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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

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Epic's spectacular Unreal Engine 3 tech demo free at iTunes App Store

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Did you oooh and ahh at the fantastic gaming graphics that accompanied today's Apple keynote? You won't have to wait for next week's iOS 4.1 to get a taste of those textures for yourself. Though the full-on gladiator dueling of Epic's "Project Sword" may be a while off, you can get your hot little hands on "Epic Citadel" right now, a 82.2 megabyte download that explores a beautiful medieval castle town. Oh, and did we mention it's free? Even id Software's mindblowing 60FPS Rage demo must be quaking in its boots right about now.Epic's spectacular Unreal Engine 3 tech demo free at iTunes App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.PermalinkTouch Arcade | Epic Citadel (iTunes) |Email this|Comments

Windows Phone 7 goes gold master, begins rolling out to partners for final launch preparations

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If you've been holding yourself back during these early rounds of the smartphone wars in anticipation of Windows Phone 7, your wait just got a tiny bit shorter. Today Microsoft is announcing that its fancy new mobile operating system has been released to manufacturing, making the idea of you holding an actual WP7 device in your hands that much closer to reality. The finished product is now rolling out to partners around the world where it will be getting carrier and manufacturer tweaks and additions, and going through the kind of pre-launch testing you would expect for a release of this scale. If you had any doubt that the Windows Phone 7 onslaught was close at hand, feel free to abandon them now. Furthermore, the folks on the 7 team have managed to cram a few last minute goodies into the OS, one of which we're particularly excited about. As you probably know from our in-depth preview of an early version of the software, we had a lot of issues with overflowing Facebook contacts in our phone. Microsoft has now solved that problem by enabling a contact filter system which looks for pre-existing matches to your Facebook contacts. If it doesn't find a match, it doesn't pull that contact into your address book (kind of like how Android filters Facebook friends). It's a welcome addition and should make the Facebook / Windows Phone 7 combo a lot more palatable to to a lot of people. Furthermore, Microsoft has added functionality into the People Hub which will allow you to "like" someone's posts, and you'll be able to comment directly onto someone's Wall right in the hub. The company has also made tweaks and fixes focusing on feature discoverability (another issue we pointed out in the early look), along with the expected set of polishing and finish you'd expect from a product that's gone gold master.Windows Phone 7 goes gold master, begins rolling out to partners for final launch preparations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | |Email this|Comments

Disqus Analytics Will Give Us More Insight Into Our Audience Even The Trolls

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No matter the size of your website, commenters tend to be a smaller subset of your audience. But theyre also often among your most loyal readers who are the most engaged. Wouldnt it be great to know something about those people? Thats what Disqus is trying to nail with a new Analytics offering. While its still in its early stages, the key to Disqus Analytics is that its very simple to use and pull meaningful data from. Youll not only be able to see who your most loyal commenters are, youll be able to see the topics that are clearly the most important when it comes to engagement with your audience. And you can get data about which posts or people are most often liked and which login method your commenters are using to leave comments on various types of posts. As some of you have noticed, we just turned on Disqus comments a few days ago. So far, the system is working excellent. That on top of more community management should hopefully keep the trolls at bay. Well see. With these analytics though, at the very least well know something about the trolls. There are four key areas to the service right now: Snapshot, Activity, People, and Network. From Disqus: The Snapshot page is a quick glance at your communitys pulse. Youll see interesting facts, helpful numbers, and current activity trends. The Activity page serves as the detailed view for all the activity being generated in your community. Under People, youll learn more about your audience than just from looking at numbers and percentages. Finally, the Network page is meant to show how your community benefits from being connected to the largest platform of its kind on the web. The Network area is particularly interesting because of Disqus massive and growing usage. There are nearly 150 million people around the world now that use Disqus on a monthly basis. Disqus notes that theyre currently in the process of testing this Analytics package with a few of their communities, and theyll be slowly rolling it out more over time. Theyre looking for alpha testers, so visit here if youre interested.

What Is Facebook's CEO Trying To Hide?

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#lawsuits Mark Zuckerberg said society has loosened up about privacy. But the Facebook CEO was talking about his users; now that he's a defendant in a New York lawsuit, Zuckerberg is calling for stronger privacy protections. More

Augen planning its next generation of tablets, not giving up without a fight

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Everyone deserves a second chance, right? In the world of cheapo tablets, sure! Or at least that's our attitude when it comes to a company like Augen. Sure, it was just about a month ago that it released its $150 GenTouch78 at Kmart, but it's planning some future tablet products and hoping to right all those previous wrongs. According to the statement put out by the company, this new set of "Espresso" tablets will be unveiled at CES 2011 and will span from 7 to 10 inches diagonally. They'll still be aggressively priced and range from $200 to $400, but at least this time around it's planning for some with capacitive touchscreens. Other specs are of the fairly cookie cutter mold: WiFi, an accelerometer and more storage space. No word on what version of Android they'll run, but there's mention of a new "human friendly input." That all sounds much better than the previous GenTouch products we've seen, but by the time January rolls around there's no telling what the tablet landscape could look like. We'll be following this one to see if Augen can keep the caffeine in its system, but hit the break for the full statement and one more render.Continue reading Augen planning its next generation of tablets, not giving up without a fightAugen planning its next generation of tablets, not giving up without a fight originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | |Email this|Comments

HP Mini 210 and Mini 5103 officially announced with dual-core Atom power

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Netbook makers like Lenovo, Gigabyte and ASUS have been quietly releasing new systems with Intel's new mobile, dual-core N550 processor, but HP's not keeping its use of the fresh chip in 10-inch netbooks a secret... anymore. Just as we've previously heard, the professional-aimed $399 Mini 5103 will be getting a dual-core 1.8GHz processor option, which HP tells us can improve benchmark performance by up to 20 percent without a significant impact on battery life. It's also been updated with a new "espresso" color and will have HP's Day Starter instant-on OS -- no WebOS buried in there yet. On the consumer end, the HP Mini 210 has also been refreshed -- actually, more like gutted -- with a new design. The 10.1-inch netbook is now available in a bunch of cleverly named colors, including crimson red and ocean drive, and has been revamped with a new back that integrates the battery into the bottom of the chassis. Don't worry: the battery is still swappable and you can open the bottom cover to replace the RAM and hard drive. It still has that chiclet keyboard we like so much, the rather hit-or-miss ClickPad touchpad and a Broadcom Crystal Accelerator option for 1080p playback. The Mini 210 will start at $330 with a single core Atom CPU and six-cell battery, but will be available with the N550 processor for a bit more (we're guessing around $75). The full release is after the break and some snazzy hands-on pics are below. Gallery: HP Mini 210 and Mini 5103 press shots Gallery: HP Mini 210 and HP Mini 5103 hands-onContinue reading HP Mini 210 and Mini 5103 officially announced with dual-core Atom powerHP Mini 210 and Mini 5103 officially announced with dual-core Atom power originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | |Email this|Comments

Foursquare offers reward for checking in after STD checkups - Yahoo! News

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Foursquare, the social network that allows members to broadcast their location and activities, has joined forces with MTV in an effort to remove the stigma attached with getting screened for sexually transmitted diseases. Members who "check in" for an STD test during the month of September will receive a special virtual "badge."

Young Ian McKellen

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submitted by _ak to pics [link] [142 comments]

Google Chrome Is The New Down For Everyone Or Just Me

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You hit a site; its down. You immediately reload; its still down. You start to freak out. How the hell are they down again!? Is anyone in charge over there?! WTF?! But quite often, its just you. And you look like an ass for your rant that you just spewed on Twitter (or on Facebook when its Twitter that is down). Thankfully, it looks like Chrome can now potentially save you from thatembarrassment. Tech geeks are very familiar with sites like Down For Everyone Or Just Me (which was incidentally created by a then-Twitter employee and sold earlier this year). You go there, enter a URL and see if others people around the world are having trouble accessing the site as well. But the latest version of Chrome appears to do the same thing for you now, as the blog Rudefox pointed out today. While trying to load Chatroutlette today (like the rest of us) only to find that it was down, the author got a fairly typical browser note that Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to chatroulette.com. But whats interesting is that below that, it reads Other users are also experiencing difficulties connecting to this site, so you may have to wait a few minutes. See, there are some benefits to Google watching us. They can now save us a trip to Down For Everyone Or Just Me. [thanks Tom]

New Digg CEO, take note: How social media companies respond to irate users

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Days after launching a major revision to its social-news website, Digg has appointed Matt Williams, a former Amazon.com manager, as its new chief executive. And man, does he have some work ahead of him. The overhaul of Digg, which shifts the focus from a page edited by the masses to a personalized news feed, has angered some of its most loyal users. Many Diggers have been very vocal about staging an exodus to rival news site Reddit. Of course, these types of rumblings seem to happen just about any time a large site has its formula tinkered with. Twitter saw backlash recently when it released a feature called Retweet. A loud group that included the service's creator, Jack Dorsey, criticized Retweet for not letting users add a short note to those messages. The small music website TheSixtyOne heard angry chants when it unleashed a simpler version of the service. And such revolts make up practically a bimonthly tradition for Facebook. So how should social media website owners, who find the cries are loudest on their own pages, deal with the attacks? The Times talked to some of those administrators and looked to examples from the past for clues as to how Williams might want to handle the indignation he's inherited. Twitter has millions of passionate and observant users who will notice every time a new button is added or a new "promoted" thing shows up on the site.The San Francisco company provides guidelines for businesses using its social network, and when prompted for Twitter's own philosophy, a spokeswoman highlighted a line from that Best Practices page: "Listen regularly for comments about your company, brand and products -- and be prepared to address concerns, offer customer service or thank people for praise," she quoted. In other words, don't ignore the negativity. Facebook, with 500 million active members, knows push-back perhaps better than anyone. Sometimes the Palo Alto, Calif., developers lose (see: Beacon). Sometimes they win (News Feed).But judging by Facebook's reactions in the past, these issues are usually handled as such: The company lets things stew for a bit and eventually finds either a mountain or a molehill. Molehills disappear rather quickly. Mountains normally get addressed through company blog posts, often by Chief Mark Zuckerberg. Those messages have offered an excuse, some reasoning or an unusual alternative. (To ease privacy concerns, Facebook said users could vote on a sort of Bill of Rights. Few opted to participate, and so the program mostly fell by the wayside.) Beacon, a veritable Everest,resulted in a $9.5-million settlement. Reddit may have benefited the most from Digg users' revolt this week, but the small company has had to deal with tantrums of its own in the past. Though, comparedwith Digg's,"We've never had anything quite like that,"Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian said in an interview with The Times. But Ohanian seems to think Digg is scaling its mountain reasonably well. "It's important to remember that you're still running the site, and you're responsible for doing what's best for it," said Ohanian, who is no longer involved in Reddit's daily operations. "It's impossible to please everyone. And it's important to be wary of the silent majority, who will never let you know how they feel." Digg's response aligns with Ohanian's advice and that of Facebook. Founder Kevin Rose, who was filling in as interim CEO until Tuesday, wrote a blog postaddressing many complaints and offering fixes in the future. A Digg spokeswoman declined to comment for this story. While Rose maintains a great deal of influence at Digg, those decisions may ultimately fall on the shoulders of the new chief. "Introducing change is never easy, and bringing something as radically different as Digg version 4 was bound to generate a strong reaction," Rose wrote in a statementannouncing the hiring of Williams. "We are absolutely listening and really value everyone's feedback as we take Digg in new directions." So Williams will have plenty to mull over as he reshapes the fast-changing company. Rose offered some thoughts in an interview with AllThingsD about Williams' new role: "It's a pain in the ass and something I would never wish on my worst enemy." Have fun, Matt! -- Mark Miliantwitter.com/markmilian Photo: From left to right, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp, Digg founder Kevin Rose. Credit: Tony Pierce / Los Angeles Times

Biden To Cool His Heels In Mexico For A While

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JUREZ, MEXICO"I need to steer clear of D.C. until some shit blows over," said Biden, sitting in the far corner of a Mexican cantina with his back to the wall and taking a long swig from a bottle of Tecate Light.

Arcade Fire, Google Create First HTML5-Powered Music Video

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Alternative band Arcade Fire has collaborated with Google to make an interactive music video using HTML5 through Google Chrome.

Microsoft shows off new controller, with transforming D-pad

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The D-pad on the existing 360 controllers is, to put it mildly, utter garbage. If you want to play any games relying on precise movements, such as fighting games, buying a third-party controller is a requirement. Microsoft hopes it has this problem licked, however, and is releasing a controller with a new, updated D-pad on November 9. The catch? You won't be able to buy the controller alone; you'll need to grab the Play and Charge Kit to get it, and the final cost will be $64.99. Read the comments on this post

Pirate Bay Documentary in the Works

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Notorious file sharing website The Pirate Bay is a long-standing enemy of the movie industry, but one Swedish filmmaker has plans to create a documentary called TPB AFK about the three founders of the site, and their reactions to being found guilty of being accessory to crime against copyright law and fined about $3.6 million.

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