Category Archives: In the News

Tech news and opinions

New PSP Go on the way

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In case you haven’t already heard, images of the new PSP Go have been released by Sony, shortly before the big E3 event in the coming days.

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Personally, I think it looks fantastic.

The screen is slightly smaller, but the new design certainly makes up for this in my opinion.

One big thing that seems to be surprising previous PSP owners is that Sony have scrapped the UMD drive and placed a 16GB flash drive in it instead. The Memory Stick Pro slot has also been replaced by a Memory Stick Micro.

There will be plenty more news when the E3 event begins, so stay tuned!

Microsoft confirms no three program limit in Windows 7

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If you remember, in previous versions of Windows Starter, there was always a three program limit. Well, saying that, I never actually saw any of the Windows Starter versions. Anyway, the limiter meant that in Windows Starter (Windows XP Starter and Windows Vista Starter) you couldn’t run more than three programs at one time. That didn’t include background processes such as antivirus software, just programs like Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer for example.

Well, if you’re thinking of starting off with Windows 7 Starter (I honestly can’t see why you would – why not just go with Windows 7 Basic?), you’ll be pleased to know that Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no three program limit. Of course, there will be plenty of other limitations to drive you insane (such as the lack of Aero, DVD playback, and the ability to change the desktop background – to mention just a few), but if you really are that desperate to get Windows 7 Starter rather than Basic or Home Premium, I guess it is something to be happy about.

I personally will definately be getting Windows 7 Home Premium. I am looking forward to hear how much of a hole it will burn in my pocket, though, as there are rumours going round that it’s going to be a bit more expensive than previous versions of Windows (as mentioned in one of my previous posts). Microsoft will soon be releasing the pricing for Windows 7, so that’ll be interesting. GEEK! will of course post as soon as the pricing is released.

180,000 pirates sail the seas for The Sims 3… in just 3 days!

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Electronic Arts aren’t going to be in the best frame of mind at the moment.

The Register today posted that according to P2P download counting firm, BigChampagne (yes, I’m a little confused about the name too), The Sims 3 has been downloaded 180,000 times in just 3 days (May 18th-May 21st) by means of file sharing sites.

Now I’ve just been doing a few little calculations here. Say every single one of those 180,000 people bought a copy of The Sims 3 legally, and each copy cost £39.99. The total cost of those 180,000 copies comes to £7,198,200. That means that EA has lost just over £7 million in just 3 days.

It does make you wonder a little bit about how bad piracy is.

And then you have to think about who uploaded the file in the first place. Somebody has to – it doesn’t just magically appear. It would have had to have been someone related to EA in some way. The general public can’t get copies of The Sims 3 until June 5th, so something has gone wrong there.

As I have mentioned many times on GEEK!, I don’t like to get involved with piracy. I will certainly be getting my copy of The Sims 3 legally – besides I want a physical copy of the disc and box (I’m that kinda sad guy who likes to have the original box and discs – I still have my Sims Deluxe Edition and Sims 2 discs in their original box).

If you are going to wait for the legal copy, then its in stores on June 5th.

PRS reduces streaming music fee

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Ever thought that the streaming music you hear for free on sites like last.fm and Spotify costs? You’d be right in thinking so. Somebody has to pay a royalty for that music you don’t pay a penny for. That’s why music streaming sites have to place advertisements to fund the costs of music streaming fees.

Yesterday, the Performing Right Society altered the royalties owed on streaming music tracks. The fee for each streamed track is now 0.085p, compared to the previous 0.22p.

It is rumoured that this change has been made in order to persuade sites like Youtube and Pandora to start allowing streamed music. Youtube stopped allowing music videos in the UK earlier this year due to a failure of agreement with the PRS, so hopefully this new low cost royalty will encourage Youtube to start streaming music again.

It would be nice to see some official bands back on Youtube again. Although last.fm and Spotify are great for free music streaming, Youtube became well known for watching music videos online.

We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks – Youtube may well start allowing music again, but I personally think that it’ll take quite a lot of persuasion. Youtube is currently the 3rd most popular site on the internet (and has been for some time), so Google (the owner of Youtube) may decide that it is not worth paying music streaming fees again. Youtube doesn’t seem to have lost many visitors since it stopped streaming music videos.

Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Server 2008 rolls out!

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Just a quick message to let you all know that Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 has rolled out.

You can grab it free for both 32 bit Windows (348MB) and 64 bit Windows (577MB) at the respective links.

I’ve got my copy on download now, so I’ll post a review up for it in the coming days (hopefully by the end of the week).

Enjoy!