| Reddit Blackout Coming January 18th to Protest SOPA Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:32 PM PST  The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) is not about to die down. Popular discussion board and social news site Reddit has just announced that it will be blacking out on January 18th from 8AM-8PM EST in protest of the likely passage of the legislation. In place of the user-generated madness that is Reddit, the site will host a simple message about how SOPA and PIPA would negatively affect sites like Reddit.
Both pieces of legislation, SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate, would give unprecedented power to copyright holders to force websites offline. A site found to be hosting any copyrighted content could find its domain name blocked, even if that content was uploaded by a user. Search engines and ISPs would be forced to scrub offending websites from listings without judicial review. Clearly a site like Reddit would be especially vulnerable. Many experts on Internet infrastructure also have concerns that some provisions in SOPA/PIPA would make the net less secure. Reddit is estimated to get over 20 million unique visitors each month. If even a fraction of those users call up their members of Congress, it might actually make an impact. Do you support the blackout? |
| Google Search Gets Social with Google+ Integration Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:04 PM PST  It was only a matter of time, and now Google has rolled Google+ social results into its search engine in a big way. The new system is called "Search Plus Your World," and it's the biggest change to Google search in years. The new social search will surface content on the web, as well as on Google+. Everything from posts, to photos, to shared links will be taken into account from here on out.
Users will have to be logged into Google+ for the new social content to show up, but it appears to be the default view. A new search settings bar at the top allows you to quickly toggle the customized results off and get just general web content. The Plus-ified version of search indicated with a small person icon the links that are specifically from your Google+ circles or posts. Private material will show up in results, but only for those people it has been shared with. People and pages from your Circles will also auto-complete on Google now. The change is live now, and should be available to everyone in the coming days. Google's personalized search can be permanently disabled in the settings. Will you leave the personalized search on? |
| D-Link Announces New Routers of All Shapes and Sizes Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:47 PM PST  The market for routers is pretty well established at this point, but that isn't stopping companies from trying to build in new features to get you to upgrade. D-Link's newly announced routers are looking to connect you in a variety of ways, and at a variety of price points. The company is offering up a low-cost cloud router, a pricey media-enabled option, and more networking goodies.
The DIR-605L is being billed as the first sub-$50 802.11n router with cloud services built-in. The mydlink service will allow users to share content, and manage their network remotely with mobile apps on Android and iOS. A bit more up-market from this device is the newest router in the Amplifi series, the HD Media Router 3000. This little beauty has all the bells and whistles including 802.11n (up to 900Mbps), powerline networking, bandwidth monitoring, and cloud-based sharing through SharePort. One less noticed addition to D-Link's line up is the confusingly named All-in-One Mobile Companion. The Mobile Companion is essentially a travel router with some useful extras like mobile device charging, mass storage via USB, and Wi-Fi protected setup. D-Link also showed off a new networked webcam we're sure they would like you to pair with some of these devices. Keep an eye out for these products in the coming months. |
| The 10 Star Wars PC Games Every Fan Should Have Played Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:34 PM PST The Force has long been with fans of the Star Wars movies. To celebrate the launch of the series' second massively multiplayer online game, we're recapping the top ten titles that had the biggest impact on the Star Wars genre at large. And, no, you don't have to let the Wookiee win in these if you don't want to. Star Wars: TIE Fighter Many who have come before us have dubbed Star Wars: TIE Fighter – the space sim that puts you right in the cockpit for everyone's favorite Galactic Empire – as one of the greatest Star Wars games in existence, if not one of the greatest games of all time. Why's that? It's simultaneously challenging and geektastic to fly alongside star destroyers (and even Darth Vader himself) in a variety of the Empire's best and worst ships, set to a soundtrack that shifts based on combat actions. Toss in a great plot, a host of secret bonus goals, and the sheer joy of chasing down Y-Wings in a TIE Defender, and you have one of the defining games of the Star Wars franchise. Can has brand-new sequel? Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter While Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter lacked a definitive storyline until the game's expansion pack, Balance of Power, the original title introduced the big feature that fans had been anticipating since their first joyride in a TIE Fighter: multiplayer. No longer were you constrained to blowing up legions of the Empire's (or Alliance's) dumbest computer-controlled pilots. You could now exact your revenge on your friends via customized space deathmatches or objective-driven missions. And we also love that this was the first of the Star Wars space sims to introduce a destroyable Super Star Destroyer. Those things must cost a fortune. Star Wars: Rebel Assault Don't judge this game based on modern-day standards. Time travel back to November of 1993, a time when owning an optical drive (let alone a game designed for its use) was much more of a rare occurrence than it is now. Star Wars: Rebel Assault was LucasArts' first such title, and it allowed a player to perform a crude, movie-enhanced run through of most of the major events of Star Wars: A New Hope – complete with a canon-breaking save of Luke Skywalker right before he blew that thing and went home. Star Wars: Dark Forces/Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II This one's a toughie. We give massive historical points to Star Wars: Dark Forces, the very beginning of the Star Wars first-person-shooter landscape. However, it wasn't until the game's sequel, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, that players were finally given the option to swing a lightsaber around and ruin the careers of many of the Empire's finest stormtroopers. The game also included the addition of Force powers, which left plenty of geeks cackling with glee as they Force-choked everything they could get their hands on. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy A quasi-customizable plot line? First person combat? New Force powers? Double-bladed lightsabers? Crazy multiplayer, saber-swinging slugfests? If Dark Forces invented the Star Wars FPS genre, then Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was the grand finale. Although the AI in the game was weak even for a Star Wars title – poor stormtroopers – the lightsaber combat (split across three different "stances" for single-blade fighters) did a great job of breaking the hack-and-slash stereotypes of previous titles. Star Wars Galaxies Star Wars Galaxies had a tumultuous existence, including its great gameplay shift from "Jedi are rare and sacred" to "Everyone's a Jedi!" – otherwise known as the "New Game Enhancement" update. But we'll give the game credit in its attempt to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the first massively multiplayer Star Wars universe. You could be a dancer; You could be a space pilot; You could hang out with Admiral Ackbar. Heck, you could even create and manage your own city, or even play a Star Wars-themed card game within the MMO itself. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was BioWare's first big RPG title that had no connection whatsoever to the Dungeons and Dragons universe. And, to gamers' delight, the company knocked this one out of the park. To say the story is simply "epic" would be doing it a disservice, but to say anything more would spoil a series of twists that you owe it to yourself to experience. Whether you run light side or dark side in this sprawling title, you at least owe it to yourself to enjoy every single word that your companion droid, HK-47, has to say. Meatbag. Star Wars: Battlefront II You got your Battlefield in my Star Wars -- specifically, Star Wars: Battlefront II, an action-packed title that delivered heavy on the "multiplayer war" angle by supporting up to 64 concurrent players in a single map. But the gameplay was similar in both multiplayer and Battlefront II's single-player campaign: You picked from one of four classes to wage war in objective (or deathmatch-based) battlegrounds. The better you did, the closer you got to unlocking two special "hero" classes to play as – typically of the lightsaber-swinging variety, we note. Space combat and a Risk-like "Galactic Conquest" mode made this shooter just that much sweeter. Lego Star Wars II It's cute, okay? But more than that, the Lego Star Wars titles – and Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, particularly – are chock-full of little geeky head-nods and plenty of fun unlockables for Star Wars aficionados of all ages. Ever wonder what would happen if, say, the Emperor himself was chasing Jawas through the Tatooine deserts? With more than 50 playable characters to choose from across the game's many levels, Lego Star Wars II delivered hours of simple fun (and thousands of destroyed Lego blocks). Star Wars: Empire at War Many Star Wars-themed real-time strategy games have come, and many have fallen (Rebellion, anyone?) But Star Wars: Empire at War was perhaps the least-flawed of them all. The galaxy-spanning Galactic Conquest mode was fun without being needlessly complex, allowing you to play through scenarios like "Destroy the Death Star" via both ground- and space-based combat. We confess; blowing up AT-AT Walkers or Republic landspeeders wasn't nearly as fun as using Interdictor cruisers and Star Destroyers to spring epic traps on your enemies. |
| Star Wars: The Old Republic Review Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:13 PM PST A fabulous single-player experience in a massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) comes with a buffet of a story for an MMO, but you only get to fill your plate once. From decisions as significant as choosing your character's class specialization to events as trivial as responding to dialog options, much of what you do during your character's main story has a lasting and permanent effect. We like the feast: BioWare's masterful use of instanced environments creates more captivating gameplay for the solo quester than most any other MMO. But this is BioWare's first foray into the massively multiplayer world, and it shows. TOR is more a role-playing game you play alongside 999,999 friends than a true MMO. BioWare either poorly integrates or completely misses the mark on many of the elements that define an MMO. On the upside, the beautiful blend of voice acting and dialogue options in each of TOR's many quests should earn the game a celebratory parade through the Yavin 4 throne room. And while the scripted quests (occasionally punctuated by John Williams's familiar score) are immersive, they make the rest of the game's environments seem stale by comparison. TOR's non-instanced "generic" areas just aren't very player-interactive. The Nar Shadda casino, a cold and lifeless location that cries out for mini-games and interactivity, is just one example. And don't get us started on TOR's cantina music. 
Keep an eye out for clickables (or killables) during normal quests, and you could earn some tasty experience from self-updating bonus objectives!
Whoever designed TOR's sprawling landscapes (and transportation flowcharts) deserves to be Force choked. Traveling feels like marathon training until you gain the Sprint power at level 15, or player vehicles at level 25. Even then, you can probably alt-tab out and watch the full Battle of Hoth while you auto-run your journey between planets, space, and your ship to fulfill various missions. TOR isn't designed so you can amass armies of friends to take out a faction leader, nor is it even really geared for generic player-versus-player prior to level 50. It's telling that even on a PvP server, it took us until level 27 (out of 50) to encounter our first enemy player in the wild. TOR's instanced PvP matches are simple and fun—yes, even Huttball—but BioWare's decision to have power-boosted lowbies play alongside top-level characters is baffling. TOR's general combat is challenging and interactive. It includes targetable combustibles that can deal significant damage to nearby enemies, and pop-up bonus objectives that give players more of a reason to fight. That said, the boss fights of TOR's group instances, or Flashpoints, aren't very impressive through mid-game: The strategies are simple and the tanking and spanking is prevalent. And then there are the omissions: TOR's space combat system is more Rebel Assault than TIE Fighter, and it's pathetic to see no Flashpoint matchmaking system beyond shouting "LFG" in general chat. There's no true guild support beyond just having one, no in-game achievements for the boastful, and absolutely no UI customization or add-on support to speak of. The game's Legacy features—beyond granting a player access to a last name around level 30 or so—are even labeled within the game with a big fat "coming soon." Come on. But no MMO can go from Padawan to Jedi Master (or Darth) in a single launch window: If BioWare can complement the game's excellent single-player experience with more of the MMO genre's successful staples (including a stronger implementation of the features we enjoyed in, say, Star Wars: Galaxies), then The Old Republic could very well be the "prequel" that beats out some of the MMO landscape's big original titles. How many times do you get to say that about anything Star Wars? $60 (Standard), $80 (Digital Deluxe), or $150 (Collector's Edition); plus $14.99 per month
www.swtor.com
ESRB: T |
| Comic Book to Outline "Complex Personality" of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates Bio on Tap Too Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:28 PM PST  Later this week, the late Steve Jobs and Magneto will have something in common -- both will have appeared in comic book form. We're sure you can think of other similarities, unfortunately the full potential of Apple's iconic co-founder caricatured in a comic will never be reached, not without Stan Lee and Jon Stewart tag teaming the project (they're not), though Bluewater Production did promise to capture the many sides of his "complex personality."
"Admire him or dislike him, Jobs' vision and business acumen revolutionized the world," said writer CW Cooke "Between he and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, you would be hard pressed to find someone with greater influence over how we communicate, interact and do business over the last 30 years." Yep, Bill Gates is getting a comic book too, joining the ranks of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Spider-Man. As for Steve Jobs, the comic book was written prior to his death (penciled by Chris Schmidt with cover art by DC artist Joe Phillips), so it won't include his untimely passing. Maximum PC Deputy Editor Gordon Mah Ung shared his thoughts about the super tech duo appearing in comic book form. "It's just sad. No Repulsor, Ultimate Nullifier, or Adamantium. But maybe if they introduce each of them at a time, they can eventually do an 'Avengers' movie with all them together in unstable molecule uniforms," Gordon mused. We're obviously biased on this one, but wholeheartedly agree. The 32-page Steve Jobs comic book biography will go on sale tomorrow for $3.99. Bill Gates' bio will follow in March. Image Credit: Bluewater Production |
| Razer Revs into CES Waving a Radical PC Gaming Tablet Design Posted: 10 Jan 2012 12:40 PM PST  Tablet PCs have flirted with mobile gaming, and there are some fun titles out there that are playable on higher end Android and iPad devices. But it's not a true gaming platform, at least not yet. Give Razer a chance to shake things up. The gaming peripheral maker is throwing its hat into the tablet ring with its "Project Fiona PC Gaming Tablet" (from here on out it's just "Fiona"), a concept slate designed to play today's most popular PC games with a funky (Razer says "intuitive") control setup.
You won't find a Tegra chip inside or any other ARM-based variant, and it's not rocking an Atom processor. Nope, the Fiona brings a fully fledged Core i7 processor to the tablet party, giving it more in common with a PC than a tablet, Razer says. It also makes it easy for game developers to write apps for the device, considering x86 has been around since the Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed the Earth. Fiona features a dual-game controller design with ultra precise accelerometers and a highly sensitive multi-touch screen, according to Razer. It looks funktastic, yet oddly promising (see photo gallery below). "While multi-touch screens have become the de facto user interface for tablets, they are not the right interface for serious PC gaming," said Min-Liang Tan, CEO, Razer. "The user interface we have designed for Project Fiona allows all existing PC games to be played right out of the box and also provides game developers new opportunities as they develop next-gen games on a highly-intuitive platform. Both developers and gamers are going to love the new user interface that combines the best of a gamepad, multi-touch screen and accelerometers for an all-new gaming experience on-the-go." Force feedback is also part of the package. All this fun will come at a cost -- somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 (less, not more, Razer says). Razer expects to ship Fiona in the fourth quarter of this year. Image Credit: Razer |
| Android App of the Week: TaxCaster Posted: 10 Jan 2012 12:33 PM PST If you weren't aware of it already, and we're sorry to be the ones to remind you, but it's that time of year to pay our dues to Uncle Sam. Paying taxes isn't anyone's idea of fun but the pain can be reduced by having an idea of what to expect, which brings us to this weeks Android App of the Week, TaxCaster by TurboTax.  
Many of you will be familiar with TurboTax, Intuit's tax preparation software. TaxCaster doesn't allow you to do your taxes from your Android device, but it does allow you to enter in your information and come up with an estimate on your tax return or what you may still owe the government. TaxCaster will also suggest which version of TurboTax is best suited for your needs based on sources of income, deductions, and credits. Even if you're not a TurboTax user, TaxCaster is a useful tool for getting a general idea of your income tax situation, a useful tool for anyone who doesn't want to be surprised in April.  
TaxCaster by TurboTax is available as a free download from the Android Market, and is also available for other platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone 7. 
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| Dell UltraSharp U3011 Review Posted: 10 Jan 2012 12:25 PM PST Exceptional Price/Performance Ratio Dell's 30-inch U3011 features an anti-glare hard coat to reduce reflections, and the 2560x1600 display tilts, swivels, and is height adjustable, but it can't pivot into portrait mode. The monitor is outfitted with two HDMI and two DVI ports, as well as one analog VGA and one DisplayPort input. USB hubs are always convenient, and Dell obliges with one upstream and four downstream USB 2.0 ports, along with a seven-in-one multicard reader in the side of its bezel. The U3011 turned in a solid performance as we ran it through our gauntlet of DisplayMate benchmarks, producing some of the crispest text we've seen in tests that examine font clarity and readability. The monitor also did well on pixel-tracking tests that expose digital noise, and it produced stellar results in color-ramp tests that evaluate the display's ability to produce smooth color gradations. 
Dell's U3011 strikes a good balance between price, performance, and features. Dell's monitor performed slightly better than NEC's pricier PA301W in the ringing and overshoot tests, but we did detect a small amount of moiré when we watched the Blu-ray version of V for Vendetta. The U3011 exhibited a small amount of noise in suits, faces, and background signs. This, and the fact that the monitor can't swivel to portrait mode, are enough to deny it a Kick Ass award. We didn't encounter any issues or flaws while playing games, though. All in all, Dell has produced a fine display with a very reasonable price tag. $1,400, www.dell.com |
| Lenovo IdeaPad YOGA Is An Ultrabook With A Tablet Twist, Or Bend, Or Something Posted: 10 Jan 2012 11:30 AM PST Are Ultrabooks tablet killers? We pose that very question on the cover of this month's print issue. The debate rages on, but Lenovo is looking to skirt the issue with a newly unveiled offering. Rather than going the Eee Pad Transformer/Slider route and sticking a keyboard on a tablet, Lenovo instead got all bendy and twisty with the IdeaPad YOGA, a touchscreen Ultrabook with a 360 degree hinge on its lid. That little design tweak lets you use the YOGA as a tablet or a notebook. Heck, you can even give it a V-shape, stand it on its end and treat it like an all-in-one. 
Buoying its tablet-like claims is its miniscule size; the YOGA clocks in at just 3.1 lbs. and 0.67-inches thick. Spec-wise, the YOGA rocks 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an Intel Core Processor and a 13.1-inch, 1600x900 capacitive touchscreen that can handle up to 10 points of contact. Why the touchscreen? The IdeaPad YOGA runs Windows 8, you see – which means we probably won't be seeing it for a while. It's a nifty idea (and before you get any nifty ideas, you should know that Lenovo patented the dual-hinge design). Would multi-use notebooks like this make you more inclined to embrace Windows 8 with open ARMs? |
