Thousands of people around the world queued into the night to get hold of the latest expansion for World of Warcraft (WoW).
The expansion, called Cataclysm, is the first for two years and makes big changes to the game.
The expansion re-makes the world in which WoW is set and rips up the geography of many familiar places.
It also introduces two new races to the game, increases the level cap and makes many other changes.
Shops around the world stayed open at midnight on 6 December to let eager players get their hands on Cataclysm. In Germany the MediaMarkt shop in Berlin ran a competition for the best WoW-themed costume worn by those queuing outside the store.
The Cataclysm expansion revolves around the emergence into Azeroth, the world in which WoW is set, of Deathwing the dragon. The seismic activity accompanying his emergence causes changes to almost every part of the game world.
Many of the geographical changes to Azeroth have already been applied to the game via a patch applied in late November. The expansion pack lets subscribers create worgen (wolfmen) and goblin characters. The level cap for players is also increased to 85 from 80.
Alongside the geographic changes go many alterations to the quests players must do to progress to higher levels. Many are themed around helping regions recover from the devastation wrought by Deathwing.
"Cataclysm is probably a far bigger deal for Warcraft-makers Blizzard than they're letting on," said journalist Alec Meer who writes for the Rock Paper Shotgun gaming blog.
"It's about transforming the World of Warcraft from something that could arguably be seen as winding down back into very much a going concern," he said.
Mr Meer said the expansion "rebooted, reimagined and reinvigorated" the many zones in the game in a bid to make it appealing to both veterans and new players.
"If Blizzard's plan works, the bulk of the game's population will spend the next few months adventuring through fresh-but-familiar lands together," he said, "making Cataclysm quite the opposite of what its apocalyptic title implies: a rebirth for the world's most successful videogame, and for its community."
6 December 2010Last updated at 11:03 ETBy Jonathan FildesTechnology reporter, BBC News
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Google has made its second bid for a slice of the mobile phone market, with the launch of its Nexus S phone.
The Samsung-built device comes less than 12 months after the launch of the firm's Nexus One, built by HTC, which failed to win over many consumers.
The Nexus S will initially be launched in the UK and US, and will be available "from the end of the month".
It is the first phone to feature the latest version of Google's Android operating system known as Gingerbread.
It also comes with new hardware such as Near Field Communications (NFC).
This short-range wireless technology is used predominantly in places like Japan and allows people to use their phone as a travel ticket, make small payments and scan their phone over adverts, for example, to get more information about a product.
"NFC allows the Nexus S to read smart objects" said David Burke of Google's mobile division.
These objects must have a small, unpowered NFC chip in them that is activated when the phone is held near.
"When you put the phone on top, it energises the circuit," explained Mr Burke. "It can echo information back to the phone and the phone can send information to the chip.
"So, you can swipe a movie poster and watch the trailer automatically," he said.
NFC is a growing trend in mobiles and will start to become more pervasive in the New Year, said Shaun Collins, managing director of research firm CCS Insight.
"NFC is going to be the technology of 2011, in my opinion," he told BBC News. "Most of the BlackBerries will have it and a big swathe of mid to high-level Nokias will have it."
The next version of the iPhone is also rumoured to contain the technology.
Net calls
The Nexus S was first shown off by Google boss Eric Schmidt at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco in November.
The 16GB, touchscreen device has been built in cooperation with Samsung and is part of its Galaxy S family of phones and tablets.
Mr Collins said it would compete with other "flagship devices" such as Nokia's N8, the BlackBerry Torch and the HTC Desire HD.
In the US, one in four searches done on Android devices is done with voice"
End QuoteDavid Burke
"This is great news for Samsung," said Mr Collins. "It becomes the de-facto flagship product for Android."
The search giant dismissed claims that it was showing any favouritism towards Samsung or that it was going into competition with other handset manufacturers that produce phones using Android.
"Our objective is not to compete with partners," said Mr Burke. "Our goal is to push the mobile ecosystem forward."
Mr Collins said that Samsung's window of opportunity with the device was small.
The phone claims to have the "world's first" 4in (10cm) curved display and has front and rear-facing cameras.
Inside it has the same processor as the Nexus One, but with increased memory bandwidth to make it more responsive, according to Mr Burke.
The phone is also the first handset to introduce the latest version of Android - known as Gingerbread.
The software is the fifth major revision of the firm's software and will be rolled out to most Android phones in the "coming weeks or months", said Mr Burke.
It includes a new user interface, support for new hardware such as gyroscope - used for gaming, for example, and internet calling.
This allows anyone to set up a VOIP account that can be used to place and receive calls over the internet.
The phone can be configured to use this feature as soon as it is in range of a wi-fi hotspot, allowing people to by pass the network operators.
Mr Burke said that he didn't expect any resistance to this feature from the networks, particularly as many of them customise the android software and could " remove the feature if they want to".
Phone promise
The phone also has a greater emphasis on voice control.
"In the US, one in four searches done on Android devices is done with voice," said Mr Burke.
The phone comes with existing software that allows people to control navigation on the phone with their voice as well as conduct searches.
A new set of commands also allows people to send text messages, e-mails and set alarms on their phone, amongst other things.
These will initially only be available in the US, whilst the firm build the voice models needed for its software to cope with other regional accents.
The phone will initially offered for sale by Carphone Warehouse in the UK and Best Buy in the US. It will not have its own Google web store like the Nexus One, which was shut after less than 5 months after Google admitted that it "remained a niche channel for early adopters".
"That didn't work out for Google," said Mr Collins. "But Carphone Warehouse is a different ball game - they have the distribution, brand and presence."
Mr Collins said that Carphone Warehouse was "setting themselves up as the place to go to for Android".
"They see that the operating system is increasingly becoming the differentiating factor for consumers and they are aligning themselves with Android," he said.
Mr Burke admitted the firm was "going for volume" by partnering with Carphone Warehouse.
In the UK, the Nexus S will come free with �35 per month contracts or will be offered unlocked - to be used on any carrier - for �549.
The Google blog said it would be available after 16 December in the US and 20 December in the UK.
However, a spokesperson for Carphone Warehouse said that it would take pre-orders from 1600 GMT today, but it would not be on sale "until later in the month".
The firm said it was still negotiating contracts with "all of the UK operators" and could not say when a phone ordered today would be delivered.
"We don't want to promise anything to customers that we can't deliver," she said.
7 December 2010Last updated at 02:44 ETBy Tim WeberBusiness editor, BBC News website
Widespread adoption of cloud computing could give the top five EU economies a 763bn-euro (�645bn; $1tn) boost over five years, a report has said.
The CEBR said it could also create 2.4m jobs. The technology gives software and computing power on demand over the net.
But experts warn that cloud computing can be very disruptive to business, and companies could end up "disillusioned".
"Nothing kills a new technology better than a poor user experience," said Damian Saunders of Citrix.
The report, by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), was commissioned by EMC, a data storage and IT solutions firm that provides cloud computing services. The company is just one of many pushing into the sector, all saying that 2011 will be the year of the cloud, when the technology will find mainstream adoption.
When a company uses cloud computing, it does not build all IT infrastructure by itself. Instead, it rents storage, computing power or software services from other companies. The services are accessed via the internet, which in network diagrams is shown as a cloud, hence the name.
The cloud turns information technology into a utility, consumed like electricity or outsourced payroll services, says Chuck Hollis, EMC's chief technology officer.
However, moving IT services to the cloud is more than just a technical upgrade. "Moving to the cloud is a cultural shift as well as a technology shift," warns Dave Coplin, until recently national technology officer at Microsoft UK. "The cloud is a tool, it's an enabler, but you have to think about the outcome: what is it that you are trying to do?"
Biggest winners
Cloud computing does indeed help companies drive down IT costs; studies by technology analysts such as Nucleus Research have shown that using the cloud sharply cuts the energy used by computing. Cloud computing also makes it easier to use fewer computers to do the same amount of IT work, while the workload itself can be scaled up or down at an instant.
The CEBR report suggests that the rapid uptake of "cloud computing service offerings [will make them] progressively cheaper as economies of scale take hold and service offerings increasingly mature".
The authors of the CEBR study acknowledge that their estimates depend on numerous assumptions and uncertainties, but they forecast that by 2015 the European Union's top five economies - Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain - could get an annual boost of 177bn euro, and create net new jobs of 466,000 a year.
The UK is the only country to show a disproportionately smaller share of the cloud computing benefits than the size of its economy might suggest."
End QuoteCEBR
The biggest winner in absolute numbers could be Germany, followed by the UK. However, if the gains are measured in relation to the size of the economy, Spain comes out on top while the UK comes bottom as "the only country to show a disproportionately smaller share of the cloud computing benefits than the size of its economy might suggest," the authors of the CEBR report say.
Cloud disruption
While the cloud is "a really cheap place to do business," according to Microsoft's Dave Coplin, it forces companies to change their IT culture and learn that it comes at a price. "People lose full control and flexibility, but get scalability and power in return," he says.
Damian Saunders, in charge of the data centre and cloud group at software company Citrix, says there are four key drivers that are now accelerating the rate of cloud adoption.
For starters, technology has improved, with better connectivity, higher internet speeds and virtualisation technologies that allow the more efficient use of servers. Then there are new business models, with companies not charging a big lump sum per software licence but on an "as-you-consume" basis.
Nothing kills the successful adoption of new technology better than a poor user experience."
End QuoteDamian SaundersCitrix
Consumerisation of IT is another driver. Mr Saunders calls it the "IT civil war" whereby every January "employees get a gadget for Christmas and then take it to work and don't understand why they can't use it". The move towards mobile computing, he says, is also driving the move towards cloud computing, which in turn is giving companies a competitive edge.
Arguably the biggest driver is the state of the economy. Cloud computing allows companies to invest in growth while spreading the cost. Instead of a big up-front costs, IT investment becomes a continuing operating expenditure that rises and falls with demand.
Until recently, says Mr Saunders, the risks of cloud computing "always overwhelmed the potential reward". This has changed now, he says, but also warns that "cloud is just reaching the peak of hype" that will soon end in disillusionment for those not prepared for the disruption it brings.
Echoing Mr Coplin's warnings about a cultural shift, Mr Saunders says companies will have to learn that "cloud computing will never replace everything that went on before". Companies will have to work hard to make cloud computing user-friendly, because "nothing kills the successful adoption of new technology better than a poor user experience".
And if companies get their roll-out of cloud solutions wrong, then all the optimistic forecasts - whether from the CEBR or others - will come to nought.
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