Wait, what?  As reported by a recent CNN article, it appears Microsoft is doing something that will help the customer and at the same time hurt them!

It appears that the beta version of Internet Explorer 8 has a new feature that is getting a lot of attention: InPrivateBlocking (Firefox is planning on releasing something similar…eventually).  The basic idea behind this is to take user invisibility on the web to the next level.  Instead of taking “cleanup” approaching of clearing user’s temporary files and cookies the browser doesn’t allow them to be downloaded in the first place.

The temporary files and cookies are what enable websites to track what sites you visit, what ads you click, how to market to you, and in some cases, allow the installation of spyware and malware – think of them as your internet fingerprints.  Microsoft’s move to give users this option is interesting because Microsoft’s own advertising software uses these internet fingerprints to target ads to you…they are hurting one of their businesses while improving another.

For the users this is a great option.  Internet anamolitity is something that, in the past, we could only dream about.  The idea of no one tracking where you went, what you viewed, and what you bought is refreshing.  What is the down side though?  For one – if this feature becomes popular the ads you see on sites will not be as revelant to what you actually like.  This isn’t the end of the world for the user, who typically ignores the ads anyway, but it could spell disaster for websites’ income.  As a result of lower revenue from ads sites might have to turn back to subscribition services, which I personally hate.

So do you mind sacrificing a little privacy to help make more of the web free or would you rather pay for things (with registration…and lose that privacy anyway) and not see as many ads?  Tough call.

CNN is reporting that Nintendo is being sued over their Wii remote.  Apparently they have violated 4 patents of another company by its design.

What really boggles my mind is that with all of these types of accusations, the prosecutors always wait until the product is really popular. I don’t know if anyone remembers when facebook got sued, or how about this one?

I mean, some lawsuits are valid, but the majority of them just seem to be gold diggers.

Hopefully Nintendo is able to settle this quickly and move on. It just seems like a waste of everyone’s time. Better yet, just buy the company like Microsoft does…

A little while ago Sony announced that EQ2 will have an integrated voice chat system. In the most recent game update (47)- it went live.

The Setup

The first thing I noticed when I logged in after the patch was the voice wizard that took me through how to setup everything. To my surprise, EQ2 handled my Logitech headset (use an amazon link to the side to support eqjunkies.com!) without any problems.

The Interface

The voice interface within the game was fairly nice. It has everything you need at your finger tips. It has the channel window, so you know what channels are available to you, and who is in them. This something that is really nice to have in game instead of in Ventrilo/Teamspeak; when you are grouping with people for the first time you can figure out who is who.

The Quality

The quality is on par with Ventrilo (which has better quality than TS in my opinion). I didn’t notice anything about the quality that was a drop off to me.

Troubleshooting

There were a few Mic/speaker settings that I had to tweak, but the “FIX” button seemed to do all the fixing automatically, which…is amazing. Maybe they should create a “FIX” button for other things too.

Final Thoughts

I am very impressed with the initial release of voice chat. This is a great baseline that they are starting from; I look forward to seeing what they do in the future with this.

With the slated release date of September 18th, Warhammer Online is fast approaching.  While the hype for this game has certainly matched the level that you would expect from a so-called “WoW Killer,” many folks are still questioning whether WAR will finally be the game that takes down Blizzard’s dominance in the MMO marketplace.

The bigger issue at hand, however, is not if the game succeeds – but rather, what if it fails?  WAR represents the last game “in the queue” for quite some time that could possibly stand a chance at competing with WoW.  If WAR follows in the footsteps of Age of Conan, it stands a chance to quickly fizzle as the critics tear any small problems to bits.  Indeed, if some of the comments coming out of the NDA release from closed beta hold true, it looks like WAR might actually provide some fairly large targets for the critics to hit.

Here’s hoping that Mythic has done their research and realzies what Warhammer Online can do for the MMO industry… and the consequences of an epic failure come launch time.

CNN is running an article about how there is no video game associated with the new batman movie, “The Dark Knight”.

This brings up an interesting question: what video game have you always wanted to see that was just never created?

Personally, I could have gone for a “Honey a shrunk the kids” game when I was younger.  How about you?

With Warhammer is scheduled to release these September many people are trying to find way to get into the Beta.  Some of the ways seem to be more work than they are worth: either writting up a lot of lore or creating a professional looking fan art piece.  Personally, I would like to take the easy way: Preodering the game.

By preordering you get the following:

• Invite to the beta.  You are guaranteed a spot.
• Live game head start.  No you don’t keep to keep going with your beta character, but you do get to start playing a few days before everyone else.  If you are a casual gamer this is great because there won’t be 10 million people running around taking your kills, etc.  If you a hardcore gamer these few extra days can give you the edge over the other insane people.
• In game item.  Which item you get is determined by which store you pre-order from.  You can visit this site for more details on what store gives you what items.  Personally, all of the EQJunkies pre-ordered from Amazon:

Does this mean we are giving up EQ2?

• No, not yet.  Landuran brought up a good point: we were going to give Warhammer a shot at some point, so why not give it a shot in the beginning?