Everyone who participated in “Download Day” for Firefox 3 should pat themselves on the back. It has officially been given the Guiness World Record kudos for the most downloaded piece of software in 24 hours.

The final figure was 8,002,530, which is pretty impressive considering the servers didn’t respond too well to the huge amount of traffic initially. However, once they came back up they were pretty solid. If you are one of the people who participated in download day, you can fill your name out at spreadfirefox.com and get a certificate to print-out and keep. Just their little way to say thank-you I guess!

Don’t worry, you haven’t been shipped off to a dodgy site instead of examining your regular tech menu. Instead of monkeys we’re all about snakes now. The site, in case you didn’t notice (I won’t blame you) now resolves to “techsnake.com.” The reasoning for the interested (or bored) is below:

Firstly no-one really understood skymonkey. It’s an interesting name but doesn’t mean anything. TechSnake is obviously about technology, and a new character, “Harvey”, will be making his appearance known soon!

Secondly it appears domain squatters have decided that rather than read about tech news, the readers of skymonkey would rather gamble, or click on Google ads to do with Sky television. Skymonkey.com & .co.uk were stolen away and are now in the hands of the other side. I know that nobody (especially readers) wants confusion and I certainly don’t want to be associated with that stuff. So rather than compete, I thought I would move the traffic away from the name, and towards a new image - that of the Tech Snake. Snakes because they’re slippery, cunning and always hunting out their prey - kind of what I do on a daily basis trying to get the best news and interviews for you, the readers of the site.

So there we are - news over. Enjoy the tech. Also worth noting is a great post by Dazza today, about the different gaming engines available in the market today and what we can expect for the future. Plus why not check out the archives on the left? Some of the news is topical but it’s normally always interesting too! Enjoy!

Paul Godden

The last 12 months have seen new game engines coming out left right and centre. While most casual gamers wont know they are there, some of these engines look and feel great to use and really change how we play.

Last year it was Call Of Duty with it’s new proprietary engine which featured HDR lighting and depth of field, not forgetting bullet penetration - the engine taking factors such as the type of surface and the thickness into account thoughout each map. This year saw GTA with a new game engine RAGE. Whilst this is impressive, the Euphoria engine devolved by Natural Motion was a leap in a new direction for everyone. It can be worked into any game engine bringing life into the ageing ragdolls formula. Then, ahead of us we have Far Cry 2’s Dunia which looks untouchable in technical terms with things such as real-world weather, dynamic fire propagation and non-scripted enemy A.I.

But the one I want to talk about is one that has been made for one of my favourite games series, Battlefield. It’s called Frostbite (hence the article title, it’s there for a reason!). Currently only being used by the latest Battlefield game, Bad Company, the engine’s main and most visual effects are the real-time destruction - meaning you can blow a hole in just about anything. 90% of the gaming world can be destroyed with frames of buildings and other stuff remaining indestructible, to prevent the landscape from becoming completely flat. Remember, shooting a wall in any of the other BF games creates a big cloud of smoke and rubble but still the wall is intact. Well now the walls can be destroyed in some way - more so if its a more powerful weapon. To go along with this is one of the best sounding systems I’ve heard, with the HDR audio system, making the world feel like a battlefield with louder bangs and real-time sounds for weapons. Where games would use a sounds loop or sample for a firing gun, the Frostbite engine plays each sound as it is so a firing gun has sounds for every bullet. I don’t know the technical stuff behind it but it works a treat. I do know the game can play the more important sounds over the top of not so important sounds in real time, making the battlefield sound great with distant battles sounding like they are just that, distant. The engine also has new lighting to go with the dynamic battlefield with shadows changing with missing trees and walls.

Whilst I love DICE and their Battlefield series including the new Battlefield Bad Company on my Xbox, I am at heart a PC gamer. And to know that at the moment there are 5 BF titles in the wings (one being Heroes and a second for Korean gamers) I am feeling good this engine is making its way over to the PC. My problems with this engine is the fact you can blow a hole in the wall but can’t shoot through it like the CoD4 engine. I believe the features of the Frostbite engine and the CoD4 engine, if combined, would go hand-in-hand to make a great playing experience. Clipping is also a big problem for Frostbite with trees staying in shape for online play and branches resting through the ground. While it’s not a big deal, it’s still noticeable.

All in all I can’t wait to see the engine on future titles, with tweaks worked out and with the better processing power of PC’s should (I hope) see an improvement. Well done DICE you’ve made a great engine and I know you’re going to continue to make some great games.

Yeap, the last day for Mr. Gates - and a short history, with video, on the man has been compiled by the BBC. Well worth a look.

The new version of the BBC iPlayer is due to be released tomorrow, with features lots of us have been waiting for. The most important below:

• Full integration for TV as well as Radio
• A rewind and Fast-forward function for Radio, as per TV
• Easier Navigation, including Last Played option
• Combined categories for TV and Radio, allowing easier access to relevant content
• Larger TV viewing area
• A TV Schedule for viewer planning

So all-in-all a better experience for your online pleasure. But then we do actually pay a license fee for this stuff, so maybe we should demand it. Either way the iPlayer should be a bit more user friendly for the future after the updates.

After all the talks have turned to nothing, and shareholders prepare to oust the current board, there are tiny whisperings that maybe the Microsoft/Yahoo deal isn’t over - just yet.

Most of this is speculation, but there are already rumours about a renewed bid, far below what Microsoft originally offered. So is it just more gossip? Or (tin-hat time now I think) is it Microsoft using the public to revise interest in an otherwise dead pursuit? Maybe it’s true and Yahoo aren’t interested. Or maybe Jerry Yang has realised all the bad press for his failure to accept Microsoft’s offer has meant he’s had to go crawling back to accept a worse offer and retain his position in the company? All these questions, and only time will give us the answers.. Original source is this Reuters Article

You all know the story right? Ian Usher has put his life up for sale on the internet, with the aid of Ebay. By his life I mean his home, his job, his friends, his car - everything except himself. Interesting, quirky, but why did he trust the users of Ebay to “play fair?”

Just 24 hours after the bid began it was swamped with pranksters. People using other people’s accounts, people playing tricks on each other - you name it. At what point did Ian Usher actually think this wouldn’t happen?? It’s far too tempting for people to put in stupidly high bids - then “blame it on their friends.”

The current (authentic) bid for his life, as of this post, is about £189,000 ($372,000) which he says isn’t enough to cover the cost of the house! Check out the auction here, it ends in 3 days if you fancy moving to Perth.. And no fake bids please. I mean it.

This day 60 years ago, the first modern computer, nicknamed the Manchester “Baby” was switched on to run it’s first successful program. Baby was the first computer to store information digitally, using a Cathode Ray Tube (or CRT), and is the predecessor for how we store information in modern RAM chips.

The invention and concepts 60 years ago were monumental after people realised for the computer to be of any real use, the information would have to be stored permanently and electrically by the machine. Although the data was added by hand, the Baby would constantly read and refresh the bits on the CRT, it’s memory, electronically to keep them from decaying, and is a concept still in use by RAM today. By the time it was revealed this method was capable of storing 4096 bits.

The first program was run on the Baby, this day 60 years ago. One of the inventors, F.C. Williams, spoke of the monumental occasion, “A program was laboriously inserted and the start switch pressed. Immediately the spots on the display tube entered a mad dance. In early trials it was a dance of death leading to no useful result, and what was even worse, without yielding any clue as to what was wrong. But one day it stopped, and there, shining brightly in the expected place, was the expected answer. It was a moment to remember. This was in June 1948, and nothing was ever the same again.”

Mozilla are reporting the downloads for Firefox 3 have surpassed their expectations and will go into the Guiness Book of World Records - with 8.3 million downloads. The officials for the famous records publication are looking into the claim and checking the results before the number is officially announced. Of course if only 1 copy of Firefox was downloaded, it would still have beaten the record - which doesn’t exist yet! But hey, it’s great publicity for the open source browser.

Firefox 3 is available for download from here right now. As you know if you’re a regular reader of the blog, I’ve been trialling the latest release builds and I can’t recommend them enough. Very stable and quick with improved security and features. If you think you’ll pick up the latest version, make sure you do it within the next 24 hours - Mozilla are trying to get into the Guiness book of World Records for the most downloaded piece of software in a day! Help spread the word!