The Toyota TF106 (Formula 1 car) is looking good, the car is setting good times at Jerez in testing and looking nice to boot.

Things are in fact going so well that Mike Gascoyne has hinted at the fact that the TF106B development is already in the line and may show up as soon as Monaco.

All the drivers and engineers are however all talking about still getting used to the Bridgestone tyres, so if there is a problem with the Toyota squad this year it may be the tyres.

I am sure however that Bridgestone will get there act together now they have more teams using them, however Michelin will go one of two ways this year, they could either roll over and not bother, or go out in a blaze of glory, proving the FIA wrong; I’m on a bit of a fence there, as I would love to see Toyota do well, but also would love to see Michelin shove it in the FIA’s face.

Oh well with the F1 season starting March the 10th in Bahrain we will soon find out (as a foot note, the MotoGP season starts a month later in Jerez)

Are still showing off great looking cars even without Ian Callum (original DB9 design, now at sister comany Jaguar) there any more. This the Rapide has been shown at the Detroit motor show.

ISO security update disk is out, for those that need to update many machines, but do not have WSUS (or equivalent) in place download the Microsoft January Security Update in ISO format.

Pop along to the Technet security center for more Microsoft Security.

Live in the UK? - Check
Subscribe to Sky Movies and/or Sky Sports? - Check
Have broadband? - Check
Want to download movies/sport/news? - Check

Then sign up and download Sky by Broadband (50Mb download)

Some things to note, the system uses Kontiki pier to pier content delivery system

Port’s required open are 80 (http), 443(https) and 8080(proxy) (standard stuff besides 8080). The applications that need to have access to the internet are KService.exe, SkyBroadband.exe.

Here is the ‘press’ :- (click through) Read more »

As mentioned before the ‘announced’ chip by an as yet unknown setup has been commented about by the TeamXecuter team (original post copied here)

There has been much hype surrounding a possible 360 chip that was allegedly tested by just one mod retailer (who has absolutely no real influence in the scene - so that’s suspicious to start with). We’ve kinda kept quiet on this one due to the fact that at least one other mod chip maker had been trying to do “business” with them so we wanted to see how it played out.

There has been no picture or video evidence and no technical information - again very strange and suspicious. In the past all major mod teams including ourselves and Xenium and SmartXX always gave something real to chew on before a release.

First this site shows a picture of a mod - which is blatantly bullshit. Looked like some pic emulator board (later found to be true)

Then they say sorry as its a fake picture !?!

Then they post a picture of a bios config screen similar to what you’d see with X3 Config Live and others) but they say they aren’t doing any unsigned code hacking ?!?

Now we hear this from Divineo…

“The 360 chip is 99% a scam, we had booked tickets to go meet them, we were ready to make huge prepayment and more after we meet the guys at their office and see the working X-Box 360 with back-ups they 100% confirmed they had and it was no problem to show etc. Now at last second they cancelled, with some lame reason, those guys are scammers I really believe. They did the same to Xenium, backed off and changed completely what they said.”

Our point of view is that this is not real, or possibly they had some success but discovered some new security structure in the 360 and are scratching their heads but of course posted the news too quickly.

If this was ever real they would first go to someone like Xbox-Scene with a demo and then of course Divineo, not some website shop that no one has ever heard of -especially for something that would be such a huge breakthrough.

All we say to the scene is don’t go putting too much credence (or funds for that matter) into anything that isn’t proven as real. We can assure you there will be more than one type of mod available from different groups in the coming weeks/months - just be patient.

Now I’m sure a modchip will show-up soon, but if your expecting an XBox style ‘run everything’ chip then for a while (if ever) I think your plum out of luck.

There is a know issue in the recently release DOA4, sometimes it does not save your gamer information (unlocked characters and achievements). This is being sorted in a patch but for now…..

1. Turn on XBox without disk in the drive
2. Wait for the XBox to sign into Live
3. Insert disk

Most people will probably do it that way anyhow, but the warning is there, don’t boot straight into DOA4.

As mentioned further down in the post I adore the original namesake, and have done since I was a wee nipper.  Now Audi (Owners of Lambo) have allowed the Italians to do what they do best, (re)design the car for the modern age (I say italians but it was Walter DeSilva that babysat the project), lets just hope the underpinnings are done by the German parent.

More pictures after the click through Read more »

I have just watched ABC’s Invasion that premiered (in the UK) on channel 4 earlier. Now with the sad(ish) news that Threshold is to be axed this could be just the replacement I was looking for.

It’s sufficiently ‘creepy’ to keep the tension up, has EBE’s (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities) in it, and is decently acted by a competent (on the whole) line up. Let’s hope that this does not get the boot.

William Fitchtner plays the ‘baddy’ sheriff fairly well and the rest of the crew most of who are new to me seem decently cast.

Let’s hope the script does not get too complacent (a la X-Files) and the plot does not stray too far from the mark and this could be a decent series.

So the season break is finally over (thankfully) and boy was the wait worth it, from a hum drum start to season two it’s got good in the middle. Episode 11 kicks off from where the mid season break started, and the tension and backstabbing is just getting better. I cant wait for next weeks episode.

The FIA have confirmed that the Super Aguri team is allowed to join the grid this year. They have announced that all the other teams have said they will allow the team to race. All the team now need to do is to give the FIA the $48 million bond and we will have 22 cars on the grid next year.