FULL REVIEW HERE

Alienware Aurora ALX Gaming System Preview – HotHardware

IGN Video: TGS 09: Alienware Desktop & Laptop Overview Gear – TGS 09: Laptop Walkthrough

Also known as: Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the story of Nathan Drake, a fortune-hunter with a shady reputation and an even shadier past who is lured back into the treacherous world of thieves and mercenary treasure-seekers. The tenth game by premier PlayStation 3 developer Naughty Dog, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves allows players to take control of Drake and embark on a journey that will push him to his physical, emotional and intellectual limits to discover the real truth behind the lost fleet of Marco Polo and the legendary Himalayan valley of Shambhala. 99.3

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: Naughty Dog Software Platform: PlayStation 3     · Genre: Adventure Release Date: 10/13/09

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Also known as: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty 6 [working title]

The sixth entry in the Call of Duty franchise, this next game brings back developer Infinity Ward as the general in command.

Publisher: Activision Developer: Infinity Ward Platform: PlayStation 3     · Genre: First-Person Shooter Release Date: 11/10/09

Gran Turismo 5

Also known as: GT5

Gran Turismo 5 takes the series to a whole new level. A first for the franchise, The game supports online racing and features over 950 cars, over 20 courses, 70 variations, the newest hybrid cars and electric cars, a new physics engine, a new in-cockpit view, HD support, and much more.

Gran Turismo will feature both a single player and split screen two player arcade mode. GT Mode includes world map, my garage, car dealer, tuning shop, championship race, and license test. Online support includes open lobby, text/voice chat, private room, online photo album, online replay album, and export of replays to YouTube.

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: Polyphony Digital Platform: PlayStation 3     · Genre: Racing Release Date: 03/30/10

PSP

Gran Turismo

Also known as: GT Mobile, Gran Turismo PSP

Developed exclusively for PSP by the internal team of designers and engineers at Polyphony Digital, Gran Turismo is built for optimal performance and fun racing excitement on the portable platform. Consistently setting the bar in terms of quality of design and physics technology with every product release, Gran Turismo on the PSP is no exception and offers an authentic and accessible racing product for the series’ millions of fans and newcomers alike.

Gran Turismo features more than 800 vehicle models from the world’s top manufacturers (over 4,500 total paint variations) and more than 30 tracks (60+ total layouts), including famous world circuits, city courses and other environments. Featuring exciting gameplay and game modes to suit all levels of play, Gran Turismo is a great introduction to the best-selling series for newcomers. Additionally, seasoned Gran Turismo fans will recognize the depth of content and unparalleled visuals the series is known for, including graphics running at a stunning 60 frames per second. Players can progress and acquire cars in Challenge Mode throughout more than 100 events in, or they can explore different tracks and circuits in Arcade Mode.

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: Polyphony Digital Platform: PlayStation Portable     · Genre: Racing Release Date: 10/01/09

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Also known as: MGS: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops 2

 

Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft Platform: PC     · Genre: Action Release Date: 11/24/09

PC

AVATAR THE GAME

MOVIE RELEASE IS 17/12/09

www.gamestats.com/objects/802/802862/index.html

COD MOD WARFARE 2 SAME AS PS3

FIFA 10 ALL PLATFORMS

NINTENDO WII

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

This New Super Mario Bros. is a throwback to the style of the original Super Mario Bros. and allows four players to play the game together.

Players can navigate the side-scrolling worlds alone as before or invite up to three others to join them at the same time on the same level at any point in the game for competitive and cooperative multiplayer fun. With the multiplayer mode, the newest installment of the most popular video game franchise is designed to bring yet another type of family entertainment into living rooms and engage groups of friends in fast-paced Super Mario Bros. fun.

Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo Platform: Wii     · Genre: Platformer Release Date: 11/15/09

FIFA 10

PES 2010

XBOX 360

Halo 3: ODST

Also known as: Halo 3: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, Halo 3: Recon [working title]

MILO’S SHOWNOTES

The year the plasma died?

The future of plasma TV has been hotly debated ever since big LCD screens muscled their way into the market, but will 2009 go down in history as the year that plasma finally died?

Figures released by market researchers reveal a pronounced decline in both sales and manufacturing for the once popular format, and several key brands such as Pioneer and Hitachi have fled the space in recent years as consumers defect to thinner, lower energy consumption display formats.

According to year-on-year quarterly sales figures just released by retail market analyst GfK, while LCD continued to increase its market share, unit sales of plasma slid 15.4 per cent and accounted for less than a quarter of all flat-screen TV sales.

The figures also reveal that, since January, the total sales value of plasma TVs in Australia fell by almost 9 per cent while LCD made solid gains of 10 per cent.

Bing Lee general manager, Phil Moujaes, said that manufacturers of LCD televisions had made dramatic strides in recent years.

“They can now can handle action and sport much better. From that perspective there has been a massive improvement.”

He said people were buying LCDs because overall demand remained stronger for smaller screens, “but if you look at large screens, plasmas are still going very strongly”, he said.

He said the choice between LCD and plasma generally came down to price, “and larger screen plasmas are still more affordable than larger screen LCDs”.

Samsung, one of the three largest television manufacturers still making plasma TVs, said that, although demand was flattening, it had retained a big stake in the technology since launching the world’s thinnest plasma display (2.5 centimetres), and integrating wireless technologies and internet television into recent models.

“Plasma accounts for 25-30 per cent of the market, which means there is still a very large market there,” said Evan Manolis, a senior product manager for Samsung’s audio-visual unit in Australia.

“There are still a lot of people that really love the look of plasma, the softness of the screen, the [rich] blacks and the capacity to handle motion. So the big challenge for plasma is the drive towards energy consumption as consumers become more aware of the environment. We have reduced plasma energy consumption by 40 per cent compared with 2007 models,” he said.

Plasma may still rule in the big-screen stakes, but according to global manufacturing data from research group Gartner, this situation may not last with LCD expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent until 2012, compared with 8.1 per cent for plasma.

“Plasma led the market in the 30-inch TV segment until 2003, but the situation changed in late 2004 as LCD panel vendors activated their sixth-generation production lines.”

The researcher said that for 40-inch and above screen sizes, LCDs had “competed more strongly against plasma” since the opening of seventh-generation production lines in 2005 with the gap in capability gradually widening in favour of LCD TVs.

“Compatibility problems and a lack of competitiveness have affected the plasma display panel, which is losing ground in the fast evolving large-size TV market. The economies of scale achieved in infrastructure by LCD TV vendors has affected the plasma display panel industry by slowing growth,’’ Gartner said.

PSP Go plays the memory game
PSP Go plays the memory game

With no UMD drive in sight, it’s all on-board in Sony’s latest hand-held console. By Mike Wilcox.

Sony Computer Entertainment has developed a product to join its hand-held gaming line.

Since it launched locally in 2005, the PlayStation Portable has already been through two revisions involving slight modifications to the shape and some minor new features. The latest model, the fourth in the family, is available from today and sees a number of significant changes introduced.

While primarily still a gaming console, the new PSP Go is aimed at people who regularly download and consume their entertainment digitally, including music, photos, movies and games, on the move.

The PSP Go’s redesigned body is both lighter and smaller than the standard model and has a reduced 9.6cm-wide screen display, although this offers the same high-resolution picture quality. One of the most significant changes to the form factor is the sliding front panel that lifts to reveal the game controls below. While it’s in the closed position, the console looks every bit like an elegant digital media player.

Another big change is the replacement of the proprietary UMD drive with 16 GB of flash-based internal memory, which can be doubled to 32 GB with an optional Memory Stick Micro (M2) flash card.

Where until now retail games have been available mostly on disc, they can now be downloaded conveniently to the PSP Go and stored in the console’s memory. Sony says most of the existing back catalogue of PSP games will be made available in downloadable format, and new titles will now be released both digitally and on UMD.

In addition to wi-fi capabilities for online activities, the PSP Go now supports Bluetooth. This enables the console to connect with compatible wireless headsets and speakers, mobile phones, as well as a PlayStation 3 wireless controller.

Due to the smaller size, some of the console’s ports have been consolidated. The standard USB port has been replaced by a new proprietary multi-use connector, which can be used for recharging and computer connectivity, as well as hooking the console up to a television.

The online PlayStation Store is the main source of gaming content for the PSP, including new and classic games, demos, video trailers and more.

The store can be accessed directly from the console using either a wi-fi connection or, alternatively, through the new Media Go software for PC, which is bundled with the console. As well as accessing the store for games, this free application makes it easy to manage all the digital content on a PSP.

To date, worldwide sales of PSPs have surpassed 56 million. However, Sony revealed a slowdown in the hand-held console’s sales in its first quarterly report of 2009, from 3.7 million to 1.3 million the previous quarter.

At a price point of $449 compared with $299 for the standard model, it would appear the new PSP Go has a tough job ahead to reverse those flagging figures.

Spy software, then police, swoop on child porn file sharers
Spy software, then police, swoop on child porn file sharers

Australia’s spam central
Australia’s spam central

AUBURN is the most spammed suburb in Australia, according to a new security report.

The MessageLabs intelligence report looked at its clients’ spam rates within Australia and identified the top suburbs and cities most affected by spam.

Auburn attracted the highest rate, with 94.1 per cent of its users affected. Other Sydney suburbs to rank highly were Camperdown and Chatswood (equal third at 91.7 per cent), with Auburn’s neighbouring suburb, Silverwater, coming in sixth with 91.4 per cent. The ACT suburb of Barton was second (93.1 per cent) and Mulgrave in Victoria ranked fourth (91.5 per cent).

While Sydney suburbs were overrepresented in the top six, it was Canberra that grabbed the top spot as the most spammed city at 93.4 per cent, followed by Hobart, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Darwin attracted the least amount of spam at 86.6 per cent.

The report was based on data security vendor MessageLabs collated from its customer base looking at industry, city and suburb.

The senior manager of enterprise and partner services from MessageLabs, Andrew Gordon, says the suburbs with the highest amount of spam attacks also have the highest concentration of small businesses and manufacturing facilities.

”Spammers really do target SMBs because they do know they have a little bit less IT security skills than larger organisations,” Gordon says.

Low security measures could open companies to organised spammers that download malicious code to steal passwords.

The senior analyst, global communications for MessageLabs, Paul Wood, says: ”Spammers are able to distribute millions of emails … but only a small per cent will hit valid addresses that may result in spam arriving in someone’s inbox but the mail servers still have to process each connection before the vast majority are rejected.

”This can still be a silent killer for SMBs, as the mail server is only designed to support email connections for a few hundred employees and millions of emails each day can cause huge problems.”

Google Sidewiki Allows Notes And Comments on Web Pages
Google introduces comments on web pages

Google introduces comments on web pages

Google unveiled a new tool on Wednesday which allows notes and comments to be posted alongside web pages for others to read.

Google Sidewiki appears as a narrow pop-up browser panel on the left hand side of a website and displays messages from users about the content of the page.

The messages are visible to other users of Sidewiki who visit the site and they can post their own comments but they cannot edit the comments of others.

A website about museums in New York City, for example, would have a Sidewiki panel featuring relevant notes and comments from other visitors.

Google, in a blog post, said Sidewiki was a way for web users to contribute “insights” and “helpful information” next to any web page.

The internet search and advertising giant said it had developed an algorithm to ensure that the “most useful, high-quality entries” are displayed at the top of a Sidewiki panel.

Sidewiki is a feature of Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers and Google said it would be available soon for Google Chrome, its own web browser.

Google Sidewiki is similar to other services launched in the past and it met with mixed reviews from technology bloggers.

Ars Technica said Sidewiki was “intriguing” but “it’s unclear if the service will really deliver a lot of value” and it could end up being “little more than a glorified comment system”.

PaidContent.org said Sidewiki “may anger some online publishers who have commenting systems of their own that they’d prefer visitors continue to use”.

A blogger for TechCrunch said he does not have high hopes for Sidewiki.

“Marking up the web has limited appeal to the average consumer,” he wrote.

NBN | Work begins on National Broadband Network
Australia embarks on great broadband adventure

From snowy mountains and sun-baked deserts to the steamy tropical north, Australia has begun wiring its vast expanse with a high-tech broadband network in a giant project being closely followed abroad.

Workmen are already digging trenches in island state Tasmania, the first step in a $43 billion scheme which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd calls Australia’s biggest ever infrastructure venture.

The ambitious plan aims to connect 90 per cent of homes, including remote outback settlements and sprawling coastal cities, with fibre-optic cable by 2017, accelerating lagging network speeds and boosting the economy.

The sheer scale of the project has drawn interest from foreign governments including the United States, where President Barack Obama has outlined similar plans.

Engineers will lay cable across 7.7 million square kilometres of often challenging terrain which covers an area equivalent to two European Unions.

“There’s no kidding about it, it’s a massive job,” telecommunications analyst Paul Budde told AFP.

“You have to physically go to 10 million premises and bring a cable there, either (by) digging it or via (power) poles and then obviously it’s not just having the cable, you have to have the installation in the house.”

Specialised French digging machines have been shipped to Tasmania to lay the first of millions of kilometres of fibre-optic cable. By next June, three pilot towns are expected to be enjoying connection speeds of 100 megabits per second.

Just 0.1 percent of Australians are currently linked to fibre-optic cable with most accessing the Internet over the 100-year-old copper telephone network, prompting Rudd to call the country a “broadband backwater”.

Rudd, announcing the project in April, said Australia had some of the developed world’s slowest internet speeds and lowest access rates. Some outback communities rely on dial-up connections and others have no internet at all.

“It is good for business, good for productivity, good for the delivery of e-health, good for e-education and good for Australia,” Rudd said this month.

Industry expert Reg Coutts, who advised the government on the network, said the venture had attracted top-level attention in the United States and other countries.

“There’s really an absolute interest, particularly in America, but also in Europe,” he told AFP.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell are you doing and how are you doing it?’ People of course are sceptical,” he said.

Laying the network was only the first step, he added, with the real challenge transitioning 10 million customers from old TV, telephone and internet networks to the new system.

“That alone, we have never seen on that magnitude anywhere in the world,” Budde said.

Once laid, there was “really no limit” to what the fibre network could do, said Ravi Bhatia, CEO of Primus Telecom and spokesman for industry consortium Terria.

He said technological advances in areas such as satellite mapping would make the roll-out easier than it would have been even three years ago, allowing for “smart” deployment of resources and machines to dig and pull cable.

“By using the latest technology building this network we create another set of skills which we can then export to other countries and build their networks,” said Bhatia.

Government adviser Coutts said every developed country was grappling with the same question: how to replace ageing once-public infrastructure that now belonged to private companies.

Teams of lawyers and economists were racing to untangle complex commercial questions of how to use existing exchanges, underground ducts and power lines to minimise building work, said Budde.

Australia moved to deal with the problem by serving telco giant Telstra, the former state-owned monopoly, with an ultimatum to split its network and retail businesses or face being barred from further wireless spectrum.

Coutts said there was “a lot of infrastructure that could potentially be utilised in the NBN (National Broadband Network)” but estimated it was only about 10 per cent of what was needed.

“Most of what’s going to go on is purely civil works, actually pulling in and splicing optical fibre to replace the copper,” he said.

EU Proposes To Cut MP3 Players, iPod, to 80 Decibels
MP3 makers forced to reduce volume

Tens of millions of people will be forced to listen to portable music at permanently reduced volume under European Commission proposals to be unveiled next week.

The plans, trialled ahead of talks between Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva and gadget manufacturers on Monday, are aimed at reducing health hazards but also nuisance complaints.

Brussels says the dangers arising from high volumes or long periods spent wearing headphones or earplugs mean developers of MP3 players including iPods and mobile phones will have to lower permitted noise-output levels.

According to a report issued by an EU scientific committee in October 2008, as many as 10 per cent of listeners risk permanent hearing loss by listening to loud music every day for five years.

Brussels wants the maximum decibel level to be reduced from 100 to 80 decibels, with all new music players built to the new standards.

A normal conversation is held at around 60 decibels, according to medical charts, with a loud rock concert measured at about 115 decibels.

Kuneva has previously expressed her fears over “irreversible degradation” in the hearing of today’s youth.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling joins Twitter

Google digs deeper into search results
Google digs deeper into search results

© 2009 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

Geeks earn $4600 a day selling penis pills online
Geeks earn $4600 a day selling penis pills online