After optimizations and restarts yesterday, we had been stable across all platforms. Unfortunately, we encountered another outage at approximately 9:30 AM PST today.

- X360 was severely impacted, and the service is being restarted. It should be back online and we are monitoring closely.
- PC had an outage, but the service is offline currently and the service is being restarted. It should be back online and we are monitoring closely. We will then start checking the quality of the customer experience to determine possible next steps.
- PS3 appeared to have a brief outage, but has quickly recovered and the services is functioning properly at this time.

All teams are actively engaged in diagnosis and remediation. We are adding additional services to alleviate load. Despite having a major infrastructure in place, the peak traffic this weekend has been huge, 400% higher than any other Battlefield’s peak simultaneous users. The teams will continue to monitor the services closely. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates on the latest developments as they are relevant.

Source ~ Battlefield Blog

After last nights EA server outage on PS3 and PC, EA have found the issue and put a fix in place and brought the servers back online. This means that both PS3 and PC players can return back to playing Bad Company 2.

We are aware of a number of remaining disconnect issues on PC and we have released the “R5” server to hosts yesterday to address some of the disconnects. We are continuing to work on the remaining disconnect issues to have a solution as fast as possible as well as looking into reports of other issues raised on the forums for consoles: http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/battlefield-bad-company-2-ng/ and PC: http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/battlefield-bad- company-2-pc/

Battlefield Bad Company 2 has managed to prove so popular that yesterday the concurrent users in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 surpassed that in Battlefield 2 which has been going strong for almost 5 years.

Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website. Thanks, and stay tuned for updates.

Are you more vulnerable to credit card theft if you stay in a hotel?

No need to get paranoid, but it is a valid question, since online security firm Trustwave Spiderlabs consider hotels hackers’ No. 1 target. It’s also a timely question since Wyndham Hotels just yesterday announced that hackers stole customer credit card information by breaching its networks. It’s Wyndham’s third breach in 12 months.

• TWITTER: Follow Hotel Check-In’s feed
• FAVE PERK: Free room upgrade, wi-fi or breakfast?
• CELL PHONE: Use it to open your hotel door

To understand the problem better, I recently talked with online security expert Nicholas Percoco, who works as a security auditor and data breach investigator for the security firm Trustwave SpiderLabs. The firm investigates breaches for companies and figures out how they happen.

“This is a new trend. Prior to late 2008, we did not really see any investigations around hotels – maybe a handful,” Percoco told me during our conversation. “But it was not something significant enough to call it a trend.”

In the firm’s recent study of 218 breach investigations across 24 countries last year, Trustwave found that hotels accounted for about 70 of them – making them hackers’ favorite hackers, even over the financial services companies.

His theory is that sometime in late 2008, a fairly sophisticated group hacked into a single hotel and they identified it as an easy system to extract information, Percoco told me.

Full Story ~ USA Today

(click image to enlarge)

Just sharing a larger version of this, my personal favorite photo-illustration. It took a couple weeks of work, fitting in time whenever I could, so i don’t have an accurate hour count. Most of the major elements were purchased from istockphoto.com. I like the appeal of the the city in the opening credits; it’s completely busy from ground to air. I usually try not to make things so cluttered or without a clear subject… this had a collage feel in the end and I think it helped capture that ongoing busyness of the cartoon city.

Source ~ Dylan Marvin’s Blog

Don’t forget to claim your M1 Rifle for use in BFBC2 by registering your other Battlefield games at http://veteran.battlefield.com.

Battlefield Bad Company™ 2 brings the spectacular Battlefield gameplay to the forefront of next-gen consoles and PC, featuring best-in-class vehicular combat set across a wide range of huge sandbox maps each with a different tactical focus. New vehicles like the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and the UH-60 transport helicopter allow for all-new multiplayer tactics in the warzone. Extensive fine-tuning ensures that this will be the most realistic vehicle combat experience to date. Tactical destruction is taken to new heights with the updated DICE Frostbite engine. Players can now take down entire buildings or create their own vantage points by blasting holes through cover, thereby delivering a unique dynamic experience in every match.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The company licensed to operate World of Warcraft in China – home to 4 million of the MMO’s global installation base – still can’t find smooth sailing after being cleared to operate the game’s first expansion pack two weeks ago.

NetEase’s project chief for World of Warcraft, Li Riqiang, resigned without explanation, the company announced. No replacement has been named.

This latest disruption comes a couple weeks after NetEase had suspended all new registrations for the game, as it waited for government censors to approve the launch of The Burning Crusade.

Source ~ Kotaku

A MAFIAA CABAL called the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which is an umbrella group for the entertainment cartels such as the MPAA and RIAA, has demanded that Indonesia, Brazil and India should be placed on a special trade watchlist merely because they recommend the use of open source software.

Apparently the outfit has been leaning on the US Trade Representative to consider those nations for its “Special 301 watchlist”, which is supposed to list all those nations who are enemies of capitalism.

The lobbying was uncovered by Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh. Apparently the problem is that the entertainment industry lobbies regard open source as communism, or at least socialism.

Last year the Indonesian government sent around a circular to all government departments and state-owned businesses, recommending that they should adopt open source software.

According to the IIPA, this encouraged government agencies to use Free Open Source Software (FOSS) with a view towards implementation by the end of 2011, which the circular states will result in the use of legitimate open source and free software and a reduction in overall costs of software in the country’s government agencies.

But the IIPA said that that Indonesia deserves Special 301 status because encouraging, yet not forcing, such takeup “weakens the software industry” and “fails to build respect for intellectual property rights.”

Full Story ~ The Inquirer

Intel has revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it too was the target of a sophisticated hacking attack in January, around the same time Google complained to China about such cyberassaults.

Intel made a concisely worded disclosure in filing its Form 10-k annual report; publicly-traded companies are requred to disclose any material events that could be reasonably expected to affect stock prices and investors’ decisions.

Data thieves running the so-called “Operation Aurora” attack campaign hacked into Google and some 30 other large corporations last December and January.

So was Intel trying to signal that it, too, was one of Operation Aurora’s targets? The chip maker has declined to supply details.

Security experts point out that there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence suggesting there may not be any connection at all between the attacks on Intel vs. Google. “It is absolutely possible Intel could have been breached by someone else, given the sheer volume and variety of attacks seen every day,” says Eric Olson, vice president of solutions assurance at security firm Cyveillance.

Full Story ~ USA Today

NASA chief Charles Bolden told senators Wednesday that sending astronauts to Mars is still the ultimate goal for U.S. human spaceflight, as he defended the agency’s new space plan against criticism in a heated budget hearing.

NASA chief Charles Bolden told senators Wednesday that sending astronauts to Mars is still the ultimate goal for U.S. human spaceflight, as he defended the agency’s new space plan against criticism in a heated budget hearing.

“Mars is what I believe to be the ultimate destination for human exploration in our solar system”, Bolden told the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee.

But NASA will likely not have the technology to send astronauts to Mars for at least the next 10 years, he said.

“There are too many capabilities that we don’t have in our kit bag”, Bolden said.

That’s where the NASA’s 2011 budget request comes in, Bolden said. It sets the stage for future manned spaceflights to the moon, asteroids and Mars, by focusing on the technologies needed to explore beyond low-Earth orbit faster, he added.

Full Story ~ Fox News