No more uploads allowed to DivX's high-res video sharing site. Content only to be available until Thursday. Sob. Speaketh the announcement:

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed.

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it’s possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.

There's not much there about the storming amount of shamelessly pirated anime and sci-fi shows that everyone actually went there for, but still - a sad day for high quality streaming copyright infringement. At least they could have waited until the current series of Mythbusters was over and...

...I mean... grr. Piracy bad! Grr!

This week has been one of the most frustrating since I started using computers.

It all started badly on Monday, when some hardware in my home system decided to end its life. That being my CPU, motherboard and cooling fan. Never mind, I managed to build a replacement machine by mid-week. Then I had some more problems.

If you change your motherboard, Windows Vista asks you to reactivate. Unlike first activation, where you have a thirty day grace period, you are limited to three days before Vista completely stops working.

For me, this had to be done over the telephone since my Internet connection wasn't working. If you have never had to do this, count yourself lucky. The recorded message first needs you to enter blocks of four numbers via your phone's number keys, then it quotes back a different number, which you really should write down. I copied the number down incorrectly, didnt have the time to retry the process, and the three day period is now up. Time to reinstall again.

I've also had problems with eBay's site. I wanted to update my personal information. I use my webmail for everything nowadays, so it makes sense that all my eBay mail comes to that. But the security restrictions make this as difficult as possible. You have to have a different ID from the one you log in with, which is my webmail address. I had to simply go back to receiving emails on my POP account.

But I also wanted to change my password. Silly me. A bad habit I have is using the same set of passwords for all the websites I use (on the plus side my passwords contain multiple exclamation marks, symbols and numbers, making them pretty secure).

Using one of my memorable secure passwords wasn't possible. It wont allow you to use a password you have used before, and this is frustrating. I have to think up a new one, which I am likely to forget.

This reminds me of another rant I have. Online banking, once a fantasticly easy to use and (imho) secure system is now a pain. Thanks to the authentication device sent to me, whenever I want to access my bank online I have to put my debit card in the slot, it gives you a unique number, which you enter into the page.

What if I lose it? What if I want to access the details on another PC? Why make things so unnecessarily complex? I used to enjoy being able to track expenses online, but now I just dont bother. Again, it does improve security, but I never fell for those phishing emails in the first place.

I've now realised everything would have been fine if I had left it alone.

Futurologists. An elite, invitation only group, where membership requires you to have invented some gadget or technology that has been half decent. Or something.

Once you become a member, for some reason you can make wild and crazy predictions about the future, and rather than being branded a complete nutcase fruitloop like normal; people actually listen.

Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of some amazing synthesizers and all round tech guru, has predicted that machines will achieve human level intelligence by 2029. Thats a pretty specific date. Not 2030. Not 2028. 2029.

There are other predictions in there too, but lets have a look at artificial intelligence for a second. Arguably, we are no closer to artificial 'intelligence' than we were in the 1960s. Everything you ever see in a computer game isn't intelligence. It is merely an illusion, based on pre programmed rules, clever visuals and a very limited concept of learning. IF the player shoots from the left, AND there is cover nearby THEN duck behind it. The bots in most games are not much more advanced than that.

More sophisticated AI isn't in a particularly advanced state either. Remember Arnie in Terminator 2? "My CPU is a Neural Net Processor, a learning computer" Neural Networks, which very roughly model collections of real brain neurons, have not been the holy grail of AI that people might had though in 1991.

There are fundamental differences between the intelligence you can create on a digital computer built out of silicon, and the human brain, with its messy biology. I personally dont think human level intelligence is possible.

On the other hand, one prediction is that flesh and machine will become one. That the future will see computer directly connected to our brains. It sounds wacky, but it might work. "I know kung-fu."

Before that, we have machines that read your brain waves. Hot on the heels of OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator, another company has a similar machine.

Food for thought on a Wednesday methinks. Certainly there will come a time in the near future, where we look at our Mouse and Keyboard and think how primitive it is.

Good.

That is all.

Amazing similarity alert. Sony has just shown off the breathtaking visuals from a forthcoming Playstation 3 game, tentatively titled Afrika. It looks stunning, the graphical and animation realism is of such a high level that my Nan could be convinced it's a real wildlife documentary, perhaps more so with the addition of somw David Attenborough commentary.

Check out this video:

No mention at all of what the game will be like. Then again, with these titles that are meant to show off graphical performance of games platforms, making an enjoyable game becomes a last minute addition.

It reminds me of the film Out Of Africa. It was awarded plenty of Oscars, thanks to the beautiful cinematography, which is what most people remember it for. They probably won't remember the plot or characters. It was the big screen equivalent of saying "aren't these Zebras beautiful". Now here's the game.

If you've ever wanted to try your hand at programming, or know a budding young student looking to cut their teeth on some cool computer projects, we've got just the magazine for you: Code it!

Code it! is a special one-off magazine with 25 unique and fun programming projects for Windows and Linux designed to get everyone programming. We've taken out nearly all the theory so you can focus on getting stuff done, and the magazine is pitched at the beginner level so that even people who have never programmed before can get started. And if you have programmed before, all you need to do is skip past the first few projects until you get up to the right difficulty level for you.

The magazine is split into three primary sections: Desktop, Internet and Games. Each contains several projects that are completely independent of the projects, which means you can dip into them freely depending on what you're most interested in. We've also worked hard to minimise the amount of code required to get results, then scribbled notes onto the pages to explain precisely how things work. Our goal was to make coding as much fun as possible, and we think you'll agree that Code it! is the easiest place to get started!

The magazine comes with a bonus DVD containing the source code of all the projects, as well as a programming toolkit containing tons of software, documentation and some special extra PDFs from previous programming tutorials in Linux Format. Code it! went on sale yesterday (Thursday 7th January), and is exclusive to WHSmith in the UK. A limited number of copies are also being sent worldwide, so if you'd like to buy a copy for yourself or as a gift for a budding programmer you know, you had best place an order soon!

To give you a better idea of how the new magazine looks, we've put three example projects online for you to read: visit www.linuxformat.co.uk/codeit for more information.

Ahem.