Brandon Dimmel

The man behind some of the most sensational movie releases in the last twenty years is about to try his hand at crafting a blockbuster video game. Steven Spielberg, director of E.T., Munich, and Minority Report, will be teaming up with game ... publisher Electronic Arts on Nintendo Wii title "Boom Blox". Unfortunately for those of you who prefer the high-impact scenarios in many of Spielberg's action flicks, the famed director will be trying his hand at a puzzle game. According to reports, Boom Blox allows the player to make a number of different block structures, working their way through them ... (view more)

Love Facebook? Many do. The social networking site can officially be proclaimed the web's new number one phenomenon, drawing the young and old into a complex and entertaining framework that employs concepts from dating to games to, of course, ... photos. Unfortunately, all that popularity makes it a dangerous place -- a bit like downtown NYC -- and vulnerable to some pretty significant flaws. (Source: itbusiness.ca ) According to security analyst Elazar Broad, another critical vulnerability has been discovered in Facebook's Aurigma ImageUploader control. It's not the first problem to affect this ... (view more)

From what I've learned about the legal profession -- as it has been derived from Law and Order repeats and My Cousin Vinny -- being held in contempt of court is not a good thing. It generally means you've done something particularly heinous to upset ... a judge, like having your cell phone go off during proceedings. That sure would irk a judge -- especially if it was his own phone. British judge Charles Byers was in mid-session this past week when -- to his chagrin -- a cell phone blurted its cacophony of rings and twings mid-session. As mentioned, in many cases this can completely bring a court ... (view more)

Not sure why the Nintendo Wii is Super Smashing its competition from Microsoft and Sony these days? In a recent interview with online game magazine Gamespot, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata attributed all that success -- in the good 'ol US of A, at ... least -- to an American penchant for the house party. Last year, Nintendo sold a staggering six million units of its popular Wii console. Released in November of 2006, the tiny white machine has surpassed just about everyone's expectations; with simple, 'fun' games based on motion-sensitive technology, the console has appealed to 'casual' gamers ... (view more)

Forty years ago the British invaded American pop culture, led by four polished, handsome devils from the least-polished place on earth. Upon arrival in the United States from Liverpool, England, the Beatles' went about changing American music ... forever. That impact will be commemorated in the oddest fashion when NASA blasts the lyrics for the band's popular "Across the Universe" as part of the 50th anniversary of its first space mission. Although neither anniversary is particularly odd, their combination seems an interesting 'mashup'. For a space administration that is as American as Wisconsin ... (view more)

A few days ago I reported on Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV, the controversial update to a controversial franchise from an equally controversial video game developer. The game's release date has finally been set -- it's April 29, if you're ... wondering -- and the company acknowledges it will probably bring them plenty of finger-waving from both the conservative and mainstream media. There's no foolin' Rockstar. The company behind both Manhunt and the GTA series have, it's fair to say, gotten pretty used to parents, teachers, and politicians barking down their door about the impact ... (view more)

Although we're often told not to shoot the messenger, the Messenger is certainly shooting up outer space. The spacecraft blazed past Mercury in mid-January, and took some rather remarkable snapshots of the tiny grey planet closest to the sun. The ... most impressive of those pictures has been dubbed "The Spider," and features a massive geological formation that has dazzled scientists. Many believe the subject of Messenger's photographs -- a giant, central depression surrounded by over a hundred thin trenches zig-zagging each way outwards -- is something very new and very exciting in recent ... (view more)

Most of us consider the world of hacking strange and foreign. Although many of us are techies and follow technology news closely, few would say they are close friends with that guy who recently cracked this government database or that banking web ... site. However, this could soon be the case as one group has decided to release a Do it Yourself, or DIY, hacking tool. The original web site designed to distribute the open hacking program was recently discovered by security firm Facetime. The tool is meant especially for the purpose of cracking social networking pages, like Facebook. However, it ... (view more)

Jack Thompson and the PTA get ready. Rockstar has finally confirmed the release date of its much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, the next-gen evolution of a video game series known for innovation, open-ended play mechanics, and almost unmatched ... public controversy. (Source: dose.ca ) The Grand Theft Auto series debuted in 1998. Its first two iterations were top-down schemes that hardly challenged the capabilities of either the PC or original Sony PlayStation. Critics dismissed Grand Theft Auto I and II as cheap, violent attempts at roping in teens. Things turned around for Rockstar when it ... (view more)

A few years ago, we used to joke that world video game sales exceeded the Canadian defense budget. Although the latter has raised slightly since that time (from under $10 billion to over $12 billion and counting), the sale of video games has ... absolutely skyrocketed. According to statistics from research firm NPD Group, video games had a record year in 2007, with sales reaching an astonishing $17.9 billion. By comparison, those numbers are up 43 per cent from 2006, a year marked by Microsoft's early start on the next generation of video game consoles. Sony and Nintendo launched their ... (view more)