Google Voice under fire from AT&T this time
28th September, 2009

Remember how a week ago we looked at the row brewing between Apple and Google over Google Voice? Well, this time it's US phone carrier AT&T that's getting in on the action too. After a complaint from the carrier to the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claiming that Google Voice is blocking calls made to some premium-rate numbers, Google has responded with some force.

The background to AT&T's complaint is that it is forced by US common carrier laws to connect certain high-cost calls from its long-distance lines to local networks owned by other operators. At&T says this means it has no choice but to participate in an unfair system where the local operators sometimes get to share part of those revenues with the owners of the premium-rate lines; often adult services.

However, it says, Google Voice isn't bound by law to connect such calls and is simply blocking access to them instead. This, AT&T claims is unfair and it is asking the FCC to intervene. Google, as you might expect, disagrees.

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Intel's Atom CE4100 media chip unveiled
26th September, 2009

Intel is on a mission to take control of television, with the Intel Atom CE4100 media chip (or 'system-on-a-chip') its weapon of choice.

Speaking to the BBC, Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, claimed that TV will finally break free of the living room: 'TV is out of the box and off the wall. TV will remain at the centre of our lives and you will be able to watch what you want where you want,' adding that 'we are talking about more than one TV-capable device for every man and woman on the planet. People are going to feel connected to the screen in ways they haven't in the past.'

New devices, new ways of consuming television and new technology to provide TV, particularly from the internet. That calls for a new chip - the Intel Atom CE4100. What the chip will provide in the long run isn't clear, but it's certainly a powerful beast, able to decode two 1080p video streams with high-end audio codecs, as well as offering MPEG-4 support and 3D graphics capability and the ability to capture uncompressed 1080p video.

That could mean something special when it comes to TVs, digital recorders and media streamers in the coming months, especially if you factor in the launch of 3D TV in the UK and rapidly increasing broadband speeds for reliable delivery of HD TV on-demand. 2010 really can't come soon enough.

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Need for Speed 09 on top again
25th September, 2009

The EA contract Need for Speed has been around for a long time and has offered titles that are based on track racing and those that are based on the street racing world. The latest game in the franchise called Need for Speed Shift has shot to the top of the UK game rankings.

The game debuted at the top of the top ten games for consoles this week with Guitar Hero 5 in second place. Third place went to Dirt 2 with Batman: Arkham Asylum in fourth. The first week for Shift saw the PS3 as the top selling platform for the game with 52% of copies sold for the PS3. The Xbox 360 sold 44% of the copies of the game with the rest split between PC and PSP sales. The other debut game in the top ten was Bethesda's WET, which sounds like some sort of porno to me.

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Wii Sports Resort back on top on UK games chart
29th August, 2009

Fitness title swats aside Ashes upstart to reclaim its spot on top of the pile,
Wii Sports Resort has brushed aside Ashes Cricket 2009 to reclaim top spot in the UK games chart for the week ending 23 August.
Code masters' cricketing title had enjoyed two weeks on top with the nation gripped by Ashes fever, but after holding a watching brief at two for a fortnight, Sports Resort has dutifully snatched its crown back.

Cry Wolfenstein
It's a latest entry at two for Activision-Blizzard's Wolfenstein, a gaming classic given a fresh lick of paint for the PS3, Xbox and PC. Ashes Cricket has slipped to three, but with the real Ashes having been reclaimed by England in the fifth test, we wouldn't be surprised to see the gaming version slip quietly out of the plan altogether next week. It wouldn't be the games chart without Wii Fit, and the evergreen fitness title duly takes its place at four, still showing the way to many younger, fresher rivals. And rounding out the chart this week is Activision-Blizzard's Call of Duty: World at War, which has ridden the wave of price promotions to re-appear in our top five.

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ATI's Cypress DX11 might be Radeon HD 5800
25th August, 2009

According to a rumor posted over at VR-Zone, AMD's upcoming DirectX 11 Cypress lineup might be named as the Radeon HD 5800 series. The exact differences between the so-called HD 5870 and HD 5850 are still unknown but we guess that these will probably have somewhat to do with the cards clocks.

VR-Zone has also posted a full list of features, as well as the rumored ATI HD 5800 series logos. The card has been pictured by Chiphell, and as you know it has dual slot cooling, two DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI outputs.

The card will be presented on September 10th at occasion on the USS Hornet, a WWII aircraft carrier, but the card should officially launch a bit shortly.

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