Blanco Sackville

Dr Xand van Tulleken gives his tips on how to avoid giving up on your diet and how maintaining a flexible approach is key. He also provides recipes for work lunches and odd treats that are still healthy.

Prospective US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was told to watch his mouth by Chinese government mouthpieces after he told senators he would deny Beijing access to islands in the South China Sea.

The Met Office issued severe weather warnings for snow in the capital for yesterday and today. Heathrow Airport even cancelled 80 flights in anticipation of the storm which was forecast.

What will the web browser of the future look like? Microsoft has tried to make a raft of changes with its Edge browser that comes with Windows 10, but Opera has taken innovation to a different level with its new browser: Neon.

Neon is classed as a concept browser, built with the same Blink engine as the standard Opera browser, but with a totally different look and a host of experimental features.

Instead of your usual browser UI with the address bar and tabs right at the top of the screen in a traditional window, Neon plays things far faster and looser with a homepage that has website favourites encased in bubbles that simply float above your desktop wallpaper, with the URL bar hovering above them.

Open tabs also appear as bubbles vertically down the right-hand side of the screen, inlaid with images to give you a visual clue as to what site is open in the tab. These bubbles can be dragged around with your mouse, and have a real weight to them with Neon having a physics engine. And a ‘gravity’ system which means that your most-used tabs are automatically put in a more prominent position in Opera’s speed dial.

• Web browsing is made better by the use of the best keyboard

Pics and video

Then there are features like snap-to-gallery, which lets you draw a crop box around any image (or part of an image) on a web page, copying it directly so you can easily paste it into, say, a Facebook chat (and the image automatically has its web address linked to it, so you can easily go back and find the site where it came from at a later date).

The browser also lets you pop videos out from a site into their own window, which you can easily adjust the size of or shift around, and there’s a ‘player panel’ that displays all the tabs playing music or video so you can swiftly access media-related content.

Neon also benefits from a split-screen mode, which lets you interact with two websites simultaneously side-by-side.

You can download the browser and try it out on Windows now – grab it here – but bear in mind this is a piece of concept software, and not intended to be used as your full-time browser. However, some of the features debuted in Neon will be coming to the main Opera browser, starting as soon as this spring.

• For a smooth web browsing experience, upgrade to macOS Sierra

fuck festivals.

i say this after having a wonderful time at IndieCade last week, and having just submitted my game Problem Attic to the IGF a few days ago.

the expectation placed on any so-called "indie game" to distinguish itself from the pack is much, much higher now. this might seem like a good thing, right? there are a lot more games now, so the stakes should be higher - and the games should be better, right? it, of course, depends on how you define "better". but this expectation has little to do with artistic or creative ambition and a lot to do with how professional-looking the game is. the end goal the forwarding of these games serves is to make "smaller games" become a new, viable, sustainable part of the games industry. everyone knows that Minecraft/Humble Bundle make tons of money, so a lot of people are pouring a lot of resources into getting in on that money.

this is a pretty violent shift from even five or six years ago, when a game like Passage was praised for being a unique achievement in game storytelling - where it was seen as a wildly left-field part of a new artistic vanguard. now it's becoming more apparent that a game like Passage was extremely lucky to benefit from there not being much else around to diminish it. now we can also see more clearly how conservative of the narrative of that game is in many ways - about a man and a woman and compromises they make, and how cliched the ideas behind it have become. now we can see how many games tried to be as artistically ambitious and less essentialist (i'm thinking of something like increpare's "Home") but never got nearly as much attention. now it would just look like a little experiment, one of many out there. it might get some coverage on a few indie gaming sites or get posted on freeindiegam.es and then that would be it. the conversation wouldn't sustain itself because there'd be something new to replace it in a week or less.

yes, it's easier to make a game than ever. the tools are much more accessible than they ever were before. and no, i'm not a person who believes that everyone making games (or art in general) is in any way bad at all. it's a wonderful thing, especially for the legions of the population who would otherwise be intimidated away from even attempting to try to make a game.

yet it's also hard to know in what spaces those games will be appropriately recognized and respected. things like the IGF and IndieCade might seem to be those spaces, but actually serve well those who have the ability to engage in a sustained PR to promote their games. this obviously benefits people with more resources and connections, who are almost universally not the type of people who would normally be scared away from making games. this is no secret. these festivals exist as a way to inject lifeblood into the games industry, or to legitimize games in the eyes of other industries like the film industry, not to subvert them.

festivals are supposed to be a bastion for new, ambitious developers to bring their game to a wider audience. but are festivals really developer friendly at all? for most developers, it's 95 dollars for the small hope that your game will reach a larger audience. except that it's more or less impossible for your game to be nominated unless you've waged an extended PR campaign for your game or are already a well-known developer. even for those who get in, they're expected to fly out to a conference and stay there (a flight which may or may not be paid for, other accommodations and food/drinks which almost certainly won't) and stand in front of a screen in a crowded expo floor for hours on end as people while people stumble their way through their game. this might be an acceptable sacrifice if there was just one festival - but there are many (the IGF being still the biggest) and there are a great number of games being exhibited at each of these festivals. each game is like a little tidbit, a little unit of ideas or concepts to be gorged on and eventually become absorbed into the industry. and so festival settings are fundamentally not served at all for slower or longer games - and particularly for text-based games. we don't value what these games may or may not have to offer. the nuances get glossed over because of the setting. we gorge on each one rapidly and leave. this is how we've been taught to treat videogames.

and personally, as someone who's designed a couple deliberately abstract games, there's nothing that sounds more like agony to me than being expected to explain and justify my game to any random person who walks by and plays it for five minutes. the Steam deal promised to developers nominated for last year's IGF was certainly a good thing, but that's only one festival of many - and a lot of the developers lucky enough to have the kind of PR clout to get in with the judges are also probably lucky enough to get on Steam without needing a nomination.

i admit it. some of these are my own realizations after designing a game (the aforementioned Problem Attic) that was in many ways unique and artistically ambitious, but i also recognized would not in any way be "festival-friendly". in itself, it might seem like a ridiculous idea that an artistically ambitious game wouldn't be "festival-friendly" - but in fact it makes perfect sense. festival jurors tend to self-consciously cherry-pick and reward the things with the most buzz. why? in order to make games more of a cultural event, for one - and to reward games which have managed to achieve some level of cultural penetration. there's also the practical matter of judges are going to naturally gravitate towards games or developers that they've already heard of, especially among the waves of games they haven't. and also to be what a good friend of mine calls a "photogenic indie" - something that's unique in maybe one or two ways but manages to overall have highly agreeable, unambiguous presentation. that's what people want to play, after all, right? they want the gloss, not the ugly, gross shit that shows its videogamey seams. that's what prominent members of the indie community or events like the IGF or IndieCade want to forward as examples of videogame expression.

i will say that IndieCade was in several ways a lovely, forward-thinking event. it made an effort to have events like Night Games that the public could attend (though the lines were way too long for them), and also stayed lax about checking badges, allowing people to go to talks they might not be able to get into if they really wanted to. but as far as the festival goes, i've also received some of the most condescending feedback i've ever had. here are the two worst offenders (click to make it larger):


one judge says i'm "asking too much of my audience", the other seems to interpret my very intentional aesthetic choices as the fact that i must be clearly an inept and/or confused beginner (that i'm female likely plays into this), or else i clearly wouldn't have made a game like this.

i want to be clear that i don't want to make it out like i'm an exception, or that this is just about me. in many ways i'm maybe pretty lucky. i have enough friends to where if i kept waging a public PR campaign i might actually be able to get recognized in spite of how strange the things i make are, or how unpopular some of the sentiments i express in writing are. but that's not the point. the point is to aspire to have some kind of fair chance for people who can't, or won't engage in this. the point is to emphasize the people who are really, truly doing the most ambitious and crazy and unique things with videogames, and not the ones who are friends with the most judges, or who are making the most "photogenic" games. and i don't think it's possible for this to happen in any real way in the climate of these festivals.

Tin storage box from the German branch of Eberhard Faber. I’m uncertain as to the year, or if it was an anniversary product. Works perfectly well holding the smaller items:

CloudPaint is a fully operational online version of the original MacPaint released with the Macintosh in 1984. The source code for version 1.3 of MacPaint is available from the Computer History Museum.

Tags: Apple   design   Macintosh

(hi guys,I am still trying to write about my daily story in english:-)

Can I write the new story of …?
I say I am professional game designer,but I feel I suspect my self often.
I had a strong frustration recently.
Because I could not get new inspiration for adventure game.
I was thinking next piece ,something new ideas of like moon or like Chulip past few months.
But I was not able to  get something new idea.

Starbucks coffee dose not help me at all.

I was thinking in starbucks of shinjuku3choume. and I was thinking in my house a lot.
It was so difficult for me.
My brain melt down quickly.And,I slept automatically like death.

And I did not notice my head became like volcanos.

 

 

And…One day…
My Head exploded suddenly!

 

 

After explosion of my head
I thought I need help of my friends for making my head quiet.
I e-mailed to fellows and We had a meeting.

It was very long time.
First of all we were discussing about something new concept.
We had a various theme .
But,one guy said to me “I want you to talk about what you like to do now.”

“now? in real life?”

And I was talking about my ambition on the road in real life. And I started to talk about  trauma of the past unconsciously.

And I vomited all what I was feeling.

For example,I was talking about dissatisfaction of Chulip, dissatisfaction moon,my childhood strange story,the story of communication with animals ,trauma of sex, major incident of adult era, and the strange peoples I have met in my life.

And strangely enough, I got one inspiration from this discussing.

“I should start to write about it. Even though I do not know it can become videogame or not.”

And I can continue to think again.

 

Nov/27/2013
Yoshiro Kimura

 

feminismtoday:

ida-b-wells-b-whippin-yo-ass:

micdotcom:

in case you haven’t cried enough about the Obamas leaving the White House

My heart cannot take this. 

Neither can mine!

refinery29:

The White House has one last request from you: they’re collecting everyone’s “Obama moment” when they felt inspired and invigorated by the President

The moving tribute doesn’t just feature celebrities, but also regular Americans talking about their favorite Obama moments from the eight years he was in office. As you already may have guessed, you’re going to need the tissues for this one.

Gifs: The White House

WATCH THE VIDEO

It looks like the march against Donald Trump could outshine his inauguration. 

Well, at least in one sense — at least 1,200 permit requests to park tour buses have been received by Washington, D.C., officials for the day after the inauguration, when the Women's March will take place. Meanwhile, just 200 permits were requested for the actual day of the presidential inauguration, D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen said according to the Washington Post.

Inauguration Day will see performances by acts such as 16-year-old America’s Got Talent contestant Jackie Evancho and a Bruce Springsteen tribute band.  Read more...

More about Women S March, Inauguration, Washington Dc, Donald Trump, and Us World

You'll have to pay to play online on Nintendo's Switch, the company announced today in their livestream presentation. Paid subscription services aren't new to online consoles but it is for Nintendo. You'll be able to try it out for free on a trial basis at launch, but you'll have to subscribe in the fall.

In better news, they're doing away with region locking.  Read more...

More about Nintendo Switch, Nintendo, Entertainment, and Gaming

The Nintendo Switch will be released worldwide on March 3, with a North American price of $299.99.

Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima wasted no time in sharing the two most pressing Switch details — release date and price — on fan's minds. They were the first pieces of news to emerge from the company's Tokyo live stream.

The Switch is a gaming console/mobile hybrid, with a TV-connected dock housing a detachable tablet-like device — touchscreen and all. It's not just the convertible nature of the hardware that sets it apart, however; the controls bring a distinctive twist to Switch gaming as well. Read more...

More about Gaming and Entertainment

How much can a koala bear? Not too much when it comes to the intense heat of an Australian summer, it seems.

One particularly overheated koala has been filmed battling the weather by drinking straight from a hose, its little hand adorably wrapped around it.

The video was first uploaded by Courtney Jade Harvey from Woodside, South Australia, who noticed the koala descending from a tree on her property.

After she offered it some hose, the koala immediately "grabbed [it], held onto it and drank from the end," Harvey said on Facebook.

Poor little bubba. Animal welfare organisation, Animals Australia, then reposted the video, stressing the importance of leaving out water for wildlife during summer. "By leaving water out on your property and by keeping your eyes out for distressed animals, you can not only help alleviate their suffering, but you can help them survive," they wrote on Facebook. Read more...

More about Animals Australia, Hose, Water, Australia, and Summer

Aside from the whole hybrid portable/home console deal, there's not a whole lot we know about Nintendo's next console, the Switch. Fortunately tonight's presentation, which starts at 11 pm ET, will change all that. 

We're sure to get news of at least a release date, pricing, and launch line-up and hopefully a few more details on how exactly this piece of technology works and what else it can do. 

We'll be updating the site live with coverage from the stream, so if you prefer reading over watching, we've got you.  Read more...

More about Nintendo Switch, Nintendo, Tech, Entertainment, and Gaming

Novak Djokovic is one of the world's top tennis players, but don't expect him to excel in all versions of the game just yet.

Djokovic tried out some wheelchair tennis for a charity event in Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, playing against Australian wheelchair tennis pro and two-time gold medalist, Dylan Alcott.

While the Serbian champ has no such trouble hitting balls against Alcott while standing, the tables really turned when Djokovic tried playing from a wheelchair.

"Oh my god, I have to play tennis. How do you do it?" Djokovic asked, while trying to figure out how to turn his new chair. Read more...

More about Dylan Alcott, Videos, Video, Wheelchair Tennis, and Novak Djokovic

On a day when LA's newest football team — the Chargers — stole most NFL headlines, the Los Angeles Rams made a big announcement of their own. 

The team hired 30-year-old Sean McVay as their new head coach, the youngest in NFL history. 

McVay, who turns 31 in a couple weeks, barely surpasses Alabama head coach Lane Kiffin as the youngest NFL head coach to date. Kiffin was 31 when the Raiders hired him in 2007. 

McVay spent seven seasons on Washington's coaching staff, most recently as offensive coordinator. Given his age and boyish charm, Twitter had some pretty great jokes to accompany the Rams' new hire.  Read more...

More about Nfl, Football, Los Angeles, Entertainment, and Sports

There's nothing like the excitement of a new year full of upcoming films that are sure to surprise and shock. CineFix weighs in on this year's possible hits, flops and unexpected crowd pleasers. 

Visit CineFix for more episodes and movie-related content. Read more...

More about Blade Runner, Kong Skull Island, Wonder Woman, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, and Cinefix Roundtable

The uphill battle against fake news (and correctly using the term "fake news" in the first place) continues. The latest effort to debunk made-up information is British broadcaster BBC.

On Thursday, The Guardian reported the BBC was forming a debunking team to tackle false stories that often start on Facebook and other social media outlets.

This means segments such as the outlet's Reality Check will become more than an occasional feature, but a persistent effort with a team tackling incorrect stories, posts and information.

More about Media, Bbc, Fake News, and Business

In what is possibly a world's first, India's national carrier Air India will now be reserving seats for women. 

Six seats in the front rows of domestic flights will be blocked without any additional cost, The Hindu reported.

For a while now, buses, trains and even auto-rickshaws in India have had special seats for women, but this is the first time that an airline is implementing it. 

An Air India official has reportedly said, "We feel, as national carriers, it is our responsibility to enhance comfort level to female passengers." 

The policy will take effect on Jan. 18. Read more...

More about Women, Gender Equality, India, World, and Transportation

Stealing is wrong, kids!

Just ask Australian "Dubsmash King," Ian Zaro, who awoke to find a stolen car had been dumped outside his house.

Rather than just ignore it, the Aboriginal, Torres Strait and South Sea Islander comedian decided to draw attention to the crime the best way he knew how — by making a Facebook video.

The resulting viral response has Zaro feeling a little bit overwhelmed. "I honestly couldn't believe it," he told Mashable via Messenger. "I was just having fun with it, aye. I enjoy making people smile and laugh."

This isn't even the first time Zaro has gone viral: Some of his Dubsmash content has racked up millions of views. For him, the real benefit of making videos is when people reach out to tell him the impact that he has had on their lives. Read more...

More about Car Theft, Dubsmash, Australia, Ian Zaro, and Watercooler

Siri. Alexa. Google. Cortana. The digital assistants created by the largest tech companies in the world have become such a big part of our everyday lives, you may have never considered why we call them the names we do.

But the stories behind these names are more complex than you might think. 

In almost every case, other names were considered and, often, preferred. Cortana was almost called Alyx, Steve Jobs didn't like the name Siri, and if Jeff Bezos had had his way, you'd be calling your Echo "Amazon" instead. The reason why names like Siri, Cortana and Alexa prevailed often had more to do with chance and circumstance than a particular engineering or marketing decision.  Read more...

More about Google Assistant, Google, Facebook, Cortana, and Apple

An EU report lays out a set of rules for how humans interact with robots and artificial intelligence.

Eurogamer.net have an excellent piece pointing out the full litany of bizarre marketing speak, over-inflated claims and suchlike from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 press conference. Highlights include Peter Moore stating “In the HD era we’re going to deliver the Zen of gaming” and J Allard saying “It’s a platform that no other company in this industry can even try to match”.

Revolution arrives

Nintendo showed off a prototype of its next home console, the “Revolution”. Looking much like one of those new Macs, only in shiny black, Nintendo promised that the end unit would be even smaller – the size of three DVD boxes stuck together, in fact. The only details Nintendo confirmed about the Revolution were: that the controller and interface with the screen would be “revolutionary”, without revealing in what way; that it would play 12cm optical discs, old GameCube discs and DVDs with an internal add-on fitted; it would have 512MB on-board memory and an SD card slot; in-built Wi-Fi; most intriguingly that it would be able to play downloaded versions of Nintendo’s entire 20 year library of games. That’s right, Nintendo plans to offer a download service of all (or nearly all) its games spanning from the NES to the N64. Nostalgia-grabbing brilliance of backwards-looking niche-ism? Time will tell.

N-Gage games now on Nokia smartphones too?

Nokia has announced a scant few details about its future plans for N-Gage at its E3 press conference says the team at our sister blog Games Digest. N-Gage gaming will be extended to Nokia’s raft of “mobile smartphones” in mid-2006.

Whether this means most of Nokia’s high-end phones will now come with an N-Gage card slot, or whether it simply means they’ll be able to play games as good as an N-Gage (ie take the 3D graphics processing and networking capabilities, but not actually emulate an N-Gage) remains to be seen. As does what this means for handset design – will all smartphones be laid out for gaming, or just some? What it doesn’t appear to mean is a folding of N-Gage into smartphones.

Games out Friday May 13

Forza Motorsport (Xbox) Designed, like its rival Gran Turismo, from the ground up to deliver a realistic racing experience. Your response to that will be entirely based on how much engine tuning, sticking to race lines and learning proper race techniques excites you. Us? Not much post-Burnout. But to many this will be the best racer on the Xbox yet. With superb online options, a high level of realism and even some damage that affects performance. IGN.com says: “A force to be reckoned with, out-maneuvering Gran Turismo 4 in several respects, and beating out everything else in the sim department on Xbox, straight out. A must-have game.” 9.5/10

And the rest…

Kessen III (PS2) Koei seem to make nothing but these kind of strategy/action fighting adventures. All feature riding on horseback across a battlefield, then hitting things. Fun, but perhaps the formula needs some updating? Gamespot.com says: “Both accessible and enjoyable.” 7.4/10

Singstar Popworld (PS2) The pedigree’s excellent. Singstar, the Sony karaoke game, is a great piece of fun. And Popworld is just about the best thing on TV currently, with two brilliant presenters making every other music show look dull in comparison. So why are there no reviews online yet? Why haven’t we seen any code yet? Ominous, very ominous…

Xbox 360: it’s official

Following on from the MTV broadcast Xbox 360 launch (aired tonight in the UK, 8pm), here are the concrete details about the system: Launch 2005 for US, Japan and Europe; Wireless controllers; Clip-on front fascias (like mobile phones); 20GB detachable hard drive; two memory card slots; two USB ports; all games to support High Definition and Xbox Live; Two levels of Live service, with one being free to download updates and extra content.

Microsoft to unveil universal game controller at E3

The big news will undoubtedly be the Xbox 2 launch. But in the PC section of Microsoft’s stand, the corporation has announced it will be showing an early version of a games controller that works “across Microsoft’s gaming platforms“. In other words one controller to rule both Xbox 2 and PC gaming.

Blu-Ray, HD-DVD format war gets truce

The format wars between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, the disc format set to be used in the PS3, look set to be over before they’ve begun. A new format, according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, will be announced shortly that will feature Blu-Ray’s manufacturing processes, but HD-DVD’s software encoding tricks. Presumably the new format will be used instead of Blu-Ray in the PS3. Microsoft’s next console is set to use plain old DVDs apparently.

Xbox 2 specs leaked?

Treat as rumour, but the latest leak from Microsoft’s camp appears to be the specifications for both the Xbox 2 and its associated, revamped Live service. And it makes for interesting reading…

Two varieties of Xbox Live are proposed, Gold and Silver, with Gold requiring a subscription.

Features for Gold service include (as well as all the stuff Silver Live users get): Matchmaking using player “Reputation”, gameplay “style profile” and always on Xbox Live. Silver service users only get access to “Free Xbox Live weekends” as well as massively multi-player games if they pay their specific subscription fee. Both Gold and Silver users get a host of online and offline benefits on top though, including: game, movie and music downloads, micro transactions (for player-crafted items or new levels) and custom playlists for every game.

Gold Live benefits
Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
Multiplayer online gameplay
Enhanced matchmaking using Reputation
Skill level matchmaking
Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)

Silver Live benefits
Free Xbox Live weekends
Access to massively multi-player online games (additional fees may apply)
Online achievements
Communication with voice, video or text
Free and premium download game content
Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv
Reputation
Micro transactions
Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live
Recent players list
Downloadable demos/trailers

Benefits available offline
Avatar for gamer profile
Motto for gamer profile
Personalized look for Xbox System Guide
Offline achievements
Cumulative gamer score
Location/language profile
Custom playlist in every game
Play music from portable devices
View images from digital camera
Stream media from Windows XP
Interactive screen savers
Track info for CDs

General hardware specification
Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
Customizable face plates to change appearance
3 USB 2.0 ports
Support for 4 wireless controllers
Detachable 20GB drive
Wi-Fi ready

The processor
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
2 hardware threads per core
1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance: 9 billion dots per second

The graphics chip
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
500 MHz
10 MB embedded DRAM
48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
unified shader architecture

Memory
512 MB GDDR3 RAM
700 MHz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
Mulitchannel surround sound output
Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
320 independent decompression channels
32 bit processing
256+ audio channels

Revolution and DS will connect wirelessly

Nintendo president, Saturo Iwata, has revealed that the next Nintendo console, codenamed “Revolution”, and Nintendo’s new handheld console, the DS, will be able to connect to each other via Wi-Fi. This confirms previous rumours that Wi-Fi wireless Internet connectivity will be built into the Revolution.

Rumour: PS3 three times more powerful than Xbox 2

Gadget magazine T3 have a news story up on their site claiming that a developer with access to “development kits” for both says the PS3 is three times more powerful than the Xbox 2. We say: rumour, rhubarb, rhubarb.

Zodiac taps out

It’s a shame, but you could see it coming. With all having been exceptionally quiet on the games front recently from combined Palm PDA/gaming device the Tapwave Zodiac, and with prices for the units dropping dramatically at retail, it should be no surprise. According to Tapwave’s Senior VP of Marketing, Byron Connell (via Tapland.com), Tapwave are moving “from offering Tapwave branded retail products to developing new co-branded products for OEM partners (i.e., other leading consumer electronic companies).” In other words, goodbye Tapwave Zodiac gaming PDAs, hello Tapwave software-powered PDAs. What does this mean for Tapwave games? “Some partner companies are interested in delivering a next generation gaming experience, but most (with the arrival of Sony PSP) are focused on working with us to create other mobile solutions – rich multimedia, navigation and communication.”

PSP UMD discs cracked

Complete versions of several PSP games have surfaced on the web. These “ISO” format files are essentially the contents of the entire UMD disc that the game came on. As this no easy way of creating UMD discs unless you’re a games publisher, then that doesn’t mean that pirate UMD discs will be available soon. But it will encourage the emulator scene to try and create a PC emulator to play PSP games on your PC.

Gizmondo to show new technologies at E3

Gizmondo, the dark horse of the handheld console race, is set to show “incredible” new technology at the world’s largest videogames trade show, E3, in Los Angeles later this month. Colors, Gizmondo’s own gang-warfare game has already been revealed to use GPS location data as part of the gaming mechanic. The new announcements focus on Agaju: The Sacred Path, which is set to feature “Augmented Reality” and “Gyroscopic Camera” technologies. Quite what these buzzwords mean is down to the self-facilitating media nodes amongst you to work out. Also set to feature is a game using GPRS mobile signal data.

ABC News puts shows on PSP

The ABC News Network in the US has begun putting short information shows onto Sony’s psp.connect.com website for download to PSP. The two shows available so far are both brief and feature technology heavily (one is on cyber-security, the other hybrid cars). ABC joins other content providers already posting wildlife documentaries, film trailers and cartoons to the site.

PS3 to beat Xbox 2 says analyst

Analysts Wedbush Morgan have called it first: the PS3 will grab 55 per cent of the next generation console sales by 2010, Microsoft’s next Xbox will get 35 per cent and Nintendo’s “Revolution” will get 10 per cent (each plus or minus five per cent). This is according to their report which states their belief that the launch of the next Xbox this year will not significantly kick-start the next console war, with that only happening after PS3 and Revolution’s arrival in 2007.

I don’t know why it took me so long to make this as it combines the only two things I ever want when I’m sick: chicken noodle and wonton soup. The thing is, when you’re sick, you absolutely do not want to cook anything. (Also sometimes when we’re well, to be completely honest. Shh, don’t tell anyone.) And so for a couple nights, we picked up a decent chicken noodle soup in the neighborhood, but when we tired of that, ordered wonton soup instead. It’s usually a disappointment. Sometimes it seems like a quart of bland broth with three floating pockets in it, not the most filling meal. Plus, it’s off the menu for anyone who doesn’t eat pork or shrimp. But this one was not; it was chicken wontons in chicken broth and it was exceptional, the happiest mashup of the two wonderful things.

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AC MILAN have made contact with Manchester United over a move for Memphis Depay.

Reports claims the Italian giants want the exiled winger to join them on loan this month.

Depay has been told he can leave Old Trafford after failing to impress Jose Mourinho.

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But United are adamant it will have to be a permanent transfer and not a loan deal.

That spells trouble for Milan, with Calciomercato claiming they have no budget left to splash out on a player of Depay’s stature.

January is set to be a busy month at the Theatre of Dreams, with Morgan Schneiderlin closing in on a move to Everton.

Matteo Darmian is wanted by Juventus and could be replaced by Benfica’s Nelson Semedo.

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Victor Lindelof is also set to join after Benfica reached an agreement with his first club over a sell-on fee.

However, moves for Real Madrid player James Rodriguez and Atletico Madrid striker Antoine Griezmann will have to wait until next summer.

Police in Paris are threatening the lives of homeless migrants by stealing their blankets as temperatures drop to freezing, Doctors Without Borders claimed today (file photo).