The writings on the wall.

If you’ve installed XP SP3 you’ll now know that you can’t roll back Internet Explorer 7. The only option you have is to downgrade IE 6 BEFORE you install your shiny new Servie Pack 3. The same will apply to IE 8 in future. According to Jane Maliouta, MS deployment manager for IE 8, Microsoft this feature is all part of the design: “When we install IE7 on Windows XP SP2, we back up the existing IE6 files in an uninstall directory,” Maliouta wrote. “Those IE6 files are the ones that shipped on XP SP2, plus all the security updates you’ve installed while using IE6. Windows XP SP3 contains a newer version of the IE6 files. If you have XP SP3 on your system and uninstall IE7, your system would revert to the backed-up (older) version of the IE6 files, rather than the newer XP SP3 version.”

Choices, choices.

All your preferences will be saved will is a small plus but I don’t like being forced to upgrade. I know IE 7 has been in the wild for sometime now but I like to test software and get some feedback from other user before I CHOOSE to upgrade. IE 6 is still on  my XP box because I simply didn’t like version 7. There you have it: if you don’t want to be stuck with IE 7, downgrade before you apply Service Pack 3.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The masters of the PC role playing game are back. Developed by Bioware (of Baldurs Gate fame) and published by EA and Microsoft studios, Mass Effect is an epic, visually spectacular Sci-Fi game set in the late 22nd Century. The player takes on the role of Commander Shepard and soon takes command of the starship Normandy.

Classic Sci-Fi

Mass Effect is a classic Space Opera with themes involving exploration, combat, intrigue and over the top heroic figures. The game play takes place mostly on the Normandy and on a giant space station that acts as a kind of central seat of government. The player gets to visit many other planets and moons along the way.

There’s a plot!

The game’s plot is huge and is as complex and interwoven as Bioware’s previous offerings with a great storyline and memorable characters. The player can assume either a male of female role and professional voice acting is provided for both. In addition, there are several other notable characters all voiced by actors familiar to fans of both TV and gaming.

Game Play

The game features free flowing and real time combat but the action can be paused at any time. As with most computer RPGs, the player will be able to enter into dialog with many characters from and the player’s responses, choices and general approach will have an affect on how the story runs later on.

System requirements

The game runs on a modified Unreal 3 engine so to fully appreciate the stunning visuals, a decent modern gaming PC is needed. Settings can be tweaked to allow gameplay on a fairly wide range of specs so don’t go and upgrade the PC yet!

Popularity: 55% [?]

Even though the Aliens movie is over twenty years old, it still looks brilliant and the idea of playing one of those Pulse Rifle toting marines in a first person shooter is as irresistible as ever.

Team or solo play

As is the trend with some of the latest releases, the game will feature a full co-op multi player mode where players can all take part in the campaign. Players will control a squad of four marines who are part of a unit sent to investigate the loss of the USS Sulaco (from the Aliens movie). Gameplay will revolve around tactical squad based combat with an intelligent AI able to flank and encircle the players.

Your gun’s bigger than mine

The squad will consist of four distinct types of marine each with special weapons and skills. The weapons we all love from the film are there - the Pulse Rifle, the flamer and the awesome Smart Gun and players will be able to switch between these characters as the game progresses.

Personally, I always wanted to be Sergeant Apone but he doesn’t seem to be here. Nevertheless, this is going to be great as we all yell our favourite Aliens quotes at each other over the Team Speak channel in an attempt to out do each other!

We’re looking forward to this one and will post more later.

The game runs on the Unreal Engine, will be publsihed by Sega and is due sometime in 2008.

Popularity: 55% [?]

…to Italy.

You all knew it was coming even though Apple weren’t prepared to stump up a release date. Now it’s been confirmed. From next month Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) will be selling the 3G version of the iPhone - I wonder if this was a genuine slip or if Apple allowed word to get out? To be fair, it really do sales any harm.

I would expect a number of other operators to make similar announcements soon .

Here’s an amusing summary of how the secret slipped out.

Popularity: 2% [?]

And I don’t mean 1,000 squats!

It’s a new form of hardware threat. Basically, it means a chip is built to be evil! It’s not a theory. The potential threat has been proven using Leon 3 - an open source chip design. Anyone with the know how can modify the code leading to an undetectable attack method. The University of Illinois has produced a PoC in which around 1,300 logic gates were modified allowing complete access to, and password harvesting from, any compromised machine.

As the attack method lives in hardware land it’s virtually impossible to detect by traditional Anti Virus scans - like having a fifth column in your chassis! Just imagine the havoc if a major chip vendor were compromised - bye, bye bank account!

Popularity: 1% [?]

What did you expect?

There seem to political hot potatoes doing the rounds: cost of the London Olympics and the UK ID card system. Admittedly, they aren’t always front page tending to bubble to the surface from time to time. Guess what? Yes, ID cards are back in the news (you already know that, right?).

In the past 6 months the cost of the ID card system implementation has risen by 37%. Don’t worry - the government claims that overall costs are begin driven down - I wonder how the two sums are actually adding up? Given that the governments track record of IT systems delivery isn’t great there will no doubt be some surprises along the way. No problem, the taxpayers can pick up the bill!

By outsourcing some of the system components the government has projected savings of around half a billion pounds. A report stated: “In order to enrol fingerprint and photograph biometrics in the most convenient and cost-effective way, we now plan to provide this through the open market,”  In effect, private contractors will collect biometric data for the ID cards. Hmm. Does anyone remember a series of reports from last year that showed private companies intimidating and threatening individuals for parking ‘offences’? I don’t think I need to say anymore.

What does that mean to you? For a start there’s the data protection aspect. How will companies be audited and held responsible for breaches? Given the governments inhouse track record, could you trust them? Then there’s the cost: you’re looking at about £300 for an ID card, if full costs are passed on - what do you think the government will do in a time economic uncertainty?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Even more goodies for the Mac.

On Wednesday, Sun announced the release of the first OOo3 beta. The launch sees OOo using the default Aqua interface rather than the standard X11 - good news. I love Open Office but X11 is soooo slow. That said, the current release on my Ubuntu distro, 2.4, is so much faster than 2.3. Another very nice feature is support of Visual Basic Apps on the Mac (nice for anyone that wants to put MS software on a beautiful Mac. There must be a big market otherwise Sun wouldn’t have built these features in).

Do you use the Mac-compatible version of Microsoft Office 2007 and 2008? No problem, OOo3 will be able to read the document format. This is really great news. I have no end of documents sent using Microsofts docx format and I’m tired of booting a Windows machine just to read them. Support for read/write functions in older versions of MS Office will remain. According to Sun, improvements have been made to Writer -  display multiple pages while editing and enhancing the notes feature, Sun said. The Calc and Chart also benefit from improvements

Good news for fans of Open Office but be warned, the software is not suitable for production use. Available Linux, Windows, OS X and Solaris or here.

Popularity: 1% [?]

More grandstanding from the follicly challenged super villain!

With the “back to basics” approach of C&C 3 and its classic (bordering on outdated) look and feel, it was always going to be interesting to see what could be done to add to this madcap RTS classic.

Sadly they couldn’t get the sexy chicks from Battlesar Galactica back for this one (Boomer and Six) so they got some random other guy from the show to do cut scenes instead. Its kinda fun that in this day of fully rendered cut scene animation, we get good old full motion video with mainstream actors desperately trying to act against blue screen cgi sets. Having said that, some big names have appeared in the C&C series including Michael Bien and James Earl Jones so it shouldn’t be too bad.

What do you get?

Well it’s more of the same really. The baldy one in full on camp “Dr Evil” mode and the usual turn / mission based mayhem. There are a few new and interesting sub-factions here with a sprinkling of new vehicles and some of the battles are huge with tank rushes and infantry zerging to keep the action going. We also see some uber units for each side and the new equipment provides extra variety and balancing.

All in all it’s not bad but we didn’t see anything revolutionary here. Perhaps that’s a good thing in some ways as C&C is popular for “being what it is”.

This will likely be the last expansion for C&C for the time being as we have Red Alert 3 to look forward to with is interesting alternate future time-line.

Verdict

Definitely for C&C fans, less so for the casual player

Popularity: 51% [?]

Or, so they say.

For £23.99 per month you’ll get BT Broadband for your home and a smartphone thrown into the deal. We’re not talking crappy, cheapo phones either. You’ll receive a choice of HTC handsets: S620 or S710. Not bad eh? The handsets will automatically connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot when in range. Your internet access will also allow you to make cheap calls through BT Broadband Talk.

There is a downside: data usage is limited to 10Mb when out of rang of WiFi. Otherwise, it’s unlimited. If you need to use more than 10Mb you will be charged £1.50 per Mb.

Prices start at £23.99 per month for the first three months and £29.99 thereafter on a 50 call minutes and 50 text plan. A minimum contract period of 18 months applies.

Not the cheapest in the world but there’s a nice handset giveaway.

Popularity: 3% [?]

$500 million in the first weekend!

And that’s on the back of 6 million copies being sold with over half of the total figure being snapped within 24 hours of beig released. Pretty impressive, eh?  Compare this to the launch of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest’ - $196 million in the first week. Just goes to show that gaming is alive and kicking. In fact, it’s ahead of the pack by miles.

Take-Two, the company behind GTA, were the subject of a $2 billion buyout offer from EA. Wisely, Take-Two rejected the offer and postponed negotiations until after the release of GTA IV. I think the company will be worth far more now.

Popularity: 21% [?]