Thanks to GameSpot for their report that the eagerly-awaited Final Fantasy XII won't ship until at least April 2004 in Japan, according to Square Enix, who "updated its profit estimates for the full fiscal year, lowering that figure by almost 20 percent" as part of this news. The article points out that "two of [Square Enix's] major RPGs will [now] not be showing up until the company's next fiscal year", since Dragon Quest VIII [aka Dragon Warrior VIII] is already confirmed as shipping later in 2004, although a PlayStation 2 remake of Dragon Quest V has just been announced for this fiscal year in Japan. In more fortuitous news, the company also announced that "its TV toy game, Shinken Dragon Quest... [has] been selling beyond expectations in Japan."

Jedi Holocron writes "The full article is at Space.Com and reports on the current status of Brian "Rocket Guy" Walker's home-brew space program. This is the guy who is planning to build a rocket in his backyard, funded by his toy inventions. He's scaled back from an X-Prize launch to a mere 15,000 feet with a sky-diving return. This could be the next ride installed next to Disney's Mission:Space if he has his way!!! All told he's now calling it an amateur rocket, however it doesn't look like the model rockets I remember."

Thanks to Retrogames for pointing to the news that a Lord Of The Rings pinball machine has been announced, courtesy of sole remaining pinball manufacturer Stern Pinball Inc. There are no pictures yet, but the press release reveals features including "...a Balrog toy that pivots when hit by the ball, revealing the jump ramp that leads to The One Ring", and the fact that "...players can knock down Barad-dur, which also features the eye of Sauron." The game "will begin shipping in November, 2003", and follows recent Stern machines such as The Simpsons Pinball Party and Terminator 3.

An anonymous reader writes "This project gives step-by-step instructions + source for connecting a cheap RC car to your parallel port and driving it around with a Dance Dance Revolution pad (or joystick). A fun way to make an old toy fun for another few hours, and another way to pretend that reading Slashdot may eventually lead to body movement."

Thanks to Reuters for their story that Nintendo have purchased over 1 million Bandai shares, making them one of Gundam creator and toy/game/film company Bandai's top 10 shareholders. A spokesman "...said Nintendo, the maker of GameCube home video consoles, which did not own any shares in Bandai as of March, has no intention of acquiring the toymaker", but GamesAreFun relay Japanese tabloid rumors that "a full-on merger between the two groups could take place sometime in the future." But it may be more likely, Video-Fenky points out, that "it's a move on Nintendo's part to win Bandai closer to their side and get them to release Gundam and Super Robot Taisen games... on their machine."

Jason Scott writes "TiVo: You love it or you haven't met it. For those who have it (or are thinking of getting one), a new book is out about all the different ways to modify, increase capacity, or even program TiVos. Whether you want to just add a little capacity to your TiVo's drives or turn it into a full-blown home entertainment center hooked into your home LAN, Jeff Keegan has written a massive and all-encompassing book on this rewarding art." Read on for the rest of Jason's review.

Thanks to CNN Money for their article tipping Sony's EyeToy USB camera and games as "a sure-fire contender" for this Xmas's must-have holiday toy. It's argued this intriguing motion-capture party game is "...the sort of thing that could get parents (or others who otherwise might not care about video games) off the couch and playing games with their kids", and consumer response looks good in the UK, where it's already racked up 5 weeks atop the charts. It's even audaciously suggested that the game/camera combo, which is due on November 4th for $49, "could take the family audience away from Nintendo."

nissin writes "I'm ready to buy my first vehicle, and would like to hear your experiences with either hybrid or electric vehicles. Are they a good alternative to conventional vehicles, or just a geek toy? Do they perform well in the city? How about on long road trips? I am also interested in hearing about other alternative, yet practical, forms of transportation that I may have missed."

Thanks to the San Diego Union-Tribune for its amusing article discussing the use of in-game cheatcodes and other game spoilers. It can be big business - regarding the cheat/hintbook market, an analyst suggests: "When you look at the magazines, Web sites and hint books, it's clear that consumers are spending quite a bit of money not just on the games. It's well over $100 million (annually). It's a big, big area." The up-side of cheating is mentioned, too - Chris Ulm of Sammy Studios says "Some of the codes let you play the game again and have a different experience. It makes the game a toy that you can play with in a different way." But the dark side is also revealed, with one piquant passage suggesting codes could be "...akin to cheating at solitaire, a source of false accomplishment and just one more instance of the fraying in society's moral fabric."

Daniel German asks: "I am in the process of preparing a lecture on the influence of computers and computer science in the movie industry. I'd like to include excerpts from the most important landmarks, and in order to give credit where credit is due, I'd like to ask for help from the Slashdot community. What are those movies and moments? The Westworld robot vision; the city landscapes of Blade Runner; Final Fantasy; Toy Story; the water beings from The Abyss; the starting sequence in Forrest Gump; bullet time; and so on. What do you consider to be the scenes that have become landmarks in computer generated special effects in Movie History? I am not only looking for Science Fiction, in fact, I'd like to have a wide range of examples on how computers have altered the way that a director can bring his or her vision to the screen "

RunAmuk chimes in with this off-beat query: "Several of the software packages the company I currently work for sells, are 'critical' applications at our client's sites. As such, we have to have support staff on call 24/7 and the company provides several cell phones for this purpose. These cell phones are rotated through the support staff on a weekly basis, so that everyone gets a chance to share in the joy of the 2am support call. This morning as I overheard the pass-off of the phone ('Sorry about the antenna, my cat was chewing on it') it brought to mind a couple of the other 'incidents' that have occurred where the phone didn't quite make it to the hand-off. I'm sure we aren't the only company to have had amusing incidents like this, does anyone have any good stories to share?"

Thanks to The Times Of India for their article reporting the official launch of the PlayStation 2 in India, with pricing set at Rs 17,900 ($390 USD) - almost double its grey market price. The article quotes a Sony spokesman as saying "PS2 console prices are high because of the 66 per cent customs duty. We have launched it officially as there is a potential market for it in the country." But the piece continues: "Sony has a tough battle ahead with the grey market, in addition to intense competition from [other consoles via] ..the smuggled goods market", and explains that "...games like Eye Toy, Formula One 2003, Final Fantasy X, Tomb Raider, Lord of the Rings are best sellers this month in India. In general, titles in action, adventure sports, violence and wrestling generate interest in the Indian market."

Mitch Randall writes "The new type of gaming coming of is NOT a video game, but robotic gaming - it's the next step beyond video games, where the characters in play are real, articulated robots. I've been working on robotic gaming technology which has been picked up by a major toy company, and is due for release next year. In addition, the system will be optionally controlled by a Nintendo GameBoy SP. We are assembling GameBoy developers to coordinate the release with several game cartridges." Plenty of hype here, but some some interesting ideas involving a sonic positioning system, too.

Eric Schlaepfer writes "Here's another great toy for your wish list! ICOM manufactures the highly advanced IC-R3 portable scanner/television set. Besides picking up radio stations in the frequency range of 0.495-2450MHz, the IC-R3 also receives regular television signals, amateur television, and wireless security camera signals."

A long, long time ago, you asked lobbyist Morgan Reed questions about lobbying, undue industry influence on United States laws as they apply to the tech sector, the future of internet taxation, and more. Reed, in the meantime, has switched jobs: he's now working for the Association for Competitive Technology (as he candidly and lightheartedly acknowledges, "the enemy" to many Slashdot readers, since they lobby for large software corporations, notably Microsoft), and is finally free to answer your questions. Read on for about as inside a viewpoint as you can find on how you can affect your elected representatives, from someone whose job is to do just that. Update: 08/01 19:24 GMT by M : That's Morgan Reed, not Reed Morgan. We suck.

Cyrrin writes "The 2003 Siggraph conference is under way in San Diego, and the Emerging Technologies booth is showcasing several noteworthy projects in the field of human-computer interaction in music production. First, The Continuator system, from Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris which learns in real-time the style of a performing pianist, taking into account chord structures, rhythm, and melody, and then renders a musical performance in a similar style. Next is The Augmented Composer Project which uses real-time image processing to read the arrangement and orientation of symbolic cards on a table to allow a composer to assemble components of a musical phrase. Finally, those wizards at the MIT Media Lab bring you Hyperscore, a visual composition program which is intended for childen to be able to easily create complex and fantastic music sequences. (And it's fun for adults too!) Hyperscore is part of the Toy Symphony project and is available for download by going to the Musictoys->Hyperscore-> Showcase page (Windows-only though)."

Thanks to CNN Money for their article discussing videogame plans for the forthcoming football season, particularly focusing on the fact that "publishers are interested in discovering exactly how dedicated electronic football fans are to the online element." EA president John Riccitiello explains: "The online connected console is a brand new concept. We do not want to set a long term precedent that it's a free benefit, but we don't think we can get paid for the simple act of matching two consumers to play against one another. So what we've been doing is looking at alternatives." According to the article, EA will be trying pay-to-play tournaments (but only in NBA Live for now, not Madden), and the opportunity to purchase downloadable content, as EA learns "what the consumer is willing to pay for."

Thanks to Wired News for their story discussing the forthcoming book, Dungeons And Dreamers, which is subtitled 'The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic', and "..documents the manically creative lives of gamers by tracing the career of eccentric 'Lord British,' as [Richard] Garriott is known to millions of fans, and panning out to explore the social anthropology of computer game culture." The article points to the book's official website, where you can also find a copy of the book's first chapter, and, as for the wider implications of success stories like Ultima creator Garriott's, co-author John Borland says: "..history matters, and we want people to realize that Quake isn't an isolated phenomenon. Games back in the 1870s had similar themes, so did mid-century toy soldiers and H.G. Wells novels."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to Boomtown's hands-on preview of Sony's Eye Toy, the forthcoming USB camera add-on for the Playstation 2 which comes with a suite of mini-games. As the preview explains, "The Eye Toy has motion detection capability, so you basically play all the games by moving your hands, your head, or even your legs." Interestingly, future plans for the Eye Toy, which was one of the E3 Game Critics Award winners, are also discussed, showing Sony are committed to using the hardware for more than just the one title: "The next instalment of Eye Toy: Play is already in development, and is due for release this Christmas. It will be a far more music-oriented product, featuring many tracks by popular artists. It will also feature full online video messaging capabilities."

joestar writes "Just released today at ISC2003, Germany, is "MandrakeClustering", a high-performance computing Linux distribution/solution, which sounds interesting, at least in the PR: Pentium support with optimizations made with the Intel compiler, 64-bit Opteron support (with in this case, up to 16 GB of RAM for each cluster's node!), parallelized URPMI (Mandrake's apt-get) and other dedicated tools. This product is based on a one-year research project "CLIC" involving MandrakeSoft and partners. A good snapshot of the product running a 3D real-time demo is available here. The interesting point now: MandrakeClustering's goal is to provide a system which is easy to deploy, easy to administer and use. Well... Mum would certainly love to play Quake with this toy."