Everyone was talking about how the Chinese GP was the last to use V10 engine’s. Well correct me if I am wrong but I doubt it will be.

The rules for 2006/2007 allow the use of V10’s, but they have to be rev limited, now you say that the V8’s may be better than a limited V10, but I think you will find a lot f teams run the V10.

The reason for this is a V10 generates massive torque, where the V8’s don’t generate nearly as much. Even if the V10 engine was limited to the same HP (around 750′ish I would imagine) it would still generate a substantial amount more torque than the equivalent HP’d V8.

Torque after all is what the cars use to get out of the slow corners, yes the V8 may have more RPM to use in a straight line so can run better gearing for the fast long straight circuits, however the V10 will destroy the V8 on the twisty stuff.

So then will we see a hark back to he days where 2 different technologies were used on th grid (the turbo and normally aspirated ‘F2′ days)

It should be interesting to see how many teams turn up for the first GP with V8’s and how many bring the V10 car from this year.

Xbox365 had a post that started this one off, it was started by Lutz, Lutz seems to have a blog and the site www.hex168.com (and www.thebeginingisneigh.com)

I will let you try and work it all out for yourself, however here are some links that will help you get up to speed on the current thought’s.

• http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=379700&page=119&pp=15
• http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9528/More-Pictures-of-the-Mysterious-Sign-Appear/

If you work it out then let me know  However I would bet it’s a www.4orty2wo.com campaign for Microsoft. Probably with early teaser playing in certain area’s around America (and Hopefully London as the last pic is on a London bus with the London England text on it). We can only wonder, if you change the parameters on the SWF on the hex168 site to end early nothing happens? oh well only time will tell.

Someone else (outside the UK) has agreed with myself and Dan on the iPod ‘Video’.

This Article over on SlashDot has very similar thought’s on Apple’s new baby. I am just glad it’s not only us in the UK that think the iPod Gen5 is not all that Apple hope it will be.

And that’s just one of the lines from the incredibly funny Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

I was planning on doing a full review of the movie, but that would just spoil it to be honest, so I will let you go and enjoy it without me ruining it for you.

I will however say the animation is probably the best Aardman have ever done, without making it look un Wallace & Gromit like. Some of the touches in it are fantastic; ever wanted to see Bullet Time done in plasticine? it’s brilliant!

Peter Sallis plays Wallace with all his usual vigour, however the voice acting this time out is star studded and no-one is a let down. Peter Kay as PC Mackintosh, Ralph Fiennes as the death hungry Victor Quartermaine and Helena Bonham Carter as ‘Totty’ are all great in it as well.

Like all Aardman movies you have to keep an eye on what’s happening around and behind the characters as well, as some of the best gags are not actually to do with the main story.

Nick Park’s homage to some of the classic horror/monster movies is excellent as well, King Kong possibly being my favourite.

I promised not to ruin it for you, and I was just starting t get into doing just that, so I will shut up.

But PLEASE do yourself a favour and find a child to take to see it, heck you don’t even need the excuse with a movie that’s full of comedy genius like this one! Go see it!

[rate 4.5]

Microsoft have released there ‘last’ update for WinXP Media Centre Edition 2005; and guess what? Yes you guessed it almost all the updates are to get the OS ready to support XBox 360.

The service pack is called Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 now that is a mouth full and a half.

The update includes the following fixes and new features

• DVD changer support New integrated support for external DVD changers will enable consumers to watch movies and manage up to 200 DVD selections from the Media Centre interface. Media Centre will display information and cover art for each movie loaded in the DVD changer. Media Centre-supported DVD changers will be available beginning this year.
• Away Mode Away Mode will bring the convenience, quiet performance and instant on/off functionality of consumer electronics to Media Centre PCs. Away Mode improves upon current PC power-management systems by enabling the system to silently perform unattended tasks — such as recording TV shows and streaming content to Media Centre Extenders — in a low-power mode that makes the PC appear off. Away Mode will be available on select new Media Centre PCs in upcoming months from partners Acer Co. Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Gateway Inc., HP, Phillips Consumer Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Shuttle Inc.
• DVD-burning improvements Updates to the Sonic Solutions DVD burning engine will improve the performance and capabilities of DVD burning in Media Centre Edition. Consumers will be able to convert high-definition TV shows to standard definition and burn to a DVD all in one step, as well as burn to a DVD from other PCs on their home network.
• Additional HDTV tuner support Update Rollup 2 adds support for one more HDTV tuner, meaning it will support up to four tuners: two analog and two ATSC high definition. U.S. customers will be able to use two NTSC (analog) capture boards and two ATSC (digital) capture boards. This will enable personal video recording of two shows at the same time, broadcast as either ATSC digital TV (480p) or high-definition TV (720p/1080i).

So if you run MCE 2005 I would recommend a quick pop over to www.windowsupdate.com to get the update down, it is worth it for th DVD Burning improvements alone.

I have recently moved my broadband (ADSL) supplier from Virgin.net over to Plus.Net. I must say that I was happy with both parties in the swap, not particularly happy with Virgin a the package I was on went down to 14.99 and they kept charging me 21.99 but hey.

The Plus.Net package has the benefit of giving me fixed IP addresses and they are going to try get me moved up to 1Mb/s. That may not sound much to all you 2-24Mb/s users out there, but I live in the middle of nowhere (ask Dan) and having 512kb/s was impossible up until the long reach trials from BT finished (used to be on ISDN).

The swap over went really easily, phone your current supplier and get your MAC code, give that to the new supplier and hey presto 7-10 days later swapped over. I had heard rumours that swapping over ISP’s can be difficult so I was happy to see that it really is not that much hassle.

I would recommend anyone who is looking to switch there supplier to find a good one (have a look at Plus.Net) and swap over ASAP.

Something I had heard of but never checked out, and boy was that a mistake! Microsoft Max is officially my kewl toy of the day.

What is Max? It’s Microsoft’s image editing / slide show / Sharing system. Why is it kewl? It’s built on WinFX Windows Vista’s new graphics subsystem. It really does look something special.

Download it and give it a try.

That time of the week again, it’s F1 and MotoGP this weekend.

The F1 championship comes to a close this weekend, it looks Like Renault will take the double unless they have an issue and MClaren don’t. It would be unfortunate for MClaren to loose out as they have had the quickest car this year; but it’s not always the fastest car that wins!

Looks like Jenson may not make it into the race however as he has food poisoning apparently. This weekend is his 100th GP start f he makes the grid.

The Chinese GP is on ITV1, with Qualification at 23:25 Sat, and the race live Sunday morning at 6:00.

MotoGP is in Australia this weekend; there has already been some mishaps in practise. It looks like the Duccati of Loris Capirossi (chest bruising) and the Suzuki of Kenny Roberts Jnr (broken arm) will not be taking part Sunday morning as they both fell injuring themselves at turn one.

Valentino however does not seem to be having any issues at Phillip Island setting a fastest so far time of 1:30:349, with Loris’s team mate Carlos Checa in second place so far.

Qualification is on Eurosport at 5:10 (i.e. 3 hours or so) and the race live on Eurosport at 5:15am Sunday morning (Sky+ rules, i get to watch both ‘live’)

The X3 Site has just gone live, not a lot up there at the moment besides a teaser but I thought I would mention it. (http://www.x3movie.com/)

This one is directed by Brett Ratner (Red Dragon, Rush Hour 2) and opens in the States in May next year. Apparently new characters this time round are Beast (Kesley Grammer) Archangel (Ben Foster), Shadowcat (Ellen Page), IceMan (Shawn Ashmore) and a few more I would think in there normal cameo form.

I look forward to it, This and Spider man 3 it should be a Super year next year.

Talking of TV on the move, if you happen to have your laptop and a WiFi signal; then you may now listen to MTV Über.

I had a quick play around on it earlier and it seems OK. It’s MTV’s first 24 hour Internet channel. Why not pop along and have a look.