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News: Google+ Pro Tips Weekly Round Up: Google+ Breaks News

Increasingly, I'm turning to Google+ as a source of news, and it looks like I'm not the only one. On Thursday, news of a small earthquake broke on both Twitter and Google+. One curious user, +Keith Barrett, decided to try and find out which social network was faster with the news. Turns out it was a tie. As Google integrates Google+ more closely with the rest of its services, and more users post relevant stories, I think we'll start to see Google+ as a place that can create and break stories,...

News: Bring the Brothers Grimm Characters to Life This Halloween

Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty are some of the most horrific fairy tales ever written, but over the course of nearly 200 years they've become watered down and sugar coated for innocent children everywhere. The original tales by the Brothers Grimm are virtually opposites of how we know them today, because they were never really intended for unsullied youngsters. The folk tales came from storytellers across the German countryside, recounting the terrors they've heard ove...

News: Bastion Joins the Pantheon of All-Time Great Downloadable Games

If you follow indie games at all, you've probably heard of Bastion. During its development, it took home numerous Best in Show prizes from E3 and other game conventions while building up an incredible amount of buzz in the games press. Part of what is intriguing about Bastion is its cool art design, which in the last couple months, peaked my interest more so than the gameplay or the much-ballyhooed narration.

News: Project Zomboid Has More Problems than the Guy in this Screenshot

Making a video game requires an incredible amount of work. It requires people skilled in many disciplines to work together for thousands of hours merging visual art, computer programming, game design, sound design, and music composition into a fun game. The Indie Stone is a Scottish indie development studio started, like so many others, by industry vets who were tired of corporate restrictions and wanted to make the crazy games they had always imagined.

News: Operation Rainfall Fails to Secure Great RPGs for America... For Now

Different genres of social media have changed the world, but they are not omnipotent. In most cases this is a good thing, but not in the case of Operation Rainfall. It has been a purely well meaning social media movement that should have led to a great boon for the North American gamer public, but instead has served as a reminder of how stone aged Nintendo of America's (NOA) corporate thinking remains.

News: Pirates! Possibly the Purest RPG Ever

I love role-playing games. They tell great stories, require intense strategy, and make minimal demands of my tyrannosaurus-like hand-eye coordination. The idea of an RPG experience, at least on paper, is to allow users to play the role of a character. However, real people do not gain generic experience points for killing things, nor do they pause for each other during combat or have the ability to carry hundreds of potion bottles without slowing down. These can be fun gameplay mechanics, but ...

Playing Tera Online: Introduction

Tera Online is a beautiful Korean MMO with real time combat. The game is coming to the states towards the end of the year. Unlike other MMOs were combat is target specific (lock on target) and dependant on skill timers and macros, Tera Online focuses on fast area of effect action. Your blade or spell will hit whatever is in front, or miss if it's not. The closest thing to the game play of Tera is Vindictus, a free to play MMO with the same concept of game play. If you've played Vindictus, the...

News: Want a Next-Gen Old-School Final Fantasy Game? Go Cheap. Go Cthulhu.

I was raised in the glory days of Japanese RPG's (JRPG's) on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the biggest game franchises, and real gamers could debate their merits endlessly. We remained engaged in the stories of the games, even though the soldiers, princesses and schoolchildren all had spiky day-glo hair. We waded through hours of randomly triggered menu-based battles instead of playing Doom or baseball. And we loved every minute of it.

News: April NPD Video Game Sales

April NPD Video Game Sales Every month around the second thursday the sales chart for video games and consoles are released for the previous month. They are released by the NPD group, the main company tracking video games sales in the US. Here are the top twenty games in the month of april (courtesy of Gamasutra http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=28566 ):

How To: Change the Google Logo to Your Favorite Google Doodle All Year Round

We all love it when the Google logo changes to celebrate or commemorate special events— pop-culture touchstones, civic milestones, scientific achievements and holidays— their latest one for this holiday season is a Christmas card to everyone— an interactive Google Doodle with 17 artworks from different artists, each depicting a seasonal greeting from a variety of cultures and countries.

News: Steampunk Fashion - Timetravelers and Warriors

There are many opportunities to make Steampunk clothing. Clothing can be elegant and relate to the aristocrats of the 19th century. But Steampunk also can be rough and dirty, inspired by the adventurer from stories like 2000 miles under the sea or even movies like "Mad Max" or Wild "Wild West".. There are no rules how Steampunk has to look...

News: The 'Electri-City' Tables by Ben Yates

I have an interest in using recycled materials in sculptures, particularly circuit boards and other wasted electronic and mechanical components with which I put together sprawling cities lit with fairy lights. These cityscapes can conjure an image of a parallel society built from what we throw away. Utopian or dystopian, the ‘Electri-Cities’ remain a feast for the eyes and the mind. What makes them particularly intriguing is the population of tiny model railway people—they bring a host of nev...

How To: Trick Your Twitter Followers into Thinking You're Somewhere Besides Where You Really Are

There are plenty of reasons not to use location information when you tweet, whether you're trying to stay safe or just don't want your crazy ex showing up while you're in line at the grocery store. But a new website called 'Please Don't Stalk Me' could actually make broadcasting your location work to your advantage—it lets you tag your tweets with any location you choose, anywhere in the world. Playing hooky? Send a tweet from 'home' to take care of any suspicion from your boss and coworkers....

How To: Print Your Emails in Style with This Steampunk Tape "Ticker Machine"

Last year, Instructables user Horatius.Steam created Dr. Brain, a small computer connected to a model brain that can tell stories and have Skype conversations. But one thing it couldn't do was print, so to solve that problem, he came up with this awesome Steampunk "Ticker Machine". A wooden base and glass dome make up the housing for a thermal printer, and the driver is hidden in a paper tube that's painted to look like wood. A slot at the bottom feeds the paper out from under the dome and a ...

How To: Always Know When Someone's Talking About You Online with IFTTT

Too many accounts, too little time. If this sounds like the story of your life, you're not alone. That's where If This, Then That (IFTTT) comes in. It's a site that lets you automate tasks in 50 different channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Craigslist, WordPress, YouTube, and even your own phone and email accounts. It works by using "recipes," an infinitely customizable list of tasks that you can set up to do almost anything you want. Want to know when someone mentions you on Twi...

How To: Text Facebook for a Temporary Password to Protect Your Profile on Public Networks

We all know the dangers of logging on to our personal accounts on public networks, but we pretty much all do it anyway—especially when it comes to Facebook. But the next time you're in a public place and can't wait to check out your Facebook news feed, use this simple trick to make sure that no one gets a hold of your password. In order for this to work, your mobile phone needs to be linked to your Facebook account. All you have to do is text "otp" (for one time password) to the number 32665.

News: News Clips - June 26

» ‘Obama Truth Team’ Orders GoDaddy To Shut Down Website. A political website that contained stinging criticism of the Obama administration and its handling of the Fast and Furious scandal was ordered to be shut down by the Obama campaign’s ‘Truth Team’. » Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Confronted On Torture.

How To: Effectively Play Hooky from Work

On average, about thirty percent of working Americans have called in sick at least once just to take a day off from work. If you are in the other goody-two-shoes seventy percent of the work force who've only called in sick for actual physical illness or have never actually used a sick day, consider giving yourself a mental health day if you ever feel like you really need it.

Edit on a Dime: The Week Ahead

Happy Monday to all of you out there, thankfully the Consumer Electronics Show is now behind us. It feels quite possible that a cold was caught by yours truly simply by reading the numerous reports of germs being spread from booth to booth on the show floor. I'll do my best to soldier on, in the meantime if you haven't already, you can experience the convention vicariously by reading my 'Best of CES' post here.

First Step: The Question.

Well it is true, it's not so much as sticking pencils in my afro but it's more like a magnet that attracts everything possible due to an immense amount of epicness contained within it. Sometimes I like to eat cereal. True story. However, these are just a small amount of my amazing achievements and Chuck Norris himself can testify that I am one of the few beings that are more gracious than him when it comes to speaking in Russian. I am also proud to be friends with the one and only Old Spice m...

How To: Survive the RAAM's Shadow DLC in Gears of War 3

This week saw the release of Gears of War 3's most extensive DLC to date: RAAM's Shadow. Having played the first hour or so of the single-player component, I have to say that it is very good. The story serves as a prequel to the first game in the series, taking place right after Emergence Day. While it's a little pricey at 1200 MSP (or $15 in actual money), the amount of content you get in RAAM's Shadow makes up for the initial investment. It's also one of the best Xbox 360-exclusive DLCs out...