Digg seem to be having some problems this evening, with submissions not working and giving the attached error message. Rumour has it, at the instant the outage hit there was a disturbance in the net, like a million geeks saying no!
::Update:: And It’s back, now I can finish digging Bob Hoskins homepage, phew
Electronic Arts may be best know for killer sports titles and THAT slogan, but now the gaming giant is said to be preparing its very own gaming PCs.
According to RegHardware, an EA rep, speaking last weekend, said the first machine would be launched with first person shooter Crysis Warhead this autumn.
Apparently there’ll be a series of different offerings, with pricing starting at $600 and rising to $900, the theory being the more you spend, the better gameplay you get.
It’s certainly an interesting move, and one that’s likely to ruffle a few feathers in the high-end gaming PC market. We’re waiting to see whether the UK will get a dose of this action, but in the meantime, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section.
The squabble over whether the games industry or the BBFC should be put in charge of rating games took a decisive turn today following the publication of a House Of Commons report. The CMS Select Committee report, which covered videogame classifications among other things, recommends that the BBFC - which mainly certifies movies and some contentious adult-games - take the lead in classifying games for ages 12 and above. The decision will come as a real blow to the pan-European games rating system, PEGI, backed by games software developer organisation, ELSPA as well as big guns like Microsoft, Nintendo and Ubisoft. The report concluded: “We recognise the concerns that the hybrid system for games classification proposed by Dr Byron may not command confidence in the games industry and would not provide significantly greater clarity for consumers. We believe that, ideally, a single classification system should be adopted. While either of the systems operated by the BBFC and by PEGI would be workable in principle, we believe that the widespread recognition of the BBFC’s classification categories in the UK and their statutory backing offer significant advantages which the PEGI system lacks. We therefore agree that the BBFC should continue to rate games with adult content and should have responsibility for rating games with content appropriate only for players aged 12 or above, and that these ratings should appear prominently.” The government has already backed the idea of the BBFC taking over and this report will, no doubt, help push this into becoming reality sooner rather than later. Should games ratings be left with the industry or the state-owned BBFC?
In episode nearly 1 I discuss the recent changes to the site, what you can expect in the future, how you can get involved and not much else :)
[podcast]http://www.bluenoseddog.co.uk/wordpress/files/BlueNosedDog_Podcast_0-5_31072008.mp3[/podcast]
Thanks for all your patience with the server changes over the last day or so. The DNS changes took a little longer than everyone was expecting, so downtime was quite a bit.
Luckily though we’re back, with space and bandwidth doubled and our allowed throughput is now more than 10x which is all good.
It also means that we can start offering more advanced options to you guys, the first of which will be offering you a place to host your own personal podcasts for free, there will be a lot more coming in the next few weeks.
A small podcast will be released today/tomorrow which will go through some of the changes coming to the site, and will also serve as a test point for the new system so watch out for that. As always, you can email, Skype or call using the details in the sticky post at the top of the page to get involved in this recording.
In what appears to be an increasingly common problem, hairline cracks are beginning to form on Apple’s new iPhone 3G. While most of the cracks are reportedly affecting the white model, this is likely due to the increased visibility of the dark fracture on the white case as opposed to any differences in materials between the white and black units. At the moment, the issue seems largely cosmetic and doesn’t appear to interfere with the operation of the phone. Now bust out the magnifying glass and let us know if you’re seeing the same.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read — MacRumors forum
Read — Apple Discussions
New upstart search engine www.cuil.com has been down most of the morning with the launch day blues. Promising more relevance and returns from google, cuil was quickly taken offline due to the amount of interest it has garnered.
Some sites have managed to do a quick comparison though, and the results don’t look so great. Google is out performing Cuil on average 10x on pages returned and 4 out of 5 random queries seem to be more relevant from google. To be fair though, google has had 10 years to perfect it’s search and Cuil not so long.
It will be interesting to see in 6 months how close the new pretender comes to googles crown, although behind for now, it certainly looks like a promising engine even if the name isn’t as user friendly as its rivals :)
Update 11:49a: Quick it’s back, may not last long but is certainly and interesting interface
Update 2 12:01p: It’s down again, this time with network timeouts. Oh well, looks like I’ll need to search for Bob Hoskins somewhere else