time he was 16, the soft-spoken tinkerer outraged the [...]

Two industry trade groups sued the state of California on Monday after the state passed a law barring the sale of violent video games to minors.   The trade group Entertainment Software Association announced its intentions to fight in court immediately after Schwarzenegger signed the ban 10 days ago. Video Software Dealers Association joined in [...]

While the codes may aid the Secret Service’s fight against counterfeiting, the practice raises some larger issues for society, according to EFF Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "People who want to protect their anonymity — whether they’re whistleblowers or dissidents or journalists or whatever — when they print something out, should know that there’s an issue [...]

In the week since Jobs unveiled the handheld iPod, which plays video clips on a 2.5-inch diagonal screen, media and technology executives have been trying to figure out whether people will watch shows on a small screen, what types of programs will work and whether money can be made at the $1.99 price Apple set. [...]

The Trojan horse, a variant of IRCbot, arrives in an e-mail purporting to be an update to Skype, the popular Internet telephony application. Once opened the malicious software displays a phony installation error message. It then blocks access to security updates and installs a back door on computers, MessageLabs said in a statement. The e-mail [...]

The Google Print sites–for France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain–enable users to search books provided by publishers in each country as well as English-language books in the Google library for which the company has secured local rights.   Susan Wojcicki, a vice president for product management at Google, said in an [...]

For some months, the company has been seeking royalties from accessory makers that want to display a "Made for iPod" logo on their products. The program, which one analyst has likened to an "iPod tax," applies to devices that connect electrically to the player and not to cosmetic things like cases.   Now Apple has [...]

 Peter Moore, Microsoft’s VP of Xbox marketing and publishing division, recently revealed during the Digital Life event certain details for Xbox Live Arcade. 35 titles are planned to be available for the service by Summer 2006. Over 40 developers and publishers have signed up to support Xbox Live Arcade, including Sega, Konami, and Namco. The [...]

Nintendo has joined forces with McDonald’s to offer free wireless internet access in the US for its DS handheld games console.   The service means McDonald’s customers will be able to play selected DS titles against other gamers around the globe. McDonald’s already offers wireless internet access in many US restaurants, but charges a fee. [...]

Sean Egan, Google Inc.’s latest high-profile hire, up until a few weeks ago was lead developer of software to simultaneously use multiple IM accounts.   But now he’s got some much bigger fish to fry, namely helping Google chart the future of Google Talk, the search giant’s instant messaging feature that for now stands in [...]

"The epoch-making expansion of memory capacity in handsets will allow mobile phones to be the main multimedia devices for music and movies," said Lee Ki-tae, president of Samsung’s mobile phone business division, in a press release.   Currently, conventional mobile phones have a memory capacity of some 100 MB. Samsung Electronics, the world’s third-largest mobile [...]

No sooner did Apple reveal its latest, the video iPod, than it started the rumor mill churning again — this time with an invitation to reporters to an unveiling of its "latest pro innovations" Wednesday in New York.   The PhotoPlus Expo kicks off the next day in the city’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. It’s [...]

Unions representing Hollywood actors, writers and directors have called for talks over the use of TV shows on Apple’s new video iPod.   The unions want to ensure their members get a cut of the revenue generated by the sale of TV shows on Apple software.   ABC is the first network to do a [...]

Driving to work, you notice the traffic beginning to slow. And because you have your cell phone on, the government senses the delay, too. A congestion alert is issued, automatically updating electronic road signs and websites and dispatching text messages to mobile phones and auto dashboards.   In what would be the largest project of [...]

Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern Saturday about a free mapping program from Google, warning it could help terrorists by providing satellite photos of potential targets.   Google Earth, launched in June this year, allows users to access overlapping satellite photos. Although not all areas are highly detailed, some images are very high resolution, [...]

Parked alongside his onion fields, Bob Hale can prop open a laptop and read his e-mail or, with just a keystroke, check the moisture of his crops.   As the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online, play a video game or turn his irrigation sprinklers on and off, all from the air [...]

Federal regulators will require banks to strengthen security for Internet customers through authentication that goes beyond mere user names and passwords, which have become too easy for criminals to exploit. Bank Web sites are expected to adopt some form of "two-factor" authentication by the end of 2006, regulators with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council [...]