The toy company Mattel has yet again been hit with a major recall after only two short weeks. The company has made a recall on Chinese-made toys all tainted with lead paint.

On Tuesday, the company defended itself by telling consumers that they have taken a number of safety measures.

“I am disappointed in what has occurred and what has transpired,” Robert Eckert, chairman and CEO of Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, said in an conference call with the media Tuesday.

“No system is perfect,” he said. “We are continuing to test thousands of toys, and we could have additional issues.”

Its seems like Mattel needs to stop talking shortcuts two save a few bucks, when they have now virtually lost millions from the recalls. Due to this big mishap, the company stock fell slightly.
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Microsoft is cutting between $50 – $100 off the price of the Xbox 360 as of today. The version with a 20-gigabyte hard drive will sell for $349, while the basic core system, which does not come with a hard drive, will be $279 which is $20 dollars less. A black version with a 120-gigabyte hard drive and high-definition video support, will drop $50 to $449.

Microsoft reportedly avoided questions about a console price cut since Sony Corp. slashed the price of its 60-gigabyte PlayStation 3 to $499, from $599 (saving $100), in early July. Nintendo Corp.’s Wii, who is the least expensive of all the consoles, costs roughly $250. (more…)

After reading Network World it seems that online gaming isn’t as fair as one would think. There are a number of games users are cheating on such as “World of Warcraft” which users are using bots to manipulate online gaming activity. A new book called “Exploiting Online Games” by Greg Hoglund and Gary McGraw goes into detail and explains how cheaters are winning at online role-playing games against millions of players who compete in the virtual world to win battles or treasures that is sometimes sold later to avid game players for real money.

According to Gary McGraw “World of Warcraft” uses spyware to spy on gamers and so they wrote a program that watches this spyware. Bet you didn’t know that! He states that he’s not writing the guide to teach people how to attack games, but when it all boils down that’s what a few people will end up trying to do. Their main focus was “Word of Warcraft” called WOW by its codename. WOW reportedly represents more than 53% of the market which means million and millions of people are using it. McGraw talks about the many chapters in the book as well as how some scripting engines released by hobbyists are considered cheating and how companies such as Blizzard Entertainment found out about it and prevented it in their end-user licensing agreement [EULA]. So you already know what they did. The company created Warden’ which is a spyware and so McGraw and his partner came back wrote a program called ‘Governor’ watching it watching you. (more…)

According to reports, the U.S. government has selected 29 companies, including AT&T, IBM and EDS, for its massive 10-year, $50 billion IT services deal known as Alliant.

One of the network service provider that didn’t make it was Verizon Business, which bid on Alliant but wasn’t awarded a contract.

The 29 companies were reportedly chosen from a field of 66 with another group of small companies being eligible for different section of the Alliant project that will be worth an additional US$15 billion. (more…)

Cleveland native, Drew Carey will replace Bob Barker as the new host of The Price Is Right. Drew Carey announced the news during the taping of the The Late Show with David Letterman, which aired on last night. The previous host Bob Barker retired after an exciting 35 years. Who would have ever thought the silver haired Bob Barker would have ever retired?

Well, Drew Carey got the good news 15 minutes before he went on stage to do the interview with Letterman. (more…)

Although the movie “Transformers” was a big hit or rather the biggest hit at the theaters and the US. Box Office grossing over $150 million making it the top movie, it doesn’t seem like the game version will do the same. Gaming conglomerate website IGN, ranked “Transformers: The Game” a barely passable grade of 6 out of 10.

The game received a 7.0 for presentation, a 7.5 for graphics, 6.5 sound, 5.5 gameplay and a 5.5 for lasting appeal.
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