Batman Arkham City

Arkham Inmates in His Own Backyard

With last year’s Batman: Arkham Asylum nearly achieving mythical status, receiving the “Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever” Guinness World Record, it’s not exactly a secret that its sequel is fervently awaited. It’s called Batman: Arkham City, and much of the same creative team will be involved, which is always a plus for a sequel, particularly when its predecessor was so popular. Rocksteady has said that Arkham City builds upon the dark, atmospheric Batman mood established in the original. As the title and slogan “Arkham has moved” imply, the scope of the action expands from the constraints of the last game’s insane asylum to the thick of Gotham City.

This is because Quincy Sharp, the old warden of Arkham Asylum, has become Gotham’s mayor, and decides to relocate inmates to a heavily-guarded slum overseen by the dubious psychiatrist, Hugo Strange. Meanwhile, Two-Face, looking to up his badass quotient, decides to publicly execute Catwoman in the compound, hoping to gain the admiration and respect of Arkham’s rapscallions and his fellow villains. Once Batman catches wind of the scheme, he decides to infiltrate Arkham City and save his one-time love interest. With the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Mr. Freeze all slated for appearances, the cast of Arkham City is going to be an all-star one.
In addition to rescuing his girlfriend (or girl-foe), the Caped Crusader is also bent on uncovering the gritty details of Dr. Hugo Strange’s past, as well as his true intentions for Arkham City’s inhabitants. The sequel’s story seems fairly complex, and Rocksteady says that there will be more plot-fueling interaction between Batman and villains, not just back-and-forth pummeling.

Part detective, part tech hound, and part ninja, Batman utilizes the same combination of gadgets and martial arts he did in the first installment. In fact, you’ll start the game with all the items you acquired in the last game, and some of them will even have different or added properties. There’ll also be new ones like smoke bombs and tracking devices. A notable difference in the battle system will be glorious group brawls, with more enemies attacking you at once than in Arkham Asylum. In this way, you’ll get the sense that Arkham City is the African savannah of Gotham, with ferocious packs fighting to claim turf and Batman just voluntarily wandering in. He’ll be able to taunt enemies and even bust down walls, giving players the element of surprise over their adversaries.

But make no mistake, it doesn’t sound like the game will be using action and battles as crutches. This time, we’re promised more puzzles and opportunities to actively help Batman figure things out and solve problems. The Riddler’s challenges are back, but tougher, and we’ll be able to interrogate enemies, access a criminal database, analyze radio frequencies, and assist Batman with forensic reports. Trophies will also be more difficult to win. However, Detective Mode, a skill Batman used in the previous game to locate hiding spots, enemies, and secret goodies, will be altered in Arkham City. Rocksteady recognized players relied on it too heavily, so its usefulness will probably be toned down this go-around.
Supplementing the main adventure are side-missions for the supporting cast, like the dagger-happy serial killer Victor Zsasz, who’s scarred with self-inflicted tally marks representing his victims. He also appeared in the original game and will reportedly be one of a few characters whose points of view are represented throughout Arkham City. With DC Comics writer Paul Dini returning to pen the game’s story, we can likely expect another rich, quality plot.

There has been no word on any sort of online play or multiplayer modes, however. If included, they’d run the risk of making it feel tacked-on, like so many games do with multiplayer modes. But if single player is anything like the one in Arkham Asylum, we probably don’t have anything to be worried about.
Finally, several voice actors have confirmed reprisals of their roles in Batman’s latest gaming adventure. Mark Hamill stars as the Joker (he says this’ll be the last time he’ll play the role), Kevin Conroy as Batman, and Wally Wingert as the Riddler.
Arkham Asylum left some pretty massive bat boots to fill, and it looks like its sequel is going to have no problems stepping up to the plate. An official release date has yet to be confirmed, but we’re told Batman: Arkham City will hit stores sometime fall 2011.

The 25 best games on Android

Not everyone owns an iPhone, it just seems that way because they get all the coverage. If you own an Android phone, you may have struggled to find the best games – many look like 30-minute creations by junior high students with newfound fascinations for Java. But not all of them - we did some digging, and found plenty of fast-paced and well-designed Android games that are being overlooked. The following 25 have caused us a few sleepless nights and some very sore fingertips.
Note: We avoided emulators or games that are not available in the Android Market, such as Doom. We also picked games that are Android-specific over those that run on multiple devices, only because they usually take advantage of Android hardware in a unique way and run faster. We also considered the price of the game, number of levels, and re-play value.

1. Buka Lite

Free

Buka’s frenetic pace makes it very entertaining. You play as a blue planet which you move around the screen (either with a finger press or by tilting the phone) to avoid solar nasties. Eventually, you can collect health and zap purple and yellow enemies by holding down your finger. Zapping larger orbs breaks them apart, which means a higher score, but the pieces move faster.
Buka has flashy, colorful visuals that get better as you progress. You might actually form a connection with the blue planet as it tries to find its home, which makes Buka a great example of something once thought impossible: a mobile game with character.

2. What the Doodle? Lite

Free

What the Doodle? won the recent Android developer contest. It’s like Pictionary, except with strangers… on your phone. There’s an auto match feature that sets you up with five other players online. You either guess the object another player is drawing or, when it’s your turn, draw the object. It’s a game especially well-suited for touch phones, and it works very well.

3. Graviturn

Free

In Graviturn, you move your phone from side to side to push a red ball off the screen. This sounds easy, but after a few levels you also have to make sure that the green balls stay on the screen, and increasingly numerous blue boxes get in your way. You also have the option (or hindrance?) of adding or removing walls in later levels by clicking on them, adding to the mayhem. Levels are generated randomly (and infinitely) so this free game has great re-playability.

4. Abduction!

Free

Like Doodle Jump on the iPhone, Abduction! is a vertical scrolling game that’s fast-paced and challenging. You play as a cow that jumps on grassy platforms to collect power-ups, such as one that catapults you higher off the pads. There are also “crumble” pads you can only use once before they break apart. The graphics are clear and bright, and the screen refresh is fast. Abduction! is twitchy in a good way.

5. Nintaii Lite

Free

Nintaii has a similar look and feel to Zen Bound on the iPhone. You move a wooden block around a game board to reach a black square. As you progress, obstacles, like raised platforms, increase the game’s challenge. The sound effects are above par (especially the loud clack of the wooden block and the Eastern chants) and the game includes 100 varied levels.

6. Slimeball Speedway Lite

Free

A brilliant game with cartoon-like graphics, Slimeball Speedway is another vertical scroller in which you control a ball rolling down the screen. The action is fast and you have to plan your moves carefully (watch for the little old ladies crossing the street). The blob grows and gets faster as you go, so each level becomes more challenging the longer you stay alive.

7. Go!Go! Rescue Squad

$2.99

There’s a fire, and you've been charged with the rescue attempt. Go!Go! Rescue Squad is a platformer in which you must squelch fires to help victims escape by finding a door. Usually, there’s some other obstruction (like a fallen tower) that blocks their path. You use a fire extinguisher to get the fire under control, and occasionally chuck the whole extinguisher. The colorful graphics are N64-esque and the game has a cheeky, nihilist sense of humor.

8. Totemo Lite

Free

Totemo is a puzzle game that encourages quick reflexes and good planning. Each level has blue orbs that you have to select in a logical sequence – say, in pairs or groups of three. There are stars that block the path; when you click on them, they light up the totem pole and pause the action to make the level more challenging. Later levels are much more complex with more orbs and less-obvious patterns.

9. UniWar

$2.99

With roots in a hexagonal wargame, UniWar is easy to learn and, thankfully, emphasizes fast action over tedious strategy. It’s turn based, but there’s not the typical long pause as the computer plans a strategy and attacks. The main campaign has 20 missions, but you can play 3v3 or 4v4 online on about 50 highly detailed and varied maps.

10. LightUp Lite

Free

LightUp is brain-teaser similar to Totemo where, instead of selecting orbs, you drag your finger along blue squares to light them up. You have to light the squares up sequentially, and the later levels are very challenging, with screen-filling grids and only a few possible solutions.

11. Tangram Lite

Free (99 cents for Pro version)

You might have played with tangrams when you were a kid (or last week) – they’re simple, but surprisingly difficult puzzles which require you to create a large shape out of smaller shapes without overlapping them. Tangram Lite is a nice rendition of the popular puzzle. You can turn the shapes easily and they lock into place without a lot of trial and error. As you progress, the shapes - and the puzzles - get more intricate. The pro version includes 300 puzzles.

12. Robo Defense

$2.99

Robo Defense is the best tower defense game for Android, with sharp graphics and great sci-fi sound effects that aid in strategizing. For example, you might place a few towers that make an obvious "pop" so that you can then focus on other guns, such as a powerful laser, in a different section. The game has 120 levels and each one is complex enough to last about 15 minutes.

13. Word Up!

$1.99, $2.99 for ad-free version

Almost exactly like the table-top game Boggle without the annoying relatives who know way too many words, Word Up! is a timed game where you draw with your finger on letters to make words. (Press C, drag to A, drag to T, release to spell “cat”). When you select a row of letters, the game drops the word below the main screen to let you know you selected a real word. It keeps track of the time and your score, and shows you the words you missed at the end.

14. Shoot U! Lite

Free, $2.99 for full game

In Shoot U!, you catapult stick-figure guys out of a cannon. The goal is to hit a star to advance to the next level. The game requires some advanced strategy and challenging physics, because you have to plan which game pieces, including pillars and walls, will get in the way. You have to conserve guys to earn the most points, but a little rapid fire is also fun.

15. Brain Cafe GeoQuiz

$0.99

GeoQuiz is not one of those "brain challenge" games that are supposed to improve your mental capacity. It's a trivia game that plays almost like the Millionaire game on TV without the lifelines. GeoQuiz has a slick and well-designed interface, so it's easy to read the questions and choose an answer. The game has a geographical slant, so many of the questions are related to flags, countries, and capital cities.

16. Gem Miner

$2.20

Based loosely on Dig Dug, but more puzzle-like, Gem Miner has you searching for minerals in a mine. The challenge is in planning out how far you want to go from your base, avoiding the falling rocks, and collecting enough gold and ore for upgrades - such as a ladder (one would imagine a ladder would be very handy when mining).

17. Labyrinth Lite

Free

Labyrinth is based on the classic table-top game which you play by moving a metal ball through a maze, avoiding holes. On Android, the game plays exceptionally well because of the sensitive tilt control of phones like the Nexus One. The Lite version has ten levels and the company is promising a full version later this year. The 3D-rendered graphics look remarkably realistic, and Labyrinth is a great challenge.

18. Baseball Superstars

$5.95

A few Android baseball games, including Homerun Baseball 3D, play okay and have flashy graphics, but Baseball Superstars has more depth. You can choose up to ten different teams, play in season or league mode, and compete in a homerun derby. Player control is easy: there's an on-screen joystick and buttons you press on the screen to swing the bat, hit the ball, and advance to the bases.

19. Plox Lite

Free

Plox is another tower defense game, but this time with small blob-shooting towers you use to block animals walking on a garden wall. Plox has clear and colorful graphics and good squishing-blob sound effects. Since enemies follow a pre-set path on the wall, you can plan your strategy easily. Each of the four available guns are upgradeable, adding a bit more strategic depth.

20. Flight Director Lite

Free

There are a handful of traffic control games for Android, but Flight Director has great satellite background graphics. As planes come in to the airport, you drag with a finger to direct them to an airstrip or helipad. Some of the planes move faster than others and are big enough to get in the way of smaller craft.

21. Zen Table Tennis

Free, ad-supported

The simple play mechanics of Zen Table Tennis make it great: you just move your finger to hit the ping pong ball. On a Google Nexus One phone, which is a fast 1GHz model, the gameplay is fast and smooth. (You can also move the paddle with the trackball.) Play goes to 11 points and, like the real game, you need a two-point advantage to win, which means some hectic back-and-forth action.

22. The Settlers

$4.99

This classic colony-building game is pretty true to the original - you build up a base by first erecting a fishing hub, then upgrade your base and search for resources. The Android version has three environments (forest, snow, and tropics), and the detailed "old world" graphics are crisp and clear.

23. FRG Lite

Free

FRG plays a bit like one of our top iPhone games (Alive 4-Ever). You control a robot that is being attacked by bugs, and are constantly moving and shooting. The smoke effects are top-notch and the sound effects draw you into the action. You can choose from three weapons and two robots in the Lite version, but FRG Deluxe (for $2.99) adds twelve new levels and two extra robots.

24. Tetris

$7.99

EA Mobile has made a faithful rendition of the original Tetris game. The graphics are crisp and colorful, and EA has added a few helpful aids - such as a shadowed version of the brick that appears at the top of the screen.

25. Bebbled

Free

This Bejeweled knock-off is free for Android phones and has some interesting twists on the classic "click jewels in a row to remove them" gameplay. There are two campaigns, 33 levels, and a random, low-pressure "freestyle" mode.

The 30 Best iPhone Apps So Far This Year

Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Alex Ahlund, the former CEO and founder of AppVee and AndroidApps, which were acquired by mobile application directory Appolicious. About this time last year, he gave us his picks of the best iPhone apps of 2009 up until then, so we thought we’d make it an annual tradition.
I’ve been involved in the iPhone app industry since it first began in 2008 and I have to say that it has come a long way. I’ve seen it grow from a meager launch of 500 applications in the App Store to currently over 225,000. In only two years, the industry has matured at hyperspeed. It spawned an entire ecosystem to support it from a multitude of news and editorial resources to developer engines, promotional services and ancillary niches. With over five billion app downloads and a billion dollars at stake, it’s no surprise that the app economy expanded so quickly.
However, the novelty land grab is definitely over. When you run a search on the App Store, most of the gimmicks have already been created—at least twice. Clones still litter the store and it’s becoming even more difficult for quality apps to get noticed. But, if you have a bit of patience and are willing to sift through less exciting apps, there are some fantastic gems just waiting to be discovered.
So without further ado, here are my top 30 picks for applications released this year thus far. Try one or try them all.
Games:
1. Angry Birds
Launch birds from a slingshot to topple buildings and crush piggies. There’s a reason this game has been No. 1 on the Paid List for so long. Addictive only starts to explain it.

2. Plants Vs Zombies
A defense game by casual game creators PopCap. Protect your home from an invasion of zombies by placing plants that shoot, freeze, blow-up, crush, or generally obliterate your foes.
3. Fruit Ninja
So simple, but strangely satisfying. Swipe to slice 3D fruit as it enters your screen. Great visuals and gratifying delivery.

4. Archetype
One of the best 3D arena shooters for the iPhone. Smooth multiplayer and easy handling. If you’re going to play a first-person shooter on the go, this is the one.
5. Rhythm Spirit
A rhythm-fighting game based on Japanese folklore. Very unique with top-notch production values. Can’t go wrong with ninjas, fighting, and music.
6. Ragdoll Blaster 2
Sequel to the fun and creative physics game. Blast ragdolls out of your canon to hit various targets. Tons of levels and really interesting puzzles.
7. Canabalt
The iPhone version of the popular flash game. Original escape game where you run away from impending doom, dodging obstacles and crashing through windows.
8. Chaos Rings
One of the few games priced above $10 that sold really well. A deep RPG with fantastic graphics from Square Enix.

9. The Horrible Vikings
A trajectory game steeped in style. Launch your vikings to hit enemies and items alike. A full upgrade system and use of power-ups adds nice depth.
10. Trenches
Fun side-scrolling strategy game where you employ the use of soldiers, machine guns, rifles and bombs to destroy your enemy.
11. God Finger
Keep your followers healthy and working. Create buildings, farms, and taverns for your peasants to enjoy. Control the weather and become the dictator of your own little world.
12. Parachute Ninja
Fling your ninja ball through the air in this interesting platformer. Reach higher and higher platforms, while avoiding obstacles and enemies.
13. Pocket Legends
This MMORPG deserves attention for an ambitious endeavor. Choose a class and work on leveling up, meeting strangers, and battling enemies.

14. Monkey Island 2
Sequel to one of the best adventure games ever released. More humor, puzzles, and story that we’ve come to expect from this classic series.
15. Zenonia 2
Followup to the hit action RPG Zenonia. With more playable classes, abilities, items, story and artwork, this is a must-have for RPG fans.

Apps:
16. Foursquare
The quintessential geo-social app, Foursquare allows users to ‘Check in’ to locations to earn points and broadcast their location. Get more Check-Ins than anyone and you become the mayor.
17. Groupon
Groupon is a service that offers an extremely marked down deal every day. From restaurants to spas, users have been excited about Groupon since it came out. All the same convenience on your iPhone.
18. iMovie
It made sense for Apple to bring their casual video editing software over to the iPhone when the 4 launched with hi-def recording. Very solid tool for on-the-go editing.

19. Siri Assistant
Your own personal assistant. Ask it for directions. Reminders. General information. Nearly anything. Fun and useful for anyone on the go. (Bought by Apple).
20. Twitter
While nothing new, with the acquisition of Tweetie, the official Twitter has become the best out of them all. Contains all the features you need.

21. Wolfram 
After dropping dramatically from the $50 price tag, Wolfram has become a fantastic knowledge searching tool based on Wolfram Alpha.
22. iBooks
I know, I know. This is a given. Provided with iOS 4.0, iBooks is the defacto book reader. Even so, it’s worth a mention for how elegant and easy it is to use compared to other readers.
23. Hulu Plus
This is something we have been waiting for a while. The downside is that it only offers content for the paid service—not for free as it is on the web. But, if you can pony up the monthly fee, this is a great app.
24. Gowalla
Similar to Foursquare, Gowalla allows users to ‘check in’ to a location to earn stamps. Based on GPS, it’s very addictive earning stamps and a great companion while you are out and about.

25. Dragon Dictation
Finally, an accurate way to dictate voice to text on the iPhone. Speak naturally to send a text message, email, or anything else that can receive inputted text.
26. Free App A Day
FAAD is an interesting service that works with developers to offer up their paid apps for free for a short time period. If you follow the iPhone app, you can snatch up some big name apps, gratis.
27. JotNot Scanner Pro
Make your iPhone into a multi-page scanner. Has a great image enhancing ability and makes saving and sending scans pretty effortless.
28. Text’nDrive 
For those of us with a habit of checking (or even worse, responding to) email while we drive, this app provides a hands-free solution where new messages are read to you and you can respond by voice.
29. Geodelic
An elegant “Around Me” style app showing everything that is near your location. Fun way to discover things you didn’t know existed.
30. Digg
Digg finally made an official app and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Users can look forward to all the same functionality as the native site, as well as easy saving and sharing.

Which apps would make your top 30 list?

Photoshop How-To: Make a New Image Look Old

In this technique, we'll show how to take a crisp, clean vector image, place it onto an old weather-beaten surface, and make it appear as if it had been there for years. While we've seen different variations on this technique before, we'll put our own "down & dirty" spin on it.
STEP 1
You'll need two images for this technique: a sign, poster, or image that you want to appear old and weathered and an old building or wall that contains some texture (wood planks, bricks, etc.). See Figure 1.

Figure 1

STEP 2
Open both images. Choose the Move tool (V) from the Toolbox, then click-and-drag the sign onto the image of the old building. Press Command-T (PC: Control-T) to bring up Free Transform and resize and reposition as needed (Figure 2). Press Return or Enter to apply the transformation.

Figure 2

STEP 3
Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) from the Toolbox. Make a horizontal selection over one area where the wood planks meet (Figure 3). Hold the Shift key and drag over other sets of wood planks, to add multiple selections as shown.

Figure 3

STEP 4
Choose Select > Feather to bring up the Feather Selection dialog, enter 2 pixels, and click OK (Figure 4).

Figure 4

STEP 5
Press Command-L (PC: Control-L) to bring up the Levels dialog. Move the Highlight Output slider (the white one at lower right) toward the left to darken the selected areas (Figure 5). Click OK to close the dialog and then press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect.

Figure 5

STEP 6
Change the layer Blend Mode (of the sign layer) to Overlay and lower the Opacity to 85% (Figure 6).

Figure 6

STEP 7
Choose the Eraser tool (E) from the Toolbox. Click on the Brush picker up in the Options Bar and choose Spatter 39 pixels. Lower the brush Opacity (in the Options Bar) to 20%. Now, erase away areas from the sign to give the illusion of that weather-beaten, wear-and-tear look (Figure 7).

Figure 7

You definitely want to erase some of the edges, but don't forget to erase some larger areas on the inside of the sign, especially over some of the text area. Follow the existing wear spot of the original building image as a guide.

With Internet TV, cable wins even if it loses

Americans, little by little, are cutting the proverbial cord on cable television. But that doesn't mean they're breaking up with their cable companies.

In addition to controlling most of the paid TV market in the U.S., cable companies are also poised to dominate the broadband market. This means that even when people drop their pricey cable TV packages, they're still likely to pay the cable company for access to the Internet, which is used to deliver the video streams to their TVs. For cable operators, it's a "heads we win; tails we win" situation.

Neil Smits, president of Comcast's cable division, admitted as much during the company's third quarter conference call earlier this week.

"If over-the-top comes into being, there is more consumption of online video," Smits said. "We feel very good about our capacity. That is one of the reasons we have invested so heavily in DOCSIS 3 (the cable technology that allows operators to provide download broadband speeds up to 160Mbps). We feel that that big pipe into the house is important and we will continue to invest in speed increases like that, like DOCSIS 3. We think it's an important component and the consumers continue to consume more bandwidth."

So what does that mean for average consumers? For those of us left behind with traditional cable services, it could well mean that the cable companies increase fees in order to pay for the contracts they have with content producers like the TV networks. For those who do leave cable TV, there's a very good chance they're paying the same provider for a different service--broadband access.

"People should not think of cable companies as media companies," said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Wall Street equities research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. "They are infrastructure companies. And they are in business to make a return on their physical infrastructure."

But instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it's more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network.

Time Warner has tested usage-based billing, but the company faced a huge backlash from consumers. Still, Moffett said that broadband service providers may have no choice as bandwidth-intensive video streaming services like Netflix become more popular. Sandvine recently issued a report showing that Netflix traffic already accounts for more than 20 percent of downstream traffic during peak times on U.S. broadband networks.

Of course, the number of people today who are cutting their cable cord and watching TV from the Internet is still small. But people are cutting the cable cord. Just ask Comcast, which went on the defensive earlier this week explaining why it lost a net of about 56,000 TV subscribers during the third quarter of 2010. (Comcast announced it had lost 275,000 basic cable subscriptions during the third quarter. Meanwhile it added 219,000 digital TV subscribers. This means that it lost a net of about 56,000 video subscribers during the quarter.)

"All our exit surveys have seen almost no impact (from people switching to Internet TV)," Smits said during the conference call. "We have seen customers who are disconnecting and not going to a competitor. That small number of customers appear to be going over-the-air (using antennas to get free TV) much more than any over-the-top impact (TV from the Net)."

Even though Comcast denies these people are flocking to sites such as Netflix, they have admitted that the weak economy is driving them toward less expensive forms of entertainment. As more content deals are struck with companies such as Netflix, people looking to save a buck on TV, and who also have a broadband connection, will likely gravitate toward the Web for TV and movie viewing.

Netflix, which is just one of many over-the-top video options available to consumers, is quickly expanding its customer base. During the third quarter the company saw its subscriber base jump 52 percent compared to a year ago.

Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings said on the company's earnings call earlier this month that the streaming offer was definitely fueling subscriber growth. Netflix said 66 percent of its subscribers used its streaming content during the third quarter, up from 61 percent in the second quarter and 41 percent during the same quarter a year ago.

Broadband benefits

But regardless of whether this trend continues, Comcast and other cable companies are likely to benefit since they also control the broadband connection into the home. The phone companies' biggest weapon in the broadband fight has been their new fiber-based networks: U-verse for AT&T and Fios for Verizon. These services have competed head-to-head with cable in markets where they're available. But neither AT&T nor Verizon is covering its entire territory with these expensive network upgrades, which means that many customers without access to U-verse or Fios services have the choice of slower DSL or cable. As the numbers show, many are choosing cable.

During the second quarter of 2010, cable captured a record 90 percent of all new broadband additions, according to a report Moffett wrote.

"Cable's broadband dominance opens the door for renewed share gains in the adjacent video market."

--Craig Moffett, senior analyst, Sanford C. Bernstein.

"Cable's broadband dominance opens the door for renewed share gains in the adjacent video market," Moffett said in his report. "Cable companies could simply increase their a la carte broadband prices (since in most markets, households have no other choice for sufficiently fast broadband) and simultaneously drop their video pricing, leaving the price of the bundle unchanged, to recapture video share."

He pointed to an example of this in Albany, N.Y., where Time Warner Cable raised its broadband price by 10 percent for its Internet-only customers to a rate just $2 below its promotional bundled rate for both services. The Internet-only price increased to $54.95 from $49.95. The 12-month promotional rate for video and data was $56.95.

Even without changing its pricing, cable companies are starting to see consumers choose more expensive services with faster speeds. Smits said during the company conference call that more than 20 percent of Comcast's customers subscribe to higher speed tiers of services. He considers the "blast level" services to be 8 Mbps and above. As a result the company saw an increase in the average revenue per user of its broadband services. And with faster 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps speeds on the way, the company has a lot of leg room to up-sell broadband consumers.

Of course, Comcast and the rest of the cable industry are not giving up on their TV business. This week Comcast relaunched Xfinity TV, the company's TV-everywhere on-demand video service. It provides access to 150,000 movies, TV shows, and other premium HD content online and can be viewed on various different devices such as laptops and tablets. The service is available to digital video customers who will get an ID and access to the service at no extra charge. By the end of this year, the company expects to have the service available on Apple iPhones and iPads as well as Android tablets.

The company is also improving its user guide and constantly adding new titles to its video-on-demand service. For the time being, it does not see Netflix or any other Internet-based TV service as a threat.

"I think even Netflix on their own call felt that they were more complementary than anything else to the existing marketplace," Brian Roberts, Comcast CEO said during the conference call. "I think you are also seeing an expansion of usage as you can use more devices. We are very excited about devices like the iPad. It gives us a chance to now start from scratch with a user interface that is using Web technology, not cable box technology."

Firefox 4 release slips to 2011

Mozilla has pushed back the planned Firefox 4 release to 2011, a delay that's no surprise given the difficulties in releasing the first full-featured beta of the open-source browser--but that also gives breathing room for several competitors.

Mozilla had hoped to release Firefox 4 in 2010, but a newly updated Firefox 4 schedule shows the first release candidate arriving in early 2011.

"Development on Firefox 4 has not slowed down, and strong progress is being made daily. However, based on the delays in completing the 'feature complete' Beta 7 milestone against which our add-on developers and third-party software developers can develop, as well as considering the amount of work remaining to prepare Firefox 4 for final release, we have revised our beta and release candidate schedule," said Mike Beltzner, vice president of engineering for Firefox, in a mailing list message yesterday. "The frequent beta releases have been extremely helpful in identifying compatibility issues with existing web content, so we plan on continuing to release beta milestones through the end of December. Our estimate is now that release candidate builds will ship in early 2011, with a final release date close behind."

Six beta versions have arrived in recent weeks, but Firefox 4 beta 7 hasn't appeared, despite more than six weeks of frenzied development. One big issue holding up release has been the integration of Firefox's older Tracemonkey engine for running Web-based JavaScript programs and the new JaegerMonkey engine that draws on Google's V8 engine in Chrome.

Mozilla's arewefastyet.com site shows progress matching Safari and Chrome JavaScript execution speed, but new JavaScript engines can be tough to tune. Several JavaScript bugs are blocking Firefox 4 beta 7.

The JaegerMonkey JavaScript engine in Firefox 4, whose performance is shown here in purple, has proven competitive against the engines in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome, as measured by the SunSpider and V8 benchmark suites. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Mozilla)

Among other changes in Firefox 4 are a revamped interface, a Bing search option, hardware-accelerated graphics, the new Jetpack foundation for add-ons to customize the browser, an HTML5 parser to interpret Web pages with the new standard for creating them, and WebGL for 3D Web graphics.

And presenting a major new front in the browser wars, Firefox 4 also works on Google's Android operating system for phones and other mobile devices. Today, the cutting edge in that market is dominated by the WebKit engine used on Android, Apple's iOS, and several other mobile operating systems.

Releasing the new version is important for Mozilla. Firefox remains the second most popular browser as measured by Net Applications usage statistics, but the browser market hasn't been as competitive as it is now in more than a decade.

Firefox and Opera kept the independent-browser fires burning during the years when Microsoft's Internet Explorer was dominant but somewhat dormant after its victory in the first browser wars of the 1990s.

In September's browser usage, IE dipped back below 60 percent share and Chrome gained 0.5 percentage points of usage.

(Credit: Net Applications)

Web technologies started picking up steam again, with Apple's Safari engineers joining the development effort begun by Opera and Firefox, and Firefox started wrenching significant share away from IE. But in the last two years, Google Chrome burst onto the scene, rising rapidly to third place and flattening Firefox's growth.

And even more recently, Microsoft began fighting back again with IE9, currently released in a first beta version. This browser was developed more in the open, letting outside developers get more of a say in its workings, and features many new modern abilities. Perhaps chief among them is ambitious hardware acceleration.

Firefox 4 has hardware acceleration, too, and unlike IE9 offers it for Mac OS X, Linux, and most important the vast number of Windows XP systems still in use.

Firefox 4 beta 1 for Android was powerful enough to run the full JavaScript-intense desktop version of Gmail, including the priority inbox. However, in this case, the Web application fell back to its more basic HTML interface.

Spotify closing in on label deals

The four major record labels are warming up to Spotify, the popular European streaming music service trying to launch in the United States.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and his staff are closer than ever to licensing agreements with the labels and launching in the U.S.

Spotify is still without signed contracts to license music from any top label and there are still numerous points to be negotiated, but the company has never been closer to finalizing deals than now, said multiple sources with knowledge of the talks.

One of the ways that Spotify has stirred the labels is by offering big money advances, the sources said. The amount could not be verified. Spokespeople for Spotify and the labels either were not immediately available for comment or declined to comment.

Spotify managers have promised to launch in the U.S. before the end of the year and up until the past week music executives were very skeptical about the company's chances of meeting that deadline. Spotify has already blown two prior launch deadlines.

Spotify's inability to reach licensing agreements with the labels can be traced to several factors. Some of the labels have lost faith in business models built on giving songs away to consumers free of charge. For some music execs, too many start-ups have attempted this and failed to continue licensing them. The list includes SpiralFrog, Ruckus, and Imeem.

There are also questions about Spotify's ability to turn users of the service's free offering into paying customers. In addition to the free service, Spotify charges for premium service. The rate the company converts free users into paying customers is in the single digits, insiders said. The labels want something closer to 15 percent.

There is little doubt among label honchos about Spotify's ability to attract a large following. The site's user experience has received glowing reviews, even from the likes of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But if the company fails at generating revenue from those users, there is a potential for Spotify to cut into sales from proven revenue producers, such as Apple and Amazon.

So, execs at the major record companies want enough upfront money to mitigate some of of the risks they believe are involved in licensing Spotify. What has impressed some at the labels is the willingness of Spotify's leadership to pay the advances and bet on its own ability to create a winner in the United States.

Test Drive Unlimited 2

If you don't like cars, I guess all these car games are quite hard to tell apart. If you do, however, you'll know that you're not dealing with a single genre so much as dozens of the things.
All the best games about cars are a little bit different: Burnout is both highly evolved and utterly, utterly depraved, while Ridge Racer is a light-streaked lucid dream where you ghost around corners and send out surprisingly gentle showers of sparks, and Forza Motorsport aims for sheer breadth of simulation options. Gran Turismo? Gran Turismo is part museum and part trip to the dentist: a clinical environment where softly-spoken experts have gathered to venerate and protect anything that comes with a camshaft.
So where does Test Drive fit in? Good question, and it's one that Unlimited 2 seeks to answer in some pretty interesting ways. The first Unlimited was a bit like an MMO and a bit like a summer holiday: a plush ramble (that's possible, right?) around an upmarket Hawaiian island where you took on challenges, launched impromptu rivalries with other players and saved up for weird new motors.
The sequel sticks to the same basic framework but elaborates on the options and player freedom. It also dials up the opulence to the point where the whole thing approaches soap opera levels. Not the grim British soaps which are all about getting your burger van impounded while someone stubs cigarettes out on your arm, mind, but one of those weird, upbeat foreign ones, obsessed with beautiful rich people hanging out on yachts and gesturing with half-filled whisky tumblers as they stand in front of picture windows. The nutty, aspirational ones.

Eden plans to evolve the game with DLC - and it will all be based on things the community is asking for.

At times, in fact, you may wonder how far the Eden Studios team plans on pushing the concept of simulation. TDU2 takes such delight in the luxurious world it's piecing together that it's happy to let you get out from behind the wheel and leave the car in the garage for long stretches of time should you wish to do so. It's fine - the garages look like mansions anyway, so your cars won't be lonely, and there's plenty of stuff for you to do on two feet as you buy houses, move your furniture about and fiddle with your avatar.
While you may not have signed up to a racing game so you could wrestle with corner sofas and flat-screen tellies, you can't fault the options available. You can tweak every aspect of your avatar's appearance, buy a range of increasingly over-the-top homes, add pictures and manage the stats of your MyLife profile, and invite your online friends over to hang out in your imaginary living room. It's a fascinating prospect, even if many people will stick to simply customising the cars (a wide range of decals and paint-jobs are available), and TDU2's social focus means you won't be mistaking it for any other driving game on the market.

Car interiors are much improved: you can see right down to the stitching, and there's a new texture effect on the leather.

There's a hint of Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball to proceedings occasionally - not in terms of creepy access to some unlikely ladies, but in the way that an aspirational lifestyle has been warped into a charming kind of parody. TDU2 really wants you to explore the world of the rich car enthusiast, and it's a strategy that percolates right down to the point of purchase. Eden doesn't want you buying cars or messing with their engines inside boring menu trees - it wants you to be able to walk into actual showrooms and garages and enjoy the browsing experience in three dimensions.
A lot of this could come off like Home - come to think of it, quite a lot of it could come off like Animal Crossing - but the car culture setting ensures that it feels like a good fit with the rest of the game. Besides, all of the social aspects are tied into the new progression system, where you can move through the narrative not just by racing but also by doing other things like building up your own status.
Avatars come in handy in the seamlessly integrated online options, as you form racing clubs with other players, deck out your clubhouse - okay, I've made it sound like a tree fort, whereas the one I was shown had parquet flooring and up-lighters - and hang around inside it with friends. More importantly, your club can polish its double-dangerous driving skills and take on rival clubs in eight-player races and other challenges.
As a sweetener to getting involved in clubs, Eden's promising treats. There are some very special cars that can only be purchased by clubs, and the whole thing has the chummy air of an MMO guild to it as you approach the 30-person club limit. It's a fitting addition for a game which already feels a bit like an RPG as you tool around an open world, taking on missions and watching your stats go up.
The other means of player progression are far more intimately involved with sitting behind a wheel. You can level up through exploring the game's huge environments and making discoveries (stumble across enough wrecks and you'll be able to bolt together entirely new vehicles), while good old car-collecting ties deeply into the game's preoccupations with luxury and consumption.
Beneath all the new distractions it's worth remembering that this is also a driving game. The good news is it's looking like an excellent one. Eight-player races promise to be punchy and hectic, damage has been included for this instalment - while it won't affect performance, it certainly looks good, ranging from paint scrapes to actual pieces of your car falling off - and car models have been overhauled with far more detailed interiors and a nice new metallic paint effect amongst other tweaks.
Most importantly, the handling has been extensively redesigned to give each car its own personality. It's astonishing the difference this makes: an Audi TT hugs the road with a polite rumbling sound, while a Ford Mustang can be fishtailed all over the shop as its V-8 engine booms. You don't need to be told that one is a classic muscle car and the other is a jumped-up graduation present for the daughters of Tory MPs: just driving them will fill you in about that.

The addition of off-road courses is based on how many players wanted to explore in original. You can still go off-off-road too, though, if you like the feel of grass and rocks against your chassis. Um.

There's definitely no shortage of tracks to drive them on. TDU2 moves the action to Ibiza, a world of palm trees and hi-spec apartment complexes, which has been purposefully riddled with hundreds of miles of roadways for you to blast around. Missions lurk every few metres by the looks of it, and creating your own courses is as easy as pulling up the map and dropping in waypoints. If you come up with a track you're particularly happy with, you can share it very easily, and place wagers on people beating your own completion time.
At 380 square kilometres - and with 930 kilometres of road - there's plenty to explore, and the game is at pains to break up the environments into distinct ecologies ranging from beaches to forests. A new day-and-night cycle is freshly in place and is already bathing the landscape in bleached morning sun one moment, cinematic moonlight the next, while a dynamic weather system means that sudden lightning showers will change the way your car handles as well as adding a bit of drama. Roads are divided between asphalt and off-road tracks, and there's a new class of off-road vehicles to get muddy in.

Would.

When you tire of Ibiza - my younger sister did several years ago - you can unlock its airport and blast back to Hawaii where the entire island of Oahu has been retooled from the first game with the new progression system in mind. It's an incredibly generous touch, and there are plenty of new missions waiting for you in the old neighbourhood, threaded alongside hundreds of miles of new roadways.
Eden's referring to its game as a "luxury lifestyle universe", and for once that's a sound bite that fits perfectly. This is something approaching lifestyle software, in the way it grants you virtual access to the kind of world that probably only otherwise exists in some of the limper Puff Daddy videos, in its options to buy not just Ferraris and Mustangs, but yachts and Bauhaus-styled mansions in which to store them.

Gran Turismo may have more cars, but only Test Drive works such a bizarre fantasy around owning them. The result is something that already feels like a true original, and while the social aspects are pleasantly bonkers, the fact that it's all tied into the cars makes it more meaningful. Besides, it's hard to complain when the core of the game has been so confidently improved upon.

Super 8 (2011)

 

(Click on image to download poster)

Super 8 (2011)

Starring: Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich, Gabriel Basso
Director: J.J. Abrams

U.S. Release Date: June 10, 2011

THEY SAY
1979, the U.S. Air Force closed a section of Area 51. All materials were to be transported to a secure facility in Ohio.
From executive producer Steven Spielberg and director J.J. Abrams. Next summer, it arrives . . .
WE SAY
Super 8 is the super secret project collaboration between J.J. Abrams (who directs) and Steven Spielberg (who produces).

Contrary to earlier reports it is not Cloverfield 2, instead it seems to be a creature feature in the $45 to $50 million range. Most reports have it that it involves “ordinary people encountering something decidedly extraordinary.” That could be anything from a UFO sighting to a tax refund, who knows?

Below is the trailer which has been attached to Iron Man 2 in the States. The entire thing seems to be cribbed from Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it’s OK for a director to plagiarize his producer because then it’s a homage, right?

Expect more near hysteric Internet hype in the near future of the Cloverfield variety . . . (check out the official trailer below).

Galaxy Tab coming to T-Mobile first, Nov. 10

If you can't wait to get your hands on the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet, T-Mobile will officially kick off all U.S. sales on November 10, according to a Samsung-issued press release. T-Mobile will sell the 7-inch Galaxy Tab for $399 after $50 mail-in rebate and with a two-year contract and monthly rate plan.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab will not carry HSPA+ speeds, as Samsung initially stated in their release. Instead, the Tab will support HSPA 7.2.
T-Mobile will load up its Galaxy Tab with the Samsung Media Hub, Qik's video chat app (to take advantage of that front-facing camera), Kindle for Android, and Slacker Radio's streaming music app.
After T-Mobile's day-one advantage, competition will be hot and heavy, with all four major U.S. carriers beginning to sell the iPad competitor within days of one other. Verizon will open its cash registers on November 11, selling the Android 2.2 hardware to subscribers for $599 without a contract. They will be followed by Sprint on November 14, which will peddle the Galaxy Tab for a third of the price, $399, with a two-year contract.
T-Mobile's announcement marks the third of the Big Four carriers releasing prices and availability. We'll let you know when we hear from AT&T.

Rolex best watch

For many, many years, Rolex has been renowned for making the worlds most exquisite, beautiful, and expensive watches. Yes, Rolex watches are very expensive, but there is certainly value for your money when you take into account they are considered valuable pieces of art, and rarely lose value.
Right now is one of the best times to find great deals on brand new, slightly used and vintage Rolex watches on eBay.
Here is a listing of our Top 10 Rolex watches. We've attached some helpful links to help you find great deals on these watches on eBay, search powered by GetItNext:

Rolex Submariner:

Rolex Explorer:

Rolex Daytona:

Rolex Sea Dweller:

Rolex Special Edition :

Rolex Datejust :

Rolex Yachtmaster:

Rolex Pearlmaster:

Rolex Lady Perpetual:

Rolex GMT Master :