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The DRM monster is on the loose again, with the release of Will Wrights long awaited SPORE. Users are so unhappy with SPOREs included Digital Rights Management (DRM), they are downloading pirated torrents of the game in record numbers making it the most pirated game ever. Add to this an appalling one star user rating at amazon.com and it really is a looming public relations disaster if Electronic Arts (EA) does not act quickly.

To give you an idea of just how draconian SPOREs DRM is, the manual included with the game clearly states “You may have multiple Spore accounts for each installation of the game” but EA has admitted that this is a printing error. So for two people to play the game on one computer you will need to purchase a second copy of the game. Great. You can’t even back up the game without paying for EA’s Extended Download Service.

Including such draconian anti-piracy measures with possibly the most awaited game since Duke Nukem Forever is just baffling. Understanding how EA has failed to learn from disasters like Sony’s root kit debacle or Creatives Message to Daniel_K (just to name a couple) can only be achieved by Vulcan Mind Melding with every EA staff member responsible for the decision to include the DRM. Dare I say the meld would have to include Will Wright himself? I hope not. I can understand EA treating its customers like this in search of profit, but surely not Will himself. I’m going to cling to the hope that he knew nothing about it until I learn otherwise.

You can read more about the backlash on TechCrunch, and for more about DRM in general I highly recommend and article by Matt Martin from Gameindustry.biz appropriately titled “User Friendly“.

I just received this on my Facebook Superwall titled “Facebook is going to clear facebook accounts if ..”

We all know that Facebook is an extraordinary social network where you can talk to friends, find old friends, and so much more.
The Facebook team is well aware that Facebook is getting over populated due to the fact that registrations have increased 50% since February 15 2008. At their signing in database, it shows that more than a quarter of the members of Facebook havn’t logged into their accounts in over a month.
So where is this leading to you may ask. Facebook is clearing their entire data base and deleting users who have not sent this message to their friends. If you are one of the these people, you will get your user account wiped and would have to re add all your friends. So send this message to as many of your friends as you can, I know you don’t want to start all over from scratch so send away, show your pride for members Facebook!

- Irin rayiz

Update: It seems this is making the rounds again as Tom has pointed out below. It originally appeared after Facebook announced they were rolling out “new facebook” which some users were not happy about. I think the author was trying to add fuel to the fire of discontent in the hope of forcing Facebook to abandon their rollout plans, but that’s just my opinion. Rest assured though, it is definitely a hoax.

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Many sites are reporting user discontent over the forced introduction of New Facebook, with gearfuse describing it as horrible, atrocious and completely cluttered. Based the response to the discontinuation of network pages I’m not surprised. There’s even a “Petition Against the New Facebook” which currently has 478,670 1,610,451 members and can be signed here. 

The new facebook profile design will be rolling out next week whether users like it or not, according to Facebook’s Program Manger Josh Elman who writes on the Facebook Developer Blog:

We’re nearing the time where we’ll switch over remaining users by default. We expect most of this to take place over the next week.

Some users are already getting a message that the change over is imminent when they log into their account, stating “New Facebook will soon be the only Facebook”.

The mere fact that a special Design Integration Guide exists suggests that at least some things will break when the changeover is complete (assuming it goes ahead). Only time will tell how smoothly  the change over goes.

The worlds largest statue statue of Jesus, Christ the Redeemer has been struck by lightning according to the Daily Mail among others, with at least one suggesting it might be a hoax. There seems to be only one image floating around the Internet and it’s low quality so the chances of it being a hoax are real, although the statue is likely to be the highest point for miles around so it probably gets struck by lightning quite frequently.

Some interesting facts about the statue: it sits on top of Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is 39.6 metres tall, weighs 700 tons, took nine years to build and was completed on October 12, 1931. That’s one hell of a statue.  UPDATE: Higher quality image added.

Numerous sites are reporting that Facebook Chief Technology Officer Adam D’Angelo is leaving Facebook. Yesterday I speculated about the actual reasons behind the announcement to discontinue Network Pages and less than 24 hours later comes the news of the departure of the co-founder and CTO. According to All Things Digital the loss of their CTO is not exactly on good terms:

…according to sources close to the company, D’Angelo felt his responsibilities no longer fit well with his skills and interests.

In other words the company has changed into something D’Angelo no longer want to be part of. I feel this confirms my suspicion that there was something more behind the odd announcement to discontinue a popular and useful feature. The more I read about Facebook the more I think there are strong political machinations occurring at the highest management level and again, only time will tell if this is a good or a bad thing for the company.

Facebook networks are great way to connect with people in your city, country, area, or topic of interest, and C|net is reporting that Facebook will be discontinuing network pages soon. I have confirmed that this is indeed true as the following message now appears on my facebook account…

Network Pages will be discontinued soon
Facebook will soon be removing Network Pages from the site. Please keep this in mind when communicating with others on the Wall and on the discussion board. You can use Groups to connect with the people around you.

This announcement by Facebook is a little hard to understand but must be a very good reason for it, at least in Facebooks eyes (pun intended:). I’m more than curious to know exactly what the reason is, because it’s hard to imagine why they would remove such a useful and popular feature from their network.

The reason for the change may simply be to consolidate the now separate networks and groups, making the new groups communication system even larger and more powerful. But the skeptic in my says there is something else behind the move but only time will tell.

In the meantime, here’s a Facebook parody from sketch group Idiots Of Ants, definitely worth a look if you need a laugh…

I added this site to Technorati.com barely a week ago and things were going great at first but in the last couple of hours I have been getting constant errors. When I visit Technorati I get the following friendly message:

Doh! The Technorati Monster escaped again. We’re scouring the blogosphere attempting to find it. Back in a flash!

And this is what it looks like:

Sometimes I don’t even get the Technorati Monster error page and instead get a Proxy Error that looks like this:

Technorati is a great service for bloggers so It would be a real shame if they couldn’t sort these problems out quickly.

Gizmodo are reporting that the creator of the Macgyver series Lee David Zlotoff has announced a MacGyver movie is in the works. They say he announced it at “Maker Fair 2008″ but there isn’t anything on makerfaire.com about it. This is one rumor I hope is true.

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UPDATE: Unfortunately it seems that this rumor was incorrect as there is no information at imdb.com and I haven’t hear a thing about it since.

If this is true it could be the biggest development in medicine, possibly ever. I say if it is true because you just cant blindly believe anything you read or hear in the media these days, but thats a whole other blog post. Basically a 69 year old from ohio had the tip of his finger severed by a model aeroplane propeller. His finger was treated with ‘Pixie Dust’ then his finger tip grew back in just four weeks. Yes the whole thing finger grew back without scarring as if the injury never happened. It sounds too good to be true and with the medias history of picking up fake news I’m somewhat skeptical. I’m keeping an open mind though in the hope that it is completely true, because if it is it could be an amazing advance for the human race. Just imagine for a moment being able to regrow limbs, or even better being able to re-grow failing or diseased organs.

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Update: It turns out this was a complete hoax that was picked up by the major news agencies. It was on all the news bulletins here in sydney australia so it just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear.