Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. When you're Zontix the dwarf, denizen of Warhammer Online it does pay, so long as you can put a giant Destruction house to the torch and manage to come out without so much as a smudge of ash on your armor. Even so, Zontix doesn't look too pleased. Perhaps he knows there are more forces of Destruction lying in wait to attack the forces of Order in Warhammer Online. Perhaps he's just sick and tired of people making fun of him for looking too much like a very short Tom Selleck, albeit with some crazy extra hair. As Zontix didn't send in a note with his One Shots, we'll just have to guess -- while avoiding this grumpy little fellow (and his great big axe) in the meantime.
With the holidays coming up, that means some time off! Time off means gaming! Gaming means screenshots! You see where we're going with this. Just send those screenshots in to us here at oneshots [at] massively [dot] com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. We'll post them out here and give you the credit.
Looking for a really unforgettable Christmas present for that special someone this year? That glossy chronicle of the filthy rich Robb Report has just the thing - a matching custom private jet and megayacht set costing $500 million. The eye-popping present, the world's most expensive, is part of the profligate publication's Ultimate Gift Guide, a seasonal offering of over-the-top exclusives. The recipient will receive an Airbus A380 (above), the world's largest jumbo jet, and a bespoke megayacht, both customized by renowned designer Patrick Knowles. The interiors will complement each other creating what Knowles calls a "custom personal brand" for the lucky owner. There's one catch - considering the backlog on A380 deliveries and the time required to design and build a custom megayacht, the giftee will have to wait at least six years to get their hands on the toys.
The 5230 has only recently made its way out to stores, but that hasn't stopped Nokia from fashioning a KIRFy sort of successor for it. Meet the Nokia 5235, a spec for spec copy of its elder brother, including the same 3.2-inch touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, and Symbian S60 5th edition. We thought we could spot a tiny difference in the materials being used, but otherwise you really are looking at the exact same handset. Your wallet would tell the difference, though, as the 5235 has a pre-tax and pre-subsidy price of €145 ($214), which is more than €100 cheaper than the previously noted 5230 CWM variant -- in other words, Nokia is renaming its CWM model and chopping the price nicely. Why, we don't know, but when is the first quarter of 2010.
There's been some confusion about MAG, Zipper Interactive's 256 player super-multiplayer game. Some had wondered if the game would be made available as a PSN download, similar to Sony's other online efforts, like Warhawk and SOCOM Confrontation. However, Jeremy Dunham replied on the PlayStation.Blog confirming that the game will be "disc-based only." Dunham also added that "the game is so huge when moving everything off-disc, your hard drive is secretly thanking us."
Anyone that participated in the beta will likely complain about the massive amounts of data that had to be downloaded during each game update. Considering the beta is but a taste of what's to come in the full game, the necessity for a retail-only release seems all the more evident.
Call it a pent-up demand for WVGA Android devices, call it Droid jealousy, call it an unnatural love for the sweet, doughy goodness of a just-baked Eclair -- but whatever it is, early indications suggest that the British love their Milestones. Retailer eXpansys (which is big enough to actually produce some meaningful sales trend data, we suspect) is reporting that the just-launched Droid clone for GSM became "the fastest selling gadget in the website's 11 year history, even more successful than the iPhone" when it sold out inside of three hours on its site on top of the roughly 1,000 preorders they had taken prior to the 10th. This might be a case of double-speak -- we're trying to establish just how many phones were sold during those three hours, because what we really need is a sales rate, not a time span alone -- so we're cautioning Moto not to bust out the champagne glasses just yet, but it's certainly looking like a promising start. Schaumburg hasn't had a lot of success in Western Europe in recent years, of course, but if we can use eXpansys as a barometer here, we'd say that a little cautious optimism is well justified.
According to none other than Wired magazine, T-shirts have come into their own as a form of media, one that uniquely documents messages and stories, not to mention emergent technologies and companies changing the way we use the Internet. Here at Switched, we write a lot about these next-gen, "Web 2.0" companies and technologies, which include everyone from MySpace and Facebook to Twitter and even Google.
Given that we're partial to t-shirts with nerdy, tech-infused jokes and terminology, we figured it was high time to find the best geek t-shirts specifically related to Web 2.0 speak (like the "Your Podcast is Lame" t-shirt, flickr user ericskiff, pictured above). So here, dear readers is our humble survey of the wild, cotton-meets-code world of Web 2.0 t-shirts. If anything, it'll give you something cool to talk about during your podcast.
It's a Saturday and while there are already a lot of PC games, both downloadable and retail version, on sale this weekend, that doesn't mean there are not some new sales that can pop up today. In fact here they are:
Direct2Drive has a new game on sale for one day only as part of their 24 Days of Christmas promotion. It's EA's people sim sequel The Sims 3. From now until 1 pm Eastern time you can download and purchase the title for $39.95, a savings of $10 off its normal price.
GoGamer.com has cut the price of all of their Modern Warfare 2 games. That includes the PC version which can be purchased for $49.90. You can even save money on the MadCatz Modern Warfare 2 PC controllers like the Sniper mouse and the upcoming Combat Keyboard.
New York Times (NYT) columnist Paul Krugman (pictured), an economist by training, an Ivy League academic by profession, and no stranger to bold proposals, has offered another big idea, recommending that the U.S. Federal Reserve double its already record-high balance sheet.
Krugman wants the Fed to buy another $2 trillion in assets to make more credit available, something Krugman argues will help the U.S. economy grow faster and create more jobs, which the nation really needs. Currently, the Fed's balance sheet is $2.17 trillion.
It's official, Nic Cage is no longer a homeowner in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reports on the foreclosure auction which saw Cage losing both his French Quarter and Garden District homes. Cage's lender, Regions Bank, bought both homes back for a total of $4.5 million, which is two-thirds of the value that appraisers hired by the bank had determined they were worth. There were no other bids for the property. Cage did not attend the auction. The city will collect $151,729 in unpaid property taxes. Cage owed approximately $5.5 million on the homes. The bank is free to go after Hancock Park Real Estate Company, Cage's real estate holding company, for the other $1 million and can also try to sell the homes at market value to raise the money.
Cage bought his six-bedroom Garden District home in 2005 for $3.45 million and listed it for sale for $3.7 million. Cage's New Orleans other home, the haunted LaLaurie mansion was bought by Cage in 2006 for $3.45 million. He listed it for $3.9 million. He has blamed his former business manager, Sam Levin, for his recent financial woes including a $6 million IRS bill. He still has homes in Las Vegas, England, Rhode Island and the Bahamas either on the market or about to be sold.
A vote on same-sex marriage in New Jersey may come as soon as tomorrow. The Catholic Bishops and conservative Democrats and Republicans are lobbying to defeat the measure. Will New Jersey do the right thing and vote for human rights? ... Read More... [Source: Conservative - Google Blog Search]
Gregor Tarjan, designer of the Aeroyacht 110, a superfast 110-ft. catamaran equipped with an Icon A5 exploration airplane, has commissioned Monegasque yachtbuilder Wally to construct the avant-garde craft. Representing the first model of a sleek, new range "embodying the ultimate high-performance, supremely styled world yacht," the Aeroyacht 110 will be one of the largest composite multihulls in the world. As standard equipment the craft will come fitted with a two seat Icon A5 amphibious, retractable and fold-able sports plane, launched and retrieved from a specially designed pod. The yacht, which is expected to do 35 knots at full speed, will be ready for delivery in 2011.
We weren't waiting on too many more details surrounding Seagate's 7mm thin laptop hard drive, but one critical tidbit has just now been unearthed by the outfit itself. The Momentus Thin will make its official unveiling at CES here in just a few weeks, where it'll be available in 160GB and 250GB capacities and with 8MB of cache, a 5400RPM spin speed and a SATA 3Gbps interface. We're also told that it'll be far less expensive than similarly sized 1.8-inch HDD options, which means this bugger could soon be planted into Atom D410 / D510-based netbooks. The drive is slated to ship to OEM and integrator partners next month, though specific price points have yet to be mentioned. Have a peek at the first press shots below.
I’m a trivia nut, so I’m a big fan of visual and interactive party games, like Scene It?. That’s why I was excited to find out that Scene It? Movies [iTunes link] is now available for the iPhone.
The hurdle with any handheld version of an existing game is retaining the overall experience, while also making the game accessible from a mobile experience. Scene It? Movies manages to find the right balance, and is a fun, addictive game for the movie fan.
The Scene It? games are largely identified by the fact that they integrate movie clips, thus, it’s important that a mobile game follow suit. The iPhone version functions much like the original: The app streams movie clips before asking a question or series of questions.
Scene It? Movies also has different question types, ranging from matching actors with characters they have played in movies, organizing movies by release date and various puzzled or alternate depictions of a movie. The faster you answer a question, the more points you get.
This game functions as both a single-player and a multi-player game: i.e. You can “pass” the iPhone or iPod touch back and forth between players. That works pretty well, but it would be great if there was some sort of local or Internet device-to-device ability.
After you complete a game, you can post your score to your Facebook page. The whole log-in and connect process happens in-app, which is a nice touch.
I was impressed with the variety of questions and with the high video quality of the clips. At only $0.99 (its introductory price — that might not last), Scene It? Movies is a great way for the iPhone movie fan to have some fun and kill a few minutes.
Barnes & Noble might be pitching the Nook to the literary set, but it turns out the Android-based dual-screen reader is pretty hacker-friendly as well: both the OS and filesystem are stored on a microSD card. That means the newly-formed crew at nookdevs has already managed to root what they describe as the "generic" Android 1.5 build that's hidden under the Nook's navigation UI, and they say the device can do "everything a rooted Android phone can do." That's certainly intriguing, especially since the Nook has a data-only AT&T 3G modem and WiFi to go along with that capacitive touchscreen and E Ink display -- can you say "potential"?
It figures that Microsoft would finally give DIY Windows Media Center users the ability to add a Digital Cable Tuner with CableCARD to their PC and now the devices are no where to be found. Since these devices were never actually available to the public, they've always been a little hard to come by, but we have seen 'em for sale from Dell as well as from Cannon PC and even on Sony's site. This entire situation only makes us even more sure that ATI's days in the Digital Cable Tuner business are numbered. What we mean is that there is no doubt that ATI knew this was coming to Windows 7 long before we did, so any company who actually wanted to sell something would have actually had them available at retail by now. One thing is for sure, there is a pent up demand for CableCARD tuners in the Media Center community and a more affordable, more available, option can't get here soon enough. While we wait for the 1st quarter of 2010 to come, you can pay through the nose for one on eBay in the meantime.
The Spike VGAs this evening may very well reveal the first gameplay of upcoming MMA-er UFC Undisputed 2010, but the most recent GameStop weekly is dropping release date bombs on us well before tonight's festivities kickoff. According to the ad, the game will be grappling onto store shelves on May 25 and, as you might imagine, you're welcome to "pre-order now!"
While we're normally reticent to trust release dates from retailers as absolute truth, the prominence of this information among a weekly advertisement -- and the fact that the game is getting "World Premiere" treatment on tonight's award show -- puts some confidence in our normally skeptical perception of situations like this. Either way, we're likely to confirm this report's veracity when the VGAs roll this evening.
Whether making your own lens hood to create custom bokeh, breathing like a sniper to get a blur-free photo, or angling your body to look the best in pictures, we shared some great photography hacks this year.
Software and Photoshop tricks are great, but they're a poor substitution for doing things in-camera. Over the last year we shared a variety of hacks for taking better photos, looking better in photos, and ways to get professional results without spending your rent money on camera accessories.
What's a bokeh you say? It's that oh-so-wonderful fuzziness in the background of photographs with a shallow depth of field and accompanying starry highlights. You can create you own bokeh effects with a little craftiness.
We live in a culture of oversharing, so odds are someone, somewhere will be snapping and posting photos taken of you at various events. To help ensure you look your best, heed where you position your tongue.
People often lament that they "just missed it!" upon seeing they failed to capture a pivotal moment in the action. You can avoid missing the action by treating your still camera like a video camera.
You have a camera and a willing subject, but you're not sure how to break your portraits out of the flat blandness that plagues many snapshots. Avoid boring compositions with these tips.
Many a photography enthusiast has assumed the equipment necessary is far too expensive for quality high speed photography captures. A high speed capture studio on the cheap can be had with this handy guide.
Making abstract wallpaper and gorgeous slow-exposure shots doesn't require a bunch of design apps or photography lessons. Learn how to literally toss your camera to make abstract light art.
Whether you head 30 or 3000 miles away, you'll want to bring back great photos of your vacation. The New York Times posts questions and answers on how to achieve great vacation photos.
Taking a good self-portrait is both a handy skill and a way to expand your photographic repertoire. Save your next profile picture from the camera-held-at-arms-length cliche with these tips.
Daytime photo tricks don't always translate when you're trying to capture the perfect night shot. The Photography Bay web site outlines tips for taking a stellar post-sunset shot without relying on a tripod or expensive flash system.
When the camera comes out, a lot of people instinctively declare that they look awful in pictures. Learn how to be more photogenic and put your best face forward.
If the DIY Fiber Optic Ring Flash we wrote about required too many specialist parts for your taste, check out this much simpler remix. The construction is easy and done with common household items.
Photography is a creative art, no doubt, but creative doesn't mean doing everything willy-nilly however you want. Use these basic rules of composition to give your photos an extra boost of visual appeal.
Beauty dishes are great flash modifiers for portrait photographs, but even a cheap model will set you back at least $100. Skip it—a surprisingly effective DIY beauty dish costs less than $20.
Gizmodo's John Mahoney explains how to take high dynamic range (HDR) photos so that the results of your photograph more accurately recreate what you were seeing when you snapped the shutter.
You don't need a blockbuster budget to get high-quality light for your portraits. By coaxing the sun to help in your photographic endeavors, you can create stunning portraits on a tiny budget.
Lightboxes aren't just for the professionals any longer. Using them to illuminate your Craigslist and eBay listings can help make a sale, and amateur photogs can get professional-looking shots with one. Create your own using K'nex and a little know how.
Panoramic software has come a long way toward making panoramic images child's work. Great software or not, there's no substitution for good source material. Take better panoramic pictures with these tips
Whether you're interested in learning more about lighting to add to your photography skill set or you're just curious how proper studio lighting works, this handy guide will provide some photo-enhancing insight.
Tilt-shift lenses create a great miniature effect on photographs of everyday things. The problem? These specialized lenses are insanely expensive (think $1,000 range). This video from Make demonstrates how to make a DIY tilt-shift lens on the cheap.
Sunsets are one of nature's more spectacular displays, and a good one is worth preserving with a photograph. Take pictures that will capture the perfect dusk moment with these photography tips.
The right flash can make or break your shot. Unfortunately, not all built-in flashes are created equal. DIY web site Instructables demonstrates how to create a worthy on-the-spot flash diffuser using an empty cigarette packet.