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PS3s banned from prisons

Sony’s PlayStation 3 has been banned from prisons over fears that its technology could be used to "send and receive radio signals", John Reid, the Home Secretary said tonight.

The machine, which has wi-fi capabilities as well as the ability to transmit information to Sony’s PlayStation Portable handheld console, was launched in the UK last Friday.

Mr Reid said: "Advice was issued to all prisons in December 2005 that the Sony PlayStation 3 was barred from the prison estate because of the equipment’s ability to send and receive radio signals."

His ruling came as news emerged that Mexican police were giving gangsters games consoles in return for guns in an attempt to pacify the streets of Mexico City.

PS3 launch draws crowd of, er, 65

The PlayStation 3 arrives in most of the world today, and while a 17-year-old South Londoner waits to become the first Briton to own the console, Australians got their hands on the machine an hour and a half ago.

But organisers expecting to deal with thousands of excited gamers at the Myers department store in Sydney were disappointed. Only about 65 people turned up.

Click here for full coverage of the PS3 launch

Nintendo plans web-capable DS

Nintendo DS users will soon be able to access the internet using their games consoles, according to Opera Software, the Norwegian company behind the Opera web browser.

The web-capable version of the device will be launched in the US on June 4, Opera said, although the company was not able to confirm its price.

World of Warcraft: on the rise

World of Warcraft is now bigger than Austria or Switzerland and, were it not made up of mere pixels, would no doubt prove more than a match militarily.

The online game boasts more than 8.5 million subscribers. If it were a country, it would be the 91st largest, fitting into the CIA’s world population table between Rwanda (8.6 million) and Haiti (8.3 million). Austria and Switzerland would be relegated to 93rd and 97th respectively.

Its nearest virtual rival, Second Life, has just under 4.6 million players, putting it in 120th position, between Norway (4.6 million) and Bosnia Herzegovina (4.5 million).

The real world will have to boost birth rates quite spectacularly if it is to compete – World of Warcraft attracted 3.5 million new players in a month with its Burning Crusade edition. Without Malthusian constraints of land and resources, the virtual worlds are likely to continue their ascent of the league table.

8-core Mac Pros: typo or taste of things to come?

Apple may have provided us with an unplanned sneak preview of additions to the Mac Pro range. An entry on Ars Technica's Infinite Loop blog carries a screenshot of search results from the UK Apple Store boasting of Mac Pros with "quad-core or 8-core processing power". The quoted price was unchanged from the £1,699 charged for the quad-core processor versions currently available.

The reference to 8-core machines has been removed from the site at the time of writing and Apple was not immediately able to provide much in the way of enlightenment. A spokeswoman for the company said she could only confirm that no announcement concerning 8-core Mac Pros has yet been made. She promised an update soon.

Banning YouTube won't prevent cyber-bullying

The Australian state of Victoria has banned YouTube from government schools in an attempt to prevent cyber-bullying, after footage of an assault on a 17-year-old girl in Melbourne ended up on the video-sharing website.

Which seems to miss the point rather effectively. YouTube will, of course, continue to exist, as will bullies, and they’ll still be able to bully people, film the bullying and post the footage on the web. They just won’t be able to do it within the walls of government schools.