Results tagged “ben hurst” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

A controversial video game broke sales records on its opening day to make it the biggest entertainment launch in history, according to its publisher.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million copies in the UK and US alone within 24 hours of its launch on Tuesday, generating a revenue of £186 million, Activision said.

US-based Activision chief executive Mike Griffith said: "The Call Of Duty franchise has become a cultural phenomenon, showing the power of video games as an entertainment medium.

Thousands of gamers have been barred from playing Xbox Live by Microsoft in an attempt to clamp down on piracy.

The US computing giant said it had banned consoles because owners had modified the equipment to play games without paying for them.

People whose Xboxes have been blocked will have to buy new machines if they want to connect to Xbox Live.

The internet service allows the 20 million gamers signed up to compete against each other via the web.

The latest handset to challenge the market supremacy of Apple's iPhone is hoping to attract users with one of the biggest screens on the market.

The HD2 will hit UK shops later this month and its manufacturer, Taiwanese firm HTC, hopes to attract buyers with a 4.3 inch touch screen display.

HTC Corporation chief executive Peter Chou said he was "excited" about the handset's launch.

West Midlands Police have announced they will be taking to the Twittersphere in their battle against crime.

Bobbies will be using all manner of new media including micro-blogs and Facebook in a bid to connect with communities.

Chief Insp Mark Payne, said: "Our research has shown that large groups of people are now using social media and not just the young.

"We will continue to communicate with the people we serve across the West Midlands in traditional way, but social media is another opportunity for us to listen and pass on information."

Some officers in the force are in the early stages of setting up blogs to 'talk' to the neighbourhoods where they work.

Chief Insp Payne said: "Twitter means we get can get short messages out to people quickly to let them know about initiatives we are carrying out in their area.

"We can use tweets as a way of directing people to more detailed information which may help prevent them becoming a victim of crime."

Let's take a look at what the police might say on twitter, given so much of that posted is either textspeak, what people had for breakfast and 'meaningful' observations on life:

@hungrybobby Receive intelligence local chippie @oceanbar is closing early proceed under blue lights to collect lunch for station

@Bluepatrol LO LO LO Whats going on ere thn?

@arrestingoffice @criminalelement UR ncked

@hungrybobby Member public takes picture of panda car in disabled bay outside @phillpotssandwiches arrest person for obstructing officer

Very rarely do I sign up to Twitter news feeds - mainly because they're so relentless.

You just get bombarded with update after update and everything else can get a bit swamped.

Naturally they are, of course, automatically generated.

And yesterday Sky News came a cropper after it updated twice within a two minute period.

Unfortunately that two minute period was the silence at 11am on November 11th, when the nation came to a halt to remember our war dead.

In apologising the news giant said: "We are sorry our automated feeds engine posted two updates during the Twitter silence for Armistice Day. They were promptly deleted."

Follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/BenHurst

A political row broke out over levels of violence in a video game as shops opened early for its release today.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which went on sale at midnight, is expected to break sales records.

Crowds gathered in London's Leicester Square for a "premiere" complete with tanks and military costumes ahead of the epic hitting the shelves.

Described in press material as featuring "gripping and heart-racing action as players face off against a new threat dedicated to bringing the world to the brink of collapse", the game reportedly allows players to plot terror attacks against civilians.

Modern Warfare 2, developed by US company Infinity Ward and published by Activision, is rated as mature, for its "blood, drug reference, intense violence and language".

Labour MP Keith Vaz called for action to ensure the 18-certificate game did not end up in the hands of children, while fellow Labour former digital minister Tom Watson said it would be better to support the UK's video gaming industry.

Mr Vaz, the Home Affairs Select Committee chairman, told MPs during Commons question time: "It contains such scenes of brutality that even the manufacturers have put in warnings within the game telling people how they can skip particular scenes."

He asked what steps ministers were taking to ensure that violent games did not fall into the hands of children and young people.

"It's not about censorship, it's about protecting our children," he added.

Junior culture minister Sion Simon said the clearest recommendation of the Byron review - which last year looked into the risks faced by children from inappropriate video games - was that content suitable for adults should be labelled and sold as such.

"The game you refer to is a Certificate 18 game," he said.

"It should not be sold to children and the Government's job is to make sure that adults ... can get what adults should be able to and children are not in danger of being subjected to adult content."

Mr Watson said he had seen the game and it "wasn't pleasant, though no worse than many films and books".

BT is currently plugging its new up to 20Mb broadband service.

For some unknown reason, scooters play a large part in this campaign - why - who knows?

The communications giant has created a team of BT super scooter taxis, which will land on the UK's busiest commuter routes, "allowing commuters the opportunity to 'beat the rush with BT to work" by hitching a lift.

And in true Pr style, they've got TV lovely and erstwhile George Clooney girlfriend Lisa Snowdon to pout alluringly on said scooters.

So here's the pic - it may inspire you to fork out for 'up to' 20Mb broadband. And then again, it might not.

You decide.

It's coming up to Christmas - you're putting out a festive game. So how many pr puffery boxes can you tick?

Theme - festive - yes! Christmas Carols.

It's a game! Kids will want to buy it - yes! Get them in the pictures.

Spurious reality show pop star contestant, turned attempted tv presenter, whose career has, er slowed a bit - present and correct.

And the results, dear readers are below. I give you the launch of, A Christmas Carol the video game on the Nintendo DS modelled by Suzanne Shaw.

An image of Birmingham is to appear on millions of desktops all around the world.

The city's iconic Selfridges building is one of the official wallpapers for Windows 7.

As most computer users never do anything like downloading anything different, it is fair to say that it will adorn the screens of countless users.

Below: the release client Windows 7 wallpaper selection:

A slightly bigger image of the Selfridges shop:

According to reports, Nintendo's profits have plunged in the last six months.

The figures, showing a 52 per cent drop in profits, were described as 'disappointing' by commentators, and blamed on waning sales for the Nintendo Wii console.

Apparently price cuts to the Playstation 3 have hit sales of the hitherto all conquering Wii.

My own opinion on this is that you can only sell so much of one thing before everyone who could possibly want one, er, has one.

Don't forget that the Nintendo Wii has sold 56 million around the world.

Also don't forget that it was launched in the UK in December 2006 - and three years is a long time in the gaming industry.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nintendo Wii 2 was imminent - after all, manufacturers rarely give much away before bringing to market a new item of technology because it will hit the last sales of their previous product, which are still clogging up the shelves in the run up to the launch.

A DRIVER who took his sports car into a West Midlands garage was shocked when he found out mechanics had taken it on a 125 mph joy ride - and has posted a video of it on Youtube.

The man took his £30,000 Vauxhall Monaro to a garage behind the Hallmark Motor Sales car dealership on Portway, just off the A435 near Redditch where it was due to have a radiator leak fixed.

When he returned to pick up the car he discovered footage on his in-car "black-box style" recorder which showed the mechanics taking the car on a high-speed burn along a nearby road.

The recorder had activated automatically when it sensed the car being put under unusual g-forces, caused by the reckless speed of the drivers.

The car's owner said: "It was supposed to be in my local friendly garage having a radiator leak fixed. In fact the boys in the garage were out having fun."

When he confronted the mechanics was told that they hadn't realised how fast they were going, before apologising."

He said the police are now involved in the incident.

The car - which was once described by television's Jeremy Clarkson as "truly wonderful" - is reportedly capable of speeds of up to 180 mph.

The footage was captured on a Roadhawk recording device. The camera starts recording whenever it senses anything unusual so that footage can be used in court to settle disputes in case of an accident.

It is thought to be available in shops for as little as £300.

Video captured during the joy ride shows the mechanic taking the car on to the A435 and accelerating up to 125mph before turning on to country roads where he continues to flout the speed limits.

New operating system Windows 7 is outselling Harry Potter according to online retailer Amazon.

Computer enthusiasts ignored cautious warnings over Microsoft's latest Windows operating system today as high street electronics stores celebrated bumper sales.

More than 500 people queued outside a PC World store in central London to be among the first Britons to get their hands on Windows 7 as it was released to positive reviews.

The operating system aims to improve on its predecessor Vista by simplifying everyday tasks. Microsoft says it has listened to feedback from billions of customers around the world.

Despite advice from consumer watchdog Which? urging computer users to wait a year before switching to Windows 7, online and high street stores recorded sales surges.

Frustrated broadband users with faulty connections spend millions of pounds kept on hold by technical support phone lines, a survey revealed today.

More than 15 million calls, costing an average of £1.75, are made to technical support lines every year, according to data from the uSwitch price comparison website.

Almost half of the 12,000 customers questioned said they were not satisfied with computer technical support.

Of the service providers, Orange and Tiscali finished bottom of the satisfaction table, with ratings of 42% and 47% respectively.

Nearly half of young people say they feel happiest when online, according to a report identifying a new generation of so-called "digital natives" who are at ease with a range of modern communications technologies.

The internet plays a "vital" role in the lives of the 16 to 24 age group, with three quarters saying they feel they could not live without it, research conducted for YouthNet has found.

A survey commissioned by the online charity into the views of 994 young people in the UK in July this year showed 45% said that they felt happiest when online.

Millions of families are missing out on savings running into billions of pounds because they do not use the internet, the Government's digital inclusion champion said today.

Some 10 million people - 17% of the entire population - have never been online, and four million of them come from economically or socially excluded backgrounds, according to research carried out for internet tsar Martha Lane Fox.

She warned today that those without access to the web were missing out not only on shopping bargains, but also work and training opportunities and official information on issues like the swine flu outbreak.

Why do people fall victim to internet fraudsters?

Because they're stupid, that's why.

It's one thing clicking on a very convincing email from your bank or building society. I can understand why people might fall for that.

But the recent revelation that passwords for more than 10,000 Hotmail accounts have been stolen and then posted online revealed something else too.

Incredibly the most popular hotmail account password was 12345. Some people went for engima machine-style complexity though. Yes, they drastically upped the number of symbols to 1234567 and even in some extreme cases 12345678!

It's a good job the Germans didn't have such codemasters otherwise Bletchley Park would never have broken their transmissions!

Just one more of the top ten passwords worth passing on - 111111.

A Microsoft spokesman said: "We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were acquired illegally by a phishing scheme and exposed on a website.
"Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation.

"As part of that investigation, we determined that this is not a breach of any Microsoft servers.
"Subsequently, we are taking measures to block access to all of the accounts that were exposed and have resources in place to help those users reclaim their accounts."

Sadly for Microsoft, raising the iq of their users is beyond their capabilities.

According to a new survey which just arrived in my inbox, we're all becoming 'Netspressives' - which basically means socially useless and only able to communicate online.

The (admittedly rather limited) report found that half of us spend more time talking to friends online than on phone or in person and find it hard to express their feelings in the real world.

In a tragic coincidence it was today revealed that Little Britain star Matt Lucas' former partner Kevin McGee, 32, (both pictured right) was found dead in his Edinburgh flat by police, after leaving a message on the social networking site Facebook.

McGee reportedly chose to post: "Kevin McGee thinks that death is much better than life."

A quick google search reveals a host of people who have left suicide notes on Facebook before killing themselves.

I remember reading years ago a short story in a science fiction collection about the unlikely scenario in a little populated world where people were just living alone, communicating via computers, and a prospective meeting of another person causes feelings of terror in the main protagonist.

It was a sad reflective piece, but, the truth seems to be even more tragic and bizarre - where people at the end of their tethers feel only able to express their feelings to electronic friends.

Yahoo, which commissioned the survey (admittedly small - only 1,050 nationwide were asked) have put up Psychologist Jo Hemmings to say: "The stereotype is that Britons are typically unexpressive people, but the rise of online communication has highlighted that this isn't true - we just need the right outlet. This study shows that the online world is acting as our self-expression release valve and 'Net-pression' is an important daily act for millions of Britons".

The High Court showed it was in step with the times when it granted an order which allowed service of an injunction via Twitter.

Solicitors Griffin Law, who dealt with the matter, dubbed it "Blaney's Blarney Order" after the subject matter - a blog called Blaney's Blarney (donalblaney.com).

It requires an unknown Twitter user anonymously posting under the same name, and thus breaching the copyright and intellectual property of the blog's owner, to stop posting and immediately identify themselves.

Internet giant Google today won the latest round of a legal tussle over trademarks in which luxury goods retailer Louis Vuitton is fighting to prevent search engines using protected brand names.

Louis Vuitton has already won a French court action, successfully claiming that Google acted illegally by allowing other companies to use the Vuitton names as a key search words for adverts on Google.

But today, in an interim legal "opinion" in the EU's highest court, an Advocate-General said Google had not infringed trademark rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords corresponding to registered trademarks.

I blogged below on Lily Allen's campaign against fie sharers.

As she rightly points out, in the final analysis people will be stopping new artists from emerging, as record labels, starved of sales, are unable to fund recording and even hunt for new talent.

As people have commented on other blogs too pc gaming is really under threat, with console ports likely to be the only thing to be released in the long term because of the prevalence of piracy.

After all why should a developer put cash into great bespoke strategy games (for example) for the pc if people just rip them off?

Anyway Lily's campaign took a knock today when it emerged fellow stars Gary Barlow and James Blunt have backed her.

There goes public sympathy then...