Individual Eleven – The World's Cyberbrain

Hello…
To be honest, sponsored links from Google have been redundant for quite some time. As they have stated, their sponsored links policy for Google UK was changed so that any company and/or individual can have a sponsored link… even if it is a competitor or something unrelated to the search criteria. To summarise, if you have the cash you can buy your way into a search so you appear on the right hand side. Last week, Google announced this policy would now encompass across 194 countries. Louis Vuitton has already filed a case with the European Court to dispute this; the outcome will be interesting and will most likely be a landmark ruling for other companies.

I personally never use sponsored links for the above reason, and I have found that US links also appear occasionally even though I did a search within “pages from the UK”. This seems rather pointless, especially when shopping around for a product. The initial introduction of Google paved the way for a better user experience when it comes to web searching. Now, it seems the cacophony created from money grabbing shouts louder than the voice of usability and relevance.


Goodbye…
It is with some sadness that we say farewell to 3D Realms. During my teens, I grew up on games such as Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem. To see a company such as 3D Realms go under after so many years seems such a waste. The game I do remember other than Duke was Rise of the Triad; back then 3D Realms were more widely known as Apogee Software. The multiplayer element was great fun, splattering someone’s innards with one shot always made me chuckle.

However, Apogee/3D Realms are best known for the Duke Nukem franchise. Duke Nukem 3D in particular caused some controversy in terms of game content. Apparently, it is unhealthy for the common populace to be exposed to things such as prostitutes, violent sexual themes and sadistic humour. The game was banned in several countries, but my thoughts on this topic is this; it is a game not reality. If the player cannot distinguish between the two and attempt to re-enact morally unethical elements from a game, then they are beyond hope to begin with.

Unfortunately, with the demise of 3D Realms, the same may befall the completion of Duke Nukem Forever. If you have been monitoring this game, it has been in development hell for the past decade or so. According to an ex-3D Realms employee, the game was in the final stages before the company axe. So near yet so far, the fate of DNF looks grim and I do not hold much hope. Coincidentally, I love how the acronym for DNF also means Did Not Finish…

Games, Miscellaneous 3D Realms, Apogee Software, Duke Nukem Forever, Google

According to Google, that is. A slight glitch in the Matrix caused Google’s search engine to report every website as malware, including itself no doubt. This lasted a whole hour; Google commands the lead in the web search community with over 1.4 million searches every minute. Now times that by 60 and you have many people experiencing this problem.

They have put it down to human error, at least they owned up to it. It’s a shame I wasn’t around when it happened, could have done some rather amusing print screens. Maybe this little stunt can be utilised instead of the Great Firewall of China, since the Chinese want to prevent their citizens from accessing most if not all websites anyway. The Internet is unhealthy you know.

Tech Google