The majestic Strongholds of King Arthur – The Role-playing Wargame are the magic castles of the legends, now reborn in Britannia; the cities of wonders that wizards used to summon out of thin air during one night. 

There are only a handful of locations where it is possible to build a Stronghold. They used to be the palaces of gods and kings in the ancient times, but they had been destroyed. But now, as the tides of wonder sweep over Britannia again, the time is right to restore these colossal keeps… because in a Stronghold everything is possible. 

In King Arthur, Strongholds are the centers for development and research – and also huge, beautiful battlegrounds. These mythical medieval cities offer almost unrestricted construction possibilities and a diversified tech tree. The first of the Strongholds will be the legendary Camelot. 

All Strongholds are unique, and as the number of available strongholds is limited, the management never becomes a boring routine. Each Stronghold could specialize to serve a different purpose, like a centre for economic growth, the focus of religion, education or the training of heroes. The development of the realm also takes place here, with the constructions and the nuances of the Chancellery, like setting taxes, passing laws and doing global research into magic or technology.

You will also have to conquer other Strongholds. These special battles take place on spectacular battlemaps: you will have to fight your way through a living, sprawling city, between unique medieval buildings, through the twisting alleys and huge plazas to the key locations, the cathedrals, towers and keeps.

Find more details on:

www.kingarthurthewargame.com

www.neocoregames.com

WD® Opens the Time Capsule Project
A 12-month global initiative to ‘save’ our world

Sydney, Australia – November 9 2009 – WD®, a world leader in the storage industry, today announced the opening of the ‘Time Capsule Project’ – a special initiative designed to capture the moments of our time and safely store them on a WD hard drive for future generations to see.

The time capsule is a long-held tradition as a way to preserve our precious memories for the next generation to experience at a special time and place. In today’s fast-paced modern society and with advancements in digital technologies and storage capacities, the time capsule tradition has evolved into digital preservation of our memories. The WD Time Capsule storage device – today’s modern-day time capsule – will take the form of a massive 2 Terabyte WD Caviar® Green™ hard drive.

What is the WD Time Capsule Project? (www.wdtimecapsule.com)
The WD Time Capsule Project is a call out to everyday people, communities, towns, cities and countries to submit memories they would like to preserve by visiting www.wdtimecapsule.com – be they photos of a first car, graduation ceremony, a group photo of lifelong friends, a black and white photo of one’s grandparents, a magical moment among families, a photo of an endangered species or images of an environmentally friendly initiative in a bustling metropolis. For anyone wanting to preserve a memory in the WD Time Capsule for our next generation to experience, this is a unique opportunity.

The new WD Time Capsule website www.wdtimecapsule.com is designed to do one thing – “save” our world. Preserving photos from people from all walks of life, it is WD’s intention to capture a collection of people’s time-stopping memories, an exercise spanning only one year. Each month, a social theme will be set as an inspiration for creative minds to participate. The launch theme this month is ‘Your Small Contributions to Saving the Environment.’ To kick off the project, WD’s Tod Yagi, Senior Manager, Worldwide Channel Marketing, Component Hard Drive Business Unit, will be the first person to upload pictures to the WD Time Capsule.

 “The Time Capsule project is important for WD. It gives us an opportunity to demonstrate to our customers, colleagues and friends the importance of backing up valuable memories. We want to encourage people to notice the important social trends happening around us, and use this opportunity to record and preserve into history the world as they see it in 2009,” Tod Yagi explains.  “The greater participation in the Time Capsule project, the better we capture a special glimpse of our world and impart unique perspectives for the benefit of our current and future generations. I will be the first person to participate to the WD Time Capsule.”

Participate and Win Monthly Prizes
The WD Time Capsule Project is open for a one-year period and will offer citizens a variety of monthly themes for inspiration. Participants automatically are entered into a monthly drawing with the opportunity to win special prizes. Highlights of saved images will be showcased in a photo ticker on the site throughout the year as an example to others.

To use WD’s Time Capsule, users simply:
1) Visit www.wdtimecapsule.com;
2) Create a simple account using the registration form;
3) Upload as many photos as they wish based on the monthly theme into the WD Time Capsule; and
4) Go into the monthly draw with the chance to win amazing prizes.

Why WD launched the Time Capsule Project?
Wikepedia.org: “a time capsule is a historic cache of goods and/or information, usually intended as a method of communication with people in the future. Time capsules are sometimes created and buried during celebrations such as a World Fair, cornerstone laying for a building, or at other events. The phrase “time capsule” has been in use since about 1939.”1

Fast forward, WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, recognises the importance of people’s data and is committed to protecting that data and memories with exceptionally reliable products, advanced data protection technologies and superior customer support.

The WD Time Capsule Project – “Save Your World” – demonstrates the growing storage capacities and reliability of its hard drives and how this affects our everyday lives. Every photo that individuals upload will be stored in WD’s 2 TB WD Caviar Green hard drive. After one year, the WD Time Capsule Project will be closed. But memories will live on securely and safely and will be shared with the world and our future generations. The WD Time Capsule will be stored for safe keeping in Australia.

About WD
WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss. Its advanced technologies are configured into applications for client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own consumer storage and media products. WD was founded in 1970. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital® and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

SYDNEY— November 09, 2009 — Continuing its commitment to helping people preserve, protect and enjoy their digital content, Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) today introduced a new backup appliance that completely eliminates the need to manually learn, manage, or dedicate any time to the backup process. Unlike most backup utilities, the new Seagate^® Replica™ backup appliance is a complete PC backup system, which automatically and continuously stores up-to-date copies of everything on a PC, including installed applications, operating system, e-mail, pictures, music, movies, Internet bookmarks and settings. Available in two configurations, the Seagate Replica solution delivers seamless backup for either a single PC or multiple PCs in a household. 

“The computer continues to become an indispensable family tool for homework, e-mail, storing digital photos and downloading Internet videos,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. “As consumers today continue to amass increasing volumes of digital content, having an easy, time-efficient way to backup computers in the home will become an imperative.”

The multi-PC version of Seagate Replica backup appliance includes a dock and is available for homes with two or more PCs for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $179 AUD and $199 NZD. A single-PC version of the Seagate Replica is recommended for use with individual laptop or desktop computers and is available for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $119 AUD and $149 NZD. Seagate Replica Backup System is available now in Australia and New Zealand through channel partners and select retailers. Please check Seagate.com/replica for more details.  

Protecting digital assets and memories is important, but life is also increasingly busy. Research by Parks Associates indicates that one-third of consumers do not currently backup the content on their PCs, and of those that do backup, do so rarely because of the daunting, labour-and time-intensive task of burning CDs/DVDs or manually dragging-and-dropping individual files to flash drives. Some people simply don’t remember to backup their digital content. The Seagate Replica backup appliance breaks down these barriers by eliminating the effort – no lengthy installation, scheduling or drag-and-drop is required. With the Seagate Replica solution there is no need to spend time rifling through countless files, photos and folders to determine what has been or still needs to be saved; simply connect a single USB cable, click OK to the software license and the entire PC is backed up not just individual files and folders. After this simple action of accepting the software license, the Replica Backup System continues to run behind-the-scenes, so that no further interaction with the application is required. Additionally, when the Replica backup appliance is left connected to the computer, it will perform a continuous and complete backup of everything so the computer is not left vulnerable between backup events as it would be with scheduled software. 

“While people continue to amass digital content, many still don’t understand the importance of backing up their libraries of personal memories, or they don’t take the time,” says BanSeng Teh, vice president and managing director of Seagate Asia Pacific and Japan. “Our goal is to deliver solutions that provide thorough backup protection yet are easy to use, time-efficient and simple to understand, and the Seagate Replica is about as easy as it gets.” 

Digital Life Insurance

Industry research estimates that a computer system crashes every 15 seconds and one out of five computers loses data as a result of a virus or crash. With the Seagate Replica, people no longer need to shed tears over lost files or valued family photos as a result of a computer failure or virus. Using the Replica backup system, people can now easily restore the entire contents of their PC, without having to spend countless hours manually installing applications and copying files, or hunting through stacks of CDs, flash drives and DVDs in the hope of finding all of their backed up files. Additionally, if a file is accidentally deleted, it can be easily retrieved. There is no complicated software or new user interface to learn.    

For Additional Product Information and Related Multimedia Content:

http://www.seagate.com

http://media.seagate.com/

http://seagate.mediaseed.tv/ 

To Subscribe to Seagate Technology’s RSS Feeds:

Entire Seagate Blog:  http://media.seagate.com/feed

News Center:  http://media.seagate.com/center/newscenter/feed

Media Coverage:  http://media.seagate.com/center/media-coverage/feed

Videos:  http://media.seagate.com/center/videos/feed 

More detailed information about the Seagate Replica backup appliance can be found at www.seagate.com/replica. 

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com 

Copyright 2009. Seagate Technology LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Seagate, Seagate Technology, and the Wave logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Replica is either a trademark or registered trademark of Seagate Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to hard drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes. Your computer’s operating player may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available for data storage. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.

ZiiLABS, a pioneering media processor and platforms company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd. today announced, the ZMS-08, its 3rd generation media-rich applications processor that brings 1080p Blu-ray quality H.264 decode to low-power devices. Delivering more than four times the performance of previous generation devices, the ZMS-08 combines the flexible multi-format media processing capabilities of ZiiLABS’ StemCell Computing array with an 1GHz ARM® Cortex™ processor to deliver the low-power, high performance media-rich processing required of next-generation connected devices such as web tablets, netbooks, connected TVs, video conferencing systems and home media hubs.

Blu-ray Quality Handheld Media Processor

New ZMS-08 StemCell Processor Offers Faster, Lower-Power Single Chip Solution for Full H.264 HD 1080p Video Playback, 720p Video Conferencing, 1080p Encode, OpenGL ES 2.0, X-Fi Audio and 1GHz ARM Cortex Application Acceleration

Singapore – 9 November 2009 – ZiiLABS, a pioneering media processor and platforms company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd. today announced, the ZMS-08, its 3rd generation media-rich applications processor that brings 1080p Blu-ray quality H.264 decode to low-power devices. Delivering more than four times the performance of previous generation devices, the ZMS-08 combines the flexible multi-format media processing capabilities of ZiiLABS’ StemCell Computing array with an 1GHz ARM® Cortex™ processor to deliver the low-power, high performance media-rich processing required of next-generation connected devices such as web tablets, netbooks, connected TVs, video conferencing systems and home media hubs.

Availability

The ZMS-08 is sampling to certain customers now and is scheduled for volume shipment in the 1st quarter of 2010. The chip is housed in a 13x13mm, 424-pin FBGA package.

Learn more about ZiiLABS at: www.ziilabs.com

Aion, the biggest MMORPG of the year, is bound to appear on several wish lists this holiday season thanks to its blend of rich storylines, state of the art graphics and robust community. At a time when entertainment costs are still rising, the value of an MMORPG gift this season can’t be denied. For the price of one videogame, Aion delivers hundreds of hours of entertainment to players who will work side-by-side with thousands of others in a quest to save Atreia – a world that has literally sundered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. 

In celebration of the game’s success this year, QVS and NCsoft are rewarding those who purchase Aion this holiday season from participating retailers with the Aion Holiday Ascension Pack, a variety of exclusive in-game character enhancements that are perfect holiday gifts for players of all ages. 

The Aion Holiday Ascension Pack includes these exclusive in-game characters items:

• Special Dyes for customizing your character’s appearance
  • Australia/NZ – Green Dye
  • Lesser Life Potions (20)
  • Lodas’s Amulet (15)
  • Lesser Running Scroll (15) 

Along with gifting Aion, NCsoft Game Time Cards are great stocking fillers, opening up the world of gaming with 60 additional days of game time. 

Unlike any other MMO on the market, Aion introduces flight as a core experience of the game allowing millions of players across the world to take to the skies to fight, quest and explore. And since Aion was built with an award-winning graphics engine, its visuals are completely immersive and second to none when it comes to online games. Coupled with the most robust character creator of any game, players are able to make Aion their own as they create genuinely unique characters and explore the world of Atreia. 

For more information on Aion or game Time Cards, screen shots, please visit aion.qvsoftware.com.au

King Arthur – The Role-playing Wargame” release date is set to 24th November 2009

SEGA Australia is proud to announce an exclusive pre-order offer for consumers in Australia and New Zealand. When pre-ordering the special Bayonetta™: Climax Edition at selected retailers, consumers will receive a very limited custom built replica of the Scarborough Fair, Bayonetta’s beloved pistol which she has strapped to her hands and feet. 

Bayonetta: Climax Edition comes in premium slipcase packaging and features the Bayonetta game, as well as a 36 page hardcover art book and CD soundtrack featuring music from the video game.

The Climax Edition and the Scarborough Fair Gun offer is strictly limited in numbers, so we advise consumers to pre-order early to avoid missing out. 

Bayonetta was released in Japan last week, where it rocketed up the #1 spot; and will be released on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, in Australia and New Zealand on January 7^th 2010.

Infinity Ward’s Highly-Anticipated Game Now Available Worldwide 

Sydney – November 10, 2009 – It’s time to gear up for all-out, high-speed action and epic combat, as  Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that the most anticipated game of the year, developer Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is now available at retail stores everywhere.  Following a number of midnight store openings, Modern Warfare 2 has begun to unleash a new threat upon the world, putting gamers on the front lines of an epic, global battle that has advanced onto American soil, proving that no one is safe from an impending invasion. 

“From day one the goal was to bring our fans around the world the most riveting and authentic experience we’ve ever created in Modern Warfare 2,” said Vince Zampella, CEO of Infinity Ward.  “Every design from the smallest detail was crafted to place gamers in the centre of their own epic, action movie – with the suspense, excitement and adrenaline as if they were starring themselves.” 

Following an unprecedented number of pre-order reservations across the globe, the sequel to the best selling first person action game in history kicked-off its worldwide invasion earlier today with a series of midnight celebrations from Sydney to London, Paris to New York.  

Picking up following the historic events of Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare®, Modern Warfare 2 completely immerses players in one of the most intense storylines, filled with unexpected plot twists and death-defying battles set in exotic locales across the globe.  As gamers fight to save the world from annihilation, the soundtrack of Academy Award®, Golden Globe® Award, Grammy® Award and Tony winning composer Hans Zimmer sets the dark and ominous tone for a truly cinematic gaming experience.  Modern Warfare 2 marks the first time that the legendary artist has scored a video game. 

Delivering the complete package, in addition to the heart-racing intensity of the single player campaign, Modern Warfare 2 also offers an entirely new gameplay mode, “Special Ops,” which supports 2-player co-operative play via online or split screen dropping gamers into a surplus of time-trial and objective-based missions.  As players rank-up, ever challenging missions are unlocked, including highlights from the single player campaign, fan favourites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and all new, exclusive missions.  While, the all-new Multiplayer mode raises the bar even higher from the world-record setting online play from its predecessor delivering new capabilities, customization, gamestates and modes, including customizable killstreaks, accolades and new create-a-class features. 

Modern Warfare 2 is rated “MA 15+” Strong Violence by the Classification Board and is available now for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Windows® PC.  

Gamers have numerous options to enhance the Modern Warfare 2 experience with the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Console featuring a 250GB hard drive, Xbox 360 headset, two wireless controllers and a standard edition copy of the game.  Also available now for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation®3 system are the Modern Warfare 2 Collector’s Edition packages, including the Hardened Edition, which contains a token to download Call of Duty® Classic, a limited edition SteelBook™ case and the “Behind the Lines” collector’s artbook, and the individually numbered, one-time only limited quantity Prestige Edition, which includes the Hardened Edition plus a pair of fully functioning night vision goggles and an individually numbered “Soap MacTavish” night vision goggles collectors’ stand. 

Also available today for Nintendo DS™ is Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®: Mobilized.  Developed exclusively by n-Space, the DS title delivers a unique storyline and an arsenal of handheld features.  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized is rated “M” by the Classification Board.  

Additionally, for Wii™ fans Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® Reflex Edition is also now available. A port by Treyarch of the record-setting and award-winning, original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the title is rated “MA15+” Strong Violence by the Classification Board 

Modern Warfare 2 press kit assets are available for download at http://www.activision.com/index.html#presscenter|en_US. Players anxious to answer the call can visit www.modernwarfare2.com for more information and updates.