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Dozens of devastated gamers have swamped the official GTA forums with complaints of repeated freezing when playing the much-hyped Grand Theft Auto IV. Most of the complaints are from PS3 users, though some Xbox 360s are also involved.

An Australian gamer was the first to post, stating: “I got GTA on Sunday and it freezes and I have to restart the console it happens every hour or so, I thought it may be a dodgy disc, so I took the disc back to the shop and got a new one.”

The post continues to say that the second disc also froze after just 40 minutes. One regular Xbox 360 user said that the problem comes from Rockstar programming the game so that it has no loading times. This overloads a console’s cache.
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Mars Inc. and Warren Buffet have bought Wm Wrigley Jr Co., the largest chewing gum manufacturer in the world. The news shook the banking sector because the sale came as a surprise.

In effect this new conglomerate becomes the largest confectionery company in the world; predicted hold; 14.4% of the global market. Stocks of the company rose significantly and closed at $62.45 Friday.

Cadbury Schweppes at 10% of the global market had a rise in shares of 3.5% in the hope a takeover may be imminent.
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New Mexico: Thieves have made off with 80 pairs of sunglasses worth approximately $28,000 in a raid which lasted only 39 seconds. Brands taken included Christian Dior, Gucci, and Versace.

Store owner Brian Body, who only opened Acoma Optical in February, said that his losses will be covered by insurance. Police are investigating the possibility that the robbery is connected to a number of other similar incidents in the area.

“You build up something. you work very hard and somebody comes in and takes it in the middle of the night and takes advantage of that. I’m just thankful that everybody’s OK,” said Body.
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Germany: 45-year-old travel agent Andreas Stumpel has been sentenced to eight months in jail and ordered to pay £2,630 in compensation after pleading guilty to abusing a minor.

Stumpel had been forcing teenage girls to remove an item of clothing every time they answered incorrectly during job interviews. One 17-year-old who was afraid of not getting the position ended up naked except for a G-string.
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Microsoft has completed the final service pack, Service Pack 3, for its Windows XP operating system. It will be available for download for the general public on April 29th.

It will not be an automatic update until the early summer, but can be manually downloaded through Windows Update or Microsoft’s Download Center. The size ranges from 70MB to 320MB.

This will be the final service pack release for Windows XP, however critical updates will still continue to be released at least until 2014.
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Seattle: Windows XP fans unhappy with Vistas slow performance and incompatibility issues have created an online petition to save Windows XP. Windows XP’s demise is slated for June 30th, 2008 when it will no longer be offered for sale.

Over 100,000 people have signed the online petition to urge Microsoft to maintain XP’s availability until the next version of Windows is released. Technology journalist, Galen Gruman started the petition hoping Microsoft will again extend XP’s life.

Gruman stated - “It sort of hit us that, wait a minute, XP will be gone as of June 30. What are we going to do? - If no one does something, it’s going to be gone.” By the end of 2008, 60% of consumer and 70% of business machines will still be on XP.
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The British Pound has continued its slide against the Euro, reaching all-time lows. The fall is being spurred on by the Bank of England cutting UK interest rates, though the move had been expected.

The pound it 1.24 euros in trading yesterday, thought hit back to 1.25 late in the day. Interest rates were cut to 5%, but had already been priced into the worth of the pound, according to analysts.

An interest rate cut usually moves investors away from a currency, which lowers the worth.
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A man pulled over in Indanapolis had good reason to be nervous when he was pulled over for speeding and erratic driving. After allowing officers to check his pick up he found himself in deep trouble.

Officers noticed that a driveshaft welding made a hollow sound instead of the normal thud and brought in the K-9 unit. The dog found 7 kilograms of heroin with a street value of 1 million dollars(US).

Jaime Carrillo admitted he was smuggling the heroin from Mexico and had planned on taking it to Columbus, Ohio to deliver. Carillo can now add possession and dealing narcotics onto his speeding and reckless driving charges.
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eBay Australia has announced that all items will have to be paid for using a Paypal account. Alastair MacGibbon, the trust & safety director at eBay said: “You’re four times less likely to have a problem on eBay if you pay with PayPal”

Paypal, an eBay subsidiary, will charge between 1.1% and 2.4% for each mandated credit card payment. The changes come into effect in June, from May 21st all sellers must offer Paypal. MacGibbon expects a “small but vocal minority” to oppose the changes.

He said, “eBay is no longer willing to stand aside and allow payment methods on the site that are proven to be less safe for consumers.” Other eBay sites will evaluate the changes and make their own choice on whether use the new system.
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Yahoo! has announced that it will begin testing Google’s AdSense advertising service, despite the two companies being rivals for online advertising. The test drew criticism from software giant Microsoft.

Should Yahoo! decide to use Google AdSense permanently, it would give the two companies some 90% of online advertising, creating a monopoly. AdSense will only be applied to Yahoo’s business in the United States.

A spokesperson for the company said testing didn’t mean Yahoo will “join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result.”
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