Maria Williams writes "KurzweilAI.net reported that: This year's recipients of the Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award are Robert A. Freitas Jr.and Bill Joy, who have both been proposing solutions to the dangers of advanced technology since 2000. Robert A. Freitas, Jr. has pioneered nanomedicine and analysis of self-replicating nanotechnology. He advocates "an immediate international moratorium, if not outright ban, on all artificial life experiments implemented as nonbiological hardware. In this context, 'artificial life' is defined as autonomous foraging replicators, excluding purely biological implementations (already covered by NIH guidelines tacitly accepted worldwide) and also excluding software simulations which are essential preparatory work and should continue." Bill Joy wrote "Why the future doesn't need us" in Wired in 2000 and with Guardian 2005 Award winner Ray Kurzweil, he wrote the editorial "Recipe for Destruction" in the New York Times (reg. required) in which they argued against publishing the recipe for the 1918 influenza virus. In 2006, he helped launch a $200 million fund directed at developing defenses against biological viruses."

GameDailyBiz has a talk with Jamil Molena, the Director of the Game Developer's conference, about the upcoming event. Some interesting stuff about what to expect out of the event, as well as some happy news about the Sony and Nintendo keynotes. From the article: "BIZ: What can you tell us about Phil Harrison's keynote? Will we finally get some new information on the PlayStation 3? JM: The answer is yes. In general, platform providers have a unique opportunity at the GDC to share knowledge with and inspire the people who will make or break their consoles, namely the game developers themselves. With that in mind, this GDC keynote, along with the Nintendo keynote by Satoru Iwata, have both been in development for several months, and contain significant editorial value and developer takeaway."

Just a few days after it passed the Utah House of Representatives, the 'Games as Porn' law has died in the Utah Senate. Gamepolitics reports: "The Senate, however, never moved the bill out of committee for a floor vote. Dying a quiet death, HB257 has now been thrown on Utah' s legislative scrap heap - at least for the current session. Perhaps the Utah Senate recognized the obvious constitutional concerns surrounding Hogue's bill. As noted by GamePolitics, a pair of well-known First Amendment scholars savaged HB257 in a recent guest editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune."

Gamasutra has a piece looking at the good news in digital distribution. Getting games to consumers with bits, rather than boxes, seems to ensure that we'll have a wider variety of titles to choose from in the future. The path looks at indie title Red Orchestra on its path to our desktops. From the article: "Of course, with a digital distribution deal, there is usually no big marketing push from the distributor like there is with a big publisher. But, through Steam we would be selling into the hardcore FPS gamer market. And as a result of the Valve deal, Red Orchestra got solid editorial exposure in major PC game publications, including two page 'preview' articles in PC Gamer US and UK."

Carl Bialik writes "'Reports of blogging's demise are bosh, but if we're lucky, something else really is going away: the by-turns overheated and uninformed obsession with blogging,' Jason Fry writes on WSJ.com, responding to a recent wave of blog-doubting that includes a Gallup poll and a Chicago Tribune editorial entitled, 'Bloggy, we hardly knew ye.' Fry says blogging might not fly as a business, but 'the failure of blogging to launch a huge number of well-heeled companies or keep attracting VC money won't mean the end of blogs -- instant messaging, for one, hasn't foundered despite the difficulty of turning its popularity into profits.'"

Two pieces up in the media right now talking about problems with the Xbox 360. Games.net has an overdramatically title piece, Five Ways to Save the Xbox 360. The article lays out ways in which Microsoft should revamp the console and its games in order to truly dominate the next-gen war. Meanwhile, a 1up editorial asks the question Is the Xbox 360 Hurting the Games Industry? The article looks at the ways in which Microsoft's console was rushed out the door, and the negative consequences that may have on the industry as a whole. From that article: "More important, though less remarked upon, is that the Xbox 360 was also launched before the industry was ready. If you pay attention to companies' end-of-year financial reports, which I'm sad to say my job requires me to do, one thing that stands out in the postholiday reckoning was the statement, again and again, that the Xbox 360 launch had hurt sales across the industry."

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Google's reasoning behind rejecting the DoJ motion, more fodder for the Chinese censorship fire, one of last weeks "first computers" brought to life, the New York Times backs network neutrality, hard drive death dance tracks, Serenity enters the black, and the USPTO issues a final rejection in RIM patent case -- Read on for details.

Gamasutra has a 'Soap Box' editorial up discussing the bad lessons World of Warcraft teaches. From the article: "1. Investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill. If you invest more time than someone else, you "deserve" rewards. People who invest less time "do not deserve" rewards. This is an absurd lesson that has no connection to anything I do in the real world. The user interface artist we have at work can create 10 times more value than an artist of average skill, even if the lesser artist works way, way more hours. The same is true of our star programmer. The very idea that time > skill is alien."

Reggie Fils-Aime, frequent spokesperson for Nintendo, has a piece extolling the way in which Nintendo will disrupt the videogaming market with the release of the Revolution. His editorial uses the movie industry as a comparison, and likens the systems of Sony and Microsoft to 'flops'. From the article: "Nintendo's counterpunch is disruption. We've determined that the videogame market is ripe for revival--and we're looking to make it happen by reaching out to the millions of players still on the sidelines, including those over the age of 35. Early moves have been promising. Nintendogs, a game that allows people to train virtual puppies, has doubled the typical percentage of female purchasers, selling 1.5 million copies in about four months. Not bad, given that Nintendo DS hardware is in 4 million hands." Yeah, it's just more advertising claptrap, but the levels of hyperbole they're reaching is sort of breathtaking to behold.

theodp writes "Google worries go mainstream this week in TIME's cover story, Can We Trust Google With Our Secrets? Touted as an 'inside look' at how success has changed Larry and Sergey's dream machine, the piece offers some interesting tidbits but in the end is pretty much a softball effort that even toes the mum's-the-word line on the relationship between Larry Page and 'blond, blue-eyed force of nature' Marissa Mayer. Guess it's the least Time Warner could do after pocketing $1B of Google's money."

OSNews has an interesting editorial about security on UNIX-like systems. "One of the biggest reasons for many people to switch to a UNIX desktop, away from Windows, is security. It is fairly common knowledge that UNIX-like systems are more secure than Windows. Whether this is true or not will not be up for debate in this short editorial; I will simply assume UNIX-like systems are more secure, for the sake of argument. However, how much is that increased security really worth for an average home user, when you break it down? According to me, fairly little"

In direct contradiction to a discussion we had about David Jaffe's opinion on the subject earlier today, GameDaily Biz has an editorial up arguing that cinematics and story are very important game elements. From the article: "There have been times in our industry where sub-par product has been sold through its cinematics, but there have also been times when products have failed to live up to the promise of its creators. The merits of if a cinematic and/or story detract from a game experience is rather mute, as story is one of the oldest and fundamental forms of entertainment, expression and communication"

Colin Campbell has an editorial at Next Generation in which he applauds the decision to fine risque outfits worn by the traditional 'booth babes'. From the article: "Exhibitors at E3 employ a whole range of human beings to attract attention to their booths and excitement to their live events. The ones who attract the largest crowds are either celebrities (fair enough), well-loved industry-creatives (quite right) or so-called 'booth-babes', often behaving in ways that at least mimic the lowest sort of strip joint. People do not dress this way in normal life, not even in Los Angeles. There are some companies that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique than others. It's difficult to imagine, say, EA or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bothering with this nonsense."

Nathan writes "1up recently posted their Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide on their website. It didn't take long for users at the Dead or Alive Central forums to recognize their hard work analyzing the fighting game engine had been blatantly pasted into the strategy guide without any credit given whatsoever. While movelists are largely factual and can be argued to be public knowledge, the most incriminating evidence is the section on the evasion system, which had been pasted into the 1up guide with a few reworded sentences. Discussions are ongoing at Gaming Age Forums (with 1up members defending the writer of the guide) and DoA Central. Perhaps the most interesting bit about this is that just a month or two ago, Dan Hsu from EGM and 1up had famously written an editorial criticizing shady ongoings at other publications." I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited. Update: 01/23 22:20 GMT by Z : 1up has announced that they've pulled the guide to review the situation.

Via GameSetWatch, an editorial on the site Firing Squad suggesting that Nintendo is poised for a gaming industry coup. Their unique controller and appeal to casual gamers, the author posits, will turn the status quo on its head. From the article: "The cheapness of the console will help it sell and it's unlikely that Nintendo will face production shortages since it won't use exotic and difficult-to-make components. With a large installed owner base, more developers will be inclined to take a shot at it, publishers will feel pressured to release key titles (like Madden) for the Revolution regardless of their past GameCube experience. The controller is standard enough to work for most titles - so Xbox and PlayStation games will most likely work on the Revolution without major trouble, yet that same controller offers unique features that will be difficult to replicate for Microsoft's and Sony's consoles."

Every day we post dozens of stories on Slashdot. Every day we read hundreds of submissions. And as most of the people who work behind the scenes are in fact human, we occasionally make mistakes, posting typos, or grammatical errors. Today I address matters of article formatting. What I think matters before I click 'save', and what I don't.

QuatermassX writes "The New York Times editorial page comments on the responsibilities of American technology companies doing business in China. From the article: 'Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. Some in the American Congress are talking about holding hearings. Microsoft has responded to criticism by saying, 'We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.' This is a false choice. China needs Internet companies as much as they need China.'"

AmpedIGO writes "1up editor-in-chief Sam Kennedy finally decided to comment on the ongoing discussion of games journalism. The interesting twist is that Kennedy's comments don't revolve around 'editorial integrity,' but rather delves deep into one of the issues that game journalists have known about for quite some time: developers and publishers don't help. 'That all said, I find our industry's reluctance to actually help push journalism forward a mighty shame. I can't tell you the number of times I've worked on potentially incredible stories that just fell apart because of the uncooperativeness from a publisher. Perhaps this speaks to Aaron's editorial in some manner, but it seems as though a lot of companies are simply reluctant to give you access to their talent unless it's directly tied to the promotion of a game.'"

theodp writes to tell us that New York Magazine has an interesting editorial stating that no one is afraid of Microsoft anymore. The article argues that Microsoft has noticeably been adrift in the wake of Gates' philanthropy, which some cynics suspect is a Rockefeller-like attempt to 'fumigate his fortune' as he makes a play for the history books. From the article: "Like the robber barons, Bill Gates has moved from trying to take over the world to trying to save it."

Joe Markert writes "Gamehelper.com's Mike 'Vansau' Thompson takes a look at integrity and graft in the world of gaming journalism in his recent article, appropriately titled: Integrity: The Craft of the Graft From the article, '...it's easy to play the card of honesty, objectivity, and moral nobility when you have the financial backing of a major publisher like Ziff Davis or IDG. Without that support, though, the thought of advertisers threatening to take their business elsewhere creates valid concern.'" A follow up to Dan Hsu's editorial about pay-for-play in game reviews.