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Ubisoft was forced to recall Collector's Edition copies of PC game Silent Hunter 5: Battle Of The Atlantic in Germany due to "World War II symbols" that were not edited out in accordance with German law. The publisher failed to properly remove a portion of Silent Hunter 5's World War II symbols, presumably Nazi symbols such as swastika flags, in the game's Collector's Edition, according to a report from German website ComputerBase translated by Blues ...

President Barack Obama is delaying his trip to Asia next week to focus on his big push on health care.

Whether it's to boost sagging business or attract customers to a new product, there seems to be a freebie fad going on. That's a boon for budget shoppers and can be good for companies too.

OnLive boss Steve Perlman has revealed that the cloud gaming service will allow users to rent PC titles on a game-by-game basis, highlighting a more flexible approach for customers.

The company said earlier in the week that the basic OnLive packages consists of a $14.99 monthly subscription with games priced on top of that, but a new Portal will not charge for access to selected rental titles and free-to-play demos.

"The OnLive Game Portal is for gamers looking for direct access to OnLive games without being required to subscribe to the features of the full OnLive Game Service," said Perlman.

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AnotherUsername writes "The Federal Communications Commission is asking the nation's broadband and smartphone users to use its broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nation's telecoms. At http://www.broadband.gov/, users enter their address and test their broadband download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter using one of two tests (users can choose to test with the other after one test is complete). The FCC is requiring the street address, as it 'may use this data to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis' (they promise not to release location data except in the aggregate). The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband 'dead zone' to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter. The announcement comes just six days before the FCC presents the first ever national broadband plan to Congress. Java is necessary to run the test." Lauren Weinstein points out some of the limitations in the FCC's testing methodology.

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Sales at U.S. retailers rose unexpectedly in February despite a drop in vehicle purchases and inclement weather that was expected to curtail shopping.

Eleven Siberian tigers — among the world's rarest species — died of malnutrition after being kept in small cages and fed chicken bones at a cash-strapped zoo in China, state media said.

Two suicide bombers  kill at least 39 people and wound nearly 100 in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

scumm writes "This year's Turing Prize has been awarded to Charles Thacker, whom they describe as (among other things) the 'creator of the first modern personal computer.' From the ACM's announcement: 'ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Charles P. Thacker the winner of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models. Thacker was also cited for his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, which enables multiple computers to communicate and share resources, as well as the first multiprocessor workstation, and the prototype for today's most used tablet PC, with its capabilities for direct user interaction.' For further reading, the Wall Street Journal has an article providing more background about Mr. Thacker and the Turing Prize. In the spirit of full disclosure, the submitter feels compelled to point out that this Mr. Thacker is his uncle, and that he thinks this is really cool."

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House Democratic leaders abandoned a long struggle to appease the most ardent abortion opponents in their ranks, gambling Thursday that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming next week.

itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)."

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Utah's House majority leader says he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going nude "hot-tubbing" with her when she was minor a quarter century ago.

British Airways PLC cabin crew plan to strike for a total of seven days this month, potentially disrupting thousands of travellers ahead of Easter holidays, after talks with management over changes to pay and working conditions broke down.

judgecorp writes "Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, has said that UK government ministers are 'taking action' to get Facebook to add a British child protection button (called CEOP) to its site. The move comes after the UK's Daily Mail withdrew allegations that teenagers on Facebook are continually pestered — though Facebook is still considering suing the paper. The campaign apparently ignores Facebook's assertion that it already has better child protection in place and the CEOP button would be limited to the UK."

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A couple former developers from Electronic Arts Los Angeles have formed Supergiant Games, an independent studio planning to release a new title for digital download platforms in 2011. Amir Rao, formerly a game designer at EA LA who worked on the Command & Conquer series during his three years at the company, "runs" the studio and manages design/direction for its projects. Gavin Simon, who was an AI designer at the EA studio for two years, ...

Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios founder and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe, has characterised the PlayStation Move as "more a device for the core than it is for the casual market".

In an interview with sister site Eurogamer, Molyneux was asked whether he had seen anything of the PlayStation Move at GDC. "Yes, I have seen some of it," he answered. "We're not really surprised, are we? I mean at E3 last year we saw they were having a wand, and that's kind of what I expected."

Although he characterised Move as "not as big a step as something like Natal", Molyneux did imply that Sony's controller may be more precise in its motion control.

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When the surge of plug-in vehicles hits the streets over the next few years, how will our electricity grids cope?

The proposed new laws would result in the innocent being punished for offences that have not even taken place, says Jim Killock

Swelling ranks of homeowners who are seriously delinquent but haven't yet lost their homes may soon lead to a new round of foreclosures.