Sony will be releasing an update to the PlayStation 3 system software tomorrow, taking it to version 4.30.
This is what is included in the update:
With this update we have made several changes to how Trophies are displayed on your PlayStation 3. The Trophy Collection will now reside under PlayStation Network on the XMB. Trophies that you have earned playing PlayStation Vita games are now displayed on your PlayStation 3. You will also be able to see your Trophy level and progress towards the next level while viewing your trophy collection.
Remember that some games and applications force you to have the new update before you can play them so make sure you update now instead of having to sit around and wait when you really want to use it!
Last year Bad Robot Productions released a really fun app for the iPhone called Action Movie FX that enables you to easily add cool special effects to whatever you might film. Now it has an update, including some cool new Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 FX.
What’s New in Version 2.1
THE CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 2 UPDATE INCLUDES:
– EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO 4 FX TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM THE GAME
— HELLSTORM MISSILE, EMP, DRAGONFIRE DRONES AND THE CLAW.
– HD Ready versions of ALL FX
– Optimized for iPhone 5 & iPad!
– Audio/video bug fixes including for iOS5 on iPad
– Free, one-step update to HD of all previously purchased FX!
Focusrite is brining studio-quality recording to iOS with their £129.99 iTrack Solo. Read on for details.
Focusrite is brining studio-quality recording to iOS with their £129.99 iTrack Solo. This product allows you to record digital music on your iPad. Here is the press release:
12 October 2012: British audio pioneer Focusrite has announced the iTrack Solo – a simple new way to record and mix music in stunning studio quality using only an Apple iPad. Whether looking to catch the ear of a major record label or simply sharing recordings with friends on Soundcloud or Facebook, iTrack Solo enables budding singer-songwriters to showcase their talent in pristine quality.
The culmination of Focusrite’s 27-year heritage as a leading manufacturer of pro-audio technology, iTrack Solo adds studio-quality guitar and microphone inputs to the Apple iPad; the same inputs found in recording studios around the world. It’s compatible out of the box with a range of music-making apps, from Garageband to Auria – just plug in and play. Packed neatly into a sleek metal chassis that fits in the palm of the hand, it’s the perfect companion for anyone wanting to take their demo to the next level without breaking the bank.
Key features include:
Made For iPad: iTrack Solo is an official ‘Made For iPad’ accessory and works with many iOS apps including GarageBand. Plug in your guitar, bass, keyboard or microphone and hit record. It couldn’t be simpler.
Uncompromising audio clarity: Record audio at higher than CD quality (24-bit, 96kHz). Phantom Power enables the use of top-quality studio microphones.
High-end components: iTrack Solo features an award-winning Focusrite microphone preamplifier, the choice of leading artists and recording engineers around the world. Intelligent controls: Getting the right volume is important – two “halo” lights surround the input level knobs, turning red if record volume is too high.
Roadworthy protection: Its rugged aluminium uni-body case means iTrack Solo is suitable for even the most adventurous musicians.
Giles Orford, Marketing Director of Focusrite, said: “Artists such as the Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and Justin Bieber all hit the road to success by sharing their music online, but they didn’t get there by strumming or wailing into a webcam. With iTrack Solo, we wanted to give consumers a really simple way to get themselves heard without compromising on sound quality. As our product works with many iPad apps, it now couldn’t be easier to record, mix and share your music.”
iTrack Solo is designed to be powered via a standard iPhone or iPad wall charger. As well as iPad, iTrack Solo also works with, and can be directly powered by, Mac and PC.
Enjoy this video of the iTrack Solo in action:
And here are some product shots:
So is the Focusrite iTrack something that you’d be interested in? If so, check out their store here. This product should be available worldwide during October.
Build your own medieval kingdom in The Settlers Online: Castle Empire, the first free-to-play browser-based multi-player strategy online game from the creators of The Settlers! In The Settlers Online: Castle Empire, players will turn their simple plots of land into mighty empires by producing and trading valuable goods with friends, building towns and villages, journeying into the wild to discover new areas, and engaging in battles with those who stand in their way.
Key Features Build Your Own Empire – pay special attention to the type and placement of buildings in your towns, villages, and kingdoms in order to ensure optimal production of the resources you’ll need to expand your empire. Produce and Trade Goods – manage your empire’s resources to ensure that you have enough raw materials to produce goods to not only keep your empire running smoothly (and your subjects happily working), but also to barter with friends for other goods you’ll need. Explore New Areas – journey to the wild and battle bandit camps with your best armies. Once you conquer them, you’ll discover new raw materials that can be used to produce better goods (like advanced weapons). Play with Friends – connect in-game to go on adventures together for special rewards or join a guild to extend your influence. Ruling an empire is always more fun when there are friends to help out! Easy access – the game is browser-based, so no download is required. It’s also free-to-play!
And now the announcement of Halloween content:
Ubisoft® and Blue Byte® Have Concocted a Bloodcurdling Halloween Event for The Settlers® Online: Castle Empire
Horrifying new NPCs, gruesome exclusive resources and foreboding buildings are creeping their way into The Settlers® Online: Castle Empire Halloween party
SAN FRANCISCO – October 18th, 2012 – Ubisoft® and its renowned studio
Blue Byte® are bubbling up a very special Halloween event for The Settlers® Online: Castle Empire. A chilling wind will be howling across the vast lands of the free online game, bringing with it a host of deliciously sinister new features. On the Halloween party menu are new buildings, creepy customizations, diabolical buffs, bonus quests and loads more surprises for the taking in the Halloween Item Shop.
New characters that go bump in the dark: Eliot, the pumpkin master and an exclusive general, The Grim Reaper The diabolical Halloween celebrations will unfold in a twilight world bathed in macabre music. The events will be brought to players by a new NPC who answers to the charming name of Eliot. A master of pumpkins, Eliot is in charge of setting quests and delivering rewards. The more spirited players will be able to send the Grim Reaper into battle, a strapping general with a formidable presence.
Pranks, pumpkins and confetti
Grow and harvest as many Pumpkins as possible to fill up on special bonuses. Cashing in on the juicy crop will give access to one of five new potions (otherwise known as buffs), including Zombie, Mr. Myers, Darkness, Frank and Stein and A Very Strong Light. These potions (buffs) will act like spells to increase production or, if devilish pranks are your thing, to bring a friend’s production to a grinding halt.
Players will also be able to place, move and exchange new buildings, with the Pumpkin Field, the Village School, and a selection of crumbling ruins starring for the very first time in this Halloween event, alongside the Silo Building.
Join the fun and start playing The Settlers Online: Castle Empire for free now at www.thesettlersonline.net.
Check out the game here and get ready for new Halloween content!
Acer has announced two Windows 8 Pro tablets, and they look like nice products! Read on for details.
Acer has announced two Windows 8 tablets, aimed at the professional market. Here is the press release and some product shots:
Acer introduces the Iconia W700P professional tablet
Switzerland, Bioggio (October 18th 2012) – When it comes to mobility, a tablet can be an excellent companion for busy professionals always on the move. The Acer Iconia W700P is powerful and ultra-responsive; it also features a cradle that stands in portrait or landscape view to provide various usage modes, as well as a Bluetooth keyboard to keep users productive anytime, anywhere. Great for sharing information with clients and business partners, the Iconia W700P makes working on the go easier.
The Iconia W700P features Windows 8 Pro, so that it can easily integrate with the existing IT infrastructure, providing excellent manageability, enhanced usability and advanced security, making it an excellent choice for corporations looking for solid performing and reliable devices that comply with in-house IT manageability and security requirements. The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) solution helps ensure security and integrity of the client platform, offering improved hardware-based security in numerous applications. TPM conforms to corporate-level security requirements and lowers TCO over the product lifecycle.
Third generation Intel® Core™ processor family ensures faster, smarter, and more efficient performance, while the 11.6” full HD IPS display features 10 point touch and provides consistent and accurate color, combining it with a wide viewing angle up to 178° for better sharing information and group viewing. To match and enhance the great visual experience the W700P comes with Dolby® Home Theater® v4 that maximizes volume output, and provides surround sound and dialogue enhancement through professionally tuned audio via PC speakers, headphones or a home theater.
The Iconia W700P comes with a cradle that provides the tablet with a landscape or portrait support. When used in landscape, it can sit at 70 degrees, for sharing presentations, or at 20 degrees, for a more ergonomic touch experience, whereas in portrait mode is optimal for reading and browsing. Easy to dock and undock, the cradle also provides more connectivity options, including 3 USB 3.0 ports and a DC-in power plug. What’s more, the dock features a special designed sound tunnel that guides and amplifies the sound from the bottom of the tablet, without need of extra speakers. Without the cradle the W700P is a light weight, smart performing portable computer.
When it comes to taking notes during a meeting, many still prefer writing instead of typing. Bundled with the Iconia W700P is a simple but very stylish stylus pen, just perfect for drawing or taking notes with ease. Thanks to the pen-like small tip, it also helps navigating through applications faster and with more accuracy than fingers, avoiding to touch the wrong items or icons. The pen tip is soft to provide comfortable operation and prevent the screen from scratching or smudging, while the clip permits to attach the pen safely to a pocket or protective case.
Life on the go makes mobile devices more at risks of accidents or crashes. Through Acer Backup Manager the Iconia W700P keeps valuable data protected also from accidents or crashes, allowing users to back up data and files at ease, while Acer eRecovery Management provides recovery on-demand for complete peace of mind.
Along with powerful computing, the Iconia W700P ensures fast responsiveness to keep professionals within seconds from important business information. Thanks to the Acer Green Instant On feature, the Iconia W700P boots in 6 seconds (SSD); resumes from Sleep in 1.5 seconds; and lasts 80 days in Deep Sleep mode. Then, it connects to the Internet in 2.5 seconds via Acer “Always Connect” feature that automatically scans and registers most-visited access points.
Anytime and anywhere connectivity allows the access to critical business information on the go or communications with customers in real-time; this is why the W700P comes with Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth 4.0+ to connect to the latest wireless peripherals. With Acer Crystal Eye webcam users can easily videoconference with clients or business partners at their convenience, plus they can also share documents when travelling.
You may have used VLC Player on your Mac or PC, and now there is a beta available for Android.
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player that plays most multimedia files as well as discs, devices, and network streaming protocols.
This is a BETA version of the port to the Android platform. It is intended for power users and hackers. This version is NOT stable and is slower than the final version.
What’s new in this version?
The new beta is a bugfix release above 0.0.5, fixing audio glitches, Jelly Bean Hardware decoding, and reducing CPU and RAM usages in the UI.
It continues the UI improvements, the tablet-freedly mode, the stability and speed improvements of 0.0.5. It is still Intel and Tegra2 CPU compatible.
It also brings many crashes and issues that were reported by users, and translations updates.
The BBC iPlayer app for Android has been updated to include Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) support.
Watch, listen live and catch up on the last 7 days of BBC TV and Radio.
Features include:
– Watch live TV
– Listen to live radio
– Watch or listen over Wi-Fi and 3G networks
– Scroll through and find Featured and Most Popular programmes
– Add programmes to your favourites and have them ready and waiting when a new episode or series is available
– Browse through the schedule for upcoming programmes
What’s in this version:
– Support for Jelly Bean, Android 4.1
– Improved video performance using the new BBC Media Player
Synology has released a DVBLink package, making it possible to record and stream live TV for users of their NAS units in the UK. Read on for details.
Synology has released a DVBLink package, making it possible to record and stream live TV for users of their NAS units in the UK. Here is the announcement:
Taipei, Taiwan—October 18, 2012—Synology® Inc. introduced the DVBLink package, a 3rd party application for live streaming and recording TV programs with Synology NAS servers. The DVBLink package was developed by DVBLogic.
The DVBLink package is compatible with a wide range of digital TV broadcast standards which include DVB-S2 and DVB-T/T2, and supports up to 4 DTV tuners. By installing the package and plugging the supported DTV tuners into Synology NAS servers, users can view TV programs live and record their favorite channels. TV content can be streamed to XBMC or DLNA compatible devices. What’s more, DVBLink mobile apps allow iOS, Android™, and Windows Phone® users to watch TV live and manage recording schedules remotely.
Users can download and install the package in Synology Package Center. A 20 day trial is available for free, and a DVBLink license can be purchased via the web interface after the trial period expires.
Availability
The DVBLink package is available on select Synology NAS server running DSM 4.1: DS413j, DS213air, DS213, RS812, RS212, DS212j, DS212+, DS212, DS112+, DS112j, DS112, RS411, DS411slim, DS411j, DS411, DS211j, DS211+, DS211, DS111, DS410j, DS210j, DS110j, RS409, DS409slim, DS409, DS209, DS109.
The DTV tuners that passed DVBLogic’s test include DVB-S2 Stick for satellite TV (model:460e), nanoStick for DVB-T (73e, 73eSE) and nanoStick T2 (290e) for DVB-T/T2 reception.
Check out the Synology blog post here, and sound off in the comments on whether or not you want to use DVBLink on your Synology NAS.
CoveCube has released WhsDbDataDump 2.0, a utility that allows you to migrate the backup data from a Windows Home Server 2011 box. Read on for details.
CoveCube has released WhsDbDataDump 2.0, a utility that allows you to migrate the backup data from a Windows Home Server 2011 box. Here is the announcement from their blog page:
Overview
This tool is designed to extract complete mountable disk images (VHD) from the Windows Home Server 2011 Client Computer Backups database of backups. It is self contained and has no external dependencies on the Windows Home Server 2011. It features a standalone backup database parser and a GPT / VHD disk writer.
The only requirement to run this tool is .NET 4.0.
You can use this tool for data recovery or backup extraction / migration.
343 Industries has premiered the third part of the live-action digital series, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, and it’s a good one.
Check out part three below:
There are now only two parts left, and I can’t wait!
“Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” tells an exciting story of heroism and sacrifice on a scale never before seen in the “Halo” universe, taking fans back to the beginning of the human and Covenant war and leading into the events of “Halo 4.” Set against the backdrop of a United Nations Space Command (UNSC) military academy, a group of highborn cadets are training to be the next generation of soldiers in the UNSC’s ongoing war with insurrectionists in the outer colonial planets. Among these cadets, Thomas Lasky struggles with his doubts about this war, and with the burden of expectations he may not be able to carry. As Lasky comes to terms with his potential as a military leader, the terrifying alien alliance known as the Covenant arrives and turns his world upside down. Inspired by the Master Chief, he must decide what it means to be a hero. “Halo” fans that experience Lasky’s thrilling origin story in “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” will be rewarded with special insights into the story of “Halo 4” and the “Halo Infinity Multiplayer” experience.
Directed by Stewart Hendler (“H+,” “Sorority Row”) and written by Todd Helbing and Aaron Helbing (“Smallville,” “Spartacus”), “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” features a diverse cast of established and up-and-coming Hollywood talent, including Tom Green (“Dance Academy”) as Thomas Lasky, Anna Popplewell (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) as Chyler Silva, Daniel Cudmore (“X2,” “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “The Twilight Saga”) as the Master Chief, Ayelet Zurer (“Angels & Demons,” “Munich”) as Mehaffey, Mike Dopud (“Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol”) as General Black, Enisha Brewster (“Footloose”) as April Orenski, Masam Holden (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Elizabethtown”) as Michael “Sully” Sullivan, Osric Chau (“2012”) as JJ Chen, Iain Belcher (“Supernatural”) as Vickers, and Kat De Lieva as Dimah.
“Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” is backed by a top-tier production team led by executive producers Lydia Antonini and Josh Feldman, former Warner Bros. and Playtone executives, respectively. Continuing its involvement with the “Halo” franchise, Legacy Effects (“The Hunger Games,” “The Avengers,” “Avatar”) is creating specialised costumes and armor, and visual effects are being designed by an award-winning team led by John Sullivan (“The Pacific”). Production services are provided by Herzog & Co.
An extended, 90-minute Special Edition featuring additional footage and bonus content will be available Nov. 6 in the “Halo 4” Limited Edition and on video on-demand services.
Set almost five years after the events of “Halo 3,” “Halo 4” takes the series in a bold new direction and sets the stage for an epic new sci-fi saga, in which the Master Chief returns to confront his destiny and face an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. In addition to a rich story and campaign, “Halo 4” introduces a groundbreaking new multiplayer offering, called “Halo Infinity Multiplayer,” that builds off of the “Halo” franchise’s rich multiplayer history and promises to continue to innovate and redefine the way people think about storytelling and multiplayer experiences.
![Halo4_ForwardUntoDawn_KeyArt_11x17_F[1]](https://i0.wp.com/moviesgamesandtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Halo4_ForwardUntoDawn_KeyArt_11x17_F1.jpg?ssl=1 "Halo4_ForwardUntoDawn_KeyArt_11x17_F[1]")