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There are quite a few AJAX demos and examples on the web right now. While these are invaluable to learning AJAX, some people need a bit more information than just a raw piece of code. The following is a list of the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials that I’ve found over the past year.

Link:  Maxkiesler

Suited up and ready for action, Activision, Inc. and Lionhead® Studios today announced The Movies™: Stunts & Effects, the expansion pack to the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards’ “Simulation Game of the Year.” Building on The Movies’ critically acclaimed gameplay, The Movies: Stunts & Effects ups the ante on movie production with the addition of stuntmen to the lot, a movie-making toolset, a diverse selection of dangerous stunts, astounding visual effects, impressive new sets and a number of brand-new techniques and technologies that can be used when making a movie. Currently in development at Lionhead Studios, The Movies Stunts & Effects will be released Spring 2006 and has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

The Movies: Stunts & Effects allows players to hone their movie making skills with features that can turn an ordinary script into an extraordinary blockbuster. In addition to stunts and effects, the game introduces new backdrops, costumes and props, as well as upgrades to the Advanced Movie Making mode that lets players take control of even more movie features. Players are further immersed into the Hollywood lifestyle as they train and manage stuntmen, as well as compete for industry awards and achievements by uploading their movies to www.themoviesgame.com for the entire world to see.

The online community for The Movies continues to grow with new movies being posted daily. The website, www.themoviesgame.com, has attracted more than three million unique users, has received more than 300 million hits, and currently features more than 60,000 user-created movies, available online for anyone to view.

News Source:  Shacknews

At Tokyo’s 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing Sony Computer Entertainment have announced that they are delaying the release of their long-awaited PlayStation 3 console till November due to technical difficulties.

Despite not providing a more detailed release date, the company have said they will ship one million units per month after the launch and plan to have produced six million PS3s before the end of 2006. Not only will the unit be completely backwards compatible, but will rely on a 60GB Linux-based hard drive unit which Sony is now reporting may or may not be included in the box.

Ken Kuturagi, Sony’s PlayStation guru, said: “The hardware was developed with the hard disk in mind.”

Sony also let slip their plans for the online element of their new console, which will be free to play via the “basic” package and include community tools such as a lobby matching, voice chat and commerce features incorporating software bootable directly from the PS3’s hard drive.

Games will come in the form of Blu-ray in the hope to minimise piracy, though the machine will of course play movie DVDs and PS2 DVDs. SCE also said that developers will get their hands on the console’s software development kit (SDK) not in June as first announced, but July.

The news marks the first time Sony plan a global release for their PlayStation hardware.

Link:  IGN’s PS3 Portal

Due to a botched update, some McAfee Anti-virus users have been informed that Microsoft Excel, a very popular spreadsheet program, is in-fact a virus.

For a while on Friday 10th March, Excel was marked as being the W95/CTX virus. The ‘false-positive’, as the problem is technically known, was due to an error in the definitions file McAfee sent to software users. Definitions files tell Anti-virus software what to look for, and often contains updates to respond to new virus threats.

McAfee Anti-virus dutifully quarantined and moved the files (including core executables such as excel.exe), rendering the Office software fairly useless. After receiving a number of reports from customers, McAfee recognised the problem and rolled out an updated definitions file just a few hours later.

McAfee is not alone in making false-positive gaffes. Last year, Microsoft’s AntiSpyware software flagged Norton Anti-virus as being malicious software.

News Source: News.com

This site offers a great guide to booting a distribution of Damn Small Linux on a Lexar 512mb Jump Drive. It includes complete instructions with screenshots. Definitely worth a look!

Link: Althack

Google has just launched a new service called “Google Mars” that lets you browse the martian land just as you would with Google Maps.

When you first load the service, you will see a stunning map of Mars that by default shows you elevation. You can switch between the three views by clicking the buttons in the top right corner.

• Elevation - A shaded relief map, generated with data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. This map is color-coded by altitude, so you can use the color key at the lower left to estimate elevations.

• Visible - A mosaic of images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. MOC is like the digital camera you have at home. Basically, this is what your eyes would see if you were in orbit around Mars.

• Infrared - A mosaic of infrared images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Warmer areas appear brighter, and colder areas are darker. Clouds and dust in the atmosphere are transparent in the infrared, making this the sharpest global map of Mars that’s ever been made.

Yahoo has the word that NCSoft will ship the hotly anticipated second chapter in the Guild Wars universe - Factions, worldwide on April 28th.

Guild Wars Factions takes place on the Asian-inspired continent of Cantha, where new and existing Guild Wars players join an epic quest to defeat an ancient evil and save a war-torn empire. Roleplaying and competitive player-versus-player gamers alike will be able to join together in guild alliances to take control of territory and determine the fate of Cantha. New scored challenge missions and strategic competitive missions allow players to test their roleplaying prowess and earn the right for their alliance to take control of cities, towns and outposts. Large-scale alliance battles pit teams from opposing factions against each other in a struggle to conquer new territory and redraw the battle lines across the continent of Cantha. New elite missions allow the most skilled players exclusive access to areas designed to be the ultimate cooperative challenge.

New players will join the more than one million gamers already playing Guild Wars worldwide, and existing players will have a new continent and storyline to explore within the universe of Guild Wars, the ground-breaking online roleplaying game that took the gaming world by storm in 2005 with its innovative design, depth of play and no-subscription-fee model. While Guild Wars Factions is a standalone product that does not require Guild Wars to play, gamers with Guild Wars accounts who purchase Guild Wars Factions will be able to play in both campaigns with their existing characters and even gain extra character slots.

For gamers who can’t wait until April 28 to get their hands on a copy of Guild Wars Factions, ArenaNet is hosting a massive beta test event in which all existing Guild Wars players and their friends are invited to delve into the experiences awaiting them in Cantha. For those who want to be the first to enjoy all that Guild Wars Factions has to offer, a limited edition pre-order package is currently available at retail stores throughout North America. This pre-order pack includes an access key to the Factions Preview Event (FPE) on March 24, and also provides access to Guild Wars Factions twenty-four hours before the street date, exclusive in-game items for each of the game’s new professions, a “friend-key” that gives access to the FPE for friends without an existing Guild Wars account, a limited trial of Guild Wars (original Prophecies campaign) for a friend, a tactical guide, a quick reference card, and a CD that includes concept art, wallpapers, and in-game trailers.