Daily News Brief: Duke Nukem Forever Update (No Joke!)

Duke Nukem Forever Trailer Surfaces

Duke Nukem Forever emerges back into headlines today with the first new trailer in over six years. Does this mean the game finally has a release date? Nope; developer 3D Realms still stands by their 'when it's done' stance, though designer George Broussard did say that more frequent media releases would follow, and that there won't be any more engine changes. Here's hoping it's finally time for 3D Realms to kick a** and chew bubble gum, and that they're all out of bubble gum, because we're all out of vaporware jokes.

Microsoft Wins Ad Deal, Google Loses

Viacom, who owns MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Pictures, announced they'll be turning to Microsoft for online advertising. The five-year deal represents a win for MS, who will supplant Viacom's previous ad server DoubleClick, which Google plans to acquire. Beyond online advertising, the deal includes agreements for MS to license video content over the XBox 360 console. Financial terms were not disclosed, but $500 million worth of content will be exchanged between to the two over the five year agreement.

FCC Deals Blow to Comcast

On Tuesday, the FCC approved two new rules that could reshape the media landscape, one of which states that no single company can control more than 30 percent of the market. If the rule holds up in court, Comcast, currently the largest cable company thanks to a series of acquisitions in the past decade, would be unable to purchase any more cable companies. Smaller cable companies looking to sell to larger ones could feel the pinch too. The FCC's also looking to reshape the newspaper industry, all of which you can read here.

Intel to Delay 45nm Amid Poor AMD Performance

According to DigiTimes, Intel has alerted motherboard makers that they plan to postpone three 45nm quad-core processors until February or March of next year. The apparent delay hinges on AMD's schedule for tri-core and upcoming Phenom parts, and a desire for Intel not to compete with their own 65nm chips. CPUs in question include the Q9300, Q9450, and Q9550.

Trojan Found in Google Ads

You can't hardly navigate the web without running into a Google ad, which makes the latest virus threat particularly disturbing. BitDefender claims they've detected trojan software replacing some of Google's AdSense text, which both can display unintended third party ads and redirect clicks back to a rogue server capable of causing infection. Google knows about the issue, saying they have "cancelled customer accounts" that have been found abusing the AdSense service.

NVIDIA Releases 169.21 WHQL for XP

Adding support for the 8800GTS 512MB, NVIDIA released new ForceWare graphics drivers today for both the 32-bit and 64- bit versions of Windows XP. No love just yet for Vista adopters.

Firefox Goes Floppy

Not officially, of course, as 3.5" floppy drives have more than just a foot in the grave, and 5.25" floppies have been pushing up silicon daisies for years. But obsolescence didn't stop blogger JustZisGuy from resurrecting the legacy formats, who used Winzip to create a self-extracting setup routine spanned over five floppies in both 3.5" and 5.25" flavors, complete with printed labels making them look like official releases. How rad!