The BBC covers the recent embezzlement case in which EVE Online's economy has taken a major blow:

"Basically this character was one of the people who had been running EBank for a while. He took a bunch of (virtual) money out of the bank, and traded it away for real money," Ned Coker, of Icelandic company CCP which runs Eve, told the Reuters news agency.

...

Ricdic has now been thrown out of the game as trading in-game cash for real money is against Eve Online's terms and conditions.

The rules governing play within Eve would not have sanctioned Ricdic if he had simply stolen the cash and used it in the game, nor if he had bought kredits with real dollars.

Meanwhile, the bank's administration is doing their best to "reassure" players that the game is still playable. Massively also offers up a bit of coverage, including some questions on how it affects the game world.

Video Games Live is back for another year - and we'll be covering their mammoth event in Houston on the 18th:

LOS ANGELES, CA - July 3, 2009 - The worldwide phenomenon Video Games Live (recently enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records) is proud to announce 12 performances throughout the month of July. Each show will be unique and many will be highlighted by special performances, conventions and/or special guests. Video Games Live has grown tremendously over the past 5 years of touring and currently has over 60 shows planned around the world for 2009.

Some July tour highlights include a special 3 day gaming event in Winnipeg with the Winnipeg Symphony (July 6 - 8). The 3 day event includes 2 unique show performances and a half day festival event with Future Shop including a major Guitar Hero competition, special industry Q&A panel, video game cover bands, prize give-a-ways and more.

On July 10th Video Games Live is honored to once again be performing with the National Symphony Orchestra. After 2 very successful sold out shows at the Kennedy Center in 2007, this time around they are headed to the 6,500+ seat WolfTrap Filene Center for a day of family fun and entertainment. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will be on hand supporting Video Games Live and passing out important industry facts and information to attendees. Very special guests will include Civilization creator Sid Meier and the original Civilization IV vocalist Ron Ragin. Also joining the show is legendary game composer Grant Kirkhope who is best known for his scores for Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, Banjo & Kazooie, Perfect Dark & Viva Pinata.

On July 18th the Houston Symphony has teamed up with Video Games Live and Blizzard Entertainment to put on Gamer MusiCON 09 which will include an entire day of gaming activities (courtesy of Game Crazy) and TWO show performances. The first afternoon show entitled Blizzard Live! will be a special presentation showcasing Blizzard Entertainment titles including the Warcraft , StarCraft and Diablo series of games. Included in this event will also be a World Premiere of never before performed Blizzard music. Five Blizzard composers will be attending the event and participating in panel discussions as well as Q&A sessions and meet & greets with the audience. Halo composer Mike Salvatori will be making a special guest appearance a few days earlier at the Ft. Worth, TX performance taking place on July 14th.

On July 23rd, Video Games Live once again returns to the San Diego Comic Con to perform with the San Diego Symphony on the waterfront behind the Convention Center at the beautiful outdoor Embarcadero Marina Park. Synchronized fireworks will be a part of the production as well as many special guests from around the world.

VIDEO GAMES LIVE JULY TOUR DATES

July 6, 2009 (8pm) - Winnipeg, MB - Centennial Concert Hall - Winnipeg Symphony

July 7, 2009 (6pm) - Winnipeg, MB - Centennial Concert Hall - Special Festival Day

July 8, 2009 (8pm) - Winnipeg, MB - Centennial Concert Hall - Winnipeg Symphony

July 10, 2009 (8:30pm) - Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap/Feline Center - National Symphony Orchestra

July 11, 2009 (8pm) - Pittsburgh, PA - Heinz Hall - Pittsburgh Symphony

July 12, 2009 (2:30pm) - Pittsburgh, PA - Heinz Hall - Pittsburgh Symphony

July 14, 2009 (8pm) - Ft. Worth/Dallas, TX - Bass Performance Hall - Ft. Worth Symphony

July 18, 2009 (3pm) - Houston, TX - Jones Hall - Blizzard Live! - Houston Symphony

July 18, 2009 (7:30pm) - Houston, TX - Jones Hall - Houston Symphony

July 23, 2009 (7:30pm) - San Diego, CA - Embarcadero Marina Park - San Diego Symphony

July 27, 2009 (8pm) - Cincinnati, OH - PNC Pavillion

July 31, 2009 (8pm) - Lewiston, NY - Artpark - Buffalo Philharmonic


Complete tour dates, details and tickets are available here:
http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates

A minor health issue and much-needed vacation this last week; if you're in Canada, happy Canada Day, if you're in the US have a great 4th!

Movie review time: Transformers 2.

Let's put it this way: if you wanted a real Transformers movie, we probably have to wait for them to finally take the franchise away from Michael Baytard.

In fact, this movie was the epitome of Baytarded. The plot made no sense. The script took established, revered characters (like Jetfire) and pissed all over them. They injected some of the worst characters we've ever seen (read: the Jar Jar Binks Twins) and gave them front-and-center time while leaving wonderful, deep characters like Ironhide to sit meaningless in the background.

There was NO point to this movie and someone needs to slap Michael Baytard and take the franchise away from him.

Newsweek covers AMD's recent "truth in battery life advertising" campaign, but the reporter seems a bit biased to Intel:

AMD claims MM07 was created in Intel's labs and rigged so that Intel chips would outscore AMD chips, since AMD chips draw more power when idle. (AMD says that in real-life usage, laptops using its chips perform comparably to Intel's.) AMD also points out that the president of BAPCo happens to be the head of performance benchmarking at Intel.

Intel says this is all hogwash. An Intel spokeswoman says that just because the consortium's president is an Intel exec doesn't mean Intel has special influence. Meanwhile, she can't resist taking a crack at AMD: "You will often find that companies who are behind in performance sometimes challenge independent and standards-based benchmarks," she says via e-mail.

Intel and AMD are the Bickersons of the computer industry, with AMD always complaining that Intel is cheating, and Intel always responding that AMD should quit being such a crybaby.

Nintendo's apparently got so little faith in gamers that the new Super Mario for Wii will be coming with a built-in cheat mode.

Yeah. It's like that. Didn't the game industry cover this bad idea a long while back?

Rather than forcing players to comb the web for cheat codes and walkthroughs, the new help system is built directly into the game. If a player gets stuck, they'll have the option to pause play and allow the game to take over and play itself through any rough patches. Once they're out of the woods, players can hop back in and continue playing.

I for one wish they'd rethink this whole concept. You might as well just set the game to autoplay and go get some popcorn.

Way back when, about everything wasn't standardized - as a result, there were some doozies of design mistakes.

They still go on - Dell, for instance, ships no machine with a PCI-Express Power connector on their power supplies. But these are real classics.

The Apple III’s lack of power supply fan caused system to heat up, warping the motherboard and unseating certain socketed chips.

According to Apple insiders, Steve Jobs’ zeal for a simple and silent computer design forced the Apple III team to exclude a cooling fan for the power supply. Apple later suggested a simple fix for the heat-warping problem: raise the Apple III a few inches off a hard surface and drop it, hopefully re-seating the chips in the process. Fortunately, that advice wasn’t required for later Apple computers that lacked fans.

Good news, everyone!

Futurama's got another new lease on life - the DVD movies have done well enough that more episodes are being ordered.

Yes, the usual summer slowdown's had its effect. E3? Well, it was trying - but the underlying theme seems to be either "well this is what we may have for you two years from now" or "here's another sequel to a game that wasn't very good to start with."

Still working on Guitar Hero:Metallica. Double-pedal drumming is hard.

Dragon's Lair II for Blu-Ray is breathtaking. Full review to come soon.

Braid? It was intriguing. I almost wish there were more game to it, and some of the "world" mechanics were better than others. "Everything is backwards", indeed.

Sony is closing down the MMORPG The Matrix Online.

Don't worry if you didn't even remember it existed. Almost nobody ever played it.