Warner issues warning to publishers: 'The bad games are over'

Warner Brothers Interactive is set to hit videogame publishers that have licensed its brands with extra costs if games based on those brands don't come up to standards it will set. According to an article on The Hollywood Reporter website, in an effort to maintain a high level of quality amongst WBI brand-based games, the company is adding a new clause to contracts - any publisher producing a WBI licensed title which receives an average review score of under 70 percent will have to cough up extra royalty fees. Extra costs incurred fluctuate depending on the average review score. ...more

Surf's up for Tiscali

After shares in Italian ISP Tiscali SpA and French ISP Liberty Surf SA were suspended yesterday, an announcement revealed the former had bought the latter in a €617m stock and cash deal. This puts Tiscali in the premier league of Europe's top four ISPs and furthers the possibility of it lining up LineOne as its next acquisition. Tiscali bought shares in France's second largest ISP for €9. ...more

Intel gets into the movie business

Intel is getting into the movie business. The chip giant has announced that it is to create a new digital entertainment company called ClickStar with Revelations Entertainment that will distribute films over the Internet to viewers around the world. ClickStar will offer a pay per view online service in which consumers can download and watch first-run, pre-DVD-release films. ...more

Microsoft unveils Office 2003

The December 2003 issue of PC Pro - already with subscribers and on the newsstand from Thursday 23 October - has no less than 20 pages dedicated to Microsoft Office 2003. And no wonder. This latest release has huge numbers of changes, particularly under the surface. ...more

Hackers deploy code obfuscation techniques

Hackers are employing new methods to hide malicious code away from the attention of security products. Called dynamic code obfuscation, the technique is used by an attacker to hide a malicious payload away from signature-based security products such as anti-virus and web filters. Hackers use different strategies to hid malware including providing each visitor to a malicious site with a different instance of obfuscated malicious code, based on random functions and parameter name changes. ...more