General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Rumor: Facebook Set To Announce Video Chat Capabilities Powered By Skype Next Week

Posted: 02 Jul 2011 02:54 PM PDT

Facebook InviteThe ink hasn't even dried on Microsoft's acquisition of Skype, but the Redmond based software giant appears to be working diligently in the background to push the VOIP service to even more platforms. Facebook has scheduled an invitation only even for July 6th , and the rumor mill seems pretty certain Mark Zuckerberg will announce a browser based version of Skype, which integrates with your Facebook friends list.

Given how close Microsoft and Facebook have been in recent years, it wouldn't surprise us one bit if this turned out to be true. Video chat would be a pretty natural extension of their constantly evolving communication and messaging strategy, and the Skype brand would lend an air of credibility to the announcement. Skype stands to benefit from the already established social graph for each user, and Facebook gains a stable and mature video codec to build upon.

We won't know for sure until next week, but is video chatting a Facebook feature you can see yourself using? Let's just hope they think to include a "I'm not wearing any pants button", so we can head off any potentially awkward incoming call requests before they happen.

Think your DSL is slow? Astronauts in Space Struggle to Maintain Dial Up Speeds

Posted: 02 Jul 2011 02:29 PM PDT

ISS

When you think about space exploration you assume our astronauts are on the cutting edge of technology right? Turns out this is only partially true, and modern space explorers have a number of challenges to deal with that have been solved here on earth. During an uncensored question and answer period in Edmonton, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield admitted to a young onlooker that the Internet is space is too slow for gaming, but that he finds plenty of other ways to fill his time.

"The spacecraft travels at eight kilometers per second, the speed of the station's Internet connection is about the same as dial-up."

Asking if astronauts play online games in space no doubt had the parents chuckling in a somewhat embarrassed fashion, but the fact that our modern space fleet has to make do with so little bandwidth is certainly an interesting bit of trivia. I wonder if the NASA marking team calls it 4G and caps them at 5GB? 

Rumor: Original Crysis Losing PC Exclusivity, Headed To Xbox 360

Posted: 02 Jul 2011 01:42 PM PDT

CrysisGamers who choose to play Crysis 2 on the console were rewarded with an achievement for little more than loading the disk into the tray, reaffirming what Crytek has been touting all along, yes it can run Crysis. But did this tongue-in-cheek pat on the back have a hidden significance we missed at the time? Well according to the folks over at CVG, the South Korea Games Rating Board has granted approval for the release of the original Crysis for Xbox 360. If true, it would mark the loss of another former high profile PC exclusive. 

It makes sense that Crytek would make an effort to port the original game over to the console now that the franchise is officially multi-platform, but we have to wonder about the timing. Wouldn't this have made more sense a year ago before the sequel launched? Even if it is true however, the current generation of console hardware will have a hard time doing much better than your average dual core PC with a GeForce 8800. 

Does Crytek's pursuit of the console audience continue to worry you about the future of the franchise? Are the pirates to blame? Let us know what you think.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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