Bust a jig if you're overjoyed by the Library of Congress' recent ruling. Unless you're Steve Jobs.
News Blips:
The Register of Copyrights (part of the Library of Congress) bestows a fair-use clause to numerous digital-rights-management (DRM) cracks. Under a 3-year limit, consumers are allowed to capture "short portions of motion pictures" from protected DVDs, "jailbreak" cellular phones (replacing the default operating system with a more robust version), and circumvent DRM systems in video games for "investigating security flaws and vulnerabilities." This probably happened after Register Marybeth Peters tried to load up SecuROM on her PC. [ArsTechnica]
Considering a career in criminal investigations? Then look to video games as your tools of the trade. Security consultant Brandon Nesbit suggests the use of video games and consoles as worthwhile utilities for tracking down suspects. "For example, if someone is trying to prove that Suspect A was running an attack against a World of Warcraft server, there will be logs to indicate that fact within World of Warcraft," he explains. "Or if someone wants to defend themselves, they can say, 'Whoa Mr. Investigator…check those logs; I was playing Team Fortress 2 at the time.'" If a detective perused my WOW logs, he'd probably notice way too much flower-picking. [eWeek]
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes that the "revolutionary" nature of Nintendo's upcoming 3DS platform justifies heightened game prices. "We view the 3DS as a revolutionary device, and expect its launch to spur hardware and software sales," he says. "From a software perspective, we believe Nintendo will be able to increase DS software prices, from a blended average of around $25 today, to over $29 next year." Pachter cooks up these predictions so often, I wonder if he can tell me next week's lottery numbers. [CVG]
Atlus announces continued support of its exceedingly difficult role-playing game Demon's Souls. As a fresh breath of air among a slew of game-server closures throughout the year, Atlus promises to keep online support for its dungeon crawler through at least March 2011. Now if I can only play the first few minutes of the game without getting my ass kicked….[Wired]
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