600 Peruvians sick after 'meteorite' impact

This sounds likes it's straight from the comic books, or a bad Hollywood movie... officials in Peru say that as many as 600 people have sought medical attention after visiting the site of a believed meteorite impact. A fiery ball apparently crashed to the earth near the Bolivian border leaving a crater 30 metres wide and 6 metres deep. "That is why we are asking for an analysis, because we are worried for our people. They are afraid. A bull is dead and some other animals are already sick," said Heber Mamani a local resident. The CBC has more details.

Warthog... road kill

A group of programmers at Bungie had the good fortune of getting a test drive in a very realistic looking Warthog, complete with gun turret, created for the Halo 3 trailers. The good fortune ends when they drive into a building... not much damage to the building and none seen on the warthog, but all caught on tape. Only a week until the release!

RealNetworks pays bloggers to create buzz for Big Brother

Wired has an interesting story about RealNetworks and its stealth bloggers. RealNetworks serves up the live feeds from CBS's Big Brother House and apparently pays bloggers to write about what they see. According to the Wired article, Real pays 3 independent bloggers to write about the antics seen on the pay only feed and has an in house blogger. Lori, the author of Silly Hamsters blog, said Real "pay(s) me a certain amount of money to cover the live feeds, and I can write what I want to write. I'm not told what to write; my opinion is my opinion only,". She was approached by RealNetworks after having posted a series of posts on her personal blog. I find the practice a little deceptive if the bloggers aren't disclosing their association openly on their blog, even if they were open in response to the wired questions.

Pluto goes ballistic!

Thanks to boingboing for this interesting YouTube video of an out of control Pluto, chasing a small child around Main Street USA! My family and I are in the process of planning our own trip to Disney... I sure hope that Pluto gets a few obedience lessons before then, or the lady who puts him in his place is hired by Walt's team! Then again, the boys and I know Taekwondo so bring it on Pluto!

Microsoft offers Office Ultimate 2007 on a students budget

Calling it "The Ultimate Steal", Microsoft has announced student pricing for the Office Ultimate 2007 edition. According to a Microsoft release, "Students who are actively enrolled at eligible educational institutions will be able to acquire Office Ultimate 2007 via the Web at the low student price of US$59.95." The offer is extended to students in the US, Canada, and the UK, now and will be offered to those in Spain, Italy and France as of September 20th. A one-year subscription license will also be offered for £12.95/€ 18.00/C$22.00 outside of the US.

iPod Giveaway - Bonus Question #3

Okay, we've only got a few days left before I give an iPod! You can earn bonus entries by sending the link to 7 new friends, so get busy!

Here is bonus question number 3:

What wine did I recommend in an earlier post?

Blogger lauches slideshow site - Blogger Play

If you are a blogger who uses Blogger, you will undoubtedly have noticed the Blogger Buzz page today. The folks at Blogger (how many times can I type this in one post?) have launched a new page, called "Play", that presents photos that are being uploaded by users in a slide show format, its a kinda blogger mashup of sorts with pictures from all across the user base. It's interesting but be warned it may not be entirely safe for work as the filters might not catch all of the "questionable" content.

Microsoft loses European anti-trust appeal

A European appeals court has upheld an a 2004 ruling against Microsoft, saying in a statement "The Court of First Instance essentially upholds the Commission's decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position,". There was a small victory for Microsoft when the court declined to force them to undergo supervision of an independent monitoring trustee. The ruling awards the commission 80% of it's court costs and would levy fines against Microsoft in the hundreds of millions. The company has 2 months to appeal the decision.

Guitar Hero times four = Rock Band

Wired magazine has a thorough look at the new Rock Band game soon to be released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. The game allows you to take on the role of lead guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer or vocalist. The review includes the video trailer and I'm not sure if it makes me want to play the game more or less, it looks like a little busy... at $200 its a bit pricey too, but it includes all of the peripherals!

Googlelizing the Australian election

There is an election coming down under and the Australian offices of Google have been busy bundling Google tools into a comprehensive and extremely useful portal site. They've incorporated YouTube, Google Earth, and gadgets into a one stop shop for the undecided or the party faithful. Included below is a promo video that does a great job of explaining the features of the site, I hope this is something that Google plans to roll out to other countries! Well done.



Official Google blog post.