The fun-packed Xbox Live update is nearly here, so here’s the details of the movie and TV apps that come with it. LoveFilm and 4oD are in the first wave this month, with the BBC’s iPlayer coming next year.

The update to the dashboard of the Microsoft Xbox games console [...]]]>

The fun-packed Xbox Live update is nearly here, so here’s the details of the movie and TV apps that come with it. LoveFilm and 4oD are in the first wave this month, with the BBC’s iPlayer coming next year.

The update to the dashboard of the Microsoft Xbox games console arrives tomorrow, with a swathe of apps giving you access to on-demand music, movies and more, as well as the usual gaming goodies. While iPlayer isn’t on board yet, it will be added to the service in 2012.

Apps will be searchable via Bing and controlled both by your voice and your flailing arms, thanks to the Kinect motion-control gaming system.

Telly channels offering access to their online catch-up and on-demand services include Channels 4 and 5, with 4oD and Demand 5 apps launching later this month. ITV is expected to bring its ITV Player service to the party next year.

Blinkbox, Vevo and YouTube also hit the Xbox in December. Apps launching in the US include sports channels ESPN, streaming services Hulu and Netflix. Netflix will launch in the UK next year, but there’s no word yet on whether it’ll come to the Xbox when it does.

Meanwhile, Sky customers can watch their satellite sports, news and movie channels on their Xbox — in Germany. Sky Go, which lets you watch Sky channels on your phone, ta

via Xbox Live update launches with LoveFilm, iPlayer in 2012 | CNET UK.

The Future of TV Begins Now on Xbox 360Kinect for Xbox 360 brings voice control to living room entertainment with update that launches Dec. 6.

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REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 4, 2011 — A revolution is happening in the living room. Xbox 360 is transforming how you enjoy TV entertainment [...]]]>

The Future of TV Begins Now on Xbox 360Kinect for Xbox 360 brings voice control to living room entertainment with update that launches Dec. 6.

inShare78

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 4, 2011 — A revolution is happening in the living room. Xbox 360 is transforming how you enjoy TV entertainment and is giving you the power to control it with your voice. The next generation of TV entertainment begins with the announcement by Microsoft Corp. of the launch of an all-new Xbox 360 experience including the first group of new, custom applications from world leading TV and entertainment content providers on Xbox LIVE.“A new era in entertainment begins where all your entertainment is together in one place — your games, movies, TV shows, music and sports,” said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “With this update, Xbox 360 system owners will experience Kinect voice control integrated with Bing search, making your TV and entertainment experiences more social%2

via The Future of TV Begins Now on Xbox 360: Kinect for Xbox 360 brings voice control to living room entertainment with update that launches Dec. 6..

Page last updated at 11:22 GMT, Wednesday, 23 November 2011

The developers behind Call of Duty: [...]]]> BBC – Newsbeat – Call of Duty has banned hundreds of gamers from MW3.

  Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 smashed sales records

The developers behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 say they have banned more than 1,000 players from the online version.

Infinity Ward’s Creative Strategist, Robert Bowling, used Twitter to explain what was happening.

“Any attempt to cheat, hack, or glitch in #MW3 will not be tolerated. 1600+ bans issued. Updates in works.”

He then went on to answer questions from his followers about how to report gamers suspected of cheating.

“There’s a button in game after a match,” he said. “Click on them in the lobby and it gives option to View Gamercard + Report Player.

“Stats are always recorded, we can verify and detect cheating without video proof.”

Any attempt to cheat, hack or glitch in MW3 will not be tolerated

Robert Bowling Creative Strategist, Infinity Ward

Gamers who cheat their way to higher XP, or experience points, can often be vilified by the gaming community.

Genuine players can block them or, in this instance, follow Robert Bowling’s advice and report them.

Banned for lifeThis is not the first time developers have been keen to take action against people cheating.

In August 2010 Rockstar Games issued a warning to people cheating in the multi-player, online version of its hit title Red Dead Redemption.

Managers gave cheats one week to delete any experience points they hadn’t genuinely earned or they would be banned for life.

Speaking at the time Luke Pilgrim, 19 and from Dartford, said: “When I get XP I get a satisfaction from it because I’ve earned it.

“But if I was cheating I’d think that was unfair so hopefully people that do cheat, if they get banned from it, won’t cheat any more.”

Robert Bowling said in the case of Modern Warfare 3 different bans were available depending on how serious the cheating was.

“Every ban unique to the level of douchiness of the offense.

“The greater the douche the greater the length. PermaDouche possible.”

Download Windows 8 here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

The finished version of Windows 8 may not be out until the second half of 2012, but if you’re curious about what’s coming next then there’s no need to wait. Microsoft has released a Windows 8 Developer Preview that’s free for everyone to [...]]]>  

Download Windows 8 here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

The finished version of Windows 8 may not be out until the second half of 2012, but if you’re curious about what’s coming next then there’s no need to wait. Microsoft has released a Windows 8 Developer Preview that’s free for everyone to try.

You may need some courage and Windows experience, though, because this is a very early version: buggy; incomplete; only supports clean installs (that is, it can’t upgrade an existing version of Windows); can’t be removed other than by reformatting; and isn’t supported by Microsoft.

Still, if you’ve a spare laptop or PC with nothing you need on the hard drive, then installing Windows 8 Developer Preview will at least let you see how it performs. It should run on just about any modern system; if a computer supports Windows 7, it should run Windows 8 as well. And this will let you experience some impressive features, like the super-fast boot time.

You’ve no spare hardware? An even more convenient route is to use the free VirtualBox, which allows you to run Windows 8 in a window on your current system’s desktop. It’s quick, and easy – here’s how to install and run Windows 8.

1. Downloading Windows 8

The Developer Preview is a huge download, a minimum of 2.8GB, so you’ll want to get that underway first. Head along to Microsoft’s Dev Centre and grab the version you need. (If in doubt, opt for the 32-bit file.)

For more, read our guide How to download Windows 8 today.

If you’re going to install Windows 8 on a laptop or PC then you’ll want to burn the ISO file to disc. Windows 7 can do this itself, but if you’re running XP or Vista, grab a third-party tool like ImgBurn to create it for you.

If you’re taking the simpler virtual machine route, though, VirtualBox provides everything you need. Head over to its website and download a copy of the latest version.

2. Installing Windows 8

Installing the Developer Preview on a physical PC should be straightforward: just burn your ISO image to a disc, boot your system from it, and follow the instructions (it’s just like installing previous versions of Windows).

VirtualBox, however, requires a little more work.

Launch the program, click New > Next. Give the virtual machine a name, like Windows 8, select Microsoft Windows as the operating system, Other Windows as the version.

Click Next and choose how much RAM you’d like the virtual machine to have. Give it 1024MB, then keep clicking Next, accepting the default settings until the wizard is complete.

Now right-click the new virtual machine, and click Settings > Storage. Right-click “IDE Controller”, click “Add CD/DVD” > Choose Disk, point the program at your Developer Preview ISO file and click Open.

Right-click the other CD icon, labelled “Empty”, and click Remove > OK.

Double-click the new virtual machine to launch it, click OK to clear the mouse capture message, press a key when you’re prompted to boot from the disc, and the installation process will begin.

(Keep in mind that the Windows 8 window will by default capture your mouse once you click inside it. Just press the right Ctrl key if you want to return to your regular desktop and do something else.)

EASY: Straightforward wizards make it quick and easy to set up VirtualBox

3. First steps in Windows 8

Once setup is complete, your PC will reboot to launch Windows 8 for the first time. The installation disc will ask you to “press any key” to boot from it, but don’t, otherwise you’ll start the installation again.

Remove the disc from your PC once Windows 8 has loaded; or, in VirtualBox, return to the virtual machine’s Storage settings when you’ve next closed it down, right-click the ISO file (under the IDE Controller) and select Remove.

Back at Windows 8, you’ll open on the lock screen. Hold down the left mouse button and drag upwards, or just use the mouse scroll wheel to reveal the logon window. Enter the password you created earlier and click Submit.

In just a few seconds you’ll see the Metro interface appear, with tiles for Explorer, IE, Control Panel and more. But before you use those, click Desktop to see the old-style Windows desktop. Right-click this, select Screen Resolution, and make sure you’re using the highest resolution available on your system (it needs a vertical resolution of 768 or better for the Metro applications to work).

VIEW DESKTOP: The traditional desktop is still available – just click the Desktop tile to launch it

When you’re done, move your mouse to the bottom-left corner and click the Start button. This won’t launch the Start menu – that’s gone now – but instead displays the main screen. You can also press the Windows key on your keyboard to return here at any time.

START AGAIN: Lost? Move your mouse cursor to the bottom-left and click Start to return to your home page

And now, start exploring.

Scroll to the right to see all the Metro apps. Click one of the app tiles to launch it.

Drag and drop the tiles to rearrange them. Right-click these for more options.

Try the Internet Explorer app to get online with IE10.

Move the mouse cursor to the bottom-left of the screen for more options.

If you get lost at any point, press the Windows key to return to your home screen.

And to finish, click your user name, top-right; select Log Off; use the mouse scroll wheel to reveal the log on screen again, click the icon to the bottom right of the screen and click Shut Down.

Not everything is as simple as we’d like, then, but these are very early days: some elements of the Developer Preview will change before final release, others will disappear altogether. Still, there’s a lot to like here, and it’s interesting to get a feel for what the next generation of Windows might offer.

via How to install Windows 8 Developer Preview | News | TechRadar UK.

Gmail users in the UK are now able to make low-cost calls from the email client to landlines and mobile phones.Google has rolled out VoIP calls from within Gmail to the UK.

It was already possible to make free Gmail-to-Gmail voice calls in the UK, but on Tuesday [...]]]> NEWS:

Gmail users in the UK are now able to make low-cost calls from the email client to landlines and mobile phones.Google has rolled out VoIP calls from within Gmail to the UK.

It was already possible to make free Gmail-to-Gmail voice calls in the UK, but on Tuesday Google said in a blog post it was opening up the paid-for Google Voice functionality to users outside the US for the first time. People in US have been able to do this since last year.”You can now buy calling credit in your choice of four currencies Euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars or US dollars and there are no connection fees, so you only pay for the time you talk,” Gmail product manager Pierre Lebeau said in the blog post. He added that the service is now available in 38 languages.Google Apps users will have to get their domain administrators to enable Google Voice and Google Checkout in order to use the service, Lebeau noted.The move will make Google a stronger competitor to Skype, currently the worlds leading voice-over-IP VoIP provider. For example, calls made from Gmail to mobile phones in the UK, France or Germany cost eight euro cents 7p per minute. Calls made from Skype to the same numbers cost around 15p per minute.Skype and Google also recently became competitors in the market for video calling inside social networks. Skypes service is now integrated with Facebook, and group video-chat is a prominent feature of the Google+ social network.

via Gmail brings Skype rival Google Voice to UK | Web Apps | ZDNet UK.

Shares in Nintendo have tumbled on the Tokyo stock exchange a day after the company announced a loss in the first quarter.

The shares closed down 13%, [...]]]>

Nintendo shares tumble 13% after company reports a loss

Shares in Nintendo have tumbled on the Tokyo stock exchange a day after the company announced a loss in the first quarter.

The shares closed down 13%, having fallen as much as 20%, on news of the worse-than-expected profits figures.

On Thursday, Nintendo reported a net loss of 25.5bn yen ($324m, £201m) for the April-to-June quarter, its first-ever quarterly loss.

The company also cut its full-year profit forecast.

Nintendo said it now expects a net profit of 20bn yen for the year to March 2012, down 82% from its previous projection

Google today is rolling out warnings to search users who might have been infected with malware.

The move comes after Google noticed some unusual activity on its network while conducting routine

Google today is rolling out warnings to search users who might have been infected with malware.

The move comes after Google noticed some unusual activity on its network while conducting routine datacenter maintenance. “After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or ‘malware,’” Damian Menscher, a Google security engineer, wrote in a blog post.

As a result, certain users might see a warning atop their search results (below) that says, “Your computer appears to be infected.” The alert includes a link with information about how to fix the problem. Google did not disclose how many users will see the warning.

What happens if your computer is affected? Google said the malware “causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through a small number of intermediary servers called ‘proxies,” Menscher wrote. “We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their antivirussoftware and remove the infections.”

If you don’t see the alert but are concerned that your computer might have malware, you can run a system scan using the directions on Google’s Help Center.

The move comes several months after Google announced plans to incorporate warnings about malicious downloads into its Chrome browser. Chrome already has a “Safe Browsing” mode, but the April update went after downloads that “use social engineering to entice users to download and run the malicious content,” like sites hosting free downloads that actually do things like display spam ads, perform click fraud, or steal passwords, Google said.