In fact, many of you have commented that you have cancelled your preorders in response to the design decisions made by Infinity Ward. But Activision, publisher of what will be one of the largest titles of the year, doesn't seem all that worried about the backlash from PC gamers.

"We're, of course, watching this very carefully and paying attention to it," Activision president Mike Griffith said in response to a financial analyst, as noted by Kotaku. "But we're not overly concerned about it."

"One of the problems with our PC SKUs in the past is that it has not been as friendly a consumer experience in terms of matchmaking and online play as the consoles have allowed it to be," he added. "Our solution here improves that consumer experience overall by a significant margin. And so we think that the benefits we will see are going to far outweigh any negatives that seem to be surfacing."

I've read so many posts of such a batshit, bugfuck nature about this Modern Warfare Server Thing that it's hard to know where to begin. If you are angry at this break from tradition, and if you feel betrayed by these eleventh hour revelations, these are both situated well within the reasonable and comport (by and large) to the known. Do not buy it. Your platform of choice is the most open, universal digital venue on the planet. A suitor will be along presently.

It's not cherry-picking to say that the notion of Microsoft somehow being involved runs deep. You could be charitable and say they mean Infinity Ward was infected somehow by Microsoft's peer to peer vision, but that's not what they're saying. They're talking about literal collusion to bring about the downfall of the PC. Even though Modern Warfare 2 is launching on Steam, leverages Steamworks, and grants Steam Achievements.

Some of the rage is channeled semi-constructively into (not a boycott, per se, but) a redirection of funds from Modern Warfare 2 over to Battlefield 2: Bad Company - a notion that has been cannily seized by the would-be recipient. Battlefield 2 is going to be pretty good, so why not buy it - but let's pause for a moment and really absorb the idea that PC gamers are rallying around a DICE console port in their zeal. Nevermind the fact that you can't host your own Battlefield 2 servers, and that having a dedicated server for the game involves renting it from one of their partners. Maybe they didn't read the FAQ?

So how easy is it to pirate? Assuming you have a Jailbroken iPhone and Cydia installed, you can simply add a new package source to download the pirating software from Hackulous. This pirating software is simply a kernel patch that bypasses Apple’s DRM system (or something like that).

When you add the package source Cydia is nice enough to give you a message warning you that what you may be doing may be morally wrong (see below). Since I was only intending to pirate our apps, I added it anyway. A quick install of the software and a reboot is all that is needed to allow your phone to run pirated software.

Once the phone is rebooted, all you have to do is download a cracked version of the app from one of the MANY places on the internet, add it to iTunes, sync, and you are done. NOTE: Surprisingly this is MUCH easier than actually buying it on iTunes!!

With Dragon Age: Origins' November 3 launch less than a month away, developer BioWare has unveiled its initial downloadable content plans for the game. Unlike with the role-playing game developer's previous project, the acclaimed sci-fi adventure Mass Effect, players won't have to wait long to expand the upcoming dark fantasy.

They won't have to wait at all, in fact.

BioWare today announced that Dragon Age: Origins will get its first downloadable expansion on day one. Called the Warden's Keep, the DLC will add a dungeon-based quest to the game along with six new abilities, a variety of items, and a base where players can trade with merchants. It will feature a supernatural storyline set in an ancient--and possibly haunted--fortress once used as a redoubt by the Grey Wardens, the ancient order at the center of Origins' main storyline. (A magic suit of Grey Warden armor will be one of the items in the add-on.)

As mentioned in the Sunday Papers yesterday, there has been some controversy sparked after remarks made by Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford to Maximum PC regarding Steam, where he stated that the digital distribution service from Valve was “exploiting a lot of small guys.” This was later countered by an article on Gamasutra where Tripwire’s John Gibson retorted, “Ask the Tripwire Interactive employees if they feel exploited, as they move into their new offices paid for by the money the company has made on Steam.”

Interested to see if there were other positions we spoke to 2D BOY and Zombie Cow, who have sold their games on Steam, to find out about their experiences.

Says 2D BOY’s Ron Carmel:

The presentation starts with some basic information on the various file-sharing networks, and details how the company’s software can detect illegal downloads and automatically send out requests for damages to alleged pirates. Their setup is similar to those at DigiProtect and Logistep who run comparable operations all over the world.

After finding out the addresses of alleged file-sharers they send out requests for damages directly, usually in the range of a few hundred dollars (or in the UK, around £600) per infringement. Thus far, little has been known about the actual profits generated by these operations, but this is exactly what the last part of the DRS presentation covers.

DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense. According to the company they get to keep 80% of the money, leaving 20% for the copyright holders. The anti-piracy outfit claims it uses the money to cover their IT costs, administration costs, attorney fees and other costs.

Having virtual sex in Second Life isn’t what it used to be.

The 6-year-old virtual world, run by Linden Lab of San Francisco, is apparently so littered with bootlegged sex toys that it’s hard to know whether you’re getting the right bang for your buck.

Raising the stakes on a two-year-old intellectual property controversy in Second Life, a popular seller of online adult novelties filed a federal copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit against Linden Lab this week. The suit claims that Linden looks the other way, while virtual residents rip off the SexGen product line, which includes specially programmed beds, rugs, sofas and even a coffin that enable consenting avatars to engage in virtual sex acts.

In just a few weeks time The Pirate Bay as we know it will be no more. There is no doubt that its demise will signal the end of an era, however, it will also mark the start of a new one. Or to use the words of Pirate Bay insider Rasmus Fleischer, “It’s time to sink the ship and move on!”

pirate bayWhether or not The Pirate Bay will end up being sold, the ship has served its purpose and is destined for Davy Jones’s Locker. Luckily for most BitTorrent fans there are plenty of alternatives.

However, in the current climate where media moguls send their lawyers after everything that could be used to infringe copyrights, a paradigm shift might be needed. This is exactly what Piracy Bureau co-founder and Pirate Bay insider Rasmus Fleischer is hinting at.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

Internet security company Norton Symantec has come up with a list of Top 100 Dirtiest sites, which could infect your computer with malware.

Malware is a software that can damage or compromise a computer system without the owner's consent.

Natalie Connor, spokeswoman of the anti-virus company, said that even visiting any of the named websites could expose a computer to infection and put the personal information into the hands of unwanted people.

"What people don't realise is when you type in a website, you're bringing down information on a page and with it could be malware," News.com.au quoted her as saying.

Windows 7 is not quite a "Vista service pack." It does share a lot of the core tech, and was clearly designed to fix nearly every bad thing anyone said about Vista. Which ironically puts the demon that it was trying to exorcise at its heart. What that means is that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been in the public eye–a solid OS with plenty of modern eye candy that mostly succeeds in taking Windows usability into the 21st century–but it doesn't daringly innovate or push boundaries or smash down walls or whatever verb meets solid object metaphor you want to use, because it had a specific set of obligations to meet, courtesy of its forebear.

And as a bonus, we compare Windows 7 to Snow Leopard. The Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 feature comparison is pretty much final, but it's not a review, because Snow Leopard isn't out yet. Once Snow Leopard is released, we'll revisit the subject, in case Apple decides to sneak in something crazy at the last minute.

For starters, we’ve had reasonable facsimiles of cyber czars before – to little effect. The studies have been done, the list of tasks complete, yet we continue to fail year after year.

Second, the cyber czar, like most actual royalty in the world these days, is destined to be more figurehead than Sun King. He (or she) would have no power of service providers or industries that are both the underpinnings of cyber space and the victims of online assaults. Despite grandiose claims to the contrary, the government has very little direct impact on how safe national resources are online.

Finally, even if the czar did have a lot more pull with industry than he actually would; how does she put that juice to good use? Given that the czar and the individual with the power to make things happen in cyber space are not the same person: she doesn’t.

He has no idea how the little visitors got there, but suspects jokers who regularly prop up the bar of the Lamb in Yapton, West Sussex.

He said: "I couldn't believe it when I saw them. It was 8am and I was half asleep and saw all these little eyes looking up at me.

This weekend did not go well for AT&T. The broadband provider began blocking access to parts of 4chan on Sunday (img.4chan.org, which of course includes /b/) thanks to what AT&T says was a denial of service attack coming from that domain. AT&T was uncommunicative with customers at the onset of the 4chan blockage, leaving many users questioning whether the telecom was trying to censor 4chan. AT&T's official silence on the matter also led some 4chan denizens to launch attacks against the company.

The block began in the early evening Sunday and went on through the night, with numerous users (including some of our own staff members) confirming that they were unable to access 4chan's image servers. Why? According to an Anonymous posting on 4chan itself, it seems as if there were hundreds of thousands of connections being made from the IP address of the image server (888,979 at the time of that posting, to be exact).

No problem, there is a store near my home. I called on Wednesday, and went to the store on Friday. I know they will want employment verification so I bring my name badge, photo id, the paper with the discount code. Go in and the man at the desk goes about setting me up. Then he says this "There is an activation fee of $36 to add this discount to your account.

Today, another unfortunate sighting took place on the open subject of Net Neutrality. A now rather infamous telecommunications provider in the United States has taken its first slash in a battle that will wage on for months against consumer democracy and against and the digital natives of Generation Y until the FCC can intercede. Grab your coats Americans, and get ready for war. Today is the day that AT&T officially began censoring the internet.

In a rather vicarious attempt to fire a first shot in the Net Neutrality war, the Telco provider blocked rights to view certain sections of the highly popular imageboard 4chan.org throughout the night. In particular, the /r9k/ and the infamous /b/ sections were inaccessible and the site’s owner has confirmed that AT&T was in fact filtering access for many of its subscribed customers. Several social news blogs and websites have been circulating the information for several hours while many users nationwide are confirming that the site had indeed been blocked in a number of geographic US locations.

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals.

The beta days are over at Google, at least for some of its most popular applications. As we predicted two months ago, Google is finally taking the beta label off of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and GTalk today. And it is about time. For instance, Gmail, which launched five years ago and is by far Google’s most popular non-search app, is already older than many startups.

...

Google Docs (launched in 2006), Calendar (launched in 2007), and Gtalk (2005) are not quite as popular, but all three are also fully-baked products. The reason, though, that Google is making this change is purely marketing because it sells these Google Apps bundled together to businesses for $50/user/year. Matt Glotzbach, director of product management at Google Enterprise, tells me removing the beta label was really for business customers. “Consumers don’t really care,” he says, “for some of our business customers it is certainly an issue.”

Let's, instead, consider that weird old phrase "computer literacy", these days seldom used except by the hardy souls teaching Windows to the elderly. Let's compare computer literacy with ordinary literacy. Reading and writing.

In this respect, I think you can make a case that computer technology has made it to the late sixth century AD, at best.

In the olden days, you see, the upper classes were able to read and write, but they generally preferred not to. They left it to people who had to do it, like scribes and clergymen.

The BitTorrent tracker site's little lie down sparked speculation that is owners had pulled the plug on the operation already. But the latest Twitter update from co-founder Peter Sunde, aka BrokeP, claims that a DDoS attack is in fact the culprit.

Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X AB released a statement this morning in which it confirmed it was in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for $7.8m.

Many users of the site have hit out at the site’s four co-founders, who were handed jail terms and hefty fines in April this year after the men were found guilty in a Swedish court of being accessories to breaching copyright laws.

Unsurprisingly, sell out accusations are currently flooding the interwebulator.

Unfortunately, it seems that Dell may not be able to find a way out of the dilemma unscathed. The Commission ordered that Dell should sell each customer one monitor at the previously listed $15 price, and then offer a descending discount for each monitor ordered. If Dell fails to comply with the order, it would be a violation of Taiwan's fair trade laws, and the government would thus be forced to seek "legal alternatives."

We’ve confirmed that a very small number of people have ported their existing numbers to Google (Google uses Level3 to handle phone numbers). In the U.S. it’s possible to port any phone number to another service provider - even a mobile number to a voip provider like Level3... That means you can switch your mobile number to Google and then just use whatever device you happen to have in your hand to receive calls. That’s an extremely powerful feature for Google Voice.

In a court battle rife with twists, turns, and delays, Google has been attempting to push forward its Book Search initiative, which could potentially give the Mountain View, Calif., tech giant exclusive access to digital editions of some out-of-print books. That could, as Levy pointed out, get in the way of Amazon's goal of offering every book ever printed in every language on the Kindle and its new, bigger Kindle DX sibling. And it sounds like that's where Amazon has some beef.

That evening, conversation over drinks turned to a security update Microsoft had just released. Its timing was suspicious: updates usually came once a month, and the next was not due for two weeks. "I remember thinking I should take a look at this," recalls Paul Ferguson, a researcher at Trend Micro, a web security company in Cupertino, California.

He did. So did the rest of the computer security industry. In fact, they talked, puzzled and worried about little else for months after. The update heralded the birth of the Conficker worm - one of the most sophisticated pieces of malignant software ever seen.

Despite an unprecedented collaboration against them, Conficker's accomplished creators have been able to bluff and dodge to gain control of machines inside homes, universities, government offices and the armed forces of at least three nations, establishing a powerful and lucrative network of "zombie" computers. New Scientist has pieced together the sobering details of that cat-and-mouse fight.

According to ZDNet (which cites the Wall Street Journal) a report by Harvard University researcher Isaac Mao, who has seen the code, says there are two kinds of keyword documents in the software: one is related to pornographic content, and the other related to political content. Not only that but the documents related to political stuff are much, much bigger than those related to pornographic content.

Speculation that the software did more than the government were letting on has been mounting since China first announced the decision earlier this week and computer experts believe that with Green Dam installed on every computer, the Chinese government will gain access to personal information and have the ability to monitor Internet use through the software.