According to The Inquirer Google is ready to buy the creators of Half-Life.

Could this be true?

Does it sound insane? Well, maybe a little. But then again Google breathes mainly on adverts and Valve’s netdistro application Steam would be a fantastic way of delivering just that. Not to mention ads in games!

The Inquirer claim to have the news from reliable sources, but have no evidence besides this.

Valve denies – Google wont comment

Valve claims this is not true. However, when there’s a leakage this is normally the standard response from the companies involved. What does Google say? “We do not make comments on rumours and speculations”. So in other words, they’re not denying it, which somewhat strengthens the theory.

Google owns game ad technology

There’s been speculations earlier about Google entering the game market. As previously mentioned there could be a lot of money in game ads. Forbes article last Tuesday speculated about this exact topic.

Also, Google’s recent acquisition, Adscape Media, completes the picture. Adscape is a company that creates applications that enables the possibility for ads in games.

So will all games be free?

If the advertisers paid for the game development, will we get the games for free? Probably not! And would you play a game if you were constantly annoyed by ads?? Feel free to share your thoughts on this one in the comments.

Sources: The Inquirer, Gizmodo, Shacknews and Mcvuk

Click the photo below to see more incredible examples of how NOT to park your car. Keeps you wondering how some people got their license in the first place doesn’t it?!

Simply outstanding

Opera announced 2 days ago (see pressrelease) that they will be collaborating with NVIDIA Corporation to bring the full desktop Web-browsing experience, including support for JavaScript, accelerated vector, and video content, to smartphones and mobile Internet devices.

As a result, NVIDIA will offer an optimized Opera 9.5 browser in its suite of pre-integrated, in-house and third-party software for the NVIDIA® Tegra family of computer-on-chip Windows Mobile and Windows CE solutions.

In an unformal comment Tor Odland at Opera says “our phones will behave like an iPhone on speed”. If it’s true and the rest of the specifications like storage and battery life can compete (or be even better) this seems like a VERY good alternative.

For more information on NVIDIA Tegra solutions, visit www.nvidia.com/tegra/, and, for more information on Opera Browser solutions for devices, visit www.opera.com/products/devices/.

Everything you want and need to know about your computer.

SIW is an advanced System Information for Windows tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner.

SIW can create a report file (CSV, HTML, TXT or XML), and is able to run in batch mode (for Asset Inventory Tracking, Computer (Software and Hardware) Inventory, PC Audit, Software Audit, Software License Compliance Management).

The system information is divided into few major categories:

1. Software: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Software Licenses (Product Keys / Serial Numbers / CD Key), Secrets (Password Recovery).
2. Hardware: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.
3. Network: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.
4. Tools: Eureka! (Reveal lost passwords hidden behind asterisks), MAC Address Changer, Monitor Test, Shutdown / Restart.
5. Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.

SIW is a standalone utility that does not require installation (Portable Freeware) – one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from an USB flash drive, from a floppy, from a network drive or from a domain login script.

Besides the obvious this great tool is also available for FREE! Get SIW Standalone here (English-Only).

As meny of you already know I’m sure Google has joined the browser market when introducing Chrome just a few days ago. The interest has been overwhelming, but then again Google has the oportunity to market the browser through their own search portal (that every Internet user visits more or less daily…).

ReadWriteWeb claims Chrome already got 1,5% of the market share, running up behind IE, FF and Opera but in front of all the rest. I assume the numbers are a bit high as most of the registered traffic probably comes from users just testing it out. Then again, if they like what they see they just might stick with it.

I for one am quite happy with FF and all its add-ons, but would really like to hear from the rest of you should you have good (or bad) experience with the newcomer.

Also, do we really need yet another browser? From a designers point of view this seams like more work as we now have to make even more browser specific rules to get the pages right Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if Microsoft, Yahoo and Google joined forces even though that would mean monopoly yet again…

Update: There seams to be at least one good reason NOT to start using Chrome…