Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be priced at £54.99 when it is released in November - cue rage.

Activision are blaming rising production costs and the falling strength of the pound for the sudden and seemingly disproportional hike.

Depsite the game retailing in the US for a mere $59.99, only £36 in sterling! Explain that Activision!

And with Activision now regularly breaking the £50 barrier with it's games (DJ Hero), it won't be long before others follow suit.

Console games have been meandering toward the £50 mark for a while and ultimately it will be the consumer who sets the price. If, come November 10th, gamers band together, hold strong and don't buy Modern Warfare 2 at this ridiculous price - Activision will be forced to bring the price down. And it will set a precedent, developers will know the £50 is too much, and it is too much.

Will that happen? Will-it-heck-as-like.

(Via T3)

The Ashes are well underway, and after James Anderson and Monty Panesar's ninth wicket heroics in Cardiff who wouldn't want to swing-the-willow, smash a late cut for four, or dart one in off the seam?

Well, soon you will! Ashes Cricket 2009 will be released across the console platforms on August 7th.

You'll be able to play Test matches, One Day Internationals and 20/20 games on the five official Ashes grounds.

The console editions will feature online multiplayer.

And, gloriously, the Wii edition with have you flailing cover drives and hooks in your bedroom.

Brian Lara cricket was a decent cricket game. Decent. World Cup Cricket on the SNES has still to be bettered - hopefully Ashes 2009 will be the one to do it.

The recession has finally reached the stench filled bedrooms of 'the gamer', as gaming sales have plummeted to a nine-year-low.

It initially seemed that gaming was part of the select band of recession proof industries, as people holed away in their bedrooms playing Call Of Duty 4 as opposed to squandering money on such frivilous things as "a social life".

But gaming sales plummeted 31% this year, down to $1.1 billion. Yes - down to.

Console sales fell the most, at 38%, but this would make sence as their are, after all, only a finite number of viable gamers and this generation of consoles has been about for a while now.

Game sales also fell while the Xbox 360 actually managed to increase its sales in July.

(Via PCMag)

Microsoft has pulled its Windows 7 discount pricing after apparently overwhelming demand lead to its online store crashing and has continued its EC hissy-fit confirming that their will be no Vista to 7 upgrade option.

Microsoft claim that they sold more copies of Windows 7 in the first eight hours than it did in 17 weeks in 2006 with a simliar offer for Windows Vista.

The blogosphere is already awash with rumours that actually, Microsoft were going to do it all along, to the fan the flames of hype around 7. Hype which hasn't been seen for a Microsoft OS since Windows 98.

And after pulling IE 8 from the Euro version of 7 following their EC anticompetitive fine, Microsoft have also said that there will be no Vista upgrade option in Europe.

Although Windows 7 will be released in Europe for the price of an upgrade package in the rest of world.

Microsoft's Leila Martine said: "What we are saying is 'we don't care as a consumer if you had Windows Vista or not because we can't tell that and we don't want to penalise you for our decision to take IE8 out of the Wndows 7 E version and to not give an upgrade option."

You can still download the release candidate which will work until late next, and which I have partitioned onto my macbook HD. Aren't I cool?

I'm not cool.

(Via PcAdvisor)

A letter to Barack Obama signed by MPs and Peers will call on the President not to extradite British hacker Gary McKinnon who faces up to 60 years in a maximum security prison if found guilty.

The 43-year-old UFO obsessive, who suffers from Asperges syndrome, a mild form of Autism, carried out the 'largest military hack of all time' in 2002 - hacking into the computer systems of NASA, The US Army, Department of Defence and US Air Force.

McKinnon, who was looking for proof of UFOs, was originally indicted in 2002 and in 2006 the UK agreed to extradite him for trial. Subsequent appeals to the House of Lords and European Court of Human Rights have failed.

Mr McKinnon's local MP, David Burrowes, said: "We need to take it further and call upon Barack Obama himself to take action as the pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far."

The letter from The National Autistic Society calls for Obama to allow McKinnon to face trial in the UK on the grounds that extradition might lead to a deterioration in his health.

Legal experts have said that if McKinnon were to face trial, it should be in the UK regardless, as any crimes he committed were committed in British territory.

The case highlights the unbalanced Bush era US - UK extradition treaty which was designed to facilitate the fast extradition of Islamic fundamentalist, not eccentric Scottish systems administrators.

(Via Guardian)

Teletext will cease to be in 2010.

But don't panic, BBC's Ceefax is set to continue for as long as the analogue signal is broadcasting.

Closed caption information relay was initially designed by the BBC and Post Office in the early 70s as a way to subtitle shows. And it worked very well.

The BBC soon rolled it out to the full Ceefax service, that continues to this day. And still operates faster than digital text, which is still woefully slow.

Telext was originally due to close it's pixelated doors in 2012 to coincide with the digital switchover, and although it has 12 million users a week, it has been operating at a loss for three years as people turned to the web for their instant news, celebrity gossip and football scores (the three pillars of any successful information platform).

But it won't be the end of the Teletext brand, which will continue through its successful travel websites.

(Via Telegraph)

Google Docs, the world's most successful online word processor, is to get a redesign, or revamp, or rejig. Well it'll be one, other, or most probably, an almalgm of these.

The 'pre-announcement' announcement on the Google Docs Blog (which isn't very interesting), comes hot-on-the-heels of Microsoft unveiling its plans for Office 2010. Plans that include a new web-based component, designed to directly take on Docs.

Google's counterpunch comes in the form of a promise that their redesign will make sharing more intuitive. The practical upshot of which is that users might notice some malfunctioning modules over the next couple of days.

Do you think that Office 2010 will claw back the market share they've lost to Docs? I'm writing this article, about Docs, on Docs, which is frankly, not as weird as it sounds. Will you be moving back to Office? Answers in the comments chums.

(Via TechCrunch)

To celebrate the end of our Headphones Week we're giving you, loyal Tech Digest reader, the opportunity to get your hands on the best pair of headphones we've tested this week.

The Prize

One, and only one, set of Atomic Floyd TwistJax in-ear banging headphones.

The Question

Ready? Right here you go:

What song is played before every Newcastle United game? Name the song and artist.

If you need a clue, you'll find it here, in Dan's review of the fabulous TwistJax.

We also hidden clues here, here, here and here.

Email your answers here and be quick because it closes on the 19th June, remember to include your name and address so we can send them out to you if you win.

Terms and Conditions

1. The prize is a set of Atomic Floyd TwistJax in-ear headphones
2. Only open to UK residents, over 18 years old.
3. One entry per person.
4. Promoter reserves right to disqualify any entrant deemed to breach T&Cs.
5. Prize subject to availability and at the discretion of Promoter.
6. Promoter reserves right to cancel/amend prize draw at any time without prior notice, or substitute prize with that of equal/greater value.
7. Prize non transferable.
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9. Taxes, insurances, travel and other expenses unless stated by the Promoter, are winner's sole responsibility.
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