Content and news by Rob Williams

Think of a name, any name, and it’s probably already registered as a .com domain. Most sites blocking your path to a memorable and descriptive names are owned by domain squatters, businesses buying domain names in bulk and running targeted advertisements from Google and Yahoo!

Ahh, Kevin Ham. So many people hate him, and it’s no surprise why. He squats thousands of domains, taking them from those who want to actually develop a website, and makes thousands off each one per year. Kevin Ham is certainly not the only one to do this, but he’s the most successful.

Source: Niall Kennedy Blog

The latest shots in the Microsoft vs. Xbox 360 console hacker war have been fired, and this time it’s Microsoft who took one in the chest. After banning a bunch of Xbox 360s with modded firmware DVD drives earlier this month, the company’s ban checks have just been defeated by a new version of the DVD firmware.

This is one hack I’d rather not see. Burned games is one thing, but cheaters in online games is depressing to all those legit players. Nothing sucks the fun out of a game quicker than getting killed repeatedly by an obvious cheater.

Source: Gizmodo

We kind of never thought we’d see the day where Mac and PC voluntarily shared the stage on neutral ground, but that day is today. Very soon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — both pioneering execs that need absolutely no introduction — will sit up in front of the audience here at D and discuss god knows what. Don’t miss this, people, who knows if this will happen again in any of our lifetimes. You’ll know when we get started.

For those of you who were anticipating this live discussion, you will be happy to know that Engadget has written a large article discussing everything that happened, as well as providing a video. What a milestone!

Source: Engadget

According to the press release, the acquisition gives eBay exposure to StumbleUpon’s growing community of over 2 million users. Still seems like an awkward match to us. In recent years, eBay purchased PayPal, but that was a no-brainer, and Skype, which has an obvious commercial aspect.

What new networking site isn’t bound to get picked up by a large company? $75 million is a lot of money and regardless of what eBay plans to do with the site, the previous owners are likely pretty pleased.

Source: Download Squad

A Melbourne man has high-hopes with his latest venture, which he claims could take on the likes of Google. It’s called “MyLiveSearch”, where the “Live” is a key word.

MyLiveSearch is fundamentally different. It works through a small browser plug-in. The search terms are put through Google, or other indexed search databases, but those results are treated as “starting points” alongside the user’s bookmarks and other popular web hubs.

Thanks to this technology, your search results should show potential updates from the current day, not the day prior. It sounds good, but it will be difficult to pull off thanks to the fact that it relies on browser plugins. It would not be surprising to see security issues arise as well, thanks to that plug-in functionality. I’m always up for seeing a “Google-killer” though. We won’t be seeing MyLiveSearch for a few more weeks, however.

Apple has just launched their upgraded iTunes store with DRM-free music. As expected, each DRM-free song will cost $1.29 per, which makes the premium a $0.30 charge.

CUPERTINO, Calif., May 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today launched iTunes(R) Plus — DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the
original recordings — for just $1.29 per song.

For those of you who feel left out because you already bought DRM ridden songs, you are in luck. One of the new built-in features is the ability to upgrade all of the songs you’ve purchased before, with DRM-free versions. Apple notes that this feature will cost $0.30 per song and up to $3.00 for most full albums.

I want to like iTunes, but the fact that you cannot download 320Kbps versions of the songs makes me cringe. While this doesn’t matter to most people, I am meticulous with music and rip everything I own to FLAC. For $15+ for a DRM-free album, the highest possible bitrate would have been nice, at least as an option.

In addition to iTunes Plus, Apple also launched iTunes U, which features free content for those looking for educational content, especially college goers.

CUPERTINO, Calif., May 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today announced the launch of iTunes(R) U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.

The biggest announcement is the DRM-free songs however, although it is currently focused on just EMI’s catalog. This is an amazing start though.

Source: Apple Press Releases

Just when people were beginning to wonder whether or not Microsoft had any creativity left, they introduce an amazing new touch surface, appropriately called Surface.

The launch of Microsoft Surface marks the beginning of a new technology category and a user-interface revolution. Surface, Microsoft’s first surface computer, provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects. Surface computing breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology, changing the way people interact with all kinds of everyday information — from photos to maps to menus.

In order to fully understand what Surface is capable of, you need to watch the videos on the official site. Some of the demos were just difficult to wrap my head around. One of the more interesting examples was where two Zunes were sitting on the table, and each owner was dragging and dropping music to each others player.

Another took place in a restaurant setting, where two patrons split the bill by dragging and dropping the various items they ordered to the respective credit cards. There were other examples as well, but those two I found to be of most interest.

This is as science fiction has a new product can get, and it’s almost difficult to believe some of the examples they gave. It will probably be a while before we see all of the examples become a reality, but this is definitely one of the coolest products to come out of Redmond for a while. Of course no mention of price yet, so don’t jump for joy just yet.

Source: Microsoft Surface Press Pass

What do you mean you’ve never played the original Prince of Persia? Are you crazy? All of the PoP releases have been great, but the original was simply amazing.

In June, Ubisoft releases Prince of Persia Classic, which follows the level design of the original Apple II POP exactly, but updates the graphics to be on par with Sands of Time.

Do yourself a favor and check out the videos posted here. 2D fun with great graphics, what more could you want? Kudos to Ubisoft for not only bringing the game to XBL, but also for making it look so freaking pretty.

Source: IGN Xbox 360

NCsoft has sent word that they are making their MMORPG, Dungeon Runners, a free-to-download game. Unlike their other “free” game, Guild Wars, Dungeon Runner will make money from those who wish to progress further in the game and acquire special items that non-paying customers can’t.

Dungeon Runners, currently available strictly via free digital download, has a play-for-free tier where players can access large chunks of the game’s content, and a “membership level” for $4.99 per month where players are given, among other things, log-in queue priority and access to the most powerful items, weapons and armor. Membership status also includes bank storage for up to 220 loot items and the ability to stack potions in one slot to save room for even more loot.

Interesting model, but it might just work. NCsoft has the patience to give anything a try at least once, right?

Now this is keen. The idea is that for those times when customers are unable to use a laptop on the plane, they can instead work using the airlines built-in office program.

Thanks to new USB ports embedded in the armrest of each chair (near the headphone jack), passengers now can use a USB key (aka thumb drive) — or other portable drive — to access their documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files from software running on the plane’s Linux server.

The article doesn’t mention whether the there is a physical or on-screen keyboard to use, but I am assuming it’s the latter. Still, this is an interesting move and one that many will consider handy.

Source: Desktop Linux

With Intel’s Core hogging the limelight in every regard, it’s almost enough to forget the Pentium name. Intel doesn’t want that to happen though, as is evidenced with this brand new release.

What we basically have here is a stripped down, low-clocked “Conroe” processor, which is the architecture used in the initial Core 2 Duo product lineup. “Conroe” cores typically have 4 MB of shared L2 cache and start at clock speeds of 1.86 GHz and higher. Low-end Conroe processors like the Core 2 Duo E6320 start at about $170 today. Pentium-E2100 processors are starting at around $90, however, almost half the cost of the cheapest Core 2 Duo.

Many associate budget with low performance, but that’s not the case here. Compared to the E6300, this chip performed 10% slower in most tests… not a big deal. The kicker is the fact that it’s superbly overclockable, reaching almost 3.0GHz with the stock cooler!

Source: HotHardware

It’s hard to think of a free software movement and not picture Richard Stallman. In this candid interview, HardwareLogic tackles the questions many ponder and Richard couldn’t have given better answers.

Occasional brushes with proprietary software, which made a sharp contrast with my community, showed me the unethical nature of non-free software, and the power that its developers impose on its users. When the old free-software community died, in the early 80s, and its software became obsolete, I realized that the rest of my life would be spent in a shameful and ugly world of proprietary software–unless I did something to change it.

Just a fare warning that after reading, you might be uninstalling some of your commercial applications. Well, you may not, but it’s a great interview regardless.

Source: Hardware Logic

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – May 29, 2007 – AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that Toshiba will launch three Satellite(R) notebook PCs based on an AMD mobile platform. Combining advanced mobile processor performance with outstanding graphics, Toshiba will offer systems in the popular Satellite product line based on AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology and the AMD M690 Series Chipset. Toshiba, one of the world’s largest notebook providers, is expected to start shipping the new consumer notebooks in time for the back-to-school season.

Source: AMD Press Release

It’s hard to believe that Mario Party is now up to its eighth installment, but it’s true. The folks at IGN believe that it could have been far better.

Hudson and Nintendo really need to rethink the Mario Party formula, but will they? Not as long as these games keep selling, no. Discerning players will find this latest effort still has its moments, but also that they are fewer and farther between.

If you can’t garner just how bad the game is from that blurb, perhaps the 5.2/10 score will.

Source: IGN Wii

AnandTech has updated their popular high-end buyers guide and split it up into two parts: basic high-end and ultra high-end. You can take the latter suggestion as “a good way to spend money without seeing immediate benefits.”

As far as the platforms themselves go, little has changed in the past seven months in terms of overall architecture specifications. Intel continues with the venerable Socket 775 platform, while AMD’s relatively new AM2 promises to be used for some time to come. The NVIDIA 680i and Intel 975X chipsets own the performance arena for the Intel Core 2 processors, while the NVIDIA 590 chipset leads the AMD Athlon race.

Although Intel has been cleanin’ up the place, they did not exclude AMD which was nice to see. Also nice to see is the fact that either system offers four cores for essentially the same price.

Source: AnandTech

Next month a California-based startup plans to release an application that will allow Windows, Mac, and Linux users run Linux binaries without any modifications. Lina is a Linux virtual machine that allows users to run applications with the native look of their host operating system. It also lets you install applications with a mouse-click, no need to compile software from source code.

Essentially, it sounds like Wine, but vice versa. The idea is that a user would be able to run Linux applications on any platform, resulting in improved workflow and less hassle. The demos shown in the video focused on a CLI text editor and a GUI image viewer, both rather light applications.

Anyone who has experimented with Wine knows that some large programs are simply not possible to run for dependencies sake. The developers claim that Lina simply couldn’t get any easier, and from what we see, it may just allow for wider compatibility than the likes of Wine.

One thing I noticed, is that all of the installable files have a .lina extension, so it could be that for an application to work, it has to be first altered by the Lina developers. All we need is for a demo to be released, so we can see it for ourselves.

Source: Download Squad

The company began today a beta test for Game Town, an online games service for members of its Square Enix Members rewards program. The site promises to offer free games based on Square Enix properties.

The first games are a series of flash-based mini games featuring Chocobo: Chocobo Flight, Chocobo Balance Stick and Chocobo Classmate. Once you’ve played these simple games, you can choose to post your scores to an online ranking mode.

Though it’s difficult to fully understand what the service is all about, it’s worth checking out if you are a Square/Enix fan (and who isn’t?). Sign-up details are found through the link below.

Source: IGN PS3

I am not a personal fan of the Terminator movies, but I do enjoy a quick glance at an MR2 from time to time. This is no ordinary MR2 though. It has a custom Terminator paint job that covers the entire car. The paint job is sweet enough, but even cooler is the fact that it glows in the dark.

A Russian MR2 owner has seen fit to completely cover his car with vaguely science-fiction-y murals. The murals themselves have a sort of Journey-album-cover/Terminator theme, but that’s not important.

You don’t need to be a car fan to enjoy these photos, so check them out. Here’s to hoping that the paint job cost less than the cars red book…

In Soviet Russia, Terminator drive you! Yes, that had to be done.

Source: Jalopnik

“There are other things — you have the widgets, some of the Google applications that are coming — there are just so many things here that the price will not be an issue.” Now, we don’t want to get all weird here and read tea leaves, but he did say Google applications (as in plural), so we think it’s safe to say Google has more planned than just Gmaps for the iPhone.

There is not much surprise in knowing that Google is jumping on the bandwagon here, but it gives insight to how the iPhone will work. It could prove to be a superb “smart phone” if third party development is going to be as such.

One big thing comes to mind. If Google is developing applications for the iPhone, does this mean that the regular Joe can develop applications as well? If so, the iPhone is sure to be a winner. Why? Many Apple fans are also frantic developers. If developing applications on the iPhone is an easy task, then there is sure to be some amazing support.

It could be argued that other smart phones on the market could also be easily developed for, but when we are talking about the Apple crowd, it’s a different story.

Source: Engadget

Malaysian cinemas have found a powerful new weapon in their fight against movie pirates — military-style night-vision goggles. After showing people to their seats, trained ushers are strapping on the goggles and scanning darkened cinemas around the country to spot anyone trying to make illegal copies of movies with hand-held video recorders or mobile phones.

This is a creative idea and a smart one at that. It’s sure better this than being patted down as you enter. It’s noted that seventeen people have been caught since this method has been implemented, although it doesn’t mention how they were dealt with afterwards.

Source: Reuters