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Sony downplays meaning of MotorStorm 3 domain purchase
SCEE has registered the domain "motorstorm3.com," according to WHOIS data first found by The Gaming Liberty. The domain, which currently redirects to the UK's PlayStation site, would seem to provide a hint that a sequel to the PS3's flagship truck-dirtying simulator is on the way. Or does it? Sony told VG247 that "It's not uncommon for us to secure the URLs containing the names of our successful IP, and those actions should not be interpreted as an announcement of a new title in a franchise." That leaves only the knowledge that MotorStorm is one of Sony's major PS3 showpieces and of course there's going to be another one. [Via Eurogamer]
Apple seizes 16 domain names from squatter
Apple dropped the hammer on a domain squatter the other day, reclaiming sixteen different domain names in one fell swoop. The company filed a complaint a while back against a guy named Daniel Bijan, who didn't bother to fight his case at all (not that he has one), and the result earlier this week gives them the rights to all of them. They run the gamut from iphonecheap.com to macbookpro.com (how did Apple not own that one?), and as of this writing, we couldn't find any that were actually being used by Apple yet -- they all seem to point to either a blank Apache page or a simple domain placeholder. And as you may have noticed, there are no secrets here -- macfriend.com is probably just a stab in the dark on the part of the domain squatter, and ipodsbaratos.com means "iPods cheap" in Spanish. Just Apple reclaiming some of their rightful web space.
Happy 5th birthday (plus or minus a few months) TUAW!
While writing up a short post about Wolfram|Alpha yesterday, I decided to test the service by entering a few domain names to see what kind of results I would get. I typed in TUAW.com and Macworld.com, and was pleased to see a comparison of daily hit statistics, but what really surprised me was to find that the TUAW.com domain went online on June 16th, 2004. That, of course, makes us five years old today!We contacted Scott McNulty and Laurie Duncan, two former TUAW editors, who filled us in on some details. The first "soft launch" TUAW post was actually made on January 27, 2004 by Jason Calacanis -- it has survived a number of design changes and can be viewed here. One of the earliest examples of real-world content is Sean Bonner's post here. So is Wolfram Alpha wrong? Not precisely: those early posts appeared under the "apple.weblogsinc.com" domain, which later migrated to TUAW.com. What's happened in those five short years? The switch to Intel processors, Tiger, Leopard, the iPod nano, shuffle, and touch, and a little something called the iPhone. It's been a lot of fun for all of the bloggers who have been involved, and we hope that TUAW has been and will continue to be among your favorite sources for Apple news.I'm curious -- what changes do you think we'll see in the next five years? Leave a comment below.
The real .mac opens up with new regulations
ICANN, the ruling body for Internet domain naming, has voted to relax a few rules that will supposedly open up a whole slew of top-level domain names, multiple news sources are reporting. They haven't exactly said why they're doing this, only that it will "preserve the security, stability, and global interoperability of the Internet." Which seems like a good reason, we guess. But whatever the reason, it's good news for people who don't want to use the old standbys of .com or .org -- now, bidding can start for .sex, .xxx, .post, or any other combination of letters.Like, for example, .mac. Yes, for the first time in the history of the Internet, Apple would have been able to make good on its .Mac brand -- except that, as you know, they decided just a few weeks ago to change that brand to Mobile Me. Though we supposed mobile.me is probably out there somewhere.Of course, as we've speculated before, the change to Mobile Me wasn't so much about domain names as it was about just getting away from the Apple brand, and creating a service that both Mac and PC users would be interested in. So odds are that Apple wasn't waiting for .mac anyway. But it is interesting that even though they can finally have it, they don't actually need it any more.Thanks, Darcy L!
Rumor: Me.com bought by Apple?
Over the weekend, the rumor mills went crazy with reports that Apple had bought a new domain name from their registrar (Mark Monitor). The domain name in question: me.com, which would agree with previous reports of Apple re-branding their .Mac service as "Mobile Me."As we reported earlier it seems Apple is re-launching their .Mac service as an Exchange style service that might even be moving onto other mobile platforms as well as other OSes (including Windows). As an additional reconfirmation of this rumor, the same tipster that told TUAW first about the .Mac refresh contacted us again to say that the rumors are in fact true. This is still solidly in the rumor category, but it is certainly shaping up to be an interesting WWDC.[via MacRumors]
GoDaddy invades WoW Armory
In one of the most bizarre things I've seen happen to the World of Warcraft in my three years playing, the WoW Armory site today is pointing to a generic GoDaddy.com domain parking page. The screenshot above was taken at 1:08 p.m. CST on March 2nd, 2008. WoW Insider has received numerous reports of this. It seems to be a DNS related issue. The domain name wowarmory.com expires today, and it appears as if a registrant has grabbed the wowarmory.com domain name as soon as it expired.DNS entries for blizzard.com and worldofwarcraft.com point to cerf.net, while the DNS servers for wowarmory.com are currently pointing to domaincontrol.com. While some of you might be seeing wowarmory.com work correctly, others are not. The ISPs of people who are seeing it work have not had their DNS records updated yet, however within the next 48 hours they will see wowarmoy.com go down as well; unless Blizzard fixes this before then (I am sure they are already aware, or becoming aware of it).Stay tuned to WoW Insider for the latest on this story.Thanks to Matthew Rossi and his wife for contributing to the technical sleuthing in this post.Updated 2:34 p.m. EST: You can access the armory using a sub-domain of worldofwarcraft.com by going to http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/Updated 3:03 p.m. EST: http://www.wowarmory.com/ is now working again. It looks like Blizzard really jumped on the issue and fixed it.
Elder Scrolls going online? Maybe
Hot on the heels of a massive investment from Providence Equity Partners in Bethesda-parent ZeniMax Media's newly opened MMO-focused studio, word has reached us that the company has registered the domain name elderscrollsonline.com, throwing some weight behind the idea that Bethesda's popular RPG franchise could someday finally break free from its single player shackles and frolic the n00b-infested waters of the MMO. It's true that many have often referred to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as an MMO without all the stupid. Still, the truth of the matter is that while we openly admit that The Elder Scrolls works well as a setting for an immersive single player experience, the world itself is nothing short of generic. The last thing the gaming world needs is yet another tepid swords and sorcery MMO, and the idea of having to lead an intricately armored horse to the pond to drink once a month seems more apt to turn our stomachs rather than our wallets.
iPhone.com domain hit hard
iPhone.com, which is not owned by Apple, has been hit so hard today that the site has temporarily been shut down. Created in 1995, according to publicly available domain information, it is currently registered by Go Daddy. iPhone.org, however, is registered by Apple Computer and will redirect you to the iPhone page on the main Apple site--the one with the cool iPhone intro.
dotMobi is more than just a top level domain name
Although the experience of browsing the web on a mobile phone has improved greatly over the last couple of days five years or so, there are still sites out there that refuse to load or function as smoothly as they would on a personal computer. A possible solution to this problem comes in the form of yesterday's launch of dotMobi: or if you prefer it cold and impersonal, the new .mobi top level domain name. Yeah, so you're thinking "how's another domain name gonna improve things?" Well, unlike other domain names, dotMobi has a relatively stringent style guide for anyone wishing to register a .mobi domain: mandatory rules for registrants include the requirement that the site can be loaded without typing "www." (a pain on a numerical keypad), and a complete ban on cellphone-browser busting frames. Time will tell whether or not the bar of entry has been set high enough, as all of the tips in the "Highly Recommended" section of the style guide are optional: for example, registrants don't even have to test their website on a mobile device. A giant leap for cellular mankind this is not, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
