By now we're all very much aware that professional wrestling is fake. But that hasn't stopped worldwide wrestling fans from loving it, and the industry has embraced it, even changing the name to WWEntertainment from WWFederation, to give emphasis that it's all just for show (not to mention expanding their scope). From the years of Hogan, to the reign of Degeneration X, up to the current lordship of John Cena and his Chain gang, WWE has indeed become a commercial item. With it branching out to next-generation consoles, what can gamers expect but the same angsty attitude, iconic flair, and drama immortalized by this entertainment industry.

The next-gen version, titled WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, will boast (what an apt term!) an all-new multi-platform wrestling smackfest with its high-impact movesets, user-controlled environmental hotspots and an interactive fighting area within the crowd. Of course the rosters would be updated to showcase more-recent wrestling stars like Cena, Rey Mysterio, Benjamin, Batista etc. The General Manager Mode and online multiplayer gameplay has been amped with more features like voice chat support.

We have here three videos giving us a brief glimpse of what to expect from this title for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. First of is John Cena's entrance with this "The Time is Now" cut from his own album (talk about entertainment). The second video shows high-flying Mysterio battling it out with equallt athletic Benjamin. Third demo features rugged wrestler Cena pwning usually-brutal Triple H, with his signature "You can't see Me!" gestures, and FU moves.

This THQ title will hit videostore shelves on November 17, 2006 (US) and December 31, 2006 (Japan). For now, we could do three things to satisfy our craving: 1. Watch the three gameplay videos below; 2. Watch the weekly episodes of Raw and Smackdown or; 3. Find a muscle-ripped, 200 lb. guy somewhere and trash talk him into wrestling with you.

Download: [Video of Cena's Entrance]
Download: [Video of Mysterio against Benjamin]
Download: [Video of Cena against Triple H]

We've all had our shares of wild dreams when we were kids. I one time aspired to be a terrorist, blowing up people and stuff, until I meet GTA and got tired of doing that. I also wished to be a robber, a dog catcher (only my method of catching dogs were more than just using a stick with a hoop in it) - by now you're aware I'm a demented soul, who knows the Unabomber might be one of my dreaming buddies back then. Anyway, that would explain my fancy for pirates, and who could be more demented than pirates?! Until Legolas came along.

Well Orlando Bloom and his elvish looks changed the way the world viewed pirates. Add that to Jack Sparrow's crazy antics, they somehow become lovable (darn Hollywood!). They're more Popeye-like in the eyes of many now. If I'm wrong, then watch this video of the game for DS. It might still be cool to many, but to my crooked eyes it's just too...soft.

Still, I'm quite sure the game, despite being more promotional to the movie itself, can give gamers an hour of fun or two. With 17 different weapons to tote (think wielding swords, hurling axes, and smoking pistols), 29 different enemies to hack, slash, burn, dice to a thousand pieces and toast them over campfire like marshmallows (told you I'm demented), combo moves and attacks signature to each of the three playable characters (Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann), this one might be able to give players quite a heavy punch, or a cutesy pinch to the hardcore ones - hey, DS was never made for hardcore anyway.

Scheduled for release this month, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is one game that can surely leave you wearing a smile...or a smirk. Check the video by clicking on the link below.

When a U.S. intelligence-gathering aircraft got involved in a mid-air collision and had to make an emergency landing off the coast of China four years ago, it prompted defense contractor l-3 Communications Corp. to work closely with scientists at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). Together, they are thinking of ways to to provide simple but fail-safe destruction of sensitive data aboard an aircraft. Hence, Guard Dog.

You can just imagine how many hard drives the team had to slaughter in order to find the perfect magnetic field levels necessary for complete erasure. Using magnetic techniques only came in as the last option when they discovered in their first year of work that data could remain on diskettes that had been subjected to high heat. They also had to discard thermal destruction because it can produce fire and harmful gases.

Producing a magnetic field sufficient to destroy data patterns required the use of neodymium iron-boron magnets custom-designed for the project and special pole pieces made of esoteric cobalt alloys. The magnets, which weigh as much as 125 pounds, had to produce fields sufficient to penetrate metallic housings that surround some drives.

The most challenging of all for the team is to come up with a way on how to reliably move data storage devices through magnetic fields. In some aircraft, the crew would simply have to insert removable data media into a motorized mechanism that pushes them past the magnets, while  some would have to twist a knob and pull drives out of their enclosures before subjecting them through a magnetic field. Each technique would require deliberate steps to prevent accidental erasure.

Michael Knotts, a research scientist in the GTRI’s Signature Technology Laboratory, emphasizes that this will not only be useful in preventing government data to get in the wrong hands, but practical applications of it could also be applied in the commercial world such as banks, human resource agencies and other organizations that may have sensitive information on individuals like social security numbers.

This system may not be available to private individuals in the near future, so for the meantime you be your own guard dog. Even small amounts of important data is dangerous in the wrong hands.

The 360GameSaves team has released the latest version of their popular Xbox 360 file management software known as Xplorer360, bringing it up to Beta 5. This version comes with Datel driver support, improved Xbox 1 memory unit support and more. The Xplorer360 Beta 5 Change Log is as follows:

• Datel Driver support! Xbox 1 and Xbox 360 memory cards that use Datel's xbreader.sys / usbio.sys drivers should now work fine.
• Full / Improved Xbox 1 memory unit support - multi-media block transfers used, great speed and compatibility boost.
• Drag and Drop support with windows shell.
• Improved Backup / Recover functionality.
• Bug that sometimes prevented backups from being recovered to their original drive fixed.
• Xbox 360 drive recovery now skips config sectors. The Xbox 360 hard disk drive has a unique signature in its starting sectors that would prevent standard SATA hard drives from being used in the Xbox 360 console, based on the sector count and serial number, among other things. This also prevents the use of different images on drives with different serial numbers. Xplorer360 now skips these sectors, so that data can be exchanged between drives without disabling 360 compatibility.
• Improved file / folder rename functionality.
• Improved Xbox 360 hard disk drive detection.

Download: [Xplorer360 Beta 5]

I know they've announced it the other day, but it's still worth talking about as this "contest" will not end until July 23. Yup, I'm talking about the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Voice-Over Contest.

You can be part of this game when Activision finally adds a new character to the Marvel game intended for different consoles. The company is planning to add Namor (a.k.a. Sub-Mariner) and Jean Grey to their roster of playable characters. As a consequence, Activision is now calling for enthusiasts to audition to be the voice of these two Marvel characters (the Bruce Banner voice-over promo has been closed already).

Winners will get a copy of the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game, an Xbox 360, a poster of the game with Stan Lee's signature, a pack of Ultimate Alliance playing cards and a Los Angeles trip for two to meet the producers and to record their lines.

The contest will run until the 23rd of July. So, what are you waiting for?

Ahoy, landlubbers! Put on your sea legs and be on your best misbehavior because Jack is back! vista/1241" id="tag" title="">Buena Vista Games announced its Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for PSP and Nintendo DS will come ashore on Friday, 7th July. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest takes gamers on a high-seas adventure that parallels events from the upcoming film of the same title.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a swashbuckling third-person action/adventure games filled with disloyalty, humor and revenge. The PSP offers gamers control of Captain Jack Sparrow - strength, speed attacks and every dirty moves no self-respecting pirate won't try at least once. The Pirates on PSP also features wireless multiplayer ship battles for up to four players via local wireless. The ship battle gameplay contains 10 maps and plus the GameShare mode where only one game disc needed to play on multiple PSP systems.

In the Nintendo DS version, players embark on a daring adventure as Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner or Elizabeth Swann - each has his/her own signature fight move. The Pirates on NDS includes three two-player mini-games playable via local wireless. The mini-games include Walk The Plank, Boom Barge and Shoot The Monkey.

It would be really, really nice to own a Vertu Signature with the exclusivity it offers. However, to a not-so-rich individual like me, its price is enough for me to know that I'll never own such a sleek phone. This supposed to be CISC-made phone may as well be the closest I'll ever get to owning a Signature-looking phone.

On auction in eBay the past few days is a Mars Bar-sized phone that won't take too much stretching of the imagination to pass as a Vertu Signature. Although bearing different dimensions than Vertu's pricey product (122 x 42 x 15.5 mm), this 89 x 38 x 22 mm entry looks a lot like Signature from the front end.

The bidding for this product has already ended. Whoever won the auction will be owning a phone that has a 0.3 megapixel camera, 1.8 TFT display, 64MB SRAM, 128MB Nand Flash, T-Flash card slot, and USB connection. Although not as classy as its Vertu counterpart, the £139 (approx. $257) price tag may have enticed people from grabbing this little Vertu clone.