One of the WoW Machinima Wonders of the World, Oxhorn, has released his latest production “Associate Professor Evil Kills All Ninja Looters” and within the day it has hit the front page of Digg.com.  My suggestion, show your support, watch the video, then in the words of Mr T, DIG IT FOO!!!

[Posted by Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback on Revision3.com's Blog]

Internet attacks leave lots of evidence. In this case it was pretty easy to see exactly what our shadowy attacker was so upset about. It turns out that those zillions of SYN packets were addressed to one particular port, or doorway, on one of our web servers: 20000. Interestingly enough, that’s the port we use for our Bittorrent tracking server. It seems that someone was trying to destroy our bittorrent distribution network.

Let me take a step back and describe how Revision3 uses Bittorrent, aka BT. The BT protocol is a peer to peer scheme for sharing large files like music, programs and video. By harnessing the peer power of many computers, we can easily and cheaply distribute our huge HD-quality video shows for a lot less money. To get started, the person sharing that large file first creates a small file called a “torrent”, which contains metadata, along with which server will act as the conductor, coordinating the sharing. That server is called the tracking server, or “tracker”. You can read much more about Bittorrent at Wikipedia, if you really want to understand how it works.

Revision3 runs a tracker expressly designed to coordinate the sharing and downloading of our shows. It’s a completely legitimate business practice, similar to how ESPN puts out a guide that tells viewers how to tune into its network on DirecTV, Dish, Comcast and Time Warner, or a mall might publish a map of its stores.

But someone, or some company, apparently took offense to Revision3 using Bittorrent to distribute its own slate of shows. Who could that be?

[Continue Reading Story Here]

[From SouthCoastToday.com]

NEW YORK (AP) — A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube’s ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google Inc. said.

Google’s lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom Inc.’s latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to “an explosion of copyright infringement” by YouTube and others.

The back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google said YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works.”

It said that by seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”

[Continue Reading Here]

Congrats to Scott Johnson from MyExtraLife who has prooved that Digg.com is the home of rehashed content, getting to the front page for his 56 Geeks Project for the third time.  If you don’t have the 56 Geeks poster yet, what are you waiting for?!?  Get it naow!!!

Well, it’s Monday again and you know what that means?  WiiWare and Virtual Console goodness.  This weeks addition…

That’s right.  Dr Mario has hit WiiWare, but it’s not just the good Doctor you knew on the NES.  Online RX brings new modes of play, including online play with randomly picked opponents from all over the world or (with the use of the game’s OWN friend codes) play against your friends online.

A reminder to all those TGM fans out there than have a Nintendo Wii. Please go to this thread on our forums and post your Wii Friend Code, as well as any Friend Codes to individual games you have (GuitarHero 3, Dr Mario, Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Strikers, etc).

Funcom has released a news post on their website announcing that Age of Conan has already reached 400,000 subscribers.  Honestly, wow.

Durham, USA – May 26th, 2008 – Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan is one of the fastest selling PC games of all time. More than 400.000 gamers have entered Hyboria over the last few days, with almost half coming from the North American market. This amazing figure for a PC game shows that the positive pre-order trend has transferred into actual sales, and people from all over the world are now flocking to the most savage, sexy and brutal MMO ever created.

Over the weekend an astounding amount of concurrent gamers were logged on to the game, making Age of Conan one of the busiest MMOs in the western hemisphere. With stock flying out of several retail chains, Funcom expects the number to increase in the days to come. In addition to the many gamers logging in, there was also substantial traffic to the Age of Conan websites, with more than 2,2 million unique visitors during the last ten days.

As a result of the great launch, players and press have been raving about the unique qualities of the game, and the first 20 reviews give Age of Conan an average score above 90%. The first US reviews are also live, with Gamezone.com giving the game an Editor’s Choice Award, a 9.4 of 10 score, while heralding Age of Conan as a “Benchmark MMO”. Sci-Fi.com was also an early mover and gave the game a straight A, stating that “If Robert E. Howard had been a game designer…, this is the Conan he would have invented.”

“The initial sales and reviews are very encouraging, and it’s great to see that so many are enjoying Age of Conan,” said Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “This is just the beginning, and we already look forward to massive updates and cool new features.  We believe our focus on making Conan unique and groundbreaking is a key reason for the initial success. This is a focus we will keep and reinforce, and players can expect continued quality and innovation as we enter a new era for the game.”

[From koreatimes.co.kr]

The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of Music 2.0, is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say.

The MT9 technology was first conceived by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and is being shaped into commercial use by venture company Audizen. It was selected as a candidate item for the new digital music standard at a regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the international body of the digital music and video industry, held in France late April.

…

The distinctive feature of MT9 format is that it has a six-channel audio equalizer, with each channel dedicated to voice, chorus, piano, guitar, base and drum. For example, if a user turns off the voice channel, it becomes a karaoke player. Or one can turn off all the instruments and concentrate on the voice of the main singer as if he or she is singing a cappella.

[Source]

[Rob's Opinion] I do not see this format taking off in a mainstream way like MP3 did.  Not many people really understand why MP3s took off like they did.  At the time, MP3 was very high-quality for the file size, and the speed at which one could download them made MP3 files very accessable to even those on 56K modems.

Today, I can’t stand 128Kbps MP3.  256Kbps is better, 320 is awesome, and AAC format audio files are even better than that.  Add to all of this that the speed of encoding and ripping audio-CDs has gotten to the point where it could take no longer than 4 minutes to fully import a normal album.

While the dedicated channels is a nice idea, I personally don’t see this going anywhere with mainstream music files.  For a group like Nine Inch Nails, this isn’t a problem since they already release their tracks in multi-track format for software like Logic and GarageBand.  However, the RIAA and associated labels and music groups, I feel, would rather keep all of the components of the music mashed together.

Want to know what I want?  Higher sample rates and bits-per-sample.

There appear to be some rumors floating around that Micheal Bay may be taking part in the development of a Metroid movie.

[From Nintencast.com]

The rumours concerning a Metroid movie are still on-going, and today yet another rumour has sprung up. According to the source, Micheal Bay (award winning director of Transformers, Pearl Harbor and The Island) will be the one to produce the Metroid movie.

Seeing as he’s directed and produced many high-octane films in the past, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that he should be involved with the making of it. The question is, however, when will he be able to find the time to? According to Wikipeida, Micheal Bay has films planned until 2010, but only has one film planned for that year, with 3 in ‘09.

Just to reiterate, this is merely a rumour and could mean nothing. But, whatever the situation is, Nintencast will keep you posted.

Although WiiFit has only been in the US for less than a week, Japan has been buying that little white thing you stand on like crazy for the past 6 months.  So crazy, in fact, that this peripheral has now outsold the PlayStation 3 over there.

[ From Infendo.com]

Before you jump on my back, know that this post is speaking more to the power of WiiFit than it is demeaning the PS3. Believe me, the system doesn’t need my help in that department.

As you can see from this screengrab of Malstrom’s Hardcore Gamer Suicide Watch page, WiiFit surpassed the PS3 in Japan. Not the Wii, mind you, but a Wii peripheral. Oh, and I still vehemently maintain that the WiiFit is no ordinary accessory. It’s still more of a console or platform in my book, and I’m sticking to it.

I’ve been balancing and lightly exercising on my copy of Wiii Fit for the past day and a half. I’ll have my thoughts on it later today. Initial impression/tease: “Hey, you know what? This thing actually works.”