You now have [email protected] as a free e-mail. To check your mail currently, you will need to go to AOL.com till this summers launch of the AIM e-mail service website.
Today, AIM increased the number of buddies you can have per list to 250.
Source: AOL.com
Do not download and/or install Google Web Accelerator BETA.
Problem is that your cookies become shared, around the internet, as each site you go to caches that page and sends it off to google’s servers. And for someone else using it, say at a forum, and you did as well at the same forum there is a chance they could see your information and all that fun stuff.
There are many articles out there explaining all of this more in depth then I have. Simply, don’t get this beta or final (if it ever makes it there).
It’s also not like this tool is much of a useful tool, in most cases it saves you a few seconds sometimes about a minute if you are loading multiple pages.
Read this over at the Neowin forums and now it is an article on the front page.
In a “haven’t they got anything better to do” case, New York FBI agents have seized a haul of more than 60,000 pirated games… originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yes, that’s right, the console of choice – for some – 15 years ago. Pirates were marketing a “Power Play” system, which contained dozens of games originally popular on the NES.
Four Chinese nationals were arrested in the crackdown, trying to sell the machines, containing games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt and Baseball. Ah, the classics. Prosecutors say the defendants agreed to sell the machines to FBI agents who were willing to distribute the games in Manhattan and the Midwest.
It’s claimed the group had imported as many as 280,000 pirate versions in four months last year. Nintendo told the FBI that individuals and companies copy the video games and sell the pirated versions throughout the world, costing the company millions of dollars in lost revenue annually – despite the fact they don’t make the machines (or, most likely, actually sell the games) any more. Could it be to do with the fact that some of the “classic” titles are getting a rebirth on new handheld machines? Surely not.
Source #1: Newsday | Source #2: GamesIndustry
G is for growth
Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn’t mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people’s lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.
We’re not in the plains anymore
Fonts, bullets and highlighting, oh my! Gmail now offers rich text formatting. And over 60 colors of the rainbow. Discover a land of more than just black and white.
oh yea baby! 2GB rocks :) hehe, same with my SBC Yahoo email, as they added 1GB as well, so 2GB there, all this same and still so much to use.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) praised legislators today following an announcement that revisions to Canada’s copyright law will be introduced to Parliament this spring.
“This is terrific news,” comments CRIA President Graham Henderson. “Canada is one step closer to having a copyright law that will reflect the realities of the digital marketplace and allow the music industry a chance to prosper. We want to thank the government and the opposition parties for their support in getting to this stage.”
“We especially extend our sincere appreciation to all members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage: the Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, Liberals and New Democrats, for keeping copyright reform on the front burner,” he adds.
CRIA has been calling for revisions to Canada’s copyright law for some time.
In a recent address to Canadian Music Week in Toronto, Mr. Henderson commented on the necessity of copyright reform, particularly for continued investment in labels and artists.
“Prospective investors view the music industry as a no fly zone,” Mr. Henderson said then. “This view is echoed particularly by many in the independent label sector who have found raising needed investments almost impossible under the current legal regime.”
“There wasn’t a bank or a venture capitalist that would touch us – despite a business plan that was warmly received,” says Steven Ehrlick, president of The Orange Record Label. “It was because they considered the music industry to be the Wild West – no laws, no marshals and most importantly to them, no profits. I hear the opinion that copyright reform will stifle innovation. That’s ludicrous. Proper laws encourage investment.”
“We launched our music label in 2002,” remarks Grant Dexter, president of Maple Music. “It was a labour of love that was not made any easier by the fact that it was darn near impossible to raise money from the typical sources that entrepreneurs like us look to. We live in a country in which copyright laws do not protect businesses like ours and in which courts and Copyright Boards support the proposition that downloading and uploading of music is legal. It isn’t legal anywhere else that matters. But they say it is here. That makes no sense to me as a business person at all. As a result of this, raising capital to grow our business was almost impossible.”
“Progress on copyright revisions will ensure that Canada’s recording industry and artists can continue to make their mark on the world stage,” concludes Mr. Henderson. “Today’s announcement is a step in that direction.”
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) promotes the interests of Canadian record companies and artists. CRIA represents the producers, manufacturers and distributors of more than 95 per cent of all records produced and sold in Canada.
Source: CRIA
Another story you can read: Pulse24
Don’t have check for updates on? Then you may not know last night a new version was released.
v1.2.1 [2005-03-24]
+ Auto update RSS feed ( at Add/Edit feed dialog).
+ Add new function max_language_id to get current language.
+ Add new function max_activex(var security_id, string progID) to create activex object without security limitation.
* Fixed search bar magnifier sometimes disappear problem.
* Fixed sometimes cound not popup sidebar under full screen problem.
* Fixed some problems that cause Maxthon stay in memory after close.
* security_id is made more secure.
* Function m2_search_text will need security_id .
* Fixed status bar tooltip misplace problem.
Screenshots: click here
Let’s start with a humble musketeer, who’s role on the battlefield is to stand around long enough to get a few shots off before he’s inevitably blown away by cannonfire. If a musketeer is hit by an enemy musketball, and your 3D card is powerful enough to do it, his torso will deform as he’s running so you can actually see the bullet impact. His hat and backpack and musket are also separate models attached to him that can move around on their own. So, when he’s blown off a cliff — and he will be, often, if I have anything to say about it — his hat flies off and his musket goes whirling away. All of this is powered by real-time physics, which I’ll talk more about in a second.
Lighting is a huge part of the rendering engine, and it’s used to create some spectacular effects. Pottinger explained that the team built the engine so that it has a high dynamic range: it’s capable of simulating very bright lighting, with nifty bloom effects. This all sounds like lip-service until you can see it in action. Pottinger showed two screenshots of a cathedral in a city, one with a low dynamic range and the other with Age III’s higher dynamic range. The difference was striking: the first cathedral was almost completely dark on one side and looked like a model on a computer screen. The second screenshot of the exact same scene had bright, realistic light that spilled over and illuminated details on every side of the building. It looked much more natural, almost photographic, yet still stylized and beautiful.
There’s also bump-mapping, a technology that uses lighting to make models appear to have more surface details than they actually do. I never thought I’d see this technology used in an RTS, but there it was, providing detail for Age of Empires III. The artists used it in subtle ways. Bump-mapping gave cannons extra ridges or added ripples in drifts of snow. These effects are understated, but make a big difference.
Naturally great lighting also involves technology for casting shadows, and here the engine lives up to the task. Every object casts shadows on every other object in the game. So, swaying trees will cast soft dappled shadows on the ground below, shading the soldiers standing nearby, who themselves cast shadows on the ground. The Age team used different tricks to soften the edges of these shadows so that they look convincingly realistic.
Age of Empires III also places a huge emphasis on water and how it’s displayed. It’s another one of those big graphical elements that players end up spending a lot of time staring at. At first the team actually had a real-time dynamic water and waves simulation built into the game, but it was too processor-intensive, and hard to localize on such big giant maps. They ended up finding a way to pre-compute different wave patterns, which may not have the “gee whiz” factor of dynamic water but which look incredible anyways. Water can be rough and choppy or smooth and glassy depending on how the map artists want to render it. Dynamic reflections ripple on smooth water surfaces, a touch that really adds to the overall look.
Rivers in the game flow in the proper direction, with clever little details like little pieces of flotsam that drift with the current. Small rocks might also jut out in the middle of a waterway, with current visibly rippling around them.
Effects like smoke are also rendered with subtlety and realism using a particle system. There’s even invisible ‘wind’ on every map that blows everything consistently. Curling white trails of smoke from cannons, campfires, or chimneys twists in the wind. Particles go flying whenever there’s an explosion: cannonballs will plow into the ground, kicking up dirt. Or debris will fly into the water, creating great big splashes. Age III programmers were able to create a lot of nice subtle effects with this particle system.
Source: GameSpy
Young children could be watched over by remote control teddy bears with swivelling heads that track every move, thanks to a research project from Microsoft.
‘Teddy’ is a prototype bear of the future being developed in Microsoft’s US laboratories. It has stereovision eyes, built-in Wi-Fi and a microphone.
Motion tracking and facial recognition technologies allows the bear to identify specific children and keep them under surveillance as they move around a room.
“In the future, computers won’t just live in your home office or on your desk at work,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.
“They will take on many different forms: the wall of your living room, your refrigerator door, or even your child’s stuffed animal. You won’t have to click a mouse or type on a keyboard to interact with your new computer; just touching, talking and moving will do the trick.”
The idea is that parents at work could keep a watch over their children remotely and warn them if they are in danger. Microsoft hopes that, as software gets more advanced, the bear could play games with the child as well.
Source: vnunet