October 2011

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GTA V: Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer promise makes Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 a lot less exciting

25 October 2011 3:39 PM

Grand Theft Auto left fans of the video game franchise salivating today as it promised a trailer of the new version of the joyriding favourite.

The homepage of makers Rockstar Games featured simply the game logo Grand Theft Auto V with the promise: “TRAILER 11.02.11”. The title bar of the page simply had the hashtag #GTAV.

It was GTA V which became a top trend on Twitter as fans shared their excitement at the promise of a new game.

With that one simple splash page, next month’s hugely anticipated no-holds-barred deathmatch between shooters Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 has been downgraded to the status of a minor playground squabble.

The brevity of this morning’s website announcement was only matched by it’s sheer out-of-the-blue unexpectedness: not only does the much-rumoured Grand Theft Auto V exist, but there will be a trailer released on November 2.

No other information was forthcoming, but that in itself was enough to set the internet ablaze with excitement and speculation.

Which fictional city will it be set in? Will it make use of LA Noire’s much heralded facial animation technology? And why does the ‘V’ in the logo look like a dollar bill?

For the uninitiated, Grand Theft Auto V is very big news indeed. To date, the series has sold copies by the truckload (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas remains one of the PlayStation 2’s most successful titles with some 17.5million units shifted on that platform alone), while the breathtaking GTA IV was heralded as one of the first truly next gen games.

The series has not been without controversy, though. The overtly violent gameplay possible within its vast open worlds – users are able to steal cars, indulge in random and graphic acts of physical violence and even interact with prostitutes – has seen GTA become the whipping boy of choice for moral campaigners concerned about the affect of video games on the young.

Not that its legion of fans care one jot. If anything, they’ll be hoping for even more of the same next time round. And in the absence of concrete details ahead of next week’s big reveal, experts and fans alike are already drawing up wish-lists for what GTA V will contain.

[source]

iTunes 10.5 – Now available for download

11 October 2011 7:01 PM

Summary: Full of iCloud goodness.

Ahead of tomorrow’s release of iOS 5 and iCloud, Apple has released an update for iTunes.

iTunes in the Cloud
iTunes now stores your music and TV purchases in iCloud and makes them available on your devices anywhere, any time, at no additional cost.

Automatic Downloads
Purchase music from any device or computer and automatically download a copy to your Mac and iOS devices.

Download Previous Purchases
Download your past music, TV, app, and book purchases again, at no additional cost. (Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store)

Sync More
Sync with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 5.

Wi-Fi Syncing
Automatically sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes any time they’re both on the same Wi-Fi network.

iTunes 10.5 brings with it compatibility with iOS 5 and iCloud, and adds support for the iTunes Match part of the iCloud service.

iTunes Match is a $24.99/year subscription service that allows users to have their entire music library synced with Apple’s database of over 20 million tracks, making those songs available for use on any iCloud-enabled device. If a particular track isn’t available on iTunes, don’t worry, it can be uploaded so it too is available to all your devices.

If you’re going to be upgrading to iOS 5 tomorrow then you will need this update, so get it now rather than having to fight it out tomorrow.

Updated (07:01PM) with information on Windows-specific elements of iTunes 10.5
ITunes 10.5 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. On the Windows side, iTunes patches a slew of vulnerabilities, including several that could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code. iTunes 10.5 also marks the first time an iTunes installation on Windows doesn’t include (or require) QuickTime.

Apple Holding Private Memorial for Steve Jobs [REPORT]

11 October 2011 1:07 AM

Apple is reportedly holding a private event to memorialize Steve Jobs at its campus on Oct. 19.

According to a report from MacGeneration, Apple chief executive Tim Cook sent out a note to employees advising them of the event. It appears to be private.

Separately, Bloomberg reported that Jobs died of respiratory failure five years after being diagnosed with a “metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor“, the paper reported. He was buried at a nondenominational cemetery in Santa Clara County, Bloomberg said.

On Monday, Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only non-denominational cemetery within Palo Alto, declined to comment when asked if Jobs was buried there. The letter, as reported by MacGeneration, included the paragraph:

“Although many of our hearts are still heavy, we are planning a celebration of his life for Apple employees to take time to remember the incredible things Steve achieved in his life and the many ways he made our world a better place. The celebration will be held on Wednesday, October 19, at 10am in the outdoor amphitheater on the Infinite Loop campus. We’ll have more details on AppleWeb closer to the date, including arrangements for employees outside of Cupertino.”

Jobs passed away at the age of 56 last week. Jobs is survived by his wife Laurene and two children, as well as a daughter from a previous relationship. Jobs’ family has said that a memorial Web site will eventually be posted, but so far it has not been made public.

BlackBerry service crash affects BBM messaging for millions

10 October 2011 5:34 PM

BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been experiencing problems with emails and messaging due to a power outage in Slough, UK. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Tens of millions of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been unable to receive or send emails and messages through their phones, following an outage at the server systems of parent company Research In Motion (RIM) in Slough, Berkshire.

The outage, which occurred at about 11am BST on Monday, was still affecting users more than four hours later with no time given for when it was expected to be resolved.

The company released a brief acknowledgement of the problem at 3.30pm, saying: “We are working to resolve an issue currently impacting some BlackBerry subscribers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We’re investigating, and we apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused while this is resolved.”

BlackBerry systems receive and send emails and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) communications via encrypted connections to RIM servers located around the world. The systems are particularly popular in a number of Middle East countries where they allow secure communication that the government cannot tap. RIM has come into conflict with a number of governments around the world, which have demanded oversight of email and BBM messages.

The failure will be a huge embarrassment for the company, which has been successful in building up its user base in the so-called “EMEA” (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region even while it has been losing users in North America.

At the end of August, RIM claimed that it had more than 70 million subscribers around the world. In July it claimed to have added 1 million subscribers in the EMEA region in less than three weeks. It would certainly have more than 10 million users in the total region.

The cause of the outage is not known, but one former RIM employee has told the Guardian that RIM has been ignoring problems with its server architecture that could prove its downfall for years. “They didn’t start looking at scalability until about 2007, when they had around 8m active devices,” the former employee said: “The attitude was, ‘We’re going to grow and grow but making sure our infrastructure can support it isn’t a priority.’ They have their own clunky infrastructure to do something that you don’t really need a clunky infrastructure to do anymore.”

The dramatic growth in the number of subscribers worldwide – nearly tenfold since 2007 – will have put serious strain on RIM’s servers if such scalability has not been addressed urgently.