Topics by newsguy

I am old enough to remember the Westworld movie which starred Yul Brynner as a malfunctioning robot cowboy. It also featured sex robots, androids which allowed paying punters to indulge their every sexual fantasy. Of course, Westworld was a big hit in 1973 and I guess it was only ever …

Facebook, home of the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4346.html"]104 year old Frisbee Queen[/URL], would appear to have taken a disliking to large parts of Wales. You know, that rather lovely country which borders England and forms part of the United Kingdom. Wales even has a devolved Government in the Welsh Assembly, something the Welsh …

Amazingly, the 100 millionth Nintendo DS handheld video gaming console has been shipped. Since the original Nintendo DS launched way back in 2005, at least here in Europe, it has pretty much dominated the handheld market despite strong competition from Sony with the PSP. Nintendo tell me that, as of …

Super Mario Galaxy has beaten off the likes of GTA IV, Call of Duty 4 and Rock Band to win the coveted 'Best Game' BAFTA at the [URL="http://www.bafta.org/awards/video-games/"]British Academy Video Games Awards[/URL] last night. Call of Duty 4 managed to pick up a gong for best gameplay as well as …

She has already been president of the British Computer Society and was the first feamle senior vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. She is a professor of computer science at the University of Southampton here in the UK, and sits on the Prime Ministerial Council for Science and Technology. …

Here in the UK, we take our video gaming pretty seriously. No more than at this time of year when more games are bought than at any other time. So the annual xmas sales charts are always much anticipated as a barometer of just what is winning the hearts, minds …

John Tu is the President and Co-founder of Kingston Technology which just happens to be one of the biggest providers of memory products on the planet, so when he talks about trends and developments in the memory market a lot of people start listening. Especially when he does so against …

Sex on the Internet is nothing new, in fact it has been one of the great unspoken drivers of ecommerce and ecommerce technology over the years. Selling stuff on the Internet is nothing new, it too has been pivotal in driving online development. In particular, when you think of eBay …

Researchers at the [URL="http://www,port.ac.uk"]University of Portsmouth [/URL]are creating a rehabilitation programme for stroke victims that puts them onto a treadmill which immerses them into a virtual environment. Apparently the device works by using a series of moving images which essentially trick the brain of the patient into believing they are …

And that word is: S-U-N-K. Although not entirely without trace it must be said. Yeah, yeah. I know that you guys in North America had already lost Scrabulous after Hasbro had taken legal action to take down the popular Facebook application there. Now Mattel, which has the rights to Scrabble …

According to the [URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/7582081.stm"]BBC[/URL] there are now 16.5 million UK households which have Internet access. Not only is that figure up from last year, up by 1.2 million to be specific, but it also means that some two-thirds of UK homes are now online. The Office for National Statistics figures …

Interesting story starting to appear across the pond on the UK news wires, with sites such as [URL="http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/07/07/o2-sells-out-of-iphone-3g-in-hours/"]Electric Pig[/URL] reporting that things are either looking good or bad for the Apple iPhone 3G depending on which way you look at the news. That news being the sole network supplying the …

The good old Federal Communications Commission has finally decided, and about time to, that download speeds of up to 200Kbps cannot be sold as broadband. While those people still struggling on dial-up connections would probably disagree, the truth is that such slow connectivity really does not justify being labeled as …

According to an [URL="http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208401867"]Information Week[/URL] article, it would appear that gamers actually like the in-game adverts that they see while they play. Or rather Massive Inc, a Microsoft subsidiary that handles in-game advertising, has said as much. Gamers were surveyed and the results suggest that they will happily accept such …

Here's a good one, [URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/01/italy"]according to The Guardian newspaper[/URL] in the UK, the incomes of each and every single Italian citizen were published for each and every other Italian citizen to see on the web. Rather than being some terrible data breach, or the work of some sinister hacker, it …

Despite insisting that its proposed acquisition of Yahoo! "made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole" Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, has admitted defeat and withdrawn its proposal to purchase the Yahoo! business. "Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics …

How much would you pay for a pizza? Chances are not as much as the anonymous bidder who won the auction to relieve entrepreneur Chris Clark of the pizza.com domain. Clark invested in pizza.com in 1994 for just $20, and even allowing for his annual $20 domain registration fees he …

Speaking at the VoiceCon conference in London, Mike Rhodin, General Manager of [URL="http://www.ibm.com/lotus/uc2"]IBM Lotus software[/URL] has predicted five trends which he says will drive the future of unified communications, reshaping the way that we work around the globe. According to IDC, the unified communications market will be worth a staggering …

Matthew Finnie is Chief Technology Officer at [URL="http://www.interoute.com/"]Interoute[/URL], the company which owns and operates the most densely connected voice and data network in Europe with more than 54,000 kilometres of lit fibre. So when he voices his concern that the Internet is facing some kind of meltdown, caused by the …