Over the past several days, the Guardian has posted a five-part interview with Peter Moore, head of EA Sports. Moore was also the president of Sega, and a vice-president at Microsoft, so his experience at the top levels of the gaming industry is extensive. He describes how he came to be employed by Sega, the development of the Dreamcast, and its subsequent flop when confronted with the Playstation 2. He also discusses his involvement with the development of the Xbox franchise, how the integrated hard drive "killed" the original model, and he gives his account of how the Red Ring of Death fiasco affected the company. The series ends with a look at EA Sports' plans for the future, and how they're trying to create a new business model beyond the micro-payments popularized by iTunes, which Moore calls "a rip-off."

VentureBeat has a lengthy story about the situation surrounding the Xbox 360's "Red Ring of Death." It starts with the developmental phases for the 360, looks at the marketing decisions that drove Microsoft to aim for a release ahead of the PS3, and talks with sources and engineers within Microsoft about what could have been done to prevent the problems. Quoting: "Leading up to the launch in the fall of 2005, the number of defective units would soon grow to tens of thousands. Any other consumer electronics company would likely have postponed a launch with such low yields. But Microsoft had more money in the bank than anyone else. The decision this time would fall to Bach and Moore. The costs of launching with low yields -- where you take big losses on every product sold -- could bankrupt other companies. But Microsoft could afford to do so. Microsoft did delay the launch date from October until November. But some inside the company still believed returns would be out of control."

BobB writes "HD Moore has been owned. Moore, the creator of the popular Metasploit hacking toolkit, has become the victim of a computer attack. It happened on Tuesday morning, when Moore's company, BreakingPoint, had some of its Internet traffic redirected to a fake Google page that was being run by a scammer. According to Moore, the hacker was able to do this by launching what's known as a cache poisoning attack on a DNS server on AT&T's network that was serving the Austin, Texas, area. One of BreakingPoint's servers was forwarding DNS (Domain Name System) traffic to the AT&T server, so when it was compromised, so was HD Moore's company."

Rob Goldsmith writes "Earlier this week we heard that Cambridge University Spaceflight would be entering the N-Prize competition. The N-Prize is a competition to stimulate innovation directed towards obtaining cheap access to space. Most importantly, the launch budget must be within £999.99. Cambridge University Spaceflight plan to win the prize using a balloon and a rocket. They have now opened up an official forum where the public can track their progress." The linked story has images from a test flight of July 23, and an interview with a member of the team, Ed Moore.

Scientists in Wales have run out of things to study so they are designing streets to be more "drunk friendly" in the hopes of reducing conflicts and violence. After going to the streets of Cardiff, breathalyzing locals and studying their behavior, it was discovered a quarter of the people encountered were so drunk they were staggering. Feeding this info into their computer model, they came to a staggering conclusion that drunk people trip over things. The researchers plan to investigate how moving street obstacles or increasing pedestrianization might ease congestion around nightspots. Study leader Simon Moore, from the University of Cardiff, said "Drunks become irritants because they slow people's progress towards their goal. They may then become targets of violence." The solution to this problem is obviously alleys full of bean bags and blankets.

51mon writes "Austrian CERT used data from one of their authoritative DNS server to measure the rate at which the latest DNS patch (source port randomization) is being rolled out to larger recursive name servers. While about half the traffic (PDF) they receive is now using source port randomization, their data suggest that this is due to ISPs who roll out such fixes immediately. The rate of patching has fallen to disappointingly low levels since. If your ISP isn't patched, perhaps it is time to switch." After details of the DNS vulnerability leaked, researchers |)ruid and HD Moore released attack code; ZDNet's security blog has an analysis.

We were a bit disappointed when we heard the recent two-episode Watchmen series announcement since it was to be set as a brawler. However, it seems that these two games will be set as a prequel with the ability to play either Nite Owl or Rorschach in the days before superheroes were outlawed. "If you're wondering who could possibly replace the much-revered Alan Moore in the scripting department -- as the story is the linchpin upon which the whole Watchmen experience pivots -- comic fans will be glad to know that respected comic veteran Len Wein (co-creator of DC's Swamp Thing and Marvel's Wolverine characters) is on board to provide the dialogue, and original Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons is lending his insights as the game's adviser. Due out around the same time as the film's theatrical release, the game will be released in multiple parts designed to lead the player up to the graphic novel/film's events."

get_Rootin writes "That didn't take long. ZDNet is reporting that HD Moore has released exploit code for Dan Kaminsky's DNS cache poisioning vulnerability into the point-and-click Metasploit attack tool. From the article: 'This exploit caches a single malicious host entry into the target nameserver. By causing the target nameserver to query for random hostnames at the target domain, the attacker can spoof a response to the target server including an answer for the query, an authority server record, and an additional record for that server, causing target nameserver to insert the additional record into the cache.' Here's our previous Slashdot coverage."

schliz writes to mention that a team of quantum physicists have demonstrated how to significantly reduce the effects of "stiction," or the tendency for two very small, very close objects to stick together as a result of Casimir force. "'The Casimir force might be one of the many reasons that very small, movable components in micromechanical devices sometimes stick together,' said Ho Bun Chan, a assistant professor of physics at the University of Florida who is researching the Casimir force. 'The Casimir effect increases rapidly as the separation between components decreases. It becomes significant when the separation is reduced to below about 400 nm,' he told iTnews."

GamePolitics is reporting that a Florida Judge has recommended that Jack Thompson be found guilty on 27 of 31 counts of misconduct and is awaiting a Florida Supreme Court verdict to back him up. Thompson is striking back with allegations against the Judge and others, complaining that loyalty oaths were never signed. "Tunis made 21 recommendations of guilt in relation to Thompson's participation in Strickland vs. Sony, an Alabama case in which the anti-game attorney represented the families of two police officers and a police dispatcher slain by 18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player Devin Moore. Tunis also recommended that Thompson be found guilty on four out of five counts relating to his 2006 attempt to have Rockstar's Bully declared a public nuisance in a case before Miami Judge Ronald Friedman. An additional two guilty counts stemmed from a non-video game matter."