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Jon Martindale

War Z producer gives ‘sage’ advice

Hammerpoint

Sergey Titov, executive producer of problematic, recycled idea-fest, The War Z, has been speaking out at the Games Developer Conference with some advice for anyone trying to release an online game, or one with micro-transactions. According to Titov, one of gamer's favourite features about The War Z, is that despite …

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Would you deliver your neighbour’s food for a discount?

Walmart

Walmart is looking into crowd-sourcing its delivery service, offering discounts to customers that deliver their neighbours' food. You'd need to tell the supermarket where you live, but once done, Warlmart says it would highlight delivery routes for customer orders. It's not something the grocery chain is expecting to implement soon, …

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PC games sales made £13.24 billion in 2012

Microtransactions

An organisation that combines the two giants of gamer chip creation, AMD and Intel, has announced through a new report that PC gaming grew once again in 2012, managing to generate well over £10 billion. Known as the PC Games Alliance, a non-profit organisation with aims to further PC gaming …

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Panasonic to invest $2.7 billion for restructuring

Panasonic

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, has announced a company restructuring with an investment of $2.7 (£1.8) billion over the next two years, with a particular focus on expanding the company's automotive and housing developments, while scaling back on consumer electronics. It's not clear from this fresh round of investment if job …

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Corsair updates adds Dolby support to Vengeance headset

Vengeance

Owners of the Vengeance 2000 gaming headset rejoice, with a simple software update you can now get access to Dolby features, such as Dolby Headphone 2.0 and Dolby Pro Logic Ilx. Surround sound quality and game compatibility have also been improved. You'll need something like the Vengeance's 7.1 setup to …

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Artists pick a side in Times Square piracy adverts

Brooklyn based band, Ghost Beach, has urged artists to “pick a side” in the piracy argument, with giant billboards in Times Square, displaying messages like “Piracy is Progress,” and “#ArtistsForPiracy,” right alongside “Piracy is Robbery.” The plan is to encourage people to discuss the current “problem,” of piracy via Twitter …

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NZ Prime Minister was friends with head of GCSB spy agency

Key FLetcher

During the Kim Dotcom extradition trial, the New Zealand prime minister, John Key, has attempted to distance himself from the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) intelligence agency that performed illegal spying on the Megaupload founder. However it has now been revealed that they were more than just acquaintances and according to some, even childhood …

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Secret court amendments fail

Secret justice

Several amendments to secret courts championing “justice and security bill,” have failed to go through, despite backing from several big name organisations, meaning beginning 8th May, when a new session of parliament is opened, more trials will be able to be held in secret. The reasoning for the bill, is …

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Largest and lightest solar sail set to launch in 2014

Bruce Willis

NASA may have just got the Curiosity Rover back online, but researchers are already making plans for future projects, one of which is the 2014 launch window for the world's biggest solar sail, known as the Sunjammer project. A solar sail works by harnessing a combination of light and high …

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Upcoming Wii U update will cut loads times

Due for release in April, a Wii U firmware update from Nintendo is set to cut loading times down by a significant margin. To showcase this, Nintendo released a short video that shows how much quicker the Wii U is able to get back to the main menu when leaving …

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Danny Boyle: 3D movies a “phase”

Trainspotting

While 3D movies are a popular additional feature of many big movie releases at the moment, not everyone thinks so, audiences and content producers alike. One big name that doesn't think they'll be around forever is Danny Boyle. Describing himself as appreciative of what some directors have done with it, …

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Curiosity rover is photo sharing again

Curiosity

After a malfunction that booted the little guy into safe mode – we're assuming the intergalactic version of a BSOD – the Mars Curiosity Rover is once again transmitting pictures across the cosmos to our humble blue marble of a planet. Unfortunately however, the little guy may need to take …

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Google discontinues Blocked Sites, replaces it with Chrome app

Blocked Sites

Google has continued its recent trend of shutting down some of its services, with today's Blocked Sites following on from Google Reader earlier this month. However, the search giant is at least offering an alternative this time: the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension – though of course you'll need to be …

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Faux BBC and CNN news emails contain malware

Blackhole

If you've been getting lookalike news emails from CNN or the BBC in the past few days, you could have been hit by a malware attack and it may well be worth doing a few safe mode scans with popular anti-malware software, if an AVG report on the Blackhole exploit …

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Supermarkets to focus more on games

Smart

Supermarkets Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's are all set to begin pushing games in their local convenience stores, as well as the smaller outlets. This is thought to be an effort to cash in on the problems with other high street retailers Blockbuster and HMV. “We already sell major releases from …

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HMV removing closing signs, possible buyout imminent

HMV Gloucester

It's thought that with HMV's rental payment looming, someone or some entity is going to swoop in and save it, as a few stores have begun removing “closing down” signs from their windows. The particular outlets that have got rid of the woeful signs, include: Stockport, Manchester Market Street and …

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What’s cool about the Wii U? It plays Wii U games.

Why Wii U

This is one of Nintendo's big selling points, that it's hoping will help turn the tide of very sub-par sales of its new console, with new marketing information. In it, the Japanese firm highlights the differences between the Wii and the Wii U and would you believe it, the Wii …

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Did NZ give Dotcom residency, to make his arrest easier?

Kim Dotcom

This is the question being asked by more than just Kim Dotcom today, after it came to light that when his residency request was stalled due to previous criminal convictions in 2010, Dotcom was suddenly, inexplicably given it, after correspondence between police, FBI and immigration officials. This all happened back in October …

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China loves Linux

Red Flag

While you would think that China, with its restrictive web and seeming dislike of personal freedoms, would be all about locked down operating systems, it's not. In fact, it's such a fan of Linux, that the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, is teaming up with British firm Canonical, …

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Isohunt has to keep filtering search results

Isohunt

Today torrent search site Isohunt lost an appeal against the MPAA which would have seen it able to halt the filtering of its search results. However, backing up the initial 2006 ruling that forced the filtering into place, the court did not rule in the site's favour. Isohunt has been …

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Asteroid that killed dinosaurs was actually a comet

Dinosaurs

It's generally accepted that whatever created the 180km wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico was the giant rock that wiped out all non-bird-like dinosaurs around 65 million years ago. However there's a new suggestion that it may not have been an asteroid, but a comet. The reason behind this thinking was …

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Riot Games owner has a 40 per cent stake in Epic Games

Tencent

The parent company of League of Legends creators, Riot Games, Tencent, now owns a 40 per cent stake in Epic Games after its $330 million buy up of shares last year, giving it the chance to add a couple of its own executives to the Unreal developer's board. These are likely …

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ISPs begin block of KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy

The blockade of a fresh batch of file sharing websites has begun, with the major ISPs in the UK blocking their customers from accessing Fenopy, Kickasstorrents and H33T. Of course this won't stop 99 per cent of visitors who already have ways around the blocks thanks to a plethora of …

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