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Assassin's Creed was one of the most innovative games of 2007, showcasing a unique type of stealth gameplay in which you played an ancient assassin during the Crusades at the beginning of the 1100s in the Middle East. But, sadly, what it gained with scenery and innovation it lost with the repetitive missions and the somewhat stupid deaths.

We've already heard Ubisoft announce its sequel and, thanks to the teaser campaign created by the company, we’ve received confirmation that the game will be set in Italy during the 1400s, with the player wearing the hooded cape of Ezio, a nobleman of Florence who was betrayed by the influential families that were ruling the country at that time.

US videogame sales slump in March
(AFP) -

AFP - US videogame sales fell 17 percent in March as the industry failed to escape the economic slowdown, according to figures released by the market research firm NPD Group.

Videogame sales dropped to 1.43 billion dollars in March from 1.72 billion dollars in the same month last year, NPD said. Videogame software and videogame hardware sales were equally affected, according to the figures released by NPD on Thursday. Videogame software sales fell 17 percent to 792.8 million dollars while videogame hardware sales declined by 18 percent to 455.5 million dollars.

In an Interview AMD's John Swinimer, public relations manager for the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker, told a couple of interesting facts about some of the company's upcoming products, including the much anticipated APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) such as AMD LIANO. Thanks to the details that Mr. Swinimer provided  with, we now know that AMD plans to unveil its first APUs sometime in 2011.

Also, according to a number of recently leaked slides of the company's notebook platforms, the 2011 APUs will also offer users support for Microsoft's upcoming API (Application Programming Interface), DirectX 11. According to the details that have recently been made available on the English version of Expreview, AMD's 2009, 2010 and 2011 notebook platform roadmap includes the Tigris, the Danube and the Sabine, respectively. From the three, Sabine will be the first to boast an AMD APU, codenamed “Llano”.

The AMD “Llano” APU will sport a processing unit with up to 4 cores, an integrated graphics processing unit, as well as support for DDR3-1600MHz memory, and it will be manufactured using 32nm processing technology. The APU will be coupled with AMD's new chipset SB9xxM, which will boast support for USB 3.0, 16 USB ports, 6 SATA ports, RAID and AMD's next-generation discrete notebook GPU.

Conficker worm hits University of Utah computers
(AP) - AP - University of Utah officials say a computer virus has infected more than 700 campus computers, including those at the school's three hospitals. [Technology News]

University health sciences spokesman Chris Nelson said the outbreak of the Conficker worm, which can slow computers and steal personal information, was first detected Thursday. By Friday, the virus had infiltrated computers at the hospitals, medical school, and colleges of nursing, pharmacy and health.

What is Conficker

Conficker is a newly spread computer worm that targets Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. It was first detected in October 2008. Conficker is also known as Kido, Downup or Downadup. This worm is extremelt difficult for security and network operators to detect and counter because it uses a combination of unique and very advanced computer malware techniques that have never been seen before.

Operating Systems Vulnerable by Conficker:

• Windows 2000
• Windows XP SP1
• Windows XP SP2
• Windows XP SP3
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2000
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2008

Effects of this worm were supposed to be started on April 1st by some experts but it did'nt happen.but now the dreaded Conficker computer worm is stirring. Security experts say the worm's authors appear to be trying to build a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction as many people feared.

As many as 12 million computers have been infected by Conficker. Security firm Trend Micro says some of the machines have been updated over the past few days with fake antivirus software — the first attempt by Conficker's authors to profit from their massive "botnet."

Criminals use bogus security software to extort money. Victims are told their computers are infected, and can be fixed only by paying for a clean-up that never happens. Conficker gets on computers through a hole Microsoft patched in October.

Details of Conficker Computer Worm