News

Wow its been a while since I've posted. So some news for you all.

First up if you scroll down you'll see where I talked a while back about a new system coming up to challenge the current market with something innovative. Turns out I'm a bit prophetic when it comes to video games because there's a new system coming out this winter with a whole new way of doing video games. It's called OnLive and the idea could revolutionize gaming. The full article care of Game Informer is here: http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200903/N09.0324.1136.49546.htm. For those who don't want to read basically it will work on your PC, Mac, or, TV with a small box and it streams games to you over broadband. This means no hard drives as they will keep all the games on large servers that you merely access to play for a monthly fee. I think the idea is solid but it remains to be seen how it plays out. The people behind this have some major developers in their corner already but the streaming could fail depending on your connection. I'm definitely gonna keep my eye on this one.

Secondly, Assassin's Creed II is on the front cover of Game Informer this month and it looks fantastic. For those of you interested the game is going to take place in Italy around the Renaissance and will have a few new elements. The first is that you only carry the hidden blade and throwing knives. One plus is two hidden blades instead of one means dual assassinations. This also means you can use your enemies weapons if you need to. Also new is the ability to swim which I am looking forward to since you will be in Venice. And of course the game will be as historically true as possible and provide extremely realistic views of Italy. It comes out this winter and is one that is already on my wish list.

Finally a point to ponder. There was a trial in Sweden that finished up recently resulting in several men being sent to prison for a year and fined a very large sum of money. The reason was copyright infringement as the men ran a site called The Pirate Bay where they claimed to be pirates and allowed users to search through torrents of copyrighted material. The issue with this is the technicalities that they hide behind and the fact that they do have a point. What they're doing isn't technically illegal. Here's why. Basically torrenting is sharing data between two people by a link between the computers over the internet so that one can download information on the others drive. Relax it can only be done if you actually allow it to be done using a torrent program with the right options set up. Now the act of torrenting is not illegal. The reason is because in theory it could be used as a way for family members to share pictures or videos easily and without having to leave your computer. The issue is when you torrent copyrighted material. Now these men were not providing the torrents in question. The site they ran was merely a search engine to find torrents so that people could download whatever they wanted. So to sum up they are providing a free service for people to search through data that may or may not be copyrighted. It's a sticky subject. The reason they got dinged was because they would not remove or block illegal torrents from the search results. Now the real issue at hand. Google is a search engine. You can find anything on Google. You can even find illegal copyrighted torrents through Google. Don't believe me? Try searching for Shrek Torrent. You'll find links to sites that provide downloads of the torrents in question so that you can obtain an illegal copy of Shrek. There are some difference between the two parties mentioned but technically they are doing the same thing as Google doesn't filter it's search results. The point to ponder is this: In this new world where the internet is always growing and always expanding can we really afford to apply the same old laws to the internet that we do in real life. Perspectives need to be shifted to fully understand the internet. These men are shifting a bit too far perhaps but they are doing a better job than the courts. The point is the internet is too big and too wild and free to try and rope it in with the laws we have and it's time we realize that the way we do business has to change because the internet isn't going anywhere and it changes so quickly that you never know what's coming next so something's gotta give.