27w ago - CCP's Eino Joas has outlined war and profit in DUST 514 for the PlayStation 3 entertainment system today.

Below are the details, to quote: The mercenary life is grand, but how do you put the "profit" into intergalactic warfare for fun and profit?

I mean, we all love to see new places (and blow them up) and meet new people (and blow them up), but you're not just doing this for your health. So let's talk about how DUST 514 rewards your effort.

There are three things you can come away with from a battle: money, skill points, and salvage, and here's how you get them:

Money

ISK is the primary currency in the EVE Universe and a necessity for fighting wars. You will earn ISK from each battle you fight. The size of the reward depends on your contribution and the cost of the battle. Those who contribute more are rewarded handsomely, but all mercs are guaranteed a solid income.

A portion of the reward pool for each battle depends on the value of items destroyed in the battle. If the battle saw countless vehicles and expensive prototype gear destroyed, everyone is in for bigger rewards. ISK rewards are calculated as follows for each participant:

Base rewards: Every mercenary receives basic compensation for each battle they fight....

214w ago - Sony today (5/14/09) announced that amid a drop in sales has had a loss of 98.9bn yen ($1.04bn; £685m) at the end of March compared to it's profit of 369.4bn yen last year.

Sony blames the currently strong yen and global economic downturn for the loss of profit this year. Sony had cut around 8,000 jobs and closed 10% of it's factories earlier this year in an attempt to slow the loss in revenue.

This current loss in profit is not unexpected though it is better than what Sony had originally predicted in January, which they said would be a loss of 150bn yen.

Sony's stocks closed today down 6.8% at 2,400 yen ahead of the results.

Sony is predicting a net loss for the current financial year of 120bn yen and as a result will continue to cut jobs and close factories. Analyst say that the only way for Sony to truly recover from this downturn would be to create a popular electronic as they currently have "no number one product" with the PS3 only being number one in Japan and slowly growing in several other countries.

However experts are agreeing that is currently a small blip and does not reflect a loss in popularity in the Nintendo Wii console due to the increase in profit that Nintendo announced earlier in the month. Time can only tell if this giant will recover or fall...

270w ago - Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices has reported its sixth quarterly loss in a row as it continues to lose market share to its rival Intel.

AMD lost $358m (£180m) between January and March, even though sales were up 22% on the same period a year ago. The firm had warned recently that sales were weak across all product lines.

AMD's fortunes are in stark contrast with that of Intel and other tech companies, which have reported robust earnings in recent weeks. The company recently announced that it would cut 10% of its global work force, with a loss of about 1,600 jobs.

Chief executive Hector Ruiz said AMD would be revealing plans on how to restructure the company further "in the near future".

AMD is still trying to catch up with Intel's latest technical advances, shrinking micro chips to 45 nanometre manufacturing.

On Tuesday, Intel had reported a 12% drop in profits to $1.44bn, but predicted "healthy demand" for its processors.

Strong forecast at Sandisk

AMD's poor results were also in stark contrast with profits announced by Sandisk, the world's largest maker of memory chips.

While the prices of memory chips continued to fall, the company announced profits of $17.9m during the first three months of 2008, a recovery...