It's Friday! And here are the Friday News Bits of this week!
Bandai Namco Is Closing Twenty Arcades In Japan
Bandai Namco has announced that it will be closing 20 of it's arcades in Japan, which is an almost 10% cut in Bandai Namco's total number of arcades in Japan. Bandai Namco Holdings' president Shukuo Ishikawa has stated in the announcement that the arcades will be closed around the end of March this year.
The move is mainly a cost-cut due to the recently slower profits from the arcades. Shukuo Ishikawa has stated that this cut will save Bandai Namco about ¥3.5 billion.
The al-Qaeda might have issued a bank-note in Iraq with Osama Bin Laden on it
The front side of the bank-note
The extremist organization al-Qaeda has issued a new bank-note with Osama Bin Laden's image on it. The bank-note is apparently "One Islamic Hundred Pounds" and is from the "Islamic State in Iraq". It is not known, however, if the note is real.
It could simply be an edit/fake, or maybe it is real. One interesting thing to note is that it has the same serial number, "A001088", as the 100-pound Palestinian note seen on Wikipedia.
The Palestinian 100-pound note as seen on Wikipedia
Teens Killed A Girl In An Attempt To Make A Deal With The Devil
Two teenage boys, 17 year old Jose E. Reyes and a 16 year old boy sexually assaulted and killed a 15 year old girl from Houston to perform a satanic ritual, in order to make a deal with the devil.
The boys disfigured the girl's body which includes carving an upside-down crusifix on her stomach. Both of the boys, Jose E. Reyes and the other 16 year old boy whose name wasn't released, face a capital murder charge for the death of the girl.
The girl, Corriann Cervantes, was lured into an apartment by the teenage murderers and was hit with an ashtray, a toilet tank lid, a window blind rod, was strangled and was stabbed in the face with a scredriver.
According to the prosecutor John Jordan, the 16 year old teenager had heard Jose E. Reyes that he had sold his soul to the devil and the unnamed boy wanted to do the same. The prosecutor has told the reporters that "What happened in that vacant apartment was sadistic. What will eventually happen in the ... courtroom will be justice".
EA Shutting Down MMO Lord of Ultima
The Lord of Ultima MMO is being closed by EA. The community manager of Lord of Ultima's forums, "Ophidian" has announced that the game will be closed entirely on Monday, 12th May at approximately 07:00 UTC.
As like with every other closing EA game, those who have purchased in-game currency and are yet to use it will not be getting a refund and are encouraged to spend it all before the game is shut down.
Sony Confirms Playstation 4 is the #1 Selling Console in the US and Australia
This just in: PS4 the #1 game console in the US in January, still #1 worldwide. Thanks, guys!
Right after this was tweeted, PlayStation Australia tweeted to PlayStation's tweet that:
@PlayStation #1 in AU too :)
Facebook Added Custom Gender Options In Profiles
Facebook has added new gender options on Facebook that allows a "Custom Gender" on profiles for users who do are neither male or female. Before, users could only select male or female for their genders on the profiles, now they can select a 'neutral' gender.
The custom gender includes options such as 'transgender', 'bigender', and so on.
One example for the change would be when wishing someone for a birthday, Facebook would say "Write on HIS wall" or "Write on HER wall", but now if the user has choosed a neutral gender, it would say "Write on THEIR wall".
Google Will Block Non Web-store Extensions in Chrome 33
After Google Chrome's blog post about protecting Windows users from malicious extensions, they have made the following changes in the Chrome 33 Beta for protecting the users from malicious extentions:
- Users can only install extensions hosted in the Chrome Web store, except for installs via enterprise policy or developer mode.
- Extensions that were previously installed, but not hosted on the Chrome Web Store will be hard-disabled (i.e the user cannot enable these extensions again), except for installs via enterprise policy or developer mode.
Countdown Timer Returns To Google Desktop Search
Actress Ellen Page Comes Out As Gay
The 26 year old Canadian actress, Ellen Page, has revealed that she is gay. Best known for her roles in movies Juno and Inception, and video game Beyond: Two Souls, Ellen Page has revealed that she is gay at the Human Rights Campaign's "Time To THRIVE" conference for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning(LGBTQ) youth in Las Vegas, on Friday.Ellen Page has stated in her speech at the conference that she is "sick of lying by omission" and that she wants to make a difference, stating:
I'm here today because I am gay. And because maybe I can make a difference.
Since then, she has been recieving support and praise by several celebrities on her speech and 'coming out' as herself.