Nicholas likes video games, soccer, UFC, and astronomy–particularly the study of asteroids. He went to NYU.
Clearly Epic Games knows there’s a number of people out there who are angry at the fact that icky consoles are have held back the development of high-end graphics technology. (See: Crysis 2. Looks fine if all you’re dealing with is the five-year-old Xbox 360, but doesn’t really seem to take advantage of the raw power that’s available on the PC side of thing.) Here we have a slick trailer showing off some of the advanced features offered by Unreal Engine 3. → Read More
This is very, very neat. It’s a portable N64 called the D64 that can actually be used to play multi-player games. Gadget of the year, right here. → Read More
Someone has leaked the details of the next DLC in the Call of Duty: Black Ops saga. It would appear to be called The Escalation Pack, and may be available as early as early May. What can you expect? → Read More
It’s now a little less expensive to play Crysis 2 in 3D. (Haven’t seen the game in 3D yet? You’re missing out…) Samsung will now include two pairs of 3D glasses with the purchase of one of its 3D plasma or LED TVs. Very handy. Does this have anything to do with Ron Bennington saving the day earlier today? I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m just going to say yes, yes it does. → Read More
The Smithsonian Museum of American History will now feature the exciting world of robots! The main event— the John Cena vs. The Rock, if you will—is a tiny robot by the name of Marv, which stands for mini autonomous robot vehicle. It was developed in 1996-97 by the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Lab. → Read More
It’s now quite a bit cheaper to develop Xbox 360 games. Then again, you could probably develop for any new Android phone and be dealing with more powerful hardware, but that’s for another day. Microsoft has developed a new Xbox 360 development kit that’s smaller than the previous kit and has more memory and hard drive space. → Read More
Oh boy. The Sun has the story of a man who bought the Nintendo 3DS for his young son, but had to return the device because it made him ill. Nintendo has already recommended that the console not be played by children under the age of seven, and that everyone else should limit 3D-playing time to 30 minutes per session. Not good enough, claim some folks. What’s the point of getting a 3DS if you’re only to play it in 3D for 30 minutes at a clip? → Read More
There’s nothing new about virtualization software, per se, but BlueStacks might be worth checking out. It brings the Android operating system to Windows-based computers via a virtualization layer, much like how you can run Windows “inside” your Mac using Parallels. Why, exactly, you’d want to run Android “inside” your Windows PC, I’m not exactly sure, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with giving it a go. → Read More
Not even a few hours after Anonymous promised action against Sony has the company’s Web infrastructure come under attack. The PlayStation Blog has had difficulty resolving for some time now, and Sony has tweeted that PSN may be going “undergoing sporadic maintenance.” Probably not a fun day to be a Sony technician, no. → Read More
Get ready for a nuclear-powered spacecraft—maybe! The Russian Federal Space Agency says that it will hold talks with Nasa and a number of countries on April 15 to see if they can’t get started on creating a “nuclear engine” by 2012. Such an engine, it’s believed, would only cost around $600m to develop. → Read More
Bandwidth caps. We all love ‘em. Wait, no, we hate ‘em. Sorry. But even as AT&T gears up to impose bandwidth caps on its DSL subscribers, it should be pointed out that it’s hardly the only ISP that does so. You might even say that other countries have it worse. → Read More
This, this is a pretty nifty case mod, and it’s for the Wii—you normally don’t see too many Wii case mods out there. It’s called the Wii UNLimited Edition, and it’s water-cooled. Thumbs up for completely superfluous water-cooling. → Read More
Troubling news here. AVG, the anti-malware company, says that the majority of smartphone users are unaware of the security risks they face when, um, using smartphones. What? You mean I have to be careful when fiddling around with my iPhone or Android device? Yes. Yes you do. → Read More
A congratulations are in order for Sony. Thanks to the company’s dogged pursuit of the likes of GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo (and, apparently, anyone who has seen jailbreak-related information), Anonymous has said that it will “experience [its] wrath.” Probably not a good time to be Sony, no. → Read More
The Internet is a cruel, mysterious mistress. What we have here is the story of a Canadian band called One Soul Thrust, a phony baloney (I refused to believe “bologna” is the proper spelling here; that’s not even how you’d pronounce the town name in Italian…) BitTorrent site, a misguided manager, and a lobbying group that apparently does little to no research. The story goes that this band’s manager wanted to see if any pirated copies of its debut album were available via BitTorrent. His sleuthing led him to LimeTorrents, a site we all know (or at least should know by now) that deals in trickery. → Read More
Let’s start our post-WrestleMania Monday with a fun video of what could be. Here we see a gentleman, from Evoluce, controlling Windows 7 using Kinect. Minority Report, etc. → Read More
Well, maybe not “save” WrestleMania, but help ensure it does better than last year’s edition, WrestleMania 26, which, at well under one million pay-per-view buys worldwide, was considered a bit of a disappointment. What’s different this year is WWE’s use of social media—that is to say they’re actually using it this time around. But even if this year’s edition, WrestleMania 27, which airs from Atlanta tomorrow on pay-per-view, does better than last year’s, how much of that can be attributed to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and how much of that can be attributed to the return of The Rock? Serious business, etc. → Read More
Amazon may have introduced its digital locker music service, the Cloud Player, before similar services from rivals Google and Apple (that are widely believed to be launching this year), but that doesn’t mean it will be an easy existence. Not long after the company published a note on its Web site inviting users to give Cloud Player a try did one of the major record labels offer a warning. “We are disappointed that the locker service that Amazon is proposing is unlicensed by Sony Music,” a Sony spokesman said. Is Amazon on a collision course with the music industry, and if it is, could that be a good thing for consumers? → Read More
Robbie Bach, the former president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, has apologized to PC gamers for the “consolization” of their hobby. “Am I happy to have been a part of the destruction of PC gaming? No, of course not. But I am proud of the fact that I’ve helped convince a generation of gamers that it’s cool to pay $10 for a pair of virtual sunglasses and that playing online should be considered a premium feature. Look, guys, no one’s stopping your from installing Doom II and playing through that again, right? I mean, what’s the difference between that and Black Ops, really?” → Read More
Who will survive the Tomb of Immortal Darkness? It’s a new five-man dungeon coming to World of Warcraft that’s “deep beneath the crumbling tombstones of Duskwood’s Raven Hill Cemetery.” (Incidentally, Duskwood is my favorite old world area. Oh, the memories.) The dungeon uses Deep Dark technology to give players the ultimate challenge: navigating an instance in total darkness. Is your toon gear’d enough to take on Omgsogoth, the Dark Lord of Twilight? → Read More
