Tech Weekly podcast: Digital candidates, Heather Brooke and Alan Wake
In the podcast this week Aleks Krotoski and Charles Arthur speak with two parliamentary hopefuls standing on technology platforms: Denny de la Raye , from getavote.org, and Andrew Robinson , from the Pirate Party UK. The team tackle issues of democratic reform and copyright as the political machine accelerates towards the May finishing line. In the wake of this discussion, Aleks speaks with Freedom of Information Act campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke about the process she used to uncover the MPs expenses scandal in 2009. Finally, Keith Stuart meets with Oskari Hakkinen from Remedy Games, and quizzes him about Alan Wake , the Xbox 360 title that's set to reinvent video game narrative. Don't forget to submit your questions for next week's election special, as we drill Labour's Stephen Timms , minister for Digital Britain, the Consevative Party's Jeremy Hunt , shadow secretary of state for culture, media & sport, and Lord Razzal , Liberal Democrat spokesperson for business, enterprise and regulatory reform. Details are here . Don't forget to ... • Comment below • Mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk • Get our Twitter feed for programme updates • Join our Facebook group • See our pics on Flickr /Post your tech pics Heather Brooke Aleks Krotoski Charles Arthur Keith Stuart Scott Cawley
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Tech Weekly podcast: Digital candidates, Heather Brooke and Alan Wake
There’s no need for a new Xbox, says Microsoft
Microsoft is developing Project Natal plus new software and content services to prolong the life of the Xbox 360 games console, rather than introduce a new machine We all know that the games business goes in cycles and that a new generation of consoles always comes along to replace whatever is popular today. In fact, we should now be talking about the Xbox 720, Sony PlayStation 4 and Wii II, or whatever they might be called, because game developers need a couple of years to create new games to exploit the new hardware capabilities that justify the launch of a new generation. But we aren't, and Microsoft doesn't want us to. "I think it's important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us. There is no need to launch a new console, because we're able to give this console new life either with software upgrades or hardware upgrades like Project Natal ," said David Hufford, senior director of Xbox product management in a briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "The Xbox 360 was designed for a long life, and I don't even know if we're at the midpoint yet." Rather than release a new console, Microsoft is developing Project Natal to enhance existing systems.
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There's no need for a new Xbox, says Microsoft
Which games console is right for you?
Should you go for an Xbox, Nintendo or PlayStation 3 – or play on your computer? Nintendo Wii With its TV remote-style controller that can be wielded like a bat, sword or even a gun, the Wii offers a perfect introduction to videogames. But the graphics aren't as pretty as its two more technologically advanced rivals, and really ground-breaking Wii games come along very infrequently. Microsoft Xbox 360 (pictured) If you fancy something more heavyweight with the best games portfolio and aren't scared of using a "joypad" to control the action (primarily with your thumbs), the Xbox has the edge over Sony's PS3. But the £150 Arcade version is all but useless without a hard disk – go for the £200 Elite model.
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Which games console is right for you?
Microsoft cutting off up to 1m gamers with modified Xbox 360 consoles
People with "modded" machines are being banned from the Xbox Live service as part of an annual sweep Microsoft says it is cutting off gamers who have modified their Xbox 360 consoles by adding extra chips or hard drives from its Xbox Live online services. The company says that "a small percentage" are affected – possibly as many as 600,000 of the 20 million Xbox Live players, but perhaps up to 1 million around the world. The banning is part of a sweep that Microsoft carries out each November to remove modified Xboxes from its online gaming service. "Modding" or "chipping" is popular among people who want to play pirated games, but also games bought in other regions, or their own homemade ones which build on the original. It usually requires physically soldering new components into the device. In some cases, modding allows players to cheat within online games - as happened with Microsoft's hugely popular Halo 2, where modded consoles had a better chance of winning. Beginning in 2002, Microsoft released an online update to its service to remove anyone with a modded Xbox console. Since then there seems to have been an annual check of machines to see whether they have been modded. Any machine that has been detected as being modded is added to a list, and cannot rejoin the network in the future. However, being banned does not stop the console itself from working; it only stops the player using the Xbox Live online services. There are scores of websites devoted to modding games consoles. In some cases the modifications allow players to create new "maps" for existing games or to install larger hard drives, for saving games, rather than buying them from Microsoft.
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Microsoft cutting off up to 1m gamers with modified Xbox 360 consoles
Zune comes to Xbox Live in UK. Plus: ZuneHD to hit US
Zune, Microsoft's 'end-to-end music and entertainment service' is coming to Xbox Live. Later today the mega-corp will officially announce its plans, which - although intriguing - are substantially less radical than the Zune mobile phone and/or Zune portable games player imagined by internet rumour-mongers over the weekend. Here's the deal. Up until now, the portable media player and its online iTunes Store equivalent, Zune Marketplace, have only been available in the US. From early Autumn, however, Zune Marketplace will be available on Xbox Live in the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Spain (with more countries coming aboard later). Xbox 360 owners in these territories will be able to go online and access music, TV and movie content and play it via their console. A variety of access options will be available, including instant streaming, download to rent and download to own. However, no Zune portable music players will be launched outside of the US - at least not yet. This is about the online service only. The finer details have not yet been announced, but the basics were revealed to me by Chris Stevenson , Microsoft's General Manager of Consumer Marketing for TV, Video and Music Business. As with the current Zune set-up in the States, it looks like Xbox Live owners will be offered a subscription service, allowing them to download as much content as they like from the Marketplace. Microsoft has yet to reveal its content partners, or a subscription rate for UK users, but further details will be revealed at next week's E3 event in Los Angeles. "Xbox as a platform is broadening its audience, growing beyond games into living room entertainment," said Stevenson in a telephone interview yesterday afternoon. "That's what's driven the prioritisation of an enhanced Zune video service to Xbox… It's about changing the way people think about entertainment." It also sounds like Zune Marketplace will be closely integrated with Xbox Live's community features.
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Zune comes to Xbox Live in UK. Plus: ZuneHD to hit US
Newsbytes: 23 April 2009
Tweet like a bard The Royal Shakespeare Company is holding a poetry competition on Twitter for its production of As You Like It. Google Labs does time Google is experimenting with a timeline that lets you search and view news by the day, week, month, year and decade Return of the Silver Surfers Digital Unite will be holding its annual Silver Surfers' Day on 15 May, to help older people get online. Lego Rock Band is real Lego Rock Band will be released on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and DS this year
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Newsbytes: 23 April 2009
Celebrity squares: Film director Toby Wilkins is more frightened of Google than of horror movies
Horror film director Toby Wilkins is more frightened of the search engine giant than by scary movies What's your favourite piece of technology? I guess it has to be a tossup between iPhone, the Xbox 360 and my Macbook Pro – but I guess we'll settle on the Macbook. How has it improved your life? It's faster than the old one – it's not the super-new one, but the 2.4GHz model
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Celebrity squares: Film director Toby Wilkins is more frightened of Google than of horror movies
Game review: Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360 and PC
Forget epic storylines and in-depth characterisation, Left 4 Dead is all about shooting zombies
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Game review: Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360 and PC
New Xbox 360 ‘Jasper’ spotted in the wild
Xbox-Scene reports that some readers now have Xbox 360 games consoles with long-awaited Jasper motherboards. These should run cooler and should mean the end of the Red Ring of Death, which featured on a recent Guardian Technology cover . The Jasper board has the new 65-nanometer version of the ATI graphics chip, which ran hotter than Xbox motherboards could sustain, over the long term. This should run cooler and it also costs less to produce. It's not easy to tell which machines have the new board. However, they have 150W power supplies with a different plug, whereas Falcon boards have 175W power supplies. Maybe someone will figure out the numbering scheme so it will be possible to tell from the box. Jasper boards also have 256 megabytes of Flash memory to store the new avatar-based (Wii-style) user interface, with space to spare. Earlier models had only 16MB of Flash. At VentureBeat , Dean Takahashi (who has written two Xbox books, and wrote our cover story) adds: What exactly was wrong with the older 90-nanometer graphics chips and the boards that came with them? I've gotten some new information about that.
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New Xbox 360 'Jasper' spotted in the wild