News written by Dave Horvath (October, 2006)

A recent look at the released architecture of the upcoming Nintendo Wii it appears that chip maker IBM may have only given Nintendo an overclocked Gamecube.

The CPU from IBM that is going into the Nintendo Wii, dubbed Broadway or IBM 750CL appears to be nothing more than hopped up version of the Gekko platform that powered the Gamecube, the IBM 750 or G3. The only immediate differences appear to be that the chip is set to run at 900Mhz. All the usual suspects of chip features return as they were in the Gamecube's Gekko system. Paired floating-point pipelines for SIMD single-precision operation, cache locking so regular data does not get overridden by graphical data, floating-point-to-integer conversion in the load-store pipeline, two-wide dispatch, etc.

What this will mean for gamers can really only be argued by what the gamer wants out of Nintendo. I personally am still excited about the Wii and will probably own one to compliment my gaming collection. Nintendo in their press announcement never stated that they wanted to be the most graphically advanced like the other big two, but just deliver good honest gameplay. I think I can live with that.

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It seems more and more videos downloaded from the internet are coming with their very own surprise. The days when kids would excitedly dive their hands in a cereal box looking for a toy could be relived in online media. Adware and Spyware companies have devised ways to require online video to require a codec to play that just so happens to contain their malicious software inside. If you act now, they'll even throw in your very own keylogger!

Anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software was able to track down one of these software bundles hidden in a codec and reveal that upon execution, it would prompt the user stating there are security problems with their PC and demand payment for repair under the guise of a legitimate application.

David Emm, senior technology consultant at anti-virus firm Kaspersky Labs feels that its only a matter of time before these hackers find a way into the, for the most part unregulated, stage of sites like YouTube. With an seemingly unlimited source of potential files, its their playground.

Source:
BBC News

The Internet community phenomenon known as MySpace has released a statement saying they are integrating a new software that will scan old and new MySpace pages for integrated files that may be copyright protected.

The company's CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe stated "MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists' rights, whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts. This is another important step we're taking to ensure artists control the content they create."

Recently, many online websites have come under scrutiny from the major record labels to cease and desist usage of copyrighted materials. MySpace looks to be protecting their assets from obvious potential lawsuits from organizations such as the RIAA.

Source:
BBC News

A non-profit organization has spawned from the darkness to rise up and give a voice to an often overlooked demographic. The gaming industry has been the brunt of many uninformed attacks by aging politicians who cant appreciate the artistic benefits of current video games. With most recent attacks on games like Rockstar's Bully and the infamous "Hot Coffee" incident in Grand Theft Auto, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) has come forth to help the industry shine in the face of policital smite.

The ECA states "Gamers represent nearly fifty percent of the US population and spend $10 billion annually on gaming, yet as a group are continually overlooked by both politicians and the mainstream press." With this their mission is to represent gamers in a realm that is often scrutinized unjustly.

Membership to the ECA is $20 annually and promises not just political lobbying. In addition, members will receive niceties such as discounts on game subscriptions, rentals, educational purchases and insider access to industry news and events.

Source
ECA

Apple released today an aluminum red iPod Nano in cooperation with Irish megalomaniac Bono in which every sale will see $10 go towards helping find a cure for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The unit will sell for $199 and offer the same specifications as your typical Nano. With the 1.5" screen, 24 hour playtime on a full battery, 1,000 songs and 25,000 picture capabilities, iPod fanatics can enjoy all their Nano goodness while feeling like they're contributing to a good cause.

The announcement of the iPod Nano Red is a cross-brand campaign with the aforementioned Bono dubbed (PRODUCT) RED. In cooperation with this campaign, several other companies like Motorola are offering a red RAZR and The Gap is ponying up their own red lether jacket to help the cause.

Source
CNet

Redmond is ablaze with new ideas of how to, once again try and break into the US television market and share some of the wealth that cable and satellite companies garner. After such failed attempts as WebTV, Microsoft has tried repeatedly to launch a successful and profitable television service over the Internet.

Microsoft's own standard, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has been a budding technology since it's inception. With US markets not really adopting it early on, it's strugged from day one. Now poised with multi-million dollar contracts with worldwide companies such as AT&T, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom AG, and Verizon, Microsoft hopes to finally bring it's IPTV streaming television solution to fruition.

They hope to bring faster and more interactive television services than currently provided by cable and satellite providers. Several stumbling blocks are touted merely as "growing pains" include details like picture in picture and high definition solutions via the stream. These high dollar contracts are with major telecommunications firms so that their service receives the utmost attention from the network backbones. In preparation, companies like AT&T and Verizon are spending millions of dollars laying fiber optics straight to customer's doorsteps.

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UK film minister, Shaun Woodward was recently quoted in saying that he believes the best way to fight Internet film piracy is to make movies available in an on-demand format as soon as the movies are released.

In an interesting interview with Mr. Woodward, he brought up some points that most pirated software is used in such a way that the "consumer" wants to watch the media at home. He believes that if the film industry sets up a standard where new releases could be available for a premium download as soon as they are released in the cinema, this may help alleviate some of the £300m profit that goes towards DVD pirates.

It is not a new fact that movies are most often ready for illegal download on the Internet days, and in most cases hours after their cinema release. Having these movies available in the same time frame under a legal model just may be the way to reach a comfortable medium between the movie industry and Internet pirates.

Mr. Woodward told film executives in a conference Thursday, "You're going to have to look at release dates in a slightly different way than you have done before. You're going to have to look at slightly more ingenious ways of making electronic copies available so that people may actually pay a different price for something that they can download at home, which is just being released in the cinema. If they want to watch it at home, then maybe you should make it available to them. But they should pay a premium rate for having it earlier on and it should be encrypted in such a way that it can't be copied."

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A recent article snatched from Microsoft employee David Caulton has given some insight to the new Wi-Fi enabled Zune player. Poised to be the one true competition for the iPod juggernaught, the Zune appears not to be living up to the feature hype.

In a list of things that the wireless connection built into the Zune can and cannot do, David Caulton opens our eyes to how Microsoft views it's consumer's needs.

What the Microsoft Zune's Wi-Fi CAN do:

• Connect to other nearby Zunes
  
• Transfer songs to other Zune users on a 3x3 policy. Plainly stated, the media will last for 3 days or 3 listens before it expires. As an added benefit to you, the media will remain catalogued if you choose to buy it later.
  
• Send and receive image files for unlimited viewing. It seems that license holders for copyrighted images aren't as important as license holders for copyrighted music.
  

What the Microsoft Zune's Wi-Fi CANNOT do:

• Connect to the Internet. Let that one sink in a little bit.
  
• Download songs directly to the Zune via the Zune Store
  
• Sync to your PC via Wi-Fi
  

So it seems that Microsoft has officially crippled any worthwhile feature within the Zune's wireless connections. It can be assumed that this was to keep it's DRM loving counterparts happy that a broken wireless antenna is a lot safer than giving consumers features they can actually use.

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Long time photography pioneer Canon met with electronics giant Toshiba in Chiba, Japan to announce that they will partner in producing a new type of flat panel television.

Dubbed as surface-conduction electron-emitter display or SED, these new flat panels are said to be thinner and use less power than current LCD and plasma solutions. Production is expected to start at the end of 2007 and ramp up to full production into 2008. The new head of this joint venture, Kazunori Fukuma set up a 55" prototype for display at a recent Japanese trade show which was met by rather curious responses.

Some analysts believe that although Canon and Toshiba are looking to break into the saturated high-definition market, might be a bit behind the times with the recent price slashing of current displays. Skeptics are hard pressed to believe that the quality of the new SED will be enough to sway consumers from the increasingly lower priced LCD and plasma displays in favor if inevitable ballooned prices of new technology in the SED displays. Canon has said that they have moved production of their new televisions to the end of 2007 from March of this year in an attempt to keep costs competitive.

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