Google is trying out the game commercial business again with its “AdSense for Games” product. Right now it’s testing an in-game technology that would allow them to insert ads while a person is playing a video game. In a demo, a character could pause and say something like “and now, a word from our sponsor,” before showing an ad clip. That’s exactly what games like Metal Gear Solid needs, an “Army of One” commercial before every cut scene.

Major technical business companies like HP, Intel, and Yahoo, along with several educational and research organizations are coming together to create a global research test bed for cloud computing. They’ve also partnered with organizations like Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the University of Illinios, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and the National Science Foundation. Their goal is to create an environment where companies from different industries, academia, and governments can come together and research different cloud computing technologies without any financial or logistical barriers.

Another one bites the dust, as Yahoo announces it will be shutting down its DRM servers as of September 30^th, 2008. Those customers that relied on these servers to authenticate their music when they moved between different computers and portable devices will have to find new music elsewhere. However, Yahoo says that it’s not leaving their consumers high and dry.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is one step closer to convicting Comcast of violating federal policy. Three of five commissioners, Copps, Andelstein, and Martin, have voted in favor of finding the cable giant guilty. If this decision is passed, it has the potential send a clear message against ISPs that hamper people’s ability to use the internet.

Once again, Digg was unable to be bought out by another company. Negotiations between it and Google ended, when the search giant backed out of the deal. Reasons for Google’s decision are still up to speculation, since an official press release has yet to be made.

The software giant shocked everyone at the Open Source Convention (OSCON) today when it decided to sponsor $100,000 toward the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Justin Erenkratz, ASF president, believes that this is a step in the right direction toward interoperability between Apache and Microsoft. However, Microsoft’s Sam Ranji clearly states that this isn’t a move away from Microsoft’s strategic web server. Still, could this mean that Microsoft is finally seeing the light in Open Source development?

Amazon S3 was down once again today (Sunday, July 20 at around 12pm EST). “Elevated error rates” began pouring in from the S3 service for the United States and Europe. Several sites reported problems, down sites, and missing images from stored content on the S3 server.

Researchers at Radbound University Niumegen got their day in court and will now be allowed to publish their Oyster card system vulnerability findings.

Last August, Virgil Griffith pulled back the curtain on anonymous user edits on Wikipedia entries with Wikiscanner and revealed some serious corporate meddling. Now, he’s unveiling his newest upgrade to the program called “Wikiwatcher,” a Wikipedia-mining tool that flags edits made by users who belong to a corporation that may have a “conflict of interest” in what’s being edited. He’s also releasing some other tools that may bring some other controversies to light.

Twitter has been trying to stay afloat in the mist of overwhelming traffic for quite some time now. They’ve disabled features, like reply tabs and instant messages, and even tried to reduce authenticated API requests, from unlimited to 70 to 20 and back up to 100. Now, they’re placing a limit on unauthenticated API requests, moving it down to 100 requests per hour per IP address. Developers are already complaining that such move is going to cause serious problems for their businesses and, in effect, cause problems for Twitter.

At the E3 Media and Business Summit Microsoft announced a partnership with Netflix, which will see Netflix content on Xbox Live.

Over the next four weeks, the Federal Communications Commission will be conducting twelve field tests of the TV white space devices in an assortment of environments. These devices are hardware that takes advantage of the unused TV channel frequencies in the area. Responding to concerns expressed by ESPN/NFL and other broadcast organizations, the FCC is going to see if these devices will interfere with other broadband devices.

Sensor technology may make parking a little bit easier in San Francisco. The city is going install small sensors in 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces that will inform drivers when these spots are available. These alerts can be displayed on special street signs or on smart-phones. They could also potentially offer other services as well.

The new HP TouchSmart IQ506 makes some significant improvements from its predecessor, the IQ770, in terms of design, performance, and touch interface. Plus, its larger screen, touch UI, and other smaller features really distinguish it from its competition, like the Apple iMac and Averatec All-in-one. However, compared to these other solutions, this computer has average performance at best.

Dan Kaminsky was finally successful in getting the security research community to back his claims to the design flaw with DNS. After months working with vendors to create and distribute patches, he admitted that he made a mistake and didn’t realize that “you don’t get to make a whole bunch of noise without some technical details to back it up.”

Windows Mobile users rejoice! A new 3^rd party application called FriendMobilizer allows Windows Mobile users to keep in touch with their Facebook accounts. Now they can enjoy the same features that they’ve been envying of Blackberry owners.

If you’re a parent, then you may want to think twice before working at Google. Childcare prices just soared from $1,425 to about $2,500 a month.