|  |  |  | | | | | Maximum PC - All Articles | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In the world of photography, Photoshop is the industry standard in post production work--capapble of doing nearly anything to any given photo. Though the rabbit hole is extremely deep, there are a few simple steps you can take to spruce up your images quickly and efficiently. Make Images Pop 
One of the simplest ways to add a little razzle-dazzle to darkened images is to lighten an image and then sharpen in. Click on Images >Adjustments > Levels and adjust the sliders until you like the result. When you're finished, bring your image to life by selecting Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.
Create Your Own Meme Have an awesome picture and an even wittier caption to share with the world? If you want it to look like most other lolcats, failboats, and Internet memes, create your text using the Impact font and then Stroke an outline (Layer > Layer Style > Stroke). Hide the Selection Outline In some instances, you may want to hide the blinking selection outline while manipulating an image. You can do this by pressing Ctrl+H. Note that the selection is still active, you just can't see it. To bring it back into view, press Ctrl+H again. Quickly Zoom In and Out An easy way to zoom in and out of an image is to hold Ctrl+Spacebar with your left hand, click the left mouse button with your right hand, and move the mouse left (zoom out) and right (zoom in). Batch Resize Photos 
If you plan to upload oodles of high resolution vacation pictures to Facebook, you should probably downsize them first. Open a photo and then click on Windows > Action. Now click on the down arrow, select New Action, and name it Batch Resize. Press the record button and then proceed to resize your pic, save the image, close it, and press the stop button. To use your new macro, go to File > Automate > Batch. Customize the Grid View Photoshop's Grid feature (View > Show > Grid) is an invaluable tool for aligning objects, but sometimes the Grid blends in with your image. It's easy to change how it looks. Navigate to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grids, & Slices and fine tune to your liking. Straighten an Image Find a straight surface in your photo – like a tabletop – and use the Ruler tool to create a straight line. Now go to Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary and notice that the corrected angle is already filled in. Hit OK and watch as your photo is automagically straightened. Improve Photoshop's Memory 
You can undo changes and step back in time by pressing Alt+Ctrl+Z up to 20 times by default. Not enough? Go to Edit > Preferences > Performance and choose any number from 1-1000. While you're in there, you can adjust how much RAM Photoshop is allowed to use. Get Hands On Hold the spacebar to turn the cursor into a hand icon and use it to drag your image. Release the spacebar to continue working. This comes in ultra-handy when manipulating a large and/or zoomed in image. Change Brush Sizes on the Fly This single tip has the potential to save you a ton of time. Rather than bring up the brush menu to make it bigger or smaller, use the left and right bracket keys. This also works with the Eraser tool. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It was just a few years ago in 2008 that MySpace was on the top of their game, pulling in $900 million in revenue. A year later, management started leaving as page views dipped. Now MySpace is up for sale, and the pitch book for prospective buyers has been leaked. It paints a pretty grim picture of the once great site's future.
For fiscal 2011, MySpace is looking at a projected $109 in revenue, but a whopping $274 million in expenses. That works out to a $165 million loss in just one year. After 2011, the pitch book starts spinning fanciful tales for 2012 and beyond. News Corp believes the site can be profitable in 2012 by reducing expenses to about $69 million. Similar results are predicted in future years. MySpace continues to lose huge numbers of visitors each and every month. It's hard to see how the predictions in the pitch book can be accurate past this year. When it comes down to it, News Corp will be lucky to get much of anything for MySpace. What do you think will become of MySpace? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  According to Cnet, one US Senator is preparing to introduce legislation that would radically alter online commerce. The bill would end the ability of Americans to buy goods from online retailers free from state sales tax. Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois is expected to present the bill shortly after the Easter recess.
Under current law, if an online retailer does not have a physical presence in a state, buyers do not have to pay the sales tax at the time of purchase. Durbin contends this is an unfair advantage. "Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?" Durbin said in February. The prospect of an internet sales tax is likely to rattle online retailers. It's not just the price competition, but the laws from one place to the next vary widely. There are about 7,500 different taxing jurisdictions in the US, many with their own regulations. Big sites like Amazon, and smaller independent sites would need to keep track of these rules. Do you think Internet sales tax is an inevitability? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | RSS is dead, they say! They, being all of you who now get your news, information, and various social updates from one of the many online platforms you subscribe to. But let it be said that all the Twitters, Facebooks, and Reddits in the world can't put a stake through the heart of the undying Really Simple Syndication feed. It's a powerful part of the information distribution system that makes up the general Web, and its use on the mobile platform is unquestioned: Tablet PCs plus RSS equals sublime. Where RSS has died, however, is on the desktop: There just isn't much room any more for the standalone RSS application, not when 35,000 (approximate count) different Web apps exist that use RSS in all sorts of crazy and interesting ways. But as we sing a sad eulogy for the once-popular practice of firing up an application to check the day's events, we celebrate the growth and uniqueness of all the new uses of RSS—including those that reduce the complexities of.XML feeds and management to more graphics-driven displays of easy-to-navigate news. So join us as we take a trip down RSS lane. We'll be checking out some of the best-in-class Web apps, the handful of remaining desktop apps, and cool apps for your iPad and Android tablet. For every app you download or use, an Angel of RSS gets its wings. Web Apps Feedly 
This extension for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari delivers the headline-based feeds you're used to seeing on most RSS apps in a novel, approachable fashion. It mixes just enough information to whet your whistle about a given feed's story alongside effortless navigation that allows you to quickly dig deeper into the information you find most interesting. Feedly taps into your existing Google Reader account to deliver RSS-based information in an almost web-magazine-like style, but you can subscribe to (and unsubscribe from) new feeds using Feedly itself. The beauty of this web app is its presentation—you'll swear you're reading a customized news blog, not a combination of simple RSS feeds. Good Noows 
What Good Noows loses on spelling, it gains on usefulness. Instead of giving you a boring old list of items to check out—that dull subject-plus-text-dump combination that's common to a majority of current RSS applications–Good Noows stashes your latest information into a visually appealing grid by default. Clicking on any story in your grid pulls it up as a background tab in your browser, and Instapaper connectivity allows you to stash any article into an offline reading queue. But the real enjoyment of this Web app is its instant customization: Filtering news, sorting by popularity, and finding brand-new RSS sources to read is just a few mouse-clicks away. Glow Dart 
YOU HAVE A 30-INCH MONITOR. That's the strength of the message you'll be sending if you fire up Glow Dart on anything but a 30-inch display, for this waterfall-style RSS display is ideally suited for the many Maximum PC readers who rock huge displays as a secondary monitor. If that's you, you'll love the fact that huge headlines of information—clickable if you want to view the actual story behind the tease–travel down your screen in real-time without you having to do a thing. Register for Glow Dart (it's free!) and you'll be able to customize this giant, scrolling list of information with all the personalized feeds you want. Tabbloid 
We would have called this one, "The Morning Report," ourselves, because that's basically what this web service creates for you. Input a list of RSS feeds whose contents you'd like delivered to you on a daily or weekly basis, and Tabbloid does just that. On your preset time interval, the service will deliver you a PDF via email that contains the contents of the RSS feeds you noted your interest in. That's it; no sign-ups, no craziness. You can just as easily stop the delivery as you can create a brand-new PDF report . Or ten. Or twenty. Postrank 
Is this an RSS feed? No. Consider Postrank to be the whipped cream to an already delicious Google Reader sundae. Assuming you use the big G-R for your RSS needs, and assuming that you're using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari as the browser that accesses Google Reader, than the Postrank add-on will allow you to quickly scan through your items for news that the greater Web has validated to be interesting. How's that? Each story is tagged with a Postrank rating, calculated from its user interest rating across a wide number of news aggregates. The more popular a story among the Web at-large, the higher the number, and the more you should read those stories above the other items in your feed. Voyage 
Bon voyage, news traveler. Now this is the kind of application we're talking about—one that considers the graphical element of RSS on equal footing to the data a particular feed carries. If that didn't make any sense, allow us to summarize: timeline. Voyage is a timeline. It doesn't look anything like a conventional RSS reader, even any of the ones we've listed above. Scroll through the various feeds you've configured into the app using your mouse and scroll wheel or keyboard arrow keys. Within the giant cloud of news Voyage creates for you are all the different stories you might be interested in, organized by the time they were pulled into the feed.
Downloadable Snackr 
Ever have the urge to create a CNN-like news feed that scrolls across the bottom of your Windows desktop? Look no further than the Adobe AIR app Snackr, which slaps a scrolling ticker of RSS stories overtop a transparent background right above your Windows taskbar. Moving your mouse over any part of the scrolling feed stops the action, just in case you want to spend a few extra seconds reading your headlines or clicking on an article to find out more info. Configuring the specific feeds shown on the scrolling bar only requires you to enter them Snackr's simple setup screen. Feedling 
So maybe a scroll bar full of RSS news isn't your thing. How about a transparent desktop item? Feedling is just that: The application creates transparent boxes overlaid on your actual windows desktop, with each "box" of information corresponding to a different RSS feed that you've entered in the program's configuration screen. You can set the specific opacity of the background transparent effect at whatever level you want, and you can also configure the app to display feed headlines in different colors (mouse-hover colors, too). There aren't a lot of options to configure in total, but that doesn't do anything to detract from the usefulness of this headlines-on-your-desktop utility. Android Tablet Feedly 
Beeeyouuutiful—that's the first thing you'll say when you fire up Feedly on your Android tablet. We love this app for its presentation most of all, because it's a perfect replica of the aforementioned extension for one's desktop browser. The sheer level of organization you can pack into your handheld blog page—at least, that's what Feedly's interface looks like—is one of the best-kept secrets of this simple feed viewer. A handy sidebar on the app gives you access to your latest feeds, the most popular stories, and featured feeds at the tap of a finger. And tiny icons at the bottom of stories viewed allow you to share information with others almost as quickly as you can pull new stories up. Pulse 
You don't want news; you want a photo essay. That's the premise behind the Pulse RSS viewer, which combines headlines and excerpts with beautiful, thumbnail graphics for all of your news sources. Each source within your Pulse page lists its stories in a sideways, scrollable fashion—pulling up specific news is as simple as tapping your finger on the associated graphical box. It's a beautiful way to read news, and this horizontal scrollbar of items stays with you when you go to view the text of an actual post or item. Pulse's coolest feature, however, has to be its Bump support—yes, you can now share RSS feeds with your friends by physically tapping tablets together. iPad Flipboard 
For the ultimate graphical treatment of an RSS feat, you'll have to pick yourself up an iPad—Flipboard transforms the entire premise of RSS into a kind-of digital magazine that one flicks with a finger to turn pages. We confess that RSS this app isn't specifically designed for RSS per se. It's more tuned into the general social universe, allowing one quick access to Facebook friends, Twitter feeds, and a variety of preselected content (like TED feeds, or VH1 news, or All Things Digital, et cetera). Provided you have a Google Reader account to pull into the app, however, you'll be able to bundle your news alongside a bunch of beautiful, customized, digital magazines… of-sorts! MobileRSS 
If you're just interested in a pleasant way to display RSS feeds on the iPad, MobileRSS is a no-frills feed reader that presents information in an unobtrusive, easy-to-digest style. You get the full text of a feed by default, with the quick option to tap on a button if you actually want to read the original post instead. The app connects up to both Google Reader and your Instapaper account for massive feed organization and/or saving-for-later treatment for posts. Switching between "all posts" and "unread only" is as easy as flicking a little digital switch on the side of the app. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 10 Great Readers, 10 Great Tips In our March issue's cover story, we threw out a challenge: Send us your favorite application tips, and we'd grant the five best submissions Maximum PC coins. We got so many tips it's taken us some time to go through them all. And so many of them were interesting, we decided to up the number of winners from 5 to 10. Hey, that's a nice problem to have right. So here are the winners, in all their glory. 1. Alexander Mentis: MS WORD EXTEND MODE This tip is on MS Word's "extend mode," which can save you a lot of editing time. While not as powerful as <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi>VI's</a> command mode, VI users stuck using MS Word will probably appreciate some of this tip. Even people who are familiar with extend mode may not know all of the capabilities below, as I have found them to be rather poorly documented and have pulled this knowledge from experimentation and multiple web sources. This tip works in Word 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, and 2010. Enter extended selection mode: F8 While in extended selection mode, select from cursor to: - next letter forward/back: [Right Arrow]/[Left Arrow]
multiple arrow presses will continue selecting/deselecting individual letters in the chosen direction - end/beginning of current word: Ctrl-[Right Arrow]/Ctrl-[Left Arrow]
multiple Ctrl-[Arrow] presses will continue selecting/deselecting whole words in the chosen direction - next occurrence of [character]: [character]
In the command above, [character] is some character on the keyboard and is case sensitive. It can also be applied repeatedly. So, for example, if the cursor was at the beginning of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dOg" F8 o would select everything up to and including the 'o' in "brown" F8 o o o would select everything up to and including the 'o' in "over" F8 O would select everything up to and including the 'O' in "dOg" Note that this is effectively cumulative, so if you typed: F8 over the end result would be that everything from the cursor position through the entire word "over" is highlighted. - end/beginning of line: End/Home - next line down/up: [Down Arrow]/[Up Arrow]
multiple arrow presses continue selecting/deselecting lines in the chosen direction - end/beginning of paragraph: Ctrl-[Down Arrow]/Ctrl-[Up Arrow]
multiple arrow presses continue selecting/deselecting paragraphs in the chosen direction - one page up/down: Page Up/Page Down
multiple page presses continue selecting/deselecting "pages" in the chosen direction (note, this does not go to page breaks – page size [the amount that will be highlighted] isn't exactly clear) - beginning/end of document: Ctrl-Home/Ctrl-End - location of [mouse click]: [mouse click] Exit extended selection mode: Esc or some other commands such as Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Delete You can also just cycle through "magnitudes" of selection through repeated pressing of the F8 key:
one press: enter extend mode
two presses: select current word
three presses: select current line
four presses: select current paragraph
five presses: select entire document Shift-F8 cycles through the magnitudes in reverse. 2. John Cimbaro: PHOTOSHOP SHADOWS 
Here's my new fave for Photoshop, which I now use on a daily basis: Image→Adjustments→Shadows/Highlights. This tool conveniently brightens dark areas only, while leaving the lighter areas of the image intact and thus avoiding the washing-out that occurs when simply adjusting brightness. I've attached an example, and if you look in particular at the trees in the background, you can see how much of a difference this handy tool can make. In this series, I've adjusted the original image with Shadows/Highlights (second panel), and then I'll usually also adjust the brightness and contrast a bit (third panel; Image→Adjustments→Brightness/Contrast, and I prefer Legacy mode). A slider in the Shadows/Highlights panel lets you adjust the level of brightening to the desired intensity. And if you do happen to have washed-out areas in the original image, the same panel allows you to darken only those areas to increase contrast and help your images "pop". When I'm cleaning up photos, this is the tool I use most, and I have to credit my graphic-designing wife, the Fantastic Sandy, for clueing me in on this one. I hope my fellow readers will find it as helpful as I have. 3. Martin Marquez: EXCEL HYPERLINK SHORTCUT I have started using Excel a good bit for budgeting and planning, and I hate the tabs at the bottom. If you have too many then you end up having to scroll – it's annoying. So what I started doing on big projects is on the first sheet, highlight column A, give it a color, and then freeze it. Label it the Index or Table of Contents on row 1, and then below that on row 2 or 3, I type out the title related to a tab or group of tabs, then below that I type out the subtitle which would be the actual tab and then continue with each additional tab related to a specific topic. An example would be Title: Baby, Subtitle: Diapers, Bottles, Wipes. Then I hyperlink each subtitle to its corresponding tab. Once this is complete in the first sheet, just copy and paste to the other sheets as needed. 4. Dan The Card Man: EXCEL INSERT DATE/TIME I do a lot of data entry in Excel and how found that if you want to insert the date into a cell, here is what you press: CTRL combined with semicolon; so "CTRL" + ";" If you need to enter the current time: "CTRL" + "SHIFT" + ";" 5. Ben LaRochelle: EXCEL QUICK DATA SELECTION MS Excel is a great tool for generating .xml or SQL scripts, but can be a real pain when trying to quickly select sections of data in a row or column from one spot to the end of that particular field. That's why I click on the first cell I want to copy and then press Shift + Ctrl + Down or Up key to select just the data to the top or bottom of that column. Or Shift + Ctrl + Left or Right key to select just the data in the row. Then I'm ready to easily copy and paste it into Notepad to save as an .xml or .sql file. 6. Jeff Wiles: iTUNES CENTRALIZATION A couple of things I do to the settings on iTunes makes it a lot easier to make back-up copies of everything if you have a lot of music in your library. Also, it makes it easier to back up and share music between multiple users on the same computer. Create a folder on a drive that is accessible to all users, name it iTunes, and then create a sub-folder named iTunes 1 Step 2: Go to Edit-> Preferences-> Advanced Tab, and in the iTunes Media Folder Location, browse to the drive and folder you just created and click OK. Now, any music you purchase or import will go to that folder. Once that folder gets to 4 Gigs, or 8 Gigs in size (whichever you prefer), burn a DVD for back-up. Once you have the DVD back-up made, create another sub-folder, iTunes 2. Then repeat Step 2, but browse to your new folder. Once that folder gets to 4 Gigs, or 8 Gigs in size (whichever you prefer), burn a DVD. If you walk other users through these settings on iTunes, all music imported from all users goes to this central location. Also, if one user adds music, it's easy to add that music to another users library without winding up with duplicate files all over your computer... Simply go to File-> Add folder to Library, and browse to the current iTunes folder being used for storage (i.e. iTunes 2), and click Select Folder. iTunes will add all music not previously added. I have a huge library of CDs, tapes and records I am working on digitizing/converting to MP3, and the above system is something I've found works really well for me in managing and backing up our music library. If you have a home server or computer that is always on and acts as a hub for your home, this system would work also. 7. James Gledhill: PHOTOSHOP SKIN TONES To get really good skin tones quickly I use Levels with the ALT key. Pressing and holding the ALT key while you drag the little white/black sliders will show you where you are losing detail ( aka clipping) by turning the photo black (temporarily) and showing the clipping with colored pixels. By dragging the sliders just until you start to lose a tiny amount of detail in the skin, you can get a great skin tone in a matter of seconds, as well as helping the rest of the picture. 8. Ken Arnold: EXCEL POTPOURRI Paste Special – Values: When you have many rows data that is no longer dependent on a formula (you ran the formula and you got the result you needed), highlight the column that contains the results of the formula, right click Copy, right click Paste Special - Values. This takes the formula out and pastes only the result, which is a time saver if you are still manipulating the data. Formulas recalculate when moving data around and if you have a few hundred thousand lines, that can be frustrating. VLOOKUP: I know this is only a formula that has been in Excel forever, but so many people do not use it or even know that it exists. When you need to merge data on two sheets and there are common data among them, VLOOKUP can pull in data from one sheet to the other using the common identifier (customer ID, order ID, etc). You need 4 things to make VLOOKUP work: a column of data to search off of, an array of data to search (your matching data must be the first column in this array), what column of values you want to return in the unified sheet, and whether you want an exact of fuzzy match. I have seen so many people print out the other sheet and manually reconcile the data. ASAP Utilities: This is a free add-in at http://www.asap-utilities.com/. There is a paid version for businesses. This beast has 21 different categories of things to make your life in Excel easier. Text to number, number padding, number to text, row selection, import data, export data, the list goes on. You have to see it to grasp how you can use it. Anyone who is in Excel a lot needs this. I'm not the developer, just a long-time user. 9. Michael Toellner: Excel Conversion I read the excel tip "Why not numbers" and I appreciated the tip however I very frequently have the issue where I have a column of numbers and need them to be text, typically to use in a vlookup or "if" formula. The method I use to convert a column of numbers to text (or text to numbers) is the Text to Columns function. To do this, highlight the column, choose Data – Text to Columns, Delimited by nothing and then choose Text to convert to text or General to convert to numbers. 10. Richard Schonegg: Windows 7 God Mode 
Having all the Admin capabilities in one window is great. I ran across this searching for ways to automate Administration in Windows 7 It is called God Mode by some. Create a new folder and rename the folder to the following exactly as shown below: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Be sure to rename the folder as shown above from the G to the } | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Have you gotten around to installing Internet Explorer 9 yet? Well, you might want to get on that before it's already obsolete. Microsoft showed off the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10 and the MIX developer conference today. If you fancy a look at the future of the browser, the preview can be downloaded from Microsoft's Test Drive site.
The build was extremely early, but the focus at this stage appears to be on web standards. IE10 will support CSS Gradients and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout. There will also be enhanced HTML5 and JavaScript support. Microsoft took the opportunity to rag on Firefox 4 for not supporting the web demos they had working on IE10. Although, we would question the worth of such a comparison. At the end of the demo, Microsoft dropped a bombshell. The IE10 preview, and the entire Windows system they were using, was running on a 1GHz ARM CPU. Devious. This is the first we've heard about Windows on ARM since the CES announcement a few months back. Admittedly, the demo looked very smooth. It looks like Redmond is forging ahead faster than expected. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If there's one thing Apple is great at doing, it's following the planned obsolescence model. What we mean by this is that Apple is notorious for releasing products that are either functionally dated from the get-go, or have a limited shelf-life due to missing features. The recently released iPad 2 with its janky cameras, lower than Full HD resolution, and half the amount of RAM as competing tablets (512MB versus 1GB on the Xoom, for example) is a good example of this. With many viewing the iPad 2 as an incremental update over the iPad 1, then is it so hard to believe the Internet rumors suggesting Apple will release an iPad 3 in the third quarter of this year?
Depends on who you ask. According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, upstream component makers aren't buying into the chatter. Touch panel makers did admit that Apple is asking them to provide products that can support higher image quality than the current iPad 2, and that an AMOLED panel may even be in Apple's cards, but since the project is still in the initial planning stage, it's highly unlikely you'd see an iPad 3 in 2011. That isn't the only reason. As DigiTimes sees it, "Since Apple just released its iPad 2 in early March and is ready to start mass shipping, launching the iPad 3 would simply bite off share from its iPad 2." We tend to agree. The iPad 2 is selling faster than Apple can stock its virtual store shelves, and with the competition still at a point where there's more talk than action, it wouldn't serve much purpose to release a third generation tablet so soon. The flip side to that argument is that we should see some compelling alternatives to the iPad by the end of the year, especially as Honeycomb matures and Google releases the source code to more hardware makers. And it's not just Android. We're still waiting on promising slates from Research In Motion (PlayBook), Hewlett-Packard (TouchPad), Asus (Eee Pad Transformer), and a handful of others. With so many companies stepping up to the plate, there's a good chance one of them will hit a homerun. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We're still trying to get used to the look and feel of Internet Explorer 9, and if Microsoft was in the same mindset as it was in 2001, we'd have 5 years to play around with it before Redmond would release a new browser. Apparently Microsoft is officially over its malaise in the browser wars, and lest you don't believe it, the world's largest software maker just unveiled the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10 at Microsoft's MIX11 conference.
"The only native experience of HTML5 on the Web today is on Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 9," said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Internet Explorer. "With Internet Explorer 9, websites can take advantage of the power of modern hardware and a modern operating system and deliver experiences that were not possible a year ago. Internet Explorer 10 will push the boundaries of what developers can do on the Web even further." Picking up where IE9 leaves off, IE10 will include support for additional standards, such as CSS3 Gradients on background images and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout, Microsoft says. But rather than listen to Microsoft hype it up, the software maker is inviting developers to download the Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview and give it a test drive. Just as with the IE9 Platform Preview that preceded the browser's beta, RC, and final release builds, don't expect a whole lot out of IE10 at this point. There isn't any real UI to play with and no amenities like tabbed browsing, though you can run Microsoft's HTML5 demos, including brand new ones like Fishbowl, an update to the original FishIE tank. Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  "Hey kids! Wanna cheese off Mom? Then play an M-rated video game!"
That's the juvenile, completely irresponsible message of EA's "Your Mom Hates This" advertising campaign for Dead Space 2, which was inexplicably approved by the ESRB. Whenever gaming begins to earn a modicum of mainstream acceptance and respectability, something remarkably stupid and pointless comes along to make us look like twits and make a farce of the ratings system. The commercial, which quickly went viral, shows moms ("from the heart of conservative America") reacting with horror to video of the game. In other words, EA is stereotyping an entire gender, class, political ideology, and region in order to sell a few more copies of the game. I guess news that women, moms, conservatives, and middle-Americans play games hasn't yet reached Redwood City. Who is the audience for this ad? Are there that many adults who still want to provoke their moms by their choice of video recreation, or is this just a direct appeal to underage gamers? Are game companies serious about keeping violent content out of the hands of minors, or just "serious" in a wink-wink, you-really-need-this-game-to-be-cool way? This is just a trite way of reinforcing a generation's sense of its own coolness, and rational adults should balk at such shameless manipulation. Attempting to exploit the generational divide in order to sell a few more copies of a game is crass marketing at its worst. The idea of "consumption as rebellion" is nauseating in itself. 
But I think I'm most bothered by the implicit message that games are only for hip kids. I'm 42 and I loved Dead Space 2. It's a game that has no need whatsoever to demean itself with this kind of childish appeal. The ad actually sells the game short. I'm sure people would be offended by all kinds of things that I enjoy and believe. Who cares? It's one thing to like certain kinds of mature entertainment, but quite another to drag them out into the public square and then jeer at those who are offended. Thomas L. McDonald is an editor at large for Games magazine and blogs at sopgaming.blogspot.com. You can follow him on Twitter at StateOfPlayBlog. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We're big fans of Cisco's Flip digital video cameras. They're great for taking spontaneous HD videos on-the-go and quick uploading to your favorite social networking portals. Sadly, it looks as though Cisco is conceding the ultra-portable HD camera market to the growing number of capable smartphones and will cease producing Flip cameras. That's only part of the story.
According to CNN, Cisco is abandoning several consumer businesses, not just the Flip, and will lay off around 550 employees in the process. Going forward, Cisco plans to serve consumers indirectly through its business customers instead of selling products direct to home users. "We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy," Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a statement. "As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings." Most of those 550 job cuts will come from Cisco's soon-to-be-defunct Flip division. In addition, Cisco is taking up to a $300 million charge for the divestitures and layoffs in the current and subsequent quarters, CNN said. That's too bad, given our mostly positive experience with Cisco's Flip line. This means if you're in the market for a Flip camera, you may want to act fast before supply starts to dwindle. Flip Video 1GB Review (8 verdict)
Flip SlideHD Review (7 verdict)
Flip MinoHD Review (9 verdict)
Flip Video MinoHD 8GB Review (9 verdict) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Opera Software today announced the final release of Opera 11.10, an incremental update with a barrel full of subtle changes. Perhaps the biggest one is a revamped and faster Turbo that's up to four times as fast as before, the Norwegian browser maker claims. Part of the secret sauce in the recipe for faster Turbo is the added support for Google's WebP image format, which provides lossy compression for photographic images.
The other big feature update involves Opera's Speed Dial. You can now configure Speed Dial to show an unlimited number of dials, and the layout is customizable. In addition, dials can dynamically show live content for websites, Opera says. You can read the entire changelog here, but your time would be better spent going over Opera Software's tongue-in-cheek press release. Using the opportunity to poke a little fun at the massive budgets Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple each dedicate to advertising their respective browsers, Opera Software said that it too had spent a record amount spreading the word on Opera. "In order to win, you have to spend," commented Kei Grieg Toyomasu, Director fo Marketing, Opera Software. "And, this time, we really did. We're spending a fortune to make Opera a household name. We see our competitors doing million dollar campaigning on TV and on billboards, and we've been so impressed that we decided to put budget into a little something-something ourselves." That "something-something" includes such expenses as "some guys with a video camera" ($3,000), beer ($300), paperclips ($2.26), and a bunch of other items adding up to (*drum roll*) $8,517.26. "We risked a lot to share this campaign with the world," said Jan Standal, VP of Desktop Products, Opera Software. "We even got a parking ticket. But it's all so we can play in the big leagues with the other fancy pants of the Web. We posted our video on YouTube, so you know it has to be good. This is the Internet. And this is serious business," noted Rolf Assev, Chief Strategy Officer, Opera Software. Opera 11.10 Download | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If you were expecting a knock-down, drag-out fight between Sony and PS3 jailbreaker George "Geohot" Hotz, you'll have to settle for an anticlimactic ending instead. As our own Nathan Grayson reported yesterday, Hotz agreed to never again spread any technology that "circumvents any of the TPMs in any Sony product" and is forever banned from assisting in such activities. That's not exactly the end result Hotz's supporters were hoping for, and now the former PS3 hacker is taking heat for running from the fire.
Hotz announced in a blog post his intention of joining the Sony boycott, encouraging others to follow suit. But what he didn't do is disclose terms of the settlement, of which he is unable to do unless he breaks the terms of the settlement, a violation that could cost him $10,000. Why does this matter to his supporters? Here's what Hotz had to say before the settlement. "What if SCEA tries to settle? Let's just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it." Now his supporters, some of which donated money to his legal battle, are turning on Hotz for not going the distance. "So basically you settled for a job and took people's money giving them a false hope of settling for their rights? What do you plan to do with the money that was donated to you to provide a cushion for the legal battle? I hope you will be paying all those people back since you obviously didn't live up to your word," one commenter wrote. Hotz, who didn't take a job with Sony, said he will be addressing the donations in the a future post and that "people will be happy," but it's not just about the money. "Sounds like a win for Sony. Now they get no court case to prove their actions wrong. No court case, no case law, no reason to keep Sony from acting like this again...Sure, it's nice that it's over and people can move on with their lives, but I just think people expected a bit more of a fight than this," another commenter wrote. What's your take on this? Should Hotz return the donations he received for his legal fight? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  You can find Vudu on hundreds of devices, such as HDTVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, Sony's PlayStation 3 console, and the Boxee Box. In addition to all that, Vudu just announced that its entire catalog of content is now available directly on Vudu.com, accessible via your Web browser in a Flash-based player that will allow you to watch your rented or purchased flicks on your PC or CE device.
"Customers will be able to enjoy movies instantly and easily at Vudu.com with no additional hardware or software download required," said Edward Lichty, general manager of Vudu. "This launch is part of our overall commitment to provide the Vudu service through as many points of access as possible, offering our customer the latest movies at the highest available streaming quality wherever they choose to watch." It's a great move by Vudu, though marred by the fact that content streamed through the browser is only available in standard definition. According to Engadget, licensing issues are to blame for the 480p (with stereo sound) cap, at least for now. At some point, you'd have to think that the Walmart-owned company would be able to hammer out a deal opening up HD streaming. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  A research team at the University of California used functional magnetic resonance imaging to figure out that older people are worse at multitasking than younger people. Specifically, they looked at the ability of people between the ages of 60 and 80 to retain information in their working memory for short periods of time and found that the distraction of multitasking had a bigger effect than it did in younger adults, USA Today reports.
They conducted the study by showing adults a nature scene, which was then interrupted by a picture of a human face. Subjects were asked to guess the person's gender and age, followed up by questions about the nature scene. Older people were slower to update their working memory, making it harder for them to turn back to the task they were working on before a new one diverted their attention. It's a memory deficit that also exists in younger people, only they're better at pulling up the working memory of a previous task, making them better multitaskers, according to the study. Image Credit: immortalhumans.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Back in February, AMD pushed a trinity of entry- to mid-level cards in the Radeon HD 6000 series to OEM builders. Now, those three cards, the Radeon HD 6670, 6570 and 6450, are said to be nearing their retail debut.
According to Digitimes' sources, the standalone variants of these cards will become available on April 19. The sources further revealed that the new cards will feature GDDR5 memory as opposed to the DDR3 memory found in their OEM variants. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss will have to figure out a way to budget $20 million in cash and a stake in Facebook worth about $140 million and make it last the rest of their lives, because that's all they're entitled to, an appeals court ruled. The $20 million settlement and partial ownership in Facebook was the agreement the Winklevoss twins and Mark Zuckerberg came to back in 2008, but as Facebook ballooned in value, they wanted more, claiming that Zuckerberg wasn't completely forthcoming with information when they signed the settlement.
So who exactly are the Winklevoss twins? If you have to ask that question, then you haven't seen the movie The Social Network, a docudrama chronicling the rise of Facebook from a concept into the most popular social networking site on the planet. The twins accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, which ultimately led to the multi-million dollar settlement. "For whatever reason, they now want to back out. Like the district court, we see no basis for allowing them to do so. At some point, litigation must come to an end. That point has now been reached," chief justice Alex Kozinski summarily said. In all likelihood, this is the end of the road for the Winklevoss twins, unless they decide to take their case to the Supreme Court. Image Credit: inquisitr.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Rather than celebrate its 25th anniversary year with streamers, balloons, and cake, Antec opted instead to release a new self-contained liquid CPU cooling solution, the Kuhler H20 920. This is the successor to the 620 and was developed in conjunction with Asetek. Unlike a traditional liquid cooling loop, Antec promises high performance in a quick, easy-to-install package that doesn't require any maintenance.
"Like the popular Kuhler H20 620, the Kuhler H20 920 provides the benefits of water cooling in a sealed and prefilled unit, with zero maintenance required," said Tak Niwa, director BU 1, enclosures and accessories at Antec. "It's a very powerful and capable solution giving users teh freedom to finely tune and customize to fit their needs." The new 920 version sports a double-thick radiator and two 120mm fans, both of which are adjustable via Asetek's ChillControl software. To help squeeze into tight places where space is at a premium, the 920 utilizes a low-profile pump. The Kuhler H20 920 is available for preorder for $120 and will ship on or before April 22, 2011. Image Credit: Antec | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Toshiba is still trying to work out what it's going to call its upcoming 10.1-inch tablet, but one thing the company has already figured out is where to sell the device. According to a landing page on Best Buy's website, the mega electronics retailer will carry the device when it launches on...well, Toshiba hasn't figured that bit out just yet either, or if it did, the company is choosing to keep it a secret.
Best Buy lists the device as "coming soon," and joins at least one other outfit planning to sell Toshiba's unnamed tablet, the other being Amazon. While lacking a name, release date, and a price, other details are readily available. The Toshiba tablet will ship with Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform running the show. Cast and crew will consist of an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, HDMI, audio inputs, microSD card slot, Bluetooth, a pair of USB ports, user replaceable battery, and Adobe Flash support. Image Credit: Best Buy | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride trying to determine when exactly Samsung would drop its Galaxy S II smartphone. Last week a representative from Samsung India tweeted that the Galaxy S II was being delayed at least until June, not just in India, but around the globe. A few days later, Samsung came out and said it would launch as planned. So when is it really coming? If you live in the U.K., you'll be able to nab the Galaxy S II starting May 1, 2011.
Samsung made the announcement in a formal press release rather than communicating with the public via Twitter. When the Galaxy S II drops on May 1st, it will become Samsung's slimmest and lightest smartphone yet, as well as the first handset to offer Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus screen technology, the company said. Samsung also confirmed that the dual-core processor has been upgraded to 1.2GHz. With all the talk of delays, we began to wonder if this would actually be the case, and we're happy to hear that Samsung didn't backtrack on this one. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Sony CEO Jack Tretton didn't mince any words when discussing Nintendo's Wii and DS gaming consoles. He isn't concerned about the recently released 3DS, nor is he losing any sleep over third party numbers, which has the PlayStation 3 sitting in third place with 49.2 million PS3's sold globally, compared to 86.3 million Wiis. If you ask Tretton, and CNN did, Nintendo builds 'babysitting tools.'
"Our view of the 'Game Boy experience' is that it's a great babysitting tool, something young kids do on airplanes, but no self-respecting twenty-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those," Tretton told CNN. "He's too old for that." As for the Wii, and the Xbox 360 for that matter, Tretton was equally critical, saying that the PlayStation 3 is much better positioned to remain relevant for years to come. "They're starting to run out of steam now in terms of continuing to be relevant in 2011 and beyond," Tretton says. "I mean, you've gotta be kidding me. Why would I buy a gaming system without a hard drive in it? How does this thing scale? Motion gaming is cute, but if I can only wave my arms six inches, how does this really feel like I'm doing true accurate motion gaming?" What's interesting about Tretton's comments is that he blatantly ignores the sales figures. While dismissing the 'Game Boy experience,' as he puts it, he ignores the fact that Nintendo has sold more than 146 million DS devices worldwide, compared to 67 million PSP devices. The same holds true in the console space. Even though the PS3 lags behind the competition in terms of number of units sold, Tretton holds firm that Sony holds the advantage. "If you're really going to sustain technology for a decade, you have to be cutting edge when you launch a platform," he says. "Here we are 4 years into the PlayStation 3, and it's just hitting its stride. We'll enjoy a long downhill roll behind it because the technology that was so cutting edge in 2006 is extremely relevant today and is conspicuously absent in our competition." Image Credit: infendo.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A  German court last month declared street-level photography by Street View's car-mounted cameras to be legal when it dismissed a lawsuit alleging personal and property rights violations on the part of Google's Street View service. Despite the legal victory, and contrary to what most people might have expected, the company has decided against returning to the streets of Germany with the camera-toting vehicles it uses to collect street imagery for its popular Google Maps and Google Earth services. "As we announced in January, we have no plans to launch new imagery on Street View in Germany at this stage. Our user priority is to use our Google cars to collect data such as street names and road signs to improve our basic maps for our users in a similar way that other mapping companies do," a Google spokesperson told The Register. That said, users will continue to have access to the existing street imagery from the 20 German cities already covered by the service. It isn't clear what exactly effected this change in priority or whether the internet giant remains open to reconsidering the decision at a later date. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We're still not entirely sure if we believe BioWare will be able to have Mass Effect 3 polished to a space-aged sheen in time for a 2011 release, but this certainly has us hopeful. If we normally call these things "scoops," then BioWare's given Game Informer one of those comically tall ice cream cones normally reserved for slapstick gags in cartoons. Want to know nearly everything about Mass Effect 3? Well, have at it.
First up, story. Mass Effect 3 begins with Shepard suffering quite the fall from grace – getting carted off to earth to be tried for his actions during the recently released ME2 "Arrival" DLC. The reapers, however, aren't so big on courts, trials, and the survival of life as we know it, so they attack earth mid-trial. Shepard is then forced to fight his way to the Normandy and escape to rally his troops. So, who's along for the ride this time? In the party member category, we have Liara, Ashley/Kaiden, and Garrus. Wrex, Mordin, Legion, and Anderson will also show their faces/vaguely expressive cranial regions, but not as party members, unfortunately. Everyone's favorite Martin Sheen-voiced manipulator The Illusive Man is back in the spotlight (or dimly lit space lounge, as it were) as well, but this time, he's chasing you down. Something tells us it's not a friendly game of mid-Galactic Apocalypse tag, either. In terms of ground-level nitty gritty stuff, any class can now equip all weapon types, but different classes will have different numbers of weapon slots. There's also a new weapon-modding system that'll let you upgrade your arsenal with all manner of scopes and barrels. The best part? That's barely even scratching the surface of the game's renewed focus on RPG customization mechanics. Leveling and skill trees will be significantly more diverse, allowing for a wider range of abilities and options. Combat's also getting a Krogan-sized kick in the pants, with increased difficulty, larger areas, and location-specific damage being the main bullet points. All of that, of course, comes as the cherry atop the mountain of decisions you've made throughout the series – many of which will have huge effects on how Mass Effect 3 ultimately plays out. So yes, you have plenty to chew on. Now then, if you'll excuse us, we have to go replay ME1 and 2 for the thousandth time. We need to have a badass female Shepard with a heart of gold (except, you know, any time the option to punch people mid-conversation is involved) and an army of Rachni-mounted Krogans ready in time for ME3, you see. Or wait, do we already have one of those? We forget. | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
