Neowin.net

Ferrago.co.uk has posted a short interview with Todd Hollenshead of id Software as he talks about Doom III, the upcoming first-person shooter that should be done sometime next year. Here is a slice:

Ferrago: Tell us a little about the detail of the environments (and the power of the technology as a whole) possible thanks to the new game engine, also, what kind of locales will we be exploring?
TH: The environments are really hyper-realistic. The designers are now only limited by their imagination in terms of what they can build within the game. The game is set on Mars itself, and players will see what the UAC looks like before and after the invasion by Hell. Plus we'll have more surprises in store.

View: Interview
News source: Game Guru

MICROSOFT SAYS IT'S OLDER AND WISER

A Microsoft official said there were "lessons that can be learned" from the FTC action and that the company would improve its description and disclosure of Passport's features.

"We've learned from the dialogue with the FTC and we will work to meet the high bar they are setting," said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith.

Tracking information collected by Passport would only be used for customer service needs and would be purged after 10 days in most cases, he said.

Activists who asked the FTC last summer to examine Passport said the settlement was the most significant victory for online privacy to date.

"Frankly, we're pleased," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which led the consumer coalition. "In some areas the FTC went further than we anticipated."

Jason Catlett, president of privacy consulting firm Junkbusters Corp., said the most significant aspect was that the FTC decided to investigate in the first place.

"Finding that Microsoft has bad security is like shooting at a sitting duck," Catlett said. "What is significant is not that they hit the duck, but that they took the shot."

Microsoft, hit by break-ins to its network and criticism over its security, made "trustworthy computing" its top priority earlier this year after chairman Bill Gates called for more emphasis on security.

Smith said the company built Passport on what it thought was the most secure technology available at the time.

The Association for Competitive Technology, a technology group that has supported Microsoft in the past, said the agreement seemed excessive but would set new standards for the entire industry.

Passport faces pressure on other fronts. European Union authorities have taken at a hard look at the service, concerned that it does not comply with privacy laws and tell users how their personal information is used.

A group of high-tech firms calling itself the Liberty Alliance, led by Sun Microsystems Inc is planning a similar identity service.

Most Passport users signed up involuntarily when they set up a free Hotmail account, or bought the new Windows XP operating system, and few are active users, said Gartner analyst Avivah Litan. The settlement could help Microsoft by building trust in the system, she said.

"Consumers use Passport right now because they have to," Litan said.

One FTC source said Microsoft was eager to settle the case because it did not want further problems with Passport, which is at the core of the company's .NET initiate to move to Internet-based services.

"They caved," the source said.