Full Article http://www.banthisurl.com/2008/12/exclusive-white-hat-hacker-tears-apart-flaws-in-aussie-net-filtering-scheme/

Its a good idea to spread this information around particularly to those less technical who don't really understand what the Great Australian Firewall will do to the internet.

As most of you probably noticed in the recent Australian budget, the government has allocated a lot of money to continue with the unworkable clean internet feed.    The only thing the clean internet feed will provide is slower internet access for everyone.  The system will not work and in the end will be a waste of money for Australian taxpayers.


Follow the link below to see what you can do to let the government know this is stupid.

http://nocleanfeed.com/takeaction.html

http://nocleanfeed.com/

Not sure if anyone out there has been wondering about this or following the battle over what the new format of media will be, but it's looking pretty clear that Blu Ray has won the war.  A friend of mine was talking today about formats and I told him I still stood by HD DVD (mainly because I'm not big on Sony) and he simply replied with "Didn't you hear?  HD is dead."  He mentioned reading an article through Yahoo and while I'm not sure if this is the same one, it does offer a timeline of the format war, going back all the way to 2000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080219/tc_pcworld/142604

I'm just wondering if they'll make a Blu Ray player for the 360...

***

No, it's not a futuristic version of the television show.  ABC has announced that Lost will end in 2010.  Instead of two more complete seasons, they'll run three shortened seasons, each containing 16 episodes.  These episodes will follow the format Season 3 has done, with the exception of the six episodes airing in the fall.

For more info: http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-05-06-lost_N.htm

In a completely unrelated story, it was brought to my attention today that Josh "Sawyer" Halloway does one of the voices in Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium War.

(Full article: http://kotaku.com/gaming/blu+ray-shocker/sony-to-include-portable-movie-files-on-bluray-dvds-227862.php )

It appears Sony, a company known for its strict and relentless efforts in piracy prevention, is going to start including software on Blu-Ray discs to enable consumers to extract the movies off their purchased Blu-Ray discs.  Basically, you buy the movie, and you can do whatever you want with it.  They're handing it over to you freely.

I read some of the comments on the page, these people sound hopeful, saying things like "Sony's finally doing something right!" but it appears to me that they're blindly seeing this as a good sign.  What I think of the whole situation is...Sony is realizing they messed up by putting the PS3 at $600, they're seeing that no one is buying them, they're getting publicized flak from Microsoft now ( http://www.gamersquad.com/category/All-News/Microsoft-stomps-all-over-Sonys-PS3-live-service/)  and they're trying to make up for it.  When your ship's going down, you have to start throwing the cargo overboard, right?

Yesterday while doing my routine internet surfing (email, this page, penny-arcade) I noticed an article about this website http://www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com/   

The article (found at http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/12/13) spoke of the steps companies are going to in hopes of luring people into buying their products.  They make a comic along these lines to illustrate where we may soon be heading:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2006/20061213.jpg

Well, I get home from work today and notice that they haven't posted a new blog yet today, but simply added to the bottom of the aforementioned article.  It appears that only hours after the site's launch visitors realized it was a cheap, translucent fake that was actually made by Sony itself.  The new addition to the PA blog simply says "There is some kind of apology on the blog now, which... Whatever. I don't know if they want a gold star or what."  The word 'apology' is hotlinked to this site: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4397&Itemid=2 where you can read more information on Sony's latest stroke on ingenuity and savvy.

I guess those of us that had no interest in getting a PS3 under the tree this year won't be too upset to find that Sony's the only one making websites saying they want their own portable system.  My only question is, where will it go next?
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As an added note, I mentioned this elsewhere, but Nintendo has done something smart with their holiday advertising.  By visiting http://www.mission-in-snowdriftland.com/ you can play twenty-four different levels (one more level opened each day, like a holiday advent calendar) that look as if they were made with the Super Mario World code.  Instead you play as a snowman that is upset he isn't in enough video games.  They decide to let him try out some levels and see how he does.  At the end of each level you're rewarded with desktop backgrounds, icons or even sound files you can turn into ringtones for your cell phone.  Will people play it just to get the simple treats at the ends of each level?  I don't know, but the levels have a certain amount of challenge and they get progressively harder.  Something simple to help kill your days in the office at least.

For months now rumours have been circulating that Age of Conan would be released on PC as well as xbox 360.  Today funcom have announced that Age of Conan would indeed be slashing its way onto Xbox 360 consoles.  While they have not announced a release date  they have made clear it will be after the PC version is released.  The PC version is due around May 2007.

This seems to indicate the two versions would not be cross compatible as originally rumoured.  With Age of Conan featuring true action combat this may be the ideal MMO to bring to the console world. More information including console specific features will be announced at a later date.

There hasn't been much talk about the PS3 on here, but I figured I'd start a thread in case anyone wanted to hear the latest scoop on what's happening.  Not sure what the situations were elsewhere in the world, but the USA saw a lot of violence, temper tantrums and crying, heartbroken kids.  Sadly it got to the point where people were held up at gunpoint for their systems and shot a point blank range when they refused to give it up.  One of these losses was a 15 year old kid who most people theorize wouldn't have sold the system on eBay like so many others, but would have kept it for himself to play.  I can only hope other countries didn't experience this.

Many stores over here were told they would have 20 systems total (varrying between the 20gb and 60gb systems) but most only recieved 6-12.  This didn't stop people from lining up outside many stores, most locations having rain and cold weather, only to have 90% of the people meet the same result: "We're sold out."  The lucky few that were able to purchase the system have either rubbed their "victory" in the faces of others or posted their prize on eBay, many of them already showing bids well over $1,000.

All this aside, the technical results for the launch are just as grim.  Many of the promised launch titles were pushed back into Spring 2007.  The titles that did launch with the system do not use the PS3's engine to even 40% of it's capacity and for those hoping to play their PS2 and PS1 titles on it, sorry...they're reporting more and more games that aren't compatible and the numbers keep rising.  No reports on systems overheating yet, but then again most of us haven't seen the system in action (including most of the people able to purchase them that are selling them online).

To sum up, many of the people that wanted a PS3 still don't have it, some will soon have one but at a 200% or higher mark-up.  A lot of people have commented on the sad state in which this launch was handled, the lack of care Sony has for its customers and the weighted-scale, underhanded methods of supply/demand manipulation involved manner in which they run their business.  Many game store workers were yelled at and abused (verbally and physically) because Sony did not meet their promise.  For those who weren't caught up in the "Must buy now" hype the expectation is the same: Sony will fail, and fail miserably, within the next year.  They just want to sit by (with their Wii or 360) and watch it all crumble down.

IGN.com have a hands on preview of the new World of Warcraft expansion; Burning Crusade.


You can read more here.