Good Old Games gives away free Good Old Games

GoodOldGames.com, the online gaming store that specialises in old PC games, has announced that it is giving away two free games for Christmas to all users who have or create an account on the site.

GOG.com has proven a hit with PC gamers, offering classic and hard-to-find PC games in an online store akin to Valve's Steam. Where GOG.com has the edge though is that each game sold is guaranteed to run on all modern OS' thanks to some re-coding and DOS box emulation tweaks. The best thing about it though is that the games are cheap too, fitting into either $9.99 or $5.99 price bands.

Midway closes studio, cancels games

Midway has taken further efforts to reduce costs and minimise losses today with the closure of its Austin studio and the cancellation of all its projects that were projected for a 2010 or 2011 release date, all of which were unannounced.

Midway has announced redundancies across all territories also, losing staff in San Diego, Austin and Chicago according to GamesIndustry.biz. The move sees the total workforce of the company being decimated with more than 25 percent of the publishers total employees being terminated.

EA and 2K Games license Nvidia PhysX technology

Electronic Arts and 2K Games have both announced that they will license Nvidia PhysX technology across all of their worldwide studios.

This follows on from Nvidia and EA’s joint announcement earlier this month regarding the PC version of Mirror’s Edge, which is claimed to be the first game to truly exploit PhysX technology.

"PhysX is a great physics solution for the most popular platforms, and we're happy to make it available for EA’s development teams worldwide. Gameplay remains our number one goal, with character, vehicle and environmental interactivity a critical part of the gameplay experience for our titles, and we look forward to partnering with NVIDIA to reach this goal,

Reports claim FCC head has anti-cable bias

A new US House Committee on Energy and Commerce report (PDF) published today accuses current FCC chairman Kevin Martin of unfairly biasing policy against the cable industry. The government body head is specifically accused of overriding others' views and is said to have reversed a finding that exempted cable providers from offering à la carte rules as well as attempting to force through a report that would have accused the cable industry of greater than 70 percent control of the market, allowing Martin and the FCC to regulate the field.

ARM, Sony Ericsson, more join Open Handset Alliance

The Open Handset Alliance today said it has added 14 new members to its group in a move that will bolster support for Google's new Android operating system. The new roster includes phone manufacturers such as ASUS, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba as well as prominent chipmakers like ARM and Atheros as well as carriers Softbank and Vodafone. GPS device maker Garmin is also included in the list.

Yang claims No. 1 Year-End Ranking

Top seed Tsung-Hua Yang (TPE) has won his first round match of the 2008 Orange Bowl to claim the year-end number one ranking spot after a gripping three set match against unseeded American Matthew Kandath. Yang made heavy work of his first round match, winning the first set in a closely fought tie-break before losing the second and then finding form in the third set to see off Kathman 76 46 62. This first round win now sees him secure his position as World Number one at the end of the year.

DirecTV announces end of HDPC-20 HD tuner project

A DirecTV spokesperson recently announced the company has discontinued any and all development work on the HDPC-20 tuner that promised to link DirecTV's high-definition content with Windows Media Center. The HDPC-20 was first introduced at CES in 2006, or nearly three years ago. The decision to end the project was reportedly made after DirecTV missed the August 2008 update for Windows Media Center software and timing of the next release.

GeForce 9400M coming to Intel Atom soon?

NVIDIA is in the process of porting the technology behind the GeForce 9400M to mainboards meant for Intel's Atom processors, alleged sources from PC builders claim. The MCP79 chipset, which sits at the heart of both the 9400M in newer MacBooks and the lower-powered 9300M, is said to be in conversion for the mini PC platform with the aim of improving graphics over Intel's existing but relatively limited GMA video. NVIDIA would first focus on hardware for nettops but would potentially expand to netbooks later on.

Tidal technology

UK-based Aquamarine Power has announced that it has made a significant investment in Ocean Flow Energy to secure a new technology to produce energy from deep water tidal resources.

The investment complements Aquamarine Power’s existing technologies and will further strengthen its position in the marine renewable energy sector.

Aquamarine Power already boasts a diverse portfolio of marine energy converters.

Oyster, its hydro-electric wave power device, is due for installation at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) next year, while its tidal stream energy converter Neptune is currently the world’s largest under development at 2.4MW.

Tidal technology

UK-based Aquamarine Power has announced that it has made a significant investment in Ocean Flow Energy to secure a new technology to produce energy from deep water tidal resources.

The investment complements Aquamarine Power’s existing technologies and will further strengthen its position in the marine renewable energy sector.

Aquamarine Power already boasts a diverse portfolio of marine energy converters.

Oyster, its hydro-electric wave power device, is due for installation at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) next year, while its tidal stream energy converter Neptune is currently the world’s largest under development at 2.4MW.

Top 10 torrented games of 2008

TorrentFreak has posted a list (via Kotaku) of the top ten games which were copied and shared over BiTorrent alone this year and if you're one of those piracy-deniers who thinks the number of pirates can't be all that big then the figures below make for some interesting reading.

Interestingly, the number one torrent title of this year is Spore - a game which drew much criticism for having invasive DRM and copy-protection systems.