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Intel Eyes up Physics

Ageia's PhysX accelerator promises to deliver a "rich immersive physical gaming environment," but both a lack of widespread developer support and limited benefits in games that do support physics pcoressing have prevent Ageia from gaining a signficant foothold in the gaming community. On top of that, their window of opportunity might be closing, as both ATI and nVidia have taken interests in physics with planned solutions of their own. Potentionally raining on everyone's parade, Intel announced they've reached an agreement to purchase physics software developer Havok. The impending acquisition throws Intel squarely into the fray, while also giving them leverage against potentional competitors. ATI's Crossfire and nVidia's SLI physics solutions both use the Havok FX engine, with Intel soon to be sitting at the driver's seat.

Vista Laptops Shipped with Virus

But it gets even better. The Virus Bulletin reports that anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 shipments of laptops sold in Danish and German branches by Aldi have been found to be infected with a boot sector virus called Stoned.Angelina, a virus first detected 13 years ago and apparently still making the rounds. Because the laptops are sold without floppy drives, the 1990s isn't likely to spread, but there's certainly enough egg to go around on company heads, including Microsoft, Bullguard (the pre-installed anti-virus software that failed to catch the virus), and Aldi. For any of our international readers who may have been infected, you can find removal instructions here.

Newsflash: Interweb is Popular

Not that we needed any more proof the internet age is upon us, but come this November, a new show called Quarterlife will make its debut on MySpace. From the creative minds behind Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, Marshall Herskovitz's and Ed Zwick's newest endeavor will only air online. The new show, which focuses on a group of recent collget grads, will also bring with it their own social networking site (Quarterlife.com), where they envision fans will bantor about the show and recruit other viewers.

Chinese Gamer Dies of Exhaustion

This headline's becoming a recurring theme, so much so that the Chinese government have launched gaming curfews, shut down over 12, 575 cafes, refused to license new cafes for the remainder of 2007, and issuing mandatory time limit penalties for online games. And yet, another internet gamer dies from exhaustion. The 30 year old from Guangzhou died after three consecutive days of gaming, and despite all the restrictions and regulations, he probably won't be the last person to make a gaming death related headline.

Hackers Cash In

We've all the read the stories involving stolen bank account information and other private data falling into the wrong hands, but what do hackers do with all this data after they mine it? They sell it online in a thriving underground trade. According to Symantec's latest report on cyber crime, hijacked credit cards make up 22 percent of all advertisements in the underground economy, with bank accounts close behind at 21 percent. Stolen bank accounts can fetch up to $400 each, with email passwords commanding anywhere from $1 to $350. And even if you avoid online banking sites and other financially based services, you could still be at risk. According to William Beer, director of security practice for Europe, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are drawing an increasing number of attacks.

Tri-Core on the Horizon?

File this one under rumors, but there's some buzz that AMD may release a triple core processor. Releasing a tri- core chip would be one way to salvage a defective quad-core part rather than toss it into the garbage bin. But Charlie Demerjian at the The Inquirer has a different take, and believes AMD would consider this approach primarily for the marketing advantage. It would be a lot more difficult for Intel to create a tri-core part with the current Core 2 architecture, leaving AMD as the only option for those wanting such a chip. The question is, does a market really exist for such a processor? Possibly, but quad-core parts can already be picked up at mainstream pricing, and it won't be long until budget offerings trickle into the lineup too.

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