Tech Brief
On Tech Brief today: Gaming is good for management and the unluckiest thief in the world
• Here is some news to quote during your next appraisal. Playing video games, such as World of Warcraft, can help you prosper in big business. Speaking to Forbes, Elliot Noss, head of domain name firm Tucows, who plays WoW for hours each week reveals what it can do for you:
"When you're in a raid that's poorly led, it was really easy to see how things like managing the social dynamic, making sure there was the right level of preparation and making sure there was a clear hierarchy were affected."
All this makes Tech Brief wonder how crazy must the domain name business be if it regularly resembles a 25-man raid on Naxxramas or a take-down of Onyxia, broodmother of the black dragonflight.
• "Pirate" ISPs that let their subscribers file-share with impunity could soon be sailing on the seas of the UK's cyberspace. They could be pushed into existence by the controversial Digital Economy Act which exempts ISPs with less then 400,000 customers from rules governing what net firms must do to police their customers:
"According to Pirate Party UK, this automatically makes them more pirate friendly than large ISPs, and provides an opportunity for Pirate ISPs to be set up, which also avoid the heavy financial cost of implementing the Ofcom rules."
• It would have been hard for one luckless criminal to choose a worse time to try to steal an iPhone from Jordan Sturm who was brandishing said handset on San Francisco's South of Market street. Why? David Kahn takes up the story:
"'What are the odds,' Kahn asked, 'that you would grab someone's cell phone during a demonstration of the ability to track the phone's location in real time? That's what this unfortunate thief did.'"
The thief was tracked and caught within 10 minutes.
• Downloads have done interesting things to the music industry and the evidence is that they are becoming a significant factor in PC gaming too. Alec Meer at Rock Paper Shotgun declares the first NPD stats on game downloads "veeeeeeery interesting":
"They're now estimating that download sales constitute 48% of the PC market, which means previous recent surveys have ignored about 21.3 million units. Whole lotta cash. That's even before you factor in the giant cash-pile generated from free-to-play games' microtransactions and whatnot."
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Links in full
• Oliver Chang | Forbes.com | Ten Ways Games Can Boost Your Career
• Sophie Curtis | eWeek Europe | Digital Act To Create Pirate ISPs In UK
• Demian Bulwa | SF Gate | San Francisco's unluckiest thief
• Alec Meer | Rock Paper Shotgun | Whee! Downloads Now 48% of PC Game Sales/p>
