Updates will resume next week... on vacation.

Scientific American asks what it would take for someone to actually be Batman, or a suitable analogue:

What's less realistic?

A great example is in the movies where Batman is fighting multiple opponents and all of a sudden he's taking on 10 people. If you just estimate how fast somebody could punch and kick, and how many times you could hit one person in a second, you wind up with numbers like five or six. This doesn't mean you could fight four or five people. But it's also hard for four or five people to simultaneously attack somebody, because they get in each other's way. More realistic is a couple of attackers.

It's an awesome interview, well worth spending the time reading through completely.

The Wii is getting another step from homebrewers... a set of custom firmware.

This one only alters one module, to let homebrew software load off of burned DVDs.

From the readme:

- This is a Custom IOS, an IOS modified to add some new features
not available in the official IOS.

This IOS has been made to be used ONLY with homebrew software.

The Custom IOS installs as IOS249 and it does not modify any other
IOS so it is secure to install.

It'll be interesting to see where Wii custom firmware goes from here.

There's an awesome interview over on Den of Geek about the technical challenges in making Wall-E:

The software for the actual execution of the film doesn’t change that much. Because you really need to lock it to one piece of software. Maybe there’ll be an update here and there, and they’ll be individual sub-programs developed. For example there was a program developed for Wall E just to get his treads to lock to the ground, so they recognise the ground and wrap around and drive as you translate him along. That was technology that was developed as an offshoot from a very similar program from Cars, in keeping the tyres on the ground. But that’s about as automated as we get. Everything else is pretty much hand animated.

One of the things I love about Pixar is how much time they spend making sure things are right - the quote he has about as much as possible being hand-animated is an indication of this.

PC World sent a reporter out to buy laptops with XP and managed it, but only by fibbing on a number of occasions:

The verdict? Downgrade policies are all over the map, and more than a few rank-and-file sales reps have a sketchy understanding of those policies. Some notebook PC sellers make getting XP preinstalled on a new laptop a snap; others don't offer it under any circumstance. As a rule of thumb, your odds of finding a machine with XP and a sales rep who knows how to configure a machine with that OS are far greater if you call the business sales line instead of the consumer sales line. (Be prepared to fib and say you're planning to buy 25 computers during the next 12 months.)

Suggestion: get it by the end of the year, or risk a laptop incurably infected with the Vista virus due to lack of XP drivers.

If you still play a City Of" game, be advised they've now completely merged:

It’s All Access for City of Heroes and City of Villains

NCsoft readies the number 1 super-powered MMO for more

There is a reason for the rejoicing in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It is official – NCsoft has completely merged the two games into one game universe. All current subscribers who only had one of the games (City of Heroes or City of Villains) now have access to the features of both games. Additionally, all City of Heroes and City of Villains games for sale at retail or online will grant access to both games.

This is the final step needed in preparing the IP for future projects, to be announced later this year. Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have always been a part of the same game universe. When City of Villains launched in 2005 as a stand-alone game, it did not launch with an extra subscription fee, so there has always been this feeling that they are closely related. What’s different here is that NCsoft has taken down the barrier where players had to have a City of Villains serial code to make a villain, and vice versa. Now, it doesn’t matter if you bought Heroes or Villains, you can make characters from either faction and experience their unique game content. Additionally, Heroes now have access to base building, which was previously only available if you had purchased City of Villains.

“In setting the stage for our upcoming plans for the IP, we felt the time was right to truly consolidate the City of Heroes and City of Villains universe,” said Brian Clayton, General Manager and Executive Producer. “We have removed all restrictions that were created when City of Villains launched in order to make way for some really cool content and features we have in the pipeline. This is an evolution of the IP that lays the foundation for what’s to come.”

The most recent game update, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, launched in May and included a wealth of features, including a new Greek and Roman inspired zone, Villain Epic Archetypes, Powerset Proliferation, as well as more character slots so that players can try out the new character powers and Archetypes.

“We know that character variety is one of our greatest strengths and that’s why our players love to create new characters” said Matt Miller, Lead Designer. “Even former players who reactivate will be pleasantly surprised to see new open character slots waiting for them.”

Uniting the City of Heroes universe enables the development team to focus on other features slated to come in future installments. Improvements to Supergroup Bases and raids, an offline character reward system, and the previously revealed Mission Maker are just some of the systems that will see the benefits of a unified City of Heroes game.

The coverage article for the Video Games Live concert in Houston, Texas this year is posted. Check it out.

The Apple I Basic interpreter has been recovered:

Achim wrote an Apple I emulator, included a commented disassembly of his Apple I BASIC dump, and published it on the internet. Other people continued working on the disassembly and changed instructions that they thought were mistakes in the dump. The only dump that can be easily found today includes these changes. It was time to analyze the tape again and get an authoritative dump of the 4096 bytes.

It's quite a long post but very informative on the amount of time and steps needed for this kind of recovery. Might be useful for recovering older programs from a lot of tape-drive era computers, too.

Yes, that's right - IGN has the news that Sony is losing their lock on Squaresoft with the release of Final Fantasy 13 on both the Xbox360 and PS3.

It must really suck to be Sony today.

If you're one of those people who doesn't like Sony's official PSP firmware and likes extra features and longer battery life (plus not having to worry about putting your UMD's in your pocket and sitting on them), you'll be happy to know that the latest firmware has a custom version available.

No word on when there will be a Popsloader update, though.