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How To: Revert to the Old Netflix App on the New Xbox 360 Update

By now, most of you have updated to the new Xbox look. Just as expected, it's got some great new features. The dashboard looks great and Bing integration is awesome, but I'm very unhappy about the new Netflix interface. It's awkward, slow, and half of the items don't even load correctly. I can't even play some movies. And the instant play feature is kind of annoying. When I first chose a video, I was hoping when it instantly started playing that it was a trailer, à la Zune. Alas, no.

How To: Make Your Laptop Theft Proof

The dreaded moment you hope never happens—someone has stolen your laptop. You could have private information, pictures, or even private information belonging to the company you work for, all lost forever. It can cause you pain, money, or even a job.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Old-New School

This week's FIGRR is all about games that are old-new (or new-old, if you like) school. Each celebrates a different vital, yet largely taken for granted, aspect of video game history in the decidedly new-school world of indie games. Their titles betray them. Blocks That Matter is all about blocks. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is all about item shops. Neither are particularly sexy aspects of gaming, but both are ubiquitous elements of great games that can stand on their own.

Dead Island: Almost Dead on Arrival

Dead Island (PC, PS3, 360) had the worst launch of any game in recent memory. The wrong version of the game was released on PC, matchmaking was down for three days on PC, saves were deleted without notice making people start from scratch, and the Feminist Whore (a file found describing one of the character's skills) fiasco. The game just wasn't ready for release.

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...

How To: Enhance Your Photos in Google+

Like Facebook, Google+ is a great platform for sharing and viewing photographs. Many talented photographers have already uploaded their portfolios, and in addition to easy album sharing, Google+ offers something Facebook does not—simple editing features for enhancing your photos upon uploading. Below, how to instantly upload via smartphone, plus a quick run through of the basic editing tools available.

News: Friday Not-So-Indie Game Review Roundup: Combat Racing

Deep in their heart of hearts, most Americans dream of having their car festooned with missile launchers and machine guns. Anyone who cuts them off or looks at them funny in traffic could be dispensed with quick and extreme justice, leaving a real-life James Bond and his passengers free to pursue their American dreams faster than everyone else. Racing games and shooting games are among the two most popular types of video games. So why aren't there more games where one can race cars and shoot ...

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...

Child of Eden: First Impressions

A woman from space that who has been dead hundreds of years has been resurrected on the internet and you're the IT assigned to fight the viruses attacking her. Child of Eden is a mesmerizing musical game, with fluid animations, great game play, and lots of replay ability.

Turning Letters into Pesticide: Killing Mechanical Bugs in Clockwords, Act 1

I love SCRABBLE, but sometimes it's hard to find an opponent who'll play a classic, tournament style game in person. Don't get me wrong—I play on the computer and iPhone all of the time, but it's just not the same as an in-person match. This leads me to stray every now and then, checking out new word-friendly games with a fast pace and interesting twist. And the most recent one was nothing like SCRABBLE, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

News: Attack Balloons and SuperMonkeys: A Tower Defense Retrospective

Real-time strategy (RTS) was the most popular genre in PC games at one time. It put Blizzard on the map—one of the biggest game developers in the world. And it buried the once venerable turn-based strategy genre, the only survivor being the Civilization series. But like hair metal in the late ‘80s, RTS reached its saturation point. Many bands (games) were too similar and used ornamentation over innovation. Suddenly, the fans left. From ’95 to ’03, Command & Conquer releases were more like new...

News: Are You Noob-Positive or Noob-Negative?

noob - Short for "newbie." Someone with little to no experience or skill. In some gaming communities, there is fierce debate over the distinction between "noob" and "newb"—one being derogatory while the other simply indicates being a novice. While some may argue the semantic differences, "noob" is the most common spelling seen around the internet, for both purposes.

News: Final Fantasy 14 Final Thoughts

Spending five days with the game is enough to know it's not to my liking. Is it a horrible MMO? Yes, yes it is. There are better Free to Play MMOs launched years ago that are better than this. As a fan of the Final Fantasy series (I am currently playing and liking Final Fantasy 13), this MMO is so bad that at some point I couldn't justify the awful environment, game play, and interface.

News: The Last Tango To Hell and Back

The Jackass cast enter a hotel ballroom completely nude except they are all wearing safety goggles.Each member must pair up to second member to use as a "dance partner". Some slow romantic music starts playing over a large stereo sound system in the room. ("Slow Dancing" by Johnny Rivers, "I'm Not In Love" by 10CC, "Drive" by The Cars. etc, etc, ect.)Everybody is dancing away with their partner to the music, havin a gay ol' time, when suddenly the lights go out & the music stops.Unbeknowst to...

Chess: The Ultimate PvP On-the-Go

Sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, I found I couldn’t browse the internet on my smartphone anymore. My eyes were tired from reading and there were no headphones to listen to music. There are no magazines at this dentist’s office, just an old TV playing Russian music videos ad nauseam. Mostly female Russian singers, and curiously enough they all shared similar traits: they can’t dance. They look gorgeous, but the best they could do is small movements and two slow moves at best- a huge diff...

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.