Simply amazing. Rev. Richard Patrick has come out of the woodwork to jump on the "games are evil" train and share his myopic, frightened views with the world. The real kicker here is that he suggests having a game burning" without the slightest trace of irony.

Rev. Richard Patrick had this to say, blaming entertainment for crime, rather than, y'know, criminals:

• We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning, just like they had a gun buyback last year...
• Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television ... television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality...
• [Violent media] has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas
  

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HP TouchSmart PCs feature a clutter-busting, all-in-one form factor made to fit into common areas of your home. The bulky look of a desktop is gone. Instead, there's a sleek, piano-black design with elegant espresso side-panel highlights that add a look of sophistication to any room.

The footprint is smaller, but HP TouchSmart PCs deliver big visuals on a 22" diagonal hi-def widescreen, along with powerful, more energy-efficient performance with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. One cord powers the entire PC. A wireless keyboard and integrated wireless LAN, receivers and dongles reduce dangling wires. Interact with the PC via your fingertip, wireless mouse or low-profile keyboard, which stows away to free space when not in use. With the 22" diagonal hi-def widescreen and built-in premium stereo speakers, your TV shows and videos look and sound awesome on the HP TouchSmart PCs. The HP TouchSmart PCs can be many things to many people: It's a desktop PC, an entertainment PC and a communication hub of the house.

With prices starting from $1,299, the HP TouchSmart 2 sports a 22-inch display, "500GB disk, 256MB of NVIDIA GeForce 9300 M HS HD graphics, 802.11n WiFi, and 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo T5850 processor thumping through the cycles."

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Microsoft today released its June 2008 security bulletin, which includes three critical, three important, and one moderate patch. Of the critical, one is for the Bluetooth stack in Windows XP and Windows Vista, one is for DirectX, and another is a cumulative update to Internet Explorer. The one moderate bulletin covers a flaw in the speech recognition feature in Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Vista. Of the important bulletins, one concerns Active Directory and another Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM)

MS08-030: Critical - Titled "Vulnerability in Bluetooth Stack Could Allow Remote Code Execution (951376)", this bulletin is critical for users of Windows XP and Windows Vista (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions). The update addresses vulnerabilities detailed in CVE-2008-1453. The patch modifies the way that the Bluetooth stack handles a large number of service description requests. Microsoft says an attacker could use this to take complete control of an affected system; install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

MS08-031: Critical - Titled "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (950759)", this bulletin affects all users of Windows. However, the critical designation only applies to users of Windows XP and Windows Vista; all others are deemed moderate or important by Microsoft. The update addresses vulnerabilities in CVE-2008-1442 and CVE-2008-1544. The cumulative patch fixes a couple of vulnerabilities including one that could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer and another which could allow information disclosure if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer.

MS08-033: Critical - Titled "Vulnerabilities in DirectX Could Allow Remote Code Execution (951698)", this bulletin affects all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. This update addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-0011 and CVE-2008-1444. Microsoft says the vulnerability "could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted media file. An attacker who successfully exploited either of these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights."

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NZXT, a company built on realizing the dreams of gamers worldwide, is proud to announce the Khaos, a high-performance premium gaming chassis in the NZXT Classic Series.  Khaos features breakthrough design in every category effectively satisfying the needs of the most power hungry PC Enthusiasts and Gamers. 

• Unparalleled Design
  

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Electronic Arts announced today that Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf will be the cover athlete and spokesman for NHL 09.

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Nehalem is a codename for both a processor microarchitecture and a processor. Nehalem will be released in late 2008 for high-end chips and early 2009 for mainstream chips. The codenames "Bloomfield" (desktop chip), "Gainestown" (server chip), "Gilo" (mobile chip), and "Beckton" (or "Becton") (server chip) have been associated with Nehalem consistently, but with very few details.

According to a new roadmap, Intel has already prepared three Bloomfield with different clock for different class of users. Till now other spec still TBD and we will wait for Intel

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XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 Black edition review

King of pre-overclocked products has to be XFX, their speed-bin of releasing OCed products is exceedingly fast. I do not think that there is an XFX product out there that is not available as a triple X edition or other series name slapped on top of it. Today will be no different, we received XFXes top of the shelf product, the GeForce 9800 GX2, the cool thing is that this is the new mystified named 'Black edition' series of cards, meaning it comes with a nice pre-overclock and an lovely game bundle.

Find the full review here:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/xfx-geforce-9800-gx2-black-edition-review/

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Last week at Computex we already took some photo's of the new gadget, but Corsair is releasing the Flash Voyager Mini. It's weighing just 5.4 grams and comes in an okay 4GB version worth of storage space and features an all-rubber housing which is supposed to protect it against the elements and shocks.

The Flash Voyager Mini utilizes a cap-less retractable connector plug which easily opens with the flick of the thumb, and its ergonomic rubberized housing makes it easy to connect and disconnect from any computer. This makes it the perfect flash drive for users with busy and active lifestyles. Utilizing the latest Chip-on-Board technology the Flash Voyager Mini is the perfect synergy of size, looks and function.

Features :

• Durable
• Shock Proof
• Retractable connector tip
• Plug-n-Play compatibility via USB 1.1 or 2.0 port
• 10 Year Limited Warranty

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it's been confirmed that Call of Duty 5 being called Call of Duty: World at War and is set in the Pacific theatre of WWII. The news comes from subs issues of UK mag games, which landed this morning.

VG247 has an excerpt from the UK mag: "Right, apparently it's going to be grittier, as gritty as ANY game out there to quote. The enemy will be scarier and use new tactics. There will be co-op for the first time in a Call of Duty. Also there will be vehicles and squad-based elements to the multiplayer. Formats: PC, PS3, 360 and Wii. The Wii version is being worked on by a separate team within Treyarch."

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According to the Wall Street journal that is. We all know men hate to ask for directions. Apparently they loathe putting directions in computer code, too. Emma McGrattan, the senior vice-president of engineering for computer-database company Ingres
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Appearantly Soundblaster driver modder Daniel Kawakami or better known as Creative's Daniel_K is backing off his deal with providing modded software for all Creative sound cards for free. He again might have gotten in trouble with Creative labs and received a second warning mail from Creative threatening him with legal actions.

He is finally "gone for good". He has posted a message over at the Creative forums informing everyone for his decission. MIn my opinion, the email is to vague to be legit. So the email might be fraude as well .. it just doesn't seem to be a legit one. Daniel is still awaiting Creative Labs official response on this new alligation.

Creative labs needs to take a stance in this as this is getting out of hand and definitely will hurt their product sales.

Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 15:25:44 +0000
From: forums@customercare.creative.com
To: dkbox2000@hotmail.com
Subject: Stop the redistribution of Creative software

Hi Daniel,

Please stop the redistribution of any Creative software, otherwise we will take legal action against you.

Creative Labs
http://forums.creative.com

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This download is a beta driver providing Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows XP support for Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series of audio devices. For more details, read the rest of this web release note.

Take note of the following:

* THIS IS AN UNSUPPORTED BETA DRIVER. There is no technical support for this driver.
* We recommend that only experienced users install this driver. Do not install this driver on a system used to perform critical tasks.
* Users who are looking for stable drivers should wait for the final release. When this happens, user should install the latest Sound Blaster X-Fi series driver available.

This download supports the following audio devices only:

* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty

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I was in doubt wether or not to post these as the feedback was a little mixed. Yet GeForce ForceWare drivers 175.80 surfaced a week and a half ago. Just be sure what you are doing and read our thread on these drivers okay ? That way you can prevent any issues related to your PC. This driver is available for both Windows XP and Vista in 32 and 64-bit versions.

Bare in mind this to be considered a beta driver, use it at your own risk. NVIDIA does not officially support them. Driver wise, pretty much any GeForce graphics card build in the last 3 years is supported. We have virus & pest checked these drivers and they are scanned as clean. if you decide to give these a try, please post your feedback in this thread.

Download:

 ForceWare 175.80 Vista (64-bit)
 ForceWare 175.80 Vista (32-bit)
 ForceWare 175.80 XP (32-bit)
 ForceWare 175.80 XP (64-bit)

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This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. This distro doesn't just update DX9, but also updates DX10. 

This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and English.

Supported Operating Systems:

Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition (32-Bit x86); Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (32-Bit x86); Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition ; Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 editions; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003 x64 editions; Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition for 64-Bit Itanium-Based Systems; Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Web Edition; Windows Small Business Server 2003 ; Windows Vista; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Business N; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Home Basic; Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Home Basic N; Windows Vista Home Premium; Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Starter; Windows Vista Starter N; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition; Windows XP; Windows XP 64-bit; Windows XP Home Edition ; Windows XP Home Edition N; Windows XP Media Center Edition; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Professional N; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition ; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Starter Edition; Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components.

Download - click here

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Here's a trailer of Venetica, an upcoming RPG game for the Xbox 360 and PC. Take on the roll of Scarlett as you develop and use her powers to save her father and curse the necromancer.

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Action Forms is proud to announce the development of first person horror/action game with working title Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason which puts the player in 1968 to the Arctic Circle, Russian North Pole station "Pole 21". The main hero Alexander Nesterov is a meteorologist occasionally caught inside an old nuclear ice-breaker North Wind, frozen in the ice desert many years ago. This steel creature once fought for its life and freedom, but has fallen into an ice trap and all the creatures on its board lost not only their natural look, but a right to die. Cryostasis is a story about a drama of a Captain and his Ship evolving in the atmosphere of animal fear.

Year 1968. Arctic Circle, Russian North Pole station "Pole 21". The main hero Alexander Nesterov is a meteorologist occasionally caught inside an old nuclear ice-breaker North Wind, frozen in the ice desert many years ago. This steel creature once fought for its life and freedom, but it has fallen into an ice trap and all the creatures on its board lost not only their natural look, but a right to die. Cryostasis is a story about a drama of a Captain and his Ship evolving in the atmosphere of animal fear.

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Fallout from the Hollywood writers strike will cost California's already struggling economy an estimated $2.1 billion, a new report concludes, it might take California into a new recession.

Although the writers strike ended four months ago, effects of the three-month walkout continue to ripple across the state's economy, causing a projected net loss this year of 37,700 jobs directly and indirectly tied to the entertainment industry, according a study released Thursday by the Milken Institute.

The report is the first to examine the statewide costs of the writers' work stoppageand it is at significant variance with prior estimates, pointing out the difficulty economists have in reaching a consensus because of varying methodologies. An earlier study by the UCLA Anderson Forecast projected that the strike would cost Los Angeles County economy roughly $380 million, while the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. estimated a local impact of $2.5 billion.

The strike shut down scripted TV production, paralyzing much of the entertainment industry, a key driver of the California economy. Coinciding with a housing market downturn, the walkout was one of several factors slowing the state's growth, the report says.

"This was not a discrete one-time hit," the Milken study said. The strike "had a substantial impact on California's economy in general and on Los Angeles County in particular."

Although the strike ended in February, many of those who lost their jobs -- set decorators, lighting technicians and makeup artists among them -- were not hired back as studios scaled back production.

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Intel's new G45 chipset will be competing with NVIDIA and ATi on the high-def video front as it can playback 1920x1080 full HD, encrypted in H.264 with Dolby TrueHD and Real time video bit rate at 24 Mbps as demonstrated at Computex.

Intel demonstrated a working system at Computex with the help of a dual-core 45nm CPU, E8400 3GHz model, that system scored 25% CPU utilization, which is "okay".

That's fairly good news as Intel's IGPs always where slow at games and video.

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Overview
This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The redistributable license agreement covers the terms under which developers may use the Redistributable. For full details please review the DirectX SDK EULA.txt and DirectX Redist.txt files located in the license directory.

This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=822640ab-0983-4c41-9c70-632f6f42c557&DisplayLang=en

&

DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&DisplayLang=en

Watcher
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After reading logs from a recent Mythos chat with Flagship Studios employee Taylor, one shouldn

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