Japanese trade body the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association has announced the dates for this year's Tokyo Game Show, which will take place over four days for the first time.
TGS 2007 will run from Thursday September 20 until Sunday September 23. For the first two days the event will only be open to industry professionals, while members of the public will be able to attend the second half of the show.
Traditionally TGS has taken place over three days. It's thought that the move to extend this is part of plans to increase the show's profile and attract more international visitors as E3 is downsized.
Publication Date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 21st July 2007 at 00:01 BST in the UK and at 00:01 in the USA. It will also be released at 00:01 BST on Saturday 21st July in other English speaking countries around the world.
Heres the full press release
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, the seventh and final book in the best-selling series, has been scheduled for release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, 2007, it was announced today by Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company.
In making the announcement, Lisa Holton, President of Scholastic Children’s Books said, “We are thrilled to announce the publication date of the seventh installment in this remarkable series. We join J.K. Rowling’s millions of readers – young and old, veterans and newcomers – in anticipating what lies ahead.”
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling’s sixth Harry Potter book, was released on July 16, 2005, and was the fastest-selling book in history, selling 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours. All six Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have been number one bestsellers in the United States, the U.K., and around the world. There are currently over 120 million copies of the Harry Potter books in print in the United States alone.
Scholastic will publish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (ISBN: 0-545-01022-5 ; Price: $34.99) in hardcover under the Arthur A. Levine imprint with interior and cover art by Mary GrandPré, who has illustrated the previous six books. The deluxe edition (ISBN: 0-545-02937-6; Price: $65.00) and reinforced library edition (ISBN: 0-545-02936-8 ; Price: $39.99 ) will be published simultaneously.
Aficionados of the kind of quality programming for which Channel 4 is rightly reknowned will be disappointed to learn it has pulled its planned "wank week" - a series of three late-night programmes dedicated to bashing the bishop and petting the beaver.
The short season was set to feature the London "Masturbate-a-thon" event, originally conceived in San Francisco as a way of undermining the very basis of US society through mass onanistic excess.
The loss of wood on Channel 4's part seems to be "a bid to avoid further controversy in the aftermath of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row", as The Guardian explains.
Furthermore, there's concern down at the channel about the negative publicity the wank week idea has already attracted. In August last year, former ITV big cheese Charles Allen used his MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh to cite it as an example of falling standards at the nation's favourite TV controversymonger.
There is hope, however: Channel 4 may in the future broadcast the three self-love documentaries - which also include insights into compulsive male masturbators and girls jerking their merkins - although not under the "wank week" banner. ®
Bootnote
We have no confirmation that Channel 4 has also cancelled plans for a Celebrity Come Dancing spectacular in which C-list male celebs crack one off while dancing the Rumba with Natasha Kaplinsky. Watch this space.
JK ROWLING finished her final Harry Potter book three weeks ago — according to a clue she left in a hotel room.
The author scribbled a note in black marker on the back of a marble bust in Edinburgh’s five-star Balmoral Hotel.
It read: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007.”
One worker snapped the message on a mobile phone camera. And a hotel source said: “We couldn’t believe it when we saw it.
“We get celebrities in the Balmoral all the time and they often sign autographs for fans — but no one has left one behind on an ornament before.”
JK’s seventh and last Harry Potter is due out on July 21, her website revealed yesterday.
The Balmoral refused to comment on the message. But the writer’s representative confirmed she had been penning the novel at the swanky hotel.
The venue is a world away from JK’s roots as an author. She wrote the first in the series — Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone — in Edinburgh cafes Nicholson’s and The Elephant House while a single mum on benefits.
JK has already said two characters die in the new book — with widespread speculation that Harry is one of them.
Although most fans probably weren't expecting Deathly Hallows in this online medium, a lawyer for JK Rowling's literary agency confirmed today that Deathly Hallows would not be released in an e-book format. The previous six Potter novels were not released as e-books either.
Concerns for releasing a legal e-book include online piracy and the "desire for readers to experience the books on paper."
This weekend Viacom decided to throw some weight around, sending 100,000 DMCA notices to YouTube, telling them to take down any clip that came up when any of their shows were searched for. That not only means that clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will be harder to come by now, but that clips even coincidentally titled similarly to any Viacom property have been taken down.
With that volume of requests, Google doesn't have the manpower to check to see if all of the clips are actually copyrighted material. And it seems like Viacom just told them to remove everything that came up during certain searches, meaning they didn't verify each clip either. Yes, two gigantic companies are working together to censor online videos, with neither of them actually bothering to make sure they aren't removing thousands upon thousands of legitimate content. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
This is terrible, and Google needs to pony up the dough to make sure their service isn't being completely perverted by these corporate thugs. And hey, Viacom: screw you. This kind of severe, anti-consumer action is not how you win loyalty.
Jo has updated several sections of her official site. The biggest update is in her diary, where she shared her thoughts on finishing the seventh novel:
I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be. Even while I'm mourning, though, I feel an incredible sense of achievement. I can hardly believe that I've finally written the ending I've been planning for so many years. I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric.
She goes on to say that Deathly Hallows is her favorite book of the series. In the rumors section, she cleared up why the announcement made last week didn't sound so happy:
This could not be further from the truth! The 21st July publication date has given me enough time to write the book I wanted to write, and for the manuscript to be properly edited. These are the most important things to me. An earlier date - eg, 7/7/07 - would have meant that either the writing or editing was rushed, and neither my publishers nor I wanted that. Any brevity in my announcement was down to the fact that I was busy editing!
Lastly, Jo made two updates to her FAQ section, one addressing what the two other titles she considered for Book 7 were, and another refusing to tell us what "Deathly Hallows" means, as it would give too much away about the story.
Alright folks, you should all be well aware by now that the internet ain't nothin' to mess with, but apparently a few folks in the South Korea area have just learned that the hard way. In what is being called the most severe attack on the web since the barrage of 2002, the same 13 "root servers" were targeted within the past 24 hours in a presumed attempt to disrupt global network traffic. Hackers were able to "briefly overwhelm" three of the 13 computers managing virtual thoroughfare with a series of "powerful attacks lasting as long as 12 hours," and while even the Homeland Security Department confirmed that it had witnessed "anomalous" internet traffic, most of the digital world hummed along without a care. Motives for the attack still aren't clear, but initial reports are suggesting that extortion of data or other malicious intent is probably unlikely, and what's more probable is a few folks trying to disguise data coming from South Korea were just having a bit of frowned-upon fun. Now, who else in the world thinks they can single handedly dismantle the internet?
It's been confirmed that a hacker has managed to crack the AACS protection system used for HD-DVD movie discs, enabling others to make illegal copies.
According to the BBC Technology website, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Authority has said that the hack can only be used on a limited number of titles, stating, "It does not represent an attack on the AACS system itself."
The licensing authority said the hacker had managed to access encryption keys from "one or more" software programs used to play HD-DVDs, but declined to name them.
Spokesperson Michael Ayers said HD-DVD files are so large and the discs so expensive that it would be impractical to attempt large scale copying.
He did not reveal whether AACS licenses will be revoked, stating, "We certainly have not ruled out any particular response and we will take whatever action is appropriate."
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo last year, Konami revealed that work had begun on a live-action movie based on Metal Gear Solid. The news broke via a pamphlet for Studio Kojima, the Konami-owned development house headed up by Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima.
"I have received many offers to adapt Metal Gear Solid. It has taken a long time, but we have finally settled on an arrangement," Kojima said in a statement. "False facts aside, a movie project is underway. I have finalized a Class-A contract with a party in Hollywood."
For eight months, the identity of the aforementioned "party" was unknown. That changed this week, when Sony Pictures Entertainment vice chairman Yair Landau revealed his studio is developing the project.
"We're working with the Metal Gear guys," Landau told GameSpot following his D.I.C.E. summit keynote address in Las Vegas. "It's a very cinematic game, it really lends itself to movie telling. But the question is, 'How do you translate Snake's experience into a full arc that conforms to what audiences expect on the large screen?'"
Landau also hinted the Metal Gear Solid movie may just be the beginning. "There are other games we are looking to develop," the executive said. "We're working with one of my favorite producers right now on an idea for an EverQuest movie." The producer was apparently of such stature that Landau declined to name him. "I'll let him disclose that," he said cryptically.
Besides the forthcoming World of Warcraft film, currently in development at Warner Bros., the Metal Gear Solid movie is the highest-profile game-film project in Hollywood. Previously, that stature was held by the Peter Jackson-produced Halo adaptation, which imploded last year.
Game addiction might be a hot topic at the moment, but researchers at the University of Georgia are hoping a specially designed virtual reality game can help people get over a much more prevalent addiction: smoking.
Patients in the study don a ridiculous looking VR headset and are placed in simulations of situations where they might be tempted to smoke, like a party full of other smokers or a tight traffic jam. With the help of a therapist, the smoker gradually learns how to handle these situations without lighting up.
Does it work? One elderly smoker interviewed for the story had failed to quit with the patch and medications, but after the VR sessions found she could "be in a room with four or five people smoking and I don't light up." We have the opposite problem -- after years of playing Mario, it's hard for us to be in a room full of turtles without feeling the need to jump on their backs over and over.
Nicholas Carr underscores that YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen each pulled down about a third of a billion dollars in selling their video-sharing company to the search giant Google, asserting they “came by their windfall fair and square.”
How so? “They built a better mousetrap,” says Carr.
Perhaps, but what video mice does YouTube trap?
CARR: Software is becoming increasingly more adept at taking over work that has traditionally required relatively high skills - or even, in YouTube's case, enabling the creation of sophisticated goods through the large-scale and automated harvesting of free labor.
What is the value that YouTube is really harvesting and using for “free,” though?
Is the YouTube magic really the enabling of a “creation of sophisticated goods,” or do the YouTube riches stem from the facilitation of the theft of others’ already created sophisticated goods?
Carr posits that “running a digital sharecropping operation…can be very lucrative.” But is it really the “broadcast yourself” video crop at YouTube that enticed Google to give up $1.65 billion worth of GOOG?
Is Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School’s former Senior Fellow Jim Moore’s now infamous “Sunday nite dinner at Redbones in Somerville, Mass” “broadcast yourself” video evidence of YouTube’s bountiful social production harvest?
(See “YouTube: Is Viacom hurting innocent YouTubers?”)
Moore is actually getting more value from YouTube in the free hosting of his “fiends and family” clip-culture video than he provides to YouTube in exchange.
Why? Moore’s video is of extremely limited appeal and can only command “junk” CPMs for the small number of views it engenders.
Moore’s colleague, John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Center, acknowledges the non-interest, economic or otherwise, of the “home video,” but nevertheless is vigorously defending Moore’s “right” to broadcast it, for free, at YouTube.
PALFREY: I love Jim, but the video’s pretty bad. Highly unlikely to be affecting any market that Viacom cares about, among other things.
(See “YouTube: Are YouTubers at risk?”)
Moore’s “Sunday nite dinner at Redbones in Somerville, Mass” may be “pretty bad,” but the personal, “pretty bad” friends and family fare is representative of YouTube’s “broadcast yourself” video uploads.
Palfrey knows that Moore’s “home video” is of minimal import in the YouTube economic world, and so does Google.
What videos are of prime economic importance then to Google’s YouTube future? The high production value, supposedly copyright protected video libraries of television networks such as Viacom, NBC, Fox…
I recently put forth that Google’s YouTube copyright owner be damned DMCA umbrella philosophy inspires a YouTuber “broadcast yourself” by uploading pirated videos owned by television networks mentality.
(See “Why Google will lose its multi-billion dollar video bet”)
I underscore that Google needs television network content to feed its YouTubers the clip-culture snacks they want and conclude: Google’s days of “ignoring conventional wisdom in designing its business” are numbered.
Why? NBC, Viacom, Fox…are not running sharecropping operations, they must pay premium wages for the production of their premium video content.
Television networks must therefore obtain premium compensation for the use of their copyright video content, even if Google doesn’t agree, yet.
Continuing to prove that music rights-holders just don't "get it" is the news that the Canadian Private Copying Collective is pursuing the reinstatement of levies on MP3 players in Canada. You may remember that the CPCC was the body that lobbied hard for the original enactment of a levy on MP3 players that was in effect from December 2003 until the following December: in the end the levy was overturned by Canadian courts, and various companies that passed on the tax to customers were forced to offer refunds. The reason for the overturning was the fact that the levy focused on hard drives, which, in the court's eyes, didn't fall into the category of "audio recording media." The CPCC is now calling for the Canadian Copyright Board to classify MP3 players as a whole under category of "audio recording media," as well as an increase in the levy range from CAD$5 to $75 depending on the capacity of the storage. Fortunately, several experts in the field of intellectual property have stated that it's unlikely the CPCC will get its way: David Fewer, a professor at the University of Ottawa, states that he thinks the CPCC is "really getting quite existential" regarding whether or not players like the iPod are "mediums" or "players." We love a debate on the existentialism of MP3 players as much as the next geek, and when the end result could be a tax that blames all consumers for a problem -- which is supposedly "contained" -- that could be addressed in oh-so-many other ways, you know which side we'd be on.
The guys at the Doom 9 forum are marking February 11, 2007 as the day when digital rights management was defeated on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. It turns out that cracking the high definition disc formats was much easier than was originally thought. The processing key that can unravel the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray discs has been found by a clever encryption fighter named arnezami.
The first-reported cracks for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs were not completely effective, because each individual title had secret codes that were needed to unravel the rest of the encryption on that disc. But now this newly-found processing key is apparently the holy grail that unlocks the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray discs released so far.
A coalition of American media industry trade groups is asking the US government to put Canada on a list of the world's worst countries when it comes to enforcing intellectual property rights and fighting piracy, according to an article in The Globe and Mail.
The seven-member International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) includes trade groups, such as the Entertainment Software Association, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America. According to the IIPA, Canada has failed to deliver on promises of more stringent copyright laws and stepped-up enforcements for the laws already on the books.
Canada is a leading exporter of bootlegged films and mod chips for game systems, the group said. It also claimed that up to one-quarter of the bootlegged films sold around the world originate in Canada, and the country's mod chip businesses are run by organized crime rings.
"Canada remains far behind virtually all of its peers in the industrialized world with respect to its efforts to bring its copyright laws up to date with the realities of the global digital networked environment," the IIPA said. "Indeed, even the major developing countries have progressed further and faster than Canada in meeting the challenge."
The IIPA is asking the US to move Canada from a lower-priority watch list to the priority watch list for countries not respecting intellectual property issues. Other countries already on that priority watch list include Russia, China, Belize, Venezuela, and Turkey. If Canada is added to the list, failure to address the US government's concerns could lead to challenges in the World Trade Organization and possible sanctions.
A representative for Industry Canada, the group overseeing the country's copyright laws, told The Globe and Mail, "The government of Canada is working actively on the copyright file and will take the time necessary to ensure that revisions to this important framework legislation have been fully thought through."
Canada is by no means alone in being criticized by the IIPA. The Associated Press reported this week that the group recommended that dozens of countries be included on the US government's various watch lists, with 16 countries (including Canada) cited as having the worst records on piracy. The IIPA claimed that software piracy had cost copyright holders $12.3 billion last year, while music piracy affected US companies to the tune of $2.4 billion.
This can be used to rent movies or video games and it is far cheaper than gamefly, netflix, and blockbuster. Someone at Slickdeals.net put out all the information nicely so here is what he said:
Gameznflix.com rents both video games and movies. They rent DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, XBOX 360, XBOX, PS2, PS3, Wii, GC, and PSP. Compare this to Gamefly that charges $12.95 for TWO games and then goes up to $22. So I thought this was a great deal for 3 at a time. Rentals are unlimited and you can cancel your subscription anytime.
I'm about to cancel my two Gamefly accounts that cost me $44/month and let me have 4 games total and signed up for 2 of these accounts which will allow me 6. I am now spending half the cost and getting 1.5x more games and movies if I want them!
Right now you can go to their site and enter coupon code "emmys" and get the following rates:
1 Out at a Time / $6.75 each month
2 Out at a Time / $9.75 each month
3 Out at a Time / $12.75 each month - best deal IMO
There should be a button that says "enter coupon".
Some people are concerned about turn around time. I was told that turn around time usually has to do with the location of the distribution center and the distance from your home. For a reference, here are the locations of their distribution centers.
Boston, MA
Washington DC
Orlando, FL
Franklin, KY
Dallas, TX
Sterling, CO
Sacramento, CA
Seattle, WA
Los Angeles, CA
Chicago, IL
A Man who apparently works for IBM was surfing the internet at work and then started accessing Porn sites online.
globring sent us a link to a CNN article covering a trial with a unique defense. James Pacenza, a 58 year old Alabama man, has been fired from his position at IBM for visiting adult sites during working hours. The man is now suing the company for $5 Million, alleging that he is an internet addict. The plaintiff claims he visits these sites as a way of dealing with traumatic stress incurred in the Vietnam War. He claims that while he is addicted to sex and the internet, he never visited adult sites at work. Age-related issues, he says, are the cause of his filing. IBM, on its part, says that Pacenza was warned during a similar incident several months ago. Pacenza denies this as well.
"He claims that while he is addicted to sex and the internet, he never visited adult sites at work."
The CNN article states that this wasn't his first warning: ""Plaintiff was discharged by IBM because he visited an Internet chat room for a sexual experience during work after he had been previously warned," the company said."
Normally we don't really like covering this whole theory of "internet addiction," mainly because it makes us nervous about the 12+ hours we spend online each and every day, but a recent look by the Washington Post at one of those clinics for PC-lovin' teens is interesting enough to warrant a mention. As we've seen before, China -- never one of the more progressive countries when it comes to encouraging online participation -- has followed several other East Asian countries in attempting to diagnose and cure netizens and gamers of their "unhealthy" dependence on computers, but what we didn't know were some of the rather extreme methods used to achieve this. According to the Post, one clinic in the Beijing suburb of Daxing keeps some of its 12 to 17-year-old patients locked in rooms with barred windows for most of the day, treating them with a combination of counseling, medication, and military-style discipline. While some residents clearly have no need for such a facility -- one young man who only surfed four to five hours a week said he came to Daxing to "get away from my parents" -- there do seem to be more hardcore cases of lonely individuals spending all their free time online at the expense of their careers and social lives. At the Daxing clinic, these troubled teens whose "souls are gone to the online world" are housed together on the third floor of the building, where they are subjected to hypnosis and even mild shock therapy in an attempt to rid them of their love of surfing. It's not really clear from the article what the success rate is for veterans of the clinic, but we imagine many of them find the conditions so distasteful that they swear off technology altogether simply for fear of being sent back.
"In a bold jab at the heart of Christianity, "Titanic" director James Cameron has made a new documentary that claims the resurrection of Jesus never happened, according to published reports.
Cameron, best known for the Oscar-winning box-office smash, produced the film that asserts Jesus was not resurrected - and that the burial tomb of Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary, were discovered near Jerusalem, said the report on Time magazine's Web site.
The story starts 27 years ago when Israeli construction workers in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot unearthed a 2,000-year-old cave holding 10 caskets.
After 20 years of archeologists' examinations, the names on the caskets became clear: Jesua, son of Joseph; Mary; Mary; Matthew; Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
The Time story does not explain why there are only six names for 10 caskets.
The documentary claims Jesus sired a child with Mary Magdalene - an assertion made famous in the best-selling book and 2006 movie "The Da Vinci Code."
"I think this is more fanciful and absurd theorizing. Every Christian knows that Jesus the son of God and man died and rose again on Easter Sunday," said New York Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling. "No alleged DNA test or Hollywood film is going to change that."
The documentary is to air soon in Britain, Israel and Canada, and in the United States on the Discovery Channel.
Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici supposedly have gathered DNA and archeological evidence, as well as biblical studies proving the coffins belong to Jesus and his family. A press conference is scheduled in New York tomorrow in which Cameron will unveil what he says are the coffins of Jesus, his mother and Mary Magdalene."
I am pleased to inform you, that the episode script has been completed. You should expect it in .WMV format around when the 200,000th member registers.
I think you guy's should like it. I think it will probably make everyone that made it superstars.
