Greenpeace: Nintendo hates the environment

Greenpeace has again called the business practices of Nintendo into question, claiming that the company is inadequate on many levels and that the Japanese game-maker is totally unwilling to talk about the issue.

Greenpeace spokesperson Iza Kruszewska spoke out to Edge on the topic and said that Nintendo showed a complete refusal to take the topic seriously and would not have any contact with charities like Greenpeace.

Quake 3 multiplayer now hostable on Nokia phones

Crafty coders have updated the mobile phone version of Quake 3: Arena for Nokia phones so that games can now be hosted from a handset.

Not only that, but compatible handsets can now also take advantage of mouse and keyboard support by using bluetooth-enabled peripherals with the game.

To get Quake 3 running on your mobile you'll need to have a copy of the game obviously, as well as a handset which features Texa's OMAP 2420 chipset technology. In English that means you can only host games on a Nokia N95 8GB, N82 and E90 according to Decoder.

Nokia leaves Japanese market

Finnish mobile giant Nokia has announced that it is to leave the Japanese mobile 'phone market.

According to CNet, the company will cease its manufacturing agreements with Japanese firms NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile, but keep producing the occasional top-end handset under its Vertu branding.

Executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila said of the move that "in the current economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localised products is no longer sustainable.

Analysts predict Christmas flops

In another effort to prove their worth industry analysts have offered predictions on what games will do little more than flop this Christmas.

Gamasutra asked some of the leading industry analysts to try and guess which games will earn a fail award this Christmas, with predictions ranging from Need for Speed: Undercover right through to the unproven Spiderman: Web of Shadows.

The list included all platforms and genres and many analysts claimed that it was bound to be the casual, unfamiliar games which might flop most this Christmas as casual buyers try to prune expenses as a result of the credit crunch.

iPhone advert pulled by ASA

The Advertising Standards Authority has officially chastised Apple over its claims that Internet access on the second-generation 3G iPhone is "really fast," stating that the company needs to pull its advertising pronto.

According to BetaNews, the ruling by the advertising industry's self-regulatory body states that the company has violated three sections of the BCAP TV Advertising Code: the provision of adequate objective evidence to support claims made during an advertisement; descriptions, claims, and illustrations that do not imply attributes or performance beyond that achievable in normal usage; and no sneakily using techniques that "

YOYOTech drops Cooler Master UCP 900W price

Following our review of the Cooler Master UCP Ultimate 900W power supply on Thursday, the company has contacted us to tell us that it has dropped the price in light of our conclusions.

YOYOTech is now selling the UCP 900W for just under £146 (inc. VAT), effective immediately.

While we won't be updating our review's conclusions and scores to reflect this price change--if we do it for one product, we'd have to do it for every one on every price change--it does impact the unit's value without a doubt.

Scientists improve blue OLEDs

Scientists at the South Korean Pusan National University and Seoul National University have made a breakthrough that could lead to big-screen, energy efficient OLED displays.

The organic light-emitting diode technology, which has seen use in several small-scale applications, offers improved energy efficiency and a greater field of vision over standard liquid crystal display systems, but its developers have had trouble recreating the blue layer needed to generate high-quality RGB displays. According to Gizmodo, that's no longer a problem.

Sony refuses to comment on PSP2

Sony is adamantly refusing to either confirm or deny the rumour that the new PSP model, the PSP2, is readying for release despite a fresh bunch of rumours circulating that indicate the handheld may be nearing completion.

Speculation was renewed this week when a spokesperson for Imagination Technologies Group announced a new partnership with an "international consumer electronics company".

While the spokesperson would not confirm what company exactly the partnership was with, the EE Times did confirm that the two would be working on a high-volume consumer device called the PSP2.

Warhound delayed by Call of Juarez developer

Techland, developer behind western shooter Call of Juarez, has announced that it is delaying the launch of it's next title, Warhound, until next year sometime.

Warhound was originally announced in 2007 as an open-world shooter where players take on mercenary assignments from around the world, researching and selecting equipment and plans as they go. The game is supposed to be very non-linear and emergent, though tangible evidence has been thin on the ground.

GTA IV PC to have 32-player multiplayer

Rockstar has announced that among the updates and improvements to the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV is support for upto 32 players in some multiplayer modes.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV is set for release on December 3rd, a month or two after the game was first released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. A DS spin-off game, titled Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is also currently in development for the Nintendo DS.

Microsoft studies cyberchondria

A study undertaken by Microsoft has revealed a dark side of browsing for medical information on the web: the snappily-titled 'cyberchondria'.

The survey, which the New York Times highlights as covering "health-related Web searches on popular search engines as well as a survey of the company's employees," seems to have uncovered evidence of a widespread digital analogue (if there can be such a thing) to medical students' disease – the condition by which an overworked medical student will frequently consider him or herself to be suffering from the very maladies currently being studied.

Microsoft studies cyberchondria

A study undertaken by Microsoft has revealed a dark side of browsing for medical information on the web: the snappily-titled 'cyberchondria'.

The survey, which the New York Times highlights as covering "health-related Web searches on popular search engines as well as a survey of the company's employees," seems to have uncovered evidence of a widespread digital analogue (if there can be such a thing) to medical students' disease – the condition by which an overworked medical student will frequently consider him or herself to be suffering from the very maladies currently being studied.

Microsoft studies cyberchondria

A study undertaken by Microsoft has revealed a dark side of browsing for medical information on the web: the snappily-titled 'cyberchondria'.

The survey, which the New York Times highlights as covering "health-related Web searches on popular search engines as well as a survey of the company's employees," seems to have uncovered evidence of a widespread digital analogue (if there can be such a thing) to medical students' disease – the condition by which an overworked medical student will frequently consider him or herself to be suffering from the very maladies currently being studied.

Nokia 5800 sees limited shipping

Nokia today said it has started the first wave of shipments of the 5800 XpressMusic, its first touchscreen phone. The Symbian S60 device is already on sale or should be soon for the few regions receiving it before the end of the year, including Nokia's home country of Finland as well as Hong Kong, India, Russia, Spain and the Taiwan area. The company positions it as a near-smartphone with support for full apps, 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi but also a media-centric interface with an always-present media bar for navigating tracks, a 3.2-megapixel camera with video capture and a particularly sharp 640x360, 3.2-inch display.

Security flaw in Vista discovered

A potentially serious flaw has been discovered in the Windows Vista networking subsystem, but a patch isn't likely until the next service pack.

According to CNet, the vulnerability – discovered by Thomas Unterleitner of security firm Phion last Friday – can cause a buffer overflow condition in the iphlpapi.dll API for the network IO subsystem of Vista. While the issue has only been proven to corrupt kernel memory and cause a system crash, the possibility exists that a specially crafted exploit could run code provided by an attacker.

Security flaw in Vista discovered

A potentially serious flaw has been discovered in the Windows Vista networking subsystem, but a patch isn't likely until the next service pack.

According to CNet, the vulnerability – discovered by Thomas Unterleitner of security firm Phion last Friday – can cause a buffer overflow condition in the iphlpapi.dll API for the network IO subsystem of Vista. While the issue has only been proven to corrupt kernel memory and cause a system crash, the possibility exists that a specially crafted exploit could run code provided by an attacker.

Security flaw in Vista discovered

A potentially serious flaw has been discovered in the Windows Vista networking subsystem, but a patch isn't likely until the next service pack.

According to CNet, the vulnerability – discovered by Thomas Unterleitner of security firm Phion last Friday – can cause a buffer overflow condition in the iphlpapi.dll API for the network IO subsystem of Vista. While the issue has only been proven to corrupt kernel memory and cause a system crash, the possibility exists that a specially crafted exploit could run code provided by an attacker.

Clinic admits game addiction isn't an addiction

The head of Europe's first games addiction clinic has admitted that gaming addiction isn't really an addiction per se, but more akin to a symptom of a larger social disorder.

According to Keith Bakker of The Smith and Jones Centre in Amsterdam, the first clinic set up to tackle game addiction exclusively, 99 percent of the people he works with are not true gaming addicts. Bakker claims that while the gamers who exhibit compulsive behaviours can be successfully cured of games addiction, the reality is that it is a larger social problem, not a purely psychological one.

Clinic admits game addiction isn't an addiction

The head of Europe's first games addiction clinic has admitted that gaming addiction isn't really an addiction per se, but more akin to a symptom of a larger social disorder.

According to Keith Bakker of The Smith and Jones Centre in Amsterdam, the first clinic set up to tackle game addiction exclusively, 99 percent of the people he works with are not true gaming addicts. Bakker claims that while the gamers who exhibit compulsive behaviours can be successfully cured of games addiction, the reality is that it is a larger social problem, not a purely psychological one.

Opera Mini 4.2 released

The latest build of popular mobile web browser Opera Mini, version 4.2, has been officially launched this week – just one day after the first beta build for Google's Android platform was offered for download.

According to ITWire, the new build brings back the ability to 'skin' certain parts of the application in order to customise the colour scheme – a minor feature, true, but one that many users had missed since it was removed after version 3.

Apple advises use of Mac anti-virus

A recent spate of rather ineffective viruses for Apple's Mac OS X platform has the company worried enough to recommend anti-virus programs to its users – a volte-face for many Mac fans.

According to ITWire's Stephen Withers, Apple has quietly been updating its knowledge base with an entry which "encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

US army creates videogame training unit

The US Army has announced that it will be investing $50 million USD in videogames by 2010 as it launches new game training centres across the US. The money will be spent to train soldiers in new, virtual environments.

"The Army takes this seriously," said Lt. Col. Gary Stephens, of the Project Executive Office in a comment to Stars and Stripes (Via Kotaku). "We own gaming for the Army — from requirements through procurement.

2m PoV "Display from Hell"

If you've always wanted a cool light show at your parties, but always thought that the shop-bought stuff was lacking a little soupçon of danger, check out Mario Mauerer's awesome persistence of vision toy.

According to Hack a Day, the device – which uses 100 blue LEDs to generate an image whilst spinning – is built around propeller spinning at 600 revolutions per minute. While that might not sound like much, because the propeller is two metres long, that means that the ends are moving a whopping 140 miles per hour. This is a light show that is

Valve publishes Left4Dead public achievements

Valve has published the public achievements statistics for co-op zombie shooter Left4Dead, revealing how many players have reached each achievement and how well players are faring.

The statistics only take the PC version into account however as they are pulled directly from Steam and thus ignore the Xbox 360 version of the game.

According to the stats the most popular and easy to get achievement is 'Drag and Drop', which is gained by rescuing an ally from a smoker before they can take damage. On the other hand, nobody has yet managed to bad the 'Zombie Genocidist' award for killing 53,595 zombies total.

XNA dev: "Downloadable games are too cheap"

According to Weapon of Choice developer Nathan Fouts the vast majority of games on Xbox Live Arcade are underpriced and should be dramatically more expensive.

"I want to go on the record and say I feel like most downloadable games are under-priced," the indie developer told MTV.

Fouts, who had worked on Resistance: Fall of Man before turning independent, said that the pricing structure was controlled solely by Microsoft and that the situation was ridiculous.

Fallout 3 modder tools, DLC dated

Bethesda has detailed and dated the first downloadable content for Fallout 3, as well as the release of the first content creation tools for the game that will let players create their own mods.

The Fallout 3 modder toolset, called the G.E.C.K, will be released on PC only this December and will let modders create all new dialogue, items, areas and quests.

The DLC meanwhile will be coming to both the Xbox 360 and PC platforms. There are three packs currently planned, the first of which is called

Zelda dev won't quit until he bests Ocarina

Eiji Aonuma, one of the lead developers on Ocarina of Time, won't quit developing for the franchise until he finds a way to better what many claim is one of the best games ever made, admitting that he's become obsessed with improving the series.

"I'm happy that a title I worked on some time ago remains highly praised to this day, but that also shows how none of the subsequent games in the series have surpassed it,

Sony: No price cuts planned

Surprise, surprise; another day and another release from Sony dismissing rumours of PlayStation 3 price cuts. Sony has once more trashed rumours of a price cut before Christmas, this time saying that it will not be lowering prices in March 2009 either, as had previously been rumoured.

A Sony Computer Entertainment America recently confirmed to Edge that the company had no plans for a PlayStation 3 price cut and that any rumours suggesting a price cut was coming in March 2009 were without merit.

Ubisoft confirms Assassin's Creed 2

Ubisoft has confirmed what we all knew anyway, namely that there is a sequel to last year's smash hit, Assassin's Creed, in the works.

After the massive success of the original game, which shot developer Jade Raymond to internet notoriety/fame, it was always a no-brainer that Ubisoft would continue with the franchise - especially as it was originally envisioned as a trilogy and finished with an open ending.

Ubisoft confirmed that the game was in development during the first-half fiscal 2008-09 conference calls in America, according to Joystiq.

Resident Evil 5 demo 'unlikely' this year

This news post is half news, half apology. Last night you see, I got Richard all excited when I told him I'd heard a co-op demo for Resident Evil 5 was coming to the Xbox 360. You should have seen him tremble with excitement.

As it turns out though, I was wrong.

According to Capcom the Resident Evil 5 demo will be hitting consoles on December 5th, but only in Japan. Sorry, Rich.

Capcom confirmed today that Western fans won't be getting a

NY's MTA sends service interruption texts, e-mails

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced on Tuesday it will begin sending text or e-mail messages to riders that will inform them of any delays or problems on the subway or bus lines, according to a New York Timesreport. To get the updates, riders must first sign up on the authority's website and provide their phone number or e-mail address. They can then sign up for updates on a specific subway line, bus route or commuter rail line and at what time of day to get them.

Toshiba outs 16GB microSDHC, class 6 SD cards

Toshiba started its Wednesday with news of a much higher-capacity 16GB microSDHC card as well as faster full-size SDHC cards. The former doubles Toshiba's previous best and gives cellphones and some newer still cameras a large amount of storage for music and photos. The card is relatively slow with a minimum Class 2 (2MB per second) transfer speed in exchange for the capacity. Toshiba starts mass-producing the cards in January and should deliver them shortly afterwards.

VIZIO announces holiday HDTV price drops

VIZIO on Wednesday announced it is lowering prices on five of its HDTVs in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. The 42-inch VS420 LCD offers 1080p resolution will cost just $698 at Sam's Club stores throughout the US starting on Friday. Some prices are in effect for the holiday weekend only, while others are extended until December, with the VS420 expected to sell out quickly as it has no end-of-sale date specified. A 37-inch LCD model with 720p HD resolution, the VW37, will be priced at $500 at Costco for the duration of the weekend.

Commodore lands MLB-skinned gaming PCs

Commodore today seized on the holidays to launch a new set of MLB custom skins for its gaming PCs. The initial lineup lets buyers of any of the company's existing systems choose a theme based on the Boston Red Sox, New York's Mets and Yankees, or the Philadelphia Phillies that covers nearly the entire outer surface of the mid-tower case. The company's assembly process applies the artwork directly to the case and so is more scratch-resistant and permanent than a sticker or vinyl cover.

Nokia 6260 slide adds GPS, 5MP cam to S40 phones

Nokia this morning made a rare addition for its more basic Symbian Series 40 devices through the 6260 slide. The handset is Nokia's first S40 phone to carry true GPS and supports navigation both through its own mapping receiver alone as well as through a data assist to speed lock-in times. It also brings features uncharacteristic for the category with HSUPA-capable 3G and a five-megapixel camera with flash, both of which Nokia touts as helpful for mobile photo uploads to Ovi or other portals.

Hydrokinetic power

A University of Michigan professor has developed a machine that can generate power from slow moving water.

The so-called VIVACE machine (Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy) could, it’s claimed, harness energy from most of the water currents around the globe because it works in water flows moving slower than two knots.

A working prototype of the machine, developed by Michael Bernitsas, a professor in the University of Michigan Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering,comprises just one sleek cylinder attached to springs that hangs in a tractor-trailer-sized water-filled tank across the direction of the water flow.

Samsung NC10

Manufacturer:Samsung
UK Price (as reviewed):£298.72 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$469.99 (ex. Tax)


The launch of the original Eee PC is a distant memory today and so much has changed since the introduction of Asus' canny little sub-notebook. A lot of this change is down to the fact that the usage models have grown well beyond their intended market.

Originally, the netbook was supposed to be a low-cost device for schools and the poorer parts of the world - it was designed to connect the next billion people to the Internet. While I am sure that will happen over time, the netbook has become something of a fashion statement in the developed world.

SCO loses Linux legal fight

The long-running saga of SCO versus everyone who ever so much as looked sideways at Linux – but especially Novell and IBM – has drawn to a close with the news that Federal District Judge Dale A. Kimball has dismissed all the company's claims.

According to Ars Technica's article on the judgement all claims against Novell have been dismissed, declaratory relief has been granted, and SCO is faced with a whopping bill for "unjust enrichment

Only 20 percent of games make a profit

Granted, this bit of rather shocking news only caught our attention thanks to Forbes magazine making a mistake, but it's still worth reporting that apparently only 20 percent of games ever turn a significant profit.

The information, which is based on data gathered by the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst firm (EEDAR, originally showed that only 4 percent of games ever make a profit but EEDAR has now issued a correction to those figures.

Motorola Atila and QA30 slider handsets spied

A couple of Monday reports have brought an update and a few photos of two new Motorola handsets, the previously previewed Atila and QA30. The former is billed as an iPhone competitor thanks to its 2.8-inch, 240x320 touchscreen and 3G data network support. The quad-band handset will reportedly use Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro. Photos of the Atila were revealed in a Hong Kong-based cellphone forum, though it should be noted that a custom iPhone-like interface is a third-party add-on that will not make it to the standard, production version of the handset.

Acer set to sell Core i7-based desktop PC

Acer announced on Monday it will begin selling its first Intel Core i7-powered desktop, the Aspire M7720, in its home country of Taiwan at IT Month 2008, starting on November 29th. The M7720 will use Intel's quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7 920 processor, matching it with 3GB of RAM that's expandable to 12GB. The desktop will also sport ATI's Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with its own 1GB of memory for boosting in-game processing. Rounding out the key hardware specs is a 750GB hard drive.

HP intros mini-Q nettop with dual-core Atom CPU

HP recently used an event in Taiwan to unveil its first-ever nettop PC, the mini-Q 2030, that is powered by Intel's 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330 processor and 2GB of DDR2 RAM. Other hardware includes a 160GB 7,200rpm SATA hard-drive with Windows Vista preloaded and a dual-layer DVD burner. It also has four USB 2.0 ports, two PS/2 ports, an Ethernet port, a VGA jack for connecting to monitors and an audio and microphone jack.

Tests: Intel's upcoming Nehalem Xeons 2X faster

Early tests conducted with Intel's upcoming Nehalem-based Xeons by TechRadar today show the processor running approximately twice as fast as its current equivalent. Based on the same basic design as Core i7 mainstream chips, a pair of 2.8GHz quad-core Xeon X5560 chips received a SPEC score of 160 in floating-point math tests versus 90 for two 3.4GHz Xeons from the current generation.

Marantz Japan intros Bluetooth iPod dock

Marantz Japan on Friday has introduced a new wireless dock for the iPod and iPod Touch personal audio and multimedia players. The system is composed of a receiver and multiple docks that will also charge the Apple devices and supports Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR A2DP and Bluetooth AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile). The system will allow users to play the content of their iPods via their home theater systems and control them via their home theater remote.

Samsung preps 23.6-inch, 50K:1 contrast LCD

Samsung has finished its efforts on Friday with news of the 2494HS, its newest desktop LCD. The display relies on an unusual 23.6-inch panel that runs a native 1920x1080 resolution suited to 1080p movies but also manages an exceptionally high 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio comparable to TVs rather than computer displays. Accordingly, Samsung mounts stereo speakers on the LCD's chin and gives it HDMI input along with DVI and VGA.

Review: Flip Mino HD

Conventional wisdom would have had Pure Digital's Flip camcorders wash out because of their limited features, but it's precisely this which has led them to seemingly overthrow the budget camcorder market. Their dead-simple controls and narrow focus have

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

ELSPA claims BBFC downgraded 22 adult-rated games

In a report released by the ELSPA, the company claims that the BBFC downgraded 22 adult titles that were given an 18 rating by PEGI. This follows recent criticism targetted at the BBFC for being too harsh with games ratings.

"The BBFC's downgrading of games opens up the potential of unnecessary risk for UK children and teenagers when playing games against other non-UK players online," ELSPA said.

"Last year, of the 50 games that PEGI rated 18+ and passed to the BBFC for classificiation, the film rating board downgraded 22 of them - almost 50 percent.

ELSPA claims BBFC downgraded 22 adult-rated games

In a report released by the ELSPA, the company claims that the BBFC downgraded 22 adult titles that were given an 18 rating by PEGI. This follows recent criticism targetted at the BBFC for being too harsh with games ratings.

"The BBFC's downgrading of games opens up the potential of unnecessary risk for UK children and teenagers when playing games against other non-UK players online," ELSPA said.

"Last year, of the 50 games that PEGI rated 18+ and passed to the BBFC for classificiation, the film rating board downgraded 22 of them - almost 50 percent.

Google launches Life mag archive

If you've always wanted a quick and easy way to get your hands on the iconic covers of Life and Time magazines, Google has just made your day: the two companies have teamed up to offer digital versions of the famous photographs.

Available from any Google search – simply use the term source:life when entering your criteria – the service offers surprisingly high resolution versions of images stretching right the way back through the US magazine's history.

ELSPA claims BBFC downgraded 22 adult-rated games

In a report released by the ELSPA, the company claims that the BBFC downgraded 22 adult titles that were given an 18 rating by PEGI. This follows recent criticism targetted at the BBFC for being too harsh with games ratings.

"The BBFC's downgrading of games opens up the potential of unnecessary risk for UK children and teenagers when playing games against other non-UK players online," ELSPA said.

"Last year, of the 50 games that PEGI rated 18+ and passed to the BBFC for classificiation, the film rating board downgraded 22 of them - almost 50 percent.

PC Mag goes online, ditches mag

The world of printed media took a hit this week with the announcement that PC Magazine is to cease producing a hard copy and concentrate solely on its website.

According to the New York Times, the magazine's parent company Ziff Davis Media has opted to shut down the printed version due to a reduction in advertising revenue and increased costs associated with printing and distribution a physical product.

Jason Young, Ziff Davis Media's chief executive officer, stated that "

PC Mag goes online, ditches mag

The world of printed media took a hit this week with the announcement that PC Magazine is to cease producing a hard copy and concentrate solely on its website.

According to the New York Times, the magazine's parent company Ziff Davis Media has opted to shut down the printed version due to a reduction in advertising revenue and increased costs associated with printing and distribution a physical product.

Jason Young, Ziff Davis Media's chief executive officer, stated that "

ELSPA claims BBFC downgraded 22 adult-rated games

In a report released by the ELSPA, the company claims that the BBFC downgraded 22 adult titles that were given an 18 rating by PEGI. This follows recent criticism targetted at the BBFC for being too harsh with games ratings.

"The BBFC's downgrading of games opens up the potential of unnecessary risk for UK children and teenagers when playing games against other non-UK players online," ELSPA said.

"Last year, of the 50 games that PEGI rated 18+ and passed to the BBFC for classificiation, the film rating board downgraded 22 of them - almost 50 percent.

PC Mag goes online, ditches mag

The world of printed media took a hit this week with the announcement that PC Magazine is to cease producing a hard copy and concentrate solely on its website.

According to the New York Times, the magazine's parent company Ziff Davis Media has opted to shut down the printed version due to a reduction in advertising revenue and increased costs associated with printing and distribution a physical product.

Jason Young, Ziff Davis Media's chief executive officer, stated that "

AMD's 45nm CPUs are designed to overclock

In a ravenously positive post on Theo Valich's blog, formerly of Inquirer and TGDaily fame, he claims that AMD has worked specifically with extreme overclockers for the first time in years to achieve a 45nm design that is claimed to work flawlessly from -200C to +100C!

AMD has tweaked the on-die sensor to not lock the part when below zero and AMD techies have apparently worked around cold bugs in the new K10.5 architecture.

Activision admits Bike Hero is viral marketing

No doubt in last few days many of you will have marvelled over the awesome "amateur video" recently posted onto Youtube of a film maker playing Guitar Hero with a bike. The footage is fantastically well choreographed, with the rider cycling over the familiar guitar hero note patterns painted onto the ground in with correspondingly flashing LEDs fitted to the handlebars that are perfect time to the music.

While the level of skill required to create the general awesomeness of the video had many cry foul of viral marketing, others were willing to give the makers the benefit of the doubt simply because it was cool. Although it’s now been revealed by MTV (makers of competing plastic instrument-athon Rock Band) that the whole thing is indeed a PR stunt by Activision, makers of the Guitar Hero franchise.

EVGA's X58 should give Asus some stress

Pictures of EVGA's latest X58 motherboard BIOS have been revealed on XtremeSystems and show some very nifty extreme overclocking features.

The BIOS options of interest are the "Extreme OC" option that can be set if you're booting below minus 50'C, which will supposedly help prevent cold bugging, as well as specific vDroop control and even things like PWM frequency adjustment that can provide a better power response. This will come at the cost of more heat and stress for the MOSFETs.

New MacBooks enforce HD DRM

If you're tempted to upgrade an old MacBook to a shiny new model featuring the Mini DisplayPort, you might want to think again: Apple has sneaked extra DRM in along with the hardware update.

According to Ars Technica, the latest MacBooks enforce DisplayPort Content Protection (DPCP) on certain recent iTunes video, preventing playback if it detects a display device which doesn't support the DRM implementation. This means that users with large monitors that have only VGA or component inputs will be stuck watching their legally purchased videos on the laptop screen – less than ideal, really.

Kanguru announces eSATA pendrive

If you're looking for an ultra-fast pen drive but can't stand the wait for USB 3.0 “SuperSpeed”, you might want to see the latest bit of kit to come from the labs of Massachusetts-based Kanguru – a USB/eSATA unit.

First spotted by Engadget, the Kanguru e-Flash features both USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity at opposing ends – allowing for backwards compatibility whilst giving it the ability to interface at speeds of up to 3Gb/s if you've got a free eSATA port.

Gaming PC market bigger than you’d expect

It’s all too often said that PC gaming is in decline and that the inevitable rise of consoles will eventually erode the PC gaming market, a line that game developers like Epic are more than happy to support as they abandon their PC gaming roots for the spearmint green pastures of exclusively console development.

While the continued threat of piracy and strong console software sales might support such nay saying, new market research published by Jon Peddie Research (JPR) indicates that the PC gaming market is in reality far far larger than many have given it credit for, and is still growing at a frantic pace.

Mirror's Edge PC delay down to PhysX

When it was first announced that Mirror’s Edge, the innovative and very well received free running first person platformer from DICE, would be significantly delayed on PC but not on Xbox 360 or PS3 there was whole heap of outcry and more than a few tin foil hats were produced with talk of the delay being related to anti-piracy measures.

Well it seems this time at least there’s no conspiracy, and just a lot more work to do as Nvidia and EA have confirmed the delayed release date, now sometime in January 2009, is due to the significant implementation of Nvidia’s PhysX technology into the game.

Fujitsu launches SAS-II SFF drives

IF you're always on the lookout to squeeze that last little bit of extra performance out of your box – and money is no object – you'll be pleased to read about the latest hard drives from Fujitsu.

As The Register reports, the company has launched a range of SAS-II (Serial Attached SCSI) 10,000 and 15,000 RPM drives capable of transferring data at a whopping 6Gb/s.

Aimed firmly at the enterprise market, the basic 10K RPM model – the MBD2 – will be available early 2009 in sizes available up to 300GB. Its meatier brother – the MBE2 – sacrifices maximum capacity for speed with a smaller 146GB being spun up to an eye-watering 15,000 RPM. Perhaps not surprisingly considering the target market, Fujistu has been a bit quiet on pricing.

BBC to broadcast main channels live on web

The BBC has announced plans to enable live streaming of BBC One and BBC Two to UK viewers from 27th November.

"The launch of BBC One and BBC Two online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the Internet. From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes, live, wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices," said Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision.

Intel's Core i7 CPUs available now

If you are after a Core i7 CPU they are now finally available in the shops and when you consider that it's a high demand product plus the fact we're in rip off Britain, the prices are a bit higher than we expected.

We've done a whip round to get a general idea of prices from major UK online etailers:

Scan:
920: £259.87
940: £516.02
965: £880.27

Ebuyer:
920: £264.37
940: £495.84

Packard Bell enters netbook market

Packard Bell last night pulled the curtains back on its entry into the netbook market at an event in Central London.

The dot is an 8.9-inch netbook which Packard Bell says is the first that's apparently specially designed for mainstream consumers. That's a pretty bold claim to make, but Packard Bell is late to the netbook party currently controlled by Asus with its hugely successful Eee PC line.

Packard Bell said last night that it has been watching the netbook market with interest, but believes that nearly all of the models on the market have been designed with business users--and not consumers--in mind.

Cooler Master to release limited edition Cosmos

We have just learned that Cooler Master is getting ready to release a run of 500 "luxurious" limited edition Cosmos cases. The name and full details are being kept under wraps until December 11th, but the company released some initial details to us.

Cooler Master said it has no plans to extend the production run beyond 500, but each of the cases will be individually numbered from one to 500 and there will also be some subtle upgrades to the appearance and cooling features.

USB 3.0 specification finalised

If you're a frequent user of external drives, you'll be only too aware that – while representing a massive improvement over the original 12Mb/s spec – USB 2.0 can leave you waiting longer than you'd like to transfer your precious data. That time could be drastically reduced in the near future, as the USB 3.0 specification has finally been finalised.

The USB Promoter Group officially finalised the “SuperSpeed” specification due to replace USB 2.0 yesterday, and is due to announce it officially during a conference on Monday with partners Intel, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, and NEC.

Apple releases Safari 3.2

Apple has quietly launched the latest build of its Safari web browser for Mac and Windows PCs, and it finally joins the ranks of web browsers featuring in-built anti-phishing technologies.

According to ZDnet, the latest build – version 3.2 – of the Mac default web browser uses the phishing filter blacklist from Google to provide users with warnings when they're visiting suspicious sites. While Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera have all had this technology for quite some time this marks the first version of Safari able to make use of the Google blacklist service without modification.

Nvidia drops GeForce GTX 260 216 prices

We've been hearing rumbles for a while suggesting that Nvidia was about to drop the price of the GeForce GTX 260 216 and it looks as if the first of these price drops has finally made it through into the channel today.

Novatech is listing Zotac's stock-clocked GeForce GTX 260 216 part at just over £210 including VAT. Before today, the GeForce GTX 260 216 cards have started at around £230 (inc. VAT) which meant that Nvidia has struggled to compete with AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB as it has been aggressively priced against the competition from Nvidia's two GeForce GTX 260 variants.

Left 4 Dead pre-orders miss out on Complete Pack

If you’re anything like us, then the apparently never ending wait for Left 4 Dead (which ended today!) will have whipped you into such a zombie crazed frenzy that you’ll have had no choice but to pre-order the game as soon as it became available on Steam, especially with early access to the demo thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Sadly though, it looks like Valve has decided to make all of those who pre-ordered Left 4 Dead

Yahoo! CEO to step down

Yahoo! co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang has decided to step down from his position as soon as the Internet giant finds a replacement.

Yang, however, will remain on the board and is leading the search for a replacement with Chairman Roy Bostock.

This comes as no surprise following two major setbacks for the company this year. First of all, merger negotiations with Microsoft fell apart and Google recently pulled out of a potentially lucrative advertising partnership.

Canonical working on Ubuntu ARM

With UK-based chip manufacturer ARM pitching its Cortex range of low-energy processors firmly at the growing netbook market, we're going to need an operating system that can run on the non-x86 hardware: enter Ubuntu.

According to an article over on CNet, Canonical is looking to develop a version of desktop-oriented Ubuntu Linux specifically for the ARM Cortex A8 and A9 single and multi-core processors.

Ian Drew, ARM's vice president of marketing at ARM has stated that "

New Phenoms to get new naming scheme

With all this hoo-har about Intel's new CPUs, let's not forget the much needed competition from AMD. Its new 45nm CPUs, codenamed Deneb, are due in January or February on the desktop and Chinese website Expreview has the latest on the new Phenoms.

The first CPUs to arrive, the X4 940 and 920, will be socket AM2+ and DDR2 based and are rumoured to be available from the 8th January at 3.0GHz and 2.8GHz with 6MB of L3 cache - both will be 125W parts. A month later, the rest of the line-up will arrive with complete support for DDR3 - all will be 95W parts and will have a CPU frequencies ranging from 2.5 to 2.8GHz. A 3.0GHz part will follow in Q2.

Gartner: 85 percent of companies using open source

Eighty-five percent of companies are already using open-source software, with most of the remaining 15 percent expecting to do so within the next year, according to analysts at Gartner.

However, only 31 percent of companies surveyed by the analyst house had formal policies for evaluating and procuring open-source software (OSS). Gartner conducted its survey of 274 end-user organizations across the Asia/Pacific, Europe and North American markets in May and June, and announced the results on Monday.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 unleashed

Version 3.0 of the universal serial bus specification has been released.

Unveiled on Monday by the USB Implementers Forum, the USB 3.0 spec can theoretically support data-transfer speeds of up to 4.8Gbps 10 times the speed provided by USB 2.0.

The new standard, also known as SuperSpeed USB, is also expected to be more power-efficient than its predecessor.

"SuperSpeed USB is the next advancement in ubiquitous technology," Jeff Ravencraft, the president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry group that promotes USB technology, said in a statement on Monday. "Today's consumers are using rich media and large digital files that need to be easily and quickly transferred from PCs to devices and vice versa. SuperSpeed USB meets the needs of everyone, from the tech-savvy executive to the average home user."

Dell ships Mini 9 with 32GB SSD, new colors

Echoing a recent trend of Japan-first launches, Dell today introduced an option for the Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to add a 32GB solid-state drive. The capacity is twice that of any previous version and lets users choose to preload Office 2007 Personal to take advantage of the newly available free space. Dell's expansion comes as Microsoft has eased up on the storage levels of SSDs that can use Windows XP.

Study finds video games increase heart rate

Research recently published by the Swedish Research Council (and reported by Science Daily via Wired) into the effects of violent video games on teens has found that playing violent games affected subject heart rate variability not only during gameplay (no surprise there) but also when they were sleeping that night.

A group of boys aged between 12 and 15 were asked to play two different games in the evening, one focused on violence, while the other had no violent features. Heart rates were monitored both throughout the gameplay, then during the rest evening and finally while they slept.

Sun to lay off 6,000 workers

The slowing global economy has claimed another tech victim with the news that industry giant Sun Microsystems is to lay off around 6,000 employees – around 18 percent of its total staff.

According to BetaNews, the news comes as the company – best known these days for being the 'big corporate' behind open-source giants MySQL and StarOffice, the commercial version of perennial favourite OpenOffice.org – looks to save around $800 million annually in staffing costs in order to stem its massive losses due to diminishing hardware sales worldwide.

LittleBigPlanet PSP rumoured

This is still a rumour for now, though it is one that's been doing the rounds a fair bit, but Sony is said to be secretly working on a PSP version of the recently relaunchedLittleBigPlanet.

The rumour, which this time comes from Electronic Gaming Monthly in the US, doesn't offer any true details on the game or how it might work, but it's still a mighty enticing offer.

"The LBP universe will also continue to evolve next year with the release of the PSP version,

EA delays Battlefield Heroes

Electronic Arts has once more delayed the release of the latest Battlefield game, Heroes. The game, which is to take a radically new direction to the previous games in the series, will be an online-only free-to-play game financed through microtransactions.

The game was originally pushed back to late 2008, but hasn't yet showed any signs of emerging from the long-running closed beta.

James Salt, senior producer on the game, told fans and beta testers the news on the official site, saying that the closed beta will be shutting down today at 6PM CET and will not be running again until next year.

Huge drop in spam as McColo closes

If you've noticed that your spam load has been a little lighter of late, you've got one company to thank for it: McColo, a spam-friendly hosting company that shut down early this week.

While you might not think that a single company could be responsible for too much of the Internet's sewage, you'd be surprised: according to figures from security vendor MXLogic quoted by CNet world spam volume is down by approximately 50 percent – all from that one host.

90 percent of World of Goo installs are pirated

Ouch. According to 2D Boy, developer of indie puzzle-em-up and firm bit-tech.net favourite World of Goo around 90 percent of all installs for the game are pirated.

Naturally, two thoughts run through our head. First, what did they expect for not putting any DRM at all on the game and distributing digitally? Second, how did they come to that figure? Thankfully, the 2D Boy blog explains.

According to the team, the figures were gained by looking at automatic uploads of online scores and recording which IP those scores came from. The number of unique IPs is then divided by the number of sales, resulting in a 90 percent piracy rate. The team admits that this method neglects to take dynamic IPs or multiple legit installs into account, but reckons it must roughly balance out with those who have multiple pirate copies behind a firewall or who disable online scores.

Classmates.com sued over fraud

If you've ever wondered about the veracity of claims from websites that a long-lost friend is desperate to get in touch with you if only you'd pony up the dough for a full membership, you'll be pleased to hear that you're not alone.

According to an article over on Ars Technica, US-based school chum stalkathon Classmates.com has found itself the target of a class action lawsuit from disgruntled users who believe they were tricked into paying for a membership to get in touch with non-existent individuals.

Crayon Physics Deluxe goes on pre-order

Crayon Physics Deluxe, one of the winners in the prestigious Independent Games Festival competition, has finally become available for pre-order. Developed by indie studio Kloonigames, the pre-order is listed as costing just $14.95 USD (which is under £10 in real English money) and grants access to the beta versions of the game.

Crayon Physics Deluxe was a surprise and runaway success following the Independant Games Festival for its simple design and cunning gameplay. Essentially a puzzle game, players must figure out ways to solve levels by drawing new objects with the mouse.

Dell CTO to retire

Change is afoot at box shifter Dell with the news that the current chief technology officer at the company is due to retire in the next few months.

According to CNet, Kevin Kettler's decision to step down from his role at the company is nothing to do with company-wide reorganisation but simply a desire to concentrate on family life and some of his local activities around his home in Austin, Texas.

Dell's David Frink confirmed the departure, stating that "

Intel predicts poor quarter

Chip maker Intel warned investors that the company could be in for lean times due to the current economic slump – dropping revenue forecasts by a whopping 14 percent.

Although the company had already adjusted its revenue outlook last month based on a slowing of global spending, BetaNews reports that Intel has made the surprising move of restating its predictions for a second time – and the news isn't good.

The company had previously predicted revenue of $10.5 billion for Quarter 4 2008, but has now stated that it expects that figure to be closer to $9 billion with margin predictions dropping from 59 percent to 55 percent due to price reductions the company has been forced to make in order to boost sales.

Blizzard: "We're not milking StarCraft 2"

Ever since the announcement was made that StarCraft 2 will be split into three separate, full priced games Blizzard has been facing the accusation that it is trying to milk the franchise for as much money as it can, but according to COO Paul Sams that just isn't true.

Instead, he claims that Blizzard made the move to divide the single game into a trilogy as it would be a much better experience for gamers.

"

Games for Windows Live redesigned

Quietly, ever so quietly, Microsoft has released a revamp of the entire Games for Windows Live service on PC and begun hinting at future expansions and enhancements to the service.

The update, which was rolled out yesterday, does away with the ill-advised and clunky Xbox 360 interface and replaces it with something more suited for mouse and keyboard control. The new interface for the service now pops down out of the top of the screen and include a more streamlined and much faster loading set of menus.

Square Enix to publish Supreme Commander 2

It may seem like an odd engagement, but Japanese developer and publisher Square Enix has formally announced that it will publish Gas Powered Games' strategy follow-up, Supreme Commander 2. Giant robots are big in Japan, we guess.

The deal, which is unusual as Square Enix has traditionally stayed with Japanese RPGs whereas Gas Powered Games is a western developer with a history in the strategy genre, is a deliberate change of pace for Square Enix.

Samsung readies five 16:9 computer LCDs

In an uncharacteristic move, Samsung today used Japan as the venue for five new desktop LCDs with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The 21.5-inch 2233SW and 23-inch 2333SW both output full, 1920x1080 HD despite their relatively small sizes and are braced by the 20-inch 2033SW's 1600x900 to play 720p or sharper movies as well as provide more screen space. The panels are also brighter than some rivals with a dynamic contrast boost that brings them to a 15,000:1 ratio, or 1,000:1 when static.

Xbox 360 HDD loading gives minimal benefits

According to Eurogamer who took it upon themselves to test the New Xbox Experience, loading games from the Xbox 360 hard drive doesn't always offer improved load times in games.

The New Xbox Experience is part of a major Xbox 360 update that will soon be released by Microsoft. The update will completely overhaul the Xbox 360 interface, as well as bringing wholly new features - most importantly the option to run games from the Xbox 360 hard drive. Oh, and there''s also that avatar system that Microsoft claims to have invented as well.

VBS/Loveletter film due 2009

If you thought that Hollywood was scraping the bottom of the barrel for plot ideas these days, spare a thought for Asian cinema: they hit the bottom and just kept digging in order to find the inspiration for a film based around the infamous “love bug” malware.

According to The Register, director Francis dela Torre has completed filming on a self-written epic called ”Subject: I love you" based around the VBS/Loveletter

Apple: "iPhone is the future of gaming"

One thing you certainly can't accuse Apple's marketing team of is being timid, with Apple currently claiming that not only is the iPhone to future of the games industry but that it leaves competitors like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP stuck in the past.

Speaking to T3.com (Via Kotaku) Apple's Greg Joswiak claimed that the iPhone was the future of gameplay because of it's intelligent design.

"A big part of that is not just the device itself, which is easier to carry, and has the touch display and accelerometer which is great for gameplay, but it’s the electronic distribution of the apps as well,

AVG bug leaves Windows unbootable

Another day, another bug in an anti-virus product: this time it's AVG's turn to cause some heartache the world over.

CNet has announced that Grisoft's AVG 8 anti-virus product received an update on Tuesday which caused it to detect an important Windows system file as a virus, giving users an option to delete the file – and hose their systems.

Affecting users of AVG 8 on Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish editions of Windows XP – both Home and Professional – the bug causes AVG to detect

G1 Android handset jailbroken

If the only thing stopping you from running out right this instant and buying Google and T-Mobile's Linux-based Android handset was the silly restrictions the companies have placed on the platform, fear no more: the G1 is officially 'jailbroken'.

According to CNet's Charlie Sorrel, wily hackers have worked out a cunning way to bypass the restrictions placed on the Android platform by Google – allowing you full and complete access to the internal workings as the 'root', or superuser, account.

Circuit City files for bankruptcy protection

Our American visitors will be saddened – or not, depending on your particular viewpoint – at the news that US high street computer giant Circuit City has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

According to BetaNews, the fifty-nine year old company – which only last week announced a programme of job cuts and store closures that would see its workforce drop by 17 percent and a whopping 155 shops closed for good – has encountered further problems, with concern over cashflow and the company's ability to pay its vendors for stock escalating "

CliffyB wanted more romance in Gears 1

Chatting about Gears of War 2 and the romantic subplot that plays out as Dom tracks down his wife, developer Cliff Blezinski says he wanted to include more romance in the first game but didn't have full confidence in Epic's ability to tell a story.

"I wanted to put it in the first one, honestly," Bleszinski told MTV when discussing the Dom / Maria romance that featured so prominently in the second game.

"

Microsoft: We invented avatars

Microsoft's Don Mattrick is still adamant that he invented in-game avatars, not Nintendo. In a recent interview with Official Xbox Magazine, Mattrick reasserts his claim that he was the first person to invent controllable 3D human avatars.

Personally, we're not only skeptical but also kind of bored by the whole argument, but hey-ho.

"I'm claiming to have invented avatars! I did 4D Sports Boxing! Do you know what 4D Boxing was? Hey, you should be writing this! That was me,

Ubisoft buys Massive Entertainment

Ubisoft today announced that it had bought up Massive Entertainment, the developer behind World in Conflict and the Ground Control series after the company found itself without a publisher for it's latest games.

Massive Entertainment was previously attached to Sierra, a label of the newly formed Activision Blizzard. However, when Activision gained control of Sierra it saw fit to abandon any in-progress games which it didn't think were fully exploitable. That included

EVE Online to get huge expansion

EVE Online, usually held to be the largest and most maddeningly complex of all the popular MMOs, is getting a massive new expansion according to developer CCP.

CCP made the announcement on the last day of the EVE Online fanfest and said that the new expansion will be released on March 10th next year.

The new expansion is currently untitled but will be adding in a slew of new features and updates, including Tech 3 modular ship designs, new branching mission structures and the ability to travel into uncharted space via unstable wormholes. The whole expansion will be focused on exploration according to Eurogamer, allowing players to use new skills and modules to explore all new areas.

BitTorrent replaces CEO, loses staff

With the credit crunch still causing turmoil worldwide, times are tough for many businesses – including file-sharing supremo BitTorrent.

CNet is reporting that the company behind one of the most popular file sharing protocols in history is struggling financially as it attempts to turn its technology into profit. Around half of its workforce – eighteen people in total – have been made redundant in order to reduce overheads, following a twenty two percent staff reduction back in August that saw the sales and marketing department trimmed down.

Hacker installs Debian onto G1

Keeping the good-post bad-post Google Android theme alive, today we bring to your attention the news that an enterprising hacker has successfully installed the Debian distribution of Linux on his jailbroken T-Mobile G1 handset.

The hack, reported over on Engadget yesterday, is the brainchild of Jay Freeman – perhaps best known for creating the Cydia third-party App Store clone for the iPhone – who wanted something a little less restrictive than the default Android platform supplied with the handset.

Infinity Ward: "Stop interviewing Treyarch"

In a furious internet rant on his work blog Infinity Ward community manager Rob Bowling has called for sites to stop interviewing Treyarchs Noah Heller, who he feels is drawing nonsense comparisons between Call of Duty 5 and Call of Duty 4.

While COD 5 is being developed by Treyarch, COD4 was created by Infinity Ward and the two entirely separate teams have traditionally divided the franchise - with Infinity Ward creating the superior titles in the eyes of many fans and critics.

Android flaw executed typed text

With the news that Google's Android shipped with an embarrassing security hole being followed by a simple two-step method to 'jailbreak' the OS, you'd think that the company had ironed out most of the remaining bugs – but you'd be wrong.

According to ZDnet's Ed Burnette, the open-source Linux-based smartphone platform recently shipped in T-Mobile's G1 handset contains a real doozy of a back door: it would appear that absolutely

Ghostbusters game coming next year

Atari has confirmed that it has bought the rights to Ghostbusters: The Videogame and will be publishing the game next year on the PC, PS2, PS3, DS, Wii and Xbox 360.

Atari picked up the rights after they fell into limbo when Activision took control of Vivendi Universal and discarded any games they didn't feel they could continue to exploit for a number of years. Other abandoned titles included Double Fine's Brutal Legend

Epic: Second hand games are a huge issue

Dr. Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, has called for developers and publishers to try and find some way to combat the second hand games market which he says is a huge issue for the industry.

Capps also said that piracy was a huge issue for PC games specifically, pointing to Crysis as an example. According to Capps the ratio of pirated to non-pirated versions for Crysis was a staggering 20:1. Capps says that's why Epic has no intention to release

Activision: Exploitation has worked well for us

We remember a few years ago when Electronic Arts was a publisher known only for endless remakes and clones and Activision was known for making creative new titles like Call of Duty. Now though, that's almost turned around on them and while EA is pursuing more new IPs, Activision is cancelling everything that can't be totally exploited.

Not our words either; those of Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

Speaking in a conference call yesterday (Transcript at Seeking Alpha) Kotick explained why certain new titles were abandoned when Activision took over Vivendi, namely

THQ lays off 250 staff, posts losses

The economic climate isn't making things much better for publishers like THQ, who have posted increased losses this year and been forced to lay off significant numbers of staff. The move has also delayed Red Faction: Guerilla and Darksiders: Wrath of War until March next year, at least.

According to the financial results for the company, as posted by GI.biz, THQ lost more than USD $115 million (GBP £72 million) in the second quarter of this year - a significant increase from the USD $7 million (GBP £4.3 million) loss for the same period last year.

MSI's Master Overclocking Arena starts tomorrow

So, here I am sat in Hong Kong International Airport waiting for my suitcase to show up before I can check in for my flight to Taipei.

I’m visiting Taiwan to see MSI, who is holding its inaugural two-day Master Overclocking Arena competition in the country’s capital city starting tomorrow.

MSI says that it has gathered the world’s best overclockers for the competition, and they will be using MSI’s P45D3 Platinum motherboard at the heart of a platform sponsored by Intel, Nvidia, OCZ Technology, Western Digital, Enermax and Genius.

OMFG, what have you done to the forums?!

We have upgraded our forum software this morning and with it comes a host of changes based on feedback from bit-tech readers during the beta we advertised on the forums a few months ago.

The most obvious change you will have noticed is that we’ve separated out a few of the forums to give you a more refined experience in the forums. There was a lot of feedback on this when we rolled out our last major forum upgrade and that feedback came up again in the beta.

Ubisoft cancels Heroes game

Ubisoft has confirmed that it has cancelled development of the Heroes games and returned the rights to NBC Universal, though no real reason has been given.

Ubisoft first officially announced the game tie-in to the hit TV series in July last year, with the game scheduled to have been released by, well, now.

"The rights to the ‘Heroes’ video game have reverted back to NBC Universal," said Ubisoft PR director Jaime Cottini. "

Far Cry 2 Competition Winner Announced

We've had a huge response to win the competition for a Far Cry 2 modded PS3 we've been running the past few weeks in association with Ubisoft, to celebrate the release of the game.

We received many correct entries for this popular competition, sadly there could only be one winner and our congratulations go out to Christian Schaller.

If you didn't win, you can still see the whole worklog detailing the build of the prize on our site as well.

Lian Li expands manufacturing capabilities

While the current global economic slowdown is proving disastrous for many companies, some are enjoying new growth: case manufacturer Lian Li, for example.

The aluminium case specialist company has announced that it has spent a not inconsiderable amount of money investing in new toys for its manufacturing facility in Keelung, Taiwan – including a funky new laser cutter from Amada.

The device – the second to be fitted to the company's factory – is destined to be used to offer OEMs the chance to create small runs of customised cases with rapid turnaround and surprisingly low cost, which is good news for anyone that likes an innovative case design for their builds. The company has described this focus on manufacturing for OEMs as "

Original Grim Fandango design document released

This news post is perhaps a little indulgent as we don't exactly keep it a secret that we're big fans of the old Lucasarts adventure games, but what the hell. It turns out that not only is today the first day for a new President Elect, but it's also something much more important - the ten year anniversary for the release of Grim Fandango.

To help celebrate the fact Tim Schafer, the lead designer for the game and now head of Double Fine Studios, has released the original design document for the game as a 72 page .PDF.

ERA launches "MP3 Compatible" scheme

If you want to be sure that your digital downloads aren't going to time out on you thanks to overly restrictive digital rights management, you might want to keep an eye out for the logo on the right.

First reported in BetaNews, the Entertainment Retailers Association has launched a new campaign designed to highlight music download services that offer songs in the cross-platform DRM-free MP3 format via the use of an "MP3 Compatible

US Army to invade World of Warcraft with AI

The US Army has announced that it is to start testing a new type of artificial intelligence in public through the servers for Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

You heard us; SkyNet is coming to Azeroth!

The new AI has been designed by Dr. John Parmentola for the US military and is intended to be used to control holographic soldiers for use in training exercise and battle simulation. As an early test though the Army is to upload the AI to

Chip tweaking

Manufacturing deep submicron integrated circuits is an expensive business and keeping the yield of those integrated circuits at acceptable levels is a serious issue for chip manufacturers.

One way of improving that yield has recently been unveiled by researchers Dr Peter Wilson and Dr Reuben Wilcock from the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at Southampton University.

The pair has jointly developed what they are calling the Configurable Analogue Transistor (CAT), for which they have a patent pending.

Yahoo to Microsoft: "Buy us"

The ongoing drama around the future of the worlds number two search engine Yahoo! has taken yet another twist, with co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang saying that "the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo!" and that Yahoo! Remained "open to everything."

This statement follows a stormy six months for Yahoo, in which they were almost bought by Microsoft, endured a possible board room takeover from investor Carl Icahn, were close to buying struggling AOL and then most recently saw a lucrative advertising partnership with Google collapse after Google pulled out following regulatory concerns.

Red Alert 3 PS3 back in development

EA has confirmed that the previously suspended PS3 version of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 is now back in development and should boast some extra features over the other Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game.

Electronic Arts had previously suspended development on the game amid claims that the PlayStation 3 was too exotic a platform to develop a Command and Conquer game for.

"When we announced Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 we announced there was a PS3 version,

WPA crackable in fifteen minutes

If you thought that your wireless network was secure because you use WPA, think again: researchers have worked out a method of cracking the code in under fifteen minutes.

According to BetaNews, cryptographers Erik Tews and Martin Beck are to give a presentation entitled "Gone in 900 seconds: Some Crypto issues with WPA" at the PacSec conference in Tokyo next week.

The presentation is expected to go into detail regarding Tews's discovery that the Pairwise Master Key can be obtained and the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol cracked, allowing captured network traffic to be decoded in a window of between twelve to fifteen minutes

TV-B-Gone gadget goes open source

Creator of the – often controversial – gadget TV-B-Gone Mitch Altman has made the surprising decision to open-source his nifty little IR dongle and allow anyone with the requisite skills to build their own.

The inventor describes the reasoning behind the brave decision over on the MAKE:Blog, describing his decision to patent the device originally as protection against "large companies [...] copying TV-B-Gone remotes, since selling copies would open them up for being sued once my patent is granted.

Nokia to axe 600 jobs

The global credit crunch claims another victim with the news that mobile 'phone giant – and recent entrant to the world of open source – Nokia is to lay off up to 600 employees world-wide.

According to BetaNews, the company is looking to save costs by restructuring its sales and marketing operations and to return many core roles to its headquarters in Finland. It's feared that up to 450 people could be heading for an early bath should the plan go ahead.

Resident Evil 5 PC dated

Resident Evil 5 has been dated for the PC, though the bad news is that it won't be out this year according to MCV UK who also revealed the UK release date for Street Fighter IV.

Capcom looks set to have a busy first quarter in fact, with Bionic Commando, MotoGP Wii, Dead Rising Wii, Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 launching all in the first few months.

Resident Evil 5 will, according to the release, be launching on Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 on March 13th next year.

First Look: Corsair's new DHX+

Corsair dropped off some of its latest Dominator 2, or "DHX+" as they will be officially know modules to the bit-tech offices and we couldn't help but share. Having not updated its DHX technology for a few years now these modules are the first major update Corsair has launched while other competitors have caught up with more elaborate solutions. Technically, DHX was great, but aesthetically we feel it's lost its "special" since Corsair used it everywhere - this is where the Dominator 2s should levy that unique appeal again.

Fallout 3 outsells all previous Fallout games

Fallout 3 is doing pretty well for itself it seems. According to recent sales figures from GfK Chart-Track Bethesda's foray into the post-nuclear genre has sold almost 60 percent faster than the studios last title, Oblivion.

What's more, Fallout 3 is currently topping the sales charts on all platforms it was released on and has outsold all of the previous Fallout games combined, including the lack-lustre spin-offs

Amazon launches Frustration-Free Packaging

If, like me, you have something of an unhealthy addiction to new and shiny gadgets, you've probably encountered 'packaging rage': the displeasure you experience when you can't play with a new toy because the tamper proof box appears to be constructed of adamantium. If so, you'll be pleased to hear that Amazon have decided to take the initiative in doing away with such frustrations once and for all.

Engadget reports that the company is offering a service it dubs "

Open Xchange gets $9 million in funding

The possibility of running an all-open-source office just got a step closer with the news that Open Xchange has secured a second round of funding.

CNet reports that the startup, which has the lofty ambition of offering an open source groupware and collaboration system similar to Microsoft Exchange for companies, has successfully added to its round one funding of $8.8 million with a second round of $9 million, for a total investment of $17.8 million. Clearly,

Valve dates Steam Cloud launch

Valve has announced that the new Steam Cloud service which was first announced back in May this year will start launching later this week, in time for the early Left4Dead demo available to those who pre-ordered the game.

The early demo of Left4Dead becomes available on Thursday, November 6th and the public demo will go live on November 11th, with the full game getting released on November 18th.

Cloud is a new system that'll constantly run in the background on Steam and collect data on user configurations, such as mouse sensitivity and key bindings. The idea is that when you recover your Steam account on another PC (such as your work PC) your system will automatically set itself up in line with all your previous configs.

EA making Dante's Inferno: The Game

Electronic Arts has announced that it has bought the rights to make a game based on Dante's Inferno - the most well-known of the books in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. What's more than that, Electronic Arts also owns the rights to a film and TV adaptation.

Inferno is one of three canticas (long poems) written by Dante as part of a tour of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory and it details his tour through the circles of Hell, as guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In Dante's vision Hell is divided into nine circles, each focused on a particular sin and punishment.

UK to get PS3 vending machines

At Stuff Magazine's Stuff Live Expo recently Sony Entertainment and Universal Pictures announced a most unusual partnership - to bring vending machines filled with PS3 games and Blu-ray movies to the UK.

According to Universal and Sony, the vending machines will be an important step in their distribution plans for PlayStation 3 games, Blu-ray movies and digital music.

The vending machine in question is set to be pretty snazzy and state of the art judging by the descriptions, though we haven't yet seen one for ourselves. The machine will apparently have a full touch-screen interface and different slots for different types of flash media. As well as offering PlayStation 3 games and Blu-ray movies the machines will offer digital music downloads that users can transfer to the media of their choosing.

MS: No more Xbox 360 price drops planned

Microsoft reckons that the current line of Xbox 360 models are great value for money - so great in fact, that there'll be no more price cuts for many, many years.

Xbox UK boss Stephen McGill said in an interview with Videogamer that the previous price reductions make the Xbox 360 affordable enough for anybody right now and that no further price cuts will come for a while yet.

"I'm not going to speculate where [the price] might go in five or ten years time,

Google patches Android security hole

Although the first commercial product based around Google's Android mobile platform – the HTC Dream, sold as the T-Mobile G1 – has only been around for just over a week, it has already enjoyed a security patch to keep its users safe from harm.

According to CNet, the patch is for an issue with the on-board web browser which first came to light on the 20th of October. Embarrassingly for Google, this particular security hole was common knowledge quite some time ago – the flaw has already been fixed in the code for the open-source packages on which Android is based. The reason Android was vulnerable is because – for whatever reason – Google decided to ship out-of-date code with their flagship mobile handset.

MS: No more Xbox 360 price drops planned

Microsoft reckons that the current line of Xbox 360 models are great value for money - so great in fact, that there'll be no more price cuts for many, many years.

Xbox UK boss Stephen McGill said in an interview with Videogamer that the previous price reductions make the Xbox 360 affordable enough for anybody right now and that no further price cuts will come for a while yet.

"I'm not going to speculate where [the price] might go in five or ten years time,

MS: No more Xbox 360 price drops planned

Microsoft reckons that the current line of Xbox 360 models are great value for money - so great in fact, that there'll be no more price cuts for many, many years.

Xbox UK boss Stephen McGill said in an interview with Videogamer that the previous price reductions make the Xbox 360 affordable enough for anybody right now and that no further price cuts will come for a while yet.

"I'm not going to speculate where [the price] might go in five or ten years time,

Google patches Android security hole

Although the first commercial product based around Google's Android mobile platform – the HTC Dream, sold as the T-Mobile G1 – has only been around for just over a week, it has already enjoyed a security patch to keep its users safe from harm.

According to CNet, the patch is for an issue with the on-board web browser which first came to light on the 20th of October. Embarrassingly for Google, this particular security hole was common knowledge quite some time ago – the flaw has already been fixed in the code for the open-source packages on which Android is based. The reason Android was vulnerable is because – for whatever reason – Google decided to ship out-of-date code with their flagship mobile handset.

bit-tech October POTM Winner Announced

Congratulations to forum member akpoly, who achieved first place in October's Photo of the Month competition, themed "Motion" with his entry "Bowl".

We also want to congratulate ssR, who claims second place with his entry "Highway Motion", while third place went again to ssR with his entry "Highway Artery" as well as Hwulex who achieved joint third with the same votes with his entry "Flying Orange".

Burnout Paradise: Special Edition announced

Criterion Games has announced that it plans to release a special edition boxset for Burnout Paradise this February, putting the release alongside the PC version of the game.

The boxset, to be called Burnout Paradise - The Ultimate Box will include a copy of the game with both the Cagney and Bikes updates, as well as a new offline multiplayer mode.

The new mode, dubbed Burnout Paradise Party, is an offline mode for up to eight players to play in a hotseat game-style. Criterion promises that there'll be dozens of new challenges an missions for players in this mode, based around Speed, Stunt and Skill events.

Burnout Paradise: Special Edition announced

Criterion Games has announced that it plans to release a special edition boxset for Burnout Paradise this February, putting the release alongside the PC version of the game.

The boxset, to be called Burnout Paradise - The Ultimate Box will include a copy of the game with both the Cagney and Bikes updates, as well as a new offline multiplayer mode.

The new mode, dubbed Burnout Paradise Party, is an offline mode for up to eight players to play in a hotseat game-style. Criterion promises that there'll be dozens of new challenges an missions for players in this mode, based around Speed, Stunt and Skill events.

Sony recalls 100,000 batteries

Just when you thought that Sony might have learned from past mistakes and stopped manufacturing batteries that explode, another product recall comes our way.

According to an article published this weekend over on BetaNews the company has issued a recall for around 100,000 batteries worldwide that have problems with heat generation – possibly to the point of flash-incineration.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission's report into the recall describes "

Lincolnshire boy arrested over WiFi theft

Next time you decide to 'borrow' your neighbour's badly configured WiFi connection, you might want to look over your shoulder to make sure the police aren't watching.

According to an article over on The Register, an un-named sixteen year old in Lincolnshire has been arrested under the suspicion of illegitimately using his neighbour's unsecured WiFi connection to browse the web.

Originally arrested on the 5th of October under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the youth was accused of "

Lincolnshire boy arrested over WiFi theft

Next time you decide to 'borrow' your neighbour's badly configured WiFi connection, you might want to look over your shoulder to make sure the police aren't watching.

According to an article over on The Register, an un-named sixteen year old in Lincolnshire has been arrested under the suspicion of illegitimately using his neighbour's unsecured WiFi connection to browse the web.

Originally arrested on the 5th of October under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the youth was accused of "