According to this post on the zBrush forums, Pixologic appear to have 'acquired' Sculptris, the free app that everyone-and-his-dog has probably tried and liked. There's no details on exactly what sort of acquisition this was but the post tells that Tomas Pettersson, the author of the app is pulling up sticks and moving the ZBrush/Pixologic HQ. There are no indications as to what this means for the lightweight 3D sculpting app, other than a new subsection to zBrushCentral forums, so keep your eyes peeled for news.

The Interactive Software Federation of Europe have just released a PDF detailing the results of a pan-European survey they conducted on gamers and gamers habits for 2010 (it's very detailed, breaking the results down per territory). Although awareness and market penetration of the PEGI ratings system appears to be the primary reason for the survey, the results are interesting nonetheless.

The survey estimates there are some 95 million gamers across Europe, only 8% of which consider themselves 'hardcore' gamers (defined by the number of hours and games they play over a given time frame). The PC is still the platform of choice, at 49%, and although the results don't specifically make mention of this, it can be inferred from the numbers that a high percentile  own and use more than one gaming device, particularly when hand-held's are included. Download the PDF and read the report, it makes quite interesting reading, if anything 'girls' are catching up with 'boys' as people who are quite happy to call themselves a "gamer".

As mentioned previously, and as it happens, Activision came under quite a bit of criticism over the rules imposed for its recently announced game competition. Well, according to Develop Mag, Activision released clarification on this topic saying that entrants won't be giving their IP to the company and that a separate deal would be struck if that were the case where they wanted to fully publish.

"There was some confusion to the way the rules were written," a spokesperson told Develop. "It was thought that if you enter the contest you automatically give up your IP rights to Activision. That’s not true at all. What the wording in our rules meant was that if you enter the contest with your own game idea you have to prove that your idea belongs to you. That’s all it meant" [source]

There doesn't appear to be any onsite clarification of this so the entry form looks to be unchanged, i.e. clarified. As a slight aside here, there's an interesting blog by a game attorney who looked into this issue, although he does admit to giving Activision a hard time, his opinion is worth reading nonetheless..

Other related news

According to ITPro, the results of a poll has been released recently which asked those polled if they agreed with UK Governments plans to limit or block file sharers connections to the internet;

Despite ongoing questions over the accuracy of measures being used to identify alleged offenders, 53 per cent of those questioned said it was acceptable for ISPs to slow down their internet connections, and 52 per cent agreed that persistent offenders should have their account suspended. [source]

I'm slightly troubled by this because I have a funny feeling the questions asked we're likely worded to 'lead' a conclusion. Doubly troublesome is the fact that as of writing I cannot for the life of me find the actual report anywhere online or on Mori's own web site, so the results and conclusions can't be verified :o\

Well... since Google completely messed up video comments on YouTube with the recent 'populist' changes it's now become increasingly difficult to hold a question/answer conversation whenever someone ask something of one of the video tutorials posted to KatsBits channel. With that in mind a new section has been added to the forum that solves this problem by posting each tutorial video to it's own topic to which you can now comment if you have questions about anything you see in the videos; this is the only way to 'thread' replies as YouTube don't appear to be interested in returning comments to their previous format. Guest posting is on (and moderated) in that section but it's recommended you create an account as guests have limited features.

So broadband tax has been "abolished" in the first budget of the newly hobbled together Coalition Government in the UK. Rather than linking to other gaming and news websites, it's best to read what George Osborne actually said. So to quote from the PDF of his recent Budget speech;

But the previous Government's landline duty is an archaic way of achieving this, hitting 30 million households who happen to have a fixed telephone line. I am happy to be able to abolish this new duty before it is even introduced. Instead, we will support private broadband investment, including to rural areas, in part with funding from the Digital Switchover under-spend within the TV Licence Fee.

Reading between the lines, and depending on just how much of the needed investment comes from private sources, as well as looking into the Orbs eye (to predict your future young adventurer), what's going to happen in coming years is the eventual appearance of a two-tier internet - the one we have now, and a faster, 'better' one, the result of all this private funding. If you want to know what this means take a look at BT and how it still has a vice like hold over the telephone network infrastructure, the prices we are charged for the various services we use are a direct result of that - of which both consumers and ISP's have been long complaining. It's also not coincidental that the Government still has a big stake in BT being one of the major stock holders in the 'private' company.

Fast forward a few years to this privately funded 'new' network and we'll likely find the same, or very similar, situation play out whereby other third party network operators will have to pay a premium for access. This will filter down to users as perhaps higher subscription fees, advert predominate content, or even only certain types of high volume material being available - websites and/or information that generates large volumes of traffic, an Internet 'Walled Garden' if you will, to use a phrase oft' cited in relation locked out networks and services.

I'm always a bit wary of Politicised 'rhetoric' when it comes to the Internet and access to it, Osborne's few words reveal a much broader, long term picture we should be aware of because its likely to have repercussions on gaming, content creation and game development, certainly when 'money' is exchanging hands - who's to say that anyone wanting to 'sell' something over the new network wouldn't be liable for a fee to do so, AppStore does it, Steam Network does it, so to do a myriad of distribution channels. Would broadband network providers then be justified in saying just what type of material gets onto the network because it is theirs after all.

All speculative musings, but something that bears thinking about, especially when taking into account the wider context of Net-Neutrality and the constant 'fight' going on with regards to that.

[Edit to add] There's a bizarre twist to this whole 'internet tax' issue in that, believe it or not, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report in Dec 09, on Public health, innovation and intellectual property: Report of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing which put forward a proposal that there should be a "digital tax or “bit” tax" (pg 9, sec. 22, para 2) to help fund the Organisation;

22. Indirect taxes involve a small tax being imposed on specified products or transactions and could potentially raise very significant amounts of revenue. Examples given include the following:

...
• digital tax or “bit” tax: Internet traffic is huge and likely to increase rapidly; this tax could yield tens of billions of US dollars from a broad base of users;
...

So although Osborne's "abolished" a landline tax in terms of it being levied by the current UK Government, does this still leave the door open to the WHO 'obliging' signatory nations to implement said same just under their auspices.

In other related news, America's first official intellectual property enforcement strategy wants 50 dedicated FBI agents to tackle the problem of piracy and IP theft according to the Independent.

The creation of a task force in the Justice Department to investigate and uphold the Digital Millennium Copyright Act includes new federal attorneys and FBI agents focused on combating domestic and international IP property crimes.

The full Joint Strategic Plan to Combat Intellectual Property Theft can be read on the White House website. Of particular note is a mention of "fair use", it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but there had been concerns over the task force being heavy handed when it came to DMCA matters.

The Obama Administration has always embraced the free flow of information, online collaboration, and fair use by average citizens, which are also helping to advance our society and economy every day -- this strategy does not target legitimate and legal activity. [White House blog]