FIFA 09 PS3

The football season is on and "Super Sundays" make working throughout the week a breeze. The most popular sport in the world really comes alive when a perfect wing-2-center strategy leads to a goal and you see your favorite striker bask in glory. This sport yields millions and millions of dollars as a commodity and one of its most famous and profitable avatars is the FIFA series by EA.

Dating back to the mid-ninties, the games have had their share of ups and downs. Their biggest competitor, aka Winning Eleven, was the cult favorite for many years, but with last year's iteration EA gained some of its respect amongst the purist. FIFA was considered an arcade game due to its various flaws. Although it sold pretty well every year, the purist considered Winning Eleven a better option. EA caught everyone by surprise when it produced a stunner in the form of FIFA 08 last year. The game was the most polished FIFA game ever, giving a tough time to the competition. This year FIFA is back with 09, the game that is supposed to have a stunning 250-feature changes and although I can't define all the changes I can assure you this - FIFA 09 is Football simulation at its very best.
FIFA 09 had a great platform to start with, as 08 had an impressive year with a string of good reviews. FIFA 09 has capitalized on the fame by delivering a game that enhances last year's experience by adding in many small and big improvements. The most noticeable feature in the game is the player animation; you have never seen such polish and refinement in any game, on any platform. The players run and react very realistically; even small nudges to the left analog will make the controlled player react. The improved ball physics and realistic player animation makes playing and watching FIFA 09 a treat.

Like any other eager fan I started with a quick match, which is one of the various available options. The passes felt a little quicker and accurate, even at default settings. Ball physics have been vastly improved; hence don't expect to see scores like 10-5 in FIFA any more. The most innovative concept this time round is something called Custom Tactics. Every player has a different style pf playing, some are aggressive while some are defensive. Earlier, you could change minimum settings and make changes to the game-style. Custom Tactics allows you to create various combinations and styles and map them all to the D-pad. The tactics can then be introduced on the go while playing, no need to pause the game. Custom Tactics have a mild learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it completely changes your game.

The multiplayer mode also gets an overhaul. There is now a new 10 vs10 option, something I dreamt about for years. The 10 vs 10 will have you play as one of the players, in the "Be a Pro" mode. It gets a little chaotic, but is good fun, if you play with your friends. Generally, you will find people who are keen on disturbing the game rather than enjoying it. There is also a Lounge Mode in which you can add friends and start with a handicap each. Though very arcade-ish, handicaps like 50% stamina make the game interesting.

The Manager Mode is good fun, the presentation has received a few minor updates, but it's the very detailed team management that makes the mode addictive. As mentioned earlier the game now uses Custom Tactics, so using those you can formulate a winning strategy. Most players love to simulate games while in Manager Mode, if you don't use the Tactics to perfection, simulating may not yield good results.

If online isn't your thing, you can always stick to the traditional single-player campaign. There is a "Be a Pro" mode season, which allows you to play throughout a custom character or a legendary footballer through many seasons. There are minimum changes to this mode and the most obvious is the camera angel which has been moved back a bit, giving you more room and vision to dribble. There are many new tricks that can be pulled by pressing the shoulder buttons and moving the analog stick, but let's face it, you won't really get time to perform them. Useful moves like fakes and 1-to-1 passes are executed very well and add more depth to the game.

Playing FIFA 09 feels very real, but there are times when a small bug might creep through. Usually happens when there is a loose ball, but it is negligible. The AI has been vastly improved, making good allies as well as enemies. The AI is very smart, calling out to ref, during an offside or waving like crazy when they spot an open space for a through pass. The goalkeeper is really hard to get through at higher difficulty, thus making you work for your victory. The visuals and presentations have been improved vastly, especially the player details. Even replays and transitions have a new look. The game is a visual delight.

The game still has the same old boring commentary. I don't understand why EA can't put in a little more effort in it, and may be a few more lines for Andy Gray. Another irritating feature from last year is the obligatory replay upload. You can't simply save your replays, you need to upload them after registering online. The much-talked-about Adidas Live Season is a nice add-on. By subscribing to it you can track your favorite team in the real world, and their performance will have an actual effect in-game. So, if you choose Liverpool and your team was to win over the weekend, with Torres scoring a hat-trick, your team morale and his particular performance will be better. You can subscribe to one team free of cost with the game purchase, but for additional purchases you need an active PSN account and money in your PSN wallet, so the same doesn't apply to India.

The game is amazing, it's realistic, it's detailed and it's a 'must have' for your PS3.

Apple Planning Search Engine?

Apple has been a spicy topic offline with its new MacBooks, iPhone 3G, and iPod line up. It is also spicing up gossip online; there have been rumors that Apple is planning to build a search engine.

However, the following facts would clarify that Apple is not working on a search engine. Apple's Safari enjoys 6-7% browser market share with Google as their default search engine. Obviously, Apple must be happy with the marketing-based revenue generated on using Google's search engine.
Apple's iPhone is clearly competing with Google's G1. It is rumored that Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, who also happens to be on Apple's board of directors, may leave the board as Android-based G1 goes mainstream. It's been said that Schmidt is not involved with mobile-based strategies.

As per TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, Apple is thinking about improving the search experience on mobile devices and may make it more visual. No search engineer or expert at the industry's biggest organizations confirmed reports of search engineers moving to Apple.

It's possible that Apple might come up with a unique UI for search engines on its mobile devices, but building an entirely new search engine seems to be out of question as of now

BlackBerry vs iPhone: Which is Reliable?

As per a study conducted by Square Trade, a mobile phone warranty firm, BlackBerry cellphones had twice the malfunction rate than the iPhone in the first year use. Square Trade had released a study of 15,000 individual handsets covered under the company's policies.

From the study, it was found that Treo had the worst failure rate of 16.2 per cent in the first 12 months of usage. BlackBerry phones showed up 11.9 per cent failure rate while iPhone's malfunction rate was 5.6 per cent. Canalys research report mentioned that Apple cruised ahead of RIM.
Apple's iPhone reported majority of problems with touchscreen and battery. Even the glossy and smooth outer made it difficult to handle and slip out. Battery issues of around 1 percent reported for BlackBerry and Treo compared to half percent of iPhone. To be noted, SquareTrade's study didn't have software issues fixed by firmware updates under their scanner.

SquareTrade projected that iPhone's failure rate might become nine to 11 percent in next two years, which are estimated figures since the phone hasn't been there for long. While Blackberry and Treo hand sets got projected failure rate of 14.3 percent and 21 percent respective.

Spam and Earn Money

Now, e-mail spamming is a common everyday event. Almost every major e-mail provider has that dedicated folder where all these pesky messages usually end up (mostly). As for the others, which might escape the clutches of a spam killer and end up in your Inbox, they are quickly relegated to the position of spam if the user happens to be well versed with the intentions of the sender.

That however is not the subject of discussion here. We're here to talk about something different. With the amount of impact this spam folder is having on our daily lives, researchers at the University of Berkeley and the University of San Diego decided to dig deep in to the people behind the propagation of these vast amount of unsolicited messages doing the rounds of the internet - often clogging vital supply lines. The researchers were interested in determining the revenue model on which these usually secretive organizations function. Yes, they do function like an organized group with some even having dedicated staff members on a payroll!
So what do the researchers do? Replicate what the spammers do. Their spam campaign included about 470 million messages - 350 million advertising pharmaceutical a product, 84 million in a postcard campaign and 40 million in a April Fools campaign. The researchers wanted to know how these spammers actually make any profit. In addition, they wanted to know if the "business" really is profitable. This was a main concern considering the fact that most of us now are capable of differentiating spam from traditional e-mails and it is rare that some one actually follows a spam link. However, the researchers did find out the following.

At the end of the study, they revealed how many of their 470 million emails actually resulted in a click and related follow through. The 350 million emails promoting a pharmaceutical venture only gave them 10,522 clicks through to the advertised website. A dismal 28 of them tried to purchase the product. Interestingly, all these 10,522 people came from different places around the world. As for the other campaigns involving the postcards and the April Fool related spam, the conversion rates were much higher. The Postcard campaign received 3827 click-throughs and 316 conversions, while the April Fools campaign delivered a click-through rate of 2721 and 225 direct conversions.

The estimated income from the pharmaceutical e-mails were estimated to be about $2731.88, which sounds hardly impressive considering you had to spend 350 million e-mails to earn that much! However, with as much as 120 billion spam messages being sent each day, the income potential does rise to $7000 to $9000 a day, which is impressive. Its sheer numbers and that is why spammers are still in "business"!