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News: Freemium Games Start Their US Invasion on the iOS Front

For more than a decade, free-to-play games with microtransactions (also called In-App Purchase or IAP) by which players can pay real money for in-game content have been the industry standard for online success in Asia. Mainstream American gamers have long resisted these "freemium" games, with World of Warcraft and other subscription based online games reigning supreme, and being seen as more AAA than their free-ish counterparts. Casual games developers have encountered no such problems, and m...

News: Sense of Wonder Night Indie Game Showcase to Broadcast Live from Tokyo This Friday

One of the biggest video games events of the year is about to happen in Japan tomorrow, when the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) kicks off. If you've never heard of it, just think of it as the E3 of the East—a video game extravaganza open to both businesses (Thursday and Friday) and the public (Saturday and Sunday). And even though it hasn't officially started, TGS has already released some grand announcements, specifically about Nintendo's future lineup and a precipitous drop in their share prices.

News: Publishers to Profit from Explicit Drawing Inside Used Wii Video Game?

The used video game market represents a huge portion of retail game sales. It's the only avenue in which most people can afford to buy AAA games. But game publishers aren't exactly big fans of used game sales, since they only benefit from gamers buying new ones. GameStop and Best Buy are huge corporate interests, so EA and the rest of the big publishers out there have not been able to push them around on the issue of used game sales... so far.

News: 3 Long Awaited Indie Games at PAX That Should Be Released Already!

The small size of most indie game development teams is a strength, but also a weakness. It allows them to take risks and explore revolutionary ideas that a larger company could never justify to its shareholders, but also means they must navigate the game development labyrinth with minimal help, taking much longer than those with big development teams. Some of the most exciting indie games currently in development have been so for years, or look like they will be.

CryEngine 3: Now Everyone Can Make a Game As Good As Crysis 2… For Free

Crysis 2 is the current standard for high-quality graphics in video games. No other game looks so smooth, so colorful, so... ultra-real. German developer Crytek has built their reputation on PC game technology to the limit, and the CryENGINE 3 graphics engine they used to make Crysis 2 might be the most powerful tool for creating 3D video game graphics on Earth. As of yesterday, it's also free for anyone, yourself included, to download from Crytek's website here.

News: The Perfect Hack for Enabling NFC Credit Card Payments on Your iPhone 4

Remember the good ol' days when you actually had to swipe your credit or debit card to make a payment at the store? Now all it takes is a flick of the wrist to purchase goods with your card, thanks to RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology from Chase (blink), Visa (payWave) and MasterCard (PayPass). But soon "contactless" payments will be made by an entirely different beast—NFC, which stands for near field communication.

How To: Get Rid of Promoted Tweets in Your Twitter Timeline

More than a year ago, Twitter rolled out the first phase of its Promoted Tweets ad service, which consisted of selected tweets from advertising partners like Best Buy and Sony Pictures receiving "promoted" exposure in the search results pages on Twitter and in the trends lists. These ads were clearly labeled as such, so it was never any real bother to Twitter users.

News: New Android Market Update Lets You Rent Movies and Buy eBooks

Google has been slowly rolling out a new update for the Android Market in the United States, which gives mobile users a new interface and some additional content for their Android-powered smartphones and tablets. The update started a couple weeks ago, taking the Android Market to version 3.0.27 on devices running Android 2.2 or higher. The new Android Market has a Honeycomb feel to it with a more visually pleasing layout and new colorful promotional page which showcases top apps and games, as...

Step 1: The Hunt

Help Wanted. Now Hiring. Positions Available. These are among millions of the ways that the world around you says, "work here." Now, it may not be as easy as driving down main street, browsing for catchy billboards or flashy kiosks, calling up the mentioned number and simply getting hired. It takes work. The first step is perhaps one of the easiest: to think. Think about what your qualifications are, what you are good at, and what you wouldn't mind doing. The second step would be to formulate...

News: Totally Rad Shows Gnarly Side of Localization

Localizing a game is a task many do not fully understand. Not only do localizers have to translate the games they work on into a different language, but they have to translate it into a different culture as well. Oftentimes art assets, plot elements, and menu systems are changed to suit regional sensitivities. Japanese media tends to have their common drunkard characters removed or censored in American versions, for example.

World Siege: Orc Defender for iOS Turns Your Real Life Home Into a Video Game

Tower defense games have covered a lot of creative ground over the last five years. They've gone from simple desktop amusements to a staple of the indie game scene, having been integreated into nearly every other type of game and released on every platform. They have taken place in ancient times, the far future, and on alien planets. But one place they (and most other types of video games) have never taken place is the real world. Not a virtual recreation of the world, but on the very terra f...

News: Microsoft Releases Sneak Preview of Touch-Friendly Windows 8

Microsoft recently released the first sneak peak of their new operating system, Windows 8, and it's a pretty big departure from the last few major updates. The new Windows 8 was built from the ground up, and is designed primarily as a touchscreen interface, which is perfect for the expanding tablet market. They've ditched the clunky start screen that's dominated Windows 95 through Windows 7, replacing it with grids of application tiles, similar in functionality to an iPad or Android tablet, a...

News: First Steps of Compiling a Program in Linux

This article describes the very basics of compiling a program on Linux. It is targeted at the absolute beginner. Sometimes beginners search for programs on the web for their Linux systems, and is faced with the reality that they have to compile the program themselves, either because there exists no binary for their architecture, or the author of the program just doesn't release any binaries at all, but only sources.

Miro 4: Syncing Media to Android Devices Just Got Easier

Android devices are becoming more and more popular with each passing day, so why is it that Google has yet to design a software program that allows users to manage their music and video libraries on their computers? Apple's iTunes offers iPhone users an easy way to control their media files, as well as effortless syncing capabilities. But where's the option for Android smartphones? Is there no easy way to synchronize your media library with your DROID?

News: The Morals and Dangers of Public Art. (A Warning)

I've decided to write this post so some of the fledgling street artists who may or may not follow this world in the future are informed about two things in the urban art world that are either not discussed at all, or distorted (intentionally or otherwise) to the point of misinformation. Those two things are, as the title says, the dangers of street art, and the morals of street art.

News: The Revolution of the Hacked Kinect, Part 3: Gaming Gets Artsy

Video games and art have somewhat of a sticky relationship. Many video games have large teams of talented artists doing amazingly creative work, and yet the art community is only just beginning to utilize video games as art (sometimes). Perhaps if video games were shown not just as a medium of expression, but as a means of creating great art as well, the art community would be forced to consider it differently. The third part in the Hacked Kinect series will focus on the artistic possibilitie...

News: MyndPlay Gives Mindf*** Movies a New Meaning

Were you horrified when Gwyneth Paltrow's head ended up in a box in Se7en? Do you share Harrison Ford's opinion that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi? Think Kurt Russell could have handled aliens better in The Thing? Well, sorry—you're out of luck. There's nothing you can do to prevent William Wallace's beheading or Carrie's mayhem. But thanks to MyndPlay, controlling the plot to future films is totally possible.

How To: Add a Dislike Button to Your Facebook Page

Are you one of countless Facebook users who find the classic Thumbs Up symbol tiresomely sycophantic? You're not alone. Back in August of 2010, the widespread addition of an "official" Thumbs Down symbol to Facebook pages quickly revealed itself to be a scam, but only after countless users opted in.

News: Creepy Theremin Utensils Howl the Pain of Slaughtered Ghost Chickens

One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. Playing the theremin can be off-putting for some, since it's a relatively pricy gizmo, but a new geek gadget called the EaTheremin aims to make all of us professional, dinnertime theremists.

News: Bullet-Proof Silk Sheets

Enjoy rolling around at night in the sleek luster of silk? Also afraid of a mobster finding out you're rolling around with his cousin's wife? Solution: bullet-proof silk sheets. All you need is the strongest biomaterial ever found--Darwin's bark spider silk. So, grab a loom and start weaving.

How To: Use the GasBuddy Mobile App to Find the Cheapest Prices in Town

Gas prices across the United States have skyrocketed, with today's national average for regular unleaded gas at $3.51 a gallon, with California leading the pack at $3.90 a gallon. AAA reports that last week's national average was just $3.37. That's a $0.14 increase in just one week! Just one month ago, the average was $3.12. A year ago—$2.75 a gallon. Actually, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) states the price of gas hasn't been this high since since 2008 when it hit $3.57 in ...

UPDATE: Wafaa Bilal’s Head Rejects Camera Implant

If you missed our previous posts on Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal's attempt to go cyborg, here's the short and skinny: First, Bilal announced a plan to implant a camera in his head, a project entitled 3rdi, which would record his daily life while simultaneously feeding the images to monitors at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. Then, he actually did it (and, yes, it was gnarly).