How does China Censor the internet?

One of the main events recently in the world of technology is of course, Google censoring in China. But how does the Chinese government actually perform this feat? Wikipedia reveals all.

A highly recommended read

'Internet censorship in mainland China' Wiki article
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Team Chimpware

All the people that make Chimpware Possible. In brackets are their webpage publishing names.

Administrator/Co-editor
Simon Wang (Sideath)

Founder/Co-editor
Matthew Ward (Munki)

Website Contributors
Simon Wang (Sideath)
Matthew Ward (Munki)
Michael Wendland (Fomoria)
Miles Coverdale (Miles)
Ian Forestell (Ahura-mazda)
Sam Street (Sam)
Tom Hockenhull (Nocashvalue)
Adam Shaw (rVEO)
Joe Marks (LoneWookie)
Vinnk (from 4colorrebellion)

Podcast Editor
Simon Wang

Podcast Hosts
Simon Wang
Matthew Ward
Sam Street
Miles Coverdale
Joe Marks

In-House Music
Rowan Coupland (Fine Crystal)

Other Music
Originates from the Podsafe music network.

Chimpware Podcast 4

Chimpware Podcast 4! News, Fine Crystal, Discussion.

News: Chimpware Updates, CES, Google, MacWorld Expo, Nintendo DS Lite, Sales
Fine Crystal: Waiting For A Second Sign
Discussion: Er... Munki's Quote Book, Nintendo Strategy, Getting Pissed

Now Fully edited with Audicity!

Enjoy!

Running Time: 34:14

[Direct Download] [Odeo] [iTunes] [Stream] [All Channels]

Medevil: Total War Sequel Announced

Sega's hugely successful Total War real time strategy series will return to PC this winter with Medieval 2: Total War.

The sequel comes reinforced with an enhanced campaign multiplayer mode, ramped-up graphics and the ability to field vast armies containing up to 10,000 soldiers.

Expanding the borders of the previous games in the series, Medieval 2 combines bloody European battlefields and desert sieges in the Holy Lands with the discovery of the Americas, and the fearsome Aztec warrior race.

Developer Creative Assembly has consistently turned out Total War sequels that substantially build on previous games so, with deeper siege warfare, building damage, new weapons and more than 200 new army units, Medieval 2: Total War looks set to be the only option for PC warmongers come winter.

Gamesradar Gallery
Total War Site

Source: Gamesradar

Nintendo DS Lite Redesign

Nintendo have sneakily announced the new design for the Nintendo DS, called the Nintendo DS lite. Simply trim your DS by 1cm, add cool iPod style and GBMicro buttons, and there you have it!

Product Name : DS Lite
Japanese release date : March 2nd of 2006
Manufacturer desired retail price : 16,800 Yens (~$145 USD)
Dimensions : (Side) 133.0 x (length) 73.9 x (thickness) 21 5mm
[ Current ] : (side) 148.7 x (length) 84.7 x (thickness) 28. 9mm
Weight : 218g
[ Current ] : 275g

Nintendo Co. Offcial Press Release [English translation]

High-resolution images: 01 | 02
Size comparison image: 01 | 02 | 03

Source: 4colorrebellion

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Amusing - Chimpware Shares!

Link

Frankly this is amusing. I didn't do it or register, it was just on there.....

We're worth B$1,488.89, apparently.

Heh heh.

Licence

Chimpware is now licenced & copyrighted under the Creative Commons Licence! Therefore, if you wish to use any of our content, please contact us at chimpware@gmail.com.

WEBSITE TEXT LICENCE


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License.

Licenced for Matthew Ward, Simon Wang, Miles Coverdale, Sam Street, Tom Hockenhull, Mike Wendland, Ian Forestell 2005 onwards.

MUSIC LICENCE



This music free to share under a Creative
Commons Music Sharing License.

Licenced for Rowan Coupland (Fine Crystal) 2005 Onward

PODCAST LICENCE


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License.

Licenced For Simon Wang, Matthew Ward, Miles Coverdale and Sam Street 2005 Onwards

CHIMPWARE LOGO / PHOTOS LICENCE


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License.

Licenced for Simon Wang and Tom Hockenhull 2005 Onward

Chimpware prefers... Steam

When I first threw the idea of a chimpware prefers... about Steam at Si his initial reaction was "Against what?" But this simple question actually helps to illustrate my point. Steam is THE game delivery system around now. Sure it's not the most used, but it is the best. Si's question shows just how far Valve are ahead of the pack, what other delivery system around can compare to Valve's masterpiece? Well EA have "EA downloader" on which you can buy stuff like the Special Forces expantion for BF2. This works just like steam when you buy the game too, a bit like a p2p network, you can turn off your computer and continue the download from where you left off. However Steam is more then just a game delivery service, it streams updates directly to you machine whenever your online, this eliminates having to trawl through websites and finding a mirror that isn't broken in a stroke. Sure the freinds network is a joke, but if they ever do fix it, Steam will have a built in Xfire-a-like where you can chat, see where people are playing and join them. Thats if they fix it mind. Steam also provides us gamers with news on what Valve are doing and the output of the mod community with is weekly news updates, again eliminating the need to actively search for it yourself. This is gaming on the easy.

Now Darwinia and Ragdoll Kung Foo have been released Valve have shown that they might just be the developer of choice for up and coming studios or just for pieces of Indie gaming. Just look at Red Orchestra which should be out soon, also on Steam. Valve are making games which otherwise would not get released, because they are not financially viable to produce on CD or DVD and giving them a market and advertising. Download Darwinia now. Steam also makes finding your games online easier too, you can search for servers for any of the games you have, even mods. Guess what it's reliable too, unlike say Battlefield 2 which lies to you about a servers latency. So yeah we all know it's not a perfect system, but it's the best out there and it's being constantly upgraded to bring you the easiest gaming experience around. It doesn't hurt that it provides some of the best games ever either does it? If you haven't already (you cave man you) then get with the program, head over to steampowered, download, update and pwn some noobs.

PSP Rant

This article originally was posted by Sideath on the 4colorrebellion forums (please click title for link). Republished with permission of author.

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject: PSP

I bought a PSP when they first came out in the UK in September 2005. It was good for a while, Lumines and Burnout were fun, and there were a few games I was looking for on the horizon, such as GTA and Infected. I could [almost] (but not quite) say that in the month of September, I enjoyed my PSP more than my Nintendo DS (blasphemy!). I even forked out a substantial amount of money to buy a 1Gb memory card for it, where I loaded up new maps for Wipeout Pure and put music on. However, once GTA came out, everything changed. I now dislike the PSP for several reasons:

1) The PSP Battery Life is too low in the modern day and age to be considered adequate. I could only manage three hours max on GTA, and probably seven hours on Lumines.

2) The PSP Screen has a host of problems. Dead Pixels greatly reduce your gaming experience, and its get smudged so easily - even more so than my iPod. I never had to clean my DS more than twice a week, but I was cleaning my PSP hourly when I played it.

3) The PSP Crashes. Extrememly terrible. I hate it when it does that.

4) The majority of PSP games are not what I would consider 'handheld'. With a few exceptions (Lumines for one), lots of games I only played at home (where my charger was), such as GTA. This was because once the battery light turned low, you still needed you play for around 10 mins (to get back to your savepoint) before you could save. In many cases this would mean my PSP turning off, thus I would lose my advancement. This was VERY irritating.

So, Christmas 2005 I took the decision to sell it on eBay. Problem over. Now I'm enjoying my DS more than ever!

Sorry. Rant over. ;-)

HL2 Mod reviews

Reviewed by Sam Street

Having recently played a few Half Life 2 based mods I thought I'd do a little review of them on the website. Firstly I should just point out that I haven't completed Rag Doll Kung Fu yet so as to how qualified I am to review the game is questionable.

Firstly: Dystopia, a well hyped-up mod thanks to the boys at valve who seem to be promoting this as if it were one of their own developments. The game is a typical multiplayer FPS (first person shooter for those who aren't familiar with the term) set in the future (as to how far in the future, I can't remember). It sees the likes of street punks brandishing huge weapons capable of large scale destruction pitting their wits against the mercenary soldiers of the corporations that they are rebelling against.
So on the face of it it's a pretty standard idea of 2 opposing sides, shooting the s(heep) out of each other with big guns (and they do get pretty big in this one). However, there is a somewhat unconvential aspect to the game known as 'cyber space,' any side you choose has the ability to jack in to terminals and move over cyber space which is somewhat of a wierd experience the first time you do it. Your are sent to into a psychadelic world of geometric shapes all coloured in bright lights, reminiscent of Tron for those of you that have seen the film. Whilst in cyber space, you cannot use your conventional weapons, instead you fire light from your fingertips, which sounds cool but when it comes down to combat, is pretty lame really. You can also travel in any direction, and by that I mean run up walls and onto the ceiling, which at first can get pretty dis-orientating, but a genuinely original idea for any game, let alone an online multiplayer FPS.

The point of cyberspace interaction is to complete objectives, which in itself is something you don't often see in online FPS's; they usually take the guise of death-match formats of some sort. The objective completetion results in your team winning the round, and to help you do this, you can select augmentations or upgrades when selecting your class and weapons at the begining of a round. These upgrades include things like stealth, jump boosters etc... much like those found in Deus Ex for those who have played it.
All in all, Dystopia is a pretty good conversion from the tried and tested Half Life format and works on many different levels. It has an excellent visual style, less glossy than Half life's but somehow more smooth, kind of like the mat finish of computer game textures. My one qualm with the game is there has to be one is the lack of weapons: Classes only differ in their choice of primary weapons which is only 3 out of 3 classes bringing the total to only 9 primary weapons as both teams share much of the same weapons.

Onto Rag Doll Kung Fu!
Now this is a truly innovative game as far as I'm concerned, it is essentially a beat-em up for the PC (now there's something you don't see every day) done in a rather cheesy, cartoon-style fashion. First off I think I better point out, being a practioner of a martial art, I do object the mis-use of terms like Chi (one of the game's focuses) as this game does not explain the term properly, if indeed it can be explained at all. However, given the quality of the game I am willing to let it go this time. The game has a sleek visual style, completely different from anythin taken from the source engine I've seen to date. The way the game is played is by controlling the limbs and heads of your character in order to make him/her fight. For example you can move your player's hands in to the path of an attacker's fist in order to block his/her attack. In order to perform your attacks you can hold the right mouse button down on a limb and pull back and release in order to punch or kick. This seems (and in fact is) quite difficult at first but you'll get the hang of it with practice. The game is pretty difficult to be fair, even the training mode is difficult to get through as are the single player missions.

This leads me on to the multiplayer aspect of the game and a word of warning: BE CAREFUL!
If you are the type of gamer who prides him/herself on your ability to take on anyone and win then I would advise you not to go leaping blindly into the mulitplayer mode of this game. It is very difficult to master and there are people who are seriously, seriously good at this game, honestly I don't know how you can get as good at this game as some people are, trust me your ego will be scared for life is you're a particularly proud gamer.

I would highly recommend Rag Doll Kung Fu to any gamer out there who fancies something different. It has a brilliant visual style, a lot to get through, good sense of humour, and is a very well put-together game, not just a novel idea. Just tossing your character in to the air can be entertaining enough, but personally, my favourite moment of this game has to be picking up a pair of nun-chaku and hurling them around by making huge circles with the mouse, destroying everything in my path! O you do feel powerful!

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New member

Chimpware welcomes it's latest, although not greatest contributor: Nocashvalue

Update v.1.5

A huge Right hand menu bar overhaul this week - and also, visit our Frappr addon!

Chimpware Frappr activated!

I've now created a Chimpware Frappr, so if you're someone internationally we can all see where you're from! You can access the Frappr from the link on the right or the following link:

http://www.frappr.com/chimpware

Enjoy!

Chimpware Podcasts Channels

Here are all the Channels the Chimpware Podcasts are signed up for, so you can choose at your leisure:

Direct Downloads:

Archive.org download
Direct Chimpware download - click on title or [Download] on specific podcast
iTunes Download
Newsgator Download
Yahoo! Podcasts
Podcast Pickle

Direct Streaming:

Direct Chimpware streaming - click [Stream] on specific podcast
Odeo Channel
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Podcatcher Directories:

Everypodcast.com
CastWiki

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Chimpware Prefers... Firefox

Another new year, another new Chimpware Editorial. This new editorial will talk about what ChimpWare contributors prefer as their favourite software, hardware, music, film etc. etc. in their specific genre, and why. Firstly, Sideath talks about his internet browser of choice - Firefox.

At it's peak in 2002, Microsoft's Internet Explorer held 96% of the Online Browser market. This was mostly due to the fact that all PCs then manufactured with a version of Windows will have an edition of Internet Explorer, and people being the lazy people that they are, generally sticks to IE as it was funtional tool which poses few problems. However of course, there are many better alternatives out there. I digress - there is one better alternative out there. Firefox. By now Firefox has around 15% of the browser market and rising, and together with Apple's Browser, they are slowly eating away at Microsoft's IE market share.

Why is this? Of course, there are huge advantages to using Firefox - the consumer-friendly tabbed browsing, auto-anti-popup (vastly superior of that of IE, MSN, Yahoo or Google), Faster Internet Surfing (20% faster than IE), and Intergrated Search engines on the top right hand corner of your toolbar. Of course, Firefox is also the best option for seasoned Internet Surfers as well. It Updates itself automatically, it supports next generation media including HD-online media (which has already become surfacing on Google Video) and open web standards, it supports additional extensions and plugins which are unavaliable on IE, it has customization options... the list goes on.

However, in my opinion the most advantageous aspect of Firefox is it's extremely powerful virus and spyware filtering system. Highly advantageous, it basically allowed me to get rid of two of my anti-spyware programs, and I highly recommend it.

Get Firefox!

Chimpware Podcast 3 - Fine Crystal: My Waves are broken

Due to exams etc. Team Chimpware did not have the time to sort out a discussion Podcast. However, here is our In-House Musician Rowan Coupland aka Fine Crystal playing one of his songs: 'My Waves Are Broken' from his Album 'Radio'. Enjoy, and I'll probably post more music for the next two episodes!

[Direct Download] [iTunes] [Odeo] [Stream] [All Channels]

Chimpware Podcast on iTunes!

It's been a while, and I'm sorry for the delay, but iTunes have been swamped with Podcast subscriptions. Still, better late than never, and now Chimpware is accessible on iTunes!

Please Subscribe if you have iTunes!

Access it here

Or, click the title or the picture on the bottom

Chimpware Forums Active

I am please to announce that the Chimpware Forums are now live and you can access it at the following link:

http://forums.cjb.net/chimpware.html

or, click on the forum link on the right hand toolbar, or the title.

Please register ASAP!

NB please note that the previous forum has been deleted. Any suggestions or if you wish to be a moderator please contact us at chimpware@gmail.com.

Anachronox : Revisit

Stop. Stop right here. Don't read another word of this revisit. Anything I say will only spoil the wonderful experience that playing this game is. So stop reading right now, log onto E-Bay or any other place you can find four-year-old games for sale and buy it. No arguments. Still reading? Fine. I could try to pick my way around any possible spoilers in this revisit, but instead I'm going to dive straight on in. So read on if you really want to. The main hook of Anachronox is its storyline. Anachronox comes from developers Ion Storm - the makers of Deus Ex, so as you can guess your in for a treat. The game sets out with you playing the role of Sylvester "Sly" Boots - a private detective. A private detective living on an alien built planet, whose inhabitants have all died of a mysterious plague. You job? To save the universe. You see, the universe expanded out from the big bang. Then due to the amount of matter in the Universe, it collapses again, and out of that ball of stuff, a new universe explodes. Only now, some ******* in a universe previous to your is dumping material from his universe into yours, so that his universe won't collapse - it will go on for ever, and you will never have existed. Now, if that isn't a great storyline I don't know what is. But the real beauty of this game is that that is only a tiny part of the whole. Anachronox paints a world around you, filled with some of the most fabulous locations and characters you will ever meet in a game. Mad priests, mad planets, mad robots. And best of all, it's a comedy. Some of the jokes are actually very funny and in many cases unexpected - some you see coming a mile off, but still have great fun when you get there. Like the alien Red Light Zone. Shudder. It occurs to me that I haven't actually said what Anachronox is yet. Well, it's a party based RPG. The main part of the game is played as a third person action-adventure game. However, bolted on to this is a turn based strategy combat element, elements of star-ship piloting and a huge range of other mini-games, that far from breaking the pacing of the game, or jarring with the rest of it, simple form part of the beautiful tapestry of the gamely. Speaking of beautiful, the graphics. Anachronox uses the Quake 2 engine, so as you can imagine it's not the best looking of games - but the innovation shown in the level and character design shines through. Some notable examples are wandering around the Anachronox station itself at the beginning and seeing people walking on ceiling gravity paths, and then being able to walk to where they were - and the (major spoiler ahead) planet that shrinks itself down to human size and becomes a party member. Genius. Anachronox is probably the best game I have ever played. It's quirky, mad, and utter utter genius. It rewards exploration, has a great combat system ("it's not about testing your reactions, it's about having a bigger gun" - the biggest is a planet based nuclear missile strike from the afore said pint-sized planet). One small note of warning though. In the MysTech mines, leave the level after using the moving platform to cross the lava and the lever to operate the door disappears. And you have to start again. But hey, you probably missed a load of Totally Arbitrary Collectable Objects the first time round.

Miles.

http://www.planetanachronox.com/