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News: UK Newspaper Runs Series of Yellow Anti-Video Game Articles

The United Kingdom has long been known as an international hub of yellow tabloid journalism. The News Of The World, one of the nation's largest tabloids, is famously in court right now because of the deplorable methods it used to acquire salacious information about interesting people. It appears, given their recent string of video game related reportage, that daily newspaper Metro has also had its fair share of morally dubious reporters on staff.

News: Facebook Takes Cues From Google+ and Adds Better Privacy Controls

After the launch of Google+ and its ensuing attendant fanfare and rave reviews, Facebook seemed to undergo an identity crisis. On July 6th, Facebook failed to make waves with its "awesome" announcement - the new group chat and video chat features felt lame in comparison to the Google+ hangout and huddle features. Facebook also faced ongoing criticism for its perceived lack of privacy controls. Over on Quora, workers confirmed a lockdown of sorts at Facebook, for employees to work harder on fe...

News: BioShock's Libertarian 'Rapture' of the Deep Evolves into Real-Life Seastead Cities

BioShock is one of the best games of all time. It combines FPS gameplay with RPG storytelling and supports multiple systems better than any other game, that much is for sure. And the setting of its amazing story is a place called Rapture, a high-tech libertarian colony at the bottom of the Atlantic built by Andrew Ryan, a greying industrialist clearly inspired by John Galt and his creator Ayn Rand, the mother of Objectivism and modern American libertarianism in general. Ryan is a Soviet exile...

News: Is Google+ More of a Threat to Twitter than Facebook?

Much of the press around the launch of Google+ has pitted it squarely against Facebook. This was highlighted painfully for Facebook with their (misguidedly dubbed) "awesome" announcements yesterday. Their launch of a new design, video calling, and group chat might have been exciting, had not Google announced its Hangout feature for Google+ a week earlier (and by the way, introduced their own 1-on-1 video calling inside of Gmail way back in 2008). Hangouts took video calling a step further and...

News: Minecraft, Meet Terraria

Minecraft was first released just a few years ago, but when a paradigm-shifting piece of media comes along the rest of the world is quick to take inspiration from it. The absolutely terrible XBLA knock-off FortressCraft was the first, and last month a much more interesting game called Terraria came out on Steam for $9.99. It is clearly inspired by Minecraft, and there is a long checklist of identical features. It is, nonetheless, a very different product, and just might be called the first in...

Minecraft: Her Crushed Dreams

What happens when a person who has never played a building sandbox game tries it for the first time? Reality happens. The harsh reality of human nature. You would think playing with friends in a creation game would be utopia, but in truth it's more like being stuck with people that would walk all over you if it provided a softer path.

News: Final Fantasy 14 Special Edition Unboxing

Final Fantasy 14 the MMO is now live. The special edition priced at $75 enables people to play eight days earlier than people getting the regular edition, which comes out on September 30th. Mine arrived yesterday and here are some pictures of what's inside the special edition version of the game:

Metro 2033: Life

What separates Metro 2033 from other FPS games? Life. There are underground towns, markets, children, music, and so much background chatter than sometimes you can't single out a particular conversation.

News: Gassho and Kokoro

At the beginning of every class, or almost every class, we do a series of exercises. The Japanese word for this sort of calisthenic exercise isundo. These exercises derive from the Goju style of karate created by Miyagi Sensei in Okinawa in the early part of the 20th Century. In devising these exercises Miyagi no doubt borrowed liberally from the Chinese, whose influence on the southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago was immense.

How To: File a Last-Minute 2010 Income Tax Return: Save Money, Get Free Tax Help & More!

Ever since high school, I've been preparing my own taxes. Each year it gets more and more complicated, which results in me filing later and later, avoiding it until I have the time or just can't wait any longer. I even resorted to using TurboTax online to help do some of the grunt work for me these past couple years, but that hasn't stopped me from being lazy about it. I have yet to file my 2010 taxes, but I will very soon. Tomorrow, in fact—before TurboTax raises their prices.

How To: Stop Advertising Companies from Tracking Your Online Activity for Targeted Web Ads

Back in the eighties, I used to hate television commercials, but I eventually got used to them. Had to, in order to enjoy my favorite shows. Then, the increasing number of billboard ads annoyed me in the nineties. They followed me everywhere I went—no escape—persuading me to buy the newest whatever. It seemed like Big Brotherism—like They Live. But, I got used to it. When I finally entered the digital age and became a web addict, I was peeved at the constant sight of online ads everywhere I v...

News: Introduction To Creating Content

This article is all about creating content. This is a very important concept to grasp because the content that you will learn how to create is going to be the basis for how you will advertise and promote your website. Content, meaning articles, videos, and even podcasts. Content is now really the new advertising. Instead of traditional types of advertising and instead of the traditional separation between editorial content and advertising, that has gone the way of the dinosaur.

How To: Join the Fight Against SOPA and PIPA

Amazingly, a lot of people I know haven't even heard of SOPA or PIPA. Now, every English-reading person with an internet connection will finally have those two four-letter acronyms emblazoned in their minds. For the entire day today, Wikipedia's English-language site will be in total blackout in protest against the proposed legislation in the United States. And that's not all. MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and other popular websites are down today in protest.

Quick Start Guide: How to Set Up Your Canon 5D Mark II in 10 Easy Steps

Before jumping right into becoming the next James Neely or Moose Peterson, you're going to have get situated with your new digital SLR. No matter if you purchased the Canon EOS 5D Mark II body and lens separately or together, you've got everything you need to get started except the CompactFlash (CF) card. If you plan on shooting in RAW or capturing HD video, I suggest getting an 8GB or larger CF card. If you can afford it, maybe even opt for a high-speed UDMA card.

News: Making Art on Your iOS Device, Part 6: Museum, Gallery & Street Art Guides

This week's 6-part series on Making Art on Your iOS Device comes to a close today with our last segment: a collection of useful apps for touring museums, galleries and street art. The apps below cover some of the world's greatest art meccas, so read on if you're planning an upcoming trip, if you live in one of the destinations listed below, or if you simply want to see what a faraway museum has to offer—from the comfort of your couch.

News: Scrabble Finally Hits Android Devices... But Does It Beat Words with Friends?

Three years ago, Scrabble was one of the very first 500 mobile applications to appear on the new iTunes App Store, allowing iPhone users the chance to kill their Scrabble cravings on the go. It was a smart move for Hasbro and Electronic Arts (EA), but it's been two years and eight months since the Android Market opened for business, and they've just now released an official app for Android smartphones—Scrabble Free.

How To: Detect Facebook Spam

Spam is everywhere and Facebook is no exception. In fact, spammers are constantly stepping up their game by tricking unsuspecting Facebook users to participate in quizzes, games, apps, or "new features" that are actually dangerous computer viruses, spyware, or other trojan horses in disguise. Their attempts even trick people into unknowingly becoming spammers themselves.

Weasel Out of a Ticket & More: Life Lessons from the Creator of COPS

In 1988, John Langley created COPS for the fledgling FOX network. 23 years later, the show is still running. It is the Energizer bunny of prime time television. Since John has followed more police officers and witnessed more crime than any human being on earth (absolutely no question), I had to ask some advice for hypothetical unwanted encounters with the men in blue.

See Jane Pwn: A Primer for Internet Slang

Making your way into an online community can be really exciting. Some life-long friendships and lasting romances begin in humble chat rooms and message boards. But for the novice internet user, one of the biggest hurdles can be trying to figure out just what people are saying to one another.

How To: Who Is Anonymous? How the Wall Street Journal and the NSA Got It Wrong

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been a series of high-profile hacks and leaks. From the rooting of CombinedSystems, to a secret FBI conference call leak, all the way to the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on U.S. government sites—with a lot in-between. As governments move to close their long fingers around the free speech that exposes their secrets, this shadowy collective of loose-knit, but like-minded individuals are hell bent on preventing them. Or are they?