Yeap, including the debt, AMD has finally and officially grabbed the ATI brand (as read about so long ago on this blog! WOW!) Read about it on the Register website. Hopefully this will truly mean an integrated chipset to be proud of (rather than the shoddy Intel solution) =)

But seriously folks, check out the what the future holds in the next few years (and the changes we can expect, hooray!)

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Well now you can have it! You can order an official pacman head from clubNamco.com and bask in the ridiculousness of your purchase! Only recommended for extreme old-school gamers!!

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It appears that on Sunday HSBC had some problems with a server which resulted in a multi-hour disruption to credit card authorisations and ATM transactions being accepted. However HSBC reported the problem as “minor.” The question that is raised to me, is, was the problem actually major, hence the comments on this post on The Register (see below.) Or by the same token, was the problem actually minor and people are generally always having problems with authorisations that they just put down to this incident on this occasion?

I personally have problems all the time with the new Chip & PIN scheme that’s been introduced into the UK. I and other people have had problems with authorisations going through with the new system. Only after wiping the chip 14 times and spitting on it repeatedly seems to cure the problem. I just withdraw cash from the cashpoint now and rarely use Chip & PIN.

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With firefox 2.0 RC3 being released today, I found this link on digg which is pretty funny if you’re a firefox fan!

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After aquisition of AOL UK’s broadband services, the departure of the mobile phone provider Vodaphone from the high-street shops to arch-rival phones4U could spell disaster.

Shares dropped by 13% when world-player vodaphone announced the move. And after the company’s “talk-talk” appeared on BBC TV’s Watchdog program, we need to watch this space to see if the company can recover.

From personal experience, I’m hoping the company pays for the overselling of broadband and misleading sales tactics and disappears from the ISP market. We don’t need another tiscali on our hands, do we? =)

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After the recent ruling by an illinois court to ask the ICANN or Tucows to withdraw the spamhaus domain - after a recent court battle, ICANN has passed the buck to Tucows.

Hopefully Tucows, based in Canada, will have the backbone to standup against the American courts. If Tucows withdraws the domain spamhaus.org, it could spell chaos for companies across the world that depend on the spam blocking list provided by the non-profit organisation. Looks like another big man trying to kick the little man. Hopefully common sense can prevail. Updates provided when received!
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I’m sure most of you have heard of SL and even probably some of you have visited for a while. I was one of those people.. After a month or so, I realised this wasn’t any Neuromancer. Now I can safely say I haven’t been online in Second Life for at least a couple of months. The reason? I think it’s just getting too big and crap:

For one thing, the application & server model (from what I’ve heard) is not designed for huge numbers of people being visible, and in the same area at once. For another, when lots of 80’s has-beens start populating the cyberspace (sorry Mr Gibson), you know the place is starting to become unfashionable (like the classical section of your local music store.)

And now, to top it all, both Sun and IBM have held events in the digital game Second Life. Now we need to ask why are they there? It can only be because they think there is a viable market to advertise in. I don’t know about you, but generally all I’ve found in Second Life is a bunch of social misfits trying to get some online sex on the go. Anybody that seems intelligent are creating online courses on how to manipulate the environment, rather than actually teaching people USEFUL stuff. I’m sure Sun and IBM know what they’re doing, or are they just riding the wave of new users to the environment?

So what else is going to make you think, “well maybe first life is better than second?” Well mainly the fact you can meet people in real life that don’t trail endless resource sapping bubbles behind them, and you can browse a shop in the high street without being confronted by a goth (emo in americanism) asking you how long you’ve been a “second lifer.” Not that I have a huge problem with this, but it does kind of make you wonder what these people are doing in their spare time, if they have any.

So Second Life is Rubbish Life and you’d be mad to think that you can “make a go of it” on a bunch of pixels on a server.. This is not a William Gibson novel, and it’s not the American Dream. After-all it’s just a clumsy attempt at getting some cash, which if you invest in you will be disappointed IMO.

I saw this and had to post. Oh my god I have not laughed so hard at work in front of my boss before. I think he thought I was kind of odd.. Anyway, check out the article from boing boing. The pictures are awesome, but would take a lot of “guts” to build (sorry - couldn’t resist it.)

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A quick post, just to let anybody know who doesn’t already (especially as it made BBC1 news last night!) that Google has acquired YouTube for the huge sum of $883 Million. I can only guess that YouTube will be sensitised and subjected to Google’s main-stream ways. What will happen though to the YouTube brand? Will it be swallowed up into Google Video? Lots of questions I know, which will hopefully be answered one way or the other over the coming months. Check out the slashdot article: [SHOW ME]

I know, I know, there are lot’s of these parody videos, but I found this one particularly amusing. I think what I really find amusing is the whole Mac vs PC debate. As a PC owner, I’m not even really aware of Macs. I guess I’ve already been through it as a teenager with Spectrum vs C64 and Atari ST vs Amiga. Anyway, enjoy the video!

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