Technobabble

Nothing Left Dot Com Having trouble finding that short, easy-to-remember URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or dot-com name? Maybe that’s because the 100 million existing Web sites have gobbled up all of the good monikers.

It would have been much easier to get your name of choice in 1995, when there were only about 18,000 registered URLs. But that was then, and this is now. According to Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company, dot-com registration has doubled in the past 2 1/2 years from 50 million to 100 million. Netcraft points out that though it is tougher to get your Web site name of choice today, it is much easier to make money on the Interwebs. And if you were lucky enough to acquire a short, catchy URL such as www.baseball.com or www.money.com, you could be rolling in the www.dough.com.

Get outta my Facebook! As one great economist once said, “It’s just a matter of time before every good idea is controlled by a multinational conglomerate monster.” Or maybe it was I who said that. Regardless, it’s on the verge of happening once again.

Microsoft is supposedly in talks to buy a good amount of Facebook, the social networking site that saves us from relying on the dreaded MySpace, according to the Wall Street Journal (the well-regarded business newspaper that was just consumed by media mongrel … I mean mogul Rupert Murdock, who also bought MySpace!). At least Google, whose claim of “not being evil” is contested by some, is also jockeying for a piece of the site. Microsoft products, though prolific, are not known for their grace, beauty or stability. Oh Mr. Gates, please don’t let us 40 million Facebookers down.

Halos Not Just for Angels But it is not all death and destruction. Wait, yes it is. Xbox 360’s much-anticipated exclusive game of Needle Guns and Covenant plasma grenades is here. Halo 3 hit the stores Sept. 25 (for a full review of the game, see In The Mix, p. 30). The Microsoft video game (there’s that mega-corporation again!) broke one-day entertainment sales records set by the likes of the theatrical release of Spider-Man 3 and the first day of sales for J.K. Rowling’s latest book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—$170 million in 24 hours to be exact. With a Halo movie coming from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, and with highly publicized pranks like the altering of the statue of Harvard founder John Harvard by MIT students to look like Master Chief, the lead character of the game, could Halo be the next Star Wars?

Warm up your Lightsaber Speaking of the galaxy far, far away, more good news for gamers: Lucas Arts has announced Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Nintendo Wii. “So what?” you say. Obviously, you have not played the Wii-box. Two words: lightsaber and Wiimote. What kid (including you kids in adult skin) has not exited a Star Wars film and, as soon as he was alone, entered into a full-on aerobic air-saber (like air-guitar) battle with an imaginary Darth Maul or a clone fighter? Well, you can safely put your imagination away and start swinging that little white Wiimote at your friends and loved ones in a fight to save or destroy the rebellion. One detail that might cause a disturbance in the Force: Rumor has it players can’t fight Darth Vader.

Wacky Web site of the Week Most of us have done it. But if you get caught on camera and you’re a well-known person—well, that’s another thing. See it in all its glory here: flipdabird.wordpress.com