Game releases for December 2009

PC releases for December 2009

The Saboteur [right] - Nazi-stomping is the order of the day in this World War II action adventure. You play an Irish mechanic called Sean Devlin,  helping le resistance blow things up and generally destroy all things...

Game releases for November 2009

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat..

PC releases for November 2009

Dragon Age: Origins [repeated due to delay] - BioWare's spiritual successor to the excellent Baldur's Gate - one of the most popular RPGs ever. Dragon Age ups the ante with superb visuals to accompany an emotional and dark storyline. Baldur's Gate fans will be foaming at the mouth already.

Ghostbusters [repeated due to delay] - Sure to be packed with humour, Ghostbusters lets you team up with the original film crew for...

Google logo: Popeye's creator born 115 years ago

Elzie Crisler Segar was born 115 years ago today on December the 8th, 1894. January the 1st 2009 marked the year when Popeye became public domain (apart from in the US), due to over 70 years since the author's death in 1938 having elapsed.

Never has a character done so much to help mothers promote the virtues of cramming spinach down kids' throats. Though we never understood what both Popeye and Brutus saw in Olive Oyl! But do know what happened to Jesus when he went to Mount Olive..

We wrap up with some of Popeye's "mad rhymes". Starting "I'm Popeye the Sailor man, I'm Popeye the sailor...

Space: LCROSS finds water on the Moon

The LCROSS mission we reported on live last month has had its initial data analysis completed and the news is good! There is now conclusive evidence for water on the Moon.

Google updated its logo to celebrate the LCROSS mission success

There are lots of excellent media summaries regarding the news already, which we will link to at the end of this...

Space: LCROSS crashes into the Moon

Shortly, the US spacecraft LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) will purposely crash into the Cabeus crater on the Moon's southern pole in the hunt for water-ice.

LCROSS and centaur on collision course

The spacecraft will impact in two stages, having separated last night. A large fuel stage called Centaur will...

Game releases for October 2009

What to expect for joystick-waggling action on all major platforms this month.

PC releases for October 2009

Risen - Monsters battling RPG set on a volcanic island in the Mediterranean.

Fifa 10 - The yearly refinement from EA to the footballing genre. A 360° dribbling system is being hyped up in this version [Did the gameplay catch up with sensi yet? --Ed]. Management mode has also seen improvements.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Republic Heroes - Based on the animated series but with an all-new storyline, this action adventure tries to recreate the fun of the cartoon. It enables you to play as...

Google logo: Barcode

On October 7th 1952 - 57 years ago today - US Patent 2,612,994 was issued for the humble barcode.

Google today changes its logo to the above, to celebrate the anniversary. Can anyone decode it? Though we...

Michael Jackson's autopsy details reveal cosmetic surgery secrets

Fascinating details have been released from the autopsy of pop king Michael Jackson, that shed light on some of the cosmetic surgery he must have undertaken over the years.

The star died earlier in the year from an overdose administered by his personal doctor. He had inflamed lungs and
...

Google logo: Mahatma Gandhi's birthday

Google is celebrating, by changing its logo, the birthday on October 2nd of one of the world's great past spiritual leaders, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Though we usually just refer to him as Gandhi, or with his title Mahatma - meaning "great soul".

He was born on October the 2nd in 1869, and assassinated by a fellow Hindu on January 30th 1948. The great
...

F1: Ferrari confirm signing of Fernando Alonso for 2010

The "silly season" of driver transfers in Formula 1 can finally start resolving itself from today, as Ferrari have finally confirmed the signing of Fernando Alonso for the 2010 season.

Alonso has been dodging questions about the move for months

The double world champion will replace Ferrari's 2007 world champion, the on-form Finn Kimi Räikkönen, who did...

Lucy Vodden of "in the sky with diamonds" fame dies at 46

Lucy Vodden, the childhood friend of Julian Lennon (John Lennon's son) who was the inspiration for the Beatles classic "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has died at the young age of 46.

She was suffering from the illness Lupus, a terrible and incurable disease acting upon the immune system. We hope...

Google logo: Confucius' birthday

Google today (one day after celebrating their own 11th birthday) are now celebrating Chinese philosopher Confucius' birthday.

The great mind would be 2559 years old today, if he were still alive. As always, wikipedia has
...

Mighty haul of Anglo Saxon treasure uncovered

In Staffordshire, England, a mighty haul of Anglo Saxon treasure has been discovered this week by one man with a metal detector.

It's gold, not freshly baked biscuits. We promise.

[image source bbc]

55 year old Terry Herbert (pictured above) made the discovery while detecting on a friend's piece of farmland. Both the land owner and himself stand to receive a substantial reward for the discovery, which itself - being classified...

AMD/ATI: Radeon 58xx update

The first non-reference design has been spotted over at Bit-Tech, a render of Sapphire's Vapor-X version of the HD 5870.

The gorgeous Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor-X

For the normal stock designs, there are reports that the 5850 version of the card has been pushed back a bit, due to...

AMD/ATI: Radeon 5850 and 5870 released today

After a long summer of anticipation, the next generation of graphics cards has finally arrived. AMD today released the first two models in the Evergreen family, the Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850.

The Radeon HD 5870 [left] and HD 5850 [right] reference designs

The HD 5870 has been spotted throughout the day at various retailers, better availability of the HD 5850 is likely to...

Game releases for September 2009

Round-up of games being released in the west this month, a summary of what we can expect.

PC releases for September 2009

Champions Online - Superhero MMORPG.

Championship Manager 2010 - The classic football management sim gets a complete graphical overhaul.

Section 8 - Sci-fi FPS with the 8th Armoured Infantry battling the Arm of Orion on aliens worlds across the galaxy.

Mini Ninjas - Cute and ninja usually does mix, but this take on the various escapades of ninjas reminds us very much of...

F1: Renault's "Crashgate" debacle concluded

The World Motor Sport Council met today at a hearing in Paris to make a decision on what to do about the "crash-gate" incident that has set the media on fire of late.

For those unfamiliar: Last Formula 1 season during the Singapore night race grand prix, then driver Nelson Piquet Jr. had a crash 2 laps after his Renault team mate Fernando Alonso had pitted. The former world champion Spaniard had started the race light on fuel to maximize his grid position, so pitting dropped him down the race order.

Nelson Piquet Jr. crashing in Singapore 2008

But with the mess created by Piquet Jr.'s crash, a safety car had to be deployed until it had been cleared. This left...

Apple's Snow Leopard: What's new in OSX 10.6

Apple's new version of Mac OSX, version 10.6 Snow Leopard was recently released. What's changed from the previous 10.5 Leopard release, and why should you upgrade?

The major changes

- 64-bit support has had major efforts put into it. The system kernel along with Standard OS applications such as iTunes have been recompiled for 64bit when processor support is available.

- Streamlined to take up less hard drive space. A normal upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard should free up about 7GB. We experienced 10GB being freed up. The extra hard drive space is always welcome.

- Grand Central Dispatch: Apple's new multi-threaded management system aims to maximize performance for programs on multi-core CPUs by giving programmers an efficient thread API. Leaving optimization of core usage to...

Happy talk like a pirate day!

Yarr, me hearties! Shiver me timbers it be September the 19th already! A happy talk like a pirate day to all ye land lubbers out there.

Avast! We suggest ye weigh anchor o'er at TellTale Games' special pirate page before the old bell strikes 12 times for free booty: an episode of any of their bilge-sucking games! Well blow me down!

Old salty seadogs among ye will already know of their Tales of Monkey Island releases this here year, starring that silver tongued whippersnapper Guybrush Threepwood -- and we'll make all ye SCUMM sucking scurvy dogs swab the poop deck unless ye pick up an episode of it if ye haven't already! Savvy?

Aye that be all, we're off to bury our heads in a drum of rum until we've thrown all sheets to the wind, arrrrr..

Further reading
- The Official site for International Talk Like A Pirate Day 

The future is 3D - nVidia's shutter glasses support

Many's the night we've whiled away the wee hours wishing for moving holograms. Who could resist a 3D interactive model that would integrate into our world so naturally? We're not there yet, but a step on the journey is 3D display technology. We'll be looking at this solution currently sold by nVidia.

The GeForce 3D vision glasses set from nVidia

The glasses operate by blanking out alternate eyes while looking at the monitor. They sync with the little black...

Patrick Swayze dies of pancreatic cancer aged 57

The film legend finally succumbed in his struggle after battling with the disease for 2 years. He died next to his family on September the 14th.

He has been starring in a US TV show called The Beast this year, as Charles Barker. A tribute to the man's fighting spirit and guts.

We can't think of a better way to send him off, than treating you to a sample of great quotes from one of the best films...