Say it Aint So! - GameTrailers/Screw Attack Gaming Digg

You would think after all the broobaha of Destructoid others would learn their lesson, but apparently not. In fact Screw Attack is taking it one step further, signing up fake accounts to Digg stories 'en mass (instead of just getting its own writers to do the digging).

Here the offending story: http://digg.com/gaming_news/Top_10_WORST_Mario_Games_Funny

Now the first bunch of people who Dugg it (some are legitimate Digg users no doubt, but most aren't).

Dugg nothing but the above story:
http://digg.com/users/kalgar/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/jayjayouch/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Jerrely/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Ignit0r/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/doomedperson/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/friedfish321/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Kuminorsu/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Porslinsankan/news/dugg


Is it just me or are their usernames just quickly hashed together crap?

May Have Dugg other stories (a few none GT/SA ones but not many)
http://digg.com/users/ScrewAttack
http://digg.com/users/Jocelyn/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/LarsErik/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/moussecp/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/MegaRhys/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/alexofohio/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Taktiikka/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Shivy/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Fiends/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Atezki/news/dugg

Also worth noting is that the last two listed (http://digg.com/users/Fiends/news/dugg
http://digg.com/users/Atezki/news/dugg) have also Dugg Game Jew articles. This may have been used as a cover so the accounts could appear real since they hadn't just Dugg gametrailers.com. This isn't necessarily true but there is no other way of explaining how these two accounts could have Dugg the exact same two websites.

There are MANY MANY more shady accounts on that one submission, odds are something is amiss. Either GT/SA is gaming Digg or it's some sort of setup...

iPod Gets Sick, Inside Job?

The latest Apple to go slightly rotten? The iPod Video, with a 'low risk' virus called 'W32/RJump.worm' and Apple blames, you guessed it, Microsoft for it evolving iPod invading capabilities.

Microsoft claims the virus itself does not take advantage of any Windows vulnerabilities, ergo third party software is compromised but not the operating system itself. The virus itself simply 'Posts ip address and backdoor port information from an infected machine back to the virus author via the following URL' hence while it isn't inherintly dangerous it can lead to hell later down the track.

There have only been 24 reports of this virus actually working as it is very easily disabled by virtually any antivirus program. The virus itself may have actually shipped with the first batch of video iPods as Apple states

'As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves, for not catching it'

The virus propogates itself through a mass storage device such as externel hard drives of which the iPod is one. Once the brand new video iPod is plugged into the Windows PC the virus enters and does what it's supposed to. In fact it was designed to work as such, either the virus writer pulled one over Apples eyes (next to impossible) or Apple knew it was selling infected video iPods.

One has to wonder how a virus that is non-lethal to the video iPod but dangerous to Windows managed to find its way onto the first batch of video iPods manufactured by Apple, we are either to believe the virus writer pulled the wool over Apples eyes or it was an inside job.


VIA Internet News

Microsoft Proprietary PCs Coming Soon

Microsoft rose above Apple in the past because of it focused on software and left hardware to vendors, however if stock market prices are anything to go by times are changing. Apples proprietary computers are gaining more and more market share, hardware vendors aren't updating their drivers as they used to and people just want something that works. The hint has been taken, Microsoft has released its own branded PC in India, only a matter of time now.

Many claim OS X is more stable than Vista and when this is proven to be true it tends to fall on a third party that hasn't updated its software to work with Vista. It isn't that Microsoft is a bad software developer, compare it to Apple which has on more than one occasion dumped its backwards compatibility for a fresh start wherein Microsoft was blasted for maintaining 'only' 99% backwards compatibility when it jumped from the Win32 to NT platform. The problem is that Microsoft caters to a far larger audience than Apple and is open to far more criticism as such, you can't make everyone happy.

So why not selectively pick out your audience and target them with a customized package. Microsoft has already done well with the Xbox 360 proving that it can do hardware very well, so now its only a matter of time to move on to computers. Microsoft branded PCs will probably run more robust and stable as they will use proprietary technology that has been tested to run on Vista. There won't be room for any hardware that doesn't have drivers for the operating system or any such thing.

India is probably just a test bed for now, to see how well the Microsoft PC (MSPC) does. If it is brought over to the rest of the world (and may very well do so) it wouldn't be too far fetched to imagine Apple opening up OSX for all PCs. If Microsoft expands its market over to Apple territory in such a blatant way it will definitely nab some of Apples growth, perhaps all of it, Microsoft has a far better thing going on with consumers than Apple in the world of computers.

Mininova Launches Video Streaming Site 'Snotr'

Perhaps in a bid to one up Pirate Bay Mininova has launched its own video streaming site called Snotr. Just like other online video streaming sites it lets users upload videos, unlike other popular online video streaming sites there are no take downs, however it is censored in the sense pornography isn't allowed.

Snotr is not the YouTube killer as its creator Niek of Mininova admits, “if you’re looking for a place to dump your videos, stick to those sites" then humbly adds, "but in case you have some spare time to spend, try Snotr" [source]

Despite not being made to compete with the likes of YouTube Snotr has some very fine features of its own that others can learn from, including video resizing and higher quality playback.

Open Addict Blocks Internet Explorer Based on a Lie

I love the idea of free software, it would be too good to be true in any other industry but with software we get access to some of the best things for free. However it seems that the Open Source community is starting to turn into what it is trying to destroy. It has reached the point that Open Addict has without real reason blocked IE7 from accessing the site.

Open Addicts rmorgan explains why IE7 was blocked:

The reason, which you can read for yourself if you fire up IE and browse the front page, is that the dynamic menu code and other formatting issues looked like pure crap or didn't work at all with Internet Explorer. Everything looks and works fine with Firefox, Opera, Konquerer, etc... but not IE and I'm sick and tired of hacking and tweaking things because IE has rendering bugs and doesn't adhere to web standards like better browsers.

At best this is an over exaggeration, at worst its blatant lying. The website itself doesn't even do a good job of blocking IE7 and when IE7 is used to access Open Addict there is absoloutely no visual differences between it and Firefox:

The dynamic content works the same, albeit with IE7 you have to click on 'Enable ActiveX Control' to get the dynamic menus working, hardly grounds for blocking a browser claiming it to be 'pure crap'. You can either download the main page of Open Addict with Firefox then run it from the hard drive with IE7 or try it for yourself by going to any sub pages on Open Addicts website using IE7 to see for yourself.

This is no more than a publicity stunt by Open Addict to get people to switch over to Firefox by way of a lie. In the end the Open Source community is no better than a greedy heartless corporation if it resorts to such cheap tactics.

The Flaw Of Testing DirectX 10 Cards on DirectX 9.0c Games

Testing DirectX 10 capable cards on DirectX 9.0 games can be very misleading. If you are dropping $400 on a new card odds are you're not interested in two year old games or ones based on two year old technology.

Just why is it that the ATI 2900XT is out performed by its equivalent GeForce 8 series counterpart in most gaming benchmarks but in an Unreal Engine 3 based benchmark it out performs the highend nVidia 8800GTX by a significant margin?

Source

Right now there are only two notable games released for the PC that utilize Unreal Engine 3, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Rainbow Six Vegas (as above). Yet online reviewers prefer to use games such as 'Battlefield 2142', instead of a more modern alternative like GRAW.

This is a very surprising conclusion, the 8800GTX is higher priced than the 2900xt and rightly so, it is meant to be a highend card and outperforms the 2900XT on all benchmarks, but when UE3 is added to the equation it is left in the dust.

This may be because UE3 is very much enhanced to run on the 2900XT, given the 2900XT shares a lot with the Xbox 360 GPU and Epics dedication to optimising UE3 for the 360 GPU it could very well be that some of that optimization has carried over to the 2900XT.

Many high profile next gen games will be using UE3, the only other graphical power house that will be coming soon is Crysis and benchmarks for that are non-existant. As it stands the 2900XT may be sub par for older games, but for newer ones that are utilizing UE3 (at the least) it is in a league of its own. The price difference between the 8800GTX and the 2900XT is not to be scoffed at either, it is an amazing deal.

Rainbow Six Vegas is not even a DirectX 10 based game though it is a newer game than most others that are benchmarked and it clearly is swinging in the 2900XTs favor. The typical nVidia vs. ATI thing shouldn't be declared over until these cards are tested for what they're made for.

Even in the past this has been shown, especially with ATI cards, the 9700XT was outperformed by the 5700 Ultra (or matched) in many older benchmarks (for its time), however in newer games it was far superior to its counterpart. This may or may not hold true for the 2900XT however it is a little premature to call nVidia the winner based on games like Battlefield 2142.



VIA techy.Bytes

Update: Anandtech ran the same benchmark producing less spectacular results:

Source

The 2900XT isn't out performing the 8800GTX but it is pretty much performing on par with it outpacing its direct nVidia rival.

Home of a Star Wars Fan

Looks like the wife/girlfriend stopped him from decorating the bedroom with Star Wars memrobilia though every other part of the house, including the rocks, seem to be dedicated to Star Wars. The Star Wars themed home theatre is particularly well done.

VIA Modern Home Theatre

Benchmarks Prove Vista Aero Does Not Affect Performance

One of the most important aspects of Aero, performance, was not shoved aside. A 47 page report concluded that Aero does not affect system performance significantly more than Windows XP GDI.

Despite claims by Microsoft haters it has not been proven that Aero affects performance. This isn'ta surprise, one of the key goals in creating Aero was to make its affect on performance minimal or non-existant. This has mostly been achieved by making Aero GPU dependent.

The only instances Aero could hinder performance significantly would be if real time hardware accelerated 3D graphics (besides Aero) was running in windowed mode. This can easily be fixed, either by disabling Aero when such an application runs or running the application in fullscreen (Vista automatically disables Aero in which case).

All in all there is no proof that Aero hinders performance besides the claims of Microsoft haters. Interestingly Aero is the least flashy of all 3D UIs on the market, OS X and the various Linux distro plugins really emphasize the falshy UI however Vista is very basic in nature and very simplistic.

VIA techy.Bytes

75 Year Old Woman Has Worlds Fastest Internet Connection

At a speed of 40 Gigabits per second Sigbritt can download a HD-DVD in two seconds, or 1500 live simultaneous HD stream. What did she do to earn such a thing? Well she happens to be the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg.

Peter Löthberg demonstrated a method in which two routers 2000 kilometeres apart can communicate with no intermediary transponders and is trying to use this example to encourage internet service providers to invest in high capacity fibre optics.

Too bad she won't be putting her connection to good use.

Dear Amazon, Please Provide a Downloadable eBook With Every Book Sold

It has been amply proven that going open with eBooks increases sales though publishers don't seem to take the hint. Given most publishers probably don't have the backbone to move on to the 21st century Amazon should try to provide a freely downloadable eBook to customers who buy the hard copy version.

Seems to be a no brainer, if I buy a book why can't I own it in eBook format too? I can have the digital version while the physical book is still coming in. Piracy is a non-issue here, just about every book can be turned into an eBook whether or not a CD/downloadable is provided and all it can do is help publishers.

There are more advantages to having an eBook over a regular book, if I'm looking for a specific keyword I can do it a lot more faster using a simple search on a computer than having to go through page after page of the same keyword looking for the relevent context in which it is written. I can use it while on the computer, especially handy for computer related books, 3D modelling and photoshop can benefit the most out of this.

Amazon and other online book stores should really consider including a free downloadable eBook for people who buy the book hard copy. Perhaps the most difficult part would be negotiating with the stubborn publishers but if even one publisher gives it a go and its sales inevitably soar then the competition will give it a go too. This is no different to DRM free music, studios that offer DRM free songs get more sales, giving power to consumers is not a bad move, it increases customer satisfaction and thus they come back for more.

Back to the Future DeLorean Spotted

Though it looks like Doc was having some problems with Mr. Fusion, after hitting 88 miles per hour it failed to go through time.

iPhone Email On Sale?

Okaaay, while the hype behind the iPhone and its release was expected and fully understandable, as well as the eBay flooding that came afterwards the next step seems to have become the iPhone email sales extravaganza.

These emails (such as 'iPhone.Fever@yahoo.com') even have bids on them, one has sold for over $100. I did contact the Nigerian embassy to confirm these bids were not coming from scammers and truly enough they weren't. I guess even the scammers don't want anything to do with iPhone related emails.

iPhone Cometh to eBay

While some hopefuls are selling it for well over $999 hoping to make a good $399 profit the realists are settling for just a mere $700, it looks like the iPhone isn't causing any world revolutions, just yet.

When another incredibly hyped product, the Playstation 3, launched it was selling for well over twice its own retail value, granted this lasted for a mere two days but it did happen. The iPhone is barely selling $100 over its retail price. Add to that eBays commission fees and it looks like the campers could have made more spitting into Hamburgers for the one night they camped out.

Of course with a two year service contract for an expensive phone with many features you know you don't want and a design mantra typical of Apples 'so easy to use, no one can use it!' it would be hard to make a sale. No doubt if Apple learns something and hopefully releases some sort of software update the iPhone will be reasonable competition against the other smartphones in the industry.

Then again, I'm saving my dough for the open source alternative.

iPhone Comparison

The iPhone is shaping up to be the next big thing in the tech industry, it may soon revolutionize mobile phones as the iPod did mp3 players. Or, maybe not the way the iPod revolutionized mp3 players, maybe something like the Playstation 3 revolutionizing the console market.

Price: $600 for Playstation 3, $499 - $599 for iPhone.

The Playstation 3 is the most expensive gaming console ever because Sony had hoped it would sell bucket loads by being more than just a gaming console.

The iPhone is one of the more expensive mobile phones on the market because Apple is hoping it will sell bucket loads by being more than just a smart phone.


Extra (read: potentially useless) Features that are ramming up the prices: Many for the Playstation 3, Waaaay Too Many for the iPhone.

Sony took a massive risk by incorporating many features into the Playstation 3, many of which may turn out to be useless and just an excess that forces consumers to cough up extra dough for features that they will never use. These features look good on paper but may be underdeveloped, there could be other (cheaper) ways of implementing them or they don't have any practicality in real world situations.

Apple is going to be taking a massive risk by incorporating many features into the iPhone, many of which may turn out to be useless and just an excuse that forces consumers to cough up extra dough for features that they will never use. These features look good on paper but may be underdeveloped, there could be other (cheaper) ways of implementing them or they don't have any practicality in real world situations.


Brand name: Playstation 3 comes from the Playstation line up, the most successful console brand in history. iPhone comes from the iPod line up, the most successful mp3 player in history.

Sony had hoped that its strong brand name would help it sell the Playstation 3, however entering the market the Playstation 3 faultered, other brands on the market had already established themselves as effective competitors. Despite not having the Playstation 3 logo they are doing quite well with some absurd names (*cough* Wii *cough*) proving that names aren't everything and technology brands are not the same as fashion lables.

Apple is hoping that its strong brand name will help it sell the iPhone, however there is the risk that when it enters the market it will faulter as other brands have already established themsleves as effective competitors. Depsite not having the Apple logo they are doing quite well with some absurd names (*cough* Motorolla *cough*) proving that names aren't everything and technology brands are not the same as fashion lables.


Achilles Heal: No hardware scaler in the Playstation 3, no 3G for the iPhone.

The lack of a working hardware scaler early on in the Playstation 3's life rendered it absoloutely useless in terms of delivering HD content to TV owners who's HDTVs didn't support 1080p and 720p, if they didn't deal with the 480i resolution on their 1080i capable HDTV set they would have to go buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player rendering one of the Playstation 3's coolest features useless (Point of note: This was repaired via a free firmware update).

The lack of 3G in the first batch of iPhones may render it useless for surfing the internet and other things such as using Google maps meaning people who don't know where the Sea Food restaraunt is will have to deal with the slow load times in the iPhone and may end up using their PCs, rendering one of the iPhones coolest features useless. (Point of note: This can only be repaired with either a last minute hardware revision before release or a waiting period for the next gen iPhone).

Creators: Playstation 3 by Ken Kutaragi, iPhone by Steve Jobs

Despite a successful history in the industry Ken Kutaragi failed to duplicate his past successes with the Playstation 3.

With a successful history in the industry Steve Jobs hopes to duplicate his past success with the iPhone.