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November 2nd, 2009, 16:43 Posted By: wraggster
Seems like there might be a revolution in the works, as far as VoIP software for Linux is concerned. After mailing Skype support about Skype providing Mandriva RPM packages, Olivier Faurax got an answer which suggests that the Linux Skype client will be open-sourced. After asking for verification of whether that was the case, the tech support answer claimed it is going to happen, and that it's supposed to happen 'in the nearest future.' Now, this probably only means the client (the underlying protocol will probably be handled by a binary-only library), but even if that's the case, it seems like there is still reason to celebrate
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/1...Nearest-Future
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November 2nd, 2009, 20:02 Posted By: wraggster
Players of online games are increasingly becoming the target of virus writers, reveals research.
More and more malicious programs are being written to steal the login credentials of popular online games.
The Microsoft research revealed a family of malicious programs aimed at titles such as Lineage, World of Warcraft, Maple Story and many others.
Hijacked accounts are plundered for in-game booty or sold on through the net's underground market places.
Loot and booty
Cliff Evans, head of security at Microsoft UK, said its latest look at the software threats facing Windows revealed a strong growth in one family of malicious programs known as taterf.
In the last six months, Microsoft has seen more than 4.9m infections caused by Taterf - a figure up 156% on the total seen in the last six months of 2008.
Mr Evans said the virus used a variety of tricks to steal login names and passwords for the most popular online games.
"It's all about getting login credentials," he said. "The question is what might they do with those credentials."
"They might sell them because they are worth something," he said. "By using them they can obtain certain things within the game or they can buy services through some sort of market place."
"There's clearly a financial angle to it that makes it worthwhile," he said.
Steven Davis, chief of game security firm Secure Play, said: "Online game account information has been an increasingly lucrative target for crooks as they can steal the account or loot game currency."
"Crooks also use stolen credit cards for gold farming which has become a much more serious problem," he said. "They are attacking games because it is easy and there is no real interest from law enforcement."
Mr Evans from Microsoft said gamers could follow some simple steps to avoid having their account stolen.
"Never log onto a game account unless you are on a machine that you trust," he said. "And never download cheats or cracks from websites."
Version control
Other trends revealed in the research were a move away from fake security software aka scareware. Statistics gathered by Microsoft show that the number of machines it found with such programs installed had fallen from 16.8 million machines to 13.4 million.
By contrast, said Mr Evans, worms that travel networks independently looking for victims were seeing a resurgence. Such self-guided programs were now the second biggest security threat to Windows users, he said.
Mr Evans said the trends revealed in the survey gave grounds for hope.
"At the moment we're holding things at bay," he said. "There's constant change in terms of the cyber criminals changing their tactics. It's a question of keeping on top of that."
Every significant update of Windows or new version showed a decrease in the number of infections per thousand machines, said Mr Evans.
The first version of Windows XP had about 35 infections for every 1,000 machines scanned, said Mr Evans. By contrast, he said, only 4 in every 1,000 of the machines running the first version of Vista needed disinfecting.
The statistics cover the first six months of 2009 and data comes from several sources.
It includes Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal tool which runs on 450 million machines worldwide; 100 million machines using Windows Live One Care, malicious webpages scanned by search engine Bing and corporate security services run by Microsoft
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8338227.stm
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November 2nd, 2009, 20:29 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
Experience incredible layers of gameplay depth with excitement of first-person action and vehicular combat
Features life-like character animations, impressive real-time physics, and customizable vehicles
Players can freely join or leave the game at anytime
Game creates thousands of unique, randomly generated missions, weapons and situations
Allows multiple players to share same game experience simultaneously online
description
A sci-fi / action RPG from acclaimed developer Gearbox, Borderlands combines the best in first-person action with player customization and vehicular combat for incredible layers of gameplay depth.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3enj.html
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November 3rd, 2009, 22:47 Posted By: wraggster
As Windows 7's market share passes 3.6%, up from 1.9% the day before launch, llManDrakell notes an experiment they did over at Sophos. They installed Windows 7 on a clean machine — with no anti-virus protection — with User Access Control in its default configuration. They threw at it the next 10 virus/worm samples that came in the door. Seven of them ran; UAC stopped only one baddie that had run in the absense of UAC. "Lesson learned? You still need to run anti-virus on Windows 7."
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...-of-10-Viruses
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November 4th, 2009, 19:54 Posted By: wraggster
Spam volumes climb 24% in a year, with denial of service attacks rising
Internet spam, malware and other net-based threats have reached record levels in the past three months, according to a report from internet security firm McAfee.
The group also found that “cybercriminals†are now more regularly threatening website owners with Denial of Service attacks.
McAfee’s research, documented in its Third Quarter Threats Report, confirmed that internet threat levels surpassed the previous records set out in the group’s second-quarter report.
In fact, the group said that spam levels broke its previous levels by as much as 10 per cent.
Over a year, spam has climbed 24 per cent to cover 92 per cent of all email.
Meanwhile, McAfee is claiming that web-based attacks are “the newest hot threat vectorâ€, with the popularity of phishing scams and denial of service attacks on the rise.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32657...-all-time-high
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November 4th, 2009, 19:54 Posted By: wraggster
Torrent search engines rose 300% in the 24 hours Pirate Bay was down
The number of illegal file-sharing sites rose by 300 per cent as a Swedish court ordered the closure of The Pirate Bay, according to new research.
Internet security group McAfee claimed in its Third Quarter Threats Report that the internet was “awash†with new piracy search engines as owners of The Pirate Bay were told to close operations back in August.
McAfee went on to claim that those new file-sharing sites disappeared rapidly as The Pirate Bay re-opened, just 24 hours after it closed, due to the site’s owners allegedly signing up to a new ISP immediately after the Court’s decision.
“[Pirate Bay] users began creating their own sites to support The Pirate Bay community when the site was in the process of being shut down,†said a statement from McAfee.
The security vendor also spotted that numerous malware writers had created websites that pretended to be torrent-hosting sites, but instead offered links to malicious programs.
“Many of these sites sprang up to scam users of The Pirate Bay who were looking for a new place to download copyrighted material†McAfee said.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32656...ate-Bay-closed
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November 4th, 2009, 19:57 Posted By: wraggster
Jared sends word of Ars Technica coverage of Net Applications' monthly browser share numbers. What's significant this time is that Firefox has finally passed IE6 in worldwide share.
"Internet Explorer remains ahead of the rest of the competition, but since month after month it continues to lose ground to all other browsers, Firefox has now finally surpassed IE6, which is easily the most hated version of Microsoft's browser. ... In October, all browsers except for IE and Opera showed positive growth. Between October and September, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 1.07 percentage points (from 65.71 percent to 64.64 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.32 percentage points (from 23.75 percent to 24.07 percent). ... Although IE's decline seems to be unceasing, the real shame is that the old versions have more share than the newer ones (we can only hope that as Windows 7 gains popularity, this trend will reverse)."
Ars presents a graph with their own site's browser share picture, and as you might expect it's very different from the general population's.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...-Browser-Share
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November 4th, 2009, 20:19 Posted By: wraggster
What was once an unverifiable rumor from an anonymous source has now, sadly, become a confirmed fact. Intel won't be integrating USB 3.0 support into its chipsets until at least 2011. Motherboard makers such as ASUS can still opt to add discrete 3.0 controllers at an extra cost, but Intel -- already accused of dragging its heels on the standard's development -- won't be. NVIDIA spokesman Brian Burke has expressed, in no uncertain terms, his company's disappointment with Intel, while also claiming that chipsets by NVIDIA are more feature-rich and just plain better than Intel's own efforts. We'll add this to our ever-growing collection of things NVIDIA doesn't like about Intel, but we also hope that the immature outburst doesn't obscure the real issue. NVIDIA is correct in noting that Intel needs competition in the chipset space, and the new interconnect's dependence on Intel's whims demonstrates the market-altering powers that reside in Santa Clara, CA. Unless another chipmaker gets serious about competing with Intel, we could face plenty more of these seemingly arbitrary delays in tech rollouts.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/04/n...-0-until-2011/
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November 5th, 2009, 16:26 Posted By: wraggster
We finally did it. Mandriva Linux 2010 is out and comes with many improvements and innovations. We still go on supporting in the same level of integration GNOME 2.28 and KDE 4.3.2. Support for netbooks is improved as users can now easily test Moblin 2.0 environment. 'Smart desktop' coming from European research is now fully integrated and is the first real working semantic desktop. Mandriva Control Center also brings improvements in tools: a new netprofile management tool, a GUI for Tomoyo security framework, and parental control. A big thanks to our community, who worked hard and made this release possible
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/1...Is-Finally-Out
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November 5th, 2009, 16:27 Posted By: wraggster
Google upgraded the beta version (4.0.223.16) of its Chrome browser yesterday, boasting a 30% speed improvement over the current production edition and adding integrated bookmark synchronization. Developers Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin, who announced the release, tout Chrome 4.0's faster JavaScript rendering speeds. 'We've improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, and by 400% since our first stable release,' they said, referring to Chrome 3.0. The new beta includes the ability to sync bookmarked sites across multiple computers
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...30-Speed-Boost
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November 5th, 2009, 17:41 Posted By: wraggster
A free, standalone version of Unreal Engine 3 has been released by Epic Games, giving aspiring developers and professionals alike the chance to use Epic's 3D engine technology for free.
The Unreal Development Kit can be downloaded by anyone and gives users access to the game engine technology, Unreal Editor, Unreal Content Browser, UnrealScript and other tools (a full feature-set is listed on the website).
The software will be free for non-commercial and educational users, although terms will apply to developers making games commercially.
"I'm excited about the possibilities the Unreal Development Kit opens to those who are looking to get into the game business but don't otherwise have the means to acquire world-class technology and tools like ours," said Mark Rein, VP of Epic.
"UDK is Unreal Engine 3, which has been used to create games in a wide range of genres, as well as military simulations, 3D architectural walkthroughs, animated movies and more. Users are only limited by their imaginations."
Epic will support the software with regular upgraded builds. While the kit is initially only for use on PC, the company says console support is under consideration.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fr...ine-3-released
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November 5th, 2009, 23:39 Posted By: wraggster
Looks like Windows 7 is off to a much stronger start than Windows Vista, with the NPD Group claiming the first few days of sales saw a 234% increase over Vista's start. Part of that can be attributed to special deals and low-cost pre-sales -- total revenue was only 82% higher -- but it's hard to deny people are stoked for Windows 7. Interestingly, the PC hardware growth was actually stronger for Vista than 7 (48% year over year compared to 68% year over year), but there are enough variables at play there to make sure Microsoft won't lose sleep over it. In fact, 7's biggest threat seems to be Microsoft's other products, since Windows 7 PC sales were up against 20% of PC sales being comprised of Vista and XP computers, compared to the 6% of non-Vista PCs sold during that launch.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/05/w...days-accordin/
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November 6th, 2009, 16:06 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company's search engine partnership with Yahoo will be introduced around the world once it has been approved by regulators.
The software firm signed a contract with Yahoo in July this year in a challenge to Google’s monopoly over the search engine market. US and European antitrust regulators are currently examining the deal.
"It's possible that we will extend that partnership outside the US," Ballmer reportedly told a news conference. "We will have to wait and see if we can get approval and consummate that partnership inside the US first."
A Microsoft spokesman told Reuters that the agreement will extend worldwide once it is passed by regulators. The deal is expected to close in early 2010.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32663...p-to-go-global
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November 6th, 2009, 16:07 Posted By: wraggster
Mobile peripherals firm Zeemote has closed down, with one of its key financial backers looking to sell off its assets. The news was reported last night in the US, with Commonwealth Capital Ventures' Michael Fitzgerald revealing the news.
Sources from sister site ME have also confirmed that Zeemote is no longer a going concern.
The company released one product, the Zeemote JS1 gaming controller. It was an analogue Bluetooth joystick originally for playing mobile games, although more recently Zeemote launched an application - Zeekey - that enabled the device to control all aspects of a phone.
Zeemote struck deals with Nokia and Sony Ericsson to distribute the joysticks, but it seems those deals were not enough to keep the company in business.
The question now is who might buy the company's assets. Those two handset makers could be in the frame, as well as Research In Motion, with whom Zeemote was working in recent months.
http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/294...es-for-Zeemote
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November 6th, 2009, 16:11 Posted By: wraggster
Unit sales soar though revenues fail to keep up
Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, has surpassed launch window sales of Vista by 234 per cent in the US, according to new research.
But analyst group NPD also revealed that Microsoft’s revenues from the W7 launch wasn’t close to equalling the success of its unit sales.
Early discounts and a lack of promotion for W7 Ultimate Edition meant that launch revenues were still up on Vista’s – by 82 per cent in fact – though ultimately far below what unit sales would suggest.
“Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,†said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.
“In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.â€
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32669...a-launch-sales
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November 6th, 2009, 17:03 Posted By: wraggster
Trials developer RedLynx has admitted that in order to market its PC title it leaked it to torrent sites for pirates on the same day it was released to paying consumers.
The pirated version of the game does not include support for leaderboards, said company CEO Tero Virtala, a crucial feature that is the "soul" of the game. Without it, he hoped users of the hacked version would want to upgrade to the legitimate copy once they began enjoying the game.
"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," revealed Virtala, during a panel discussion at Develop Liverpool yesterday.
"That game relies really heavily on the server side – the leaderboards are the soul of the game. I don't know if it's helped, I'd assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn't the full version, it's the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players."
Virtala said that the game has sold close to 150,000 copies since it was launched 18 months ago. "When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked out leaderboards yet," he added.
During the same discussion, Torsten Reil of NaturalMotion expressed his frustrations at the amount of piracy for the company's iPhone title Backbreaker – despite the game being sold at the lowest possible price point on Apple's App Store.
"We know anecdotally that even at 59p a lot of people have pirated the game," he said. "At 59p it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of those pirates would have been able and would have bought the game, but there's an overall attitude that it's fine to pirate."
While technology can be employed to hinder piracy of games on all formats, Reil said that it's just as important to try and change the attitude that content should be free for consumers.
"There is in general a feeling that IP and content should be free. That's fine to say, but if you have to pay all the people that actually put their heart and soul into a game – who have to pay a mortgage off and have children – it becomes much more difficult. Yes, you can limit [piracy] with technical tricks, but there needs to be an overall change in the perception of IP and the people who create it."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-torrent-sites
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November 6th, 2009, 20:56 Posted By: wraggster
EA has announced a new endless free trail version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which will replace the 10 day time-limited demo players were previously able to try out.
As well as giving both new and returning game users the opportunity to play through more of the game, a new streaming client decreases the trial's download time - the initial download will be limited to 1GB, while additional content will stream in the background while playing.
Players will be able to create and play any of the game's 24 careers, progress to character level 10 within the tier one Empire vs Chaos zones of Nordland and Norsca, explore a newly added tier one dungeon, and battle other players in three instanced scenarios.
"With the introduction of the endless free trial and streaming client, we are making it easier than ever for a new player to join the WAR," said Jeff Hickman, executive producer at Mythic. "We've worked hard to create a more informative and community driven new user experience, and now we are giving players an unlimited amount of time to explore the early parts of the game at their own pace.
"We are confident that players new and old will find all the enhancements we've made to WAR over the past year worthy of their time and commitment."
Trial players will be introduced to the game through a New User Journey, featuring enhanced tutorials and community elements such as a 'new player' guild. The trial is available to download from today.
Warhammer Online was launched in September 2008. Earlier this year, figures showed that the numbers of subscribers to the game had dropped from 750,000 the month after launch, to 300,000. However Mythic has defended its subscriber numbers, saying it's "super proud" of those that have been achieved.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rhammer-online
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November 6th, 2009, 21:30 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
Experience an all-new and exciting Clone Wars storyline that bridges the gap between season one and two of the TV series as you learn more about the mysterious bounty hunter Cad Bane and hunt down the all-new Skakoan super villain Kul Teska
Play as your favorite Jedi heroes including Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Mace Windu, and Kit Fisto
Slice and dice your way through Separatist droids with your lightsaber and Force powers and use your agility to perform amazing leaps and navigate levels filled with interactivity
Turn your enemies into weapons as you commandeer droids and use their unique abilities to blast enemies and solve puzzles as a Jedi
Be part of an elite clone trooper squad with unique gameplay that puts firepower at your fingertips. Blast droids and unleash devastation with heavy weapons like rocket launchers and thermal detonators as Commander Cody, Captain Rex and all of your favorite clone troopers
Compete against a friend with in-level challenges for rewards and points to be spent to upgrade your character and unlock bonus items
description
Star Wars® The Clone Wars™: Republic Heroes™ lets Star Wars fans young and old live out the sweeping galactic adventures of the Clone Wars. For the first time ever, players can fight as their favorite Jedi and clone troopers from the preeminent animated television series — from familiar faces like Anakin Skywalker to new heroes like Clone Captain Rex. A brand-new storyline, which bridges the gap between season one and two, takes the player on a multi-faceted adventure to stop a mysterious techno assassin's destructive plot. Built around two-player cooperative action, the accessible controls and family-friendly gameplay bring Star Wars fans across generations together like never before to fight the evil Separatists and restore peace to the galaxy.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3ici.html
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November 6th, 2009, 21:36 Posted By: wraggster
During yesterday's Activision Blizzard investor conference, Blizzard chief Mike Morhaime said the next World of Warcraft update would be released "in the coming weeks".
VG247 heard the words, and got so excited they thought Morhaime was actually referring to next expansion pack Cataclysm. Bless.
However, we're pretty sure he means the update known as Patch 3.3, which is currently on WOW test servers. This update introduces three five-man dungeons and one 10 or 25-player raid within Icecrown Citadel, and allows players to fight the Wrath of the Lich King end boss, Arthas.
The patch will also introduce the new dungeon system, with cross-server grouping and other features that make it easier to find a party and more rewarding to run dungeons. There's also a quest-tracking feature allowing quest objectives to be tracked on the in-game map. For more info, we recommend that you check out WOW.com's patch guide.
As the final major update to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the imminent appearance of patch 3.3 raises questions about how soon we can expect to see Cataclysm. A release before the end of next year seemed unlikely, but Blizzard allowing WOW to go without major content updates for a whole 12 months would be unprecedented. Could Cataclysm be coming sooner than we thought?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wo...n-coming-weeks
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November 7th, 2009, 20:35 Posted By: wraggster
Rafael Rivera over at WithinWindows.com has found evidence that Microsoft has potentially stolen code from an open source/GPL'd project (ImageMaster) for a utility made available on the Microsoft Store to allow download customers to copy the Windows 7 setup files to a DVD or USB Flash Drive. If Rivera's evidence holds up, this could be some serious egg in the face for Microsoft at a time when they're getting mostly good press from the tech media
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...dows-7-Utility
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November 9th, 2009, 16:52 Posted By: wraggster
Despite widespread reports of Modern Warfare 2 being available on the High Street over the weekend, specialist retailers have praised Activision's handling of the launch so far, saying "they've done as much as they can."
"Activision has managed it to the best of their ability," Chips MD Don McCabe told GamesIndustry.biz. "They caused themselves a problem by going for a Tuesday release date, which was always going to be a problem in terms of getting so much stock into place. Some of it had to be shipped before the weekend. But they've done as much as they can to negate any street break situations. I'm sure one or two will happen but they will be sporadic.
"I expected something from the onliners, which, to a certain degree, has happened. The online people always try to do it so that they arrive on the date of release. If you're going to be shipping over a weekend you're always going to get the situation where some will turn up early, but there'll also be a proportion that will turn up late. In terms of High Street retail, I haven't seen any real breaks as yet - the test will be over the next 24 hours."
What is of more concern, added McCabe, is whether stock supplies can be maintained by Activision throughout the Christmas period.
The game's launch week is also likely to be tainted for specialist retailers by the widely expected price promotions from the supermarkets. According to adverts in the press today, Sainsburys will sell the game at GBP 26, while Asda and Tesco are offering the game at between GBP 25 and GBP 32.
McCabe acknowledges the low price will draw customers in, but predicts Modern Warfare 2 will have no problem holding its price over the coming months.
"I think once we've got past the Sainsburys price point it will hold its price fairly well," he said. "I can see both Asda and Tesco doing something for the weekend, then once this week's over it'll be a good constant seller right through to Christmas."
McCabe's opinion on Activision's handling of the launch was mirrored by Chris Harwood, purchasing director of Granger Games.
"I think Activision have handled the situation as well as they could," he said, adding the street date breaks were down to individual retailers and "pretty much out of Activision's hands."
"We have put a lot of time and money into advertising our midnight launches so we don't want to disrupt this for either our staff or customers," he continued, confirming Grainger was sticking to the Tuesday release date.
"We haven't had any pre-orders cancelled yet and, fingers crossed, we won't get any cancellations."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...of-mw2-release
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November 9th, 2009, 17:01 Posted By: wraggster
The Intel P55 Express chipset snafu that caused iPhones to lose their syncing minds has now been remedied -- at least by one motherboard maker. Gigabyte has issued a BIOS update making things all hunky-dory between the phone and the mobo, putting your troubles to an end. The P55 is Intel's latest midrange chipset and orchestrates things for newer Core i5 / i7 machines. The other two P55 purveyors, ASUS and MSI, were also caught by the bug, and there are anecdotal reports of success with an ASUS BIOS update, but not official fixes as of yet. Given the competitive nature of this market, though, we'd be surprised if those two companies didn't quickly follow suit. All's well that ends well, right?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/09/g...h-bios-update/
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November 9th, 2009, 19:49 Posted By: wraggster
Intel now holds an 81.1 per cent share of the global PC processor market
Intel managed to tighten its dominant grip on the processor market through the third fiscal quarter, according to IDC’s quarterly report.
Intel now holds a holding an 81.1 per cent share of the global market, a surprisingly sharp share gain of 2.2 per cent no doubt due to its Atom processors and the rise of netbooks.
Nearest rival AMD lost its grip on the market share to a similar degree – dropping 2 per cent to 18.7 per cent.
“By form factor, Intel earned 88 per cent share in the mobile PC processor segment, a gain of 1.1 per cent,†read the IDC report.
“AMD finished with 11.9 per cent, a loss of 0.7 per cent,†the report added.
“In the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with 90.4 per cent market share, a gain of 0.5 per cent and AMD earned 9.6 per cent, a loss of 0.5 per cent.â€
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32683...in-market-race
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November 9th, 2009, 20:07 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
Welcome to the World of Dragon Age: Origins!
DA:O is BioWare’s return to its roots – a dark heroic fantasy game that combines original storytelling techniques with classic roleplaying.
Origin stories are a major feature of the Dragon Age experience. You choose your origin, and from that starting point, your story begins. You play through your character’s early days, defining his or her background and motivation and begin to learn more about the world of Ferelden from your own distinct perspective. Your choice of origin defines how you will view the world and how it views you. Choose a sneaky, disrespected commoner and you will play a story that focuses around subtle skills and careful wordplay. Choose a noble origin and the world will be much more positive and helpful, but those jealous of your status will not be afraid to take what you have, violently if necessary. More will be revealed on these stories soon…
In Dragon Age, your choices change the world and affect the people around you. Certain situations, storylines, and conversation options will change drastically depending on your origin and your motivations.
Every journey through Ferelden will be unique.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3enk.html
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November 10th, 2009, 16:26 Posted By: wraggster
Those of you who bought Modern Warfare 2 on Steam will not be able to play until Thursday.
Meanwhile, those buying a PC copy of Modern Warfare 2 from shops today can play immediately.
Both versions use Steam DRM procedures, but Valve has not explained why the Steam-bought copy requires an extra two-day wait to play.
Modern Warfare 2 was released around the world last night. The UK launch took place in London's Leicester Square, overseen by celebrities such as Vernon Kaye and one of the Black Eyed Peas.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/st...until-thursday
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November 10th, 2009, 16:32 Posted By: wraggster
GTA IV's first Xbox 360-exclusive DLC episode, The Lost and Damned looks to be headed to PC.
That's if any attention should be paid to the Achievements that've just popped up in the latest Games for Windows LIVE update (pictured).
At present, The Lost and Damned is only available on Xbox 360, and the terms of the deal with Microsoft remain unclear, points out GTA IV.net.
We've contacted Rockstar for comment.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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November 10th, 2009, 21:20 Posted By: wraggster
When it comes to keeping your Windows PC secure, all of the scare tactics and overblown virus stories out there make it hard to feel safe online. The fact of the matter is that you don't need to pay for Windows security.
From time to time we like to go on long, opinionated rants about subjects that bug us. This is one of those times. So let's have a frank and honest discussion about Windows security, and leave the scare tactics and FUD for money-grubbing corporate marketers.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a Great Antivirus Application
The release of Microsoft Security Essentials has changed the landscape of antivirus software. We've finally got a completely free application that protects against viruses, spyware, and other malware—without killing system performance like some of the "suites" tend to do. In my personal experience, it barely slows down the machine and rarely affects my work—and during a deliberate attempt to download some viruses (for testing purposes), it immediately found and blocked them from doing anything.
You don't have to take my word for it, however. Not only did AV-Test.org find that it detects 98% of their enormous malware database, but AV-Comparatives (a widely known anti-malware testing group) found that MSE was one of only three products that did well at both finding and removing malware, including the leftovers. It was also the only free product to grab their "Advanced+" rating—the top honor for an anti-malware solution.
The more tech-oriented readers will probably note that MSE does not do any fancy heuristics to detect viruses that aren't in the database already, which is a feature offered by some paid solutions. In my opinion, this feature is usually unnecessary and a massive system drag if combined with a healthy dose of not installing questionable nonsense.
http://lifehacker.com/5401453/stop-p...re-good-enough
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November 11th, 2009, 18:33 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft today patched 15 vulnerabilities in Windows, Windows Server, Excel, and Word, including one that will probably be exploited quickly by hackers. None affects Windows 7. Of today's 15 bugs, Microsoft tagged three 'critical' and the remaining 12 'important.' Experts agreed that users should focus on MS09-065 first and foremost. That update, which was ranked critical, affects all still-supported editions of Windows except Windows 7 and its server sibling, Windows Server 2008 R2. 'The Windows kernel vulnerability is going to take the cake,' said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. 'The attack vector can be driven through Internet Explorer, and this is one of those instances where the user won't be notified or prompted. This is absolutely a drive-by attack scenario.' Richie Lai, the director of vulnerability research at security company Qualys, agreed. 'Anyone running IE [Internet Explorer] is at risk here, even though the flaw is not in the browser, but in the Win32k kernel mode driver.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...14-Other-Holes
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November 11th, 2009, 18:34 Posted By: wraggster
Sam notes an Ars story on Microsoft pulling the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store website after a report indicating that the tool incorporated open source code in a way that violated the GNU's General Public License. Whether the software giant is actually violating the GPL, a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license, is not confirmed. 'We are currently taking down the Windows USB/DVD Tool from the Microsoft Store site until our review of the tool is complete,' a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. The fact the company pulled the tool doesn't bode well, so we'll have to watch closely to see what the company puts back on its servers.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11...iolation-Claim
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November 11th, 2009, 20:20 Posted By: wraggster
Cenzic released its report revealing the most prominent types of Web application vulnerabilities for the first half of 2009. The report identified over 3,100 total vulnerabilities, which is a 10 percent increase in Web application vulnerabilities compared to the second half of 2008. Among Web browsers, Mozilla Firefox had the largest percentage of Web vulnerabilities, followed by Apple Safari, whose browser showed a vast increase in exploits, due to vulnerabilities reported in the Safari iPhone browser."
It seems a bit surprising to me that this study shows that only 15% of vulnerabilities are in IE
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...r-Safari-Close
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November 11th, 2009, 22:21 Posted By: wraggster
The biggest game of 2009 has been released, if your one of those who have never heard of it heres the info from the release page at Play Asia:
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 starts off exactly at the end of of Call of Duty 4. The ultranationalists are back with army camps that spread from the precarious Tian Shan in China to the war torn Afghanistan and it's up to you and your comrades to save the day.
Stunning graphics, challenging game modes and carefully scripted plot, Modern Warfare 2 will take you to the hot spots all over the world and assign your team with missions that only the most seasoned of soldiers can tackle.
From the publisher: Prepare for the ultimate invasion! The most anticipated game of the year and the sequel to the best-selling first-person action game of all time, Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 will strike worldwide on November 10, 2009.
Activision Publishing, Inc. will release the newest installment in the groundbreaking and record-setting follow-up to the 2007 blockbuster, Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™, that has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, to date.
Join the millions of gamers on the frontlines today. See what challenges lie ahead of you and admire the minute details in the graphics, brought to life by your newest home consoles:
The regular editions are available on Xbox360â„¢, PlayStation3â„¢ and PC. Plenty of ways to connect to the warfront:
Xbox360â„¢
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 JPN US$ 78.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ASIA US$ 59.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 US US$ 64.90
PlayStation3â„¢
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 JPN US$ 78.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ASIA US$ 59.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 US US$ 64.90
The Japanese versions will come in December.
PC Game
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DVD-ROM) ASIA US$ 54.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DVD-ROM) US US$ 64.90
There is also a very very limited number of the Prestige Editions coming. This package comes with an art book, a special steel case, Call of Duty Classic full downloadable game code and collectible toys such as the Night Vision goggles and a stylish display stand.
These will become available as soon as it is in stock and will be sold at a first come first serve basis, so stick around for the mean time:
Xbox360â„¢
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [Prestige Edition] ASIA N/A
PlayStation3â„¢
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 [Prestige Edition] ASIA N/A
Get some help with your game, read up on battle strategies:
Game Guides
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Limited Edition Strategy Guide US US$ 29.90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Signature Series Strategy Guide US US$ 19.90
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...-27v-84-n.html
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November 12th, 2009, 18:16 Posted By: wraggster
Tiberium Twilight to invade shelves on March 19th
Electronic Arts has announced that the fourth instalment in its long-running RTS series will be released in Europe on March 19th, 2010.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight arrives in the UK three days after its North American debut and will bring the 15 year-long Tiberium storyline to an end.
The publisher also announced incentives will be available to consumers who pre-order the game through the official website. Fans who purchase early will be granted access to the multiplayer beta, an exclusive prequel bonus mission and the game’s official soundtrack.
“Finally, fans will learn what happens to Kane, Nod, GDI, Earth and Tiberium when Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight hits store shelves,†said the game’s lead producer Mike Glosecki.
“We can’t wait for fans to experience the trademark C&C action with the new level of strategic depth we have added, especially with our new experience system.â€
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36492/Command-Conquer-4-dated
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November 12th, 2009, 20:08 Posted By: wraggster
The 2010 conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2010) will be hosting a StarCraft AI competition as part of the conference program. This competition enables academic researchers to evaluate their AI systems in a robust, commercial RTS environment. The competition will be held in the weeks leading up to the conference. The final matches will be held live at the conference with commentary. Exhibition matches will also be held between skilled human players and the top-performing bots
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/1...tion-Announced
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November 12th, 2009, 20:09 Posted By: wraggster
An anonymous reader tips news that openSUSE 11.2 has reached its official release. You can get it from their download page, or just grab the torrents (32-bit, 64-bit).
"openSUSE 11.2 will come with the latest version 2.6.31 of the Linux kernel, the beating heart of every openSUSE system. The default file system of openSUSE will be switched to the new Ext4 as well. Of course, openSUSE will continue to support Ext3 and other filesystems — but on install, new partitions will automatically be designated Ext4. ... Desktops and servers can use the same kernel, but it's better to tune the kernel for the job at hand. That's why openSUSE now includes a desktop kernel specially tuned for desktop users. ... In addition to the work of the openSUSE Project in the desktop, openSUSE 11.2 includes the latest versions of the two desktop environments, KDE 4.3 and GNOME 2.28. KDE users will enjoy the new Firefox KDE integration, OpenOffice.org KDE4 integration, consistent KDE artwork and all standard applications being ported to KDE4 including KNetworkManager, Amarok, Digikam, k3b, Konversation and more."
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/1...E-112-Released
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November 12th, 2009, 21:13 Posted By: wraggster
The venerable 2001 classic of an OS, Windows XP, strikes again. The scribes over at Laptop have put together a rather damning battery life comparison between old greybeard and the fresh Windows 7, which finds that on average netbooks get 47 minutes less battery life with the upgraded software. In the case of the ASUS 1008HA, that deficit was a meaty 57 minutes, or 16.7%. Liliputing and jkOnTheRun have run their own tests which invariably reached the same conclusion. Adding these data to an earlier comparison with Snow Leopard, where Windows 7 was again markedly worse than its competitor, leads us to the conclusion that perhaps Microsoft's 7th heaven hasn't quite been optimized for the mobile mavens out there... yet.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/12/w...ry-life-tests/
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November 13th, 2009, 15:56 Posted By: wraggster
A Microsoft executive was quoted in an interview as saying "what we've tried to do with Windows 7...is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics".
The comments, by partner group manager Simon Aldous, appeared in UK computing trade magazine PCR.
Microsoft countered that Mr Aldous was not involved with the development of Windows 7.
Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog that Mr Aldous's comments were "inaccurate and uninformed".
Suggestions that Microsoft has borrowed technology ideas has been rife for as long as the Windows and Mac operating systems have been around.
The very idea of who invented the "windows" on a "desktop" in Windows 1.0 was the basis of a 1988 lawsuit and remains a point of contention.
'One of our own'
However, many of the significant graphical changes present in Windows 7 have analogues in Mac's OS X - although neither firm has made an official statement about the apparent similarities.
"One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use," Mr Aldous told PCR.
"What we've tried to do with Windows 7 - whether it's traditional format or in a touch format - is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics. We've significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it's built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance."
Mr LeBlanc countered the claims in a post on the official Windows blog.
"Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7," he wrote.
"I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8358712.stm
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November 13th, 2009, 15:58 Posted By: wraggster
49 per cent of retailers have reported that their customers are not interested in internet enabled TVs.
The survey, commissioned by PCR, found that many customers are concerning themselves more with the imminent digital switchover than the new devices.
However, the future is not all bad as 27 per cent of respondents said that they had seen growing interest from their customers.
The advent of internet enabled televisions had been hailed as the next big thing by companies such as Yahoo and Intel, who felt that the devices would dominate the market by the end of 2009, however, consumer take-up may be delayed as the recession continues to bite.
The survey was carried out on behalf of PCR by Infinite Field Marketing Solutions.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32720...internet-on-TV
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November 13th, 2009, 17:42 Posted By: wraggster
Security researchers at Foreground Security have found an issue with Adobe Flash. Any site that allows files to be uploaded could be vulnerable to this issue (whether they serve Flash or not!). Adobe has said that no easy fix exists and no patch is forthcoming. Adobe puts the responsibility on the website administrators themselves to fix this problem, but they themselves seem to be vulnerable to these problems. Every user with Flash installed is vulnerable to this new type of attack and — until IT administrators fix their sites — will continue to be."
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11...ix-Forthcoming
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November 14th, 2009, 01:19 Posted By: wraggster
We'd heard last month that this month was the month that Google would finally launch its highly-anticipated Chrome OS, and now we've got a "reliable source" over at TechCrunch asserting that the software is gearing up for launch "within a week." Granted, we can't ever be too certain when it comes to a rumor such as this, but if the system really does hit the wilds, we probably won't see it available for every machine on the face of the planet. The presumed Alpha build will likely only support a select few products that Google engineers have had a chance to specifically work with -- possibly something such as an Eee PC netbook, which has generally the same specifications regardless of design or model number. Either way, we'd go ahead and prepare ourselves for something new before the end of November -- but don't let it spoil your holidays should things get pushed back a bit, okay?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/13/g...y-from-launch/
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November 14th, 2009, 01:23 Posted By: wraggster
Epic Games has watched over 50,000 people download the Unreal Development Kit in just one week.
Released on 5th November, the UDK is a free version of Unreal Engine 3 that provides students and enthusiasts with tools that underpin some of today's best PC and console games.
Anyone can build and release a UDK-powered game for free, but Epic draws the line when companies decide to charge for their creations.
The excitable Mark Rein is "very excited" about all of this, and is "looking forward " to seeing what games and applications are made using the UDK.
Head over to the Unreal Developer Network to join a busy network of game-builders, and keep an eye on 3D Buzz for "dozens" of video tutorials for the UDK.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fr...s-very-popular
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November 14th, 2009, 11:55 Posted By: wraggster
Contrary to popular opinion, GNOME 3 will not be released in March next year. It has been delayed until September 2010, six months later. According to the news message, this is because 'our community wants GNOME 3.0 to be fully working for users and why we believe September is more appropriate.' GNOME 3's main goal is to re-define the ways people interact with the desktop, mainly through a new UI design (currently called 'GNOME Shell'), while GNOME 2.30, set for release in March, will have a focus on being stable. An early visual tour of GNOME 3 has been posted at Digitizor
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/1...September-2010
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November 16th, 2009, 17:00 Posted By: wraggster
Latest operating system can be added with product-spliced OS themes
Microsoft has given the go-ahead for companies to advertise their goods on Windows 7.
Now available on an official Windows 7 download page is a selection of OS themes that are laced with adverts for companies such as Coca-Cola, Ferrari, 7Up and Ducati.
These themes can colour their brands across the Windows 7 task-bar, start screen, system tray and so on. These downloads are optional for users and entirely free.
The themes have been applauded by participating brand owners, which are always seeking to expand their presence in an increasingly diverse number of ways.
Signalling the opportunistic nature of the OS ad spaces, one such Windows 7 theme is based around the upcoming film Avatar. If the adverts are deemed successful, more movie themes are inevitable.
Microsoft, which has made deals with the likes of Pepsi and Twentieth Century Fox for the OS themes, has not yet stated how much it receives for publishing the advert-covered themes.
The company signalled that the advert themes are currently part of a pilot scheme that will run for twelve months until a decision is made on the sustainability of ad-supported themes.
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32729...s-in-Windows-7
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November 16th, 2009, 19:21 Posted By: wraggster
xploraiswakco writes with the first Microsoft-confirmed Windows 7 zero-day vulnerability, with a demonstration exploit publicly available. The problem is in SMBv2 and SMBv1 and affects Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but not Vista, XP, or Windows Server 2003. A maliciously crafted URI could hard-crash affected machines beyond any remedy besides pushing the white button.
"Microsoft said it may patch the problem, but didn't spell out a timetable or commit to an out-of-cycle update before the next regularly-scheduled Patch Tuesday of December 8. Instead, the company suggested users block TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall."
Reader xploraiswakco adds, "As important as this the mentioned article is, it should also be pointed out that any IT staff worth their pay packet should already have port 139 blocked at the firewall, and probably port 445. too."
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/1...ro-Day-Exploit
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November 16th, 2009, 20:28 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today :
features
Expansions included: Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan, Wings of the Goddess
Add-on scenarios: A Crystalline Prophecy-- Ode of Life Bestowing, A Moogle Kupo d'Etat -- Evil in Small Doses, A Shantotto Ascension -- The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born
description
Vana'diel — a land of magic, swords and technology — welcomes new adventurers, along with seasoned FINAL FANTASY veterans, with open arms. This land cries out for fearless warriors like you to restore the peace that the citizens dream of. Heed the call and join hundreds of thousands of players from around the world to become the hero that Vana'diel needs.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3m70.html
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November 17th, 2009, 19:14 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
Next generation co-op action gaming from the makers of Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike.
AI Director 2.0: Advanced technology dubbed “The AI Director†drove L4D’s unique gameplay – customizing enemy population, effects, and music, based upon the players’ performance. L4D 2 features “The AI Director 2.0†which expands the Director’s ability to customize level layout, world objects, weather, and lighting to reflect different times of day.
New melee weapons – axe, chainsaw, frying pan, baseball bat – allow you to get up close with the zombies
Four different survivors. New Story. New dialogue.
More game. On day one, L4D 2 features more co-operative campaigns, more campaigns and maps for the Versus game modes than L4D 1, plus support for Survival mode out of the box.
Stats, rankings, and awards system drives collaborative play
description
This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns. You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan. You’ll be putting these weapons to the test against (or playing as in Versus) three horrific and formidable new Special Infected. You’ll also encounter five new “uncommon†common infected, including the terrifying Mudmen. Helping to take L4D’s frantic, action-packed gameplay to the next level is AI Director 2.0. This improved Director has the ability to procedurally change the weather you’ll fight through and the pathways you’ll take, in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match your performance. L4D2 promises a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience every time the game is played, custom-fitted to your style of play.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3f31.html
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November 17th, 2009, 19:20 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
The lineage continues…introducing Ezio, the new Assassin
Experience the freedom and immersion of an all new open world and mission structure
Master the art of the assassin with all new weapons and instruments created by Leonardo Da Vinci himself
description
Discover an intriguing & fascinating new epic story of power, revenge and conspiracy set in a pivotal moment of History: the Italian Renaissance
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3ib4.html
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November 17th, 2009, 19:35 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
Activision wouldn't do it, so the PC hacking community has stepped up to deliver Modern Warfare 2 dedicated servers.
You can see the hacked solution in action below, complete with all the usual low gravity and insta-grenade mischief that prove Infinity Ward's matchmaking police have been well and truly removed.
"Thanks to AgentGOD and his great work bringing the developer console back into the PC version, a whole new wave of servers are possible with vast amounts of customisation," reads the YouTube description.
"Things such as unlimited ammo, massive experience points (10000xp for a single kill), Field of View tweaks, speed and gravity adjustments and so much more! The best bit is, this is all ranked and on IWNet! I guess the game is no longer balanced to f**k the PC gamers over!"
We give it 24 hours before Infinity Ward gets wind of this and it all gets nasty...
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November 17th, 2009, 19:47 Posted By: Shrygue
via Shacknews
As promised mere moments ago, Gearbox has released the v1.01 patch for Borderlands PC, with the 184MB update now available for your perusal on FileShack.
The update includes several notable tweaks for the shooter-RPG, including the addition of volume controls to voice chat, word that leaving a co-op game will no longer wipe your proficiency progress, and a refunding of any character's lost skill points. - Characters that have lost skill points will have the lost points refunded
- Clients will no longer lose proficiency progress upon leaving a co-op game
- Item cards now display the intended five lines of detail text
- Lilith's Phase strike and melee attacks from Phase Walk now function as intended
- Voicechat: users can now control volume and individually mute players
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused CL4P-TP to stop progressing during the introduction
- Server browser population times have been improved
- Server information should now always display the correct plot mission
- Benchmarking feature now works as intended
- Nvidia 3D Vision visuals now render shadows correctly (requires minimum 195.28 drivers, available from nVidia)
Download the game patch at FileShack
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November 17th, 2009, 21:12 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
Activision has confirmed the removal of the controversial airport scene from the Russian version of Modern Warfare 2, and said the move was its own decision.
"Other countries have formal ratings boards that we regularly work with. However, Russia does not have a formal ratings entity. As a result, we chose to block the scene after seeking the advice of local counsel," the company told Eurogamer in a statement. Modern Warfare 2 is currently only available on PC in the country.
Activision was moving to clear up reports that the game had been banned or censored by the Russian government. There are claims that the console versions of the game have been recalled from retailers so the airport scene can be removed.
"Reports that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been banned in Russia are erroneous. Activision only released a PC version of the game in Russia which went on sale on Tuesday, 10th November," the company said.
The scene in question, titled "No Russian", depicts Russian ultranationalist terrorists massacring civilians in an airport with the player's help.
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November 18th, 2009, 20:05 Posted By: wraggster
Mozilla will add a new lockdown feature to Firefox 3.6 that will prevent developers from sneaking add-ons into the program, the company said. Dubbed 'component directory lockdown,' the feature will bar access to Firefox's 'components' directory, where most of the browser's own code is stored. Mozilla has billed the move as a way to boost the stability of its browser. 'We're doing this for stability and user control [reasons],' said Johnathan Nightingale, manager of the Firefox front-end development team. 'Dropping raw components in this way was never an officially supported way of doing things, which means it lacks things like a way to specify compatibility. When a new version of Firefox comes out that these components aren't compatible with, the result can be a real pain for our shared users ... Now that those components will be packaged like regular add-ons, they will specify the versions they are compatible with, and Firefox can disable any that it knows are likely to cause problems.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...-Rogue-Add-ons
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November 18th, 2009, 20:10 Posted By: wraggster
We still don't know anything about the new Medal of Honor, but EA Games vice president Nick Earl has told staff that it looks "simply stunning".
That's according to a leaked internal memo reported by Kotaku, in which Earl describes how bosses at EA Los Angeles "have been leading a reinvention".
Apparently Earl "couldn't be happier with the focus and progress these teams have shown" - the other team being the one working on "Command & Conquer with a new digital model" for a world after Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight.
EA has previously said we can expect to hear more about the new Medal of Honor "in the months ahead". Don't bet against a Christmas 2010 release, then, especially since it's an Infinity Ward 'off' year.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ea...imply-stunning
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November 18th, 2009, 20:32 Posted By: Shrygue
via Gizmodo
The ATI Radeon HD 5970 slaughters the competition in pretty much every benchmark thrown at it. It's outrageously fast. We're talking five teraflops here, people. Teraflops.
MaximumPC put the 5970 to the test (check out their review here), and found that it lives up to its promise. The 2GB dual-GPU card is the first to support DirectX 11, and basically doubles its wholly respectable predecessor (the 5870) in specs, capable of delivering nearly 5 teraflops of raw processing power. It's a massive card, about a foot long, designed mostly for heat dissipation, at which aim it apparently succeeds. It's also got easy access to overclocking via AMD's OverDrive, and can drive up to three displays simultaneously with a maximum resolution of 7680x1600. So it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, and it's got a pricetag to match: $600 upon its undisclosed release. Yow.
More info and pictures at Maximum PC
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November 19th, 2009, 12:49 Posted By: wraggster
Talk of a Call of Duty MMO has intensified, following a U.S. report that a third Activision studio is working on the franchise
A lengthy feature in The Los Angeles Times yesterday covered Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's astounding commercial success, once again framing the game's $550 million five-day revenues against Hollywood blockbusters. But there was also talk from internal sources of intensified activity on the franchise.
Reporter Ben Fritz wrote, "One person close to the company said it also was considering adapting Call of Duty as a massively multiplayer online world." Fritz said that a mysterious third studio is working on the franchise which has traditionally been shared between Infinity Ward and Treyarch.
Talk of a Call of Duty MMO has been growing in recent weeks. On November 13, CFO Tom Tippl said, "You should expect us to test and ultimately launch additional online monetization models of some of our biggest franchises like Call of Duty. Our gamers are telling us there’s lots of services and innovation they would like to see that they’re not getting yet."
Activision / Blizzard, publisher of World of Warcraft, will need little instruction on the fiscal benefits of subscriber MMOs. Coupled with the biggest game launch ever, it's hard to see how the company would fail to test such a project's validity.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36570/CoD-...orts-intensify
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November 19th, 2009, 12:50 Posted By: wraggster
Chinese versions of XP and 98 'infringe licensing agreement', court rules
A court in China has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Chinese versions of Windows that include fonts designed by a local company, saying they violate licensing agreements.
According to Reuters, Beijing's Number One Intermediate People's Court issued the ruling this week, stating that the software giant violated licensing agreements with Zhongyi Electronic, a firm that designs Chinese character fonts.
Zhongyi reportedly said that its agreement with Microsoft only allowed the firm to use its intellectual property in Windows 95, but that it was also used in subsequent versions.
Microsoft will have to halt sales of Chinese versions of Windows 98 and XP, along with 2000 and 2003 Windows Server products. It is unclear when this must start, but Microsoft has said it will appeal against the ruling.
"Microsoft respects intellectual property rights. We use third party IPs only when we have a legitimate right to do so," the firm said in a statement.
Ling Xin Yu, the lawyer for Zhongyi, told Reuters: "By winning this case against an internationally well-known company like Microsoft, it shows that China, although still a developing country, is taking positive steps to protect intellectual property rights."
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/32743...ws-XP-in-China
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November 19th, 2009, 20:38 Posted By: wraggster
Here, for your delectation, are six new screens showing the "epic story" of the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online expansion pack Siege of Mirkwood.
Siege of Mirkwood is due to go live on 3 December and, as far as we know, it remains on schedule. If you want to be in on it from the start, you can pre-order it
here
There are all sorts of goodies to be gained by pre-ordering, depending on the version of the game you opt for. If you're the dithering type, look away now, as you can choose between: the Standard Edition (£14.99), Special Edition (£19.99, which adds the Adventurer's Pack and a horse), Platinum Edition (£29.99, including Shadows of Angmar and Mines of Moria) and the Platinum Special Edition (£34.99, with everything including the Hobbit's kitchen sink).
I'm an Elf: get me out of here
Get in there before Middle-Earth gets so swamped it makes Benidorm look like the Sahara.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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November 19th, 2009, 20:45 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has unveiled the first details of Internet Explorer 9, promising that it will close the performance gap on rival browsers. The major newcomer is a revamped rendering engine that will tap the power of the PC's graphics card to accelerate text and graphics performance. 'We're changing IE to use the DirectX family of Windows APIs to enable many advances for web developers,' explains Internet Explorer's general manager, Dean Hachamovitch. As well as improving performance, Microsoft claims the hardware acceleration will enhance the appearance and readability of fonts on the web, with sub-pixel positioning that eradicates the jagged edges on large typefaces.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...net-Explorer-9
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November 19th, 2009, 20:50 Posted By: wraggster
Google had a low-key event today to preview Chrome OS, its new operating system based on Linux and the Chrome browser. Things are still pretty early -- it's not even in beta yet, let alone on shipping products -- but that's the first official screen shot right there, and the big features are all roughed out. The entire system is web-based and runs in the Chrome browser -- right down to USB drive contents, which show up in a browser tab, and the notepad, which actually creates a Google Docs document. Web apps are launched from a persistent apps panel, which includes Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and Hulu, among others, and background apps like Google Talk can be minimized to "panels" that dock to the bottom of the screen. Local storage is just used to speed up the system -- everything actually lives in the cloud, so all it takes to swap or borrow machines is a login, and you're good to go. Google also said it's "very committed" to Flash, and that it's looking to hardware accelerate whatever code it can -- although Google didn't have a solid answer to give when asked about Silverlight. Overall, Google was upfront in saying that Chrome OS is focused on very clear use cases for people who primarily use the web, and that it's not trying to do everything: "If you're a lawyer, editing contracts back and forth, this will not be the right machine for you."
As far as going to market, Google's not talking details until the targeted launch at the end of next year, but Chrome OS won't run on just anything -- there'll be specific reference hardware. For example, Chrome OS won't work with standard hard drives, just SSDs, but Google is supporting both x86 and ARM CPUs. That also means you won't be able to just download Chrome OS and go, you'll have to buy a Chrome OS device approved by Google. Interesting move, for sure -- but since the entire OS is totally open-source as of today, we're sure it'll be hacked onto all kinds of hardware soon enough. (And for the record, the demo was run on an off-the-shelf Eee PC.) Check Google's intro videos after the break!
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/19/g...e-os-revealed/
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November 20th, 2009, 14:45 Posted By: wraggster
After claims that console versions Modern Warfare 2 had been recalled in Russia due to complaints from politicians and the gaming public over the infamous airport slaughter scene, it turns out the stories were completely untrue. Activision never released a console version of the game in Russia."
Instead, they simply edited the notorious scene out of the PC version. They did this of their own volition, since Russia doesn't have a formal ratings committee.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/1...ssia-After-All
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November 20th, 2009, 14:46 Posted By: wraggster
Christmas Shopping writes with this excerpt from Kaspersky Labs' threatpost:
"Back in September, when Google launched the Google Chome Frame plug-in for Internet Explorer users, Microsoft immediately warned that the move would increase the attack surface and make IE users less secure. Now comes word that a security researcher in the Microsoft Vulnerability Research (MSVR) has discovered a 'high risk' security vulnerability that could allow an attacker to bypass cross-origin protections."
"Google has hurried out a patch," he adds.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...e-Chrome-Frame
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November 20th, 2009, 14:48 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft has denied that it has built a backdoor into Windows 7, a concern that surfaced yesterday after a senior National Security Agency (NSA) official testified before Congress that the agency had worked on the operating system. 'Microsoft has not and will not put "backdoors" into Windows,' a company spokeswoman said, reacting to a Computerworld story Wednesday. On Monday, Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security that the agency had partnered with the developer during the creation of Windows 7 'to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide.' Thursday's categorical denial by Microsoft was accompanied by further explanation of exactly how the NSA participated in the making of Windows 7. 'The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit,' said the spokeswoman. The company rolled out the Windows 7 version of the toolkit late last month, shortly after it officially launched the operating system."
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/1...Into-Windows-7
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November 20th, 2009, 14:49 Posted By: wraggster
Google has released the source to what will eventually become Chrome OS, and will begin developing it as an open source project like Chromium. The OS differs from the usual computing model by (1) making all apps web apps (2) sandboxing everything and (3) removing anything unnecessary, to focus on speed."
Reader Barence adds
"Google said consumers won't be able to download the operating system — it will only be available on hardware that meets Google's specifications. Hard disks are banned, for instance, while Google said it will also specify factors such as screen sizes and display resolutions. Google said it plans to officially launch Chrome OS by the end of next year.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...To-Chromium-OS
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November 20th, 2009, 20:18 Posted By: wraggster
Netbooks are more likely to fail within the first year than their more expensive laptop brethren, according to new research. SquareTrade, an independent US warranty provider, analyzed the failure rates of more than 30,000 laptops covered by its own warranties. It found that 5.8% of netbooks malfunctioned within the first year, compared to 4.7% for regular laptops and 4.2% for premium laptops costing more than $1,000. The research also raises question marks over the legendary reliability of Macs. Three PC manufacturers — Asus, Toshiba, and Sony — boasted better reliability rates than Apple. Macs have a 17.4% malfunction rate over three years, compared to market-leader Asus, which has a 15.6% failure rate. HP was the worst of the nine PC vendors listed, with a malfunction rate of 25.6% over three years.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/...e-Than-Laptops
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November 20th, 2009, 20:18 Posted By: wraggster
Researchers have found several security holes in popular Firefox extensions that have an estimated total of 30 million downloads from AMO (the Addons Mozilla community site). Three 0-days were also released. Mozilla doesn't have a security model for extensions and Firefox fully trusts the code of the extensions. There are no security boundaries between extensions and, to make things even worse, an extension can silently modify another extension."
The affected extensions are Sage version 1.4.3, InfoRSS 1.1.4.2, and Yoono 6.1.1 (and earlier versions). Clearly the problem is larger than just these three extensions
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/2...fox-Extensions
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November 20th, 2009, 20:24 Posted By: wraggster
Even if you don't have a favored fighter in the browser wars, you have to admit Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been looking mighty unfit over the last few years. Younger and fitter contenders like Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have arguably overtaken the old stalwart, and now Microsoft is making some much-needed noise about fighting back. The software giant has been giving developers and curious journalists a very early peek into its IE 9 progress at PDC, with its stated ambitions including faster Javascript (see table above), HTML5 support, and hardware acceleration for web content. By harnessing DirectX and your graphics processor, the new browser will offer improvements in text readability and video performance, as well as taking some of the load off the CPU. Development has only just got under way, mind you, so there's still plenty of time to screw it all up. Or make it awesome
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/20/i...html5-support/
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November 20th, 2009, 20:29 Posted By: wraggster
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November 20th, 2009, 20:35 Posted By: wraggster
Okay gang, fun's over. We all had some good times with the few non-delayed Q4 2009 blockbusters that dropped during the past two weeks, but now it's time to start agonizing over every scrap of news for next year's highly anticipated titles. We'll kick things off: Hey, the StarCraft II site just received a major update, delivering a whole mess of feature articles and screenshots to the series' fast-clicking fanbase!
The articles include a short story about the ever-devious Zerg Changeling, a design overview of the campaign story, insight into creating one of the multiplayer maps, and character bios for three of the game's combatants. Are you adequately excited by these updates? Good. Now, prepare to not play the game for an undisclosed period of time. Yeah, it's all coming back to you now, isn't it?
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/20/st...ature-content/
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November 21st, 2009, 00:28 Posted By: wraggster
IWNet fury not enough to quell commercial success of Infinity Ward’s shooter
Though some corners of the internet would have you believe that we were literally all about to die following Infinity Ward’s decision to drop dedicated multiplayer servers for the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sales numbers paint a different story.
Posting on the Infinity Ward message boards (as spotted by BigDownload), community manger Robert Bowling stated:
“The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week. Making it the most successful PC version.â€
Though we don’t know exactly how many units the game has shifted on PC, it’s fair to assume it’s quite a few.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36607/MW2-...le-predecessor
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November 21st, 2009, 16:11 Posted By: wraggster
Apparently we won't have to deal with upgrading our Microsoft-driven computers for another three years. According to a tentative roadmap, the next version of the OS, Windows 8, won't be arriving until 2012.
This release date would be consistent with the schedule Microsoft has been maintaining, but I suggest they don't rush it. I still can't let go of some Windows XP installs, much less jump to Windows 8 so quickly.
http://gizmodo.com/5409668/windows-8...ing-to-roadmap
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November 21st, 2009, 16:14 Posted By: wraggster
Some very generous Alpha OS geeks have snagged the Chrome OS source code and compiled a version to share with the rest of us, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'The build comes in the form of a virtual machine, which means you'll need VMWare or VirtualBox running, and of course the image of Chrome OS itself. The folks at gdgt are distributing the latter, and they've set up a page with all the links you'll need. You'll need to create a gdgt account if you don't have one yet. The Chrome OS image is only a bit over 300 megs, so it's a fast download. If you need a little more handholding, TechCrunch has a step-by-step guide to getting Chrome OS installed and running using VirtualBox, and a Chrome OS torrent they link to.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...irtual-Machine
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November 21st, 2009, 20:04 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
* This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems, or the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards.
Accept challenges, find treasures, discover what’s lurking in hidden caves and more
Explore famous landmarks in China, Egypt, and France
Learn new skills like photography and pursue new opportunities
Meet new Sims from exotic locations and share their cultures
Customize your Sims homes with new styles & artifacts from their adventures
description
The adventure is near…take your Sims on the adventure of their lives with The SimsTM 3 World Adventures. Guide your Sims to acclaimed fortune - or potential doom. Take your Sims to exotic destinations to hunt for hidden treasures. Uncover new skills, experience new personality traits and garner rewards, if your Sims succeed. Explore ancient tombs in the pyramids of Egypt, master martial arts in the Far East, and discover rich culture and famous landmarks in France. Adventure is on the horizon - what will your Sims discover?
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3mqb.html
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November 21st, 2009, 20:05 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
features
Next generation co-op action gaming from the makers of Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike.
AI Director 2.0: Advanced technology dubbed “The AI Director†drove L4D’s unique gameplay – customizing enemy population, effects, and music, based upon the players’ performance. L4D 2 features “The AI Director 2.0†which expands the Director’s ability to customize level layout, world objects, weather, and lighting to reflect different times of day.
New melee weapons – axe, chainsaw, frying pan, baseball bat – allow you to get up close with the zombies
Four different survivors. New Story. New dialogue.
More game. On day one, L4D 2 features more co-operative campaigns, more campaigns and maps for the Versus game modes than L4D 1, plus support for Survival mode out of the box.
Stats, rankings, and awards system drives collaborative play
description
This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns. You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan. You’ll be putting these weapons to the test against (or playing as in Versus) three horrific and formidable new Special Infected. You’ll also encounter five new “uncommon†common infected, including the terrifying Mudmen. Helping to take L4D’s frantic, action-packed gameplay to the next level is AI Director 2.0. This improved Director has the ability to procedurally change the weather you’ll fight through and the pathways you’ll take, in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match your performance. L4D2 promises a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience every time the game is played, custom-fitted to your style of play.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-3f31.html
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November 21st, 2009, 23:59 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft is, predictably, not all that impressed by Google Inc.'s demonstration of its upcoming Chrome OS, saying 'From what was shared, it appears to be in the early stages of development,' a Microsoft spokeswoman said. 'From our perspective, however, our customers are already voicing their approval of the way Windows 7 just works — across the Web and on the desktop, and on all sizes and types of PCs — purchasing twice as many units of Windows 7 as we've sold of any other operating system over a comparable time.' But neither were potential rivals who make Linux and instant-on operating systems. Chrome OS claimed 7-second boot times, and and ability to run Web apps within another 3 seconds failed to impress Woody Hobbs, president and CEO of Phoenix Technologies, a long-time BIOS software maker that has re-invented itself with a Linux-based instant-on OS called HyperSpace. 'Instant-on is about being able to access your Internet applications in one second. Seven seconds is too long,' Hobbs said. 'There is no such thing as "cold boot" for today's mobile PCs such as netbooks and smartbooks. You should be able to use your netbook like you use your smartphone — a press of a button and you are "on."' Mark Lee, CEO of DeviceVM Inc., said Google's favoritism towards its own browser and Web apps could rub some users the wrong way, especially those outside of the US. 'In China, users prefer Baidu, not Google,' Lee said. DeviceVM's Splashtop platform boots into Firefox within seconds and uses Yahoo or Baidu as default search engines instead of Google
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...ogle-Chrome-OS
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November 23rd, 2009, 15:17 Posted By: wraggster
Infinity Ward has denied the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has performed less well than expected, saying that it outsold COD 4 on PC in its first week.
"Yes, PC is the smallest percentage in terms of how much sold on each platform but that hardly means anything other than the PC is just the smallest market," IW creative strategist Robert Bowling explained on the company's official forum.
"The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week. Making it the most successful PC version.
"Essentially, all this percentage proves is that the console versions sold great, not that the PC version sold poorly, because that's actually not the case. The PC version has done tremendous in its first week, better than our previous game."
In last week's UK chart, Modern Warfare 2 took the top place after sales in excess of 1.7 million. The PC version of the game also topped the PC specific chart, although it was revealed that its sales accounted for just three per cent of the overall total. This figure doesn't however take into account digital sales.
Modern Warfare 2 on PC caused some controversy ahead of its release for not supporting PC multiplayer features such as dedicated servers.
This prompted some outrage among the PC community, and an online petition calling for dedicated servers in the game gleaned over 224,000 signatures.
Activision CEO Mike Griffiths later said that it was watching the surfacing negative comments carefully but added "we're not overly concerned about it."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-success-on-pc
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November 23rd, 2009, 15:33 Posted By: wraggster
Sony Online Entertainment has revealed that players of its classic MMO title, Star Wars Galaxies, have created over 3 million quests since the user-gen functionality was added to the game a little over a month ago.
The update, called Chronicles, allows players to generate their own missions, which can include plot lines featuring some of the key characters from the original trilogy of films, with one player alone posting over 6000 missions for others to play.
Star Wars Galaxies is also now available to download in full from Steam and Direct2Drive, the company added.
The game, first released in 2003 after a series of delays, has been one of SOE's most successful MMO titles of the past few years, and will continue to be playable after the release of the BioWare-developed and EA-published Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO which is set for release next year.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...million-levels
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November 24th, 2009, 10:36 Posted By: wraggster
Opera 10.10 has been released, and with it their new "Unite" technology, which allows users to share content directly between all of their own devices. Unite wraps both web browser and web server into a single package in an attempt to change the way users think about their browser.
"'We promised Opera Unite would reinvent the Web,' said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. 'What we are really doing is reinventing how we as consumers interact with the Web. By giving our devices the ability to serve content, we become equal citizens on the Web. In an age where we have ceded control of our personal data to third-parties, Opera Unite gives us the freedom to choose how we will share the data that belongs to us.'"
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...New-Unite-Tech
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November 24th, 2009, 10:37 Posted By: wraggster
Using the latest build of Google's Chromium OS source code, Phoronix built it out to run on a Samsung netbook and ran sixteen benchmarks, putting it up against Moblin 2.1, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, openSUSE 11.2, and Fedora 12. They ran some of their usual desktop benchmarks (encoding, video, etc..), but more interestingly they ran a number of battery, CPU usage, and memory consumption tests under different settings that show some of the advantages and disadvantages for each of the Linux distributions, and spotted a few bugs along the way.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...u-Netbook-More
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November 24th, 2009, 11:39 Posted By: wraggster
It's been close to two weeks since this holiday's most anticipated title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, launched in just about every store across the globe. And despite its semi-short campaign length, it appears most players will be hanging onto the title until well into the New Year.
I spoke with GameStop VP of Marketing Tony Bartel a little while back about this, and he says Call of Duty titles are rarely seen back at the store until about two months after its release.
"Typically, we don't see a lot of people trading back in their new games right away," Bartel told IGN. "In fact, when you look at our used sales, at any given time, less than four percent of those used sales come from new games launched in the last 60 days."
"But what we've found historically with the Call of Duty franchise, that percentage is actually even smaller."
GameStop revealed last week the company sold 2.5 million copies of Modern Warfare 2 in the first three days of sales. I recently called ten random GameStop stores located in the biggest cities in the U.S. and none had any used copies in stock, even with the recent releases of Assassin's Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2.
Another reason players may be hesitant to trade in the title could be because they simply ran out of other titles to offer up instead, as GameStop says the company will receive a huge influx of pre-owned stock due to the demand for Modern Warfare 2.
"For Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, twenty percent of the product we sell will be funded in GameStop through credits from games people no longer play," Bartel added.
How long will Modern Warfare 2 be in your games library?
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/104/1049158p1.html
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November 24th, 2009, 15:58 Posted By: wraggster
The Sith Inquisitor and the Jedi Consular have been revealed as the final two character classes in the upcoming Star Wars MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
First details come from German games mag, PC Games, which details both classes following a recent EA showcase event.
The Jedi Consular is, according to translations of the mag, a strong support class. "Contrary to the revealed Jedi Knight, several weeks ago, is the Consular not to be found in the first line. Although he can swing the lightsaber too, he masters several ranged fighting skills like 'Sleep', 'Lift' or 'Smash'. The class can be tuned into damage or healing," says the report.
Conversely it says "The Inquisitor is the opposite of the Consular and is a fighter from the second line," detailing Force powers such as 'Shock' or the 'Lightning Charge', which apparently cooks enemies.
The mag also describes an area attack, 'Overload', which damages as well as stuns surrounding enemies for several seconds. Juicy stuff.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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November 25th, 2009, 09:59 Posted By: wraggster
After this weekend's report of a dangerous flaw in IE (which Microsoft confirmed today), intrudere points out an exclusive report in The Register on a new hole in IE8 that could allow an attacker to pull off cross-site scripting attacks on Web sites that ought, by rights, to be safe from XSS. This is according to two anonymous sources, who told El Reg that Microsoft had been notified of the vulnerability a few months ago.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...e-Sites-Unsafe
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November 25th, 2009, 17:08 Posted By: wraggster
Blizzard has launched a special site celebrating the fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft - which launched on 23rd Novmeber 2004 - as well as 15 years of the Warcraft series.
The highlight so far is a lengthy video in which everyone who's anyone at the developer reminisces about personal highlights in the series' history.
Chief executive Mike Morhaime recalled the midnight launch of WOW at a local electronics store, saying he wasn't sure the game would be a success until that point.
"Here we were, you know, launching this massively multiplayer game," he said. "It was our first subscription game and the beta was pretty successful, but you really have no idea when you launch a game how many people are going to show up and want to buy it and play it. You just don't know how it's going to do...
"So we drove out to the local Fry's Electronics and driving up I still remember the feeling... I got there and there's traffic to get to Fry's, to get off the freeway, it's completely backed up. And there's crowds and crowds of people walking towards Fry's and there was no parking within blocks."
Several others, including co-founder and production boss Frank Pearce, remember downing WOW raid boss Rangnaros for the first time in the in-house guild, while former lead designer Jeff Kaplan recalls using GM mode to watch the celebrations when leading player guilds achieved the first kills of the dragons Onyxia and Nefarion.
Story guru Chris Metzen and online technology boss Robert Bridenbecker tell the story of how the death of Bridenbecker's brother from cancer inspired a quest line about grief in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, in which the player seeks intervention from Azeroth's most powerful entities for a dying crusader.
"It was wild because [Metzen] was able to take my brother's struggle for about four or five years and represent it in this fantasy universe," Bridenbecker said of the "Bridenbad" storyline. "I actually had the crew here put together the DVD montage of that storyline and I gave that to my parents... and I ended up taking a copy of it as well... and buried that along with some of his personal belongings up in the Arctic Circle."
"Maybe it even helped a little bit in their grief... this goofy, videogame thing," said Metzen. "It was just such a great moment for me fictionally and, more importantly, personally... that sometimes this clumsy craft of making videogames and things can sing beyond the game itself."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bl...craft-5-of-wow
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November 26th, 2009, 23:03 Posted By: Shrygue
via Eurogamer
EA has revealed that Mass Effect 2 will use the same DRM copy protection as Dragon Age: Origins.
This involves a rudimentary disc check and no online authentication, unlike the intrusive SecuROM program used in Mass Effect 1.
EA has also uncovered the PC Mass Effect 2 system requirements, which won't require a fortune to meet even at recommended level.
Minimum:
CPU: 1.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent AMD chip
GPU: 256MB (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support)
Memory: 1GB RAM for XP / 2GB RAM for Vista, Windows 7
Recommended:
CPU: 2.6+Ghz Core 2 Duo Intel or equivalent AMD chip
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or better
Memory: 2GB RAM
Mass Effect 2 will be released on PC and Xbox 360 on 29th January 2010.
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November 26th, 2009, 23:11 Posted By: Shrygue
via Computer and Video Games
DICE has reassured the PC community that its plans for a Battlefield: Bad Company 2 beta haven't been binned.
Speaking in an update on the official Battlefield site, DICE's Gordon Van Dyke said the PC beta has simply been delayed until early next year, in order to "drastically increase" capacity.
"We wanted to update you, and slow the flood of tweets, on questions surrounding the BFBC2 PC Beta being cancelled," he wrote. "I'll get right to it and say 'the BFBC2 PC Beta is not cancelled'.
"Now this all started due to changes made to an earlier blog that removed the PC Beta from the details and the reason for this was the plan changed"
With the "huge success" of the PS3 Beta DICE decided to "drastically increase" the PC Beta's capacity to ensure as many people as possible could participate, Van Dyke said.
"Unfortunately this meant we had to delay the Beta to very early next year giving us more planning time to make it happen and implement more optimizations."
The PlayStation 3 beta is going on right now.
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November 27th, 2009, 10:30 Posted By: wraggster
Remember IBM's ThinkPad 701 with the butterfly keyboard? This isn't it, it's better... conceptually anyway. Instead of two halves of a keyboard magically jigsawing themselves together, Kohjinsha achieves a similar result with its DZ-series using a pair of 10.1-inch TFT displays with 1,024 x 600 pixel resolution (each) packed into an otherwise svelte 1.02 x 8.26 x 0.74~1.65 inches / 4.09 pounds (1.84 kg) portable. Best of all it's on sale now for ¥95,800 (about $1,110) with a Linux pre-load -- add another ¥5,000 (about $58) for 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. For that you get a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo with RS780MN chipset and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 3x USB, a 3-in-1 card reader, 1.3 megapixel webcam, 1GB memory (expandable to 4GB), and 160GB 5,4000 hard disk with claimed 4.5-hours "max" of battery power (1.1V, 5200mAh) -- likely far less in real-world usage. Ships worldwide ($60ish for US or €50ish for European delivery) in 3 weeks if you order today. Video of the sliding action after the break from our hands-on session back at the CEATEC show in Japan.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/27/k...-now-for-sale/
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November 28th, 2009, 12:32 Posted By: wraggster
Jon Van Caneghem, EA's new head of all things Command & Conquer, has grand plans for the future direction of the series. Plans die-hard fans of C&C may be interested/horrified to hear.
See, Van Caneghem is a big supporter of things like "games as service", and online delivery. Which makes him a good fit for EA, since that's exactly what EA are moving towards, with games like Battlefield Heroes and their acquisition of online gaming company Playfish.
So what does this mean for the future of Command & Conquer? Well, we knew he was going to "transform" the series, but didn't think it'd be this drastic. Chew over these quotes from an interview with Van Caneghem over on Gamasutra. The first regarding strategy games taking a leaf out of Battlefield Heroes' book.
"Look what online has done for RPGs over the last 10 years. All the other categories are following suit... we're looking forward to building something to be a leader in that space."
On where he sees C&C fitting in with this shift, he says ""It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it... being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends."
And, perhaps most distressingly, this:
"What you're seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook... they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not. Taking a franchise like Command and Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy."
Tiberiumville, coming to Facebook, 2010.
http://kotaku.com/5414147/you-may-no...quer-is-headed
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November 30th, 2009, 10:11 Posted By: wraggster
Infinity Ward's conducted a wave of bans aimed at culling cheaters on the PC version of Modern Warfare 2.
The developer's decision to ditch dedicated servers was supposed to make illegal tinkering of the shooter more difficult for hackers, but as anyone who's played the PC version for any length of time will tell you: it doesn't seem to have worked.
Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling sends the good news: "Top men are on it. In fact, the Steam ban hammer is coming down on about 2,500 confirmed #MW2 cheaters on PC today."
Somehow, we can't see this being the end of the story...
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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November 30th, 2009, 10:14 Posted By: wraggster
Many readers are submitting stories related to Google Chrome OS. ruphus13 points out a GigaOm opinion piece about how, if users end up rejecting its current cloud-only focus, the nacent OS may succeed as a netbook secondary operating system alongside Windows (in company with secondaries based on other Linux flavors, including Android). Engadget reviews a Chrome OS on a USB key setup that is claimed to offer eye-opening performance compared to running under virtualization. And an anonymous reader notes the 0.1 beta release of ChromeShell, which installs a "Chrome OS-like" environment that boots to the Chrome browser in ~3 seconds; users can switch to Windows later as desired.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11...ts-and-Futures
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November 30th, 2009, 10:16 Posted By: wraggster
New Command & Conquer brand boss Jon Van Canegham has hinted at a "direct-to-consumer" future for the venerable real-time strategy series.
"It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it... being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends," Van Canegham, who works at EA Los Angeles, told Gamasutra.
His comments appear to echo those of EA Games vice president Nick Earl, who reportedly told staff in an internal email that a team at EALA was working on "Command & Conquer with a new digital model".
"What you're seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook... they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not," Van Canegham said.
"Taking a franchise like Command & Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy."
Before any of that happens, however, there's the prospect of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight for PC, due out on 19th March 2010. Check out our C&C4 preview for more details.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/c-...digital-future
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November 30th, 2009, 18:38 Posted By: wraggster
MMO developers trying to copy World of Warcraft is "definitely not the right move," says Blizzard lead producer, Shane Dabiri.
Speaking in the latest issue of PC Zone magazine, Dabiri argues that trying to emulate the success of his company's MMO isn't what gamers are looking for, and devs should try to create "innovative new MMOs". In other words, stay away from Blizzard's profits, you thieves.
"There are a lot of people that try to emulate World of Warcraft - and as flattering as that is our end it's definitely not the right move," he says.
"I know that World of Warcraft is very successful, and so people think if they were to make another game just like it they could somehow capture that audience. However, I don't think that's what players are looking for.
"Players that have invested time in WOW don't just want to do the same thing in other game - they want to try something completely new and different," he argues.
"I think the industry needs to move in that direction to come up with some innovative new MMOs that are trying really different things. Take City of Heroes - at least that's something that's not a fantasy game."
We can see his argument. Even the excellent Warhammer Online - an unashamed and well-built WoW-alike - doesn't seem to be doing that well these days.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS
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November 30th, 2009, 18:47 Posted By: wraggster
A man has been arrested by the British Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) accused of stealing the usernames and passwords from players of the RuneScape MMORPG. Security experts report that this is one of the first occasions when a Brit has been apprehended for "virtual robbery", although incidents have happened in the past. For instance, the CEO of the sci-fi trading game Eve Online stole 200 billion "kredits", which he then used as a deposit on a real-world house, and in October last year a Japanese woman was arrested by police after allegedly hacking her virtual husband "to death
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/1...Online-Robbery
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