Russia’s New War Front: Cyberspace

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:03:21 -0500

Russia's New War Front: Cyberspace
By Bryant James Adorno

The world's attention again turns to Russia as a new light is shown upon alleged cyber attacks by this increasingly hostile nation. In August the world sat in horror as Russian military forces invaded the country of Georgia decimating its military before the United Nations could intervene. What the public does not know is that the initial military aggression may be only a part of Russia's military strategy.

Two cyber attacks have already struck former soviet-satellite nations this year, both of which occurred just before a dispute with Russia or right before Russian aggression. The first attack occurred in Estonia during the summer and more recently as a part of the Georgia-Russian conflict in August. The attacks usually focus on the selected country's news media and government sites. In the case of Estonia, however, banks, financial corporations and power systems were attacked or in some cases shutdown. In the rapidly advancing world of today, ever dependant on technology, such attacks can cause extensive damage costing millions of dollars. As of now, Russia continues to deny any involvement in the cyber hacking. Many experts believe a "grey goose" theory that these attacks were spear headed by nationalistic Russian hackers working on their own to promote their nation in these crises. Yet, no one has come forward with an explanation to prove this theory, until now.

Russian native Leonid "Roid" Stroikov has come forward in the recent edition of "Hacker" magazine with his story on the August cyber attacks. In his interview he recalls how he successfully hacked into the Georgian Parliament's website (parliament.ge) and obtained the administrator's password doing countless damage. He claims he used a "junk" code to confuse the site's database and then obtain access through other users. Leonid refused to go into detail to protect his methods. The Sydney Morning Herald fills the gap in Leonid's story as it reported that hackers posted a propaganda slide show comparing Georgia's president to Adolf Hitler. Other damage was also done to the site.

Many individuals such as SecDev Group's Rafal Rohozinski have decided to take Stroikov's story with a grain of salt. Most hackers use these events as "a method of self promotion" even though they are not involved. Despite this, others are convinced these rouge Russian hackers have deep connections with the Kremlin in Russia, waiting for their next orders to attack. The timing is incredible between the cyber attacks and the followed up Russian aggression. The fact that Georgia depends almost entirely on Russia for their information connections (phone, television, and internet) adds to the evidence that Russia is behind all this. Fortunately, Georgia was rescued by Google when the huge internet corporation set up a private blog for the country to get its news out safely. The one question that still lingers in many citizens minds is will it be the United States turn next?

Californian High-Speed Train

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:03:20 -0500

Californian High-Speed Train By Daniel Spader
Recently, voters in California voted "yes" for a multi-billion dollar high speed railway system that would run from San Francisco to Los Angeles. With the 45 billion dollar system in place California will be able to reduce the amount of barrels they use by 12 billion and reduce 12.7 billion pounds of greenhouse gas. The train systems will also come with 160, 000 jobs and the ability to transport 117 million passengers yearly. As of now California has 37 million people and no wide spread public transportation system. "We should do what other countries do. All over the world we see high-speed rails that go 200-300 hundred miles an hour. We should do the same thing in this country, especially in this State" Arnold Schwarzenegger said as he urged voters to check yes. With the need of clean transportation within the next 50 years, electric trains seem to provide an excellent source of travel. Quentin Kopp, Chairmen of the rail authority, said History will remember this night, when Californians demanded a new transportation system for California's 21st century travel needs."

Xbox 360 Dashboard Get a New Look

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:03:19 -0500

Xbox 360 Dashboard Gets a New Look
By Ryan Bissonnette

Since the Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005 by Microsoft Corporation, the systems firmware had been constantly receiving updates via the Xbox Live service. These updates seemed to be very minimal and didn't have any noticable changes for the average gamer for they would either just update the systems ability to run new software and changed what items were availabe for purchase in the marketplace. At the world-famous, E3, Microsoft held a press conference to show how they would use their console to compete with their rivals in the near future. Their visionary plan consisted of a firmware update like no other that would revolutionize the Xbox 360 experience forever. It is scheduled to be released on November 19, 2008 and is called NXE 2.0.7356.0.

This new firmware update for the Xbox 360's dashboard completely re-creates the original dashboard interface; making it much easier to navigate as well as adding some awesome new features. The first, most noticeable improvement, is the inclusion of the ability to create avatars for one's gamer profile. Much like Nintendo's Miis or the Playstation 3's Home Avatars, these characters can be created to depict the player and be used as a "profile picture" for their Gamertag. As expected from Microsoft, this avatar system is far from shallow. There are hundreds of different options for ones avatar in all of the different categories. These avatars can be substituted for the previously used Gamer Pictures that are tied to Gamertags and will appear on your friends list to symbolize ones online friends.

Though the avatars can add some level of entertainment to the Xbox 360 experience, the most outstanding feature is definitely the Party system. This newly implemented system consists of allowing the player and up to 8 friends enter a chat room of sorts together and talk to each other as well as share photos. While in a party, the players can all play certain Xbox Live Arcade games together and even watch movies through the newly licensed Netflix Channel. So basically, if the leader of the party wants to watch Goodburger, he can choose to and the rest of the party will see the movie launch on their own tv screen even if they are across the world. With the new party system, online multiplayer has been taken to a completely different level.

A more extensive list of added and improved features with the update can be viewed below in the following chart.

User Interface changes

    * Completely redefined GUI (Similar to Windows Media Center).
          o New pop-up/in-game Live Guide, using a redesigned version of the blades interface
          o New sound effects
          o Ability to preview your own themes before setting them.
    * Support for 1440x900 and 1680x1050 16:10 resolutions (displays with black bars) over VGA and HDMI (when using DVI)

Xbox Live changes

    * Xbox Live Party allowing for 8 person chat and image sharing.
    * Fully customizable Avatars for use in upcoming games and on Xbox Live. (Some current games will also receive an update on November 19th to support the new Avatars)

    * Access Xbox Live Marketplace on a PC via Xbox.com with the ability to queue downloads to the xbox.
    * Ability to watch Netflix movies on your Xbox 360. (You must be in the US, a Gold Xbox Live member, and a Netflix Subscriber)

Game changes

    * Option to install games to hard drive in order to decrease load times and to make the hardware quieter. The disc must still be present for the game to load.
    * Information from Xbox Live regarding the game in your disc tray.
    * Quick Launch for launching games on your console
    * Ability to remove games with 0 gamerscore from your profiles played games list
    * Auto Start - Option to set whether you want the disc to run/or stay idle when the disc tray closes with a game or media disc inside, by default its set to run

This list of new features is enough to get any 360 owner excited for the upcoming week. Be sure to look for the update on November 19, 2008.

Fable: Re-revolutionizing Role Playing Games

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:49:45 -0400

Fable: Re-revolutionizing Role Playing Games
By Ryan Bissonette

Five years ago, an Englishman named Peter Molyneux had a vision of the greatest and most in-depth role-playing game ever to appear on a gaming console. This vision became an idea and later evolved in a full-fledged project. He titled his creation "Fable." With his company, Lionhead Studios working with him, he was able to make his dream a reality and "Fable" was released to markets all around the world available for the Microsoft Xbox and later Microsoft Windows. The basis of the game was simple; the player takes control of a hero who had to avenge the death of his family by defeating an ultimate boss. It was an Action RPG, meaning the player directly controlled their hero and all of their actions. This wasn't what made the game so legendary through. Being the genius he is, Molyneux incorporated an in-depth alignment system that allowed to player to make his hero either insidiously evil or heartwarmingly good based on the choices they make throughout the course of their adventure. It was like world of "Fable" was its own little world the player basically created based on what they wanted to do with the game. This ingenious system turned a game that would've only lasted nearly 15 hours to last for hundreds, with limitless possibilities of evolving the world and ways to play through the story. The game was a hit, and it was time for Peter to meet with Lionhead studios again to tackle a sequel.

This sequel was aptly named "Fable II" and was released in markets around the world on October 21, 2008. The sequel had the same systems incorporated that were present in the original but it built upon them and expanded them. Molyneux made the game much more interactive than the first; allowing the player to interact with every single NPC (Non-playable character), buy real estate, have jobs, and most importantly, start a family. Players wholeheartedly welcomed these additions and improvements and "Fable II" became one of the most anticipated fall releases alongside legendary greats like "Prince of Persia" and "Fallout 3." The five year wait for the sequel was definitely worth it.

The story of "Fable II" involves you, the hero, and his journey to avenge his sister's death. Though the story was more or less the same, it was told completely differently and progressed at a different rate so to they player it seemed almost completely different from the story of the original game. Thankfully, Molyneux didn't "dumb down" or trash any concepts from the original game. He only built upon the first game, making improvements where he thought they needed to be made. Just the like the original game, the main story only lasts about 15 hours but the player can and will most likely spend about one-hundred hours playing as one hero. There are countless side quests, collectables to collect, and most importantly, achievements. Most games for the Xbox 360 are elongated due to their achievements. Achievements are just basically goals that are usually uninvolved with story that if the player reaches, they are awarded an allocated amount of Gamerscore for their profile. Hardcore players are obsessed with achievements and will not be disappointed with the ones incorporated into "Fable II."

Once again, Molyneux has succeeded in revolutionizing the local RPG genre. The man is a pure genius and has limitless ideas for his games., When he wants something made in a game, he does whatever he can to get it in the game and he continues to please fans. The one point many players argue that could've improved the game is making it an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game like World of Warcraft. Personally, I don't think this should ever be done with "Fable." There needs to be some great local RPG games and let's just hope Molyneux delivers once again in the future.