Citing anonymous sources, Computer and Video Games reports that a remake of the cult computer game Syndicate is in the works from publisher Electronic Arts.

The early 90’s PC realtime strategy game cast players as the executive of a major corporation in a cyberpunk-style world, forcing them down a road of questionable moral decisions. Using a team of four cyborg agents, players assassinated rival execs, rescued allies, killed enemy agents and pushed the company’s brand on civilians and scientists. All the while, the corporation researched new weapons and technology with the tax dollars of conquered territories. The action unfolded through a cold, isometric viewpoint.

An expansion pack, called Syndicate Wars, was released in 1996 for PC and Playstation.

Whoever was talking to CVG didn’t reveal much else. The news site is thinking that developer Starbreeze (The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, The Darkness) might be tapped for the title, as they’ve signed with EA to reinvent an unnamed classic game. But earlier this year, legendary game designer Peter Molyneux, who produced the original game, told Shacknews that he “would love to redo a version of Syndicate.”

Given solid track record of Molyneux and Starbreeze, we’d love to have either of them on board.

A new study that comes to us from physicists in the EU has shown that they can create a self assembling computer circuit. This breakthrough, while currently in its lab stages could eventually be brought to the marketplace, and revolutionize how computer parts, and even whole systems are made.

Currently, computer chips are made by etching patterns onto semiconducting wafers using a combination of light and photosensitive chemicals.

In the new study, the scientists took a long organic molecule with mobile electrons, called quinquethiophene that acts like a semiconductor and attached it to a long carbon chain with a silicon group at the end, which acts as an anchor.

They later soaked the circuit board and its preprinted electrodes into a solution of their new molecules.

The experiment showed that the molecules can be attached to the insulating layer that sits between the electrodes,and can make a bridge from one electrode to the next.

The work, appearing in this week’s Nature1.

Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd still has high hopes for the stalled video game based on the movie, telling a Dallas radio station that the game is “a year away” from release.

Kotaku, which reported Aykroyd’s comment, ran with a rumor last week that Atari would publish the game, so they’re hoping this is a confirmation of sorts, not just an idea Aykroyd got from … Kotaku.

If you haven’t been following the saga, big-time publisher Activision dropped the project in July, along with eight other games, as a way of streamlining operations. Given the sloppy track-record of movie-to-game adaptations, this wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but gamers were optimistic because Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were writing the story, and the entire Ghostbusters team except Rick Moranis were going to provide voice talent.

The game was in development for most gaming platforms. Players would control a rookie member of the squad, accompanying the veterans through events that occur after Ghostbusters II. Action was standard proton pack blasting. The game had already been well-hyped and previewed — with hands-on time against Stay Puft Marshmallow Man — when Activision pulled the plug.

We find it hard to believe that a game with such huge selling potential won’t get made, but of course, it’s a question of when.

Following the success of a similar beat-down held in LA three months ago, a massive Street Fighter tournament is coming to Brooklyn, N.Y. on October 24.

Street Fighter Club will feature console versions of Street Fighter IV (out now in arcades, if you can find one) and the upcoming Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Both games will be played on high definition screens, providing breathtaking visuals as your ass gets handed to you.

To make things nerdier (and somehow cooler), commemorative shirts designed by geek-chic artist Meat Bun will be available at the event. I Am 8 Bit creator Jon Gibson will set the mood with decorations, and word is they’ll have soap, a la Fight Club, as well.

SIgn up at the official site. Since there’s no time or location announced yet, presumably you’ll get an e-mail or phone call telling you where to be and when as the date approaches.

Of course, some of us in the know can tell you there’s already a place in NYC where you can get your SFIV on. Just head to Chinatown Fair, 8 Mott St., and get a thorough beating in the fighting game of your choice.

If you prefer to play the game comfortably at home, you’re out of luck. SFIV won’t be out until next year, and no date has been announced for SFII Turbo HD Remix.

When we first heard about No More Heroes, we had the same fantasies — of waving the Wii remote with sword-like precision — that we might have reserved for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Of course, by the time the latter game hit shelves, we realized such accuracy wasn’t possible with the Wii’s current technology.

That’s why No More Heroes creator Suda 51’s interest in the Wii MotionPlus is so scintillating. In a video interview with IGN, Suda says, “I would like to use Wii MotionPlus for No More Heroes 2 if I could,” though he later adds, “I haven’t even touched Wii MotionPlus yet so I am not aware with how it works so that’s why I am not sure yet.”

Details about the sequel, called No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, are practically non-existent. Obviously it isn’t too far along if the developers haven’t fleshed out the control scheme yet. We at least know that the original game was a beautiful and somewhat underrated hack-and-slash, driven by bizarre characters and Tarantino-esque gore.

We also know a decent amount about the MotionPlus. The remote attachment will make controller response faster and more accurate, Even allowing “1:1″ controls, where your physical movement is matched exactly on the screen. When it’s released next spring, the MotionPlus will come with packaged with Wii Sports Resort, a set of minigames that includes sword fighting.

This can only bode well for games with beam katanas won through online auctions.

[Via Go Nintendo]

There’s something amusing about today’s interview with Adam Gascoine, co-design director for the game James Bond: Quantum of Solace.

The interviewer at semi-official Playstation blog Three Speech is intent on framing this conversation around “the spectre of GoldenEye still looming large in the background.” It’s not long before Gascoine mentions that his team played a hefty amount of the classic Nintendo 64 game, and our interviewer pounces:

I’m glad you mentioned it before I did! I suppose there were two options with that game - not to go anywhere near it, or to immerse yourselves in it. It seems like you chose the latter?

Gascoine is reluctant to budge. It becomes clear that this isn’t a GoldenEye clone. “Yes, we immersed ourselves in it! We’re a very different game though, because obviously GoldenEye is eight or nine years old,” he says, adding that while the team learned from the game, there are just a lot of elements that don’t fit anymore.

Good for him. We all have fond memories of GoldenEye, but you have to admit the console first-person shooter was ahead of its time back then. Games like Halo represent the genre growing into its clothes. Exhibit A: GoldenEye had a controller layout that would make a modern FPS player tear his hands off. “GoldenEye was the first game to use a controller in that way – we can’t recreate that,” Gascoine says. “So we said, let’s get a great engine, let’s get great controls, and let’s do what the equivalent is right now, and that’s Call of Duty 4.”

Still, our interviewer presses, “What else have you been able to draw from GoldenEye?”

Gascoine’s best answer is that the game has “this extraordinary intensity. You felt so powerful playing it, we wanted to capture that.” In other words, they drew on nothing. Exhibit B: All shooter games (or at least the better ones) are intense, and make you feel powerful.

Gascoine shifts the conversation topic to actor Daniel Craig’s physicality and how great it was working with him (and, presumably, not Pierce Brosnan?). Unfazed, our interviewer sneaks in one more question at the end of the interview: Will the new game also have lots of characters and weapons from the whole series? The Answer:

No, we didn’t touch that.

In conclusion, this game is not like GoldenEye, aside from the IP. And there’s nothing wrong with that. How about we let Gascoine make his own game, and we’ll see how it fairs on November 4.

Analog-to-digital data conversion found a new use in the real world when the  UCLA engineers designed a bar code reader that has been clocked at nearly a thousand times faster than any bar code reading device currently on the market.

• Increased accuracy in retail scanners.
• Faster scanning when shipping packages.
• More data easily accessible to hospitals and paramedics who are transfusing blood.
• Easier storage on records.
• erpetually rolling inventory for warehouses.

The new scanners are to be known as the CWEETS Scanner (chirped wavelength electronic encoded time domain sampling. CWEETS requires no camera, or mirrors like the traditional scanners you would find in a grocery store, and also has no moving parts. This reduces the chances of a breakdown in the machinery, and in addition to increased accuracy, lower repair and operations costs.

For those of you who are interested in reading the research directly it was published in the Sept. 29 edition of the journal Applied Physics Letters.