Row over video games ratings plan

Planned changes to the way video games are rated have sparked a row about who should be in charge of giving games their official age classification, reports The BBC.

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has announced a consultation on whether the ratings for games should replicate the system for movies.

But games makers oppose plans, backed by MPs, for the British Board of Film Classification to rate games as well.

The Scrabulour game has effectively returned, but with a redesigned board, a few original play options, a different points tabulation system, and a new name, Wordscraper, says CNet.

The Facebook application Scrabulous had been taken down by its creators earlier this week when Hasbro, the game manufacturer that owns the rights to Scrabble in the US and Canada, pointed out that Scrabulous was a near copy.

Few disagreed with the allegation, but many loyal Scrabulous fans wondered why Hasbro couldn't have struck a deal instead of insisting upon a shutdown, especially as the "real" Scrabble game on Facebook succumbed to technical difficulties.

YouTube is once again being targeted for widespread copyright infringement, except this time the lawsuit is originating from Europe, says Arstechnica.

Italian broadcaster Mediaset SpA announced today that it was going after Google for at least EUR500 million in damages, which translates to just over $750 million at today's exchange rates. Combine this with the $1 billion sought by Viacom, and YouTube is looking at the possibility of some serious legal liability.

Mediaset said that it found some 4 600 of its own videos and clips on the popular video sharing site, which the company equates to 315 672 (viewer) days of broadcasting, or more than 325 solid hours of transmission.

The British Library is using a document storage system for space optimisation and to improve invoice processing times, reports Computing.co.uk.

Some 3 000 purchase invoices are entered monthly onto the system, which is in turn integrated with an Oracle financial database. It is claimed to give Library better control of suppliers' payment terms. The Web front-ended system has 2 000 British Library users at five different sites.

Under the new platform, all purchase invoices are scanned and linked to the appropriate record in Oracle financials. Authorisation of invoices is also automated, which eliminates the manual processes used previously.