Looks like it’s not Sony that’s getting the bad apple these days, as hackers go rather active lately. As reported on Eurogamer earlier today, Codemaster’s have sent an email to customers explaining that their suite of sites has been well and truly hacked. Last Friday seemed carefree and fun right? Chances are you were getting compromised, chum.

Codemasters have spent the time since the intrusion conducting a “thorough investigation in order to ascertain the extent and scope of the breach.” Turns out the breach had a pretty wide scope. Read on for the details. Read more…

Blues News have spotted an interview with DICE’s Patrick Soderlund in which the dev gives a rough estimate for the length of the Battlefield 3 single player campaign. Speaking to Grey Viper, Soderlund said “I don’t have a number for you… yet, ’cause the game is not done yet, and I don’t want to… To me the game can be anything from six, seven, eight, to ten hours, depending on what we net out once we’re done.

“I think the most important thing for me is that the game delivers upon a consumer experience that we’re happy with, and then, that will then… that’s how we look at it, and that will tell how long the game is.”

Of course, for many Battlefield fans, the meat of the game will be the multiplayer, which was shown for the first time at this year’s E3. You can read Tim’s hands-on impressions here, or watch the Operation Metro multiplayer trailer to get an idea of how that’s shaping up. DICE also showed eight minutes of tank-based single player action at the EA conference.

SOURCE via Blue News

Japan’s Ministry of Defense is pretty good at its hovering drones, but we’re not entirely convinced that this one will be fit for purpose. The RC reconnaissance scout reminds us of a spherical Iain M. Banks Culture drone, which is neat, except that this one’s more conspicuous, dies after just eight minutes and was constructed not by an intergalactic artificial consciousness, but by a bunch of geeks who went foraging for parts in Akihabara. Nevertheless, it can do 40MPH and is surprisingly agile, as you’ll see in the video — watch out for the kissogram moment.

Read more…

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — words Panasonic has clearly taken to heart with the Toughbook 19. It’s time for the rugged, 10-inch convertible tablet to get its annual refresh and not much has changed visibly. Instead, the company gave its internals a boost with some Sandy Bridge goodness and slapped a new TransflectivePlus screen in this military-grade machine for computing in direct sunlight. Impressively, the Core i5 found inside is not of the ULV variety, it’s a standard voltage 2520m powering this completely sealed, fanless design. Additionally, the Toughbook 19 now comes standard with 4GB of RAM and has a pair of SSD options for added durability. You’ll be able to pick one up, and use it as a frisbee, in September starting at $3,349.

Head of the Cairo University Archaeology Department, Dr Ala Shaheen in December 2010 had told an audience that there might be truth to the theory that aliens helped the ancient Egyptians build the oldest of pyramids, the Pyramids of Giza.

On being further questioned by Mr Marek Novak, a delegate from Poland as to whether the pyramid might still contain alien technology or even a UFO with its structure, Dr Shaheen, was vague and replied “I cannot confirm or deny this, but there is something inside the pyramid that is “not of this world”.

Delegates to the conference on ancient Egyptian architecture were left shocked, however Dr Shaheen had refused to comment further or elaborate on his UFO and alien related statements. Read more…

Music collectors in the US will be able to subscribe to Apple’s iTunes Match service this fall, but it looks like our friends across the pond will have to wait a little longer before lofting their libraries up to the cloud. According to sources within the British recording industry, licensing negotiations between Apple and the country’s major labels have only just begun and likely won’t be concluded until 2012.

A spokesman for the Performing Right Society, an organization that protects the rights of musicians and songwriters, likened the situation to the launch of iTunes, which only spread to international markets some 14 months after launching in the US. Speaking to the Telegraph, Forrester Research vice president Mark Mulligan echoed these predictions, while offering some insight into the industry’s approach:

“Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.”

Neither Apple nor any of the major labels have commented on the negotiations.

Your patience has paid off. The planet’s first openly accessible jailbreak is now available for those who’ve taken the plunge with iOS 5 (beta), and if you just can’t go another day without access to Cydia, well… you don’t have to. Redsn0w 0.9.8b1 has been released for Mac users, but given that it’s a tethered solution, you’ll have to plug ‘er back into your machine each time you need to reboot. We’d encourage you to wait for the inevitable untethered alternative, but those who aren’t having any of that “listening to your elders” hoopla can hop on down to the source link. And yet the real challenge still continues with the Apple iPad 2.

SOURCE via iPhone-Dev