Reality Bites
It has been revealed that Facebook are once again testing a new homepage design which makes many of the page’s elements stationary, while making the news feed scrollable. This in turns allows the user to scroll through a long news feed while still having navigation easily available.
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Develop has posted an interview with Team Fortress 2 developer Robin Walker in which he says that the company has decided to make the popular class-based shooter completely free-to-play, supported only by microtransactions. Walker says the game has experimented with multiple price points over its long history (including allowing players to play for free during temporary periods) and that making this transition now “feels like a fairly straightforward next step along the ‘Games as Services’ path we’ve been walking down for a while now.”
Walker also says that this is a model that specifically fits the multiplayer game at this moment in the product’s life, when Valve is trying to reach as many players as it possibly can. The permanent price drop won’t affect development on the game at all, but monetization will only go through the game’s item shop. You can read more in the interview, live now over at Develop.
There’s no official word on any of this from Valve yet, on either the Steam blog or the official Team Fortress 2 site. We are scheduled to hear about the next update today (and even see a “Meet the Medic” video) and the game was set to go free for just a week, but this is obviously a more permanent direction. We’ve contacted Valve and will post more here when we get it.
Update: Valve’s Doug Lombardi has responded to us with a simple confirmation: “Yep.” Enjoy your free TF2, kids!
Update: The site has been updated as well. The game’s completely free to play, forever!
Valve relaunching Team Fortress 2 as free-to-play title originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Your spit can pinpoint your age to within five years, making it by far the most accurate age test yet found. This discovery could help identify how old crime scene suspects are, as well as reveal people’s true biological ages. More »
In March RIM co-CEOs were ranked by Forbes as two of the “World’s Billionaire’s”, in total there were 1,210 billionaire’s. Mike Lazaridis came in at #651 with $1.9 billion and Jim Balsillie took spot number 692 with $1.8 billion. However, the RIM stock has dropped from $60 in March to below $30 today and according to Forbes this, along with huge charitable donations, knocked them out of the billionaire club.
Forbes notes on their blog that “The net worths of the Ontario firm’s high profile cofounders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, both of whom get almost entirely all of their wealth from RIM stock, have sunk… These days they appear to be worth in the neighborhood of $800 million or so… Even with all the company’s recent woes, they would still likely be billionaires today if not for their notable generosity.”
Even though it must be hard to loose millions of dollars in a matter of days and months, I’m pretty sure both Lazaridis and Balsillie are thrilled with their charitable donations to help fund Canadian innovation.
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The NHL salary cap is going up again, marking the fifth consecutive year it is has risen since it was established for the 2005-06 season.
Provincially owned SaskTel and the union representing 3,200 of its employees have reached a tentative agreement.
Still not clear on what your gaming options will be like with Windows Phone Mango? Then Microsoft’s now got you covered with a fairly extensive overview of its new Games Hub, which has actually been tweaked a bit further from earlier previews it’s offered. One of the biggest changes is that the Hub now includes features previously relegated to the separate Xbox Live Extras app, including improved Xbox Live messaging, integrated achievements (complete with comparison views with your friends), and the ability to edit your Xbox Live profile — not to mention fully animated 3D avatars. The Hub also boasts a new Collection view that promises to let you more easily manage your installed Windows Phone games, and it’s literally been brightened up a bit across the board. Check out the gallery below for a closer look, and hit the source link for some more details.
Gallery: Windows Phone ‘Mango’ Games Hub
Microsoft details the new Games Hub for Windows Phone Mango originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
New to Lifehacker, Daily App Deals is a not-quite-quotidian compendium of noteworthy app price drops and discounts. More »
Japan creates frankenstein pop idol, sells candy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Small lifestyle changes like eating fewer potatoes, drinking less pop and not staying up too late could help prevent long-term weight gain, researchers say.
I would have assumed this was within the bounds of common sense, but, you know, you can never be too careful. Apparently the notion wasn’t obvious to this fellow, who blew apart an entire gas station through his idiot-curiosity. More »
The Android Market isn’t overflowing with Gallery replacement apps, but the ones it does have are really good. It’s a tough call, but we’d have to pick JustPictures as the best photo management app on Android. More »
Ari Margolis, the man who creates the awesome Fringe trailers, revealed on Twitter today that Fringe will return for it’s fourth season on Friday, September 23. That makes it exactly 3 months (or 92 days) from today!
We have a lot of fun stuff planned for the rest of the summer, so stay tuned!
Angling for a new Android 3.1 tablet, are ya? If so, Archos has a new pair emerging from Paris today, the 80 G9 and 101 G9. Predictably, the biggest differentiator between the two is the screen size, with the former offering an 8-inch panel with a 1024 x 768 screen resolution and the latter stepping up to a 10.1-incher (1280 x 800). Both of ’em are proudly using Seagate’s 7mm Momentus Thin in order to scale to 250GB, but of course, only time will tell how a power-hungry HDD will do in tablet form factor.
Under the hood, you’ll find a dual-core OMAP 4 processor (1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9), support for Flash, access to the Android Market and a full-size USB port — one that’s good for accepting the outfit’s new G9 3G WWAN stick ($49). You’ll also get an HDMI output, support for 1080p playback and a pay-as-you-go option with the aforesaid 3G dongle. The duo is scheduled to go on sale at the end of September (you know, just a month or two before Ice Cream Sandwich makes Honeycomb look like old hat), with the 80 G9 going for $279 and the 101 G9 for $349. Don’t ever say Archos’ accountants didn’t look out for you.
Update: We snagged a gallery’s worth of hands-on shots from Archos’ reveal today in Paris. We’re running back for more as we type, so hang tight!
Update 2: A reader over at Engadget Spanish noticed that the ES specifications link for the new G9 tablets mentions a 16GB + microSD arrangement for those who aren’t feeling a 250GB HDD. Interesting!
Archos intros 80 G9 and 101 G9 Android 3.1 tablets: 1.5GHz CPU, 250GB HDD, 3G-ready (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Today, a chapter in your lives ends. But tomorrow holds new promises for the future, and blah blah etc. etc.—graduation speeches are awful. Unless your principal gives the address in a full Iron Man suit. More »
Nevada prepares itself for the imminent rise of driverless cars originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A website that lets people check whether their email addresses, usernames and passwords have been stolen in a cyberattack and posted online has been launched by an Australian who is a former IT security consultant.
Finding apps can be tough, especially when your Store or Marketplace is overwhelmed with a daily flood of debutantes. That’s not exactly a problem for HP, whose App Catalog for the webOS 3.0 TouchPad officially launches on July 1st and will be, the company admits, a little spartan at first. But HP has a plan for a future flood of apps: Pivot. It’s basically a curated digital magazine that will present a selection of apps someone at HP found interesting for whatever reason — a way for users to discover new downloads and, more importantly, for niche developers to not get lost in the shuffle. HP hopes this will attract developers, taking a different approach from the competition, which often resorts to outright promises of cash to pique their interest — but a few free TouchPads never hurts .
Continue reading HP announces Pivot for TouchPad, the curated, magazine-like way to find some apps
HP announces Pivot for TouchPad, the curated, magazine-like way to find some apps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jethro Nededog 
