SlySoft: Blu-ray fully cracked

The ongoing war between the pro- and anti-DRM crowds continues with the news that SlySoft has released a new version of its AnyDVD HD duplication software capable of breaking the protection on "all commercial Blu-ray releases."

According to BetaNews, the Antigua-based company has created a new version – 6.5.0.3 – of its software which makes light work of the much-vaunted BD+ protection built into commercially produced Blu-ray films. This latest version, described in traditionally tactful terms by the company as "

MacBook DisplayPort faulty?

It looks like users taking advantage of the freshly-released Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adaptors to hook their MacBook Pros up to high-resolution monitors might be wishing the company had stuck with the more traditional DVI interface, with reports of display corruption issues surfacing.

According to Gizmodo's Jason Chen, who has personally encountered this issue, the problem occurs when the Mini DisplayPort adaptor is used to connect a MacBook Pro to a dual-link DVI monitor. A random period of time into using the device, the image will corrupt, resulting in a picture that looks "

Malware sold on two photo frame brands

If you've received one of those oh-so-popular digital photo frames this Christmas, you might want to give it a quick scan with an anti-virus package if you haven't already hooked it up.

According to Ars Technica, two digital photo frames from two separate companies have both been found to bundle copies of Windows-based malware for that extra holiday bonus.

The first frame, the Samsung SPF-85H 8-incher, is clean on its internal memory but includes a copy of the W32.Sality.AE worm in the Samsung Frame Manager 1.08 software on the bundled software CD-ROM. According to an e-mail sent from Amazon.com to its customers, the affected batch of frames was sold between October and December this year. Although the Sality worm can infect both XP and Vista, only XP users need to worry about this one – it's the installation of the XP-only driver software that triggers the malware.

bit-tech Mod of the Year 08 Winner No.3

We've got our third random winner chosen from those who voted so far, and as usual to reward this lucky person, we've some more prizes ready to be given away as well!

For today's prize we've teamed up with the wonderful people at Crucial Memory and In-Win to bundle two premium bits of kit: firstly a set of Crucial Ballistix 800MHz 4GB 4-4-4-12 DDR2 memory kit that should keep a system with plenty of memory well into 2009, and to keep it well powered, an In-Win Commander 750W PSU. We've yet to publish our results of the In-Win, but during testing we were certainly impressed as it performed very well indeed.

Vote Now: MNPCtech Sketch-up compo finishing soon

The MNPCTech Sketch-Up competition, in association with the bit-tech community, is due to end soon and these guys require your votes to pick the winner!

Every potential mod needs careful planning, and we realise not everyone has oodles of cash, time or physical skill to crack out a world class mod. However, that doesn't stop anyone designing a great looking mod!

Pick from the potentials below, then vote in the forum thread and voice why you think your chosen Sketch-Up artist has the right design for a great looking case.

Company claims icon patent

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, it seems that some companies just can't wait to get a head-start on patent trolling in 2009 with the news that one outfit thinks it has a chance to enforce rights on icons.

According to Ars Technica, little-known Michigan-based network firm Cygnus Systems Incorporated is looking to get a financial leg-up in the new year with a lawsuit against Microsoft, Apple, and Google – hey, at least no-one can accuse it of setting its sights low – regarding a recently-awarded patent on a "

Windows 7 Beta leaked over BitTorrent

It would appear that Microsoft is having the traditional troubles keeping builds of its upcoming Windows 7 operating system away from the mass market, with the most up-to-date version having been leaked to BitTorrent trackers.

The ISO image file is – according to DownloadSquad – Windows 7 M1 Build 7000, which is the same version which will become the public beta at the start of next year. Featuring improvements to the stability of the system along with shiny new features – such as the icon-based task bar reminiscent of the Apple Mac OS X dock we mentioned earlier in the year – enabled by default, the rather naughty pre-beta leak is already entertaining Windows fans across the globe.

bit-tech Mod of the Year 08 Winner No.2

We've got our second random winner chosen from those who voted so far, and as usual to reward this lucky person, some more prizes ready to be given away as well!

For today's prize we've teamed up with the fantastic people at Gigabyte and be quiet! to bundle two premium bits of kit: firstly the top quality Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard - It's the latest Intel P45 based motherboard with Dynamic Energy Saver and Ultra Durable technology. It's brother, the UD3R, got our recommended award earlier this year so this one should be just as good!

bit-tech Mod of the Year 08 Winner No.1

It's only been a few days since we launched our Mod of the Year contest and already we've had nearly 1,000 votes in. Just like last year, to reward our humble readers who took the time to vote we've got prizes to give away!

For today's prize we've teamed up with the awesome people at Asus and Coolink to bundle two premium bits of kit: firstly the top quality Asus Xonar DX souncard - PCI-Express, HD sound with Dolby and DTS that got our recommended award earlier this year, and a Coolink Cooling Kit consisting of a Coolink ChipChilla Chipset Cooler, a Coolink Silent Savior HDD Cooler and Coolink Chillaramic Thermal Compound - if that doesn't keep your system cool, we don't know what will!

Intel says no to Nvidia's Ion

Business comes first for Intel it seems as the season of goodwill is denied, because the word from Taiwan is that Intel insists it will only sell its Atom CPUs bundled with its limited 945-based chipset.

This effectively kills the Ion platform - Nvidia's plans to pair the infectiously popular Atom CPU with the superior GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset.

Intel told Digitimes that it has no plans to validate the Nvidia MCP79 chipset on Atom-based nettop or netbook platforms and also said it isn't looking to form a partnership with Nvidia to support nettop or netbook platforms based on the Intel Atom CPU.

SQL Server on security alert

Microsoft is currently investigating what appears to be a rather worrying remotely executable exploit for its SQL Server database product, similar to that which spawned the Slammer worm back in 2003.

An advisory posted to the company's TechNet site on Monday gave details of an investigation into "new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution on systems with supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE), and Windows Internal Database (Wyukon).

Kingston sells 4GB of DDR2-800 for £13!

Normally 4GB kits of DDR2-800MHz prices sit around £45-50. We thought this was cheap, but it turns out Kingston didn't just go one better - they are set to bottom out the value of DDR2 with a kit available for just £12.99 from play.com in the UK. So that includes delivery also. That's an insanely low price and we're wondering how they even make a penny on that?!

The downsides (and obviously there will be) is that the KVR800D2N6K2/4G kit is a super slow CAS-6 and forget any frills like heatspreaders - these are naked as the day we were born. But for £13, every family member I know is getting a post-Christmas 4GB upgrade present to keep them ticking over for another year.

NZ spammer fined £35K

If you're vexed at the quantity of spam you get in your inbox, take heart that sometimes the criminals behind these mass-mailed 'offers' do sometimes get caught – although rarely punished sufficiently.

According to an article over on The Register, 26 year old Lance Atkinson – originally from New Zealand but currently living in Australia – has been found responsible for sending over two million junk e-mails to computers based in his home country between the 5th of September and 31st of December 2007. The e-mails were mostly for unlicensed – and ineffective – penis enlargement pills under the names Herbal King, Elite Herbal, and Express Herbal.

Mod of the Year 2008 kicks off tomorrow

Before you head off for Christmas, we've got an absolutely stonking competition for you that runs right through the festive period.

Yes, that's right – it's time for Mod of the Year again and in the season of giving, it's time for us to give something back to you, our awesome readers!

There have been some truly stunning cases which have graced the pages of bit-tech this year and we were determined to make this year even bigger than last year.

EA releases titles on Steam worldwide

It seems that those rumours were true and that Electronic Arts has finally decided to take full advantage of Valve's Steam platform to release some of the publishers games - in the US and most of Europe, at least. The UK and Japan are being oddly neglected.

While early indications hinted that Spore might be coming to Steam, Valve has announced that Spore is just one of the EA titles to be featured on Steam.

Janus team launches "Privacy Adaptor"

If you're looking for ways to increase your privacy in the increasingly-monitored online world, it's worth checking out a neat little project by the Janus team.

As reported over on Hack a Day, the team – most famously responsible for the creation of the Linux-based JanusVM virtual machine created to allow people to use TCP-based applications anonymously and without censorship or monitoring – has published a preview of their in-line hardware-based "

Google gives staff Christmas G1s

With the credit crunch still making things tough for companies the world over, many corporations are looking to cut back on traditional Xmas bonuses – and Google thinks it's on to a cost-reducing winner.

According to CNet, the company has ditched the traditional holiday bonus payments in favour of giving staffers a free Android-based G1 smartphone. While the handset is a developer version – i.e. unlocked and not tied to a particular network – there are rules attached to the gift.

Braid PC coming early next year

If you liked the look of Jonathan Blow's platform puzzler, Braid, but didn't get a chance to play the Xbox 360 version then you'll be pleased to know that the long-awaited PC version is finally nearing release.

The PC version of the indie time-bender was originally supposed to get released at the end of 2008, but with that time having pretty much slipped by already Blow has confirmed that the game will have a PC release in the first quarter of 2009.

Gizmondo delayed by recession

The relaunch of the Gizmondo handheld gaming platform has been delayed by company head Carl Freer because of adverse economic conditions apparently.

The Gizmondo originally launched back in 2005 but the company was forced to bankruptcy by poor sales and an association with organised crime through certain members of the company. After the release of Stefan Ericksson from jail in early 2008 though the company was rapidly relaunched.

Indie developer protests Nintendo

Independant developer Bob Pelloni has announced that he is staging a long-term protest against Nintendo and its poor treatment of developers recently, claiming that he has barricaded himself in his room and will not be coming out until he gets a Nintendo DS Software Development Kit from the company.

Pelloni has apparently spent more than 15,000 hours creating his latest game for the Nintendo DS, a 2D shooter tentatively titled

"I'm Linux" ad competition launched

If you've always wanted to stage your own TV advert, the Linux Foundation wants to hear from you.

Sick of the airtime that Microsoft and Apple are getting with their competing ranges of "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" adverts, the Foundation has announced a competition to create their own, open-source adverts to increase awareness of just what it means to say "I'm Linux."

Officially opening on the 26th of January and running until the 15th of March 2009, the competition is looking for people to produce 60-second video shorts showcasing exactly what it means to be a Linux user. Realising that the first bundle of entries are likely to be parodies or rebuttals to the adverts created by Apple and starring, in the UK at least, comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb the Foundation explains that "

Lenovo to launch dual-screen laptop

If you're looking for something a little different in your next laptop, perhaps you'd care to give Lenovo's next experiment the once-over.

As reported over on CNet, the Chinese notebook manufacturer – most famous for purchasing the rights to the ThinkPad brand and design from IBM – is launching a new notebook that features dual displays in a still-portable body.

Designed as a workstation replacement rather than an ultra-portable, the new ThinkPad W700ds is to come equipped with a high resolution 1920x1200 17" display from which extends an additional 10.6" 768x1280 portrait screen to the right-hand side. When not in use, the additional display can be slid back into the lid of the unit to turn it into a fairly standard notebook design.

Sony brings end to blister-pack packaging

Sony has decided to stop using blister-pack packaging and pledges to only use friendly and easy-to-open alternatives from now on after a sustained hatred for the packaging style from consumers.

The main reason that companies have used blister-pack or clamshell packaging in the past is because it is difficult to open, making shoplifting difficult a lot of the time. Unfortunately, it also means that products are hard to get out of their houses without a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

RIP: Majel Roddenberry passes away

Majel Roddenberry, widow to the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, has tragically passed away after complications resulting from pneumonia at the age of 76.

Majel was an integral part of the Star Trek fiction ever since it was first conceived. Not only did she take the role of the first officer in the original Star Trek pilot, a part that would later be played by Leonard Nimoy as Spock, but she was also the official voice of the Starfleet computers in every single one of the

Ubisoft bringing Broken Sword to Wii, DS

Ubisoft has announced plans to resuscitate Charles Cecil's Broken Sword games by bringing the originals to the Wii and DS platforms in a new and updated form.

Despite on-going complaints from Lucasarts and Sierra that the adventure game genre is dead (which goes against the success of Telltale Games and Quantic Dream), Ubisoft is confident that the classic adventure genre will find a home on Nintendo's platforms thanks to the unique interface.

Mod of the Month - December 2008 Winner

Our last Mod of the Month competition of this year has drawn to a close and it's been a close call this month with several of the cases scoring highly in the voting. However, there can be only one winner; the mini-ITX watercooled mod, H2O-C7, by Jhanlon303.

To put it in his own words its the world's only H2O cooled, carbon fiber cased Jetway mini-ITX C7 on the planet and WE on Bit-Tech are building it.

Amen to that!

Lawyer serves notice via Facebook

In a somewhat bizarre application of the law down under, a judge has allowed a lawyer to serve legal documentation on an individual via Facebook.

As reported by Yahoo, the court in Canberra, Australia has approved the use of social networking site Facebook to serve legal documents, to notify a couple that their home is to be repossessed, by lawyer Mark McCormack.

The move comes after the lawyer, working for money lender MKM Capital, had failed to contact the couple by more traditional means – visits to the property had been fruitless, and e-mails had gone unanswered. After spotting the fact that the couple had a Facebook page which was still being updated, McCormack applied to the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court to classify an update to a Facebook page as a document that has been 'served.'

2,000MHz Core i7 Memory is Everywhere!

Hitting 2,000MHz with Core i7 CPUs seems to be the big thing now and everyone has their own take on this new extreme end:

Corsair has its Dominator GT - the red haired little devils that are based on the new DHX+ technology are rated to the holy grail of 2,000MHz at just 7-8-7-20 needing only 1.65V of juice. Check them out in use, here.

OCZ's new Blade Series also sports the same 7-8-7-20 at 2,000MHz with 1.65V, although it uses a green PCB instead of black. The new Blade heatsink design takes a simpler but smart approach to black anodised aluminium - it's another direction than the less "shouty" or "funky" (whatever your tastes) Corsair GT.

Critical update for Firefox released

Internet Explorer isn't the only browser to have been getting bolstered against malicious attacks this week – Firefox has been updated to version 3.0.5.

According to CNet the new version, trickled out to users via the in-built automatic update functionality of the browser earlier this week, has been released to fix a series of security flaws described as 'highly critical' that exist in the 3.0.x series of Mozilla's Firefox, as well as the 1.1.x versions of SeaMonkey and the 2.0.0.x series of e-mail client Thunderbird, which shares HTML and JavaScript engines with its browser relatives.

3D Realms releases new Duke Nukem Forever image

Another year gone, another disappointment that the long-announced Duke Nukem Forever hasn't yet hit shelves. Despite being in development since 1997 officially, which in reality means the game has been in production for at least eleven years, the much awaited title still hasn't materialised at all.

But, on the plus side, 3D Realms has released a new image from the game, though it may be all pre-rendered by the looks of it. Yay.

More than 28 game-based movies being made

Yesterday saw the announcement than Gore Verbinski was not only making a film based on BioShock, but also a film based on the online non-game Second Life. The announcement must have sparked interest in some it seem as Examiner.com today released a list of all the known game-based films currently in production.

And there's a whopping 28 of them, not counting Second Life.

The list ranges in credibility from the arguably cinematically-suited

Google maps Manhattan in 3D

Google has come one step closer to being able to simulate every aspect of our daily lives with a major update to the 3D Buildings functionality of Google Earth.

Revealed on the unofficial Google Earth Blog on Wednesday, the update adds a photo-realistic 3D model for almost every building located on Manhattan Island in New York – and it looks blindingly impressive.

While the "3D Buildings” layer has long been an option when viewing a location in Google Earth – a feature which takes advantage of the ability to tilt the image away from the default top-down view – very few places have more than a handful of buildings modelled in this way. This latest update creates an almost photo-realistic skyline, with a ridiculous number of buildings plonked on top of their satellite-imaged plans.

Nvidia notebook drivers now available directly

Nvidia has made a surprise revelation this afternoon, announcing that it now offers upgradeable notebook graphics drivers for download directly from the company's website.

This will enable owners of notebooks with Nvidia GeForce 8M, 9M and Quadro NVS mobile GPUs to take advantage of new features and performance optimisations as they become available.

The first notebook specific driver release will extend the Nvidia CUDA architecture to notebook GPUs, "

Spore de-authorisation tool released

Good news for PC gamers today - not only has Electronic Arts fulfilled its promise and loosened the install restrictions on Spore, but Ubisoft has also patched the widescreen issues in Far Cry 2. About time, eh?

EA has tackled the DRM in Spore by releasing an official de-authorisation tool for the game that lets users bypass the five-machine install limit on Spore by managing their own systems rather than relying on EA. The company had previously promised that the DRM system for the game would be loosened, but face flak over its inclusion anyway.

AMD culls jobs in the UK

We have learned from several anonymous tipsters that AMD has culled a large portion of its workforce at its UK headquarters in Frimley today.

Details are understandably very light at the moment, but we've heard that the sales team has remained relatively unaffected.

Other departments weren't quite so lucky though as the engineering, marketing and administration teams in particular have been hit pretty hard.

Gore Verbinski making Second Life movie

Gore Verbinski, director of Pirates of the Caribbean and all round Hollywood money-maker, has purchased the rights to make a film based on the free MMO Second Life.

Verbinski will apparently be basing the film on a 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal written by Alexandra Alter about a married man who falls in love with his in-game wife. Pretending to be a muscle-bound businessman, the husband is in reality a 53-year old diabetic chain smoker.

Western Digital announces job cuts

Western Digital has announced plans to reduce headcount worldwide as well as the closure of some of its manufacturing facilities.

John Coyne, chief executive officer of the hard drive manufacturer, has been quoted by BetaNews as saying that he expects the poor demand for storage products "to last well into the middle of the 2009 calendar year," and has advised a new projected revenue for Q4 2008 at $1.8 billion – a significant drop from the $2.15 billion the company had previously forecast for that period. Coyne goes on to say that the company will be "

RIP abit, Dec. 31st 2008

It's been a great relationship, abit. That 440BX, BP6, AV7, AN8, IC7 and AW9D-MAX that I reviewed, used or owned are fond memories indeed!

However its long drawn out departure has been something of an inevitability, especially since it stopped making performance motherboards earlier this year to concentrate on more consumer orientated items like the abit FunFab.

While we wished abit all the best at the time, part of us died inside having seen what the once and arguably "first" enthusiast brand had been reduced to.

Good Old Games gives away free Good Old Games

GoodOldGames.com, the online gaming store that specialises in old PC games, has announced that it is giving away two free games for Christmas to all users who have or create an account on the site.

GOG.com has proven a hit with PC gamers, offering classic and hard-to-find PC games in an online store akin to Valve's Steam. Where GOG.com has the edge though is that each game sold is guaranteed to run on all modern OS' thanks to some re-coding and DOS box emulation tweaks. The best thing about it though is that the games are cheap too, fitting into either $9.99 or $5.99 price bands.

Free Radical Design closes down

Free Radical Design, the company behind Timesplitters and Haze, has officially shut down today with reports coming from staff that they arrived at work today to find the office locked and security guards preventing access.

According to GamesIndustry.biz it is understood that several key members of staff, including senior executives, had already left the company recently despite previous claims that the developer was doing well.

Midway closes studio, cancels games

Midway has taken further efforts to reduce costs and minimise losses today with the closure of its Austin studio and the cancellation of all its projects that were projected for a 2010 or 2011 release date, all of which were unannounced.

Midway has announced redundancies across all territories also, losing staff in San Diego, Austin and Chicago according to GamesIndustry.biz. The move sees the total workforce of the company being decimated with more than 25 percent of the publishers total employees being terminated.

MS warns of major IE flaw

If you're still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer are your primary web browser, now might be a good time to change: crackers are exploiting a pretty serious unpatched vulnerability in the wild.

According to an article on Wired, around 10,000 malicious websites – mostly hosted in China – are actively using a so-far unpatched vulnerability in the Internet Explorer web browser shipped as standard with all versions of Windows to steal usernames and passwords for online banking and MMO games.

Spore coming to Steam?

Electronic Arts may finally be taking advantage of the Valve's Steam platform it seems, with rumours that Spore is set for release starting to circulate after the EULA for the title is spotted on the Steam storefront.

While not immediately shocking to many, if Spore does see a Steam release then it'll be the first time that Electronic Arts has even tried to release a game on Steam.

Electronic Arts and Valve currently work together on many other projects, with EA publishing retail copies of

Myst MMO Uru Live goes open source

Cyan Worlds has announced that the Myst-based MMO, Uru Live, will be going totally open source in the future in order to avoid closing totally.

Uru Live has led a troubled existence, much to the frustration of players, having been cancelled twice and recently closed before being driven to open source in and effort to stay online.

Cyan Worlds had previously tried to keep the game afloat after closure through a Myst Online Restoration Experiment (MORE), but that too has gone under according to RockPaperShotgun, forcing the game to go open source as a last resort. You certainly can't fault Cyan Worlds for trying again and again though - the team apparently just can't afford to carry on working on the project.

Prince of Persia PC is DRM-free

Retail copies of the PC version of the new Prince of Persia game will be entirely free of any DRM or copy-protection according to Ubisoft employee and all-round nice guy Chris Easton, who confirmed earlier reports in a forum post.

"A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as POP PC has no DRM we'll see how truthful people actually are," wrote Chris. "Not very, I imagine."

Mac OS update issues reported

Apple recently launched the latest build of its Mac OS X operating systems, but many users are complaining that the upgrade process isn't going at all smoothly.

According to BetaNews, the official Apple support forums experienced a pretty major spike in posts shortly after Mac OS X 10.5.6 was made available via the Software Updates functionality. While any new software rollout will have teething issues, this latest batch of complaints seems unusually numerous.

Seagate drops warranties to three years

Hard drive manufacturer Seagate is to reduce its standard warranty period on consumer-grade drives from five years to a mere three to bring them "in line with industry standard [...] offerings."

First spotted on Friday by techPowerUp, the move comes in to effect on 3rd January 2009 and affects all consumer-oriented products including the popular Barracuda 7200 range of desktop drives, the Momentus range of notebook drives, and all "

Guitar Hero: Metallica track list announced

Activision has fully detailed the upcoming Guitar Hero spin-off, Guitar Hero: Metallica, as well as giving a current tracklist for the game.

Guitar Hero: Metallica is the second game in the series to be themed around a single headline band, the first one being Guitar Hero: Aerosmith released earlier this year. The game won't feature just Metallica though, with other bands such as Juda Priest, Queen and Slayer confirmed to be on the tracklist too. All the 'tallica classics are on the list though - everything from

LittleBigPlanet sales continue to disappoint

LittleBigPlanet may be a critical darling and well-known to hardcore console gamers, but sales figures for the game may be ruining Christmas for Sony and game developer Media Molecule.

According to new figures released by the NPD group, which gathers sales figures from stores throughout the US, the game has struggled to make a major impact on the market this year despite Sony's marketing campaign and Q4 release slot.

XFX jumps into bed with AMD

AMD has announced that XFX, one of Nvidia's top partners across the world, is now an official AMD technology partner.

XFX said that it plans to provide new products based on the Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs beginning in early 2009 – expect to see some early products at CES, I guess.

"In the world of PC gaming, XFX is synonymous with the extreme performance that enthusiasts crave," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "

Palm to launch new OS at CES

Palm might be in the financial doldrums at the moment, but the company has a plan to get itself back on top once again.

According to Wired, the company is looking to launch a new smartphone operating system based around Linux at the Consumer Electronics Show next month.

While the company itself has been playing its cards relatively close to its chest, analyst Lawrence Harris believes that it's "actually close to a certainty, that they will show a new OS, new user interface and probably new hardware

Firm tests browser password privacy

The next time Internet Explorer asks you if it should remember a password for you, think twice about your answer if you value the security of your data.

The Register reports on a suite of tests that has been carried out against a range of popular web browsers by security firm Chapin Information Services in order to test their adherence to good password security practice. The news, I'm sad to say, isn't particularly good.

Microsoft launches iPhone app

In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Microsoft has released its first application for Apple's iPhone – and it's not available on its own Windows Mobile platform.

CNet spotted the release of Seadragon Mobile by Microsoft's Live Labs on Sunday. Designed as a lightweight, mobile implementation of the Seadragon technology which powers the Photosynth 3D photo gallery system, the free application – available from Apple's App Store – allows images stored on the Internet or on the Photosynth service to be quickly browsed via a 3D accelerated 'deep-zoom' system which allows the viewing of images far larger than the iPhone can handle alone.

Team Fortress 2 update incoming

Valve has announced that it will be adding two major updates to Steam over the next few days - one for Steam itself, one for Team Fortress 2.

The Steam update is a new opt-in beta client that adds in a new in-game web browser, letting players browse the internet and check out utterly essential sites like bit-tech.net when they get a few minutes of down time - like when you're waiting to respawn, for example.

Microsoft knew about Xbox 360 disc scratching?

Comments from a Microsoft employee have revealed that the company may have known that the design of the Xbox 360 would damage game discs from before the console was even launched, but chose to continue with the design anyway.

The comments apparently emerged as part of a class action lawsuit in the US which is focusing on the damage done to Xbox 360 discs by the console drive itself.

The testimony in question comes from Microsoft Program Manager Hiroo Umeno, who says that Microsoft was well aware that game discs could be scratched when the console is repositioned.

PlayStation Home hacked already

Well, that didn't take very long. Sony only released PlayStation Home four or five days ago and the online non-game has already been hacked by users, circumventing some of the advertising systems built into the game.

While we haven't had a chance to confirm the claims of hackers like StreetSkaterFU, video footage on YouTube suggests that the claims may be valid.

PlayStation Home, which was released on December 11th, is an online community provided for free by Sony to all PlayStation 3 users. While not strictly a game, Home does incorporate mini-games, such as bowling and pool. Sony meanwhile litters the online world with adverts and sponsored areas built around certain themes, such as the

Woolworths closure to cost Ubisoft £1.3m

The credit crunch is now heavily impacting on game publishers and developers, with French publisher Ubisoft set to lose around EUR 1.5 million due to the collapse of Woolworths and its distribution business EUK, says GI.biz.

Ubisoft's Chief Financial Officer said that payment problems for Woolworths was affecting other partners in other areas of Europe and that Ubisoft was being heavily effected.

"Before the Woolworths incident we had two defaults, one in Germany and one in France, for about EUR 3 million, but since we were covered by about 90 per cent the impact for us should be about EUR 300,000,

Intel netbook chip roadmap released

Intel has outlined a roadmap of future chips destined for the increasingly popular low-power 'netbook' range of devices.

According to information obtained by CNet, the chip manufacturer is currently working on a 32-nanometre platform explicitly aimed at netbook devices codenamed Medfield, due to hit the market in 2010.

As well as a die shrink from the 45nm process currently used for the Atom range of processors,

Google's Chrome leaves beta

In what must mark the shortest beta-to-release cycle for any Google product ever, the search giant has announced that its open-source browser Chrome has grown up enough to be called a fully-fledged 1.0 release.

According to CNet, the move to launch a full release of Chrome was announced as part of the Le Web 08 conference in Paris by vice president Marissa Mayer and confirmed by representatives from the firm yesterday. The move has surprised many Google-watchers, as it comes so soon – just 100 days – after the initial public beta was launched.

Steam launches European beta

We'll have to thank RockPaperShotgun for drawing our attention to this, but Valve has quietly released a European beta to Steam - one that has introduced new, crazy prices to the UK.

The beta is currently only available through the web-based side of Steam, not the Steam program front-end. The site actually picks up where you are in the world and shows you the correct prices.

And the prices are actually quite mental too, though it isn't clear if it's a bug or a deliberate pricing change. UK users can now get substantial savings over the US users, though some prices just don't make any sense at all.

Hackers create digitally assisted billiards

If, like me, you've always wanted to be a pool shark but have been hampered by a complete lack of natural talent, then the technology could be here to lend you a helping hand.

Over on Hack a Day they're showing a project created by Justin Needham and Matthew Straub of the Georgia Institute of Technology called "Digitally Assisted Billiards." By hooking a camera and a projector up to an e-Box 2300 PC, the pair are able to visualise the trajectory of balls on the table before they are hit in a view that will be terribly familiar to anyone who played Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker.

Mirror's Edge, Dead Space sequels planned

Despite some disappointing sales this year, Electronic Arts is planning to develop and publish sequels to some of this years key titles and provide on-going support and expansions to other titles.

In a financial conference call Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that certain titles which had performed or reviewed well would definitely be continued in the future, though the company would continue to pursue a commitment to quality games rather than issuing needless sequels - something the company had become known for until recently.

Microsoft: Home is outdated

Microsoft has lashed out at Sony's Home program, which was released yesterday, saying the entire premise is out of date and uninteresting to most players.

The comments, which came from Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, aren't the first time that Microsoft has criticised Sony's attempt to make an online 3D community for players either. Microsoft has previously claimed that the reason Sony has taken so long to release the non-game (which even now is still only in open beta rather than full release) is because Sony fundamentally underestimated the project.

Intel releases new, free missions for Far Cry 2

Intel has sponsored the release of two new new free-to-play missions for the PC version of Far Cry 2 as part of its on-going Game On! campaign.

The missions, called The Morrocan and The American both fit snugly into the main game and sit within the whole Jackal-hunting plot.

The Morrocan is the first mission of the pair and sees the player venturing over to an abandoned Foreign Legion fort in Leboa=Sako territory. There you hope to find an old man with information on where you can continue your hunt for merciless gun-runner, The Jackal.

Khronos Group releases OpenCL 1.0 specification

The Khronos Group has announced the ratification and public release for the first version of the OpenCL specification at SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore.

It's the first royalty-free standard for cross platform parallel programming of multi-core processors, GPUs, Cell-type processors and other parallel processing devices. It's also the first truly heterogeneous programming environment the industry has seen, as well.

OpenCL stands for Open Compute Language and it's the first API of its kind. What's more, it has been ratified by a number of industry heavyweights, including AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Nvidia and many others. Even game publishers like Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts have had input on the specification's development, which bodes well for its use in future game engines.

AMD says PhysX will die

Godfrey Cheng, Director of Technical Marketing in AMD's Graphics Product Group, has said that PhysX will die if it remains a closed and proprietary standard.

"There is no plan for closed and proprietary standards like PhysX," said Cheng. "As we have emphasised with our support for OpenCL and DX11, closed and proprietary standards will die."

This was part of AMD's response to our questions about EA's and 2K's decision to adopt PhysX across all of their worldwide studios earlier this week.

Grand Theft Auto IV PC patch detailed

Rockstar has detailed the first patch for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV, which gamers are no doubt hoping will make the game smoother and less horribly broken.

Unfortunately for PC users though, the change list for the patch reveals only a small number of tweaks to the game and likely nowhere near enough to placate PC users who paid for the game.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV was met with scorn when it was released earlier this month thanks to an invasive use of authentication systems in the form of Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows Live, both of which need to be running if you want to save the game. On top of that many players reported frequent crashes and our own testing revealed that the game was massively demanding on even high-end systems.

EA to publish Brütal Legend

Finally. Electronic Arts has stepped up and said that it will publish Brütal Legend, the latest game from Tim Schafer's Double Fine Studios, on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The heavy-metal inspired game first fell into difficulty when Activision-Blizzard discarded a bunch of in-development titles after their merger. Games like Ghostbusters, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and Brütal Legend suddenly found themselves without a publisher, though all have now found new homes.

Which? files complaint against Davenport Lyons

Davenport Lyons has become a well-known and notorious figure in certain circles throughout the UK. The law firm, which represents a number of game publishers and adult film producers, has drawn criticism from some for its methods - which basically involve sending letters out to people demanding money or the threat of being taken to court.

The problem however, which has been well documented on the bit-tech forums, is that the firm's accusations seem to be based on mainly faulty information. This means that Davenport Lyons is often accusing innocent people, many of whom may not understand how to prove their innocence, and scaring them into paying up (often creating admittedly hilarious results).

Gears of War 3 rumours rubbished by Epic

With Gears of War 2 recently released and already a firm contender for bit-tech's Game of The Year, it would only make sense that Epic would want to get to work on the next game in the hit series, right?

Wrong.

In fact, according to Epic's Mark Rein the company hasn't even started thinking about making Gears of War 3 yet, officially. Rein went so far as to tell Eurogamer that any rumours about the title were total nonsense.

Google adds magazine content

Although erstwhile digital publisher Mygazines.com has gone the way of all things, the future of magazine publishing may still live online – at least, if Google has its way.

According to CNet, everyone's favourite data warehouse has teamed up with a range of publishers and content owners to add magazine content into the company's existing Book Search service.

With magazines including Popular Science, Men's Health

EA and 2K Games license Nvidia PhysX technology

Electronic Arts and 2K Games have both announced that they will license Nvidia PhysX technology across all of their worldwide studios.

This follows on from Nvidia and EA’s joint announcement earlier this month regarding the PC version of Mirror’s Edge, which is claimed to be the first game to truly exploit PhysX technology.

"PhysX is a great physics solution for the most popular platforms, and we're happy to make it available for EA’s development teams worldwide. Gameplay remains our number one goal, with character, vehicle and environmental interactivity a critical part of the gameplay experience for our titles, and we look forward to partnering with NVIDIA to reach this goal,

Google launches Dev Phone 1

If you're still waiting for an Android 'phone which doesn't lock you in or tether you to a contract, Google might just have the answer: the Dev Phone 1.

According to BetaNews, the Dev Phone 1 is a specialised version of the HTC Dream, which was released by T-Mobile under the name G1 as the first Android-enabled handset to hit shelves. Where it differs is in the freedom offered to its users.

The Dev Phone 1 is the first handset to be offered with an unlocked bootloader and fully flashable innards – meaning that the system can run modified Android code straight from the box, with no need to 'jailbreak' the handset. Google have said that "

Appcelerator launches Adobe Air rival

If you fancy the look of Adobe's Air platform but fancy something a bit more open, check out Titanium.

As reported by BetaNews yesterday, Titanium is fully open source development environment aimed at desktop, mobile, and web content creators – and clearly an answer to Adobe's proprietary Air platform.

Appcelerator – the company behind Titanium – has launched a public preview of the system, which it describes as "

Microsoft launches Vista SP2 beta

If you're a Vista user still looking to iron out some of the operating system's niggles, perhaps you'd like the chance to test drive Service Pack 2?

According to Information Week, Microsoft has made a pre-release beta of the next lot of fixes for the company's flagship operating system available for public download. The same package will also update Windows Server 2008 installations, which use the same base technologies as Vista.

Sony to launch Home tomorrow

Sony has announced that it will finally be launch the online virtual world for the PlayStation 3, dubbed Home, tomorrow. After years of development and planning Sony has decided to announce and release the game in just over 24 hours.

Well, kind of anyway. The non-game will be free, fully-featured and available to all PlayStation 3 users, but Sony is insisting that this will be an open beta and not a full release.

HP to debut Sonata batteries

If you're more worried about the overall lifespan of a laptop battery than how many hours per charge you get, take a look at the result of a three-year collaboration between Hewlett-Packard and Boston Power.

Dubbed Sonata, the new lithium-ion batteries are designed to be significantly longer lasting than their traditional counterparts. With traditional laptop batteries, you can expect to get around a hundred and fifty charge-discharge cycles before the capacity takes a nosedive through the floor. According to CNet, laptops equipped with these new Sonata gizmos can expect to still get around 80 percent capacity even after a thousand charges.

Opera 10 Alpha 1 released

Software company Opera has announced the latest shake-up of the web with the public alpha of its latest browser, Opera 10.

According to CNet, the latest release of the popular browser has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, and while some are simply tweaks to bring the feature set closer to that of other modern browsers there's plenty of neat stuff for the company to crow about.

Firstly, the rendering engine – Presto – has been updated to version 2.2, and promises a thirty percent speed increase over Presto 2.1 as used in Opera 9.5. While this latest engine is only seeing a home in the desktop build at the moment, the company has stated that it will form the basis of both the desktop and mobile versions of its products – which promises 100 percent rendering compatibility on both handsets and PCs. Nice.

Asian IT to emerge from financial crisis stronger

IT spending in the Asia-Pacific region will grow at a slower rate in 2009 than in 2008, but Asian economies will fare better during the current economic crisis than those in the West, according to Springboard Research.

The research company expects growth in IT spending in the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) region to be 7.1 percent in 2009, a decrease from 10.2 percent in 2008.

Springboard's Asia-Pacific IT Market Predictions 2009 released Thursday, noted that even though all countries in the region will be affected by the economic crunch, the degree of fallout will vary.

Virtualization to put consumer tech in the workplace

Virtualization promises to usher in a new era of consumer technology in the workplace potentially satisfying the demands of new workers from the Facebook generation who want to use more consumer hardware for work purposes.

Companies are expected to increasingly roll out technology to implement 'sandboxed' virtual machines on staff's personal laptops and mobile devices, allowing workers to choose the hardware they use to do their job, while keeping corporate data safe.

Robin Scott-Elliot: Why kids want to be Wayne and all Swedish men look like Sven

View From The Sofa: Blackrock Masters, ITV 4 2-7 Dec; Rooney's Street Striker, Sky 1 Sunday

Monday, 8 December 2008

8MP Samsung cameraphone for T-Mobile US spotted

Blurred images of an 8-megapixel Samsung handset that is expected to be offered at wireless provider T-Mobile have surfaced on Monday, all but confirming an earlier report. The touchscreen handset is expected to be called Memoir and feature the same TouchWiz interface as the current Samsung Behold handset. The handset is on course to be the first subsidized cameraphone in the US with an 8-megapixel shooter, which also has autofocus, a built-in flash and optical zoom, as well as video recording capabilities.

Reports claim FCC head has anti-cable bias

A new US House Committee on Energy and Commerce report (PDF) published today accuses current FCC chairman Kevin Martin of unfairly biasing policy against the cable industry. The government body head is specifically accused of overriding others' views and is said to have reversed a finding that exempted cable providers from offering à la carte rules as well as attempting to force through a report that would have accused the cable industry of greater than 70 percent control of the market, allowing Martin and the FCC to regulate the field.

Dell launches UltraSharp 1909W

Computer builder Dell has begun selling the UltraSharp 1909W, its latest LCD monitor. Measuring 19 inches in a 16:10 ratio, the screen supports resolutions up to 1440x900, with a a 5ms response time and brightness rated at 300cd/m2. Contrast is measured at only 1,000:1, and the viewing angle is limited to 160 degrees; a number of ports are provided however, including four for USB devices, one for VGA input, and another for DVI video. The last is HDCP-enabled for protected HD content.

ARM, Sony Ericsson, more join Open Handset Alliance

The Open Handset Alliance today said it has added 14 new members to its group in a move that will bolster support for Google's new Android operating system. The new roster includes phone manufacturers such as ASUS, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba as well as prominent chipmakers like ARM and Atheros as well as carriers Softbank and Vodafone. GPS device maker Garmin is also included in the list.

Yang claims No. 1 Year-End Ranking

Top seed Tsung-Hua Yang (TPE) has won his first round match of the 2008 Orange Bowl to claim the year-end number one ranking spot after a gripping three set match against unseeded American Matthew Kandath. Yang made heavy work of his first round match, winning the first set in a closely fought tie-break before losing the second and then finding form in the third set to see off Kathman 76 46 62. This first round win now sees him secure his position as World Number one at the end of the year.

DirecTV announces end of HDPC-20 HD tuner project

A DirecTV spokesperson recently announced the company has discontinued any and all development work on the HDPC-20 tuner that promised to link DirecTV's high-definition content with Windows Media Center. The HDPC-20 was first introduced at CES in 2006, or nearly three years ago. The decision to end the project was reportedly made after DirecTV missed the August 2008 update for Windows Media Center software and timing of the next release.

GeForce 9400M coming to Intel Atom soon?

NVIDIA is in the process of porting the technology behind the GeForce 9400M to mainboards meant for Intel's Atom processors, alleged sources from PC builders claim. The MCP79 chipset, which sits at the heart of both the 9400M in newer MacBooks and the lower-powered 9300M, is said to be in conversion for the mini PC platform with the aim of improving graphics over Intel's existing but relatively limited GMA video. NVIDIA would first focus on hardware for nettops but would potentially expand to netbooks later on.

Live marine muscle

The US non-profit research company SRI International is testing a buoy-mounted, wave-powered generator in the ocean near Santa Cruz, California.

The wave-powered generator uses SRI's Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscle (EPAM), a rubbery material that can generate electricity by simply being stretched and allowed to return to its original shape.

This 'artificial muscle' can generate electricity directly from the motion of waves, with noneed for complicated and costly hydraulic transmissions, typically found in other wave-power generators.

Tidal technology

UK-based Aquamarine Power has announced that it has made a significant investment in Ocean Flow Energy to secure a new technology to produce energy from deep water tidal resources.

The investment complements Aquamarine Power’s existing technologies and will further strengthen its position in the marine renewable energy sector.

Aquamarine Power already boasts a diverse portfolio of marine energy converters.

Oyster, its hydro-electric wave power device, is due for installation at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) next year, while its tidal stream energy converter Neptune is currently the world’s largest under development at 2.4MW.

Mirror's Edge PC requirements released

Those of you who've been eagerly awaiting the PC release of Mirror's Edge will be glad to see the official announcement of the minimum system requirements today, listed below.

The reveal comes with news from Electronic Arts that the PhysX content being built into the game especially for the PC version is entirely optional, so you don't need to worry about having the latest hardware to run it. EA also confirmed that it would not be shipping a level editor with the PC release.

Live marine muscle

The US non-profit research company SRI International is testing a buoy-mounted, wave-powered generator in the ocean near Santa Cruz, California.

The wave-powered generator uses SRI's Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscle (EPAM), a rubbery material that can generate electricity by simply being stretched and allowed to return to its original shape.

This 'artificial muscle' can generate electricity directly from the motion of waves, with noneed for complicated and costly hydraulic transmissions, typically found in other wave-power generators.

Oracle adds data integrity to Linux

If you're a Linux sysadmin kept awake at night by the thought of your data going walkabouts, Oracle and Emulex might just have made your day.

According to BetaNews, the enterprise database and open-source enthusiast Oracle and storage experts Emulex are donating code it's been working on that will attempt to detect and alert system administrators in the case of "silent data corruption."

By utilising a metadata store, the technology – which will see integration in the 2.6.27 Linux kernel – will be able to work out if a database is providing inaccurate answers due to data corruption and warn the system administrators via e-mail that they might want to double-check the system for errors.

Mirror's Edge PC requirements released

Those of you who've been eagerly awaiting the PC release of Mirror's Edge will be glad to see the official announcement of the minimum system requirements today, listed below.

The reveal comes with news from Electronic Arts that the PhysX content being built into the game especially for the PC version is entirely optional, so you don't need to worry about having the latest hardware to run it. EA also confirmed that it would not be shipping a level editor with the PC release.

Tidal technology

UK-based Aquamarine Power has announced that it has made a significant investment in Ocean Flow Energy to secure a new technology to produce energy from deep water tidal resources.

The investment complements Aquamarine Power’s existing technologies and will further strengthen its position in the marine renewable energy sector.

Aquamarine Power already boasts a diverse portfolio of marine energy converters.

Oyster, its hydro-electric wave power device, is due for installation at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) next year, while its tidal stream energy converter Neptune is currently the world’s largest under development at 2.4MW.

Mirror's Edge PC requirements released

Those of you who've been eagerly awaiting the PC release of Mirror's Edge will be glad to see the official announcement of the minimum system requirements today, listed below.

The reveal comes with news from Electronic Arts that the PhysX content being built into the game especially for the PC version is entirely optional, so you don't need to worry about having the latest hardware to run it. EA also confirmed that it would not be shipping a level editor with the PC release.

Oracle adds data integrity to Linux

If you're a Linux sysadmin kept awake at night by the thought of your data going walkabouts, Oracle and Emulex might just have made your day.

According to BetaNews, the enterprise database and open-source enthusiast Oracle and storage experts Emulex are donating code it's been working on that will attempt to detect and alert system administrators in the case of "silent data corruption."

By utilising a metadata store, the technology – which will see integration in the 2.6.27 Linux kernel – will be able to work out if a database is providing inaccurate answers due to data corruption and warn the system administrators via e-mail that they might want to double-check the system for errors.

Mirror's Edge PC requirements released

Those of you who've been eagerly awaiting the PC release of Mirror's Edge will be glad to see the official announcement of the minimum system requirements today, listed below.

The reveal comes with news from Electronic Arts that the PhysX content being built into the game especially for the PC version is entirely optional, so you don't need to worry about having the latest hardware to run it. EA also confirmed that it would not be shipping a level editor with the PC release.

Six critical updates for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle has a sextet of critical security updates for users this week.

According to ExtremeTech, out of the eight total updates to be released today six are considered Critical, Microsoft's highest security rating.

The first Critical update affects all currently shipping versions of Windows – including Vista on the desktop and Server 2008 in the enterprise – and plugs a hole that could, under certain circumstances, lead to remote code execution. A similar flaw has been discovered in Internet Explorer, with a second Critical patch being released to fix an issue which again affects all currently shipping versions of Windows with Internet Explorer 7 installed.

Mirror's Edge PC requirements released

Those of you who've been eagerly awaiting the PC release of Mirror's Edge will be glad to see the official announcement of the minimum system requirements today, listed below.

The reveal comes with news from Electronic Arts that the PhysX content being built into the game especially for the PC version is entirely optional, so you don't need to worry about having the latest hardware to run it. EA also confirmed that it would not be shipping a level editor with the PC release.

Oracle adds data integrity to Linux

If you're a Linux sysadmin kept awake at night by the thought of your data going walkabouts, Oracle and Emulex might just have made your day.

According to BetaNews, the enterprise database and open-source enthusiast Oracle and storage experts Emulex are donating code it's been working on that will attempt to detect and alert system administrators in the case of "silent data corruption."

By utilising a metadata store, the technology – which will see integration in the 2.6.27 Linux kernel – will be able to work out if a database is providing inaccurate answers due to data corruption and warn the system administrators via e-mail that they might want to double-check the system for errors.

Six critical updates for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle has a sextet of critical security updates for users this week.

According to ExtremeTech, out of the eight total updates to be released today six are considered Critical, Microsoft's highest security rating.

The first Critical update affects all currently shipping versions of Windows – including Vista on the desktop and Server 2008 in the enterprise – and plugs a hole that could, under certain circumstances, lead to remote code execution. A similar flaw has been discovered in Internet Explorer, with a second Critical patch being released to fix an issue which again affects all currently shipping versions of Windows with Internet Explorer 7 installed.

Six critical updates for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle has a sextet of critical security updates for users this week.

According to ExtremeTech, out of the eight total updates to be released today six are considered Critical, Microsoft's highest security rating.

The first Critical update affects all currently shipping versions of Windows – including Vista on the desktop and Server 2008 in the enterprise – and plugs a hole that could, under certain circumstances, lead to remote code execution. A similar flaw has been discovered in Internet Explorer, with a second Critical patch being released to fix an issue which again affects all currently shipping versions of Windows with Internet Explorer 7 installed.

Top 10 torrented games of 2008

TorrentFreak has posted a list (via Kotaku) of the top ten games which were copied and shared over BiTorrent alone this year and if you're one of those piracy-deniers who thinks the number of pirates can't be all that big then the figures below make for some interesting reading.

Interestingly, the number one torrent title of this year is Spore - a game which drew much criticism for having invasive DRM and copy-protection systems.

Top 10 torrented games of 2008

TorrentFreak has posted a list (via Kotaku) of the top ten games which were copied and shared over BiTorrent alone this year and if you're one of those piracy-deniers who thinks the number of pirates can't be all that big then the figures below make for some interesting reading.

Interestingly, the number one torrent title of this year is Spore - a game which drew much criticism for having invasive DRM and copy-protection systems.

Oracle adds data integrity to Linux

If you're a Linux sysadmin kept awake at night by the thought of your data going walkabouts, Oracle and Emulex might just have made your day.

According to BetaNews, the enterprise database and open-source enthusiast Oracle and storage experts Emulex are donating code it's been working on that will attempt to detect and alert system administrators in the case of "silent data corruption."

By utilising a metadata store, the technology – which will see integration in the 2.6.27 Linux kernel – will be able to work out if a database is providing inaccurate answers due to data corruption and warn the system administrators via e-mail that they might want to double-check the system for errors.

Six critical updates for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle has a sextet of critical security updates for users this week.

According to ExtremeTech, out of the eight total updates to be released today six are considered Critical, Microsoft's highest security rating.

The first Critical update affects all currently shipping versions of Windows – including Vista on the desktop and Server 2008 in the enterprise – and plugs a hole that could, under certain circumstances, lead to remote code execution. A similar flaw has been discovered in Internet Explorer, with a second Critical patch being released to fix an issue which again affects all currently shipping versions of Windows with Internet Explorer 7 installed.

Top 10 torrented games of 2008

TorrentFreak has posted a list (via Kotaku) of the top ten games which were copied and shared over BiTorrent alone this year and if you're one of those piracy-deniers who thinks the number of pirates can't be all that big then the figures below make for some interesting reading.

Interestingly, the number one torrent title of this year is Spore - a game which drew much criticism for having invasive DRM and copy-protection systems.

Valve releases Half-Life sales figures

There are some people who say that the PC gaming market is in jeopardy, that it can't survive competition with consoles and that it's too hard to publish a game on PC without it being pirated to hell and back. Those people are going to be proved wrong pretty quickly now.

Valve has today issued it's sales figures for it's games catalogue as it sold in stores (I.e. these sales figures don't count Valve's own distribution platform, Steam) and the results are absolutely astounding. Ready?

OCZ Introduces its eSATA flash drive

Donkey's years ago OCZ mentioned to us about how it was developing a Firewire flash drive. Faster speeds! the PR claimed, USB is so limited!

Well, that time came and went and while it was a product that never made it out of development because of driver and controller issues, OCZ seems to have cracked a better and faster goal - the eSATA flash drive.

It's not the first eSATA flash drive by just a few weeks, but it is currently the fastest.

MySQL creator decries latest build

The original author of the popular open source database package MySQL has decried the latest release, claiming it contains "fatal bugs."

According to The Register, the latest MySQL release – version 5.1, released by project owners Sun Microsystems last Thursday – prompted a blog post from Monty Widenius, the original creator of MySQL. Judging by the tone, he's not overly impressed with what's happening to his baby under Sun's guiding hand.

Atari: Next gen will eschew physical media

Atari's Phil Harrison is a man with his finger on the pulse and, although his former employer Sony is still pushing Blu-Ray heavily, Harrison thinks that the next generation of consumers will abandon physical media entirely.

Speaking to Edge Online, Harrison claimed that the future of the industry would lie in digital distribution almost solely.

"There’s a generation of kids being born today and probably already alive who I’m pretty confident will never buy a physical media product,

New Riddick game coming in 2009

Starbreeze Studios and Atari have confirmed that the new game based on the Riddick films, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, will be out early next year.

The game will feature not only a high definition remake of the original game, Escape from Butcher Bay, but also feature a new 10-hour campaign set on the titular Dark Athena. The new campaign will boast new gameplay mechanics, entirely new levels, enemies and puzzles too.

bit-tech November PotM winner announced

Congratulations to forum member Silver51, who achieved first place in November's Photo of the Month competition, themed "Odds" with his entry "Odds Of Survival".

We also want to congratulate whisperwolf, who claims second place with his entry "Burn Baby Burn", while third place went again to mr_carl with his entry "Swedish Viking".

Yet again, we have hooked up with OCZ Technology to give some awesome prizes away to the winners.

Cooler Master shares more "Black" details

Cooler Master has revealed the second part of its exclusive limited edition "Black" bundle today, a modified Hyper Z600 "Black" CPU cooler.

The new cooler not only sports a new top-to-bottom black appearance - a first from Cooler Master - but the company claims that it has made some modifications that now make the Hyper Z600 "Black" is "the best performing CPU cooler on the market."

When we reviewed the original Hyper Z600 in October, we found that it was the highest-performing cooler we've tested with two fans in a push/pull arrangement. However, with just one fan, the Z600 was sat very much in the mid-table.

App Store hits 10,000 apps

Apple's iPhone App Store has broken all expectations, with the news last week that over 10,000 iPhone and iPod Touch applications have been added since its inception.

Highlighted by fan site 148Apps – so named for the number of applications available on the store when the site was founded – Apple has managed to convince third-party developers to contribute to the store in staggering quantities, with an average of seventy new applications being added per day since the store launched 142 days ago.

Rumour: Ubisoft, EA to buy out SCi, Eidos?

This is still a rumour for now - and one from The Daily Mail to boot - but apparently SCi, the parent company of Eidos is in negotiations with a number of other publishers about a possible takeover.

The negotiations have apparently been prompted by a 92 percent drop in SCi's stock price, according to GamesIndustry.biz.

The rumours come from an anonymous source who has told UK newspapers that SCi is currently in talks with both Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, both of whom who have had a track record of buying out other publishers and developers in the past. Warner Bros. Interactive, which has long been rumoured to be interested in SCi, is also hinted to be involved in the talks.

Rockstar rushes to fix GTA IV PC issues

Rockstar is facing plenty of flak today and is now rushing to fix the many issues that users are complaining about in the PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

These problems include glitchy textures, repeated crashes and the fact that the game won't run smoothly on higher graphics settings even with the best hardware money can buy. We tested that last issue ourselves, though we were limited by the fact that the game currently doesn't support SLI.

Rockstar: "a small number of fans" having issues

Rockstar has been trying to downplay the number of issues that gamers are complaining about in the recent PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV , saying that only a small number of fans are having issues with the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV has drawn flak from gamers for repeated crashes, draconian authentication systems and performance issues that make the game unplayable on most systems at higher settings.

Rockstar: "a small number of fans" having issues

Rockstar has been trying to downplay the number of issues that gamers are complaining about in the recent PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV , saying that only a small number of fans are having issues with the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV has drawn flak from gamers for repeated crashes, draconian authentication systems and performance issues that make the game unplayable on most systems at higher settings.

Denon set to unveil first universal Blu-ray player

Denon has recently shown off what it claims is the world's first truly high-end and universal Blu-ray player, the DVD-A1UD. Apart from the capability of playing Blu-ray and DVD video discs, the player also supports DVD Audio, SACD and standard DVDs and CDs. A built-in SDHC memory card will let users play files on the reusable media, with support for WMA, MP3 audio, DiVX 6 video and JPEG images. A built-in audio-restorer function improves the quality of compressed music. Denon's 4th-generaiton Link port promises integration with the company's amplifiers, including the AVP-A1HD and AVC-A1HD, as well as any future Denon products.

Rockstar: "a small number of fans" having issues

Rockstar has been trying to downplay the number of issues that gamers are complaining about in the recent PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV , saying that only a small number of fans are having issues with the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV has drawn flak from gamers for repeated crashes, draconian authentication systems and performance issues that make the game unplayable on most systems at higher settings.

Denon set to unveil first universal Blu-ray player

Denon has recently shown off what it claims is the world's first truly high-end and universal Blu-ray player, the DVD-A1UD. Apart from the capability of playing Blu-ray and DVD video discs, the player also supports DVD Audio, SACD and standard DVDs and CDs. A built-in SDHC memory card will let users play files on the reusable media, with support for WMA, MP3 audio, DiVX 6 video and JPEG images. A built-in audio-restorer function improves the quality of compressed music. Denon's 4th-generaiton Link port promises integration with the company's amplifiers, including the AVP-A1HD and AVC-A1HD, as well as any future Denon products.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Rockstar: "a small number of fans" having issues

Rockstar has been trying to downplay the number of issues that gamers are complaining about in the recent PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV , saying that only a small number of fans are having issues with the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV has drawn flak from gamers for repeated crashes, draconian authentication systems and performance issues that make the game unplayable on most systems at higher settings.

Denon set to unveil first universal Blu-ray player

Denon has recently shown off what it claims is the world's first truly high-end and universal Blu-ray player, the DVD-A1UD. Apart from the capability of playing Blu-ray and DVD video discs, the player also supports DVD Audio, SACD and standard DVDs and CDs. A built-in SDHC memory card will let users play files on the reusable media, with support for WMA, MP3 audio, DiVX 6 video and JPEG images. A built-in audio-restorer function improves the quality of compressed music. Denon's 4th-generaiton Link port promises integration with the company's amplifiers, including the AVP-A1HD and AVC-A1HD, as well as any future Denon products.

Denon set to unveil first universal Blu-ray player

Denon has recently shown off what it claims is the world's first truly high-end and universal Blu-ray player, the DVD-A1UD. Apart from the capability of playing Blu-ray and DVD video discs, the player also supports DVD Audio, SACD and standard DVDs and CDs. A built-in SDHC memory card will let users play files on the reusable media, with support for WMA, MP3 audio, DiVX 6 video and JPEG images. A built-in audio-restorer function improves the quality of compressed music. Denon's 4th-generaiton Link port promises integration with the company's amplifiers, including the AVP-A1HD and AVC-A1HD, as well as any future Denon products.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Denon set to unveil first universal Blu-ray player

Denon has recently shown off what it claims is the world's first truly high-end and universal Blu-ray player, the DVD-A1UD. Apart from the capability of playing Blu-ray and DVD video discs, the player also supports DVD Audio, SACD and standard DVDs and CDs. A built-in SDHC memory card will let users play files on the reusable media, with support for WMA, MP3 audio, DiVX 6 video and JPEG images. A built-in audio-restorer function improves the quality of compressed music. Denon's 4th-generaiton Link port promises integration with the company's amplifiers, including the AVP-A1HD and AVC-A1HD, as well as any future Denon products.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Dell now charging $150 to use XP on new PCs

Dell has returned a Windows XP option to some of its home systems but is now charging as much as $150 for the privilege. The company's Inspiron 1525 notebooks and Inspiron 530 regular and slimline desktops now all have an option to configure a system with Windows XP that uses a surcharge to take advantage of Microsoft's "downgrade" loophole intended for business PCs. Dell gives users a pre-installed copy of Windows XP Professional in exchange for paying to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

Dell now charging $150 to use XP on new PCs

Dell has returned a Windows XP option to some of its home systems but is now charging as much as $150 for the privilege. The company's Inspiron 1525 notebooks and Inspiron 530 regular and slimline desktops now all have an option to configure a system with Windows XP that uses a surcharge to take advantage of Microsoft's "downgrade" loophole intended for business PCs. Dell gives users a pre-installed copy of Windows XP Professional in exchange for paying to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

Ken Levine: "I wish PC gaming was more successful"

In an interview with Forbes, lead designer of BioShock and ex Looking Glass Studios alum Ken Levine said that although he is definitely a fan of PC games over console games he does wish that the PC gaming market was more successful.

Levine however reckons that the PC market has many challenges ahead of it and that while digital distribution and so forth do provide new avenues and strengths for the platform, learning to make the most of them will take publishers and developers a fair bit of time.

i7 965 chip hits 5.5GHz

Wondering just how far Intel's new i7 processor range can be pushed? The answer might just have you weeping into your watercooling tower before checking on that second mortgage.

Asus has announced that inveterate Japanese overclocker duck has managed to get Intel's latest i7 Extreme 965 processor to a staggering 5.5GHz from its stock speed of 3.2GHz.

Although not as impressive as his earlier achievement of getting a Pentium 4 631 to an eye-watering 8.2GHz last year, the i7's significantly better performance per clock cycle means that he's possibly in possession of the fastest single-processor x86 desktop in existence.

Dell now charging $150 to use XP on new PCs

Dell has returned a Windows XP option to some of its home systems but is now charging as much as $150 for the privilege. The company's Inspiron 1525 notebooks and Inspiron 530 regular and slimline desktops now all have an option to configure a system with Windows XP that uses a surcharge to take advantage of Microsoft's "downgrade" loophole intended for business PCs. Dell gives users a pre-installed copy of Windows XP Professional in exchange for paying to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

Dell now charging $150 to use XP on new PCs

Dell has returned a Windows XP option to some of its home systems but is now charging as much as $150 for the privilege. The company's Inspiron 1525 notebooks and Inspiron 530 regular and slimline desktops now all have an option to configure a system with Windows XP that uses a surcharge to take advantage of Microsoft's "downgrade" loophole intended for business PCs. Dell gives users a pre-installed copy of Windows XP Professional in exchange for paying to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

i7 965 chip hits 5.5GHz

Wondering just how far Intel's new i7 processor range can be pushed? The answer might just have you weeping into your watercooling tower before checking on that second mortgage.

Asus has announced that inveterate Japanese overclocker duck has managed to get Intel's latest i7 Extreme 965 processor to a staggering 5.5GHz from its stock speed of 3.2GHz.

Although not as impressive as his earlier achievement of getting a Pentium 4 631 to an eye-watering 8.2GHz last year, the i7's significantly better performance per clock cycle means that he's possibly in possession of the fastest single-processor x86 desktop in existence.

UK plans lunar phone network

A UK-led mission to put a satellite in orbit around the Moon which could one day enable lunar colonists to use mobile phones to communicate with each other has inched a step closer to blast off.

The British National Space Centre (BNSC) has announced it will undertake a technical feasibility study of the MoonLITE mission. The study will report with a full mission schedule and costs late next year. Depending on the outcome, the Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecom Experiment mission could launch by around 2014, the BNSC said.

UK plans lunar phone network

A UK-led mission to put a satellite in orbit around the Moon which could one day enable lunar colonists to use mobile phones to communicate with each other has inched a step closer to blast off.

The British National Space Centre (BNSC) has announced it will undertake a technical feasibility study of the MoonLITE mission. The study will report with a full mission schedule and costs late next year. Depending on the outcome, the Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecom Experiment mission could launch by around 2014, the BNSC said.

i7 965 chip hits 5.5GHz

Wondering just how far Intel's new i7 processor range can be pushed? The answer might just have you weeping into your watercooling tower before checking on that second mortgage.

Asus has announced that inveterate Japanese overclocker duck has managed to get Intel's latest i7 Extreme 965 processor to a staggering 5.5GHz from its stock speed of 3.2GHz.

Although not as impressive as his earlier achievement of getting a Pentium 4 631 to an eye-watering 8.2GHz last year, the i7's significantly better performance per clock cycle means that he's possibly in possession of the fastest single-processor x86 desktop in existence.

UK plans lunar phone network

A UK-led mission to put a satellite in orbit around the Moon which could one day enable lunar colonists to use mobile phones to communicate with each other has inched a step closer to blast off.

The British National Space Centre (BNSC) has announced it will undertake a technical feasibility study of the MoonLITE mission. The study will report with a full mission schedule and costs late next year. Depending on the outcome, the Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecom Experiment mission could launch by around 2014, the BNSC said.

Antec Signature 850W PSU

Manufacturer:Antec
UK Price (as reviewed):£135.68 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed):$223.99 (ex. Tax)

Antec's new Signature power supply series is designed to be the pinnacle of consumer PSU technology. By this, we don't just mean high power, we mean the black box is full of clever tricks and quality components rarely seen outside of the realm of servers.

Offering components like Tantalum ceramic capacitors, independent VRMs, Japanese capacitors and fan, a dual PCB layout, 80 Plus Bronze and SLI certification, as well as a five year warranty it certainly has some neat tricks up its sleeve. The Signature, while manufactured in co-operation with the industry giant Delta, takes on some of its server grade ideas, which means it's about as far from a simple rebrand as you can get.

The weirdest computing disasters of 2008

Roasted laptops, panthers savaging memory sticks and angry fishermen throwing computers overboard top the list of the year's weirdest computing disasters.

The top 10 data blunders of 2008, compiled by data recovery firm Kroll Ontrack, have seen people across the world falling victim to acts of great stupidity and misfortune.

1. Roasted laptop
A man put his laptop into the kitchen oven before going on holiday to protect it from burglars.

Python update makes break with past

Python developers on Wednesday released the final version of Python 3.0, a major reworking of the programming language that is incompatible with the Python 2 series.

Python is widely used for web applications such as YouTube.

Python 3.0, also called Python 3000 or Py3K, is the first Python release that is intentionally backwards-incompatible, according to project founder Guido van Rossum.

"Nevertheless, after digesting the changes, you'll find that Python really hasn't changed all that much by and large, we're mostly fixing well-known annoyances and warts, and removing a lot of old cruft," van Rossum said in a document outlining the changes.

Oracle adds data-integrity code to Linux kernel

Oracle has announced that it has contributed data-integrity code to the Linux kernel.

The open-source code, which has been accepted into the Linux 2.6.27 kernel, is designed to reduce data corruption by decreasing the potential for incorrect data to be written to disk, and decreasing application and database errors, Oracle said in a statement on Tuesday. According to the enterprise-software maker, the code helps maintain integrity as data moves from application to database, and from Linux operating system to disk storage.

Information Agenda: A strategy shift from applications to information

Iomega adds two new eGo portable HDDs

Iomega on Tuesday announced two new models to its range of eGo Portable Hard Drives, including the ultra-secure Encrypt with hardware-based encryption for double data protection, and super rugged BlackBelt with Drop Guard Xtreme data protection. The eGo Encrypt uses the advanced 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to protect its 320GB of content from unauthorized access.

Nokia warns market share may drop again

Nokia this morning sent notice that it was again issuing a warning and says that it will lower its estimates for both its own cellphone shipments as well as the larger industry for the fall. The company had previously recorded a drop to 38 percent share for its summer quarter but now says there is "insufficient visibility" for it to say whether its market share will increase or even remain flat over the three-month span between October and December, suggesting the possibility that its market share will drop again.

NVIDIA in wait-and-see stance on netbooks

NVIDIA is taking a cautious approach on netbooks and is unlikely to involve itself in that field anytime soon, company officials have said at the Credit Suisse technology conference. Company CFO Marv Burkett acknowledges that it could ultimately produce graphics chips and other hardware for the mini notebooks but is waiting for netbooks to "evolve" before taking any initial steps into the field, which was effectively born with the launch of the Eee PC 700 line late in 2007 and is just now gaining traction.

RIM warns of lower subs despite Storm

Research in Motion late Tuesday warned that it expects the number of new subscribers to its BlackBerry push e-mail service to fall significantly below its original estimates. The Canadian smartphone company now expects to add just 2.6 million users instead of the originally predicted 2.9 million and also expects its earnings per share and gross margins to drop as a result. The company blames the dip both on the later launches of phones like the Bold for AT&T and the multi-carrier release of the Storm.

Hynix develops first 2Gb mobile RAM

Hynix on Wednesday boosted its Mobile Memory line and said it has developed the world's first two gigabit (256 megabyte) mobile RAM chip. The use of a smaller 54 nanometer manufacturing process has let the company double its previous best capacity while also improving the performance over past chips. Bandwidth for the outside world has been stepped up to 400 megabits per second, while the chip can process 1.6 gigabytes per second internally.

Hitachi and Intel team up for SSDs

If you're of the opinion that increased competition in a market can only be a good thing, you'll be pleased to hear that Intel and Hitachi are to be working together to produce enterprise-grade solid-state disks.

According to CNet, Intel has teamed up with Hitachi's Global Storage Technologies division to "jointly develop and deliver" Serial Attached SCSI and Fibre Channel SSD devices for the customer with a deep pocket and even deeper need for major disk IO.

Palm plans further cuts

The bad financial news continues to hit the tech sector with PDA old timer Palm looking to slash costs by twenty percent with some major restructuring.

According to BetaNews, the company is hoping to recoup losses that saw its second quarter revenue drop to $195 million, significantly lower than the company has been expecting.

Palm's chief executive officer Ed Colligan has said that his company is seeing "unprecedented dynamics in the global markets as economic uncertainty hampers demand for consumer products.

Burnout Paradise to get paid DLC

Burnout developers EA Criterion has announced the first piece of paid-for downloadable content for Burnout Paradise, dubbed Big Surf Island.

Previously, Criterion has released only free updates and downloadable packs for Burnout Paradise, such as the Cagney update and the Burnout Paradise Bikes pack. Big Surf Island is the first piece of downloadable content for the game that players will be required to pay for, even though it was originally intended to be a free pack too.

The Witcher confirmed for consoles

The Witcher, which has already been released twice for the PC, is now going to be getting a console version too according to publisher Atari.

Atari today confirmed that they would be publishing a new console version of CD Projekt Red's Polish RPG after a new developer diary was leaked over the weekend that mentioned a console version of the game.

The new game, which will be called The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf

Moto to build Alexander, Atila handsets in early '09

Taiwan's Compal Communications will manufacture two handsets for Motorola, codenamed the Atila and Alexander, according to a Friday report. More importantly, the report reveals that shipments of the phones will allegedly be delayed from the original fourth quarter of 2008 launch to the first quarter of 2009. Both cellphones will use the Windows Mobile operating system, support 3G data networks and have built-in Wi-Fi modules.

Moto to build Alexander, Atila handsets in early '09

Taiwan's Compal Communications will manufacture two handsets for Motorola, codenamed the Atila and Alexander, according to a Friday report. More importantly, the report reveals that shipments of the phones will allegedly be delayed from the original fourth quarter of 2008 launch to the first quarter of 2009. Both cellphones will use the Windows Mobile operating system, support 3G data networks and have built-in Wi-Fi modules.

Sony VAIO netbook exposed in FCC leak

Sony's long-anticipated netbook has been revealed through filings with the FCC, a report from Engadget suggests. Two versions, known as the PCG-1P1L and PCG-1P2L, have been through wireless testing with the government body; the PCG prefix is known to represent Sony's VAIO portable line. More crucially, the computers match typical netbook dimensions, at approximately 9.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide. This should make them smaller than many rival systems.

Sony VAIO netbook exposed in FCC leak

Sony's long-anticipated netbook has been revealed through filings with the FCC, a report from Engadget suggests. Two versions, known as the PCG-1P1L and PCG-1P2L, have been through wireless testing with the government body; the PCG prefix is known to represent Sony's VAIO portable line. More crucially, the computers match typical netbook dimensions, at approximately 9.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide. This should make them smaller than many rival systems.

EA announces Dungeon Keeper MMO

Electronic Arts has announced that it will be creating a new Dungeon Keeper game called Dungeon Keeper Online. The game will apparently be a departure for the established PC series and will be an online-only MMO game.

Dungeon Keeper Online is apparently the result of a partnership between Electronic Arts and Chinese MMO developer NetDragon Websoft, who have gained access to all previous intellectual content of the