They have been working on their PC racing game simulation for four years and they take it very seriously. So seriously that, now it is out of beta playtesting just testing and it is ready to play be experienced they want to make sure nobody gets the wrong impression and accidentally has fun.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that ‘game’ is a four-letter word to us, but we don’t think of ourselves as a game company,” says iRacing marketing guy Scott McKee, “What we offer is really the world’s most sophisticated commercially available racing simulation, conceived and designed with a very discriminating customer in mind — professional racers."

To reflect the distinction, iRacing has coined the entirely non-ludicrous term MMIS — Massively Multiparticipant Internet Sport

So please bear that in mind if you decide to play their game. It's not a game, and you aren't playing it.

Red Sox Owner’s Simulation Startup, iRacing.com, Waves the Green Flag [Xconomy via Slashdot]

If you don’t take care of your web application vulnerabilities, someone else will.

You tell 'em Dancho!

Sony PlayStation’s site SQL injected [ZDNet via CNET] [Pic]

Block, a psychiatrist in Portland, Ore., recently wrote an editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry arguing that Internet Addiction should become a new diagnostic term.

It's interesting to read his thoughts and them to compare it to the things being said by the psychiatrists I interviewed back in 1999 when I wrote a story about how researchers think that Internet and Sex addiction are very similar. Back then a David Greenfield, director for the Center of Internet Studies, told me that the Internet was addictive and that that particular form of addiction was nearing a national epidemic... yet somehow we survived.

Unlike the Globe's story, my 1999 story has at least one well-known psychology researcher arguing that obsessive use of the internet isn't really about addiction, but curiosity of a new technology.

Block, who has some genuinely interesting ideas, also talks about the tie between school shooters and compulsive computer use, making sure not to say that computers cause violence.

BLOCK: With these shooters, their last act was to turn against their own computers. As a psychiatrist, I think that's relevant.

'Craft Addicts: Do online games trigger a new psychiatric disorder? [Boston Globe]

"This exciting alliance with the BBC is yet another way in which Nintendo is looking to broaden the market for its products by offering compelling and relevant content to families," added David Yarnton, general manager of Nintendo UK.

Wii gets BBC iPlayer [GamesIndustry.biz]

On March 12 McPherson returned from SXSW to discover that his home had been broken into and that the burglar had made off with his Xbox 360, an old Powerbook and a television.

Familiar with the competence of the Philadelphia police, McPherson decided to hunt for the items himself and soon found that the burglar had tried to sell his laptop at a local pawn shop, which has images of the guy from their camera. He tries to give the info to police, but never hears back.

Fast forward to Friday when McPherson's workmates present him with a replacement Xbox 360. He goes home, hooks it up and discovers a voice message on his 360 from some guy saying he has his 360 and wants cash to give it back. Better still the idiot uses his current account to leave the message.

McPherson calls police again and is hung up on... so he turns things over to the Internet and business is handled.

As everyone probably knows mob justice is a bitch and Digg Mob justice makes that look pretty. Since the story hit Digg the person who left the message asking for 360 ransom has been identified, his address and high school location posted, he's been harassed, seemingly endlessly, via AIM.

Eventually the kid caved and told his parents, McPherson was, apparently in touch with them and now seems to have all of his stuff back. According to his Twitter, the kid actually hand-delivered some of the stolen goods on Sunday.

Makes you feel good inside doesn't it?

Update: Wow, You're a Moron. When the Internet Attacks [McFearsome]

Internet cafes have been repeatedly targeted for breeding juvenile crime and promoting truancy, despite widely ignored rules barring anyone under 18 from admission. Located in towns and small cities throughout China, internet cafes mainly offer online games that are popular among young people. Authorities have blamed the cafes for Internet addiction and for encouraging juvenile crime as a way to earn money to play online games.

First the problem was that kids were so busy playing WoW and other MMORPGs that they didn't have time for anything else; now the problem is that WoW's keeping them too busy ... with crime? Does this mean we'll see a related drop off in suspect addiction 'treatment' methods?

China Targets Internet in Crime Sweep [AP]

In a sweep designed to "clean up young people's online environment," police in the southern Chinese border city of Shenzhen uncovered 563 illegal Internet cafes, Xinhua said. The crackdown netted 1,407 computers, while 7 people were arrested and nearly 5,000 Internet accounts closed.

Shenzhen police in one case discovered 30 computers crammed into a 40-square meter room.

Other unregistered establishments were tucked in the upper floors of otherwise empty buildings. "This shows the difficulties the law enforcers face," Xinhua noted.

Promising more crackdowns and more laws, the Chinese government is attempting to bite back. I'm just unconvinced it's actually going to do anything other than flush out some illegal businesses and further bloat the bureaucracy.

China flags crackdown on "undesirable" online games [Reuters]

Sounds like EGM and 1UP were quite justified in their legal "picking on" of Pereira and Blogeek. He's an EGM Brazil freelancer and has now admitted to swiping the pics from Ziff-Davis' own media servers. EGM editor-in-chief Dan Hsu, who says ZD has the IP logs of the transgression to back it up, explains.

Guys, maybe a little journalistic investigating before you blast us? How about talking to Ziff Davis to get the "full story"? This guy did not get the information from an "anonymous source." He's a freelancer for EGM Brazil who finally admitted to them that he did not have a source, but rather, stole the information from our servers (we have IP logs for this). He used his working relationship with EGM Brazil, stole a password, and took information from our story and posted it up before we could.

If one of Kotaku's freelancers stole a password to steal a scoop, would that be cool? I'd be OK with it if, indeed, he had a source that leaked the information (I stood up for Kotaku for that very act in last year's Sony debacle). But that's not what's happened. What he did was just outright illegal, irresponsible, and is not what journalists are supposed to do.

Please, next time, before blasting us...maybe get the other side of the story?

Thanks to Hsu for clearing up the matter. I'm off to wince!

When contacted over the weekend Pereira denied the allegations and said that he never admitted to anything.

They don't know what they're saying!!! That's right, I in fact write some things for the brazilian mag. Though, I'm a freelancer, and therefore I don't have access to their FTP. I never wrote a story that used the FTP. And I NEVER admitted that I stole the pictures from their FTP, because I didn't. I know it sounds suspicious, but you must believe me, I don't have their FTP login and did not stole any pics form there. They were given to me, and I published them.

• Almost half had been to an internet or comic cafe
• In a multiple answer poll about what they do at internet/comic cafes, 75 percent said they used the internet, 69.6 percent read manga, 33.8 percent eat or drink, 31.1 percent read magazines, 19.6 percent sleep, 16.2 percent watch DVDs, 11.5 percent play console games and 6.8 percent take a shower. (Yes, there are usually showers.)
• Another multiple answer poll inquired what people do on the internet. 90.1 percent said they look at sites, 44.1 percent send and read email, 22.5 percent read bulletin boards, 21.6 percent work and 21.6 percent play online games. To put that in prespective, 19.8 percent update their own blog.

So, there you go. Don't worry about Japanese people playing online games until they have heart attacks. Not likely to happen!
Internet Cafes [What Japan Thinks]

Wii party invites at Evites [Evites]

"Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities," James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates, said in a prepared statement.

Over the last year, casual gaming has risen 79%, while social networks like MySpace and Facebook only rose 46%. Things aren't completely rosy for gaming's dominance, however, as the casual video viewing portion of the audience grew a massive 123%, which I attribute completely to Chocolate Rain.

"The casual gaming industry cannot rest on its laurels," Kuai said. "In order to counter the growing competition from other online activities, the industry needs to continue to grow its fan base and find ways to better monetize its existing audience."

Game-Playing Eclipses Social Networks, Online Video [Yahoo! News]

Which is why I am starting an entirely inappropriate internet campaign: bring back J. When the Xbox originally launched, the then chubby exec was everywhere. Jallard got thinner, cooler and more eXtreme as the Xbox 360 launch drew near, and then POOF, he was gone — off to work on the Zune or something. Right now, he's probably holed up, working on Microsoft's answer to the iPhone. A waste! We don't want a Microsoft iPhone. We want J saying stuff about the Xbox 360, riding mountain bikes and being eXtreme. Sure, Allard might be a phony or whatever, but he's quotable and wears hoodies! Best of all, we've actually creeped him out. Think we'll be able to creep out Moore's replacement? Ha! J's the Prodigal Son, Microsoft, and it's about friggin' time he came home.

Sign below to show you're support for The Return of Jallard:

For the rest of you who are already Internet Channel enabled, do you find yourself using it? The extent of my personal use has been solely for initial testing purposes, but I also have three other internet ready devices within a ten foot radius.

The regular price for the Internet Channel will go up to 500 Wii Points after June 30. Michael McWhertor

For a generation of marketers raised on TV and print, the internet is a gray nebulous. What works in traditional media? Getting as many eyes on a new product as possible — that creates buzz. But since the internet doesn't have "Prime Time" per se and is powered by a series of sites (not channels or publishers), focusing those eyes all at one time and one place poses a challenge online.

Hence countdowns.

We've touched on this before. Yesterday, even. We hate countdowns. Lemme reiterate that, we HATE countdowns. They're lazy, unimaginative marketing. The hope is with these countdowns that everyone will be looking at something at the same time — like with TV and print to a lesser extent. It's a way for people in business suits to measure publicity. Thing is, with the internet, more eyes doesn't always mean good publicity. This of course is not unique to the internet, but the key different is that we interact with the internet more so than traditional media. Of late, we've seen the following:

• Super Smash Bros.
• Island of Rhodes? ISLAND OF CRAP
• Bethesda Counts Down To "Please Stand By"

There are of course more. Are the game developers to blame? To extent yes and to an extent no. Developers develop games. That's what they do. The success of these online campaigns should not reflect on the actual game because they don't. Yet, the front office people hire marketers and approve plans. In that regard, they are at fault. What about us? Why do we cover them? That's what we do, we cover gaming trends, news and other stuff. Are we to blame? Yes and no. If we report on them, gazillions of people find out about them. If we don't and actual information is released, then we are not doing our job. But, just for second if companies had a month or a week countdown for a press release. That would annoy every press outlet to no end! But companies have no problem doing this via a game's site, and we have a big problem covering this lackluster marketing.

What works online? From what I can see, snowballing. Take a look at internet memes. They start small and get bigger and bigger. Sometimes they are unintentional, sometimes intentional. But they all start with something being posted. And because that original post is interesting, it gains ground. Companies tried this with viral marketing, but that style is often insulting. So now, these countdowns build up to that original posting. Why don't companies just release that info without announcing that they plan to do so X number of days later? Because it's scary, risky. What if nobody looks at their site? What if nobody notices? How horrible! Having faith in whatever information they are releasing means not hyping up that information. If it's really important, people will find out about it. Put it up on your site, don't lie to us and if it's good, we'll click away and crash your site with traffic. That's how the internet works, and that's how it works beautifully. Wise up, companies. The rules have changed. Brian Ashcraft

A long time ago, Nintendo was a big, mean scary company. Today's Nintendo is a big softy that adores pink children and Christmas. The cause of this turn around? Nintendo had to learn to love the internet and chill the heck out. Speaking at San Francisco's MI6 conference, Nintendo marketing boss George Harrison said Nintendo is a "controlling company" and that embracing user-generated content and blogs was a "big deal." He continues:

Opening up a MySpace area doesn't sound all that innovative to you guys... But for us it was a big deal. When people previously said bad things about Nintendo on our community areas, we deleted. Now we had to take the decision not to meddle. We had to allow consumers to say bad things about us. It turned out that our own supporters were much more articulate in supporting us than anyone in our offices at Redmond could ever be.

Insane Nintendo fanboys: Henchmen, minions, scary. Brian Ashcraft

Nintendo Chills Out [Next-Gen]

It's not bad. RSS readers aren't the sexiest of services, but they're indispensable for internerds like us. I messed around with it for a few minutes before writing this up but highly doubt I'll ever touch it again—not unlike the Wii browser and the Virtual Console. Michael McWhertor

Google launches Google Reader for the Wii [ZD.net]

The update was a 285 block download for me and I'm messing around with it right now. The final version of the Wii browser will be free until June 2007 at which point the download will cost 500 points.

New changes to the browser include, but are not limited to:

• Parental Controls


• Improved zooming and scrolling


• An improved zoomed font


• Shortened startup times


• Quicker access to "favorites"


• An ability to hide the toolbar


• Buttons that will instantly type common preset letters, such as "www" or ".com"


• Built-in Yahoo! or Google Search

Everything seems to be in order, but I've encountered one hiccup with the browser, as it locked up my Wii, forcing me to power down. Let us know what you think! Michael McWhertor

A developer from the Opera Desktop Team has announced that they have a "ppc-linux.6" package available now for the Playstation 3. This means for any of you who had the cojones to pry that thing open and install Linux on to your Playstation can tinker around with the coveted Opera Browser. Kim Phu

Approaching 9.2 [Opera desktop Team]

Buzz word of the month: SKU. It stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is pronounced as a word, "skew." It's a short hand way to say "individual retail product." Actually, I've never felt a big need to use "individual retail product" in a conversation and, let's say a few months ago, neither did most of the internet. While McWhertor tells me its been in use for a while now, it seems like recently, it's EVERYWHERE. Tim Rogers over at game site Insert Credit offers this insight as to why:

So why has this acronym suddenly popped into the videogame blogosphere? Because we like feeling elite? Maybe, maybe not. Keep in mind that a lot of the guys who get interviewed by videogame blogs are not actual game developers — they're videogame PR guys, and unlike, say, movie PR guys, who more often than not have at least seen a couple dozen movies in their lives, videogame PR guys tend to come from strict retail backgrounds. Nintendo's Reggie used to manage a Pizza Hut (or something), for God's sake. Spewing "SKU" left and right is these guys' revenge for you guys' talking about mysterious things they don't understand, like "graphics" or "gameplay".

I've actually used "SKU" in a post. Back in October. A tipster in retail used it in an email — Hence my inclusion of the term. Don't think that it's just that the typically verbose Tim Rogers hates brevity — This actually seems to be a trend. Something to think about. Or not. Brian Ashcraft

On SKU [Insert Credit]

The final version of the Wii Internet Channel has been pushed back to sometime in April, according to the people at Opera.

The final version of the Opera-powered Internet Channel for the Wii was slated for a release late this month, but Opera officials said today they are still working on the final version and it will be out sometime next month.

Opera and Nintendo are continuing to finalize what promises to be the ultimate Web surfing experience on the Wii console. The two companies are working closely together to meet user requests for browser features and to enhance the overall Wii Web experience.

The DS version of the web browser will be hitting North America in June. Brian Crecente

Nintendo does hate the internet. Just listen to SNK America president Ben Herman describe the Wii's current online situation:

Nintendo is still not letting Wii third-party publishers include online capabilities in their games and it doesn't look like they will during 2007.

If this is true, why the heck not, Nintendo?! Brian Ashcraft

SNK Honcho Talks Wii [Game|Life via 4CR]

What's the final version the Opera browser for the Wii like? Don't ask Opera reps, they don't know reports Wired's Chris Kohler. Of course, they'd love to add things like widget support and tabbed browsing, but it's not exactly Opera's decision to make. It's Nintendo's. And why isn't the Opera browser for the DS out in America? Once again, that's up to Nintendo. So, the point of involving Opera was what again? Brian Ashcraft

Wii Opera Browser Issues [Game|Life]

Just go into your Wii's internet channel and navigate to the URL below and you'll be all set. Happy spanking! Michael Fahey

Wii Flash Games [Albino Blacksheep - Thanks Odelay!]

Sony has announced plans to offer video downloads for the PSP in the first quarter of 2007. They are in negotiations with Amazon, Movielink, and Cinema now to allow customers to purchase video content online, download it to your PC, and then transfer it to your PSP, once again requiring a middleman to deliver content to an internet enabled device. At least this time around you'll only need a PC, unlike the PSX downloads which require a system many people consider mythical.

When I first got a PSP the whole watching movie thing was novel, but I quickly realized that the tiny screen, while crystal clear, was no way to enjoy a quality motion picture, and the UMD film market agrees. It is, however, probably the best portable porn delivery mechanism ever created. Michael Fahey

Sony to launch video download service for PlayStation Portable [Forbes.com]

Time Warner Cable, the company that was first at fast and first at fiber optics, is increasing your speed again. We're doubling it in the new year ... for no extra cost.

In the first quarter of 2007, Road Runner will be doubling the download speed for its residential customers to 10 Mbps. Our Time Warner Cable Business Class customers will experience similar increases in speed.* The same monthly price that you've been paying will stay the same.

Increased speed. Same price. Great deal.

We haven't told the media yet. This is a special notice directly to you, our loyal and valued Road Runner customer. In the coming weeks, you'll see more information about this exciting improvement in your internet service.

There was a time when this would have been great news for PC gamers who use the service, but nowadays it's great news for all gamers who use the service. I hope that as more providers realize the importance of high speed for gaming, more of them will offer free upgrades like this to keep us. We are, after all, legion. Brian Crecente

Road Runner Doubling Bandwidth [Loot Ninja]

During intermission, [Something Awful's] Kyanka does an interview with streaming site Wavelit.com. He's trying to be self-deprecating — he knows the matches will live forever on YouTube — but is too furious to laugh it all off. 'He said he wouldn't hit me really hard!' Lowtax fumes, rubbing his head. 'I hate him as a human being! This event is a combination of PR and BS!'

Meanwhile, [Ain't It Cool News'] Sneider is taking advantage of the country's socialized health care. As two EMS workers tend to him, he occasionally removes his oxygen mask to vomit. As the intermission ends, the director emerges from the dressing room, looking serene. Kyanka points to Sneider's sickly puddle. 'Look what you did!' he snaps. Boll glances back, bemused. 'It was boxing,' he deadpans. 'Not chess.'

Zing! Man, if Uwe could make movies like he beats up internet geeks, he'd be Steven Spielberg. Instead he'll have to be content with being Uwe Boll: Director of horrible films, chowderhead supreme. Brian Ashcraft

Raging Boll [Wired]

Here's how it works:

The console, as I pointed out in a video, has an address book. In the address book you can find out your console's Wii Number, register a friend or send a message.

To register a friend you have to be connected to the Internet. Next you tap in their nickname then enter the Wii Number for their console or, if your friend is on a PC or cell phone, you enter their email address.

Keep in mind that to register another person as a Wii Friend, both of you need to register each other.

At the keynote for the 2006 London Games Summit, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios [Europe] V.P. Michael Denny got down to brass tacks on the future of gaming. And it is? In the hands of you and me, the consumers. Game site Gamasutra was on hand, and reports that Denny said, "consumers have more choices, want better things and have louder voices." And we are making our voices being made over the internet—hence, the niche market growth.

For those worrying about Sony's online service, fear not. Sony is taking this very seriously. Well, at least Denny is. He points out that:

It is becoming unlikely that any new computers purchased will not be used standalone, without the internet. This is how we feel about the PlayStation 3.

Reassuring, indeed. Microsoft has already hot wired its console and is taking advantage of the intertubes. Denny adds that it is necessary to inspire new gamers, connect them in new ways and extend both gameplay and franchise value. It, he notes, will take careful planning on the industry's part. "This requires the most fundamental shift that our industry has ever seen," Denny believes. Well said. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Gamasutra]

Got a DS dongle? The device will double as a Wii hotspot. Plug it into the USB port on your computer, and you're good to go. For the dongle-less, Nintendo will be releasing an Ethernet Kit, which will let users connect their consoles to a standard internet router. There were previous concerns that the console could only connect via WiFi due to the Wii's lack of an Ethernet port. Good to know, though why didn't Nintendo just add an Ethernet port? Brian Ashcraft

Wii Ethernet Kit [CAV, via 1Up]

Let's look at some example scenarios:

Our couple has been trying to slay a dragon for two hours, have died for the 20th time and the last of their armor is broken. Anyone would be irritated at this point, but who is mature enough to laugh it off and show some positive attitude, like suggesting they try again the next day, and instead go on a mountaintop picnic for now? Then again, who is childish or short tempered enough to storm off fuming because it was you that messed up during most of those attempts. Who starts giving sermons about how things are really done?

[...]

In summary: MMO relationships are playing the fast forward button to getting to know someone. As mentioned in one of the articles in the Daedelus project, Inside Out, "you get to know someone inside out".

This article is necessarily bare of the issue of people who roleplay, either for fun, profit, or the joy of deception, as such a tangent would derail the original concept of the piece. Indeed, in my experience, people online are similar to the inebriated: they think they're being funnier, cooler, and more badass than is actually possible, which leads to a sort of fisheye view of their core beings. Eliza Gauger

Better Dating Through MMOs [TerraNova]

Phil Harrison took to the microphone at the Sony party during TGS to show off the some of the new non-gaming features of the PS3. Of course he told people not to video the presentation, and of course someone did.
The video shows off the PS3's full featured web browser, which can have multiple windows open at the same time. It also shows NBA 07 running on 1080p at 60 frames per a second, a glimpse of PSP connectivity, somenew photo browser stuff and the visualizer. At E3 I asked about the visualizer and they showed me music playing with that stream you see going through the center of the screen. That was it. So the visualizer has obviously come a long way since then. I also love that Sony is upfront about their console supporting a USB keyboard.

Despite the lack of real gameplay in this video, I think this is the first clip in quite awhile to really get me interested in the console.

Hit the jump to watch another clip showing the kind sophisticated looking boot screen for the PS3.

Opera on the DS always looked almost completely unusable to me, so I was a bit skeptical about the announcement that Opera would be the browser of choice for the Wii.

Amazingly, though, this video of the Wii's internet channel looks just amazingly slick and easy to use. The zooming function is butter smooth; I love the way the cursor automatically leaps between links. Flash works extremely well. It all looks great.

But does anyone notice something missing from this video? No, not how the Wii handles porn. Like, how text entry will work? I assume it'll be done by soft keyboard, but I think almost everyone knows that will be pretty nightmarish. And letter recognition is similarly problematic.

I assume that's the worst part of using the Wii to browse on the internet, and it bodes ill that Nintendo's trying to hide it in their video. Florian Eckhardt

Wii.com Internet Channel Video [Official Site]

The always heady Terra Nova contemplates what our internet names say about us. More specifically, the origin behind an online handle. Bonnie Ruberg for TN writes:

Still, our internet names are unique—they represent possibly the only times in life when we get to decide for ourselves what we'll be called. And where we draw our inspiration for these names says something significant about us: how we want to be seen, understood, defined.

*Pst* This is the part where you tell a story about how you picked your name.

Whenever I read through our comments, I always wonder where our readers get their monikers from (especially the really lame ones). How do you guys choose them? And what, if anything, do they mean? Do tell. We're all ears. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Terra Nova]

Get your free Wii web browser while you can. Opera has announced that its browser will be available globally for a limited time. The Wii's version of Opera will support Flash, AJAX content and everything else on their current free version of Opera 9 for desktops. Download the free Wii Opera by June 2007. After that, you're shit outta luck and must pay. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [1Up]

Over at Aeropause, they spotted this worrying paper submitted by Sony to the FCC. In the paper, Sony claims that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules in the PS3 do not transmit simultaneously. This is doubtlessly meant to assuage some sort of FCC requirement.

But if this is true, doesn't that mean that you couldn't be connected wirelessly to the internet and use wireless controllers at the same time? And isn't that just stupid?

Aeropause is cautioning that people not read too much into this, before explanations have been gathered. And hell, there's a few possible explanations, no doubt. I'd personally be surprised if this were true. But then I start thinking all the other ways Sony has managed to fuck up their sure thing, and I start getting a little bit nervous again. Florian Eckhardt

FCC PS3 Papers, What Does This Mean? [Aeropause]

Edit: Kotakuite Kigian writes in the comments:

It is true that both Bluetooth and Wifi use the same ISM band. However as anyone who has Wifi in their home and who uses Bluetooth too, they certainly do work together just fine. They don't need to be transmitting simultaneously.

And Kotakuite John Doe also wrote in:

Just saw your article on the FCC filing revealing that PS3's bluetooth and wifi do not transmit simultaneously. This simply indicates that they're using Time Domain Multiplexing to interleave Bluetooth and Wifi activity to avoid interference between the two signals (since both are on the 2.4Ghz band). To the user, they'll both appear to be on simultaneously, but technically underneath they're actually each active on alternating intervals (it alternates between the two very very quickly, so that to the user it appears they're both on at the same time, all the time). You can do this because the bandwidth required from Wifi and Bluetooth combined is less than that offered by the 2.4Ghz range.

You guys rule. Thanks for the clarification! So we can all probably stand down in alarm on this one' although if that's de facto the way WiFi and Bluetooth operate together, I'm not entirely clear on why it needed to be specified by Sony.

See that girl on the right? That's the trailer park scowl of a woman trying to keep a loose belt around her torso using only her nipples. You have to cinch it more than that, lady.

The one on the left is, I discovered, a pornlet known as Mia Rose, and has a charming interview over on Gram Ponante. My favorite bit is when she says her alt is a "druid priest", but this is pretty good too:

Have you ever met any one from WOW in person? I haven't met anyone from the game, but I play with people I know in real life...lol. But I have met people off of another online game.. Halo 2... why? Cause I'm a nerd like that. w00t

Captivating. Score one for girl gamers, Mia.

There's a link from the interview to a gallery of her photos, completely NSFW, featuring all the squinting, squatting, ingrown hairs and Filter>Distort>Diffuse Glow you've come to expect. Whores of Warcraft's first patch will be the Razorburn Crusade. Eliza Gauger

Interview with Mia Rose [Gram Ponante, via digg]

Our good pal Josh Zimmerman decided to follow-up his first, already-pretty-dang comprehensive video review of the DS Opera browser with a second, even-more-dang-comprehensive one.

His full review can be found here at his homepage, including everyone's favorite... words! Florian Eckhardt

Nintendo DS Browser Review [Josh Zimmernan]
Previously: Opera DS Can't Render Kotaku, Otherwise Okay

I just figured out why Sen. Hillary Clinton doesn't like video games: she's afraid it will lead to the Borgitization of the nation's children.
Speaking to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Clinton warned that advertisers are already using video games and the Internet to get at kids, and soon they might start implanting computer chips in their heads.

"At the rate that technology is advancing, people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy," Clinton said at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
...
The New York Democrat said the country was performing a "massive experiment" on kids who average more than six hours a day with media and advertising, soaking it up through TV, computers, games and iPods. She said the fastest growing advertising market is the 6- and under set, and that children's health is already being hurt by products like Camel's candy-flavored cigarettes and junk food sold with tips for video games - used to sell more junk food.