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Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman describes Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series as horrendous during a forum at Dartmouth College.

According to a recent Reuters report, Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman launched an attack on the Grand Theft Auto games during a women's forum at Dartmouth College yesterday. The Connecticut senator, who led the fight in Congress against excessive sex and violence in the entertainment industry, described Grand Theft Auto as "horrendous" and said that Rockstar Games should be more responsible. "The player is rewarded for attacking a woman, pushing her to the ground, kicking her repeatedly and then ultimately killing her, shooting her over and over again," said Lieberman. "I call on the entertainment companies--they've got a right to do that, but they have a responsibility not to do it if we want to raise the next generation of our sons to treat women with respect."

News source: GameSpot

Sadler said the company expects DRAM unit shipments would increase as much as 18 percent in 2004, on top of an 11 percent rise in the prior year while content growth would be in the range of 30 to 50 percent driven by a resurgence in the corporate market.

Said Sadler, "2003 was a good year for memory content due to [Microsoft] Windows XP deployment, broadband demand and strong consumer PC sales but we are also beginning to see an increase from the business market."

Another strong growth area for memory suppliers is the wireless handset market where a combination of huge volume — more than 500 million units per year #151; and rising memory content, which Sadler puts at 16 Mb per phone today, is raising optimism in the industry.

"You've got memory growth, camera phone growth and high number," Sadler said. "Cellphones will undoubtedly be the key growth in future."

In his own presentation at the conference, Bill Stover, Micron's vice president and chief financial officer, said the company's capital expenditure would increase in 2004 to a range of $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion from approximately $1.1 billion in 2003.

Stover estimated total global DRAM capital expenditures rose to $6 billion in 2003 from $5 billion in 2002. Capital expenditure in the industry has fallen from as high as $20 billion 1996 and $9 billion at the height of the last industry expansion in 2000.