News Briefs

“Halo 3” makes $170M in first day

Microsoft’s new first-person-shooter, “Halo 3” for the Xbox 360, made about $170 million on the first day of its release. The game had more than 1.7 million copies pre-ordered before the release date. More than 10,000 stores opened at midnight to release the game to eager customers. The game was developed by Bungie Studios, which is owned by Microsoft. The game brings an end to the trilogy starring the Master Chief. After the games were sold, there were several complaints that the limited-edition packaging was scratching game disks. The vice president of movies and games at Best Buy said, “The initial demand we’ve seen for ‘Halo 3’ has been astounding.”



Several arrested for aluminum can scam

Thirteen people, who were part of an aluminum can smuggling ring, were arrested by authorities who also seized more than $500,000. The ring collected millions of soda cans and smuggled them into Michigan to cash them in for 10 cents each. There were 15 people listed in the court warrant issued by the Michigan Attorney General. The members of the ring were collecting, smashing, and bagging millions of cans and then redeeming them for payments from the state, which pays by weight. The Michigan Bottle Deposit Fund was defrauded as a result of this scheme. The Michigan State Police director, Col. Peter Munoz said, “Each year, this type of activity defrauds the state approximately $13 million.” Some of the charges listed for the smuggling ring include maintaining a criminal enterprise, which is a felony with a punishment of 20 years in prison.



Excel forgets how to multiply

A Microsoft manager recently confirmed the existence of a serious bug in Microsoft Excel 2007 that affects basic multiplication. When a user attempts to multiply 77.1 by 850, the result is not 65,535 like you would think. Instead, the program returns 100,000 as the product. There are also other sets of numbers susceptible to the flaw, including 5.1*12850, 10.2*6425, and 20.4*3212.5, to name a few. The manger stressed that the bug only affects the number displayed in the cell. The number stored in memory is correct. Microsoft engineers are in the final stages of testing a fix, which should be available soon.