MAFIA 2 Is On Its Way

Illusion Softworks is developing a follow-up to the 2004 gangland crime game Mafia.


Set in the 1940s and 1950s, Mafia 2 will feature "high octane gunplay with white knuckle driving and an engaging narrative," according to a press release by publisher 2K Games.

"As the original Mafia was a big success, we are excited to leverage the power of next generation console technology to create an all-new experience, while embracing the elements that resonated with the previous game's fans," said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. "The 'wow' factor of Mafia 2 is definitely the benchmark-setting visual quality and action that you expect to see only in Hollywood movies."

Illusion, based in Prague, Czech Republic, developed the original Mafia game and is also responsible for the Hidden and Dangerous and Vietcong series.

Mafia 2 is being developed for PC and "next-generation consoles," 2K said, but no specific platforms were mentioned.







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Lock Folder Without Any Software

A very useful trick to lock a folder without the need of any software.This trick has only been tested in Windows XP.

Suppose you want to lock the folder "Photo" in d: which has the path D:\Photo. In the same drive create a text file and type

ren Photo Photo.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Now save this text file as lock.bat.

create another text file and type in it

ren Photo.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Photo

Now save this text file as key.bat.

Now you have two batch files lock.bat and key.bat.When lock.bat is pressed the folder named lucky will change to Control Panel and contents will be unaccesible.Again when the key.bat is pressed it revert back to its original contents and the contents are accesible.

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iPhone Unlocked: AT&T Loses iPhone Exclusivity

It's high noon, Apple and AT&T -- we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible,right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It's all over, guys.


The complete story is with engadget.

The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple's iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don't have a copy of the unlock software, so don't even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they're officially the first to break Apple's SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It's done. Seriously. They wouldn't tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they'll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so). We can hardly believe the iPhone's finally been cracked. No, scratch that -- we just can't believe it took this long.

So great news for all those Indians who want to use iPhone on their favourite mobile network.

Read on for details and links to our video, and check out the gallery of images here.

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Two-Sided Touch Screen

A pseudo-transparent screen from Microsoft and Mitsubishi lets people enter data from both sides of a handheld device.



Researchers at Microsoft and Mitsubishi are developing a new touch-screen system that lets people type text, click hyperlinks, and navigate maps from both the front and back of a portable device. A semitransparent image of the fingers touching the back of the device is superimposed on the front so that users can see what they're touching.

The current prototype, which illustrates a concept that the researchers call LucidTouch, is "hacked together" from existing products, says Daniel Wigdor, a researcher at Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab and a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. The team started with a seven-inch, commercial, single-input touch screen. To the back of the screen, they glued a touch pad capable of detecting multiple inputs. "This allowed us to have a screen on the front and a gesture pad [on the back] that could have multiple points," says Wigdor. "But what that didn't give us was the ability to see the hands." So, he says, the researchers added a boom with a Web camera to the back of the gadget.

The image from the Web camera and the touch information from the gesture pad are processed by software running on a desktop computer, to which the prototype is connected. The software subtracts the background from the image of the hands, Wigdor explains, and flips it around so that the superimposed image is in the same position as the user's hands. Additionally, pointers are added to the fingers so that a user can precisely select targets on the touch pad that might be smaller than her finger. In October, a paper describing the research will be presented at the User Interface Software and Technology symposium in Rhode Island.

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India Overtakes USA To Become Nokia's Second Largest Market !

Mobile phone maker Nokia says India has overtaken the US to become its second largest market in terms of sales.

Chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo made the comment on a visit to India to meet officials, suppliers and clients.

Nokia had expected India to overtake the US as its second biggest sales market after China by 2010.

Nokia's focus has shifted in recent years to fast-growing emerging markets such as India, which had a total of 118 million mobile users by July this year.

While rising incomes are boosting mobile phone demand, low call rates are also attracting more than six million more people across the country to sign up with mobile phone operators each month.

"Out of 185 million mobile phone users in India, 85 million use Nokia phones," the managing director at Nokia's India unit added.

With Nokia focused on the potential of this fast-growing market, India has now become a key hub for the firm and its operations in India have grown substantially since 2004 when it employed just 450 people.

It now employs 9,000 people, and its factory in Chennai has shipped 60 million phones in the 18 months since it opened - with half exported to more than 58 countries.

Worldwide, the firm sold 100.8 million handsets between April and June.

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Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC

Today PCs with Windows Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot.An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot. Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows when you really don't want to lose a minute or two for e.g. when installing new software or game, but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.

The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down menu to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.

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Nokia 7500 Prism

Nokia has been known to dabble in some very unique designs every now and again. The 7500 Prism is of course no exception. Although it may bear resemblance to any old candy-bar phone, it does have a slightly unique quality to it when it comes to the paneling.

The criss-cross paneling gives it a sort of diamond edged look and feel to it making it a rather chic looking mobile. The 7500 is equipped with a 2-inch, 16m color screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. It’s not just a light weight phone at 82g but a slim one as well with dimensions of - 109 x 43.9 x 14.4 mm.

It has an inbuilt memory of 30MB and uses microSD cards for external memory. The 7500 Prism also has a 2 megapixel camera equipped with a flash. It’s also equipped with EDGE for net connectivity. Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 are other means by which the 7500 can connect to your PC or other devices. It has an MP3 player and a video player and can read MP3/eAAC+/WMA formats. It also has an FM radio.

The price nor the availability is known yet. But let’s just say it doesn’t seem like it would be too cheap. Let’s hope we see it here though.

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The 500 Ghz Processor, Worlds Fastest Processor

Researchers from IBM and Georgia Institute of Technology designed and built a computer processor that broke the world speed record reaching an astonishing 500GHz speed, more than one hundred times faster than the fastest commonly available computer chip.

The chips were made from silicon-germanium (SiGe). Gallium is used to better performance and lower power consumption.

The processor made by IBM and GIT run at a whopping speed of 350Ghz in room temprature as compaerd to the commercially availible processors which range froom 1Ghz to 3.8Ghz. Lowering the temprature to -450 degrees Farenheit made the chip touch the speed of 500Ghz which translates into 1/2 trillion calculations per second.breaking the world reord for the Fastest chip ever made.

SiGe chips, the scientists theorized, could eventually hit 1 terahertz, or 1 trillion cycles a second.

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Intel® Chopper --- The Gen-X Chopper

Intel and Orange County Choppers* (OCC) Teamed up and creted one of the meanest bikes ever built.

The Intel Chopper

Intel technology has transformed the bold, radical designs envisioned by the Teutuls and Orange County Choppers* (OCC) into a groundbreaking showcase for some of the world’s most advanced embedded computing technologies.

Like the four cylinders of the chopper’s dual V-Twin motors, Intel® quad-core processors are enabling a new level of performance. Four Intel processing cores create a compute density that is unsurpassed in performance/watt efficiency and stability.

The Chopper’s central management console is controlled through the SwitchBack* PC, the world’s first rugged, ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC) from Black Diamond Advanced Technology*, an Intel® Communications Alliance (ICA) member, featuring Intel® Celeron® processor platform technology.

Black Diamond Switchback*

PC On-screen Information

The Chopper’s in-vehicle infotainment system is powered by StreetDeck*, an Intel® Communications Alliance (ICA) member that has developed a unique Windows-based multimedia and navigation software system.

But that’s just the beginning. This story is about an incredible collaboration between Intel®, OCC and Black Diamond, and the truly exciting capabilities of today’s embedded technology.

Links : Click Here

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ATTENTION !!!! Product Advisory:Nokia BL-5C Battery

Nokia today issued a product advisory for the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006. This product advisory does not apply to any other Nokia-branded battery.

Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries subject to the product advisory could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with Matsushita and will be cooperating with relevant authorities to investigate this situation.

While the occurrences in the BL-5C batteries produced by Matsushita in the time-period specified are very rare, concerned consumers can request a replacement for any BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.

It is important to note that the BL-5C battery is not used in all Nokia products and that only a portion of the Nokia BL-5C batteries in use are subject to this advisory.

The BL-5C batteries which are subject to the product advisory were used with the following Nokia models or separately as accessories:

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

For more information click here.

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Bharti Airtel To Start DTH And IPTV Services

Bharti Airtel is entering the broadcasting segment with Direct-to-Home (DTH) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services. It has got approval from I&B Ministry for its DTH venture.

IPTV will be launched by December 2007 in partnership with Cisco and initially limited to six cities. DTH would be launched by Q4 of 2007-08 and promoted as a mass product.


Through IPTV, Airtel could push up its broadband base as consumers get TV content along with a fixed telephone line.

For DTH, Bharti could provide advantage of lower setup cost to consumers as the set-top boxes would be manufactured by its arm, Bharti Teletech.
Bharti Airtel has also reduced its share to 40% in the DTH venture, Bharti Telemedia Ltd. to comply with FDI guidelines

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Verbatim To Launch World's First Mini Blu-ray Discs

Verbatim Corporation, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, has announced what the company claims is the world's first mini Blu-ray recordable and rewriteable (BD-R/RE) media aimed at the camcorder market.

According to Verbatim, measuring three inches (8cm) in diameter, the new 7.5GB discs provide approximately one hour of continuous video capture time on a single side when high definition (1920 x 1080i) is used, and approximately two hours of video capture time with images recorded at 1440 x 1080i.

Verbatim Mini BD media will be available in August in Japan, where the new Hitachi BD-compatible camcorder will be launched. Verbatim will begin shipments to other parts of the world, including Australia and New Zealand, when the new BD-compatible camcorders become available locally.

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Need For Speed Is Back With Street Racing

There is a good news for all NFS lovers.

EA GAMES is back with street racing with their new volume of Need For Speed Prostreet.As with every entry in the series, the team had a look at the street-racing scene for inspiration. This time out, they found that the culture is evolving into a new driving experience that's more focused on performance. As a result, they set out to have the upcoming game offer a new racing experience that they're hoping will feel more realistic and believable.Your goal, as always, is to be the best racer in the world--this year's moniker is "street king." The game's story mode will be different than the last few games, which have mixed in live-action cinematics to tell their narratives.

To experience this you have to wait till October 31,2007.

Need for Speed ProStreet will be available for Xbox 360™, PLAYSTATION®3, and Wii™ as well as the PlayStation®2, Nintendo DS™, PSP® (PlayStation® Portable), PC and mobile.

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Vista's First Service Pack Preferably On 14th August

Windows Vista's first service pack is arriving on August 14 through Windows Update, roughly six months after Microsoft released Vista. It is not yet clear whether the Windows Vista service pack will include security fixes or merely update certain Vista components to improve Vista's performance and compatibility.


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