BBC being used to propagate spyware?! Cinema is crap?!! Must be the morning roundup...

Funny how some things can just crop up out of nowhere in this office. I was going about my business yesterday when suddenly I just happened across a preview copy of City Life, a Sim City look-alike from Monte Cristo. Hours later and deadlines closer I’m left wondering if maybe I shouldn’t open the post anymore : Too bloody dangerous to my time management efforts.

That little note on life in a Tom’s Hardware Guide office (you should see what happens when we just come across six old processors and a soldering iron...) aside, on with the news. Apparently the EU are "barking up the wrong antitrust tree" and should be going after Microsoft not for slapping Windows Media Player and Internet (soon to be Windows) Explorer into their OS. No, the Eurocrats should be chasing after all the other services Microsoft is sticking together, such as the new Windows Live system that is replacing MSN and their Office Adventures. If ya gotta investigate Microsoft, do it right

Meanwhile, in Mexico, Intel’s head honcho Paul Otellini has been telling us about the chip firms plans for "Community PC’s" for the poorer parts of the world. Built for harsh conditions and low price-points these community PC’s aim to bring the information age to villages in the Bally Backend of India, Mexico and other such countries, along with the help of WiMax broadband coverage. Intel, helping to introduce the Third World to porn and flame wars

If you happen to be a criminal living in West Yorkshire (home, we don’t doubt, of the most devious of devious) then watch out for cops with BlackBerry devices in hand. The favoured tool of the business elite these days has been rolled out to 2,500 offices in a trial to see if they can help in the fight against crime by giving them easier access to people’s criminal records and suchlike as they mill about on the beat. We await the day when one gets stolen, records and all

After acquiring ATI fanboys ULI the graphic firm Nvidia is putting the boot in somewhat by changing management structures and generally doing everything it can, it might seem, to delay orders and disrupt service to their rivals ATI, goes the rumour mill from Taiwan. There are also ideas flying around that Nvidia bought the firm more for its people than anything else, wanting to get fresh ideas with fresh faces and an insight into how the other half live. Just another day in the petty playground that is the graphics card market

Hackers are using an interesting bit of social engineering to lure people to sites that will download spyware and other malicious code to unsuspecting users machines : The BBC. Apparently they’re taking the first few paragraphs of BBC News Online stories, sticking them in an email and then using a bogus "Read more..." link to drag interested parties to their doom. We expect the BBC to counter with one of its famous "BBC Does the BBC" news stories

Cinema chains are getting a little worried about how fast movies are making it to DVD’s, citing the fall of the average time from cinema-to-DVD from six to four months as one reason why they’re not quite getting as many sales. Piracy is also another issue they’re worried about. The myriad of crap titles they’re showing does not however seem to factor in. Last year I went to see two "blockbuster" movies : The Fantastic(ly crap) Four and Stealth. One was a crap cash-in, the other featured a talking airplane and brave yank pilots fighting in the North Korean DMZ without starting World War 3 and managing a good kiss afterwards. Perhaps this may have something to do with why I didn’t go to watch many other films

Ahh eBay, where you can buy anything from videogames to advertising space on peoples foreheads. Today it’s a World War 2 Enigma machine, which is fetching high bids. Used by Jerry during the war most famously in the Battle of the Atlantic the Enigma ciphers have, to this day, been difficult to crack - it takes a line of distributed modern computers weeks to crack just one weather report. Not that that stopped us from kicking their arse, mind you [/chauvinistic war pride]

And finally in the ongoing 30 Years of Apple celebrations the BBC (and I do promise that it’s the BBC, and not some spyware site - they’d have to pay me good money to do that, hint hint) has a quiz up to see how much you know about the fruity tooty computer makers. I would tell you what I scored, but then I’d have to shuffle my feet all day

Coming up today we’ve got an analysis of memory timings, which you may have already read if you’re smart enough to be a newsletter reader, a hardware router chart and a roundup of the independent games part of the GDC last week. Yes. I need more coffee. On a drip...