• BioShock on IGN.
• Clive Barker's Jericho on TrustedReviews.
• Guild Wars: Eye of the North on GameSpy.
• White Gold on PC Gamer Magazine.

• The Precursors on Hooked Gamers.

• A$1 million Fury tournament launched.
• Microsoft Makes Game Development Dreams a Reality.

• Phase Change Memory Is The New Hotness.
• Leaked Vista Service Pack 1 analyzed. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Dan's Data letters #188.

• iPhone thumb surgery story was a hoax. Thanks Ant and Digg. Duh.

• Is This Man Cheating on His Wife? Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Google Wants To Talk to Colbert, Stewart. Thanks Ant.

• EchoStar Prevails in Patent Suit. Thanks Mike Martinez and Slashdot.

• Remember when cheating at video games was harmless fun? Thanks Mike Martinez…
• Midnight Madden-mania hitting Best Buy…
• Ubisoft heads for the silver screen…
• BioShock Designer: Many Publishers Turned Us Down…

After the appearance of the BioShock Demo on Xbox 360™ last night, I’m sure many of you PC fans wondered, “What about us?”

Here’s the deal.

A BioShock PC Demo IS coming. We tried as hard as humanly possible to get it out to you guys simultaneously with the 360 demo, but we needed to make sure that it was perfect -- that all drivers were ready, and that the game looked great on a huge variety of computers.

Currently, the PC demo in its final stages of testing and approval. We are pushing to get it out to you as soon as possible. It will be out during the month of August, and everyone is working at full capacity to deliver it to you before the game hits store shelves on August 21st. I will also let you know as soon as I have an exact date for the demo's release, so please stay tuned.

I cannot express enough how sorry I am for the wait. Thank you for understanding and your patience. Just remember -- only eight days left till you get your hands on the full game.

I’ll let you know where to get the demo as soon as it becomes available.

For those of you who are looking for a BioShock demo on the PC, it is in the works and will be out later this month. I'll give you more details about it tomorrow.

Monday, 13th August (2pm GMT) – Codemasters Online and Turbine, Inc. announced the details of the second free content update for subscribers to The Lord of the Rings Online TM : Shadows of Angmar TM . Book 10: The City of the Kings continues the epic story, adds over 100 new quests, implements significant enhancements to monster play and introduces the Reputation and Bartering systems. Book 10: The City of the Kings will be available to subscribers of The Lord of the Rings Online on August 21st, 2007.

"Our first update significantly expanded the world of Middle-earth with new story arcs, quests, and exciting new kinds of gameplay," said Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "For Book 10 we continue the epic story and introduce a ton of new content, but we also are introducing legendary play, a completely new way to experience monster play that enables you to play as a powerful Ranger of the North or a terrible Troll."

Beginning August 21st, heroes can join the battle in Book 10: The City of the Kings, the second of many free updates to The Lord of the Rings Online.
NEW FEATURES:

„« The Epic Continues! — Amarthiel, introduced in Book 9: Shores of Evendim, has reclaimed the palantir of Carn Dûm and is now seeking to make Annúminas her new seat of power as she searches for her lost ring of power: Narchuil. The Dúnedain stands against her as the Rangers mount a last, desperate attempt to wrest the palantir from Amarthiel. Before she can find Narchuil, a most dangerous opportunity presents itself that may give the Dúnedain the advantage they need to blind the eye of Angmar.

„« Legendary Play — Once in the Ettenmoors, players can experience monster play in a completely new way by spending their Destiny Points to play as a powerful Ranger of the North or a terrible Troll to offer a strategic advantage to their allies in the battle for control of the Ettenmoors.

„« Critter Play — Friendly barnyard animals love squawking around the landscape, exploring chicken coops, hunting for worms and more! Players can now explore Middle-earth from a different – and sometimes unexpected – viewpoint as a chicken, the first of many new playable critters that will be added to the game in the future.

„« New Reputation and Bartering Systems — Book 10 introduces the Reputation and Bartering systems. The Reputation system enables players to earn positive and negative standing with different races and groups in Middle-earth based on both monster kills and quest completions. The Bartering system allows players to trade trophies earned in battle for rewards such as armor sets or mounts.

„« Over 100 New Quests — The story continues for players as they aid the Fellowship and encounter new adventures, new dungeons and over a dozen new monsters.

„« Enhanced User Interface — The game's UI is now customisable. In addition to being able to skin your UI with a unique look, Book 10 will enable players to access sliders in their 'Options' panel to scale the size of individual elements of the UI to their liking.

"We are working very hard to deliver the most content and best experiences to our subscribers and it is extremely satisfying to see such a large number of players embracing the game and joining us in Middle-earth," added Anderson. "We intend to continue our long established reputation of delivering frequent and substantial updates to our players with the release of Book 11 this autumn which will offer players the opportunity to live in their very own house in Middle-earth!"

• Stranglehold on AtomicGamer.

• BioShock demo on Live.

• Linux Foundation calls for 'respect for Microsoft'.
• Why is DDR3 no faster? on Legion Hardware.
• Windows XP: The OS that won't die. Thanks Ant.
• AMD RD790 scheduled for Mid September.
• NVIDIA MCP72 Hybrid SLI improves graphical performance by 5% to 40%.

• The Incredible Machine Website offers a mobile version of TIM, and an interactive video that allows you to play as the psychotically campy Farah McDaring.

• Potter teen will not face charges. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Pro-piracy politician proffers his worldview. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Hints of iPhone games discovered in iTunes. Hackers sniff and release Doom.
• New version of N95 to feature VGA screen.
• New Sony Ericssons coming tomorrow, plus an iPhone competitor in Nov?

• Computer glitch strands thousands at LAX. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• AACS DRM tentacles reach far into operating systems.

• Will 802.11n Be The Only Option - Study predicts that’s the case.
• How to Take Money From Kids: Sell Toys Both Physical and Virtual. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Commander - Europe at War on Armchair General.
• Obscure II on GamingHeaven.
• Uru: Ages Beyond Myst on ComputerGames.ro.

• 22" Monitors Roundup Part 1 on X-bit labs.
• Apevia X-Pleasure Case on Hardware.Info.
• Apevia X-Telstar Mid Size Case on ProClockers.
• CoolerMaster Realpower M1000 PSU on DriverHeaven.
• Cooler Master X Craft 360 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure on HEXUS.net.
• Corsair Flash Survivor GT 8GB Flash Drive on ThinkComputers.org.
• D-Link DNS-323 SATA RAID Gigabit NAS on Benchmark Reviews.
• EIZO FlexScan HD2441W Monitor on BIOS.
• Gigabyte 8600GTS 256MB Silent Pipe 3 Video Card on Techgage.
• Hiper Type-R 530W PSU on PCApex.
• Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 Hard Drive on The Tech Report.
• Innodisk 8GB USB Flash Drive on ExtremeMhz.com.
• LTB Magnum 5.1 AC97 Headphones on Overclockers Club.
• NVIDIA Mid Range 8600 GT vs 7600 GT Video Card Performance Comparison on MADSHRIMPS.
• Plantronics Voyager 520 Cell Phone Headset on Digital Trends.
• The Tom Bihn BUZZ Laptop Sling Bag on Futurelooks.
• Zerotherm CF800 and CF900 CPU Coolers on ProClockers.