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Bioshock Demo Available On Xbox Live
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The good folks at Joystiq deliver news that 2K’s Bioshock demo is finally on Xbox Live for download… and that’s really all that needs to be said. I’ve watched a fair amount of gameplay videos and now the trailer, and have to say it looks to be quite an impressive game. I’ll download and try it out in the coming days… but you can jump on there now and give it a go. It’s hefty though, weighing in at 1.35GB.
Completing the sudden onslaught of Bioshock goodness is the latest episode of the Major Nelson podcast, appropriately titled, “The one about the Bioshock demo,” starring Ken Levine of Irrational Games. We wish you luck, dear readers, as both Xbox Live and Major Nelson’s site are being positively crushed by our collective downloading might.
Source: Joystiq
RS4 vs. R8 vs. 911 GT3 vs. Golf GTI vs. M3
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It’s Monday. News is slow. Ok, I lie. I look for virtually any excuse to post car news, so a slow Monday seems appropriate. Edmunds gives us a nice comparo including the new BMW M3 (featuring 4.0L V8!) which is compared to Audi’s RS4 and gorgeous R8, in addition to Porsche’s latest 911 GT3 and also a car that seems to stick out in this crowd… vee dub’s Golf GTI. Though not a true head-to-head comparison, their initial thoughts state the obvious: you get what you pay for.
The Golf is not merely half as good as the M3 (which the price would suggest), but the noise, character and extra performance of that V8, the drama of the M3’s silhouette in the windows of shops as you pass by, and the greater scope for naughtiness that rear-wheel drive affords on those days when you just fancy treating yourself, all mean we’d lay down the extra coin.
Source: Inside Line
Best Buy Charging ‘Halo 3 Tax’
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There are few companies I completely dislike, but Best Buy is one of them. They keep giving people reasons to continue hating them, but it doesn’t matter. The suckers are those who don’t know any better. What are they doing now? Charging $3 more per Xbox 360 item, because they can. You can go straight to the Xbox.com website and purchase the same items for less, if you were so inclined. Many people believe this to be due to the fact that Halo 3 is on the way, and people just want to purchase the product and be done with it.
Apparently, Best Buy is cheating money out of its customers. Big surprise there. Seems the electronics retailer is adding a $3 tax to any Xbox-related item due to the massive hype surrounding Halo 3. As you can see above, you can normally bag a 360 headset for $19.99. At Best Buy, it’ll set you back $22.99. Doesn’t make much sense does it?
Source: CrunchGear
Stick It To Your OS: 100 Free Online Applications
You are online all day any way, so why not try to expand your horizons by using online-only applications instead of your desktop solutions? Of course there are pros and cons to each method, the biggest plus being the fact that online applications can be accessed even when you are not at home. Tzunami posts a staggering list of one hundred different online applications to help you get a start in the quest for an application-less operating system.
Over the past few years, webware has matured to the point that almost anything you can do with desktop software, can now be done with a free webware alternative. Webware allows you to access your programs at any time from anywhere in the world, without having to bring your computer along. In this article, we highlight 100 free webware apps which will help you cut the cord from your computer and its traditional desktop software and instead take your computing completely online.
Source: Tzunami
How-To: Movie Poster-Inspired Art
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One way to help movies become blockbusters is by having superb marketing, which includes creative movie posters. How often have you looked at an outstanding movie poster, and wondered how it was designed? Well if you want to put your skills to the test, Photojojo has lined up eleven popular movie posters on their site, with tutorials on how to create the same effect on your own. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
In honor of some of our favorite summer blockbusters (Harry Potter and Transformers), we bring you our 10 11 most-favorite movie-effect tutorials. From Scarface to Sin City to Pirates of the Carribean to 300, we’ve got 11 great ways to go Hollywood on your photos. Read on!
Source: Photojojo
Shock: Vista Is Broken
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Yeah sure, I admit that I am a Vista-basher, so articles like this, I tend to be drawn to. But how can I help it? I have given Vista many chances, chances where I would give Vista a fresh start… ignoring all the previous problems I’ve had. Well, Vista has never, not once impressed me, with anything, therefore I continue to rant about it. Joe Wilcox of Microsoft-Watch shares pretty much the same wavelength I do when it comes to the reasons of why Vista has thus far failed, and why.
Windows XP is a successful product. Service Pack 2 made the operating system rock-solid reliable, and five years in the marketplace made for customer familiarity and a broad infrastructure of supporting applications, peripherals and PCs. For many people, Windows XP achieves what some analysts call the “good enough” threshold. When something is good enough, its successor or replacement has to be a whole lot better to succeed.
Source: Microsoft-Watch
Google Ends Download-To-Own Video Service
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Google offers great services for free, which is one reason why they have become so utterly popular. So how come they are screwing over their -paying- customers? Though I never paid attention to the service personally, Google Video offered ‘download-to-own’ videos, which users could download to their computer (I assume) and then play back later. Each video was DRM-infested however, so you had to connect to their service in order to verify that you owned the video. Well as it turns out, Google is ending the service, and effectively disabling all those purchased videos in the process.
Notice that Google called these videos “purchased” and “download to own” — as though by buying them, they became your property. Funny kind of property, that. Imagine if these were DVDs: one day, a man from Virgin Megastore shows up at your door and says, “We’re taking away all your videos. Sorry! But we’ll give you a credit to spend at a different store. Not a credit for videos, though. Also: it expires in 60 days.”
Source: Boing Boing
This Is How… You Accrue a 50-Page Phone Bill
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Apple likes big. Apple users like big. AT&T likes big. But this is a tad on the ridiculous side. Ben from Ars Technica recently received his first phone bill since purchasing the iPhone and was caught off guard when he noticed it was thirty-four pages long, riddled with needless entries of $0.00 sums. Another member of their staff received a fifty-two page phone bill. What a blatant waste of people’s time and a waste of paper! Ironic: The iPhone is a “simple” device that promises to make our lives “easier”.
The AT&T bill itemizes your data usage whenever you surf the Internet via EDGE, even if you’re signed up for the unlimited data plan. AT&T also goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you—well, almost nothing. For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as “Data Transfer.” The Type of file? “Data.” My total charge? $0.00.
Source: Ars Technica
Universal DRM-Free Songs To Be Watermarked
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We posted on Friday that Universal Music had plans to release DRM-free tracks, which would include a massive portion of their catalogue. I guess this should come as no surprise, but Wired Blogs has brought it to our attention that these songs will be watermarked, embedded with your user information. While this means virtually nothing for legal users, it does mean that those who purchase music to spread on P2P networks could be caught quite easily.
These watermarks are apparently inaudible, and shouldn’t interfere with playback on any devices, so they shouldn’t cause problems if people buy the MP3s purely for their own use. But if they share them online (or if, say, someone else copies the files from the buyer’s computer and shares it from elsewhere, or installs file sharing software on their computer without their knowledge) the watermark could be used to identify the person who originally purchased the file — but only if the identifier number is unique to a specific purchase.
Source: Wired Blogs
DirectX 10.1 Not Compatible With Current-Gen DX10 Cards
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The Inquirer has once again sparked up some controversy, but for good reason. At last weeks Siggraph conference, Microsoft announced DirectX 10.1 and it’s various upgrades, alongside a mention that 10.0 video cards would not be compatible with the new updates. That’s the bad thing. The good thing is that the various are not likely to matter to anyone, including the game developers themselves. Still, what’s up with this Microsoft? We don’t even have good DX 10 games yet, and we need a newer version already? Hell, focus on fixing Vista first.
We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a miniscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation. With developers struggling to justify including DX10 features in their games (see the recent comments by John Carmack and Mark Rein), they’re going to be about as likely to further limit their product’s market as they are to start developing NES games again.
Source: The Inquirer
Hotel In Space By 2012?
Buying a Ferrari might give you bragging rights, but let’s face it… there are tens of thousands of people who own Ferrari’s, so it’s not exactly an exclusive club. What -is- an exclusive club? Staying at a hotel of course… in space. If this intrigues you, then you might be in luck just five years from now. This hotel would orbit the Earth a total of once every eighty minutes, or eighteen times per day. One thing is for sure… this would be an incredible experience. It might be wise to begin saving up your $4 million now.
Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay. During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman. Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel’s joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.
Source: PC World
Encrypting Your Google Sessions
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It’s near impossible to find someone who doesn’t use a Google service, whether it be Gmail, their search engine, Google Reader or whatever else. The problem with using all of these services is that all tranmissions, minus the login process, are unencrypted and ready to be viewed by prying eyes. In a home situation this doesn’t matter too much unless you have a rebel family member, but in a workplace, -anyone- could easily be running a program like tcpdump to view your e-mails and the like. Daniel Miessler has a good idea for those looking to secure themselves… simply change the http:// to https:// to engage a secure connection.
The more we depend on Google (or any other monolithic service) the more we need to safeguard the information they have of ours. One way we can help is by demanding (via secure bookmarks) that they send our mail, news feeds, calendars, and other information over a secure connection.
Source: Daniel Miessler Blog
Lenovo Sticking To Windows XP At Beijing Olympics
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Although not much of a surprise, Lenovo has announced that none of their ‘important’ PCs sent to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games will be running Windows Vista, but instead they will be sticking to the tried and true Windows XP. Computers that will be used by the athletes in their downtime will be running Vista, however. Leon Xie of Lenovo stated the reason for choosing XP was because, “At the Olympics, we need the most reliable and stable system”. Stability is not an area where Vista has excelled, sadly.
Lenovo, the official computing sponsor of the games, has already delivered 12,000 desktop PCs and 2,000 printers to the organizers in Beijing, in addition to 800 laptops and 700 servers. Another 5,000 PCs were sent over for the athlete’s lounges and other hospitality and marketing purposes. The desktop systems include mainly Lenovo ThinkCentre M55s, while the laptops include both Thinkpad T60s and Zhaoyang 680s. The server systems include SureServer models T350, R630 and R520.
Source: Yahoo News
25% Of Firefox Downloaders Continue To Use It
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Straight from the Mozilla wiki comes an impressive fact: 75% of users to download Firefox do not continue to use it for very long. Many issues with these numbers can come into play, but it’s still a high figure regardless. 25% is still a great number, however, although Mozilla has implemented a twelve-point plan to help trigger an increase. I personally don’t care much for IE7 because I find it a little clunky, but the fact of the matter is, it’s the default browser with Vista and it’s leaps and bounds above IE6, which is likely one of the reasons why many decide against sticking with Firefox.
Frankly, the 12-point plan doesn’t seem to offer much of real value. Nor does spending big bundles of cash on TV advertising. If you have any other ideas, they need them over at the Mozilla wiki. Every Windows user has benefitted from Firefox — even the ones who didn’t download it — because it forced Microsoft to get off its rear end, improve the product and compete for users.
Source: Guardian Blog
EA Has Monopoly On Monopoly
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Many people dislike EA because of their monopoly on the NFL franchise, which is now even more appropriate because they have a monopoly on Monopoly and other Hasbro games. Both companies will share properties. EA will create video games based off of Hasbro’s board-games, while Hasbro could potentially create toys modelled after EA’s games.
The partnership is part of the newly formed EA Casual Entertainment strategy. A whole division of EA fully focused on bringing high-end casual games to the mass market. This partnership may be a good thing for EA. Actually, they’re the perfect company to handle putting games that haven’t changed in a half-century on consoles, they’ve practically been doing the same thing with the Madden franchise for years.
Source: Joystiq
Linux Anti-Virus Tools Put To The Test
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I have used Linux off and on since 1999, but have only been using it full-time for just over a year. In all that time though, it never once occurred to me that I should install an anti-virus to remain safe. I mean, isn’t that one of the reasons people enjoy Linux (and OS X)? It’s to get away from the hassles that Windows is plagued with. Well, whether you know it or not, Anti-Virus tools for Linux are plentiful, and some are far, far better than others.
In this comparison at LinuxWorld, 10 Anti-Virus’ were put to the test, against 25 reasonably well-known viruses. Only three of the applications caught all 25 viruses, which is rather impressive in itself. But the others performed far worse. WatchGuard Linux AV caught only 6% of the viruses, for example, although the company disputes the results. Kaspersky and Symantec proved to be the top ranking in the test.
The “winners” in last night’s contest were Linux tools from Kaspersky and Symantec, and the open source Clam AV. All three tools caught 100 percent of the viruses they encountered. FProt and Sophos caught 94 percent; McAfee caught 89 percent; and GlobalHauri, Fortinet, and SonicWall caught 61 percent.
Source: Dark Reading
Universal To Go Semi-DRM-Free, But Not On iTunes
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Early last month, we posted that Universal Music decided against renewing their iTunes agreement, which sent shock waves through the interwebs. Well here’s a new spin on things, and again, iTunes will not be one to benefit. Universal intends to begin selling much of their catalog through online music shops, excluding iTunes, completely DRM-free. For most consumers, this should be a win/win since you can purchase the songs and then use them wherever you please… exactly how it should be in the first place.
… the music will not be offered D.R.M.-free through Apple’s iTunes, the leading music service. The use of copy protection software has become a major bone of contention in the digital music business, where iTunes accounts for the vast majority of download sales. The record labels generally have required that retailers place electronic locks to limit copying of music files.
Source: New York Times
Google Offering GMail Pay-Plans
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Despite the fact that Gmail is still in ‘Beta’, they have finally launched a few pay-plans for those interested, which has been rumored for some time. Free Gmail users have access to about 3GB of storage space, while $1 per year can avail you twice that. For insane e-mail addicts, Google offers 25GB accounts for $75 a year, 100GB for $250 and 250GB for $500 a year. Though expensive, it is still far less expensive, in most cases, than getting your own dedicated host with similar bandwidth allowances.
If you’ve done the math, you probably realize that you can just sign up for 100 separate Google accounts and get 600GB for $100 a year, so the pricing seems a bit out of whack. But we’ll just chalk that up to promotional pricing and the fact that there are plenty of other services out there providing 2-6GB of online storage space for free.
Source: Download Squad
Back Up Your OS X
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Have a Mac? Back up often? If the answer is yes and then no, then Apple has got you covered. Found via Digg, this elaborate, yet simple page gets into the nitty gritty of how to properly back up your system through .Mac Backup and other methods, including manual. I am unsure if Apple OS X includes the great Linux program rsync by default, but if you are willing to code a few lines, it can prove to be an awesome command-line backup application as well.
Regardless of which method(s) you choose, you should store at least one copy of your backup outside the computer to guard against common risks such as theft or power issues, including lightning. You may also wish to store a copy of important data at a second site to guard against property destruction, such as fire and natural disasters.
Source: Apple.com
Your Monitor is Looking at You
LCDs now have the ability to look back at you, they’re watching, they’re watching!
A computer screen that knows just where its viewer is and automatically adjusts itself to provide better images has been developed by researchers in Taiwan.
Their technique prevents users from seeing a blurred or distorted image when viewing a liquid crystal display (LCD) from an angle instead of straight on.
The Taiwanese researchers have developed a prototype display connected to a miniature camera that tracks the location of a viewer. Software then calculates how to adjust the liquid crystals within the display to produce the clearest possible image.
Source: NewScientistTech
This Day in History: Welcome to the World Wide Web
1991: The world wide web becomes publicly available on the internet for the first time.
How far have we really come?
The web has changed a lot since Tim Berners-Lee posted, on this day, the first web pages summarizing his World Wide Web project, a method of storing knowledge using hypertext documents. In the months leading up to his post, Berners-Lee had developed everything necessary to make the web a reality, including the first browser and server.
Source: WIRED
Intel Fair Online Gaming Survey Results
There is very, very little hard data on how players see cheating… so, it was a pleasure to see a study on the subject by Intel.
Here is a summary of the results:
Intel Fair Online Gaming Study – US
The study included 380 computer gamers who play games online at least once a month.
– 59% of players are aware of cheating online
– 71% of these players are extremely or somewhat concerned with cheating
– Fewer than 20% are aware of anti-cheating solutions
– 46% would purchase a game with strong anti-cheating (extremely likely or very likely) plus another 41% were somewhat likely to purchase such a game
It would be interesting to see how these people were selected (what kind of games they played, etc.).
For additional information from Intel, contact: Megan Langer
Early CG TV show gets “ReBoot”
ReBoot is and was one of my favourite shows, one of the character names I use in MMOs is, in fact, AndrAIa (the adult version obviously). Now it’s being ‘re-envisioned’ and while I have seem some of the artwork for the upcoming changes, I’ll never stop watching my ReBoot DVDs. Here’s the scoop on the rebooted ReBoot.
“ReBoot,” one of the earliest computer-animated episodic TV series, will be redeveloped as a trilogy of feature-length films by Rainmaker Animation.
Originally produced in 1994, the series centered on life within a computer, where good forces fought invading viruses and videogames were viewed from within.
“ReBoot” was created by MainFrame Entertainment, which was acquired by and renamed Rainmaker in 2006. The show aired for several seasons on ABC, YTV and Cartoon Network.
“The idea is to relaunch the brand in a new way,” said Rainmaker Animation executive vice president Paul Gertz, who will oversee the project.
Source: Yahoo News
More info: Mainframe
Author’s Note: If you love ReBoot, grab The Art of ReBoot
World of Warcraft Expansion Announced
It’s easy to make a pretty game, it’s not easy to make a fun game, that being said, Blizzard is still trying.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for the second expansion to World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Unveiled at the company’s BlizzConâ„¢ gaming festival before an audience of more than 8,000 gamers, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich Kingâ„¢ will open the forbidding wasteland of Northrend to exploration by the hardiest adventurers. New levels of power, challenging new dungeons and encounters, an exciting new character profession, and the game’s first hero class are just some of the new features awaiting players in Wrath of the Lich King.
Building on the foundation established in World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King will add a rich variety of content to an already massive game. New features coming with the game’s second expansion include:
- Death Knight Hero Class: Create a high-level Death Knight character — the game’s first hero class — once certain challenges have been met.
- Increased Level Cap: Advance to level 80 and gain potent new talents and abilities along the way.
- Northrend: Explore the harsh new continent of Northrend, packed with new zones, quests, dungeons, monsters, and items — and do battle with the undead armies of the Lich King.
- "Inscription" Profession: Learn this exciting new profession and gain unique ways to permanently enhance spells and abilities in the game.
- Siege Weapons and Destructible Buildings: Take the battle to another level with new player-vs.-player game mechanics and new battlefields to wage war on.
- New Character Customization: Change how characters look and express themselves, with different hairstyles and dance animations.
Source: Wrath of the Lich King
SOE unveils online EverQuest CCG
I’m sure this will make some people drool (and some others roll their eyes and groan)…
Sony Online president John Smedley announced the newest addition to the SOE family, Legends of Norrath: Oathbound. Oathbound is a collectible card game that is built into EverQuest and EverQuest 2, and is steeped in lore common to both games. The CCG spans both EQ and EQ2, where players from one game can play against those from the other. Players can also access the game from an outside client, or play against computer-controlled opponents.
Oathbound, the first of three planned sets, contains 375 cards, all featuring original art. Fan service abounds within the CCG, and Smedley listed a few examples as fan favorites Fippy Darkpaw, Mayong Mistmoore, journeyman boots, and snow bunny hats.
All current EQ and EQ2 players will initially receive a starter deck, and additional booster packs can be purchased with real-world cash. However, those wishing not to spend any extra money will be happy to know that booster packs can also be acquired as loot off of boss mobs in both games, and the game will be free of charge to play. Of further note, the game will feature loot cards that can be redeemed for in-game items for players’ characters. SOE plans to offer substantial support for the product, including in-game tournaments, card trading, a unique user interface, and deck-building functionality.