Nicholas likes video games, soccer, UFC, and astronomy–particularly the study of asteroids. He went to NYU.
Crytek went to great pains throughout the development of Crysis 2 to stress that it wasn’t going to be a repeat of the first game. You weren’t going to need a monstrous machine merely to get 20 frames per second. No, Crytek said, we’ve managed to get the game running on the Xbox 360! And if the 360 can run it, what can’t run it? Not the Asus Eee 1215B, that’s for sure. → Read More
Sometimes humor is the best mechanism to explain an opaque topic. Public Knowledge, a group that concerns itself with defending consumer rights in “the emerging digital culture,” has released a report today entitled “Peak Bandwidth.” Keep in mind today’s date, is all I have to say. The report says that the “era of plentiful, low-cost bandwidth is approaching an end. The supply of bits… → Read More
It must be an absolute nightmare being a Hollywood executive in 2011. Four big studios (20th Century Fox, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.) have announced plans to introduce a premium video-on-demand service, to debut on DirecTV next month as “Home Premiere,” that will screen movies a mere 60 days after their theatrical debut. Renting such a movie will set you back $30. And if you think… → Read More
Common sense, for once, has prevailed. For whatever reason Boston College was telling its students that using a wireless router could be considered a “common example of copyright infringement.” Word got out, the Internet complained, and now the offending bullet point has been removed. → Read More
Time Warner Cable received rare praise these past few weeks with the launch of its iPad app. Not familiar with it? It lets Time Warner Cable subscribers view 32 different TV networks on their iPad provided they’re connected to their home (read: Time Warner-provided) Wi-Fi network. (You can’t watch these channels while at the park and connected to 3G, in other words.) As you might expect, several… → Read More
The very first generation of Google Cloud Print-ready printers have been loaded onto the trucks, and are en route to your local gadget shop. HP calls the technology ePrint, and it’s found on its range of Photosmart, Officejet, and LaserJet Pro printers. → Read More
There’s a plan in the UK that would, if enabled, lead to ISPs blocking access to specific Web sites in order to cut down on piracy. It takes all of two seconds to understand why this is a silly idea, and thankfully a prominent consumer rights group there has come out against it. → Read More
The Blu-ray edition of Star Wars: The Complete Saga now has a release date: September 16 of this year. Amazon lists the collection for $90, so start saving your pennies. → Read More
Crysis 2 and Total War: Shogun 2 have come and gone, so that leaves only a few big PC releases left this year. What you see here is the latest Battlefield 3 trailer, “Get That Wire Cut.” → Read More
Google’s about to step up its use of “interest-based advertising.” The company has announced that it will change the way it uses the information that it gathers from your scanned Gmail messages. (Or did you forget that Gmail scans every single one of your messages in order to show relevant advertising?) The big change is this: rather than scanning your email on a per-message basis, Google… → Read More
Yet another example of why even the savviest of Internet users need to keep their anti-malware software current and fully working. Spotify, the popular European streaming service, discovered that it was inadvertently serving ads that were laced with malware. → Read More
No, we still have no idea what the Air Force is doing up there with the X-37B, but at least now we can track its movement. Amateur skywatchers—a delightful phrase&mdashl have discovered the whereabouts of the spacecraft. There’s even video of it in orbit. → Read More
One day after McAfee warned about the dangers of corporations becoming vulnerable to hackers, we now learn that Nasa has similar concerns. Its inspector general, Paul Martin, has written a report entitled “Security Practices Expose Key Nasa Network To Cyber Attack,” and you can guess what that means. Actually, don’t bother guessing. The report warns that six of Nasa’s servers that just so… → Read More
“Our nanogenerators are poised to change lives in the future. Their potential is only limited by one’s imagination.” Strong, powerful words from Dr. Zhong Lin Wang, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, whose nanogenerators could one day power a whole host of gadgets, from your iPod to your favorite tablet. The idea rests upon zinc oxide nanowires, wires that generate electricity when… → Read More
This is pretty big. Rockstar’s upcoming LA Noire will be an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival. It’s the first time a game has been accepted into the festival. → Read More
President Obama spoke to Univision yesterday at one of those town hall meetings the TV networks like to organize. What’s pertinent to us here is that our president, the man who’s famous for carrying a BlackBerry wherever he goes, does, in fact, own his own computer. → Read More
Best Buy is now in the the 4G business. The company has announced that its Best Buy Connect service, which first launched last July, will now support 4G, courtesy of a deal worked out with Clearwire. Access to the 4G network will set you back $45 per month, with Best Buy willing to waive the $35 activation fee if you agree to a two-year contract. → Read More
Don’t have a Blu-ray player yet? You’re going to want to get one before June 21, for that’s when Louis CK’s “Louie” makes its way to the format. It’ll also be available on plain ol’ DVD if that’s your thing. → Read More
It looks like the Crysis 2 Direct X 11 patch could be coming sooner rather than later. An item on a German PC gaming site—Germany certainly loves its PC gaming&mash;says that the patch should hit the Internets tomorrow. This is most welcome news. → Read More
Before reading the following post, I suggest you make peace with your Maker because it’s so intense you may just explode in ecstasy. Are you ready? I mean, really, ask yourself: are you ready? I don’t think you’re ready because you couldn’t possibly be ready. Well, OK, maybe you are ready. Let’s hope so. Ready? Here we go: Nokia is using a new font. → Read More
So much for that idea. Nasa is said to be having second thoughts about whether or not it will use James Cameron-supplied 3D lenses on its Curiosity Mars rover. The rover, which is scheduled to land on Mars in 2012, was to have a pair of 3D lenses bolted onto it, lenses that would have enabled the rover to take 3D footage of the planet’s surface. → Read More
McAfee, the computer security company, has issued a fresh warning to the world’s corporations and other large organizations. The firm has warned that hackers now have these bodies fully in their sights, and that a combination of the de-centralization of the workplace (thanks to to proliferation of mobile devices and the like) and the move to the cloud means in-house security technicians have… → Read More
So much for all of that fancy talk about the return of Kers. The system, which is about as close as you can get to using a mushroom in Mario Kart in real life, lets Formula One drivers temporarily get an additional 80 horsepower out of their engine, made its return to Formula One this season. There was plenty of talk along the lines of, “This is great! It will help with overtaking and make for… → Read More
After playing Total War: Shogun 2, one of my concerns was how I would view subsequent Total War games. As far as I’m concerned, The Creative Assembly has now perfected the Total War formula, so to play another might result in feelings of, “Oh, this again. Hm.” The same fear now applies to the first-person shooter genre post-Crysis 2, but not because the game is perfect (although it’s… → Read More
It’s only a matter of time till Sony shuts these guys down, so better write about this quick. It’s called the Cobra USB, and presumably it has nothing to do with Santino Morella’s finishing move. Actually, no, I know it has nothing to do with Sanitno, for it’s a USB dongle that unlocks a few handy features, including region free Blu-ray playback and the ability to play DVD ISOs right from the… → Read More
If nothing else I can now report that Crysis 2 is quite a bit longer than Homefront. I’m still churning through it, even after a good four hours last night. Hopefully I can finish it tonight or tomorrow. So at least the game has a decent length campaign going going for it. What it may not have going for it is, how shall I put this… the PC version looks too similar to the console versions. If… → Read More
It’s Nintendo 3DS weekend, and Walmart (of all companies~!) has a pretty decent deal going on. Select stores will accept old DS models for credit, credit that you can then apply toward the purchase of a 3DS. → Read More
If the rumors prove accurate, and it certainly looks like they will, Google will introduce a mobile streaming music service à la Spotify or Rdio sooner rather than later. The big idea is that you’ll be able to listen to any song you want on demand so long as you have network access, either via Wi-Fi or 3G/4G/etc. It’s music in the cloud, in other words. Google won’t be the first company to offer… → Read More
The botnet is dead (enough), but now what? You’l recall that Microsoft, working in conjunction with pretty much every organization on the planet, had managed to lop the head off the Rustock botnet. The world’s attention now turns to finding the people behind the botnet. Leads show that the botnet may have been run by as few as two or three people, so actually tracking these people down may prove a… → Read More
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