Extra Bait

We're playing catchup at the moment, so bear with us. We're working on a number of new things for Gamer Bait which we hope you'll enjoy...the downside being that it leaves less time for us to write. Here's some of the latest news from the past week; stay tuned!

A Plea for Folding@Home on Xbox 360
Now that PS3 owners can use their consoles for folding, a call has gone out for similar support from Microsoft on their console. For those of you who have no clue as to what I'm referring to, Folding@Home is a distributed computing project managed by Stanford University's chemistry department. It was launched six and a half years ago, it's aim being that of simulating protein folding (and misfolding) in order to better to understand many serious ailments such as cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases. Distributing the processing power amongst thousands of computers (and now, consoles) worldwide means that the project has been able to simulate the processes thousands of times further than without the project's help. With the latest PS3 firmware update, support for Folding@Home was included, greatly boosting the potential of the project's impact and progress. Now, good-willed 360 owners are clamoring for the same opportunity to advance medical science as their PS3-owning rivals. It's something that would ultimately benefit everyone while doing no worse evil than creating a little more friendly rivalry between the two console camps. I for one hope that Microsoft can get its nose out of the air where Sony is concerned for once and include support for folding sometime soon.

The Right to Baer Games - An Interview with Ralph Baer; the Father of Video Games
An interesting read from the man who actually has the documentation to prove that he started the home video game industry. Not to mention the National Medal of Technology awarded for the same reason. Baer is credited with inventing the first home video game console (the Brown Box), and the light gun. If nothing else, you can thank him for paving the way for Duck Hunter.

GRAW Blacklisted in Chihuahua, Mexico
The governor of the Mexican state named after a tiny dog which alternately is either found yapping incessantly or appearing in fast-food chain advertisements has seen fit to outlaw Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and will be seizing any copies it can from here on out. Apparently, a game with Mexican rebels as the bad guys will turn the entire nation upside down. Or something. I'm sure the good citizens of Chihuahua are relieved that the government has stepped in to protect them from subversive media in the guise of a video game. I think I hear them rejoicing now...

Novell Launches Pro-Linux "Get a Mac" Spoofs
While I've begun to tire of the Mac vs. PC commercials, these two ads by Novell made me smirk nonetheless. The Mac fanboys are all a-twitter over the ads, which is of course, at least a partly intended goal.

Xbox 360 Elite to Ship with Data Cable
As an incentive for consumers to buy the latest SKU of the Xbox 360, Microsoft is apparently eliminating at least one of the arguments against purchasing it. The 360 Elite (formerly known as the Zephyr) will purportedly ship with a data transfer cable of some sort, so that you may copy all of your current data over to the new console. That should quiet any of the naysayers basing their opposition on any loss of data argument. The only question now for a lot of gamers is, "How much will my current 360 go for on eBay?".

- Glock