1) Torrent website Pirate Bay has listed a new category on their website entitled Physibles. The new category encompasses and promotes the next stage in the evolution of printing. It offers you designs to download for a 3D printer. The site administrators believe in the concept of sharing these designs as indicated by their statement below.

“We believe that things like three-dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.”

The current list is fairly small. If this is your kind of thing then Shapeways and Thingiverse are two websites which contain hundreds of designs and can get them delivered to your door for a price. Both sites also accept custom designs which you may want printed. Most designs are novelty at the moment although I do see Pirate Bay’s vision coming true in the near future.

2) Google + now allows users to add a nickname to their profile if they do not wish to display their full name. On the contrary it may be Google’s way of getting you to expose your online alias to locate more information about you. The giant corporation also announced an updated privacy policy yesterday which aims to unify your experience across all their offerings. Judge for yourself whether that is a good thing from their official video below.

3) Transport For London are rolling out plans to place WiFi hotspots within 120 of 270 London Underground Train Stations before the start of the Olympics in spring. The WiFi hotspots will give users free access to live travel updates, entertainment, news and sport portals but will charge for full web browsing. Unfortunately plans for mobile network reception on trains were scrapped late last year and have no plans to return anytime soon.

4) Hackers have started banning innocent PC Battlefield 3 players playing on PunkBuster servers. The attack is retaliation for PunkBuster’s hack detection service which is successfully banning game cheaters running unsolicited scripts. To avoid the issue PC players can filter out PunkBuster servers in the lobby to avoid playing on them and being falsely accused.

5) The UKIE has announced that from February, they will start announcing weekly PC digital download charts for the games industry. The move comes as physical boxed sales are no longer an accurate representation of sales by themselves with many PC gamers purchasing products via services such as Steam and Origin. Of course digital downloads are not only limited to PCs and the UKIE are working with console manufacturers to launch a similar chart for downloads via PSN and Xbox Live.

6) The London Toy Fair has revealed some new game related merchandise. Lego have accepted a 10,000 signature strong petition from the community and will launch an official line of Minecraft Lego sets. Popular metal construction set manufacturer Meccano have also unveiled a line up of Gears Of War vehicles which should go on sale in August after approval from Epic Games.

7) UK mobile phone network Orange have announced a partnership with Wikipedia. The network provider will allow free access to the “educational” website for Orange customers in 20 African and Middle Eastern countries allowing them access to a wealth of information that they may be completely unaware off and encourage self-learning. It is a great move although I feel that Orange should come up with a solution for residents of those countries who do not own a phone at all.

8) After Activision’s recent marketing campaign advertising a large DLC offering every month for the remainder of the year, they have now uploaded a more detailed schedule of what you can expect as an Elite customer. The schedule is based on you being an Xbox Live Elite member. If you are not, then I would assume you could postpone each item by a month.

http://www.callofduty.com/contentcalendar

9) Square Enix have registered a website domain for Hitman Sniper Challenge. The registration implies a micro game possibly for browsers or smart phones.

10) SuperMassive Games have announced that the new Doctor Who game, The Eternity Clock will be exclusive to the PS3.

11) After the recent success of Saints Row The Third, THQ have decided to alter their business strategy. The new strategy will discard the creation of licensed kid games and focus more on AAA big budget titles.

12) In an applauding move by the European Commission and the outrage caused by the American SOPA act, Europe may soon be faced with better consumer privacy laws. The new regulations could result in companies being fined 2% of their annual earnings if they do not comply. The Data Protection Act last revised in 1998 may be updated to better handle the expansion and dominance of web culture.