An update on the official APB website reveals that  the game will now be made available for free on the PC. As to the other platforms (Xbox 360) and clients, something's also been said about those. Check it out after the jump.

Valve just reveled the details of their latest update for Left 4 Dead. Apart from server and back end issue fixes that wel all wanted so badly, the developers seemed to think it would be funny to upgrade the Tank. Oh sure, very funny Gabe, give that nasty son of a ***** new powers! Details inside.

Red Octane and Activision have finally announced that the Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii) Drum Tuning Kit is now available for download. Click on through for more details.

This one's for everyone who misses the Science blog. So that includes me? *Grin*. Anyway, In case you didn't know, the Large Hadron Collider's atom smasher will start today.

So how would you feel about contributing to the research of the Large Hadron Collider? You know, help destroy the world and everything. I kid. But someday you might be able to contribute to the LHC's research. That part's true. Following in the footsteps of Folding@Home is LHC@Home. Dun dun dunnn.

And a big load of thanks goes to trigger for the tip!

"Linux" may have been a bad word in Xbox Live, but that shouldn't stop Linux fans from running the OS on their Xbox 360 platforms. New experimental patches have been released to allow people using Linux on their Microsoft console to upgrade to a newer kernel. More details in the full article.

(Editor's Note: Epicness was never this awesome!)

It's another great week again! We have quite a lot of reasons why we're celebrating, and not least of them all is the fact that QuickJump QuickPeek's finally hit its 30th edition!

Let's pop them corks and let the champaign flow. Everyone's got a reason to party this weekend!

*Originally posted Jan 19, 2008 at 02:49PM

 

You can't talk about web comics without mentioning Tycho and Gabe's Penny Arcade Adventures. With their off-beat, tongue-in-cheek style of comedy about the video gaming industry, gamers will finally get to experience this unique brand of humor in Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (I personally blame Tycho and Gabe for such a mouthful of a title for their game) developed by Hothead Games.

Suffice to say, the developers are having a lot of fun making the game, probably as much as players will have playing it. Don't take my word for it - in an interview with Joel DeYoung, the producer of Hothead, he gives the team at QJ.net the low-down on the upcoming game based, of course, on the Penny Arcade Adventures web comic. He talks about many interesting points regarding the game's mechanics, as well as the active involvement of the web comic's creators.

The game was originally unveiled during last year's Penny Arcade Expo. There's been no official release date set, however, you can expect it to come out by years end. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is slated to come out on the PC, Mac, Linux, and Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade) platforms. Either way, fans everywhere will be waiting with baited breath for the game's release. Don't worry, though, we'll be sure to give you up-to-date reports on the game as we get them.

Check out the full interview right after the jump!

Linux fans who own Xbox 360s may have already noticed this, but it's always good to share some cute factoids: inserting the word "Linux" in the Xbox Live motto section is a big no-no.

Typing in the word and entering it prompts the following message to pop-up: "Your motto contains inappropriate language. Please try again."

Other people tried typing in the names of other rival companies and consoles to see if the names are banned as well, like Nintendo (which was not blocked), It's also interesting to note that typing Windows and Microsoft are banned in Microsoft's online gaming service.

Well, there you have it, a strange mini easter egg from Xbox Live. It's just good knowing these little interesting things, don't you think so?

Following the announcement of *takes a deep breath* Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (boy, that's a mouthful) heading to the Xbox Live Arcade, Hothead Games and Penny Arcade just launched the official website for their upcoming episodic title.

The website will give the fans of Gabe and Tycho some game-related content and news. You can even view some trailers, screenshots, and fact sheets about the game. The website will also be used to launch the individual episodes in the series once they become available for purchased download.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One is scheduled to roll out later this year for the PC, Mac OS X, Linux, and Xbox 360 platforms.

Click the Read link below to check out the official Rain-Slick site!

Downgrading your Xbox 360 firmware from any Kernel without using your CPU key used to be just a legend. However, some enterprising hackers on the xboxhacker.net had plans on doing just that.

After much thought they were able to successfully do so using a method that has been dubbed a "timing attack". A hacker by the handle Robinsod managed to successfully boot his Xbox360 using a flashed eFuse with kernel 1888.

While less experienced (and less daring) individuals might not be able to do this for now, the hackers are currently working on a way to simplify the process.

Here's a little quote from Robinsod explaining how the process works:

The timing attack does not try to "bruteforce" the cpu key itself. It tries to find/bruteforce a hash value which is a result of the usage of the cpu key (so even if you have that hash you still cannot backwards compute the cpu key). But finding this hash value (I usually refer to it as the CB-auth value) will enable the xbox to boot the original kernel (v 1888).

This then allows you to upgrade to a vulnerable kernel (eg 4532) and THEN you can extract the cpu key using the kk exploit. Since -on average- you will find the correct value at roughly half of the possible byte values you only need to try (approx) 128 values for each of the 16 bytes.

Thats why vax is talking about 16 * 128 total number if byte changes... There is a theoretical minimum to the reboot time of about 1 second. So in theory you could find the 16 bytes in 34 minutes. Thats probably not gonna happen. Grin And installing the hardware will probably take even more time so its not a really big issue. But this is basically where the time speculations are based on.

This could be good news for the hacking community considering that further refinements on this technique will eventually lead to homebrew, Linux, and possibly even custom firmware for the Xbox 360. For more details on this, feel free to click on our read link which will send you to the forums where this was announced.