Saturday, September 29, 2007

After the launch of “Halo 3” on Tuesday (September 25), Microsoft promoted a brand new Xbox360 racing game “Project Gotham Racing 4” (PGR4) with a friendship match as a “TOP on TOP” competition between Taiwanese World Cyber Games (WCG) PGR3 Delegate You-cheng Liu and “Drift Master of Taiwan” Po-hsiung Chou at YAMAHA MotorTown in Taipei City, Taiwan.

Before the friendship match, Cary Chen (Senior Product Marketing Manager of Entertainment and Device Division, Microsoft Taiwan) show the new features on PGR4 to the press, VIPs, and guests and praised the “PGR” game series with the “Kudos” skill points. He remarked that in the “PGR4”, not only joined new car type and racing motorcycles, but also add Dynamic Weather System feature for the performance of new different type experiences on weathers, driving, and racing lane.

Chen also remarked that PGR series is surely respected because of the racing game competition factor on WCG from 2006. This “PGR” series can realize lots of dreams of players on making some special skills which can’t be done on reality. With the Xbox Live linking, PGR series has successfully made a great achievement.

After the presentation and demos, Microsoft Taiwan held a friendship match. Before the match, Y. C. Liu welcomed P. H. Chou with Chou drove a BMW car to the main entrance. After the entrance, the match started. With the witnesses of VIPs, press, and players, Liu won the friendship match by the turning fault of Chou. Even though Chou wanted to invite Live as a racer in reality after the match, but Liu temporarily declined with his consideration.

Microsoft Taiwan announced that the Chinese Version of “PGR4” will be available on October 5, and welcomed players competing with “I want ‘PGR4’ Helmet!” photo competition. And also, “Yamaha PGR4 Cup – Taiwan Driving Master Championship” will be held and set qualification section in October and final section in December of Information Month in Taipei.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Residents in the city of Port Harcourt said that Nigerian troops burnt down hundreds of slum dwellings, allegedly as reprisal after an Army sergeant was killed in Thursday’s abduction of oil workers in the area.

Residents told news agencies that troops poured petrol over slum houses located near a compound belonging to Saipem, a subsidiary of Italian oil company Eni, and set them alight. The fires have reportedly destroyed hundreds of homes and shops and hundreds of people are said to have fled from the area. On Friday, people returning to the area and onlookers were chased away by soldiers.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Army Brigadier General Samuel Salihu denied that Nigerian troops were responsible for the arson. He said that militants active in the area had set the fires, wearing Army camouflage.

On Thursday, oil workers were kidnapped from a bar near the slums by armed men who shot dead an Army soldier guarding the workers, and injured another soldier. Nigerian military sources said at least two foreign oil workers were missing, one of them, Italian. The Italian foreign ministry, though, said that three foreigners were missing.

The oil-rich Niger Delta region has witnessed a spate of kidnappings recently. Nineteen people were held captive in eight separate abductions this month. All but three of them have been released since, some after the state government and the oil companies paid a ransom.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a militant group which has taken hostages and attacked oil facilities, but says it does not kidnap for ransom, said in a statement that it the state government has encouraged such abductions by paying ransoms.

Last week, as part of a tougher line adopted by the Nigerian government, President Obasanjo sent in the Army, with orders to use “force for force” against militants in the region. Over 160 people were taken into custody in a two day crackdown, including over 100 from a nearby slum, but most have been released since then.

The BBC’s Alex Last reports that local leaders and oil companies are concerned that this new tough policy will increase tensions in the region.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

On Saturday, Italy won its third victory at the Eurovision Song Competition, held this year at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Italian rock band Måneskin’s song Zitti E Buoni won 524 points from public and professional judges. French singer Barbara Pravi’s song Voilà received 499 points, and Swiss singer Gjon’s Tears Tout l’univers got 432 points; finishing second and third respectively.

Out of 39 countries participating this time, 26 countries including hosts Netherlands and the Big Five — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom — competed in the finals. The competition began on May 18. Three of the Big Five, and the hosts finished at the very bottom of the vote ranking. Netherlands got 11, Spain got six, Germany bagged three and the UK received zero points. All four received zero points from the audience.

Dutch singer Duncan Laurence won the 2019 edition of Eurovision in Tel Aviv winning 498 points for his song Arcade. That victory meant Netherlands was to host the competition 2020, which was cancelled because of “escalating spread of COVID-19 throughout Europe”. This year, 3500 people were in audience, multiple reports stated. They all were tested negative to be eligible for attending the event, Eurovision stated.

Iceland’s Daði Freyr could not perform live in both semi-finals and the final, having tested positive of the virus. A pre-recorded performance of Daði og Gagnamagnið was played, which finished fourth, receiving 378 points, 12 more than Ukrainian singer Go_A’s song Shum.

Switzerland finished at top, during the jury voting, receiving 267 points. France finished second during the national jury voting with 248 points. During the jury voting, when France and Switzerland were very close to each other, Pravi said, “I think it is crazy that two French songs are on the top, thank you!”

National juries of both Switzerland and the UK awarded 12 points to France. Pravi uttered “Merci!” ^{((fr))French language: ?Thank you!}, clapped and blew a kiss towards the Swiss team, upon receiving 12 points from the Swiss jury.

Italy received 318 points from the audience, putting them on top. That sufficed them to win the competition. Upon winning, Måneskin’s lead vocalist Damiano David said, “We just want to say to the whole Europe, to the whole world, rock and roll never dies.”

As the winner of this year’s competition, Italy is to host next year’s Eurovision Song Competition. Italy had previously won Eurovision in 1990. Måneskin is the first band to win the competition since 2006, the BBC noted.

[edit]