Slug it out in the Xbox
By MIKE T. LIMPAG
Sun.Star Correspondent

For those who want to defend the force from the evil of the sith, or for those who want to jam it with shaq or fly with kobe or for those who simply want to kill as many people as possible – in the digital world of course – xbox is for you. Xbox, that handy gadget that is Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s Playstation, can be played at - where else - Xbox, located at the second level of Raintree Mall at the corner of Gen. Maxilom Ave. and F.Ramos St. Now in its fifth month of operation, Xbox, which also has 11 desktop units for PC games, is the popular jaunt of students and young professionals eager to test their skills against each other and gamers from other places through the online gaming portal battle.net. Easily their most popular title for the Xbox is NBA live 2003. Ragnarok, MU and Need for Speed Underground are their top PC titles. Xbox charges an affordable P30 for the first hour and P20 for the succeeding hours. For Xbox, they also have Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Clone Wars, Star Wars Starfighter, Medal of Honor, Halo, Mech Assault, Blinx, Xcalibur, Dead or Alive 3, Soul Calibur II, Midtown Madness, Railsport, Fifa 2004, Sega GT 2003. They also have the popular Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Rings, Two Towers and Return of the King as well as Wolverine’s Revenge, Splinter Cell and Enter the Matrix. Kids who want to enjoy any of their four Xbox units can also play Finding Nemo or Dino Crisis in the place. And if you ever get tired or hungry from battling it out with digital demons, they have a snack bar and a lounge chair where you can relax while plotting your Xbox moves or reliving your greatest game. So, what are you waiting for? Master your hand eye coordination and try battling Count Dooku or play one on one with Shaq – just a caution though – they close at 10, which is a little too early for some gamers.

HELSINKI-The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee of Britain, was awarded last week the first Millennium Technology Prize worth one million euros ($1.67 million), the jury said.

“The Web has significantly enhanced many people’s ability to obtain information central to their lives,” Pekka Tarjanne, former secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union and chairman of the award selection committee, said in a statement.

“The Web is encouraging new types of social networks, supporting transparency and democracy, and opening up novel avenues for information management and business development,” Tarjanne said.

Berners-Lee, 48, was born in Britain and is currently director of the World Wide Web Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

With a background in system design in real-time commuications and text-processing software development, he invented the Web while working at CERN, world’s largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.

The web was first made available to the public in 1991.

Berners-Lee created the first server, browser, and protocols central to the operation of the Web: the URL address, HTTP transmission protocol and HTML code. In 2003, he was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his pioneering work.

Finland created the Millennium Technology Prize to recognize international achievements in technology, honoring “outstanding technological achievement specifically directed to the advancement of society and its ability to sustain people’s quality of life.”

Funded by eight public and private Finnish organizations, the prize will be awarded every second year. (AFP)