Digital Trends
Despite the Ubisoft’s snooze-inducing press conference this year (James Cameron can talk), the company’s core titles actually managed to get our blood pumping as we made our way around its massive show space at E3. Let’s run over a few of our favorite titles.
The division between real and virtual worlds becomes thinner and thinner. Beginning today on a one-month trial, BT will let your avatar on Second Life make 10 free phone calls – each lasting up to an hour – and send 10 text messages to the real world using its Avatalk service. Userscan either use the red BT phone boxes, or they can obtain a heads-up display allowing them to make calls from a number of locations. Matt Brotherton, project manager at the Applied TechnologyCentre in BT’s chief technology office, told silicon.com, "What we’ve been able to do is open it up completely, so Second Life users can call andsend SMS to anyone else in the world. For Second Life users, it’s quite compelling…We’re looking into how virtual-world environments can provide real business benefits to our enterprise,corporate and SME customers, from the perspective of providing collaborative environments internally but also as new channels to their customers." Avatalk is hosted by five islands onSecond Life – Idearium, Italy Island Resort, Venice Italy, Style Magazine and Nuova Sicilia.
In the first case prosecuted under the United States’ CAN-SPAM Act to be tried before a jury, spammers Jeffrey Kilbride of Venice, California, and James Schaffer of Paradise Valley, Arizona, were sentenced to five and a quarter and six years in federal prison, respectively, for sending pornographic spam, as well as engaging in fraud, and money laundering. Each defendant was also fined $100,000 and ordered to pay AOL $77,500 in restitution; the U.S. government is also seizing $1.1 million in revenues earned by the operation.
Casual game publisher PopCap has added a new title to its lineup of titles with Venice, a new retro-styled puzzle/action game which invites players to help save Venice’s priceless artifacts as they pilot their gondolas through dozens of classic buildings—which are, of course, slowly sinking. The game offers modes which emphasize puzzle-solving and outright action, and enables players to save buildings by filling open slots with appropriate treasures.
“Venice is a different sort of game, melding numerous puzzle-solving elements with varying degrees of retro-arcade action depending on your preference,” said PopCap co-founder and chief creative officer Jason Kapalka. “The themed soundtrack and artwork create great settings in which to experience the sights and sounds of ancient Italy while navigating your way to victory.”
From Dell’s press release:
Designed to provide maximum performance and a rich visual experience, the Dell Inspiron 100 notebook is a powerful multimedia computer that can replace your desktop multimedia system. Because of a powerful Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading technology and the dazzling high-performance and power-management features of an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card, this new notebook utilizes desktop processor technology for running digital entertainment software such as music, movies, photos, digital editing and power-gaming applications. The Inspiron 9100 uses a 15.4-inch Wide Aspect UltraSharp LCD to render stunning images that are a pleasure to view on the widescreen display, and it comes with options for WXGA, WSXGA+ or WUXGA resolution.
The Inspiron 8600, available today in the United States, offers features for those who play video games, enjoy digital entertainment and edit video. Starting at $1,699, the new notebook includes wide screen UltraSharpTM displays, NVIDIA® graphics with up to 128MB of video memory and Intel® CentrinoTM Mobile Technology, built for mobile computing with integrated Wi-Fi® 802.11b.
“The Inspiron 8600 is a dream machine for multimedia enthusiasts,” said Jay Parker, director of notebook marketing, Dell product group. “This notebook is packed with enough power to handle demanding tasks previously relegated to desktop computers such as video editing and playing graphics-intensive games.”
Whether traveling across country or a college campus, these systems come with the Intel Pentium M processor and have enough performance to handle home- and business- productivity applications like e-mail, web browsing and presentations. With an optional MediaBase that connects to the bottom of the notebook and includes a D-Family media module, like a DVD+RW1 burner drive or a second hard drive, these ultra light notebooks can offer many of the capabilities of a desktop replacement notebook and still weigh less than 5 pounds.
The Dimension XPS offers hardware features that deliver uncompromising performance and system expansion. With its standard 460-watt power supply, Creative Audigy 2 sound card, 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 and 9800 Pro graphics cards, support for the latest Intel processors, and Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration, the XPS is built to run today’s most demanding 3D games and multimedia applications with ease.
“The XPS is a powerful addition to the Dimension family,” said Tim Mattox, vice president of Dell’s client product marketing group, “Both hard-core gamers and customers who require enhanced expandability will find the Dimension XPS an ideal platform for delivering the highest level of performance in an innovative and highly serviceable chassis.“
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