The Xbox LIVE Summer of Arcade titles announced

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This year’s Xbox LIVE Summer of Arcade is nearly upon us and the list of 5 titles that are part of the promotion have been announced. Read on to find out what they are!

Summer of Arcade

There is even a cool promotion where if you buy any three of the five Summer of Arcade hits you will get 400 Microsoft Points as Microsoft’s way of saying thank you. The points will be automatically added to your account at the conclusion of the promotion, so that’s an added bonus.

Learn more about the promotion from here

Deadlight

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In an apocalyptic world where existence is futile, a solitary man treks the American west coast. Survival is the measure of all. In an alternate vision of the 1980s, a mysterious disease has decimated mankind, transforming people into killer automatons. During his odyssey, Randall Wayne will find other survivors, men and women who are no more than ghostly
remnants of a fading society, a flame in the desert fighting extinction.

  • Deadlight is a narrative driven puzzle platformer set in the postapocalyptic 80s devastated by a zombie epidemic.
  • A unique graphical approach with 3D backlit silhouettes increasing immersion with a continuous notion of danger.
  • Survive above all and face your fears.
  • Solve obstacles, dodge zombies, set traps and manipulate the environment. Escape any way you can!
  • Combat is always an option, albeit a poor one

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Dust: An Elysian Tail

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Immerse yourself in a gorgeous hand-painted world on a search for your true identity. As the mysterious warrior, Dust, your action-packed journey will take you from peaceful glades to snowy mountaintops and beyond. At your disposal is the mythical Blade of Ahrah, capable of turning its wielder it into an unstoppable force of nature, and the blade’s diminutive guardian,
Fidget. Battle dozens of enemies at once with an easy-to-learn, difficult-tomaster combat system, take on a variety of quests from friendly villagers, discover ancient secrets and powerful upgrades hidden throughout the massive, open world, and uncover the story of an ancient civilization on the brink of extinction as you fight to uncover your own past.

  • Explore, platform, and fight your way through the world of Falana to uncover Dust’s story!
  • Fast-paced empowering combat that flows as you move from enemy to enemy.
  • Meticulously hand-animated and painted visuals.
  • Mash-up of light and deep RPG structures including a level system, loot, and crafting.
  • Hidden challenge Arenas to compete against you and your friends’ score.

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Hybrid

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In 2032 a newly built Hadron Supercollider imploded, obliterating Australia. The world was sent into turmoil as an alternate reality collided with our own and from it emerged a species known as the Variant. Chaos ensued and world war broke out between the Variants and a group of rebel humans known as the Paladins. Hybrid is a pioneering third person shooter that strives to give players a completely new gameplay experience never seen before in the genre.

  • Join two factions across hundreds of thousands of players in an on-going battle against each other for supremacy over the world.
  • Revolutionary and intuitive flying based cover-to-cover movement creates a fast paced, arcade-like experience allowing players to focus first and foremost on combat while en-route.
  • Drones are an innovative new take on adding AI bots to the mix. Instantly call Drones types to the player’s location to turn the tide of battle.
  • Silky smooth gameplay running at a locked 60FPS.
  • In-depth character customization through unlockable weapons, abilities, and upgrades over 10 different maps and 7 unique game modes

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Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD

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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD is a downloadable title for consoles that takes the best elements of the classic THPS games and gives them a fresh update to create an all new skateboarding experience. Tapping into fans’ muscle memories, the gameplay in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD returns to controllers and focuses on the satisfaction of linking sick tricks for maximum points. Combining sharp visuals with the best controls ever in a Tony Hawk game, the feel is cutting edge yet timeless.

  • HD Upgrade: Game was rebuilt and polished by Robomodo using Neversoft’s original code.
  • Classic levels: The style and feel of the best 7 levels from THPS and THPS2 (Warehouse, School 2, Mall, Phoenix, Hangar, Marseilles and Venice) refreshed for today. Tony Hawk himself put a call out to his fans on Twitter during the summer of 2011 to decide the final levels.
  • The Top Pros: Today’s biggest skate pros round out the cast including: Nyjah Huston, Chris Cole, Eric Koston, Andrew Reynolds, Rodney Mullen, Lyn-z Adams Hawkins (Pastrana), Riley Hawk and, of course, Tony Hawk himself.
  • Refined controls: The skaters’ animations, tricks and combos reflect the evolution of the THPS games. For example, you can do manuals in levels from the first THPS, a trick that didn’t enter the franchise until THPS2. However, reverts are not part of trick combos, as the scoring system is based on THPS2.
  • Endlessly fun objectives: Players pursue the same global and level-specific goals as the original games, including S-K-A-T-E, Secret DVD (used to be VHS tape!), and many more.

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Wreckateer

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Wreckateer uses Kinect for Xbox 360 to put you in control of a massive castle-wrecking ballista. With the help of Wreck and Tinker, travel the land and destroy 60 castles infested with Goblins using six magical projectiles. Aim and fire each shot and then control it in mid-air, activating special powers and guiding them toward their target. Utilize an arsenal of Flying, Explosive, Splitting, and rocketing Speed shots to explore the infinite ways you can wreak havoc with Wreckateer’s fully-dynamic destruction.

• Wreckateer features physics-based destruction allowing every structure on the field to be demolished down to dust. Hitting a structure a different way will result in a different break.

• Take advantage of fully-dynamic destruction to improvise with each shot. Blow a hole through the castle wall, then fire an explosive shot at the castle’s base, or use a Flying Shot to glide over the wall and into the castle to pinpoint the weak point and bring it down.

• See real-time updates of your friends’ scores, from the high score holder to the score just above yours. Get level-specific challenges and updates to push you on to beating your friends’ scores.

• Two player turn-based local multiplayer also supported on every level.

• Custom playlists allow you to select from our 60+ levels and play through your favourite moments in any order you choose.

Wreckateer was part of Microsoft’s E3 press conference and having played it at E3 I have to say it’s a lot of fun. Lovers of a certain game involving rather unhappy birds will love it!

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Shazam app for iOS updated to version 5.0.5

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The very cool music identification app Shazam has been updated to version 5.0.5.

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Having tried some different music, I cant honestly say it find’s the song in a matter of seconds, in some cases, only two or three words had been sung. I was very impressed!

This is how Shazam is described:

Lightning fast tagging. Now discover, explore and share more music, TV shows and brands you love in as little as one second.

With unlimited tagging use Shazam as much as you want, and experience more of what you like, faster.

You can also:
○ Save & listen again (30 sec preview)
○ Buy tracks easily on iTunes & find more by tagged artists
○ View extra content as you watch TV
○ Watch music videos & concerts from YouTube
○ Share on Facebook, Twitter & email
○ See streaming lyrics in time to the music
○ Discover new music in Shazam Friends & Charts
○ See when an artist is touring
○ Use it when you don’t have a signal

What’s New in Version 5.0.5

Bug Fixes
○ Add To My Tags now shows correct time in Shazam Friends

New
○ Shazam with Friends: Share your tags on your Facebook timeline, and instantly see what your friends are tagging.

Download now from the Apple App Store

Facebook App for Windows Phone Updated to version 2.6

The Facebook app for Windows Phone has been updated to version 2.6.

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Facebook for Windows Phone makes it easy to stay connected and share information with friends. You can post status updates, check your news feed, review your upcoming events, manage your inbox, upload photos, publish notes, accept friend requests, and look at your friends’ photos, walls and info.

The update includes:

Added posting to my wall when posting to groups, custom privacy posts made as ‘only me’, groups with no picture no longer display black icon

Download now from the Windows Marketplace

Sony launches new VAIO E Series 11 notebook

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Sony has launched their new VAIO E series 11 notebook, and it’s rather good!

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Now there’s an even wider choice of VAIO E Series notebook PCs from Sony, with softly-rounded styling and the power to handle on-the-go tasks with ease. The super-portable VAIO E Series 11 is the newest addition to the VAIO family, sharing the same distinctive ‘wrap-around’ design as its larger E Series 14”, 15” and 17” siblings.

The 11” notebook is ideal for students, busy social networkers and anyone who needs to stay mobile without sacrificing PC performance.

Despite easy-to-carry dimensions, the VAIO E Series 11 is made to entertain. There’s plenty of multimedia muscle available courtesy of an AMD Dual-Core E2-Series APU for Notebooks with AMD Radeon HD 7340 Graphics. xLOUD and Clear Phase technologies from Sony boost speaker volume without distortion for rich, natural sounding movies and games. There’s also an HD web camera powered by ‘Exmor for PC’ for clearer, crisper web chats. Navigating documents and media files is easy thanks to the large, button-free touchpad.

The VAIO E Series 11 also sports delivers impressive connections including USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0 and HDMI out. The new notebook even doubles as a handy charger for your smartphone. Just plug in your phone via USB for an easy and convenient power top-up – even when the computer is switched off or in sleep mode.

Just lift the lid and Rapid Wake ensures you’re ready for action in moments, saving precious time that’s lost waiting for other PCs to boot or wake up from hibernation. And with the VAIO E Series 11’s battery life of up to 6 hours*, there’s plenty of stamina for note-taking, web browsing and catching up with emails during the day.

The new VAIO E Series 11 is available exclusively from Sony Centres, http://www.sony.co.uk and Dixons Retail, in a choice of white or black colour finishes.

Price wise, the E Series starts from around £409 for the base model and there are a lot of different configurations to choose from!

We recently got to spend some time with the new E Series range, and we were very impressed.

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Learn more about the VAIO E Series from here

Two Minute Review of the Cygnett BlackFrost Case for the Samsung Galaxy Note

Back in May we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Note. In order to provide some protection it was time to get a case, so we jumped at the chance to review the BlackFrost case from Cygnett.

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Cygnett describes the BlackFrost case as:

Smooth yet durable case with an anti-mark finish that offers excellent surface protection from fingerprints, dust and cosmetics.

Who are Cygnett:

From their website:

Cygnett designs, develops and manufactures innovative digital accessories for the world’s most popular gadgets and technology. From cases and accessories for iPod, iPhone, iPad, smartphones and tablets to portable speakers, earphones, power products and laptop bags, Cygnett is celebrated as one of the world’s major digital accessories designers and manufacturers.

Our digital accessories and products shield and connect your digital world, letting you explore it with more peace of mind, shape it with more variety and choice, and share your moments, both big and small. Cygnett packaging is recyclable and partially biodegradable, because we believe the digital world should care for the physical one.

We love what we do. It shows in the quality materials we choose, the extensive range we offer and the extra effort we put into making products that you look forward to using every day. Modern, fresh and dedicated to inventive design, Cygnett goes the extra mile to make your digital experience enjoyable.

With offices on four continents, products in over 45,000 worldwide retail outlets and in more than 40 countries, Cygnett’s success is built largely on its ability to design and deliver quality digital accessories and products that tap into what you want – protection, fashion and function.

Features

  • Super-slim shield that protects edges and corners wihtout adding bulk
  • Highly durable polycarbonate material that is strong and scratch-resistant with a flexible snap-on design
  • Grips in your hand yet slides easily into your pocket
  • Includes screen protector and microfibre cleaning cloth to keep your Samsung Galaxy Note looking new

What’s in the Box?

The box contains the BlackFrost case, a cloth and a screen protector.

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A Closer Look

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Final Thoughts

The packaging is clear so that you can actually see the case you are getting which is nice as I have previously found cases that don’t quite match the picture on the box!

Including a screen protector in the box was a good move as that is one less thing to have to buy! I found fitting the screen protector to be fairly easy and I didn’t end up with too many bubbles.

The case is very light so it really doesn’t add anything to the weight of the Note.

The back of the case can get marked (as you can see from some of the picture above) but it is so easy to clean it isn’t really an issue.

Removing the case is also very easy and doesn’t give you a worry that you might break it, unlike other cases I have tried on other devices.

The case also comes with a 2 year warranty so again a smart move by Cygnett.

The cost of the BlackFrost case for the Samsung Galaxy Note is £24.99 and is worth the money to provide protection for your expensive device!

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Learn more from the Cygnett website

Review of the Plextor M3 Pro PX-128M3P SSD

Recently we told you about the new Plextor M3 Pro SSD range. We got our hands on one and so here is our review.

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As described by Plextor:

Plextor knows as “the Rolls-Royce of optical display drives” is setting a new benchmark for solid state disks with the M3 Pro. High performance, no slow-down technology, and an ironclad 5-year warranty make the M3 Pro SSD the ultimate notebook upgrade!

From storage legends Plextor comes a powerful new solid state drive. The M3 Pro will be the new storage benchmark against which others are measured, bringing even greater speed to the powerful combination of Plextor’s 5-year warranty and True Speed sustained long-term performance.

Outperforming competitors with sustained random read and write speeds of up to 75,000/69,000 IOPS and PCMark7 storage scores of 5441 points. Beating SSD slowdown with advanced True Speed Technology. Reassuring with its 5-year ironclad warranty. The Plextor M3 Pro SSD raises the bar for high performance SSDs.

Key Features

* 2.5” Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

* Available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities

* True Speed Technology for sustained performance over time

* Random read and write speeds of 70,000 / 69,000 IOPS

* 7mm Ultra Slim form factor

* Uses server-grade Marvell 88SS9174 controller chip

* Supports SATA III 6Gb/s interface and highest quality Japanese NAND flash

* Boasts lowest average annual failure rate (AFR) across industry

* Unrivalled 5 year on-site warranty and service support

Who are Plextor?

From their website:

The history of Plextor goes back almost 100 years. Shinano Kenshi Corporation was founded in 1918 to manufacture Spun Silk Yarn, which at the time was one of the most “High-Tech” industries in the world. The silk required a very delicate and precise production process. The right to wear silk was reserved for the highest government officials and dignitaries only, and therefore the quality standards were extremely high. In these circumstances, Shinano Kenshi developed their own business philosophy: “Never Compromise, Always Think Quality”, because only providing the best quality could satisfy their exceptional customers.

As the years passed, Shinano Kenshi embarked on other industrial markets that would grow more progressively, while maintaining its proud history in the Silk Industry.

In the 1960s, Shinano Kenshi decided to diversify its business to electric motors, a fast growing market at the time. Despite changing its core business, the company kept its business philosophy, “Never Compromise, Always Think Quality”. These ventures insights led to the successful expansion into technology-driven, knowledge-intensive fields, such as Electrical Division, Electronic Equipment Division and Printing Equipment Division.

In the 1980’s, Shinano Kenshi expanded their sub-contracting position by recognizing the evolution of the digital age with the advancement of compact discs replacing the older generation of analogue tapes. The company began to manufacture their own compact disc players for the audio industry, and developed a separate brand for the department. The Electronic Equipment Division introduced its first CD-ROM optical disk drive under the TEXEL brand name in 1989. Faced with the prospects of a healthy and ever-increasing demand for its products, Shinano Kenshi identified the importance of this segment, with the Professional and IT markets demanding performance-oriented products. The company naturally transitioned into the optical disc drive industry. Through every generation of optical disk drives, Plextor has continually sought ways in which its CD-ROM’s, CD-RW’s and DVD+R/RW’s could stimulate market demand by offering higher speed and higher reliability devices, while winning numerous awards worldwide.

While maintaining and strengthening its core competences, Shinano Kenshi continued its global expansion by establishing subsidiary companies and promoting its products on a worldwide basis. In 1982 Shinano Kenshi began to expand overseas. The United States was the first country where the company started overseas operation. PLEXTOR US was officially founded in 1990 and three years later a European branch (PLEXTOR EU) was opened.

The subsidiaries are chartered with the continual growth of Resellers and OEM’s in their respective territories, who have come to rely upon Shinano Kenshi for performance, quality oriented and technically superior optical peripheral products. In 1994, Shinano Kenshi announced their new brand name PLEXTOR for their digital technology products, including optical disc drives.

Plextor CD-R/RW drives were introduced in 1998 with technologies developed by the corporation in support of the market growing demand for CD-ROM’s. DVD+R/RW were added to the Plextor product line in 2003. High performance drives enable our users to write and re-write data on a stable platform that has evolved throughout the years. Plextor has also invested heavily on the certification of media to give our users a wide range of compatibility between the various manufacturers.

Plextor’s CD-R, CD-RW and DVD+R/RW optical disk drives have been tested worldwide and evaluated as the “Professional Choice” to satisfy even the most discerning customers. Plextor products have been adopted by financial institutions and government agencies, which require highly reliable data storage technology. Recording studios have come to regard the Plextor products as the “drive of choice,” which they can rely upon for the accurate extraction and creation of Digital Audio.

The business philosophy “Never Compromise, Always think Quality” generated from tailoring luxury silk for the highest dignitaries did not fade over time but became the company’s core value. Also in the optical storage business, Plextor provided the best quality products to high-end customers and professional users in a heavy duty environment, instead of general users. In order to satisfy these professional users and to meet their strict specifications, PLEXTOR always invested many resources in R&D and product testing before any product was released to the market. In line with its high quality standards, Plextor always offered excellent warranty conditions.

In the 21st century PLEXTOR successfully entered new markets with external Hard Disks, Multi Media Players, Network Attached Storage, and more to come…..

AMD Launches the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Graphics Card

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AMD Launches the World’s Fastest and Most Versatile Graphics Processor, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

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Yesterday AMD launched the world’s fastest graphics processing unit (GPU), the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition uses AMD’s innovative Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture to deliver astonishing performance and breath-taking image quality, providing world-class gameplay at the highest resolutions in the most demanding games such as Battlefield 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and DiRT Showdown.

  • Engineered for incredible DirectX 11 gaming, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition enables staggering performance in the most demanding games, like DiRT Showdown, Sniper Elite V2 and Nexuiz.
  • Think of it as turbo for the GPU. Get automatic overclocking on the fly for better performance in your favourite games with AMD PowerTune technology, now with Boost.
  • Accelerate the applications you use every day. Get faster performance in Adobe Creative Suite 6, Corel WinZip and GIMP with AMD App Acceleration on the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.
  • The next generation of AMD Eyefinity technology is here, featuring all-new support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation and brand new display configurations for up to six monitors. Face it: the best just got better.
  • Ready for the world’s highest-resolution displays: Featuring full support for HDMI (with 4K) and DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is ready for displays up to 4096×2160.

The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition comes fully equipped with 3GBs of ultra-fast GDDR5 frame buffer, AMD Eyefinity 2.0 technology, and support for PCI Express 3.0 and multi-GPU configurations with AMD CrossFire technology.

The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition will be available as early as next week from add-in board (AIB) partners including ASUS, Gigabyte, HIS, MSI, Sapphire, TUL and XFX starting at USD$499.

Learn more about the AMD Radeon HD 7970 from here

E3: A preview of Episode 1 of the iPad version of The Walking Dead game

At E3 we were treated to a hands-on preview of Episode 1 of the new iPad version of the The Walking Dead game from TellTale games.

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The Walking Dead is a five-part, episodic game series set in the same universe as Robert Kirkman’s Eisner award-winning comic books. Play as Lee Everett, a man convicted of a crime of passion given a second chance at life in a world devastated by the undead. With corpses returning to life and survivors stopping at nothing to ensure their own safety, protecting an orphaned girl named Clementine may offer him redemption in a world gone to hell.

Key Features:
  • A tailored game experience: your decisions affect how your story plays out across the entire series!
  • Decisions are difficult and often require an immediate choice. There’s no time to ponder when the undead are pounding the door down!
  • Explore, solve problems and fight for survival in a world overrun by the undead. See the world of the comic books brought to life: artwork inspired by The Walking Dead comic book artist Charlie Adlard

Here is a video we shot at E3:

The iPad version is very responsive and play’s just as well as the PC version of the game.

After the preview we were also treated to the lunch below – I decided to pass!

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Episode 1 should be available very soon – more news when we get it and stay tuned for a full review.

Learn more from the TellTale Games website

New Forza Motorsport 4 SRT Viper Bonus Pack available on Xbox LIVE

The next bonus pack for Forza Motorsport 4 has been released and this time it brings the SRT Viper, and this expansion pack is free!

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Forza Motorsport 4 is the highest-rated racing game of this generation, available exclusively for Xbox 360. The SRT Viper Bonus Pack is available for download through Xbox LIVE for those who own the Forza Motorsport 4 game for free!

More information is available online at http://www.forzamotorsport.net

Check out our review of Forza Motorsport 4 from last year

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CoPilot releases 2012 Q1 map updates for North America

Recently we reviewed the CoPilot Live Premium GPS Navigation app. Now CoPilot have released their 2012 Q1 map updates – but only for North America so far.

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This is what CoPilot posted:

We’ve released a complete map update featuring our latest 2012 Q1 map data for all North America & USA CoPilot Live Premium iOS and Android customers. This adds thousands of new miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada and hundreds of map improvements submitted by customers during the months of March, April and May.

Here’s how to get the latest quarterly map update:

  • For iPhone & iPad CoPilot Live Premium customers: You can download the latest free Quarterly map update via the latest application update in your iTunes; For Premium HD USA, Premium USA, and Premium NA customers: Version 9.1.0.297. For Premium HD NA customers: Version 9.1.0.270
  • For Android CoPilot Live Premium customers: You can download the latest version of maps directly from your phone using CoPilot Live. Within the app, go to MyCoPilot > My Maps and you will receive a prompt that a new version of your maps is available. Click OK to begin the download.

Google doodle celebrates Alan Turin’s 100th birthday

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Today, 100 years ago, Alan Turin was born, and Google are celebrating that fact with a special doodle.

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The doodle is a representation of the Turin machine, which manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules and was developed in 1936.

Turin was perhaps best known for his involvement in cracking the German’s Enigma codes in World War 2.

Back in 2008 at the RSA Security Conference there was an Enigma machine on display.

Enigma machine

Turin committed suicide in 1944.

Amazon App Store coming the UK and parts of Europe

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that developers can now submit apps for distribution this summer in the United Kingdom, Germany,France, Italy and Spain, with plans for further global expansion in the near future.

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The Amazon Appstore in the U.S. has grown to tens of thousands of apps and games in just one year. As a result of features like 1-Click purchasing and Test Drive (which allows customers to try apps before purchasing them), developers report strong monetization from the apps they offer through Amazon. Amazon recently introduced an In-App Purchasing service that is simple for developers to integrate and helps monetize their apps and games even better than before, while still offering customers a seamless and secure 1-Click purchasing experience. Many developers have seen revenue skyrocket as a result of Amazon In-App Purchasing and are excited to offer their apps to even more customers outside the United States.

Developers should visit the distribution portal to learn about localizing apps with localized resource files for different regions, as well as other tips on how to prepare their apps for international distribution. Developers have the ability to select the countries where they would like to sell their apps. They can also set their list prices by marketplace. Those already participating in the program will automatically have their apps made available for sale internationally by default. And developers can easily change international availability for their apps via the distribution portal if they don’t wish to sell in select countries. Developers who are new to the program can sign up at the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal.

It’s about time that Amazon did more for the UK and European markets – it’s very frustrating whenever they offer something interesting and it’s only for the US market!

Let us know if you submit something!

Microsoft delivers Xbox SmartGlass SDK to developers

Microsoft has taken the next steps to deliver Xbox SmartGlass this autumn by releasing the Xbox SmartGlass Software Development Kit (SDK) as a free release for partners that have agreements to develop Xbox games or entertainment applications for the Xbox 360 console.

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With the release of the Xbox SmartGlass SDK, Microsoft is continuing to build the tools and resources necessary to empower more game developers and entertainment partners to create new and unique experiences that will make entertainment smarter, more interactive and more fun – across the devices you already own.

Features of the SDK include the following:

· Xbox SmartGlass Studio. Xbox SmartGlass Studio enables developers to start building Xbox SmartGlass Activities.

· Xbox SmartGlass JavaScript Library. The JavaScript Library contains a set of device APIs that are consistent across all platforms.

· Sample Code. A sample application that provides developers with an example of how to build an Xbox SmartGlass Activity.

Xbox 360 game and entertainment application developers can access the SDK at https://developer.xboxlive.com/en-us/xbox/development/downloads/xdks/Documents/SmartGlass/XboxSmartGlass.aspx.

The power of companion scenarios come to life in new ways with Xbox SmartGlass, an application for Windows 8, Windows Phone, and other portable devices that connects phones, PCs and tablets with your Xbox 360 console in an intelligent way. Use your phone or tablet as a secret screen or enhanced information for your favourite game. Use your tablet to launch and navigate a movie on your TV and get rich details on the cast, crew and storyline.

Pull the movie back to your tablet to finish watching it on the go. Use your phone or tablet as another remote and easily navigate your entertainment and menus by simple flicks, gestures and pinch and zoom.

I saw SmartGlass at E3 a few weeks ago and it is very impressive. Watch out for our E3 post on that very soon.

Learn more about Microsoft Xbox SmartGlass from here

Raspbmc for Raspberry Pi release candidate 3 released

If you have your Raspberry Pi, you might be interested to know that Raspbmc release candidate 3 has just been released.

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This is what was just posted:

RC3 is here and brings us very near to release quality. This makes the XBMC experience truely complete with improved performance and stability. Aside from bug fixes and patches, here’s what’s new:

The UI installers are now available

Many people kept going to the Download page, imaging a card and then Tweeting / Emailing / Forum posting going “Huh? I installed it but it didn’t work, just left me at a blank screen”. The reason for this was that there are two branches of Raspbmc: testing and release. At the moment, everything is in testing, and when it is stable, it will migrate to release. What the UI installers do, is install release on your card, which at the time, left you with a blank screen saying it wasn’t ready yet.

So, to make it absolutely easy, I’ve enabled the UI installers, as we are after all stable enough. I haven’t populated the release branch, but instead, redirect calls to the release installer to the testing installer, and that will do the trick.

So, to summarise, Raspbmc now has a nice Python installer for OSX and Linux and a 1-click your done installer for Windows. Tell me how that can get any easier!

Raspbmc CDN is online

Raspbmc’s CDN is now online. This means the project has more mirrors than ever, and I don’t feel guilty for stealing all of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s bandwidth, bless them for letting me use it! The CDN brings you high-speed mirrors to make Raspbmc installations and updates easy, simple and fast. Many thanks to those mirroring. More can join the party if you have a Linux box with rsync, just see this page here. You can find out who’s mirroring Raspbmc on the download page.

Thank you UKFast.net

UKFast.net Ltd have provided me with a new server to compile XBMC nightly builds. This occurs after a certain host who shall not be mentioned decided to change their Terms of Service without any notification and suspend Raspbmc nightlies. Neil at UKFast stepped in straight away over at the forum and furnished me with a new server. So when you’re installing a nightly (read more below about that), thank Neil. And if you’re in the mind for hosting, see what they offer here, it might just suit you.

New XBMC build with AudioEngine support

This new build brings us the new XBMC AudioEngine and some patches for fanart, SMB and some stability improvements.

New Raspbmc plugin

A new Raspbmc addon accessible from within XBMC allows you to configure your hostname, change the pi user’s password, turn updates off and on and disable nightly builds. What’s cool is not only can you download and install nightly builds from within it, but you can dynamically switch between any build of XBMC with no command line knowledge. Your settings, of course, are preserved across versions. I’m looking at adding some more features to this, but thanks go out to s7mx1 for the initial version.

New ‘exit’ behaviour

Now, if you exit XBMC or it crashes, you’ll find yourself given the choice of going to the command line or relaunching XBMC. Do nothing and XBMC relaunches, press Esc on a keyboard, and you’re straight into the command line.

Better 1080p playback

Some updates to the way the system configures the minimum amount of memory allocated to the kernel mean less buffering and smoother full HD playback. The screen ‘blanking’ issue, where the screen cuts out for a couple of seconds, is now eliminated.

OGG playback is fixed

A dependency was missing, and now it is included by default.

Wireless support

As requested, wireless support is now enabled in the kernel and I have bundled in the default modules for you. You’ll still need to configure everything, and probably need to install some firmware too, but with wireless modules, you won’t need to compile the kernel again. I didn’t include all the drivers people requested on the tracker, but for good reason, I included all WLAN modules not to be considered staging.

Firmware update

The firmware is updated again, fixing some PAL issues when watching over Composite. The resolution is now correctly set and should yield no further problems. Furthermore, the new firmware improves reliability, bringing significant speed improvements to the mmc controller. This means better IO throughput for SD cards. Rather brilliantly, I have seen some members of the forum report up to 19MB/s throughput with dd when they were testing the new kernel.

CEC support

This is extremely experimental, but Raspbmc now has CEC support allowing you to control Raspbmc with your TV remote. This won’t work with all devices, and will need you to be connected over HDMI.

New kernel

Our new kernel brings stability improvements, as well as support for more devices. I’ve now included:

  • IPV6 support
  • Webcam support
  • Bluetooth support
  • ALSA support (experimental, alpha-quality)
  • HFS and HFS+ support
  • LIRC GPIO support

Splash screen

This is undoubtedly a more welcoming way to begin your media center experience — the splash screen takes place in favour of the former console output that would litter your screen with unnecessary startup details.

Tighter root filesystem

The root filesystem has been précised so that unnecessary packages are not present on the target filesystem. This ensures that as much free space is available on your Pi’s SD card as possible.

LIRC changes

LIRC is now initiated from within XBMC when remotes are detected. This means that LIRC is stopped and started independently of its self. This improves reliability greatly and by configuring LIRC as an ondemand service it is more targetted.

It boots in 20 seconds now!

Obviously I am constantly striving to improve boot time. The most obvious way to do this, was to port the current SysVinit system to Upstart. Canonical’s Upstart allows the asynchronous loading of services during bootup. While the standard SysVinit init.d system will allow initialisation of a single process at a time, Upstart allows multiple services to load simultaneously, provided that they are not dependent on a service that is not yet loaded. Therefore, we can get from Off to On in a much shorter time as much of what we were loading was not dependent on anything else that we were loading, but was being synchronous, and thus had to wait on the previous service to start. Now, we load the bare minimum of what we need for XBMC to start, then XBMC will emit itself as started and the remaining servers will initialise. This is comparable to Microsoft’s new ‘delayed start’ available for Services.

Getting it

Getting it is now very easy thanks to the UI installers. Head over to the Downloads page to get Raspbmc RC3!

Other than that, thanks for using Raspbmc and enjoy! Raspbmc has excelled fantastically over the past month and is almost ready for prime-time. Expect some teething issues, as these changes are very new and untested.

Check out the videos we made with Eben Upton Check out our unboxing of our Raspberry Pi

Have you ordered one? Let us know if you get yours and what you do with it.