Laser Sharks

From The Economist,

NEARLY a third of Hong Kong’s households watch television via the internet, according to a new report from Telecommunications Management group, a consultancy. Because internet protocol television (IPTV) uses the same technology as that which links computer networks, smaller countries with high broadband penetration tend to have more subscribers. As well as plain old programmes, viewers can also enjoy other services such as on-demand video. So far, Europe accounts for over half of the world’s subscribers.

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Remember the gossip game in school? It is the one where the first person whispers “Bill is wearing brown shoes” to a second person, the second whispers it to a third, the third whispers it to a fourth, and so on. Eventually, the twentieth person says what he heard, which is something to the effect of “Bill and Susan were making out under the monkey bars.” Well, the same thing happens in so-called respectable journalism.

Here is the original story from the BBC.

Teenager serious after stabbing

A 19-year-old is in a serious condition after he was stabbed in broad daylight in a town centre in south London.

The victim was stabbed on Tuesday morning in Croydon, near the town’s Whitgift Shopping Centre, and taken to hospital by air ambulance.

In a separate incident, a 15-year-old boy was shot in Streatham, south-west London on Monday evening. His injuries are described as not life-threatening.

No arrests have been made in connection with either incident.

The 19-year-old was stabbed shortly after 0930 BST on Tuesday.
Police described his attacker as a mixed-race man, about 5ft 11in tall, with a scar on the right side of his face.

No doubt, this is a very sad story. However, this story was reported on April 29, 2008, which just so happens to be the launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV. British publication The Mail decided to jazz things up a bit. Below is an excerpt from their story.

Man stabbed queueing for midnight launch of ultra-violent video game Grand Theft Auto IV

The launch of the ultra-violent Grand Theft Auto IV video game descended into real-life horror when a man was stabbed repeatedly in a queue of fans waiting to buy it.

Shoppers thought they were witnessing a promotional stunt for the launch when the blood-soaked victim staggered among them.

They realised the attack was genuine only when police arrived.

It took place outside the Gamestation store in Croydon, South London, one of 40 stores which opened at midnight to sell the new game.

Not wanting to be outdone, The Press Association, which is a British news service similar to the Associated Press and Reuters, published this story.

Police hunt video game attacker

Police are hunting a hooded man who stabbed a passer-by as he waited to buy a new edition of a notoriously violent computer game.

Up to 100 people witnessed the knife attack as they queued ahead of the midnight release of Grand Theft Auto IV on Monday.

The 23-year-old victim was attacked as he passed the queue outside Gamestation, in George Street, Croydon, at about 11pm.

Certainly the Croydon Guardian had to top any other publication about a story in their own town. Below is an excerpt from their article, with the title “Grand Theft Slaughter.”

Grand Theft Stabbing

A man was stabbed in the town centre of Croydon last night at the opening of the new controversial video game Grand Theft Auto 4.

Queues of people waiting outside Gamestation in George Street at around 10.50pm saw the 25-year-old man staggering around covered in blood as they waited to get their hands on the latest copy of the game.

He was carrying a knife, which was also reportedly covered in blood.

Wow, we have people standing in line so desensitized to violence that they are ignoring a rapidly-aging blood-soaked man and only care about getting GTA IV so that they can get their next violence fix. However, in the reader comments of the Croydon Guardian, someone leaves the following comment.

“I’d just like to clarify, that the incident and the four “blokes” involved had no connections with the people who were in the queue for Grand Theft Auto 4, nor did they have any intentions of purchasing the game. It just happened in the same place.”

“I was in the queue and saw the events unfold, but once again it seems instead of looking at the root of the problem it’s much more conveniant to blame the games that we play.”

The stabbing had absolutely nothing to to do with GTA IV, as evidenced not only by the eyewitness account but also by the radical change in the story. The original article does not even mention the game while the Croydon Guardian article practically blames GTA IV for the stabbing. Gamers knew all along that this was the case. The insatiable desire for the media to have more attention-grabbing headlines combined with the general public’s ever-present need for something to fear has once again cast a bad light on video games and gamers. Gamers are currently a very easy target, mostly because games are a newer form of art, and the majority of people who run newspapers/tv stations/etc. do not play games. The gaming public needs to educate the general public. Perhaps this is a good start.

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The Wii version of Rock Band, with its sleek white drums and wireless guitar, will release this June. The Wii version will even feature five additional songs that were not included on the other consoles - “Roxanne” by The Police, “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis, “Roam” by The B-52s, “My Dirty Little Secret” by The All-American Rejects, and “Rockaway Beach” by The Ramones. While these songs are not included off the shelf for the Xbox 360 or PS3, they are available as downloadable content.

Sounds great, but this is where the Wii version drops the ball on one of the major benefits to the other consoles’ versions of Rock Band. Rock Band Wii will not offer downloadable content. A Harmonix representative confirmed to Shacknews that

“The Wii edition of Rock Band will not include online multiplayer or support for downloadable content.”

1Up is also confirming this

“It’s a major bummer that the Wii version of Rock Band will not have online play or downloadable content. We can live without online play, but the lack of downloadable tunes is a big blow to Wii owners, especially when Harmonix releases three new songs every week for the other versions.”

Yes, it’s true, not only will you not be able to download new songs to your Wii, your best friend 1423-2344-5355 and you will not be able to play online.

Rock Band has had a steady flow of downloadable content since it first launched for Xbox 360 and PS3. In fact, those two versions have combined for over 6,000,000 downloads. Averaging somewhere between $1.50 to $2.00 per song, Rock Band has made a killing off of these downloads.

Why will the Wii not offer downloads and online play? Laser Sharks has been unable to find an explanation for this. It appears this is simply a case of Nintendo’s Friend Code strategy.

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The Wiimote has nothing on this controller.

An engineering firm called Emotiv has developed a neruo-headset which interprets neuron interactions in the brain. The headset uses a technology known as non-invasive Electroencephalography (EEG) to sense electrical impulses from the brain. Electroencephalography has been used in medical practices for almost 100 years but has only come to be used to explore brain computer interfaces since the 1970s.

According to Tan Le, president of US/Austrailian firm Emotiv,

“It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer. It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively.”

“Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we’ve created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically.”

The headset controller will be used to create a more realistic interaction between gamers and the games. The Headset can sense over 30 different types of emotions, actions, and expressions such as excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis).

Le stated,

“This is the first headset that doesn’t require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp,” she said. “It also doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars.”

“The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games. If you laughed or felt happy after killing a character in a game then your virtual buddy could admonish you for being callous.”

The Wiimote has nothing on this.

Emotiv is working with IBM to develop the technology for uses in “strategic enterprise business markets and virtual worlds.” The headset features a gyroscope to detect movement and has wireless capabilities to communicate with a USB dongle plugged into a computer. It is expected to ship later this year and cost $299.

Source

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Microsoft announced in its 10-Q report that its Entertainment and Devices Division, home to the Xbox, turned an $89 million dollar profit during the fiscal quarter (Q3) ending March 31. During the same quarter one year ago, the division lost $746 million. The division had total sales of $1.58 billion in the third quarter, an increase in 68% from the a year ago. Microsoft EDD division has also experienced revenue growth over the past 9 months, up 34% to 6.58 $billion.

Microsoft is attributing most of the gains to the success of the Xbox 360, claiming that it sold 1.3 millions units in Q3, 7.5 million units in the past nine months, and 19 million overall.

Microsoft stated in the report that,

“During the three months ended March 31, 2008, Xbox platform and PC game revenue increased $418 million or 85% primarily as a result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, Xbox 360 video game sales, and Xbox Live revenue,” the company said. “Xbox platform and PC game revenue increased $1.4 billion or 42% during the nine months ended March 31, 2008, as a result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, video game sales led by Halo 3, Xbox Live revenue, and Xbox 360 accessory sales.”

The upcoming release of GTA IV from Rockstar Games will no doubt help boost Xbox 360 sales as well. Overall in Q3, Microsoft reported revenues of $14.45 billion and operating income of $4.41 billion.

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According to videogamer.com , Comedian Ricky Gervais is going to make a cameo appearance in Rockstar’s upcoming game Grand Theft Auto IV.  Liberty City will feature a comedy club in addition to bowling alleys and bars in its latest iteration of the ultra-popular, ultra-controversial open world game.

Gervais told men’s magazine ShortList in an interview that he would appear in GTAIV as one of the stand-up acts in the comedy club. His avatar will perform approximately 3 minutes of new material in addition to excerpts from his hit tour Fame. Gervais also confirmed that he would appear in the game outside of the comedy club, but refused to elaborate.

Quotes from Ricky Gervais in ShortList:

“It’s a first - which always interests me. It was shot in New York, my favourite place in the world, and I got to wear a tight lycra suit as part of the digital process. No, hold on, that wasn’t so good.”

“Unfortunately they captured the whole horror, except I look slightly tougher. It is seriously a big deal, though. Games have outsold Hollywood for the past few years so it’s nice to be a small part of that.”

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Assassin’s Creed Lead Engineer Mathieu Mazerolle was asked the big question; how do the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions stack-up against each other?

Our goal is to ship the two versions of [Assassin’s Creed] to be within 5% or less of difference between each other. That doesn’t mean the PS3 is 5% “better” or “worse”, it’s really just an approximation and a statement that while the two versions are very similar, there will be (as there always is) small, hopefully inperceptible, differences between the two versions within a very small threshold.

He also added:

Both machines are very complex and have very distinct strengths and weaknesses, so it’s almost impossible to quantify these sorts of comparisons - we just want to make the game as good as it can be on both platforms, and owners of both consoles will get the same experience from playing [Assassin’s Creed].

At X07 when asked about the benefit of Blu-Ray versus standard DVD Mathieu told us that even if UbiSoft wanted to add a new piece of content to the Xbox 360 version of Assassin’s Creed the DVD version is already at capacity.

He clarified:

As far as adding extra content, it’s not really an issue: we have all the content we need for the game fitting on a DVD as it is, and the game wouldn’t necessarily be better by just by adding “stuff” on the disk: the biggest limitation for us isn’t disk space, it’s squeezing every last drop of performance out of the processors on both consoles to make the game as cool as possible on the screen!

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EGM has received tons of hate mail since they awarded Halo 3 with the “Best A.I. of E3″ honor and stuck Killzone 2 with ”Worst A.I. of E3.”  There have been the typical cries of bias and fanboyism.  EGM Editor Dan Hsu has fan the fires of this debate on his blog with an FAQ style response.

Microsoft game vs. a Sony game. How convenient.
OK, that wasn’t really a question, but it’s a legit comment. We didn’t pick Halo 3 and Killzone 2 specifically to go against each other or to cause extra controversy. We voted as a staff (including the entire 1UP Network, which includes 1UP.com and GameVideos.com), and we honestly and independently came up with Halo 3 at the top of the list for best A.I. and Killzone 2 at the “top” for worst. We didn’t even think of it as Microsoft vs. Sony thing until we realized that both games won their respective categories.

But is it fair to pick Halo 3 because you guys actually got a chance to play it? Versus Killzone 2, which was only on demo, played by the developers.
Good question, but no…our previous hands-on experience with Halo 3 (for our last cover story) did not factor into the voting. Very few of us actually played single-player Halo 3 when we did our cover story, and when I voted, I kept that game time out of mind for these awards. I based my best/worst A.I. votes purely on what was shown to me at E3…and Halo 3 and Killzone 2 were both on equal grounds there. Both were not playable by us, only played for us by their respective developers, and based on those E3 demos and those demos alone, we voted the way we did. I saw excellent A.I. from Halo 3 specifically from the E3 demo, and I saw an extreme example of bad A.I. from Killzone 2 (see below)…also at E3. That’s why I voted for those two games for those respective categories.

But there’s gotta be some other, lesser-profile games with worse A.I. than Killzone 2.
Based on what we’ve seen and what we voted on, totally fairly, Killzone 2 nabbed the award. Part of the problem is, the Killzone 2 showed some very noticeable flaws. It wasn’t like the enemies were just standing around. Like we mentioned in the write-up, the bad guys were actually jumping out of cover to get *in* the line of fire. It’s like they wanted to get shot. That alone, unfortunately, made Killzone 2 look worse (A.I.-wise) than it probably is.

So you guys hate Killzone 2, huh?
Shut up, you stupid FAQ man. The write-up in EGM greatly compliments Killzone 2 as a whole. We’re just making fun of one specific thing: that whole “jumping out of cover” business.

OK, then you must hate Sony.
Heh, check out how many good awards the company picked up in the same feature. Oh by the way–this should be obvious, but in case you didn’t know, moneyhats are mutually exclusive. You can’t accept one from Microsoft *AND* Sony at the same time. It’s in the contracts.

Oh by the way again–this should be obvious, but in case you didn’t know, I was joking just now.

Isn’t it unfair to compare a game that’s still months away from release (Killzone 2) to a game that’s almost finished (Halo 3)?
Oh, for sure, but that’s part of the problem for any E3 judging…all games are at different points in their development. But we still have E3 awards in EGM. We still have our annual E3 opinionated guide in EGM. The industry even has its own E3 awards. Are all of them fair? No…not if you look at how far along each individual title is in its development. But then again, yes…the companies are putting these products out for the media to see, and as we’ve done many times in the past, we’ll judge them (knowing full well they’re incomplete games). So in the context of these being E3 games and E3 demos, we’re treating them all equally and as fairly as possible.

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On the Halo series page at Wikipedia, an edit originated from Sony Computer Entertainment casts aspersions on Microsoft’s Halo 3. In the Halo 3 section of the Halo page, Sony added “(Halo 3) wont look any better than Halo 2.” (See the first and second story images attached below.) Since then, the Halo page has been corrected and locked from further vandalism.

The WikiScanner discovery is reported on Wired’s ‘Threat Level’. The report and IP address have been checked by Wired senior editor Kevin Poulsen, (i.e., see the third attached image for Poulsen’s comments; “Sony insults Halo 3″ is the second report after the Walmart report.)

Finally, the forth and last image was taken from a ‘Whois’ search at the RIPE.net database for “217.18.23.2″, the IP address recorded by Wikipedia as having edited the Halo page. The query shows that 217.18.23.2 is registered to SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) Liverpool Studios in Great Britain. The result also shows the studio’s physical address, phone number, and email address.

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Diddy Kong has finally made his way into Super Smash Bros.  To celebrate, Nintendo has announced two new special moves for Diddy Kong.

Standard Special Move: Peanut Popgun

It’s Diddy’s peanut shooter.  The peanut will go faster the longer you hold down the button.

Make sure not to hold the button too long.  If you do your gun will explode.

Diddy’s peanut shooter may be the only combination weapon/food source.  If the shell cracks, a peanut will come out.  Eat this for a health boost.

Up Special Move: Rocketbarrel Blast

You can charge up Diddy’s double-barreled jet pack for a longer boost

You can hold the control stick left or right while charging up to boost up at an angle

Be careful!  If you get attacked while using Rocketbarrel Boost, you will lose your barrels and they will crash to the ground.

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Our friends at Teckh.com are reporting that Suprnova.org is back online.  Suprnova was arguably the best torrents search engine until they were shutdown in 2004 due to legal pressure.  The site was donated to what has become the the top general torrents search engine, thepiratebay.com.  The Pirate Bay has reopened suprnova and is officially calling it an open beta. 

This is great news for anyone looking for any easy way to obtain backup copies of media they legally own.

Official Press Release:

Suprnova has been down for some years due to some heavy pressure from the copyright lobby. The former owner sloncek donated suprnova to The Pirate Bay - and as you know, we like to kick ass and bow for noone!

We were going to keep this site a secret until we had finished it, but of course it leaked, that’s how internet works. So now that the word is out, we’re releasing it!

Please consider these first weeks/months as a beta test. Since we love all you guys and gals so much we decided to keep it an open beta test. That means, please behave, don’t complaint to much and if you discover any weird bugs or problems, let us know.

Some of you have also already discovered our new forum, Suprbay! Which is a joint forum for both Suprnova and The Pirate Bay. Discuss movies, music, love and whatever with your fellow pirates.

Finally, some words for non-internet loving companies: This is how it works. Whatever you sink, we build back up. Whomever you sue, ten new pirates are recruited. Wherever you go, we are already ahead of you. You are the past and the forgotten, we are the internet and the future.

y’arr!

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Sorry about being away for so long.  Business trips and laziness have combined to make for some really bad posting.  I want to send out a special apology to Rob.  I know your day was not complete without the latest updates from Lasersharks.

There is an updated confirmed track list for Guitar Hero III.  Check it out here.

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