IBLOG SPACE

If you’re an avid hater of downloadable content being planned before games even launch, well you might just want to turn away right now. Mafia II , a Grand Theft Auto style game set with a Mafia story is drawing closer and closer to its impending release date next month, and a recent posting about the Playstation 3 Trophies has announced DLC already. Literally nothing is know about the content titled “Jimmy’s Vendetta”, except for the fact the trophies rely a lot of driving (Drive 1,000 Miles) as well as killing a heap of enemies (Kill 1,000 Enemies). There is also trophies linked to score multipliers which would leave me to believe we will be playing some form of point based mini-game, too. Unfortunately that is all we know, but if we find out more we will keep you updated.

It’s been about 10 years since we’ve seen an original MediEvil game , even though we got a PSP remake in 2005 and a PSN port in 2007. Sony’s popular platformer hasn’t been through many revisions or updates lately, despite the fact that I know many people who would love to jump into Sir Dan’s role once more. According to PSM3 Magazine, we should see a new MediEvil game soon enough. GamesThirst is reporting that the latest issue of PSM3 Magazine claims Sony Cambridge is working on a new MediEvil game for either the PS3 or PSP platform. No idea what platform the game would be going to, but I’m really hoping it ends up on the PS3, which seems more likely since we already have PSP remake. There’s also no word as to whether or not this is another remake, but I’m really hoping not. I don’t care to have MediEvil 2 on my PS3, Sony. New material, son!

If you’re looking forward to playing Mafia II as much as we are, maybe you’re gonna buy the PC version. Maybe you just can’t live without shooting up gangsters in a sandbox city in 3D, eh? Well, if that’s your goal, then you’re going to need a PC that fits the following requirements. MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (SP2 or later) / Windows Vista / Windows 7 Processor: Pentium D 3Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ (Dual core) or higher RAM: 1.5 GB Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 / ATI HD2600 Pro or better Hard Disc Space: 8 GB Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card Peripherals: Keyboard and mouse or Windows compatible gamepad RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (SP2 or later) / Windows Vista / Windows 7 Processor: 2.4 GHz Quad Core processor RAM: 2 GB Video Card: nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX / ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better Hard Disc: 10 GB Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compliant card Peripherals: Key

Granted, I was a little ticked off last night when I saw that one of my fellow sports loving writers here at RipTen, Rangebar Merani, wrote up a quick post about LeBron James announcing his signing with the Miami Heat during his “exclusive ESPN primetime show”. My exact words to him in the comments section were: “Unless EA is planning on renaming NBA Elite into LeBron Basketball 2011 I could care less about King “let me call a press conference to announce what I ate for dinner” James.” And, while this is not a title rename, the first NBA 2K11 in-game shot of LeBron in a Miami Heat uniform is something I am much more comfortable sharing. On a side note, I can’t wait to lace up as Michael Jordan and dethrone the self-proclaimed king.

The folks over at Go Madden got an exclusive sit-down with Ian Cummings and passed him some questions to hurdle through. Let’s take a timeout to see what he had to say. He certainly didn’t juke around these questions, but rather blitzed right through them! Among the things discussed are rocket catching, staggerng stats, first-person viewpoints, and real-time physics and whether or not they’ll call an audible and include it in future Madden titles. They also hiked him some questions from the community, which he happily tackled without going offsides . Touchdown! Did I convince you guys that I’m a total football pro? I’m not! Haha, gotcha! Anyway, for football fans, I imagine the interview is well worth checking out over at Go Madden.

According to Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson, pre-orders for Treyarch’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Opsare outpacing those of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 . Originally Wilson speculated that Black Ops would sell 10 million copies, but now he’s bumped his estimation up to 12 million, an increase of two million copies. I’m pretty good at math. Each Call of Duty title has sold better than the title that came before it, but according to Wilson, that may end with the release of Black Ops. He cites the “competition, weaker marketing, and the Infinity Ward situation” as the reasons why Black Ops will fail to reach Modern Warfare 2′s 16 million copies sold when it’s released in November of this year. By competition, I’m guessing he means the upcoming Medal of Honor, among other things. And as for marketing, Black Ops definitely doesn’t feel as big as Modern Warfare 2, not be a longshot. However, I’m not sure how the Infinity Ward situation will affect sales. Any thoughts?

BioWare has released a precious few details about Dragon Age II ’s main character, Shepa- er, Hawke. You may the find the similarities to be vaguely reminiscent of another game by the same developer. Here’s what we know so far: You’ll be playing as Hawke. Yes, the name has been decided for you. Why? Because the dozens of other characters need to say it over and over again, and hearing your own name just makes for a much more intimate experience, right? Yeah. Sure. Hawke’s character is also fully-voiced. This should allow players to have a more cinematic experience during conversations, rather than the stiff dialogue screens we saw in Origins. Y’know, the ones that seemed to have been transplanted directly from Knights of the Old Republic. No more vapid smiling at the NPC while she sobbingly tells the story of how the demon from Redridge devoured her children and left nothing but bones behind. Now, you can properly insult her with a human voice. Here’s hoping it’s an actor who gives a s

Elonex’s 7-inch ereader tablet, the 710EB, has shown up for preorder on Amazon UK. Based around a 7-inch LCD TFT display, rather than the more common E Ink panel, the Elonex 710EB is still a mysterious beast in terms of specs; we know it’s ARM based, has a quoted 8hr battery life and wireless connectivity, but beyond that Elonex are tight-lipped. It seems the marketplace seller on Amazon doesn’t have any new information either, beyond a shipping date of July 31st 2010. There’s also a considerable mark-up on the price; Elonex had originally said the 710EB would retail for £99 ($148), making it similar to the Pandigital Novel in the US, but the reseller has it listed for £139.99 ($210).

iPhone (and PS3) hacker Geohot has been showing off his freshly jailbroken iPhone 4 , but he also apparently has no plans on releasing it. So far the bulk of the jailbreak work has been done by the iPhone Dev Team; Geohot – or George Hotz as he goes in real life – says his reasoning for not releasing the jailbreak isn’t technical but motivational, since he believes users will then simply move on to demanding the next step in the unlock chain. Speculation began recently that Geohot had been working on a jailbreak of his own for the fourth-gen iPhone when a new site – called limera1n – was spotted. However, Hotz says the page is “little more than a raindrop on a website” and that “as far as a release goes, it probably won’t happen from me.” That leaves the always-reliable iPhone Dev Team, who have confirmed that they’re working on both jailbreak and unlock solutions for the iPhone 4. No timescale for their release, however, and recently we heard that Apple might be preparing a new iOS

The flagship device to use it may be rarer than hens’ teeth but that hasn’t stopped Sprint from pushing 4G market growth, with seven new metropolitan areas getting access to the WiMAX goodness. Rochester, N.Y., Syracuse, N.Y., Merced, Calif., Visalia, Calif., Eugene, Ore., Tri-Cities, Wash., and Yakima, Wash. take Sprint’s coverage to 43 markets, though there’s still a significant absence in high-profile areas like NYC. According to Sprint’s Dan Hesse, New York should see WiMAX arrive by the end of 2010. That puts it perilously close to Verizon’s rumored November LTE launch, though so far we’ve not heard which markets the rival carrier will be targeting initially. Sprint have a second 4G-capable handset, the Samsung Epic 4G, due to launch “in the coming months” which hopefully won’t suffer the same stock shortages as HTC’s devices.

NVIDIA has outed its much-rumored GeForce GTX 460 , a mid-range Fermi-based graphics card promising four times the performance of rivals, real-time PhysX and 3D support with a price tag of roughly $199. The company has focussed their efforts on DirectX 11 tessellation, with a quoted up to 4x improvement in performance over cards from other manufacturers. Two cards are being announced, the GeForce GTX 460 768MB – expected to arrive from ASL, ASUS, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, KFA2, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle and Zotac – together with the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which will go on sale by July 26th 2010. Both have 336 CUDA cores and 56 texture units; the GTX 460 768MB has a 192-bit memory interface, while the GTX 460 1GB has a 256-bit memory interface. The graphics clock runs at 675MHz while the processor clock runs at 1,350MHz; there’s also a 1,800 memory clock, NVIDIA SLI support, and 3D Vision/3D Vision Surround support. S

Tablets are all over the place. Of course, it’s made worse when a company out there seems to be just making oodles and oodles of money by reigniting a market that, for all intents and purposes, was dead. But, that’s not a reason for HTC to jump into the tablet game quite yet. At least, that’s what their global PR and online Community Manager, Eric Lin, believes. According to Lin, the company is keeping their eye on tablets, and they are always looking at it, but right now they just don’t feel like it’s the right time to get into the game. They believe they need a compelling feature, a compelling device, and a compelling reason to get customers interested in their tablet, versus the plethora of options out there. One interesting point he made, was that at Computex this year, there were 80 Android-based tablets on display. Right now, HTC would just be the 81st Android tablet available, if they were to go that route. Understandably, HTC doesn’t want to do that. So, instead of just releas

Microsoft’s bet in the motion-based gaming market is resting squarely on the shoulders of Kinect. Formerly known as Project Natal, the camera-based video game peripheral brings a ton of new features to the Xbox 360, including new ways to navigate through the 360’s Dashboard. That’s not including the plethora of new titles that are going to hit the console’s already impressive line-up. But, as it stands, not many people have managed to actually play with the Kinect. For that matter, even see it in person. Thanks to an agreement with Macy’s, you now have a better shot than ever before to get yourself some play time. The first thing that should be mentioned here, is that this isn’t the Kinect ’s first romp through the public sector. No — when Kinect shows up in Macy’s stores on July 15th, this won’t be the Kinect’s first public appearance. It’s actually playable right now in Microsoft Stores across the nation. The trouble is, there’s only four of those right now . . . So, obviously you

Dell has a bunch of cool designs in its Dell Design Studio . The user can order up their Studio laptop with any of the designs to suit their tastes and personality. Dell has announced that it has now added 11 new designs from the crowd sourced t-shirt design firm Threadless. The 11 designs are strange and some are very cool. I particularly like the “Rocket Bird” design that is pictured here. Dell will add new designs to the Threadless catalog as they are added to the Threadless community. The designs can be added to any of the Design Studio machines like the Studio 14, Studio 15, and the Mini 1012. It’s cool to see new designs popping up for notebooks.

The iPhone 4 may have re-popularised the idea of mobile video calls, with its WiFi-only FaceTime system, but its taken Fring to bring true 3G video calling to the smartphone (and make it cross-platform compatible too). The company’s newest release – available for Android, Series 60 and iOS – now supports video calls over 3G networks, as well as the usual VoIP and text chat. If you’re an iOS4 user you’ll be pleased to hear there’s baked-in support for Apple’s multitasking system, so Fring stays call-aware in the background and will alert you to new messages or incoming calls. They’ve also tried to make the app the single place you go to check all your social networking updates, with Twitter and Facebook integration too. Video demo after the cut We tried to use Fring on the Galaxy S a few weeks back but found the old version of the app would only recognize the rear-facing camera rather than the front-facing webcam. Until Apple – or, more likely, their wary carrier partners – open up

A couple months back I dropped my iPhone 3GS and the screen cracked. I decided to just wait until the new iPhone 4 came out and upgrade rather than fix my old device. When I heard the new iPhone 4 had glass on both sides to crack, I thought Steve must be setting himself up for retirement via repair costs. I’m typically not the type to put my iPhone case , but once AT&T finally gets the iPhone 4 in stock locally I will need one. The new Ballistic HC Series Case from Go Ballistic Case looks like its got lots of protection. The thing has four layers of protection to be precise. The case has a rubber inner layer to protect the finish of the phone and to protect it from shock. The inner frame is a ridged structure covered by another layer of rubber, and the outer silicone layer is removable and has plugs and seals for the ports. The case will sell for $49.99 when it launches.

While controversy continues over the Nokia N8 ’s Symbian^3 OS, one thing most people can agree on is that the smartphone’s 12-megapixel camera is possibly the best so-far on a mobile device. We grabbed a couple of test shots in our recent hands-on with the N8, but Nokia Conversations has a full gallery of unedited pictures from the phone. Interestingly, they’ve shown various sets of images through different builds of the N8’s firmware, kicking off in April this year and ending up with last month’s releases. We’ve picked a couple of the newer pictures out for the gallery below – remember these are straight off a cellphone – but the full gallery is here. So, the big question: if you’re an avid mobile shutterbug, is the Nokia N8’s obvious image proficiency enough to make up for its OS? Let us know in the comments.

Netgear has outed a pair of new NAS boxes, the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 and ReadyNAS Ultra 6, packing up to 12TB of storage together with TiVo and Orb compatibility. The new media functionality means that TiVo owners will be able to use the new ReadyNAS Ultra units to stream content stored on the mini-server, together with Orb and DLNA compliant kit. Under the hood lurks Intel’s Atom 1.66GHz processor – a single-core chip in the Ultra 4 and a dual-core chip in the Ultra 6 – together with 1GB of RAM and a choice of four or six 3.5-inch drive bays. They can be configured in RAID 0, 1, 5 or 6 striping for data redundancy, and of course there are various USB ports including a front port with a dedicated backup button that will automatically suck the content from whatever drive or memory card reader you plug in. Unfortunately, all this functionality doesn’t come cheap. The Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 will be $899 for twin 2TB drives while the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 will be $1,349 for six 1TB dri

According to multiple sources at Apple retail, the company has decided to hold off on releasing their next iOS4 firmware update so as to use it to patch the hole used in the promised jailbreak hack . Two employees from an Apple Store in Lakeside, UK, have apparently confirmed to Redmond Pie that the iOS 4.0.1 (or 4.1) update will be toward the end of Apple’s tipped “next few weeks” release window. “Guy in Apple Lakeside seems 2 think 4.0.1 is delayed as they r doing a fix 2 stop jailbreak that they have found. Dunno if true?” MaxdMerc on Twitter “@TaimurAsad @chpwn I can confirm this in a way. That store is near where I live. A friend of mine works there and told me the same.” Sportycos on Twitter We’re never quite sure how much Apple Store employees actually know about the company’s more general plans – i.e. beyond what you see on the shop floor – but with Apple’s track record of attempting to plug jailbreak holes with each subsequent iOS release we can see this being true. No times

Amazon’s second-generation Kindle DX is already shipping out to buyers, and one of the first is Lisa over atMobileTechReview. She’s put up a video review of the new e-reader, and first impressions are that there’s not much change from the outgoing model; however, a side-by-side photo on Flickr shows just how much difference there is between the two E Ink displays. The second-gen Kindle DX uses E Ink’s new Pearl epaper display, which the manufacturer claims offers a 50-percent improvement in contrast. That, they say, makes it more like reading a regular paperback novel, rather than the newsprint-like experience of their previous-generation Vizplex screen technology. The difference certainly looks clear in the close-up, though of course we’ll wait until we see a DX in the plastic ourselves before making the final judgement. Still, we’re looking forward to seeing this new Pearl display tech make its way into the smaller Kindle model (which is a little more pocket-friendly, both in ter

Continued leaks suggest Apple are giving their Apple TV set-top box more attention, with NewTeeVee claiming to have heard from sources that the Cupertino company is planning to put more emphasis on renting and streaming content rather than downloading it. Their sources say Apple is negotiating a $0.99 TV episode rental model, which would work in a similar fashion to iTunes movie rentals, while content sales would be stored in a user’s cloud space and streamed rather than downloaded to the local device. That would certainly fit in with previous speculation about a potential hardware re-think for Apple TV, which would move it away from the “mini computer” it is now and more to a plug-and-play streaming peripheral. Back in May,rumors suggested that the new Apple TV would borrow the iOS operating system and 1GHz A4 processor of the iPhone 4, packed into a compact housing that would rely on remote storage, WiFi b/g/n and minimal connectivity. Those rumors were followed up by talk of a ne

Looks like the Taipei mutterings earlier this week of Intel canning their Celeron CPUs may be true, withDigiTimes reporting that the company has informed manufacturing partners that the low-cost processors will be phased out sometime in 2011. The change will leave more room for the new dual-core Atom CPUs, such as the N550, which will arrive in Q3 2010 at similar prices to the current Celeron chips. There are still a few Celeron launches left before the line sees its demise, with the Celeron P4600 ($86 in 1,000 tray quantities), T3500 ($80) and U3400 ($134) all expected to debut by the end of September. In contrast, the dual-core N550 is expected to be priced at $86. ASUS and Acer were both tipped as freezing new netbook launches until mid-August until Intel’s plans for Celeron became clearer, as the old chip and the new Atoms have significant overlap in price and functionality.

Amazon has begun taking preorders for the Samsung SP-H03 palm-sized pico projector, though currently there’s no estimated shipping date. Priced at $299, the SP-H03 runs at WVGA (854 x 480) resolution and has a 1,000:1 contrast ratio – decent for a pico – together with 30 Lumens brightness. There’s also 1GB of onboard storage, together with a microSD card slot for adding capacity, and a mono 1W speaker should you prefer not to use headphones. Connectivity includes VGA, USB and composite video input, and the onboard media player can cope not only with video files but Office documents and PDFs, potentially making the SP-H03 a useful little briefcase companion. Battery life is around two hours, so good enough for a film with perhaps even a little to spare. Not as small as some pico’s we’ve seen, certainly, but the slight spec advantage could make this a more tempting proposition overall.

Considering most, if not all of the rumors about Hulu Plus came true, we’re going to go ahead and point out that this one’s probably going to come true, too. Especially considering the fact it’s not so much of a rumor, but more of a “confirmation” from the Chief of Hulu himself, Jason Kilar. A confirmation that he’s “comfortable” with the idea, that is. Not that it’s coming. Late Wednesday night, speaking with NewTeeVee , Kilar mentioned that he would be perfectly comfortable adding a more expensive tier to Hulu Plus, which would completely remove ads. As you know, Hulu Plus doesn’t get rid of ads while you smack down that $9.99 per month — it just gets you a wider catalogue of your shows, at all times. So, while most people are accustomed to ads while they watch shows (they still exist on standard cable and satellite, after all), some people have a different outlook on watching shows/movies on their computer. No ads is better for the viewer, but not for the companies trying to make m

The One Laptop Per Child project has announced it will be adding touch and multitouch support to the OLPC XO-1.75 , the next generation version of their convertible netbook. The first step is updating the Sugar OS to support touchscreen technology; so far, Sayamindu Dasgupta’s port of the MeeGo on-screen keyboard has already been completed. Future tablet form-factor OLPC devices – based on Marvell’s Moby platform – will use this same build of Sugar. Meanwhile OLPC has negotiated an almost completely open codebase for its embedded controller in the XO-1.75.

AT&T has confirmed launch dates for the Samsung Captivate , their version of the Super AMOLED Galaxy S smartphone. The Captivate will arrive on AT&T on July 18th, priced at $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement (including a voice plan and $15 data package add-on). That gets you a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, UMTS/HSPA, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, along with Android 2.1 and the company’s own TouchWiz 3.0 UI enhancements. The Captivate also gets a 5-megapixel autofocus camera capable of 720p HD video recording (though, like the European Galaxy S, lacking an LED flash), 16GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot. There’s also DLNA media streaming, all the usual Google Android apps – including access to the Android Market – and a 3.5mm headphone jack, gyroscope and accelerometer. The casing redesign looks pretty slick, too, and we’re hoping AT&T’s Captivate feels a little less plasticky than the European version. Fo

Verizon has outed its latest 3G-enabled netbook, the Samsung N150 , which for $49.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) and the promise to stay faithful to the carrier for two years, can be yours today. Toting a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor paired with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard-drive and both WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, the 10.1-inch N150 has not only EVDO Rev.A 3G support but triband UMTS/HSPA (850/1900/2100) and quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE for use outside of the US. That makes it a whole lot more appealing to international travellers, though of course you’ll be looking at Verizon’s international data rates to go along with the flexibility. Domestic plans are available in either monthly or prepaid form: $39.99 monthly access for 250 MB monthly allowance and $0.10/MB overage $59.99 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance and $0.05/MB overage $15 for 75 MB (one day of use) $30 for 250 MB (one week of use) $50 for 500 MB (one month of use) Meanwhile three international plans are on o

Adoption of Sony’s TransferJet wireless technology hasn’t exactly been overwhelming, in no small part because the company themselves have been a) the only people using it, and b) not including it in every digital camera, camcorder, netbook and notebook they make. I-O Data has obviously had enough waiting, since they’re bringing out a USB TransferJet adapter that will allow any PC or Mac to transfer content using the proprietary standard. The I-O Data USB2-TJC is a compact square dongle that sits on your desk and sucks the content out of your TransferJet enabled camera – such as the Japanese version of the new DSC-T99 announced earlier today – or from a suitably-equipped MemoryStick. Data transfer speeds are rated at up to a theoretical maximum of 560 Mbps. Of course, they’re under competition from technologies like Eye-Fi and Toshiba’s plans to create a standardized WiFi SDHC system. The I-O Data USB2-TJC will arrive in Japan at the end of this month, priced at the equivalent of ar

Nikon ’s camera plans are once again in the headlines, as company president Makoto Kimura reveals plans to launch a new model potentially as early as this financial year. According to Bloomberg, the camera may have an “enhanced function” for recording video (and could, the news site suggest, also be mirrorless) being a “new concept” for Nikon in Kimura’s words. The move would follow Panasonic and Sony’s launch of interchangeable-lens mirror-free cameras, and be part of Nikon’s push to drive sales of cameras with interchangeable lenses to 6.65 million units by March 2013, a rise of around 80-percent. The new Nikon “could be [released] any time this fiscal year or the following year, as new models are starting to sell” he confirmed, though declined to be more specific about timescales or specifications.

Cowon has updated their V5 PMP with a new injection of WiFi, creating the Cowon V5W. Packing a 4.8-inch WVGA touchscreen, up to 64GB of flash storage and an HDMI output, the V5W has WiFi b/g and an S/PDIF output, and runs a custom Cowon UI on top of Windows CE 6.0. As before there’s a multimedia app, games support and more, but Cowon have preloaded the Opera browser and a YouTube viewer to take advantage of the new wireless connection. There’s also Flash support, an SD card slot and Full HD video playback support (via the HDMI output, not the V5W’s own display of course). Cowon use their JetEffect 3.0 audio processing system, and with a reputation as one of the better companies in the PMP industry for sound quality we’ve high hopes for the V5W’s multimedia credentials. Battery life is tipped at up to 45hrs of music, 10hrs of video or 300hrs of standby; no word on pricing, but it’ll hit Korea this month.

Servers are getting smaller, but they’re still not quite as compact as your cellphone; now, thanks to a new tutorial, your Google Nexus One can double up as your test web server. Nexus One Hacks has persuaded Ubuntu to live in harmony with Android 2.2 on the Google smartphone, producing a dual-boot device that allows you to run regular Ubuntu/Linux code. Rather than wiping out the basic Android OS – which would rather limit your phone’s abilities to be, well, a phone – the Ubuntu install runs alongside the original platform. The terminal runs in the background, while the Ubuntu X11 UI shows up in the Android VNC app. Basically, once you’ve installed you can then run just about any Ubuntu code you like, as long as it can deal with the Nexus One’s 1GHz processor. Your handset will need to be rooted beforehand, and NexusOneHacks says they also have it running on an HTV EVO 4G so even if you don’t have the official Google phone you may still be in luck.

T-Mobile UK has finally got around to announcing its iPhone 4 pricing, and as we’ve seen with other carriers you’ll need to opt for their most expensive, £60 ($91) per month plan if you want a free handset. Available both on pre-pay and post-pay contracts, the iPhone 4 16GB is £499 ($756) if you want to pay-as-you-go, or £259 ($392) on the cheapest, £25 ($38) per month two-year agreement. As for data, it’s 500MB across the range of £25 to £40 per month plans – with various amounts of inclusive SMS and voice minutes – then 750MB on the £45 per month plan and 1GB on the £60 per month plan. You also get what T-Mobile call a “flexible booster”, which is a selectable perk – like more internet allowance, more SMS/voice minutes, or overseas use – that can be changed every 30 days. The pre-pay T-Mobile iPhone 4 deal includes 12 months free internet (with, we’re guessing, a fair use policy in place). For more on the iPhone 4 itself, check out SlashGear Roots.

The Pirate Bay hasn’t had a great year, what with the ongoing legal issues, and so an SQL injection hack that has pulled out emails and IP addresses of their over 4m registered users probably isn’t the sort of news they may have hoped for. The hack is the handiwork of Argentinian security researcher Ch Russo, who claims that a relatively straightforward process broke through some the TPB’s softer spots and thus opened up the database. Check out a video of the whole thing in action after the cut. Russo claims not to have carried out the hack out of spite or with commercial gain in mind, but we’re guessing the RIAA and others will be looking on with great interest. Still, in an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Russo said he has no intention of handing it over: “Probably these groups would be very interested in this information, but we are not [trying] to sell it … Instead we wanted to tell people that their information may not be so well protected.”

Spain are the new World Champions after Andres Iniesta's extra-time goal gave them a 1-0 win over Netherlands. Firstly, we at  espnstar.com  would like to thank you for your unwavering support and we sincerely hope you've enjoyed the amazing 2010 FIFA World Cup™ as much as we did. Tonight's match is undoubtedly football's biggest match -  The Final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. Spain and Netherlands  will vie to become the new world champions and book a place in their respective nations' folklores. While Spain have long been penned for the final on many World Cup wall charts before the event, the rise of the Dutch has somewhat came as a surprise for many. Nevertheless, the two entertaining sides have come a long way and overcame obstacles en route to the final. Spain threatened to become the biggest casualty of the group stages after their opening loss to Switzerland and while the Netherlands had a reasonably smooth passage in the group stage, they had to overcome a