Oh, Ubisoft. You so quickly went from the guys that brought us Splinter Cell (young people: Splinter Cell used to be cool in the early to mid 2000s) to the guys that have created the stupidest DRM known to man. Oh, and you’re also incapable of telling the truth. The authentication servers for Assassin’s Creed II (I thought that comes out tomorrow?) and Silent Hunter V were completely inaccessible for a number of people yesterday. Why? Ubisoft claimed it was because of “exceptional demand,” but the real reason is that some punk kids (I assume it’s punk kids) decided to launch a denial of service attack. I suppose, technically, a denial of service attack involves, on some level, demand…

I’m almost overwhelmed with what I have to say about this. Let me put this in bullet points to better organize my thoughts.

• The people who initiated the denial of service attacks are morons. No one looks to them as heros for attacking Ubisoft. Seriously, the only civilized way to complain/protest the DRM measure is to simply not buy the game AND not pirate it. Pretend it doesn’t exist, and Ubisoft will be all, “Hey, why don’t we have more money? Is it because our DRM is dumb?”

• Why can’t Ubisoft just tell us the truth? If your servers were attacked, just say so! Don’t make up stories to make yourself look good. “Exceptional demand” my foot! Let’s be honest: Silent Hunter V isn’t exactly Modern Warfare 2 or New Super Mario Bros. Wii, sales-wise. And Assassin’s Creed II came out last fall: do you really mean to tell me that SO MANY people were looking forward to play the port that you didn’t have enough servers on hand to meet demand?

• This obviously doesn’t justify piracy, but man alive does it prove the adage that only legitimate customers are harmed by DRM

Those bullet points only slightly helped.

I seriously don’t understand what Ubisoft’s deal is. Did you know that Ubisoft said would consider an “offline” mode it if and when the DRM was broken? Then why bother in the first place?!

Pirates are going to pirate your game! You have plenty of people who would love to buy the game, either from Steam or from a boxed copy, who don’t want to be treated like Australia-bound thieves in the 18th century!

JUST LET US INSTALL THE GAME AND WE’LL BE ON OUR MERRY WAY~! BLAH~!

In the suit and countersuit currently being played out between eBay and Craigslist, there is really only one question: which famous tech character is to be believed?

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

Looks like the mythical Apple Tablet (or “Tapplet”) has been handled in prototype form. I can believe that this guy is telling the truth because he’s an old-school journalist, working for Barron’s. Not that Barron’s is some infallible and extra-dignified news source, but it’s an establishment and they have to be extremely careful about respecting confidentiality. And since this article is so incredibly vague, I can only assume that Apple did actually show the guy something, but also told him exactly what he could and could not write.

Kind of sounds to me like one part journalism and two parts PR, but what do I know? I’m just a blogger. It could also be that he visited a less-scrupulous partner of Apple’s and got a prototype demo without many final features. That could also explain the lack of detail.

Anyway, I don’t mean to impugn the author’s reporting, it’s just funny that we get a “first hands on” that says exactly zero about the device. Basically, he just keeps saying it’s great without giving any specifics as to dimensions, specs, ports, or really anything. He does say that it will be announced in September and released in November. That’d be nice for holiday sales, but we’ve heard that it’ll actually be a Q1 2010 device.

Of course, we may as well be arguing about what kind of conditioner Bigfoot uses.

[via 9to5mac, where they have quotes if you can't read the Barron's article]

[also, it's caturday]

Looks like McAdam was telling the truth after all, I just hope for VZW customers sake that he was telling the truth about everything, too. Earlier today, Verizon went live with the BlackBerry Tour 9630 teaser site and we’d assume its launch is imminent, but you can never tell with these sorts of things.

Not to be outdone by the competition, Sprint went live with their 9630 teaser site, too. Their BlackBerry Tour will run for $199.

Don’t expect every country in Europe to follow France in implementing a “three strikes” anti-piracy laws. A report called Digital Britain, which assess the UK’s preparedness to enter the digital era, will be published next week, and inside are methods that the UK could use to combat Internet piracy. One such method: slowing down the Internet connection of file-sharers so as to prevent them from effectively downloading illegal content. (Though, if my UK acquaintances are telling the truth, broadband in the UK is garbage to begin with. It’d be like telling a slug to slow down.)

Slowing people down is one option, rather than just cutting people off from the Internet altogether, which is something the EU doesn’t support. The Government there, now less a few Blairites, sees Internet access as being as important as something like running water.

Also in the report: a demand that ISPs cooperate when copyright infringement is found. You know, sending letters to customers saying, “Yeah, we found out that you were downloading Premier League games, and now the FA and Sky Sports are breathing down our necks. Knock it off.”

Of course, that’ll open up ISPs to all sorts of nastiness. “If they can catch people downloading episodes of “Lost,” why can’t they spot people who are looking at terrorism sites, teasing Gordon Brown, etc.?”

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