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Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

mass_effect.jpgIn a shocking display of clarity and reason, EA and Bioware have made an official announcement stating they have decided to drop the draconian every ten day activation fiasco they were intending for PC titles Mass Effect and Spore. Whether this is a reaction to the out of control firestorm this issue became last week , or EA/Bioware growing a collective brain within the last week we cannot say for certain. It is however, a welcome return to sanity and customer centric thinking within EA/Bioware, and one we applaud them for. An excerpt from Bioware's official statement...

There has been a lot of discussion in the past few days on how the security requirements for Mass Effect for PC will work. BioWare, a division of EA, wants to let fans know that Mass Effect will not require 10- day periodic re-authentication.

BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them. To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.

The solution being implemented for Mass Effect for the PC changes copy protection from being key disc based, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to a one time online authentication.

This system has an added benefit of allowing players to seamlessly play the game without needing the DVD in the drive.

EA/Bioware's careful wording, as you peruse the entire post, seems to indicate that this was the plan all along. Just keep in mind that this is P.R., and full of more spin than a game of Twister in a centrifuge.
12/05/2008 | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

mass_effect.jpgThough by no means the most draconian of DRM schemes to date, a bit of a firestorm is brewing over the DRM infested activation system coming with the PC release of Bioware's Mass Effect.

Mass Effect PC will require an online connected activation courtesy of SecureRom servers every ten days. Apparently, for forever. Now, while it's clear Bioware and EA will go out of it's way to insure they avoid the activation debacle that hounded releases like Bioshock, it is also clear that when you purchase games these days you're not actually buying a consumable product that you "own" in the sense that you own a towel or a pair of shoes.
07/05/2008 | 20 comments | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

xbox360crack.jpgAfter sitting through reading one of the most denial ridden, vitriolic and incoherent rants on the subject of the evils of gaming I've ever seen, I felt a need to respond to it. Not only as a technology website journalist, but also as a parent.

The journalist in question, Janice Turner , writes a weekly column for The Times Online , a british publication which unfortunately gets a lot more traffic than we do. I say it is unfortunate because someone dispensing little gems like this is the last person a parent searching for real solutions to managing their childrens time and behavior should consult.

Titled "Xbox is crack for kids - It's an impossible task to police our children's multimedia addiction" , the article is largely an incoherent rant about the problems with managing "screen time" for our kids in the digital age. Reading through the piece, and I strongly suggest everyone who reads this do so, it just seethes with frustration, anger, naivety, and denial. Hardly the sorts of behaviors I'd recommend emulating when parenting. Considering it's a piece about game consoles, iPods, cellphones and digital tv and the apparent evils of said mediums, such a reaction has to be taken as little more than denial and technophobia. Not to mention a healthy dose of fear mongering.
19/01/2008 | 2 comments | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

riaaintro.jpg
FastSilicon.com has been following the case of a Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas, and her legal battle against major record labels. On October 5th in the United States District Court, District of Minnesota, a jury found in favor of the plaintiffs. The court order states that Ms. Thomas is to pay $222,000 in civil damages for infringement of copyrighted media held by Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Arista, Interscope, Warner Bros, and UMG Recordings.

Following her loss, Ms. Thomas began the process of fighting the decision against her. Her defense counsel filed motions for a new trial on Constitutional grounds. Specifically, the defense is arguing that at least one explicit section of current U.S. Copyright Law, defining Statutory Damages (17 U.S.C. §504 (c)), violates due process under the U.S. constitution.

Read Interview here

22/11/2007 | 1 comment | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials

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A recent survey conducted by AirDefense inc., which is a wireless security company, provided some shocking data about physical retail outlets and how easy it was to obtain credit card information from wireless sources. The survey asserts that more than half of the 4,748 access points studied at 3,045 stores around the world were susceptible to attack.

See FastSilicon.com's coverage here .

15/11/2007 | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

gatesmugshotboth

While we wait to finish working through a few mainboard and graphics card reviews here (8800GTS lovin' is on the way) we decided to segue into some moderately dangerous territory here, and have an open (and perhaps opinionated to a degree) look at an article that's made a lot of waves on the net recently. Is "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" by Peter Gutmann, Ph.D. really an analysis of Vista? We're not so sure...

08/03/2007 | 2 comments | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Scott Piercy

formatwar1Don't you just love format wars? Venture back a few decades and some of you might feel almost nostalgic thinking about the old Betamax vs. VHS wars of the 1970's. Today the formats are different, the names are different, but the issues at stake are largely the same. HD-DVD or BlueRay. Which do you choose? Is one overly technically superior to the other, and if so, does that even matter? You might be surprised with our conclusion.

25/01/2007 | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Nigel Woodford

In response to a recent report concerning Alienware’s system review process, Alienware would like to take the opportunity toalienware2 clarify that process. As a matter of long standing policy, Alienware makes no distinctions on who receives a system for review. Alienware offers an equal opportunity to all publications for system reviews. In addition to offering review units to publications, Alienware offers reviewers a unique guidance approach that is available at any point during the review process.
30/10/2006 | Email

Articles/Opinions/Editorials
Author : Nigel Woodford

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Since we launched SiliconNews, we've been very careful to monitor people's impressions both good and bad, and to think our way through many of the issues presented to us. Since this project started out as a personal mission between us to make a site we'd want to use ourselves, the core focus of SiliconNews is clearly based on this core concept of ours. 
28/10/2006 | Email

Articles/Technology Previews
Author : Scott Piercy

e6300

Over the next few weeks we'll be releasing a three part series called “Core2 Dream Machines.” Though we won't be revealing any of our preliminary results today, we did want to share a bit of our thinking process with you. At the core of any system build is the CPU and we've chosen Intel's Core2Duo E6300 as the platform of choice. Why? Read on warrior of geek-dom, and you'll soon find out.

08/10/2006 | Email

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