GTA 4 Sales Grow Due To Contreversy It Has Had

I found this post about the advantages of the new Grand Theft Auto even before it was released and i beleive it says a lot about where technology is going and where it is at.

Public outrage boosts game's sales
Realism, humour and collisions also guarantee huge opening
Paul Chapman, The ProvincePublished: Sunday, April 27, 2008
Hype or hot, that's the question about Grand Theft Auto 4, the blockbuster game set to drop on Tuesday.
The name brings a visceral reaction from many: press releases from teachers federations, fist-shaking from old fogies, soap boxes being put into position by politicians.
All of which does nothing but sell a load more games

Analysts are predicting that GTA4 will sell more than Halo 3 in its first week, not only making it the biggest opening for a game, but the biggest opening, revenue wise, of any entertainment entity.
So, is it worth it?
Likely, it will be. The clever thing about the GTA franchise is they get all the outrage -- "Oh my god, this is the game where you go around killing prostitutes for points." But lost to the mainstream jackals, none of whom ever play the game, is the gameplay.
One of the smartest game franchises out there, Grand Theft Auto pioneered open-world gameplay. What that means is, even though there are missions in the game and a storyline to follow, one of the great appeals of the game is the freedom. Jump in a car -- any car, toss out the driver and go explore the city, anywhere, anytime, at your leisure.
This time the story is in present day, April 2008, and you're cast as Niko Bellic, a Russian mafia-type who's landed in Liberty City (basically New York), hoping to live a straight and narrow life.
Well, that ain't going to happen. Your cousin and a host of new acquaintances quickly get you in their clutches, and you're off into the world of organized crime.
What's different about this GTA is the polish. There was a certain charm to the past Grand Theft games, especially the '80s-retro Vice City, in its clunky, almost cartoon look. Now, the game is much more precise.
The graphics are more realistic, completely state-of-the-art, as is a new "physics" model. The way characters move and react now is much more fluid. There was a new movement program used in the making of this game, so if you get hit by a car, you'll react differently each time as the reaction has been made to completely mirror human movement. Get hit in the knee, or the head, or the shoulder, and you'll react differently to each. There is a very smooth and fresh feel to the movement here and it's a huge improvement.
The combat is also evolved. This game now has a much more professional feel, like famous shooters such as Halo or even the new Army of Two. Targeting and accuracy are much more at the forefront.
There are, as you'd imagine in organized crime, a host of nasty firearms to exploit, from Uzis to rocket launchers, and you'll need them all in your arsenal because there's a lot of challenge in this game.
Liberty City and its citizens really are the stars of this game, though. The setting looks, and reacts, amazingly real. If you just punk out a random stranger on the street, some people will drop their belongings and run away, others will come to their aid and even challenge you physically. This is where you can either fight for no reason, and bring the heat of police, or back down and move on.
While the game has grown up with substantially better physics, graphics and combat, there are some wonderfully familiar GTA touches left in.
One, thankfully, is the cars. They're still rough to drive, and too many collisions will set you on fire and will ultimately explode them.
The other is the sense of humour. From the wonderfully wicked radio DJs you listen to in the car between hit songs (yet another great soundtrack), to the billboards around town, to the standup act of Ricky Gervais in the comedy club, this GTA appears to have the same tongue-in-cheek, cheap-shot smarm that the others have all displayed.
Make no mistake, this is a violent game, an interactive Sopranos if you will. It is about organized crime and completing underhanded and illegal missions, so it will no doubt draw a load of fire from the do-gooders who will blame it for setting the kids of today on a path to hell.
However, remember there are ratings, and this one will be rated mature, just like movies are. Stick to the ratings and Grand Theft Auto 4 looks like it will deliver on the hype for weeks, if not months of gameplay.

Facebook. . .Privacy . . .No

Due to Mr White's Last post on the lack of privacy that has been discovered on Facebook, i decided to aim my research this week in the direction of privacy settings because we all know that when we press 'i do accept these terms and conditions' no one actualy reads the 10 page essay before it. Here is a post about the current affair on facebook and its privacy by Rory Cellan-Jones.

Facebook and privacy
Rory Cellan-Jones
1 May 08, 17:28 GMT
How worried are you about the amount of private and personal stuff you have posted on social networking sites? I've always been pretty relaxed - both because I'm very careful about how much information I give away, and because I think I know my way around privacy settings.
But an investigation by my colleagues at Click has made me think again. They set out to explore just how much data is accessible to developers who make applications for Facebook. What they found was that it was relatively simple to write an application which would give the developer access to lots of personal data - not just from those who've installed that application, but also from their list of Facebook friends.
The problem is a by-product of Facebook's decision a year ago to throw open its doors to outside developers. It was a move hailed as a master-stroke at the time, making Facebook a platform for all kinds of innovative new ideas which would benefit developers and the users, and give the social network an edge in its battle with MySpace.
A year on it's not looking so smart. For one thing, a ceaseless flow of new applications of varying quality has cluttered up Facebook. For another, the access to user data given to developers has only served to heighten controversy about privacy, the issue that has become an ever bigger worry for all users of social networks.
By contrast, MySpace was rather slower off the mark in opening up its platform But it exercises far greater control than Facebook over the applications that developers are now producing. For one thing, they all run off MySpace servers, for another the code of every application is inspected before it is allowed onto the site.
Now Facebook points out that users can adjust their privacy settings to limit the access to their data that is given to any application. But how many of us knew that - or do anything about it? I know I haven't.
For Web 2.0 businesses two principles seem to have become gospel over the last year - openness and collaboration with external software developers, and respect for the privacy of your users' data. The trouble is, as Facebook has discovered, they can be mutually incompatible.