After heaps of complaints about their protetcion and DRMs Ubisoft's controversial digital rights management platform has reportedly been hacked, cracked and slashed by a consortium known as Skid Row.

According to CNET's Josh Lowensohn, the hack effectively removes the DRM 'entirely,' but requires users to download and install a modified .exe file:

The DRM, which now ships with every new PC game made by Ubisoft, requires that gamers have a constant connection to the Internet in order to play their games. The security feature caused a large backlash by users for its inclusion in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 2 title, which was released last month.

The hack itself removes the DRM entirely and is being claimed by a consortium known as Skid Row. It requires users to download and install a modified version of the game's executable file to their computers. These modified game files, alongside a crack that can be applied to a retail version of the game, were uploaded to various file-sharing sites late Tuesday evening.

Attached to the "readme" file that comes with the hacked content (which can be found here), Skid Row alerted other hackers that the group's methods were safeguarded against reverse-engineering in order to fend off competing hacking groups and Ubisoft itself.

Microsoft has released the final build (4763.1000) of Office 2010 to MSDN and TechNet subscribers today.

Microsoft said on Friday that its new Office suite, due in May for businesses and June for consumers, had reached the released to manufacturing (RTM) milestone. The build leaked shortly after the official RTM announcement last Friday. Volume License customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the RTM bits on April 27. Microsoft is holding business launch event for Office 2010 in New York on May 12. Consumers will not be able to purchase the product until June.

BitSquid and Fatshark are excited to announce that the Stone Giant demo, using the upcoming DirectX11 game engine BitSquid Tech, is available for immediate public download.

Key features of the BitSquid Tech (PC version) include:

• Highly parallel, data oriented design
• Support for all new DX11 GPUs, including the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 400 Series and AMD Radeon 5000 series
• Compute Shader 5 based depth of field effects
• Dynamic level of detail through displacement map tessellation
• Stereoscopic 3D support for NVIDIA 3dVision

PS3 and Xbox 360 support will be available in the fall of 2010.

SilverStone released its latest power supply for small form factor (SFF) cases which seems to be a grwoth market.

The enw PSU is called the ST45SF SFX Form Factor PSU. This PSU in its limited form measuring 125 mm (W)

AMD will expand its 800 Series of chipsets next week. Of course, this means that all the motherboard makers partnered with Advanced Micro Devices, or at least some of them, will follow up with a suitable number of new motherboards based on the new technology. In fact, preparations are already underway and Elitegroup Computer Systems seems to be among the first to do so, now that its upcoming A880GM-A2 has been exposed.

The platform is constructed with the AMD 880G/SB850 combo core-logic and uses the full ATX form factor. It will support the full spectrum of AM3 CPUs, including dual-core, triple-core, quad-core and, obviously, six-core parts. Also, it comes with four DDR3-1600 memory slots, a pair of PCI Express x16 slots for CrossFireX, five SATA 6.0Gbps ports, Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA connectivity and D-Sub and DVI outputs. Furthermore, quite important for those with budget restrictions, there is an integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics chipset (DirectX 10.1), backed by a SidePort memory chip.

Check the thumbnail.

 

The guys over at Bit Tech uncovered some details of Intel's upcoming 32nm Sandy Bridge architecture, you can read it over here.

Sandy Bridge CPUs will be based on the current 32nm, second generation High-k metal gate manufacturing process, but will include new architectural features such as AVX - Advanced Vector Extensions - and AES - Advanced Encryption Standard - acceleration and will arrive in Q1 next year, with possibly very limited products popping up late Q4, although depending on who we talk to the story changes.

They will be split into two markets: mainstream and enthusiast. The mainstream models will replace the current LGA1156 'H1' Clarkdale and Lynnfield CPUs (Core i3 and Core i5) and will use LGA1155 'H2' packaging.

Yes, that's right, LGA1155 - one fewer pins than current LGA1156 CPUs. These sockets are NOT compatible, so you cannot use an existing LGA1156 CPU in a new motherboard or visa versa. Not only is the position of pin-1 different, the socket notch has moved from 9mm to 11.5mm from the centre and the entire voltage plane layout has changed.

Mainstream Sandy Bridge CPUs will be both native dual- and quad-core products, currently targeting TDPs of 65W and 95W respectively, both with Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technology. At the moment it's not clear what frequency these CPUs will be though (likely because none are available yet from Intel).

All LGA1155 CPUs will have integrated graphics built into the core instead of a separate chip. This is an upgrade from the current IGP, PCI Express controller and memory controller in Clarkdale CPUs that is manufactured on the older 45nm process in a separate die (but still slapped together the same package). This should improve performance, as all the controllers will be in one die, like existing LGA1366 CPUs.

Next-generation Intel central processing units will come with a thermal design power of as little as 35W, which is quite a bit lower than the 65W consumed by some of today's quad-cores. In fact, as a comparison, the Core i5-750S, clocked at 2,4GHz, uses up 82W. It is unclear exactly which chips will consume only 35W, but even if they won't reach this level, quad-core Sandy Bridge units are still expected to limit themselves to a TDP of 45W (including the graphics core).

NZXt is releasing yet another product that .. well makes me scratch behind my ears to say at the very least. NZXT has introduced the Tempest EVO Camo case. This is basically the same case as the Tempest EVO that was launched in November of last year, but with a camouflage paintjob.

This mid-comes with six fans; two 120mm with blue LEDs in front and one on the side panel, a 120mm fan in the rear and two 140mm fans on top. Expected pricing is a steep $125~$150.

A lot of anti-virus software seems to be very trigger happy these days. Loads of false positives etc, this time though McAfee really messed it up.  The anti-virus company pushed out a new virus definition update that falsely identifies the critical Windows system file svchost.exe as a virus. Windows XP SP3 PCs running the new 5958 update from McAfee will delete the file, which will results in many problems including repeated reboots, BSODs and networking problems.

McAfee pushed out a virus definition update, 5958, at 14:00 PDT that causes false positive identification of the critical Windows system file svchost.exe. Machines running Windows XP Service Pack 3 using the 5958 definitions will delete the file, causing many key Windows services to fail to start. The Windows file is being mistakenly detected as W32/wecorl.a. Failure to start svchost.exe causes Windows to automatically reboot, hindering repair efforts.

The company has removed the faulty update, but tens of thousands (and possibly much more) computers have been crippled. McAfee has published information on how to fix this mess, but it requires a tech guy to hit each PC in person.

Blizzard has announced that it has banned over 320,000 player accounts for its action-RPG title Diablo II and its fantasy RTS game Warcraft III. Blizzard said the people behind the banned accounts 'were found to be violating the Battle.net Terms of Use'.

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It seems that the fire between Adobe and Apple has reach a dramatic ending when adobe said very openly that they will abandon flash for the iPhone and as one can imagine, iPod.

Digitaltrend has an article written about it, let's hear what they have to say:

Adobe