The children's charity started by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade fame, Child's Play, has broken the $1m barrier.

The incredibly generous fans of the top geek-culture site have gone all out buying gifts and donating money to various children's hospitals around the world.

This news surely cements the guys at PA as being the true ambassadors for the 'good' side of gaming.

Child's Play

Studio head, Mark Betteridge, has told the industry games magazine Games TM that if the popular Nintendo/Arcade classic beat-em-up were to return then they would have to bring something new to the genre. The article goes on to suggest that the studio has been investigating Natal beat-em-up mechanics.

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The popular geek-culture site Penny Arcade turned 11 today. Great job guys.

Extract from the Playstation Blog
The latest update incorporates Facebook into the PS3 experience. By linking your PlayStation Network account to your Facebook account, you will have the option for the PS3 to automatically update your Facebook News Feed with Trophy and PlayStation Store activity.

Additional highlights from update 3.10 include:
The Photo category on the XMB has been revamped to make it easier to see more of your photos stored on the PS3.
The PSN Friends List has been modified based on feedback we received after update 3.00. Additionally, you can now choose a color for your PSN ID on the XMB.

[Submitted by Pinkeye69]

Extract from the BBC
The BBC iPlayer is relaunching on the Nintendo Wii in the form of a dedicated Wii channel on 18 November.

Only consoles with a broadband connection in the UK will be able to run the channel.

To get the service, Wii owners will be able to download it from the console's online shop for free.

The BBC iPlayer has been on the Wii since April 2008 but many console owners reported problems with the original interface.

[Submitted by Pinkeye69]

Just a reminder that the new xbox 360 dashboard featuers of Last.FM, Twitter, Facebook, and Zune HD marketplace go live today.

Extract form the press release:
Facebook*– Update your status to share what movie, game or entertainment you’re enjoying, connect with friends and view their Facebook stream, status updates and photos on the big screen – all seamlessly integrated and custom-built for Xbox 360. You can even compare your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends lists to see which of your friends are on LIVE.

Zune – Zune video on Xbox LIVE offers a full fidelity experience with instant on HD in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound. No waiting for downloads or buffering, it’s there at the press of a button. You can also share the experience with up to seven friends through voice chat and Avatar integration on the TV screen – it puts a whole new spin on “movie night.”

Twitter*– Stay in the know by discovering, posting and replying to Tweets right on your Xbox 360. You can even view friend profiles, trends and conversations, or search to see who’s tweeting about your favorite game.

Last.fm* – Discover more music and explore endless personalized radio stations with Last.fm on Xbox 360. Skip, “ban” or “love” tracks to create your perfect mix—we’ve even built in “Gamer Stations” with game-related types of music selected specifically for the gaming community(Available in the U.S. and UK)

[Submitted by Pinkeye69]

The government organisation responsible for UK cyberdefence and, where necessary, cyberattack will begin full operations in March.

The Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), which is based at the new building GCHQ in Cheltenham, will start operations on the 10th March, Labour peer Baroness Crawley revealed in a written parliamentary answer on Wednesday.

The speech goes on to say that they expect to recruit up to 19 staff who will be expected to understand the 'hacker mentality'. Whilst this would seem to suggest that they will hire from known hackers it would seem an unlikely move seeing as everyone hired would also need to pass the usual security clearance tests.

This probably means that, as per other government movements in this area, the hirees will be the usual so called anti-hacker security experts that are as much in touch with 'hacker mentalities' as a fresian cow is with brain surgery.

Microsoft have announced that between 600,000 and 1 million Xbox 360's can no longer access the Live service due to breaches of the companies rules and regulations. In general this means that they were modified and caught playing illegal software.

For the most part this doesn't mean an individual users account will be blocked - and the owner in question will be able to restore their profile on an unbanned console and continue playing,

Microsoft have stated that a mandatory update on November 17th will add Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm integration to the top selling games console.
In a bid to appeal more to the mass market Microsoft have chosen two of the biggest Social Software products and what is possibly the most used legally licensed music streaming service to add to it's already feature laden dashboard.

Earlier this month we saw the Sky Player become available.

Roguegunners have had an early play with the new firmware and it's a mixed bag. Twitter and Facebook are definately little used gimmicks. The later failing due to a lack of functionality and the former due to it's inability to work in the background.

Last.fm is a fine addition, but would have been perfect if it could have been used as a source of game music.

Is this too little too late though? the PS3 already has a pretty good implementation of the BBC iPlayer and will be getting it's own Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm clients soon.

The Wii will soon be getting an iPlayer channel - which is rumoured to be exceptionally feature laden.

The headquarters of Computer Game producer UBiSoft has become a veritable prison as the company desperately tries to stop information or, worse, code from being leaked by employees. The game in question, Avatar is based on the upcoming James Cameron film which mixes a sci-fi backdrop with the very latest in 3D filmography.

This is the first film from the Cameron camp since the 1997 eleven oscar winning epic Titanic, as such information on it is highly sought after with some media companies known to have offered large sums for any plot details or images.

RogueGunners got to play a little on the Game at the recent Eurogamer Expo and found it to be an almost Carbon copy of GoW2 in places, but mixed up with some enjoyable flying scenes.