Good news regarding the beleaguered Kinect for the Xbox 360 system. Rumors are starting to leak out about the cancellation of the ill fabled pedophile simulator Milo. Thank goodness for the rest of the world for sparing us the next Microsoft based disaster. After reviewing the TED talk for Milo, it was a creepy game/simulator wherein the user of the kinect gets to command a pre pubescent virtual boy around a 3D landscape.

The supposed plot for Milo? A pre teen boy moves with his family from the UK to New England and hes not happy about it. From smashing snails by a river (WTF?) to looking generally pissed off, he eventually gets into an argument with his parents off screen and runs to his room. The Kinect player then encourages the boy to clean up his room (that sounds FUN!).

What gives? No siblings? I would love to command Milo go into his virtual little brother’s room (lets call him Otis) and beat the living shit out of the younger boy and then at a later date, have Milo construct a go kart only to shove poor little Otis in it (wearing a paper burger king crown as a magic helmet that will protect him from all head injuries) and send him careening down a steep hill in a campaign of virtual terror. Eventually, Otis grows up to brutally slaughter the rest of the family with a meat clever and an ice pick because he “just snapped”. That’s my idea of entertainment…

You never know, Microsoft may get smart and refocus to other target audiences like N.A.M.B.L.A or the Vatican.  It may outsell Halo Reach if thats the case. If this rumor is true, it may very well have just saved Peter Molyneux’s career. Let’s bow our heads in silence for the snail smashing digital abuse victim that almost was…

Here I come Vegas!

From ITwire:

Microsoft Australia issued a week long coding challenge called “DevSta” looking fo the next generation of star developers. The grand prize includes airfare to Las Vegas, accommodation at the Venetian and tickets to the MIX09 Developer Conference in March next year, along with Visual Studio 2008, an Xbox 360 Elite console pack and a Samsung Omnia mobile phone. Runners up win various combinations of Visual Studio, Xbox 360 Elite packs and Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 keyboard and mouse combos.

Even with the lure of Microsoft riches it looks like the turn out is abysmal at best. In addition to lukewarm submissions, the contest was hacked by several members of a Turkish hacking group (from the article).

Even though the identities of Lamerdir and Ov3rlord aren’t clear, one thing is certain: Microsoft won’t be forgetting the embarrassment caused to their DevSta challenge. And unless the volume of submissions increase dramatically within the next 19 hours someone may be awarded an Xbox for doing nothing more than rewriting the Windows calculator as a .NET app.

.Read the whole article and view the screenshots here.

Looks like iphone mania is sweeping the world! Evidentaly, the overwhelming purchases of the new 3G iphone tied up the itunes activation servers when too many people tried to connect.

From reuters:

“Activation problems marred the U.S. launch of the new iPhone on Friday, with many eager buyers leaving stores frustrated that they could not use the hotly anticipated gadget after waiting in line for hours.AT&T Inc, the sole U.S. carrier for the iPhone, blamed problems synchronizing the phone with Apple’s iTunes online music and software store, saying it was probably caused by too many people trying to access iTunes at the same time.”

I guess the venerable Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) was wrong again when he was quoted as saying:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

Oops?

Article

Looks like more RRODs from the Xbox 360 family of consoles, this time its the 360 Elite. It would be nice to see the failure rates for the Xbox 360 but I don’t see Microsoft releasing them anytime soon. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s PR machine responds to this accusation.

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