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Smoking Gun, Cyberia author Rushkoff partner for games, books
Smoking Gun, an independent studio formed in 2007 by Relic Entertainment vets, has landed a new deal with tech evangelist Douglas Rushkoff, with the award-winning author set to pen the story for an as-yet-unannounced property. Details remain light, though Rushkoff notes his narrative will be used in multiple games as well as related books.If that's not enough to interest you, consider that Rushkoff, whose works include cyber culture novel Cyberia and the DC comic series Testament, is set to lend words to an entire range of titles "across a range of media formats that can feed off one another and exist concurrently." Honestly, we're just as confused as you are, but once the headache stops and the Advil kicks in we'll reach out to Smoking Gun for more.
Is Cryptic hinting at Star Trek Online?
Keen-eyed reader Jester has alerted us to an interesting clue that might be Cryptic's way of telling us what their other MMO in development might be. On their front page, Cryptic has a small countdown clock with a lovely space background, but no other text over it.Over at Star Trek fansite Trekcore, they've posted a ton of the concept artwork that had been previously done by Perpetual for the Star Trek Online before it got canceled. One of the pieces is the same blue-washed planet scene immediately discernible as the background for Cryptic's countdown timer. We've inset the clock into the concept piece for your viewing pleasure above. Is this a smoking gun? Or, rather, a plasma-venting core?
Ex-Turbine CEO to launch casual sports site
If you've been wondering where Jeffrey Anderson, former CEO of Turbine, has been lately, wonder no more. He's acquired $5 million from New Enterprise Associates, Inc. to fund a new start-up casual sports games site called Play Hard Sports. While it's still unsaid why Anderson left Turbine in the first place, one could hardly think of a more antithetical genre for him to tackle than sports. In addition to casual sports titles, Play Hard Sports will also offer sports-themed MMOs.In a side note, the referring article mentions that Turbine is expected to announce its future plans in a couple of weeks, and that speculation around what they'll say is based on their job listings, which mention "Experience with UI development on a console platform, e.g. Xbox 360, PS3 or similar", among others. This, of course, is not a smoking gun by any stretch, but as fodder for excited mutterings, it's not bad.Anderson says the first game to come from PHS will arrive in the Fall.
Unearthed memo details possible e-voting negligence
In case the Brits were still wondering if we Americans finally had our act together in regard to e-voting, this should add yet another nail in the coffin. Among the bevy of states that saw all sorts of turmoil when voters turned to electronic machines to cast their support was Florida, and while a recent motion doesn't speak of that specific incident, it does highlight a good bit of potential negligence. Apparently, a note was "uncovered" last September (but was withheld until just last week) which documented a "possible problem" with Election Systems & Software's iVotronic touchscreen machine, but wasn't used to scrutinize the finicky system before loosed to the voting public. The eventually malfunctioning software was linked to a "dispute over the 13th Congressional District race in November," which supposedly caused a high rate of "undervoting," and allowed Vern Buchanan to take the questionable gold by a mere 400 votes. Regardless, it's a little late for a recount, don't you think? [Warning: PDF read link][Via Wired]
