Results tagged “technobabble” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

TORY Toff David Cameron has compared the fortunes of his party to the famous Tomb Raider computer games.

According to the old Etonian his party are at the point where they have completed the first level - "in political terms you have persuaded the voting public that you are a normal person who inhabits the same world that they do. Now you can move on to level two, where you can speak - and be listened to - about the issues that really matter".

Of course his words will have been taken by gamers around the country that it could mean he is admitting his party has produced a string of derivative policies aimed to cash in on the success of the past (Thatcher???....Churchill????).

After all the Tomb Raider games have been somewhat in decline in recent years - like, until now, the fortunes of the Conservative Party.

So why Tomb Raider? It could be a classic case of a politician trying to win the approval of a younger generation by showing he's 'hip' and 'street' - although in this case it strikes me as more like William Hague in a baseball cap.

I suppose it adds to the glamour of the party to be associated with a pixellated heroine with huge bangers.

Why not other computer heroes - what's wrong with Duke Nukem "Gonna tear Gordon Brown a new one", Max Payne for some double gun wielding Labour Party vanquishing or even Gordon Freeman of Half Life fame? (mind you perhaps not - silent stoicism isn't something policians admire.)

No, I know the real reason Cameron chose Lara Croft - she comes from a background he admires and indeed comes from himself.

Cameron has described his own background as "hideously privileged", went to the exclusive private school, Eton, and is a member of London's most traditional gentleman's club, Whites.

According to her (fictional) biography, Lady Lara Croft is an 11th generation Countess. The Croft family was granted the title and rights to Abbingdon, Surrey by King Edward VI in 1547. The Croft Estates are comprised of three separate manor houses, two of which are maintained by the National Trust, and the third is home to Lady Croft.

So now - just like the shadow cabinet - you have to be a toff, even a fictional one, to make it in Toryland.

Below - Cameron after completing the first level of Tomb Raider - he hasn't got to the Dinosaurs yet so he's in for a shock!

I see the new 3G iphone has come out in the shops to a host of supply problems.

Main supplier 02 has revealed that each of its stores will literally have a 'few dozen' of the handsets to sell.

This means a lot of people desperate to get their hands on the 3G enabled phones will be disappointed for some time.

Is this situation in any way related to the fact that 02 had thousands of onsold original iphone handsets left on their hands the last time?

Readers will recall that I blogged on this at the time, and railed at the mega-high price plus crippling monthly charges.

Would it be cynical to suggest that 02 might have decided it would be better to create a 'buzz', with headlines about shortages and keen consumers left empty handed?

After all it has become standard policy in the electronics industry. Every console launch is accompanies by shortage of supply with queues of parents trying to get it in time for Christmas.

Below: not coming to a store near you - the iphone 3G.

The latest windows XP update has been discovered to cause thousands of users to be cut off from the internet.

This is because it somehow causes a conflict with the third party firewall ZoneAlarm.

I myself carried out the update last night, and haven't since logged on - so when I get home tonight who knows if I'll be able to go online?

Anyway there is a solution posted by ZoneAlarm on their website so here you go!

It has to be said that it is not unreasonable to assume Microsoft might check their new security patch with one of the most widely used pieces of software on the web.

Edit: Yep it didn't work. I had to turn the slider down to 'medium' on the level of security to be allowed onto the internet so I could tackle it.

Incredible really - and how many people must have been left completely flummoxed by this? And how many who are non computer literate spent hours on the phone getting through to their internet provider trying to solve it?

Microsoft deserve a rocket for this one.

People who play online role playing games have often been accused of taking it all rather too seriously.

After all the famous Everquest is often referred to as Evercrack because of its addictive qualities.

Some of the games require colossal amounts of time - for example some people have been known to go into virtual forests and spend ten hours in a row chopping down trees to build up their strength by minuscule amounts.

Not to mention those who work as 'traders' in the games. They don't complete quests and biff baddies - they make leather armour and sell it to adventurers. For hour after hour after hour, no doubt getting awarm tingly feeling of being part of a community with their 'job' although to all intents and purposes it doesn't exist.

Mind you, it is possible to make money in the real world. Some experts take characters to high levels and then sell them - in some cases for thousands of pounds - a practice which was banned on ebay (in a rare example of them cracking down on a process which makes them money).

Now I've been contacted by Alexander Tigerström, a chap behind a website offering a community for those seriously addicted MMORPG-ers (massively multiplayer online role playing games for the uninitiated).

Avatars United has a strict ban on 'real life' content - meaning no discussing who you really are.

This means that all those 35 stone American men playing as a scantily clad elven woman warrior won't have their secret found out.

Alexander said: "It's has been built 100% by ourselves and basically works as Facebook for online alter egos (avatars) with no content from the physical world."

More reason to stay online and never have any dealings with the outside world then.

Below: In reality a 30 stone sweaty Yank man.

So you're sitting in an advertising meeting. You're a highly paid executive who has been employed because you always come up with the right idea.

You've got a new product to sell. Yes it's a snazzy mobile phone holder which sticks to the windscreen of the car.

What do you do - yes! I've got it - a woman pointing to her husband as he cleans the window (or maybe it's an Albanian asylum seeker who has swooped at the traffic lights with a squeegie bottle and sponge.) Customer: "I'll take ten please!".

Next after the success of your previous campaign you've got a huge budget to spunk - what do you do? That's right hire a 'hip' celebrity. I know - a rapper - Usher!

What next? Ah, just get him to hold the bloody thing and make 'gangsta' hand signs. No wait! Let's go for broke and get him holding TWO phones! That'll slay 'em:

Laptops are cool - people use them for social networking. Our ones are so cool young people would stand NEXT to each other socially networking on them instead of talking. Cool.

Finally what sells? Sex sells that's what! Get a lovely in her pants, stick a phone in her hand. Tell her: "Look Sexy." Wait for the orders to flood in. If not, a job on the Daily Star awaits.

I blogged recently about the new offering from nvidia, the £450 280gtx and how I was completely underwhelmed by the latest releases of computer components.

Perhaps I was feeling fatigued by the constant stream of slightly tweaked and overclocked graphics cards masquerading as the 'next big thing', but I couldn't get excited, even though the 280 is, in fact, very quick.

But now the situation has changed somewhat - and I actually feel myself becoming excited again by new releases.

The reason is that nvidia's competitor ATI has finally got its act together and released competitive cards at the right prices.

As the graph of frames per second at high resolution in current game Crysis shows, the £125 4850 card is the real jack in the box - just about as good as the 9800gtx which is more than £75 extra.

And the top of the range £200 4870 is in some tests better than the £250 nvidia 260 card. This leaves the 280 at the top of the pile - but let's face it, at a minimum of £400 who bar the most deranged tek head with no girlfriend, or, let's face it, life, will be able to afford it?

I almost feel myself catching the upgrade bug - the benefits of competition at long last!

The technological innovation of the wind turbine is currently in the news after the government unveiled proposals to radically expand the current number around the country.

Fair enough - wind is a tremendous resource if it can be harnessed properly.

I personally hate the turbines because they tend to be built in the most beautiful rural areas - completely ruining some of the most unspoilt parts of the country.

Because they're considered 'green' it seems like the normal planning laws don't apply.

But I was contacted by Dr David Hill, claiming to be from the World Innovation Foundation Charity from Bern, Switzerland.

He said that the £100 billion scheme will be something of a white elephant, explaining that in 2003, for example, the world's wind farms were only producing electricity for 24.1 per cent of the year.

Dr Hill said: "The facts are that these turbines only reach maximum efficiency when the wind speed is between 10 and 20mph and where below 8mph these turbines just simply do not produce any electricity at all.

"Added to these facts is that above 20mph efficiencies go down and when over 56mph they all stop producing electricity completely due to cut out and risk of damage. Indeed, a significant number of wind turbines in fact cut out at 33mph."

He explained that the turbines last around nine years - meaning that we'll have to bung in £100 billion then as well.

So they won't work most of the time, when the winds are highest and therefore most productive they'll cut out , they'll need replacing soon and our green and pleasant land will be ruined.

Nice environmental plan guys!

Who needs the most cutting edge graphics when sometimes simplicity is what's best?

Prepare yourself for a seriously addictive game - we give you tower defence!

Edit - I suppose I should put some instructions up too!

The aim of the game is to kill the creeps before they reach the end of the maze, do this by building attacking towers on the grass around the maze.

At the start of the game the only towers you can build are the basic towers.

To build "Elemental Towers" you must first research the 3 elements. Research costs wood. You are given 1 wood every 7 levels. Once researched you can build as many "Elemental Towers" of the type you have researched as you can afford. The combo tower is only available if you have researched all 3 elements.

Special levels include FAST [6, 13, 19, 26, 32] AIR [8, 17, 27] IMMUNE [10, 21, 32] and BOSS [11, 22, 33] You get wood every 7 levels use wood to research upgrades.

One last thing - the game was written by top man David Scott - to find out more about his stuff click here!

I see the latest 'big thing' in the graphics card world has come out - the £450 GTX280.

Is it just me or do new hardware releases - fail to excite completely, be they cpus or gfx?

I remember when the 6800gt came out and everyone got extremely excited and went out and bought one even at £250+.

I think it's not so much the performance increases being less impressive, rather general 'update fatigue'.

The manufacturers have induced indifference through launching a new product line (esp gfx cards) every three months or so.

This has royally narked some who just bought the latest tech, which has recently come out, only to be repeatedly told they should have hung on another week for something 20 per cent faster at the same price.

Both the 2900 series and 8800 series are serial offenders at this.

Now I just think the days of automatically upgrading to the next generation have waned somewhat. People just think they'll skip a family of cards and wait for the next one.

The latest way to spend £450 - the 2800gtx.

I got a press release through the other day from IGA Worldwide "the leading independent in-game advertising network".

They've just signed a deal with EA, or Electronic Arts, to provide all their plugging for the Playstation 3.

According to the bumph the contract means the 13 million PS3 owners will now be bombarded with in-game advertising.

The release says: "Sony recently opened its PS3(TM) platform to allow brands to advertise dynamically within games played on the popular video game console."

Well that was nice of Sony wasn't it? (I particularly like the TM thrown in like a breeze block emphasizing the product).

I enjoyed the explanation of why gamers would actually benefit from the experience: "The advertisements are integrated within the gaming environment in order to deliver a seamless and more authentic game environment."

Well, I suppose they're right - being bombarded with product placement is certainly part of normal everyday life.

I remember when the only ads in games were spoof ones - often in something like Duke Nukem there'd be pics of naked women advertising something - god knows what - it wasn't big, it wasn't clever, but at least it was (slightly) funny (if you were an adolescent male that is).

Will this 'advance' keep prices down for PS3 gamers (normal release price £49.99) - errr, no.

And EA, for god's sake. They are hardly famous for insisting on finished products being released.

Who can forget Battlefield 2 on PC - still getting massive bug fix patches YEARS after its release.

Elizabeth Harz, EA's Senior Vice President said: "EA is committed to providing both great entertainment experiences for consumers and effective advertising solutions for marketers."

It's come to something when a games publisher says it's 'committed' to a concept like 'creating effective advertising solutions'.

I await the first in-game ad break.

Adverts - coming to a game near you!

Lack of competition is never a good thing.

For us consumers it normally means higher prices and less choice, so the news that Intel's new Nehalem processors, due for release this winter is looking like a cracker is a mixed blessing.

Back in the day the AMD 64 series of single cored processors absolutely killed everything Intel had on the market, and so everyone bought one.

The launch of the Conroe dual cored type from Intel completely turned the situation on its head - Intel was now the daddy - and AMD's fortunes have somewhat waned.

With early reviews suggesting the Nehalem is 20 - 50 per cent quicker than anything around at the moment shows Intels dominance is assured.

This is quite a leap forward in computer processor terms, and AMD will be struggling to reply.

The ball's in your court AMD - and for all our sakes I hope you can come up with a winner.

For your titillation here's a pic of the new Nehalem on the left, compared to the current Penryn on the right - enjoy computer fans!!!

Just a quick update on the eBay feedback issue - apparently there's quite a stink being kicked up at the Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition taking place at the moment in Chicago.

It seems that sellers are fuming that non-paying bidders are simply leaving them negative feedback and ebay isn't removing it.

According to the gossip, if a seller starts an unpaid item dispute, when the buyer gets the note through, all they have to do is respond.

eBay, whose customer service and complaints department is mostly automated emails, can't cope if someone sends back a message as part of this disputes process.

So if a buyer sends back the message to the unpaid item note: "I'm not paying, sod off" eBay notes it as a reply and refuses to remove negative feedback, even though the item has not been paid for.

I predict change, and soon.

"Cool - time to kick some ass!"

"Gonna tear him a new one!"

"Shake it baby!"

If those words mean nothing to you then you're probably not going to be massively excited that footage of that long awaited shooter Duke Nukem Forever has been finally seen.

The ultra violent cartoonish game has been in development for more than 12 YEARS!!!!

The last title was Duke Nukem 3D - and the fact that 3D was in the title shows how long ago that was - previously most games were 2D.

It was funny, violent, and the first massive level was released on shareware - and one of the first games ever to do so.

It was hugely successful and if you paid for the extra two levels you weren't disappointed - they were fantastic - especially the one set in space.

So will it finally arrive? I'm not holding my breath although Amazon is allowing pre-orders for November 30 this year.

Mind you it's also offering Chinese Democracy by Guns N' Roses for August 25, and we know how likely that one is to come out!

Perhaps I'll go for broke and pre order both - come on Duke N' Axl - you know you want to!

I see online auction site eBay has come a cropper in France for allowing the sale of fake goods.

Readers will know that I have a slight bee in my bonnet over this well known internet giant, and in the past have railed at their indifference to all fraud and other illegal activities taking place there.

A simple search of well known fashion names shows hundreds upon hundreds of items - all allegedly 'bought new with tags'.

Of course only a very small proportion is real - an absolute scandal which eBay has been unwilling to tackle - after all every sale means money in the bank to them.

The sheer scale of the counterfeit goods operation on eBay means that they would see a massive hit in their profits, so they pay lip service to combating it, but in my opinion, in reality do little.

Now they've been fined, will anything change? Well, eBay's line has always been 'it's not our problem' saying they are simply a conduit for a sale and can't be held responsible.

Try reporting something dodgy and see where that gets you - a lot of automatically generated customer service emails - that's where!

So will anything change? Probably not, but it'll be interesting watching to see what happens. I'm also monitoring the situation with regards to the decision to ban negative seller feedback while raising their cut from auctions (not to mention insisting on people signing up to Paypal - in the interests of security you understand, not so eBay gets a cut from the auction selling price, and then from the payment too, oh no, perish the thought!).

We can only hope the profiteering, poor customer service and arrogance of eBay comes back to haunt it!

Feel free to follow me at BenHurst on Twitter and I'll try and tweet when I do a new blog.

I see the MOD has launched a scheme for wannabe military scientists to come forward with ideas for battlefield weapons and equipment.

It's being billed as a kind of 'Dragons' Den for Weapons' although some might say that is trivialising it a bit.

After all what does the winner get? The chance to see their dream killing device put into production with the ultimate goal of seeing it in action - no doubt blasting some Iraqi family to bits in a 'collateral damage' incident?

A really revolutionary device would be one that actually works - we all know about the problems about the British SA80 rifle which didn't work in the desert because sand got into it, and had the annoying and slightly dangerous quirk of going off when you dropped it (now rectified I might add).

Perhaps someone might invent bullet proof vests which actually deploy themselves to the battlefield, so saving British soldiers' lives by actually being around their torso, stopping bullets and shrapnel from puncturing vital organs, rather than in some depot in Kent.

After all lest we forget in Iraq the soldiers didn't have enough of these items because Blair and his cronies didn't want to tip anyone off we were going to invade by actually issuing them to the soldiers!

Actually on reflection perhaps the best innovation might be a device fitted around the neck of every politician - an explosive collar which detonates when they are about to invade another country for spurious reasons - problem solved!

I saw a really positive piece on the BBC news the other night about monkeys who have been 'adapted' to control robot arms with their minds.

The piece was overwhelmingly in favour, saying this was a step forward and could help people who have been paralysed and so on.

Fair enough, but I did notice something rather odd.

If you look at the picture here, you'll notice something blocking out the top of the little chap's head.

It's not attached to to monkey, the silver metal thing is in the foreground. Now, this device works by connecting electro circuits to their brains.

So presumably behind this blocking bit of metal, the poor thing's head has been sawn off with large crocodile clips clamped to its brain.

I suppose it wouldn't have garnered such positive coverage if this had been visible...

Online web search engine colossus Google is being sued by Belgian newspapers who claim it is infringing copyright by publishing and archiving their articles.

This follows on from a similar case in the same contry by a French language group who won, forcing Google to take down cached versions of articles from its news service.

It's an interesting case - on the one hand papers and writers have a compelling argument that their copyrighted content is being used by another organisation to make profit for themselves.

After all Google, by providing 'news', although it generates no content whatsoever itself, gains hits, traffic and can sell advertising and other services, so making a profit by operating in a parasitic manner.

On the other hand newspapers are usually desperate to get their articles featured on Google News because it leads to a load of click throughs, increased traffic and so more revenue for them.

On balance most are more than happy to have their content used by search engines in this way, making the lawsuit all the more strange.

Of course they stand to gain from a big fine from Google - and perhaps it's no bad thing - after all why should an organisation effectively stealing content from someone else be allowed to make a profit on the back of it without asking for anyone's permission before publishing?

Yes another study and amazingly this time it's pro-gamers.

I've never heard the like before, and one presumes the Daily Mail won't be reporting on it.

According to Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex in the International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry (a tome I'm sure you all subscribe to) video games are 'harmless' and don't lead to real world aggression.

He based his conclusions on research papers published since the 1980s, and claims previous studies were unfairly biased against video games.

Well it certainly makes a change - I must admit the only time I've felt a touch of aggression is when I've wanted to nut the screen after a 12-year-old from Germany has shot me in the face for the 13th time in a row in Counter Strike!

Did anyone see Charlie Brooker's column in the Grauniad's Guide section yesterday?
It gave me quite a chortle - readers sent in their ideas for names on Gladiators...

Well here it is:

Don't know why but personal favourite was the female suggestion of 'binlids'. Although the punch in the stomach starter for ten in the female section of 'Gash' came close.

I haven't laughed so much since he described a pre-slimmed down Alan Sugar as looking like "a water buffalo straining for a shit in the middle of a lake".

And the technology line? Well as any good pc gamer should know, Mr Brooker started out writing on seminal magazine PC Zone!

I see environmental do-gooders Greenpeace are complaining that games console manufacturers aren't green enough.

That's an interesting one guys - I could understand moaning about the world's oil companies not paying enough lip service to your perfectly reasonable goal to save the plant.

Zeina Al-Hajj, Greenpeace's International Toxic Campaign co-ordinator lashed out at famous oil-slick causer and tree molester Nintendo saying: "Nintendo doesn't have any environmental policies."

Like what? I reckon they should create a special box which looks, to all intents and purposes, like a Wii.

But in reality it's made out of recycled cardboard, with a fake on switch so as to not use any power.

That would be much more preferable to the current version, which is made out of a combination of Dolphin fins, whale blubber and cfcs.

On the BBC story, it says: "The report found that the PS3 and 360 both contained "very high" levels of chemicals, called phthalates, which are used to "soften" flexible materials like wires and cable coatings.

"They are not permitted in toys sold in Europe but under EU regulations games consoles are not classed as toys. Ms Al-Hajj said: "We see a gap there. For us this is still a toy.""

Ah - but Ms Al-Hajj, the reason they're not allowed in toys is because children put them in their mouths and chew them, poisoning themselves. Wiis aren't actually for that.

No-one from Microsoft was available for comment on the findings of the Greenpeace report as they were designing whale finding radar for Japanese factory ships (I made the last bit up).

MODERN games are too complex.

There's a bold statement for a PC gamer to make, especially as I'm someone who looks down on titles released on consoles as being, shall we say, produced for the mass market.

I'm increasingly aware of friends who have got loads of games they have bought but have never really got into, or even started.

Some even sit on the shelf still wrapped in their cellophane. Heavy duty strategy games I know I'd love.... if I could just be bothered.

Perhaps it's because strategy games have got a bit samey. They all seem to operate at the same level of complexity so in some ways there's not a vast amount to take on board.

But for every one there's a whole new research tree to learn, the quirks of the game have to be got to grips with - and that only happens with a fair amount of play.

As someone who is not 'time rich' with young children, investing several hours in a game you might not even like much before you learn to play it properly is sometimes hard to justify.

So you almost get to the point where you just dig out an old title you know well for ease of use.

It even happens some times with more easily accessible genres. For example with Crysis I took a look at all the gubbins with the special power suits and wondered if I could face learning it all.

But then again - I'm glad I did take the trouble as it's such a great game.

Have you ever bought something and never actually got round to playing it, and why?

THE perils of a game being made with cutting-edge technology was brought home to me recently when I dusted off an old favourite for a blast.

As a bit of a strat fan I loaded up turn based shooter Incubation - similar in many ways to the classic X-Com series.

At the time it was pretty cutting edge, and utilised a facility only available to people who had bought the latest graphics card.

Those who have gamed on the PC for some time might remember 3dfx - and Incubation had a special enhanced graphics mode which would take advantage of the new hardware.

Sadly my more modern ATI Radeon 3870 512mb card was deemed by the game to be unable to cope in the full 3dfx mode.

It would, however, work fine in the basic graphics mode, although it keeps asking me to load directx 5.0...

How to get it working in full 3d mode? Answers on a postcard to ben.hurst@birminghammail.net please!