origin

You may be aware of Activision's X-Men Origins: Wolverine game as well as the hit movie it's based on. It stars Wolverine, a mutant with extensible blade-like claws and a personality like his mammalian namesake: ornery, solitary, and ferocious in a fight. Some may argue, but there's little doubt that the brooding anti-hero is the most popular of the X-Men. Fans will love this free pack of five wallpapers based on the game, the movie, and the comic.

The pack contains five different wallpapers, each in five different sizes to accommodate a wide range of screen sizes … Read more

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--The good news for Microsoft is that all the PCs powering the Olympics are running Windows. The bad news: it's the older Windows XP operating system.

Windows 7, it seems, was a bit too new to be used, while Windows Vista was, well, Windows Vista. So, instead, all the PCs are running an operating system that was first released before the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

Representatives for Acer confirmed that the more than 6,000 notebooks and desktops that they delivered to Olympic organizers were all running Windows XP.

"It was the operating system … Read more

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--While the Winter Olympics have brought many headaches for organizers, the computing systems haven't been one of them.

In fact, things have been pretty quiet inside the low-rise building in east Vancouver where the technology operations are headquartered.

"In here, our objective is to be bored," said Atos Origin's Magnus Alvarsson, one of those in charge of overseeing the Olympics' IT setup. And from where he sits, just outside the computer-filled room that is the equivalent of NASA's mission control, things have been just about as uneventful as he could hope for.

Among … Read more

There are numerous companies whose electronics gear goes into making the Olympics happen, but the responsibility for pulling all that technology together rests largely on the shoulders of Magnus Alvarsson.

As lead integrator for tech firm Atos Origin, Alvarsson is in charge of making sure all the PCs, phones, servers, and other gear are up and running so that the judges can judge, the athletes can perform, and the media can write about it all. Their systems handle, among other things, volunteer coordination, reporting of medical issues, and the accreditation of athletes and other Games personnel.

"The world is … Read more

The FBI has accused the man who allegedly was first, or among the first, to upload a pirated copy of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" that circulated online in April. What authorities have apparently yet to do is identify the original source of the leak.

On Wednesday, after Gilberto Sanchez was charged in New York with violating federal copyright laws by posting "Wolverine" to a file-sharing site a month before the film's theatrical release, he told reporters from The New York Daily News: "It's just ridiculous. I bought it from a Korean guy on the … Read more

Update 7:50 a.m. PST: To include new information from FBI that suspect may not be source of the leak.

The FBI has accused a man of copyright infringement for allegedly uploading to the Web the feature film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" last spring.

Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested in the Bronx, N.Y., early Wednesday morning by FBI agents without incident, law enforcement sources told CNET. A spokeswoman from the FBI's Los Angeles field office, which led the investigation, confirmed the arrest.

If convicted, Sanchez faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 … Read more

Russ Frushtick from MTV's Multiplayer blog joins us on today's episode of The 404 Podcast to give us the rundown of this month's upcoming video game releases, but first we have to give a quick head nod to the Yankees for winning the World Series and, of course, Matsui for coming through with the MVP of the series.

Also, were you as annoyed with the lame tech commercials during the game as we were? Between James Cameron's upcoming flop "Avatar" that looks like a 2-hour video game cut scene, the new Droid phone ripping Apple apart, and the rather malicious new Mac ads practically lying about past versions of Windows, we could barely watch the game!

Next, we run down a list of near-extinct tech that just won't seem to go away. The list includes items like the landline telephone, Twitter, vinyl, fax machines, Windows XP, and Sonic the Hedgehog, and although we agree with most of them, how are people supposed to send sandwiches to loved ones without a fax machine?

By far, the highlight of today's episode comes toward the tail end of the show during our classic Calls From the Public segment, where Jeff is the reluctant receiver of a huge spoiler to his current read, Lois Lowry's "The Giver." If you're planning on reading the book for the first time, you might want to click the mute button for the remainder of the episode, or risk suffering a similar fate. On the other hand, the look on Jeff's face when things get spoiled is too hilarious to miss.

Nokia and SAP are forming a new company that will use their technologies to help manufacturers battle counterfeit products.

Announced Tuesday at SAP TechEd in Vienna, Original1 will offer services to better authenticate branded products and protect them from counterfeiting, the companies said in a statement.

Offering software as a service (SaaS), Original1 will draw on a combination of SAP's supply-chain technology and Nokia's mobile authentication software. Nokia and SAP will each own 40 percent of the business, while German firm Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) will own the remaining 20 percent and add the security and … Read more

You've held your tongue through all the Apple iPod propaganda. Resisted the temptation to put a stock, 32GB Zune HD on pre-order. You've scrimped and saved and patiently waited until the day when you could order your own unique blue, green, red, custom-etched, deluxe-packaged Zune Originals Zune HD.

Well, dear Zune-ster, that day has come. As of September 15, you can now log onto the Zune Originals online store and design your very own dream Zune HD. Beyond the two capacity options (16GB and 32GB), and five colors (black, platinum, green, blue, and red), you also get access … Read more