Ubisoft is reportedly close to signing off on a deal with Sony PIctures for an Assassin's Creed movie. The rights to the movie were apparently hotly contested by a number of large studios, with Sony getting the winning ticket.

Sony is expected to foot the fill on what is to be expected, quite a large production. An Assassin's Creed movie might actually be alright, the games are phenomenally successful, they're great games themselves, there's a lot that could be done with the AC franchise.

Ubisoft are set to maintain more creative control over the development of its games for other platforms, versus the traditional one-off licensing deals with studios. Something that proved key during the bidding process with Sony.

Well, that was fast, Google. Along with the announcement of the next-gen Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google have announced their all-new version of their Android OS codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 4.0 continues the development, ideas and design of the tablet-based Honeycomb, but will go onto smartphones, too.

Android 4.0 is an open source release which means any hardware manufacturer that wants to tinker with it can download the source and sell it with Android 4.0 on top. This is something Honeycomb never offered.

We've talked a bit about Android 4.0 'ICS', but if you haven't seen the news yet, ICS sports unlocking the phone through facial recognition, syncing Chrome bookmarks is now default, built-in NFC powers the new Android Beam app which lets you share content, maps, contacts, app and more by tapping the back of your phone to another NFC-enabled Android device.

Razer introed Synapse five years ago now, which let gamers store macros, key binds, and profiles directly into their Razer devices' onboard memory. Today, they've taken this one step further by introducing Razer Synapse 2.0, which allows your personalised peripheral settings to sit in the cloud.

While this won't help everyone, it will be a great thing for users such as tournament gamers, or those who use more than one computer for gaming. The problem is with this, is that people still have to take around their mouse and keyboard, with Razer hardware storing it inside the peripheral itself, cloud-based peripheral settings don't really have a need, but as I said, there are still uses for it.

Synapse 2.0 does however make the process that much easier, saving time on re-binding keys, etc and takes it all down to a simple login and sync process. The software will also automatically download drivers, game add-ons, and firmware updates to ensure your Razer hardware is always up-to-date.

The new standard of ultra high-definition television (UHDTV) has taken a step in the right direction as experts at the ITU Study Group on Broadcasting Service announced they have reached an agreement on most of the pertinent technical characteristics for a new UHDTV standard.

It'll be years before consumer-based products will be here (boo!) but broadcasters and others have been working for quite a while on UHDTV, which represents a gigantic leap forward in image resolution and picture quality. Just recently, Japan-based broadcaster NHK, who have played a pioneering role in the development of UHDTV, demonstrated a screen with 33 million pixels, a mammoth jump from the 2 million pixels seen on HDTV screens today.

Last month, a trial on UHDTV was arranged between London and Amsterdam and plans are underway to cover part of the 2012 London Olympic Games in UHDTV for screening at public venues around the world.

Microsoft have had a very first... er.. first quarter ending Sept. 30, 2011. Microsoft posted a quarter revenue of $17.37 billion, a 7-percent increase over the same period of last year and a tad higher than the expected $17.26 billion.

Office was the standout, though; Office accounted for $5.62 of that income, with Windows staying flat and actually falling below expectations. Microsoft's net income of $5.74 billion was a decent jump of 6-percent over the same time last year.

Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft says:

BlizzCon 2011 - As we walked through the BlizzCon 2011 halls, we manage to spot one of the Blizzard Battle.net gaming blade servers from around the world that are going on sale for charity.

These are HP p-Class server blades that were previously used to provide Blizzard's Battle.net gaming service. This particular server was named "Eldre Thalas" and was in operation between February 22, 2005 to June 9, 2010. The plaque reads:

Apple have really stumbled with the iPhone 4S launch, yesterday I reported about the various screen issues, and today we have an issue with Siri. Siri, by default, can be activated even if the iPhone 4S is passcode locked. This is great if you are the one wanting to use it, but what if you leave the phone unattended, or, lose the phone altogether?

Anyone who gained access to your Siri-sporting iPhone 4S could take a look at your upcoming calendar appointments and know your every move over the upcoming days, weeks, months and it also gives access to send e-mails or text messages. Thankfully, there are limitations. While the iPhone 4S is passcode locked, you can't launch any apps, you can't send e-mail or text messages to anyone not on your contact list.

But still, the ability to gain access to e-mail, text messaging and your calendar is definitely not good enough. Of course, it can be disabled. In the Passcode Lock settings, you just have to switch Siri to "off". You will still be able to use Siri, just not when the phone is locked. Now as an iPhone 4S user, you have the choice between convenience and security. In my opinion, this should be the default setting: OFF.

Use a Noctua cooler? Upgrading to Sandy Bridge-E/LGA2011 in a few months when its released? Well, Noctua have continued their tradition of supplying their customers with SecuFirm2 mountings free of charge. The NM-I2011 kit allows Noctua users to upgrade to Intel's upcoming LGA2011 socket for Core i7-3000 (Sandy Bridge-E) processors. The NM-I2011 is backwards compatible with all Noctua retail coolers since 2005 and will be supplied to users free of charge after they upload proof of purchase on Noctua's website.

Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua's CEO says:

Reports coming out of the United Daily News believe that Samsung and AU Optronics have sent 7.85-inch screen samples to Apple for consideration in future products, the rumored iPad mini. Rumors of a smaller iPad have made their way around the Internet a few times now, and are once again doing so. Steve Jobs was against the idea of a 7-inch tablet, being quoted in an earnings call last year that Apple won't make a 7-inch tablet because the screen is too small to express the software.

Jobs believed that developers wouldn't be happy writing app code to accommodate varying screen sizes in the same product line (what about consumers?). Now that new CEO Tim Cook is directing the Apple ship, this could change. An iPad mini would be even more portable than the current offerings as well as costing just a portion of the price, allowing Apple to gain more market share at an even lower price point.

It would also be great competition for Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire, as well as the varying GALAXY Tab devices from super-competitor and main threat, Samsung. Apple is expected to unveil the iPad 3 sometime in early 2012 based on the 9.7-inch display. Rumors have again fueled on the iPad 3, with most (including myself) expected it to sport a resolution of 2044x1536.

Executive Producer at DICE, Patrick Bach, has said that the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3 is running the game without the high-resolution texture pack (which is found on the second disc) by default, and is the "standard def" version of the game. What the texture pack does, is bring the Xbox 360 version up to the same standards of that found on the PS3 and PC. Bach elaborates:

Bach has recommended to anyone with the HDD to install the texture pack as it makes a major difference.