Terrorists planning their next deadly attack using… World of Warcraft?

world-of-warcraft-terrorism-link.jpg

That’s the 100% crackpot theory being investigated by the US military at the moment, as senior officials worry that shifty-looking foreign people are massing on WoW servers to practise unleashing death.

A man called Dr. Dwight Toavs, who is a professor at the US National Defence University, gave a presentation (PowerPoint file here) on how a virtual world…

Computer discovers perfect game of draughts: it's a draw

draughts_board.jpgIn a tale reminiscent of “WarGames“, a computer has finally played out the 500 billion possible positions in the game of draughts (checkers). It only took Chinook 18 years to do so.

Now, computer scientists at the University of Alberta say that they have “solved” the game.

Guess what? Perfect play on both sides leads to a draw. Sounds a bit like tic-tac-toe to me – or perhaps “Global Thermonuclear War”.

Microsoft, Blu-ray, and the back-up plan?

andy-merrett.jpgAndy Merrett writes…

Last week we reported that, based on an iTmedia interview with Peter Moore, there was the possibility that Microsoft would support Blu-ray via the Xbox 360 console if that format became dominant over HD DVD at some time in the future.

Apparently, we were wrong.

On the Gamerscoreblog, a Microsoft representative “cleared the air” by stating that those reports were based on taking Moore’s words out of context, and are simply incorrect.

We firmly stand behind the HD DVD format as the best choice for consumers. Current reports indicating that Microsoft has a back-up plan, which includes Blu-ray support are incorrect. We’re fully committed to HD DVD and have absolutely no plans to support other optical formats.

Now I’m left wondering if Microsoft is arrogant, or stupid, or both.