So today is a big World Cup day for the Brits- what with the Argentina game – which makes the United Soccer (hey it’s football, OK guys?) game interesting. The game is the first to allow for multiplayer teams of up to 11 players to log on and play in one match, which could make for some very interesting gameplay if they can make it work properly. You can either log on with a bunch of friends and dominate a…

Mazingo is a competitor to the AvantGo service. Frankly I don’t see any particular advantages attached to it, but I may be missing something. [via infosync]

A blogged link to a summary of a Howard Rheingold keynote speech at Reboot on 4th June. It makes for very interesting reading. [via Blogdex]

I’m not really sure what to say about the Teacher’s Report Assistant. This piece of free software – Quote ‘produces professional sounding, individualized report cards in the shortest possible time.’ Unquote. It does this by allowing the teacher to select from a number of templated comments. You know the sort of thing – ‘x’s work has not been up to standard lately.’ Judging by the testimonial on the site it appears to be quite a popular tool, so am I…

This is a spoof right? It’s got to be. Yah, no question. But I tell you what, that order form sure looks real, and the rest is quite funny too. [via Madville]

Not feeling too good? Can’t be bothered to pay a visit to your local doctor? Why not try this site and receive an expert medical opinion – Not! [via Catch.com]

The recent E3 game expo in the US was buzzing with news of the new US Army’s computer game designed to improve recruitment figures. What has only just come to light is the cost of this exercise – around $7 million, and that’s just for the first stage. It gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘valuable asset’. The Unreal engine powered game will be distributed for free on the Army’s Web site next month, as long as you…

For folks who have been hit by the Klez virus, here’s a tiny file called Fix Klez which seems to clean it out. NB You need to disable Norton Anti-Virus and System Restore on XP/ME, and boot into Windows safe mode first, before running it. [File – and full instructions/information – found courtesy of those fine folks at Symantec]

Don Markstein’s Toonopedia appears to be a similar Web effort to the Big Cartoon Database that was featured on the Ferret earlier. Worth a look though, all the same. [via Madville]

A great piece by the redoubtable Michael Wolff giving a concise and very cogent overview of the bleak future facing the music business in the wake of the Napster shutdown. It’s hard to feel sorry for the music bods, mind you, since they have been their own worst enemies to date. I’ve been a fan of Michael’s ever since I interviewed him after the launch of his brilliant and hilarious book Burn Rate. Roll on the evolution. [via RobotWisdom]

The PhotoCake system. Yummy. Only $4195.00 including PC and edible inkjet printer inks. Or maybe I’ll go for this cheapo alternative . Er…do I have to know how to cook, ma’am?

The Orbiter is a free space flight simulator which lets you launch, land and generally lark about in a range of space going vehicles, including the space shuttle Atlantis. The key features of this excellent program are the fabulous space imagery, the incredibly accurate flight physics modelling and the fact that it is a hobby project from a certain Dr Martin Schweiger of University College London. Don’t be fooled by the pretty pictures though. This is one tough puppy to…

The Polygon Worlds site contains some really groovy software (and beautiful images) including a neat program which lets you fly or drive over the surface of Mars in 3D as if you were actually there. It uses real data from the Mars probes and is rather good fun (although to be fair, Mars does seem to fit the Red Planet moniker rather boringly well). [via ZZZ]

The new AOpen AX4B-533 Tube is definitely one weird motherboard. The company has basically taken a standard Pentium 4 mobo and stuck a valve onto it to handle audio. That’s right a valve – a real glass roundy thing with glowing stuff inside (bottom left of picture). Freaky or what? So what next, steam driven laptops? Coal burning MP3 players? [via everythingisnt and thanks to OCWorkbench for the additional photo]