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