Burger King launches meat-scented fragrance

Burger King has also launched a website called FireMeetsDesire.com to accompany the cologne.

The site reads: "The Whopper sandwich is America's favourite burger. Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you." 

Users are also greeted with the caption: "Now you can set the mood for whatever you're in the mood for." 

Burger King released the fragrance earlier this week and an informal survey carried out by the Boston Herald revealed that some men would actually wear it.

The fast-food chain's latest promotion follows on from a publicity stunt at its UK chain earlier this year, which saw the introduction of a £95 burger.

The burger, which contained Wagyu beef, was launched as part of a plan to emphasise the chain's premium credentials over its competitors such as McDonald's.

Burger King is not the first brand to launch its own fragrance --  the Sunday Sport got there first in May 2007 with the launch of its own branded perfume called 'Eau De Punani'.

The Sport said the scent was based on the natural aroma of a woman, and was based on the "smell" of Cherry Dee, who scooped the paper's Miss Sunday Sport 2007 title.

Leona: The perfume

The "X-Factor" winner looks set to become the latest pop icon to front her own fragrance, alongside the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez.

The singer has teamed-up with German beauty brand LR for the self-titled scent, which apparently has the backing of a well-known UK chain.

A source for the singer said: "Leona has had a lot of approaches about launching her own perfume, but she wanted to make totally sure she would be working with an ethical company.

"She has had a big hand in helping to create the fragrance and the design of the bottle and now she can't wait to see it in the shops."

As previously reported, Leona recently signed a deal to pen her autobiography, at the age of 23.

Microsoft warning on online games

Criminals are targeting the lucrative world of online games, an engineer at software giant Microsoft has warned.

Dave Weinstein said that massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) like World of Warcraft were vulnerable to attack.

Hackers could use malicious programs to steal players account information and then sell virtual items, such as gold or weapons, for real world cash.

Some players accounts can be worth up to $10,000 (£5,300).

"The police are really good at understanding someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of money. It's a lot harder to get them to buy into 'someone stole my magic sword,'" he told the Reuters news agency.

Mikko Hypponen a security specialist at security firm F-secure said that they have already dealt with hundreds of malicious programs that seek to steal players account details.

"It might sound far-fetched but this is a real problem," he told the BBC News website.

Black market

MMORPG allow players to take control of a character in a virtual world inhabited by a cast of thousands.

Popular games include Ultima online, Everquest and World of Warcraft. Players buy the game and then pay a monthly subscription to access the online world.

Gamers spend hours developing the skills of their characters and acquiring virtual objects to boost their strength and defeat their foes.

The power of a character is often directly linked to the amount of time a player is willing to devote to playing the game.

However, for players wanting to bypass this route a lucrative online market has developed buying and selling virtual objects such as potions and weapons.

This is often done through auction sites like eBay and other specialist fan sites.

Many of these transactions are against the terms and conditions of the games and must be carried out covertly.

Some estimates have put an $800m (£418m) price tag on the global market in game items and cash.

Last year, Sony launched the Sony Station Exchange for players of EverQuest to legally buy and sell in-game cash, magical items and characters.

Cash economy

This lucrative market has now become a focus for hackers and identity thieves.

Earlier this year, nearly a quarter of a million characters were created in the Korean online game Lineage using stolen identities.

Many of the characters were thought to have been put to work in "gaming farms", where gangs of criminals work thousands of characters to acquire objects to be sold for real world cash.

The Microsoft warning was made at the annual Gamesfest conference in Seattle.

"Those of you who are working on massively multiplayer online games, organized crime is already looking at you," Mr Weinstein told games developers at the conference.

He urged the games developers to be aware of the security risks.

Mr Hypponen of F-secure said the most common way for criminals to steal account details was by using trojans.

Trojans are an apparently harmless program that sit on a users computer collecting login and password information and sending it back to the hacker.

Often the trojans are disguised as programs that will give a character special powers such as invisibility. They may be distributed through games' chat rooms or by e-mail.

Once the hacker has the password details of a character they can login to the account and sell the characters weapons, potions and spells.

"For some users it's a tragic loss," he said.

PC Gaming Still a Priority

With the closure of internal studios Aces and Ensemble, and the firing of Games for Windows--Live boss Chris Early, it's reasonable to question Microsoft's commitment to PC gaming.

But on Tuesday, the company attempted to assure the games industry that it still believes in PC gaming, even in light of stronger performance from Xbox 360.

"Moving ahead, Microsoft will continue to invest in Windows as a first–class gaming platform through great Windows out of box experiences, our online gaming services including Games for Windows – LIVE, MSN Games, and Messenger games, and through new games for Windows developed by Microsoft Games Studios," said a rep for the company in a statement to Edge.

Microsoft Game Studios' stable includes Turn 10 (Forza), Lionhead (Fable) and Rare (Banjo).

In recent years, Microsoft has closed multiple internal studios, many with a PC focus, including FASA Interactive (Mechwarrior, Shadowrun) and most recently, Ensemble (Age of Empires) and Aces (Flight Sim).
 
Microsoft said that Windows gaming will now continue under two execs: "Our Windows gaming service efforts will be led by General Manager Ron Pessner, who is joining Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. He comes from within Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division.
 
"Working closely with Ron will be Dave Luehmann, a long time Microsoft games veteran and general manager within Microsoft Games Studios, who will now be overseeing internal development and publishing for all Windows-based games."