Cody Taylor

Lulfas writes “Steam is implementing a new anti-piracy solution that, according to them, removes all DRM. Called Computer Executable Generation (CEG), this system creates a unique copy of the game when it is purchased through Steam, essentially using a 100% unique keygen system. It will be installable on any system, but only playable by one person at a time (hooked into the correct Steam account, of course). Will this be enough to satisfy anti-DRM players while at the same time giving the publishing companies what they require?”

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tboulay writes “The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation. The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a large textbook market that many publishers write to the state’s standards, then market those books nationwide. ‘This is the most specific assault I’ve seen against evolution and modern science,’ said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution.” Both sides are saying the issue it too close to call. Three Republicans on the school board who favor the teaching of evolution have come under enormous pressure to reform their ways.

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Catalyst writes “SWFScan is a free Flash security tool (download here), released by HP Software, which decompiles all versions of Flash and scans them for over 60 security vulnerabilities. The scan detects things like XSS, SQL inside of the Flash app, hard-coded authentication credentials, weak encryption, insecure function calls, cross-domain privilege escalation, and violations of Adobe’s security recommendations. There is also this video explaining a real, and amusing, attack against a Flash app. These issues are fairly widespread, with over 35% of SWF applications violating Adobe security advice.”

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snydeq writes “Non-relational upstarts — tools that tack the letters ‘db’ onto a ‘pile of code that breaks with the traditional relational model’ — have grabbed attention in large part because they willfully ignore many of the rules that codify the hard lessons learned by the old database masters. Doing away with JOINs and introducing phrases like ‘eventual consistency,’ these ‘slacker DBs’ offer greater simplicity and improved means of storing data for Web apps, yet remain toys in the eyes of old guard DB admins. ‘This distinction between immediate and eventual consistency is deeply philosophical and depends on how important the data happens to be,’ writes InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner, who let down his old-guard leanings and tested slacker DBs — Amazon SimpleDB, Apache CouchDB, Google App Engine, and Persevere — to see how they are affecting the evolution of modern IT.”

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Arto Stimms writes “The author of the e text editor is using the principles of open source to transform his company into an Open Company. Not only is he releasing the source, the company itself becomes totally open: no concept of bosses or employees. Anyone can join in at any time, doing whatever task they find interesting, for whatever time they find appropriate. This is in service of the idea of ‘the real freedom zero’: the freedom to decide for yourself what you want to work on.”

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Usually rip-off counterfeits are produced by disreputable, back-room shops nobody’s heard of. Now, it appears, international computing giant Lenovo is getting into the act. The company’s new Android handset is called the oPhone, and the software interface looks a LOT like the iPhone’s.

Designers love all of those tutorials that can help them to learn more and more everyday and give them direction to design more beautiful and attractive creative works. Today, we are going to list down 43 Brilliant Photoshop Tutorials For Excellent 3d Effects. We hope you all will like this collection.

Feeling outraged over AIG? Here’s more of the same … a slideshow of salaries of 20 top tech CEOs. Steve Jobs took his customary salary in 2008. Contrast that to the .2M total compensation for Red Hat’s Szulik, M for Sun’s Schwartz and almost M for IBM’s Palmisano.

Vuze, the popular BitTorrent client formerly known as Azureus, has received a major update which allows users to automatically convert and play downloaded videos on the iPhone, iPod, Xbox 360 and the PS3. “Now playing, on all your screens” is Vuze’s new tagline.

A fourth Mac OS X 10.5.7 test build has been released to developers, a little over a week since Apple seeded the last one. It appears that development is winding down and could be ready in a couple weeks.