Catching up: I had a crazy week, with me and my wife going on a short wedding anniversary vacation, one of my best friends getting married, and my aunt and her family moving forever to another continent. There’s a lot of stuff filling up the queue, so we’re going to go through it double time
Grand Theft Auto IV Delayed To 2008
In what is terrible news for many people and several companies, Take Two announced that it was going to miss the planned ship date for Grand Theft Auto IV, and that the game will not hit stores until their second fiscal quarter, January-March 2008. Not only does Take Two miss the all-important holiday shopping season at a time their financial problems continue to mount, but Microsoft loses its “holy trinity” blockbuster lineup, with Halo 3 and Madden not being joined by the top-selling franchise.
While you wait the next six months, you can enjoy this detailed preview of the gameplay. You buy guns out of the trunks of cars, every building has a street address, resumes, and in-game cracks about violent video games, it’s all there.
Though pre-ordering seems stupid now, it is interesting that 60% of GTA IV pre-orders were for the Xbox 360 version.
Latest Zune Ad Features Chaos In The Sky
Check out one of the latest Zune ads, this one featuring the good kind of dogfighting (the planes and missles kind, not the Michael Vick kind):
A Project Gotham Racing 4 commercial was being shot with a Ferrari F430, a $227,000 Italian sports car, when the racer hit the wall. It’s not the worst crash, but knowing the repair bill, it isn’t pretty:
How To Geek has a really cool registry hack for Windows Vista/XP that adds “Copy To Folder” and “Move To Folder” to right-click context menus. You right-click on any file or folder and click the new menu item to get a dialog which lets you select where you want to copy or move the file to with a simple click.
(via Download Squad)
69,203 Prizes Available From Tropicana and Xbox Promotion
Xbox 360 and Tropicana Twister are running a promotional giveaway, with just under 70,000 prizes to be won. The three Grand Prizes, trips for two to Xbox headquarters in Seattle, are dwarfed by the sheer number of other prizes. 200 first prizes get an Xbox 360, extra wireless controller, Play & Charge Kit, Vision camera, Quick Charge Kit, remote, wireless adapter, wireless headset, memory unit and two games. 4,500 second prizes get two games; 9,500 third prizes get a 360 Twisted Faceplate; and 55,000 fourth prizes get 100 Microsoft Points. So many prizes to win, so enter now
Catching up: I had a crazy week, with me and my wife going on a short wedding anniversary vacation, one of my best friends getting married, and my aunt and her family moving forever to another continent. There’s a lot of stuff filling up the queue, so we’re going to go through it double time
Microsoft’s aQuantive Deal Clears Federal Review
Microsoft’s $6 billion purchase of aQuantive has passed the Federal Trade Commission’s waiting period for antitrust considerations without objections, leaving Microsoft free to continue the acquisiton without worry. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives is launching an inquiry into Google’s DoubleClick deal, meaning Microsoft will almost assuredly complete its acquisition well ahead of Google. Google’s deal is hitting some serious roadblocks, while Microsoft has been given the nod to go forward.
Live Maps July Update Adds Rendered Maps, 26 Terabytes Of New Data
The Virtual Earth team pushed out a huge update to the tech that powers Windows Live Maps, adding a new style that shows elevation in the regular road view. They call it “hill shading”, giving you an idea of hills, mountains and just plain ol’ inclines on maps you view in your browser or print out. They also added expanded aerial imagery (and in most cases, 3D buildings) to these cities:
Canada: Hamilton, Quebec, Toronto
Europe: Toulouse France, Eastbourne UK
United States: Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, Phoenix (expanded), Arden, Denver (expanded), Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee, Fort Myers, Tampa West, St Petersburg, Coral Gables, Cape Coral West, Pembroke Pines, Orlando, Hialea, Columbus GA, Jackson, Oak Park IL, Rockford IL, Ohare IL, Baton Rouge, Shreveport New Orleans, Metarie, Jersey City, Elizabeth, East Ruth, Newark, Paterson, Brooklyn, Niagara Falls, Portland (expanded), Nashville, Chattanooga, Milwaukee
Windows Live Search Has Special Preview View
This website has details on a special view that Windows Live Search has in some countries and regions (not the U.S., far as I can tell) that shows the top six search results as thumbnail image previews of the website. A Site Owner FAQ on MSN Singapore confirms the feature, and gives instructions on how to tell the search crawler not to create a thumbnail for your site (for bandwidth concerns, I assume). You can see a screenshot of the Search Preview thumnails at the original post.
(via Digg)
Get the iPhone Keyboard on Windows Mobile Devices
Someone’s released a program that replaces the Windows Mobile on-screen keyboard with one that looks more like the iPhone’s. Besides enjoying a bolder look, it has bigger, easier-to-hit buttons, though they don’t grow in size while typing, and they use Windows Mobile’s form of predictive text input, not Apple’s. If you’re like me, and you’re still wondering how the hell Microsoft thought the current WinMobile keyboard was okay, this app is a required install.
(via jkOnTheRun)
Xbox 360 Gets Yet Another Backwards Compatibility Update
The Xbox 360 got yet another backwards compatibility update, letting it run a good number more original Xbox games. Are there any important old games that still won’t run on a 360? If you’ve got one that’s driving you nuts, leave a comment. The newly compatible games:
