Hoax threatens death by Wal-Mart

Text messages are appearing all over the US that warn women to stay away from Wal-Mart stores or risk being murdered, reports The Register.

Fear not. This swarm of quasi-lethal smarm is a hoax, patterned after similar floods of cyber-crap that started back in 2005, according to "uberdebunker Snopes.com.

One example of this fear mongering was reported by WPBF-TV of Palm Beach, Florida: "Police are asking all women not to go to any Wal-Mart tonight. There is a gang initiation and three women will be shot. This is not a joke. Please forward."

Twitter has become primarily a business tool used by people in their late 20s to early 50s, according to new data from market research firm Nielsen, says Computing.co.uk.

The micro-blogging site has grown by 1 382% since last year, from 475 000 unique visitors in February 2008 to seven million in February 2009.

The Nielsen data shows the majority of Twitter users are not teenagers or college students, as on many other social networking sites, but are from older generations.

Online game Entropia Universe has been granted a licence to be a bank, says The BBC.

Issued by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, the licence means the game can be more closely tied to the real world finances of players.

Mindark, the developers of the game, said it aimed to start a fully functioning in-game bank within the next 12 months.

Game developers will descend on San Francisco this week for the annual Game Developers Conference, at Moscone Centre, and the smaller GamesBeat 2009 Conference, at the Mission Bay Conference Centre, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Moscone Centre event, which runs all week, finds developers at an interesting time. Though the industry is still growing and defying some of the drag of the economy, many publishers are looking to pare costs and find ways to be smarter with their money. The show will include panel discussions and workshops aimed at dealing with the tougher economy.

Developers will have the chance to talk about emerging opportunities. One of the most obvious ones is the iPhone, which has generated nearly 6 000 games since the iPhone App Store opened in July.