Definitely helpful for anyone impacted by Hurricane Sandy, Verizon is providing assistance to the public in the form of emergency communication centers.

With locations detailed on Verizon’s site, the wireless company has positioned large, trailer-sized charging stations at locations within Ohio, New Jersey and West Virginia as well as Staten Island. Not limiting outreach to Verizon customers, the company is welcoming anyone that was impacted negatively by Hurricane Sandy. The public can visit the mobile trailers to recharge their mobile devices like smartphones, tablets or laptops. In addition, anyone without a computer can get online at a computer workstation. Verizon is also offering Sandy victims access to mobile phones in order to make domestic calls to friends and families. 

Beyond the emergency communication centers, Verizon is opening retail locations up to the public for device charging and free domestic calls. Victims of Hurricane Sandy can also find prepaid phones as well as replacement chargers at Verizon stores if needed.

In order to reestablish wireless communication in areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy, Verizon technicians have been working around the clock to improve service. Regarding the progress of technicians, Verizon representatives stated the company has “seen continued improvement overnight with now more than 96 percent of our cell sites in service and serving our customers in the impacted area, including some of the hardest hit areas of the Northeast.” 

Similar to Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile stores are opening up retail locations to offer device charging. In addition, AT&T has rolled our mobile charging stations at relief areas across the Northeast. Regarding any payment issues, T-Mobile is giving customers a grace period up until November 8 and plans to waive all late fees as well. Basically, customers that haven’t paid their T-Mobile bill will continue to receive service to their mobile phone. AT&T is also planning on waiving all late fees and will extend payment windows for Hurricane Sandy victims. AT&T representatives did not specifically mention an end date on that grace period. 

With Apple's global launch of the iPad Mini set for 8am, November 2, plenty of consumers in New Zealand, where it's already Friday, will be busy testing out the new device.

When Apple announced that sales of the new iPad Mini would begin at 8am on November 2, residents of New Zealand hoping to get their hands on the new device knew they’d be the first to have the opportunity to do so, beating their San Francisco counterparts by 20 hours thanks to the beauty of time zones.

And so, as the sun goes down on the US on November 1, plenty of customers in the South Pacific country have already unboxed their diminutive iPad and have likely made up their mind as to whether it lives up to the hype.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, New Zealand doesn’t have an official Apple store, leaving resellers to deal with expectant Apple fans.

“I don’t know who will have what (products) where in New Zealand but the retailers will certainly be able to open their doors so people can come in and touch and play straight away,” Apple spokeswoman Fiona Martin told the WSJ.

Kiwi James Griffin tweeted a photo of himself holding aloft his new 7.9-inch iPad Mini, delivering his verdict a couple of hours later: “Love it! It’s the perfect size.”

The device marks Apple’s entry into the smaller-tablet market, taking on the likes of Google with its Nexus 7 tablet and Amazon with its range of Kindle Fire devices.

The Mini, however, is a pricier proposition than its rivals, with, for example, the $329 16GB model going for $130 more than the 16GB Nexus 7.

The latest addition to Apple’s range of gadgets is 53 percent thinner than the full-size iPad, and just 7.2mm thick. Apple decided to leave out its high-definition Retina display with the Mini’s 7.9-inch screen, going instead for a 1024 x 768 resolution with a pixel density of 163ppi.

Many industry watchers are interested to see to what extent sales of the Mini affect those of its big brother, and how that might impact Apple’s overall financial performance.

[via MacRumors]

The WikiPad was a dark horse contender in the increasingly competitive tablet market this fall, but its focus on gaming distinguished it from the iPad, Surface, and Kindle Fire. After missing its release date, its unclear if and when WikiPad will release.

At the beginning of October, the gaming tablet WikiPad still looked like a potential sleeper hit in the broader tablet world. Apple had its rumored-then-confirmed iPad 4, Amazon was rolling out the next wave of Kindle Fires, and Microsoft had the Surface waiting in the wings, but WikiPad was the only Android tablet that came with a pre-built gaming controller. It was expensive at $500, but it sounded like the kind of device that would appeal to the tech obsessed.

The WikiPad was supposed to release at GameStop on Wednesday morning. It didn’t, though, and now the company doesn’t know when the gaming tablet will come out.

“The WikiPad team has been relentlessly working with our manufacturers and partners to perfect the WikiPad bundle to ensure our first product is the best tablet and entertainment experience at launch,” said an official statement from the company, “There is a last minute opportunity to enhance the WikiPad bundle as well as a minor refinement needed to ensure our first customers are completely satisfied with the WikiPad.”

When those customers will be satisfied is a mystery. The statement went on to say that those who had pre-ordered the device at GameStop would receive a “special bonus gift.” GameStop has stopped taking pre-orders for the device as of this writing.

The future of the WikiPad was thrown into question this past summer when its key partner was acquired by a heavyweight in the gaming industry. In May WikiPad announced that it was partnering with cloud-based streaming gaming service Gaikai to support the tablet with games from major publishers like Electronic Arts. Gaikai was purchased by Sony in July, though, and it’s been unknown if and when Sony would integrate the Gaikai service into its PlayStation brand.

Sony did confirm in October that it would support WikiPad, though not with Gaikai streaming. The tablet was announced as PlayStation Certified and that it would host the digital storefront for mobile games, PlayStation Mobile.

It’s possible that the release was delayed to ensure a better line up of software. It’s also possible that there was a production problem with the device. That WikiPad was delayed at the very last second before it was supposed to ship is not an encouraging sign, though. It’s doubtful that the gaming tablet will join the retail fray this holiday.

With Windows 8, it seems that Microsoft is forcing the touchscreen laptop upon us. While they work on tablets and hybrids, touchscreens never seem like the best method of control for a machine placed on a desk. Is it possible touchscreen laptops are just a fad?

During Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch event, the company paraded a variety of flashy new devices in front of us, and almost all of them featured a touchscreen. We’ve known for a while that Microsoft built Windows 8 optimized for touchscreens, but it was at this moment that I realized the next Windows PC I buy will have one — and I’m not sure that’s good news.

Touchscreens are brilliant. We wouldn’t have decent tablets, big screen smartphones, or cool interactive tools in museums without them. I use touchscreens everyday, and I couldn’t imagine not doing so.

However, I don’t use a touchscreen on my laptop. To be fair, my laptop doesn’t have one to use, but that’s because it doesn’t really belong. There is a lovely touchpad where I can make time-saving gestures, and it’s conveniently located below the keyboard. You know, where my fingers naturally fall.

I’m not against touchscreens as a rule, that is, except when they’re mounted vertically in front of me, ready to get covered in fingerprints, make my arms ache, or wobble about when I prod them. When they do any of these things, I’ll just go back to using the touchpad as usual, and question why I bothered to touch the screen in the first place. And unlike my phone and tablet, it’s not that easy to give the screen a quick buff up on my sleeve either.

Touchscreen laptops = 3D

Computers with a touchscreen come across as being a bit, well, gimmicky. Sales of laptops are falling, but sales of dedicated touchscreen devices, such as tablets and smartphones, are rising. Is it not just a ploy to try to restart the PC market by combining what’s cool with a struggling product? When Hollywood decided piracy was killing ticket sales at the theater, it introduced 3D to lure us back to the box office. It got off to an average start, but has trailed off now that people are realizing it’s a bit of rubbish, especially at home. Plus, like 3D equipment and software, touchscreen computer hardware comes with a higher price.

Others have also expressed concerns. The late Steve Jobs said “touchscreens don’t want to be vertical,” and described them as “ergonomically terrible.” Adrian Covert at Gizmodo dismissed them as “an ergonomic nightmare,” while Rob Enderle, on these very pages, wrote that a large, multi-touch touchpad — not the screen — was “a critical element” to making Windows 8 enjoyable to use.

The effectiveness of a touchscreen comes down to how you can hold it. Obviously, tablets work; and hybrids work because you can detach the keyboard. Plus, unusual devices, such as the Dell XPS 12 with its rotating screen, work too (in theory). All of these touchscreen devices work because you can hold them like a book, magazine, or a newspaper, providing versatility along with a proven method of control.

Laptops usually sit on the desk at arm’s length where you’ll have to stretch even further to reach the screen — something that’ll be even harder to do with a touchscreen desktop PC. They also have a proven method of control built-in — the mouse, trackpad ,and keyboard — which you’ll also find on all new Windows 8 machines. It’s almost as if Microsoft and its hardware partners have no faith in touch-driven computers.

Traditional control methods look quicker

Intel did some research into the public’s response to touchscreen laptops earlier this year, and published this video afterwards. Apparently, 77-percent of those interviewed touched the screen of the laptop while using Windows 8, despite being able to use more traditional methods. Leaving aside the results, which could be skewed by the novelty factor of a touchscreen laptop, at no point in the video did touching the screen look faster, more comfortable, or more accurate than using a good touchpad.

Windows 8 looks really exciting, but I’ve been told that extensive use on a non-touch laptop is frustrating because the OS is always encouraging you to touch the screen. This is not only bad news for anyone upgrading an older laptop, but also for people who work more efficiently using the trackpad and keyboard.

I’m looking forward to spending time with a Windows 8 touchscreen laptop, but I remain skeptical as to whether the act of touching the screen to do things will be nothing more than a quickly dismissed fad.

The latest update from the creators of Ouya, the Android-based video game console that raised more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter this past summer, says that the game has entered the engineering phase with circuit boards in production.

The makers of Ouya have been quiet in the past month. Ouya, the Google Android-powered video game console developed by Boxer8, made multiple headlines this past summer following an overwhelming response to a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter and the announcement of widespread support from independent and corporate video game developers alike. To now, though, the console has been a prototype, a clever concept that still needed to be transformed into a commercials viable consumer device. The Ouya team broke its silence on Wednesday to discuss the engineering of the actual console that people will get to play.

“Our CAD models and SLAs (plastic prototypes that provide us with a physical look and feel of the product) are finished, and we moved out of the design phase and into development a couple of weeks ago,” said Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman via an update on the console’s official site, “Last week was a huge milestone for us—we received our first run of PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) for the console. We’re set to complete this EVT (engineering validation test) phase on time, and we’re in sync with our December target for developer kits. Since these dev kits are still in pre-production phase, we’ll build a limited quantity. Each one will be a collector’s item—unique in design, build, and appearance.”

The Ouya is, for all intents and purposes, a real console now.

Another note in the update is that Ouya has now upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.2, otherwise known as Jelly Bean. “We’re making the jump from the old version, Ice Cream Sandwich, to ensure that we’re running on the most up-to-date software available.”

When last we heard from Ouya, the group was touting that “over a thousand” game makers had contacted the company looking to develop for the still-in-design console. Among those developers were industry stalwarts like Namco Bandai. Square-Enix even went as far as announcing a version of Final Fantasy III for the device back at the end of July.

The reason there was such an outpouring of developer interest was the impressive amount of money raised for Ouya from customers on Kickstarter. $8.59 million was gathered over the course of a month, with the vast majority of backers paying $99 to receive the console once it goes into production. Why do developers want to make Ouya games? Because the company hasn’t even started making them and there’s already an installed user base of around 60,000 customers. That’s a hell of a start.

So you've upgrade to Windows 8 and are now wondering why your email isn't working in Windows 8's Mail app? We know why, and we also know how to help.

If you’re one of the millions of people who rely on your Internet provider for an email address, you’re in for a shock when you upgrade to Windows 8. Brace yourself; there’s a very good chance that your ISP-provided email address (jan@comcast.net, or mike@verizon.net, for example), won’t work with Windows 8′s Mail app.

Windows 8 supports an up-and-coming email protocol called IMAP, but many Internet service providers — such as Time Warner, Comcast and Fairpoint — only offer email access through a Web browser or through an older email protocol called POP. Unlike the email applications in earlier generations of Windows, the new Mail app doesn’t include POP mail support.

You could still check your email on the Web, or hop into Desktop mode and set up a classic-style email client like Thunderbird (assuming you aren’t running a limited Windows RT tablet), but neither of those options sink their claws into Windows 8 with the same intensity as the native Mail app. The Windows 8 Mail app integrates with the operating system’s People list and pops up system-wide notifications when you receive new messages; the alternatives don’t. There aren’t any Windows 8 Mail apps available in the Windows Store, either.

Don’t panic, though; all is not lost. Thanks to the Mail app’s support for webmail services like Outlook.com and Gmail, it’s possible to work around the crippling lack of POP functionality. It’ll take jumping through a hoop or two, and there is one big “gotcha!” involved, but you should be receiving your ISP-provided POP messages in minutes.

Here’s how to read your POP mail in Windows 8, with a helping hand from Gmail. Fear not; we’ll guide you through every step of the way.

Configure your Gmail account to work with your POP account

1. Create a Gmail account. If you don’t have a Gmail account already, head over to mail.google.com and whip one up. I recommend giving your account a decent-sounding handle — maybe your name? – instead of something silly. You’ll see why at the end. Make sure you’re signed into the account to continue.

2. Enter Gmail’s email account options. Click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner, then select “Settings.” In the Setting page, select the “Accounts and Import” tab along the top, then click the “Add a POP3 mail account you own” link in the “Check mail from other accounts (using POP3)” section. A new Window opens.

3. Configure Gmail to read your incoming POP mail. Enter your POP email account address on the first screen, then click Next and enter your incoming POP settings as specified by your Internet provider. (Don’t know this info? Search for “<your provider’s name> POP email settings”, sans quotes.) If you already had an active Gmail account, you might want to check the box that labels messages coming from the new POP account. Click Next, then confirm that you want to be able to send messages from the account as well.

4. Configure Gmail to send outgoing POP mail. Confirm your outgoing email settings, then continue. On the next screen, leave the “Send through Gmail” option. Then, tell Gmail to send a verification message to your email address. Either click the link in the message, or copy and paste the verification code into the last box. Now you’re good to go.

Configure the Windows 8 Mail app to read your Gmail account

5. Add a new account to the Mail app. Open up the Windows 8 Mail app, bring up the Charm Bar, then select “Settings.” In the Settings Menu, click on “Accounts,” then select “Google” from the list.

6. Add your Google Account. Enter your Gmail account name and password. Optionally checking the box will import your Google Calendar and Contacts. Voilà! Your Gmail account appears in the Mail app, complete with incoming messages from your POP account. Now, Windows 8 will send you a notification when you receive a new email.

Now for the bad news…

The above all sounds good and well, but here’s the rub: when you send an outgoing email, it will use your Gmail email address, not your POP provider’s email address — even if you’re replying to a message sent to your POP account. There’s no way around it; we tried mucking around in Gmail’s Web-based settings, the Mail app’s outgoing server settings, and everything else we could think of — all to no avail. Now you see why I suggested selecting a halfway professional-sounding Gmail account name.

That shouldn’t matter too much, though. You’ll still be receiving the messages sent to your POP account, and your contacts should still be able to receive your messages just fine despite the new Gmail handle. If tricky spam filters start snagging your outgoing messages, just sign into your POP account’s Web-based interface and send out a message telling your friends to look for messages from your new Gmail account. If your POP account doesn’t have a Web interface, sign into the Gmail website and send the message that way; you’ll find your POP email account listed as an option in the “From” line when you compose a new message.

Elegant? Not at all. But Windows 8 hides a lot of little flaws and awkward annoyances underneath its beautiful, multicolored surface, and hey — at least this fix works. Happy emailing!

Two new pieces of information have emerged that seem to suggest that actor/comedian Jamie Foxx will be playing the role of Electro in the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Fair warning: This story contains basic leaps of logic and what might be bizarre coincedences, so please don’t take anything we say here as an official confirmation that Jamie Foxx will be Electro. We don’t know that just yet, but over the past few hours it’s become increasingly difficult to dismiss the idea.

Variety recently published a story which claimed that Foxx is currently in talks with Sony executives to play the main antagonist in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opposite Andrew Garfield’s heroic Spider-Man. While reports were initially unclear on who exactly Foxx might be playing in the movie, it has since become apparent that Foxx and/or Sony hopes to drop the comedian into the role of Electro.

To wit, the following appeared on Foxx’s Twitter feed last night:

Dressed up as Electro for Halloween last night. Costume fits well.

Now either Foxx is not-so-subtly hinting at what his role in Amazing Spider-Man 2 might be, or he’s simply duping his fans for entertainment. Still, even if that’s the case, these two events do seem to solidify long-standing rumors that Electro will be the key antagonist for the film. At the beginning of October we reported that actress Shailene Woodley was in “early talks” to portray Mary Jane Watson, along with word that both Harry “The Hobgoblin” Osborne and Electro would be prominent figures in Amazing Spider-Man 2. Today’s events seem to confirm everything we’ve heard.

Of course, now that we know who Sony is looking at for both Electro and Mary Jane, we have to wonder about Harry Osborne. He was played by James Franco in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, and while Franco did perfectly serviceable work we doubt he’d be invited back to hang out with this new incarnation of Marvel’s most famous hero. Fortunately, the comic book iteration of Osborne is largely devoid of notable aesthetic features, so finding a young, handsome actor to portray the character shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll let you know just as soon as someone enters “early talks” for the role.

Kids now have access to more information through a 4-inch screen than used to be available in a library the size of a city block, but is it affecting the way they develop for better or worse?

The debate over whether our children are maturing too quickly was reignited last week when the American Academy of Pediatrics published a study which suggests boys are reaching puberty earlier than before. Taking evidence from over 4,000 boys in 41 states, the findings suggested that boys are showing signs of puberty between six months and two years earlier than in past studies. Back in 2010, a similar study of girls in the Journal of Pediatrics revealed that they are also showing signs of puberty earlier than they did in the past – some as young as seven years old.

While these studies are finding evidence that children are maturing faster physically, they are less certain on the causes. While factors like higher caloric intake definitely come into play, there’s also a popular conception that technology may play some roles as children are bombarded with graphic sexual images and violence through TV, video games, and the Internet.

But are kids really growing up faster in the glow of omnipresent ultra-connected screens, or has paranoia led us to blame what might be one of the greatest assets to our children?

The sedentary lifestyle

Perhaps the most well documented, and seemingly obvious, negative impact of technology on our kids is the growing obesity problem. In the last 50 years, the childhood obesity rate in the U.S. has soared, and according to the American Heart Association, one third of American kids are overweight or obese. A combination of diet and lack of physical exercise is to blame and technology is seen as a major reason why kids are sitting for long periods of time and generally exercising less than their parents and grandparents did.

There are two ways to look at that. You can blame the technology itself, or you can acknowledge that it is actually people – kids and their parents – who decide not to exercise because they would rather play a video game or watch TV. With kids, there is also peer pressure to engage in tech on various levels, and there are other reasons that parents may be comfortable with kids playing video games in the house rather than going out to play sports. Fear of injury or “stranger danger” seems to be far more common nowadays than it was in the past, when children were often given a great deal of freedom to explore the great outdoors.

Social media and cyberbullying

According to a recent study commissioned by Care.com, there is another technology-related concern that looms even larger in most parent’s minds, and that’s cyberbullying. It found that 62 percent of parents thought “that increased use of texting, social media activity and the playing of more violent video games are resulting in meaner behavior among kids,” and 30 percent of parents of children between 12 and 17 years-old “fear bullying and cyberbullying over kidnapping, domestic terrorism, car accidents, suicide or any other incident.”

Is it a legitimate fear? Is social media necessarily negative? We consulted Dr. Larry Rosen, Professor and past Chair of Psychology at California State University, and an international expert in the psychology of technology.

“I do believe that with social media now reaching younger and younger kids they are getting more practice communicating with others and this can be a good thing,” Rosen says. “On the other hand, they are getting less practice communicating face to face and are missing out on learning how to interpret all of those critical nonverbal cues that make us understand language and conversation.”

He pointed out that young kids “are also being exposed to situations that are not necessarily appropriate for their developmental level, and that is important as they will react from a younger place compared to facing the same situation later in their preteen or teen years when they have passed more developmental milestones.”

Social media is a two-way street. A Pew Research Center report found that 77 percent of teens (aged 12 to 17) use social media and while 69 percent of them say “people are mostly kind,” 88 percent have witnessed people being “mean or cruel.”

Research on the long-term effects of learning social skills online is still coming in, but Rosen doesn’t believe it has to be a bad influence. “Teens who spend more time on social media can learn how to be more empathic by practicing empathy online and then transferring it to situations offline,” Rosen says. “That is a good thing! Yet there are still other situations that may lead to negative behaviors such as being rude and mean online and transferring this to the real world.”

Technology in education

You won’t find a true consensus on many issues when it comes to technology and children, but the impact on education is generally seen as positive. Besides bringing interactivity into the classroom, you simply cannot argue with the benefits of assistive technology for children with all kinds of disabilities. The efficacy has been well-established by a number of studies over the last few years.

You’ll also find a wealth of interesting studies, such as those at the Center for Children & Technology, that reveal the potential benefits of using technology in education to engage children. Rosen concurs. “As far as learning goes, I think technology actually can aid their learning and allow them to be engaged by the technology and develop their own style and pace.”

Is parental responsibility enough?

One of the major issues with children and technology revolves are their potential exposure to inappropriate material. Unfettered access to the Internet cannot be good for any child. Trying to emulate pop stars in music videos or being exposed to sexually suggestive adverts on TV is enough to worry many parents. Beyond that there’s Internet porn and clear battle lines between those who favor some form of mandatory censorship, and campaigners for Internet freedom.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said back in 2007, “If I am President, I will work to make sure that every computer sold into the home has an easy to engage pornography filter so that every parent can protect their child from unwanted filth.” In the UK, the government recently completed a consultation on porn blocking and some people are pushing for an “opt-in” system, whereby you would have access blocked by default and have to contact your ISP to ask them for access to adult content. Is legislation really the answer though?

There are lots of parental filters available, and some ISPs will even offer solutions, so parents have no excuse for not filtering what their kids can access at home and on their mobile devices. What they can’t control is what their kids are accessing elsewhere. The concern isn’t confined to pornography either – there’s also the risk of content promoting suicide and self-harm or exposing children to extreme violence.

The ultimate responsibility for what kids are being exposed to has to rest with parents. Speaking to the Telegraph on this issue, a Google spokesperson put it like this, “Laws alone can’t teach kids to cross the road. The same is true of learning to be safe online. We work with government and child safety organizations to promote sensible legislation and have developed technology, including Google Safe Search and the Family Safety Centre, that parents can use to protect their children online.”

No easy answer

As a tech writer I’m an evangelist for new devices and services ,and I’m convinced they can be good for our children. As a parent I’m concerned about what my kids will be exposed to, especially beyond the family home where I can’t exert as much control. Ultimately I see tech as a set of tools; it cannot be to blame simply because it is possible to misuse it. It’s our responsibility to encourage our kids to exercise, to support their education, and to talk to them about the dangers of the wider world.

It’s tough for a generation getting used to tech and constant Internet access to imagine what it’s like for children growing up in a world where these devices and services are ubiquitous. One of the nicest ways to look at it, and one of the most encouraging, is to listen to children themselves. There’s a series of great studies at Latitude about how kids are reacting to and learning about technology. Like it or not, technology is a fully integrated part of most kid’s lives nowadays, and it’s not going away.

Kids are overwhelmingly positive. They are less jaded and cynical than many adults, and they don’t see barriers to solutions in the same way we do. Maybe a truly useful debate on this topic should include them. They may have more to contribute than we realize.

Where do you stand on the topic? Whether you’re a parent, adult or child – post a comment and weigh in.

[Image credit: Child with iPad: Canada.com; Children using a tablet: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock; Cyberbullying: NLshop/Shutterstock; Computer padlock: Paul Fleet/Shutterstock]

A new downloadable content addition is scheduled to hit the PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 on November 6 that adds support for Sony's motion controlled Move peripheral to Valve's beloved puzzle title.

If you’re a PlayStation 3 owner who happens to own a copy of Valve Software’s Portal 2, mark your calendars for next Tuesday, November 6. That’s the date that the game receives a sizable downloadable addition that both adds new levels to the game and offers fans a whole new way to control Valve’s physics-defying classic.

Officially dubbed “Portal 2 In Motion,” this DLC pack is actually not a new item. Instead, it’s largely based on the earlier PC release of In Motion that offered new, specially crafted levels for those PC gamers who own 3D mice. As the levels are built specifically with this extra dimension of control in mind, it seemed unlikely that they would ever be enjoyed on a console, but developer Sixense was able to mimic this enhanced control via the Move peripheral and if the official trailer released alongside this announcement (see below) is anything to go by the PlayStation 3 DLC seems to perform about as well as it did in its original PC incarnation.

That’s a very important point to keep in mind, as the 20 new levels included in the In Motion DLC pack are all centered on tasking players with using their new-found abilities in puzzles that specifically demand actions that simply weren’t possible in the original version of Portal 2. To wit: “Portal 2 In Motion introduces gameplay mechanics, including scaling and rotation of objects as well as portal surfing,” claims Josh Bays, director of product marketing at Sixense. “These new abilities are all required as the player progresses through an increasingly challenging set of test chambers that look familiar from Portal 2, but require new thinking to solve.”

Intriguingly, the release of this DLC was timed to coincide with the debut of the PlayStation Network’s digitally downloadable version of Portal 2. To further celebrate this event, the DLC (which will normally be available for $10), will feature a 30 percent discount at launch for PlayStation Plus subscribers. Likewise, the aforementioned digital version of Portal 2 has been slightly altered from its original incarnation. Sixense, in addition to bringing Move support to this DLC pack, also added Move support to the entirety of the PSN Portal 2. If you’d prefer to play through the single-player campaign using motion controls instead of your standard PlayStation 3 controllers, that’s an option.

Those of you who already own the game on Blu-ray disc aren’t being left out though. A patch will be available shortly to add Sixense’s Move support technology to the physical incarnation of Portal 2. While using the Move controls in the original Portal levels is a novel idea, it should be remembered that these stages remain largely unchanged, so only the In Motion DLC levels will feature puzzles designed to take advantage of the game’s new motion controls.

Xbox 360 owners, it looks like you’re simply out of luck here. We could imagine the In Motion DLC being ported to Microsoft’s console with the help of the Kinect peripheral, but without solid information on exactly how precise the Kinect’s cameras can be, it’s just as likely that some quirk of the peripheral’s hardware makes it impossible to bring this downloadable content to the Xbox 360. We’ll let you know if we hear anything to the contrary, but don’t hold your breath waiting on a release date.

We caught up with Pearltrees' chief evangelist, Oliver Starr, after the company announced its 1.0 release and a new subscription-based business model.

Visualizing the scope of what we share from around the Web is a challenge, but given the popularity of tactile devices like iPhones and iPads it seems a valuable one to undertake. Interacting with website content is becoming more and more expected, and developers are taking note. Pearltrees, a startup we wrote about to announce its $6.7 million in funding early this year, just may be at the forefront of haptically curating information, and the company says it has the metrics to prove it.

We caught up with Pearltrees yesterday when the company celebrated the app’s 1.0 milestone. Pearltrees explains that 1.0 signifies the cohesiveness of its product across its three supported platforms: Web, iPhone, and iPad. It also marks, in some respects, the true launch of the site, despite having officially having launched in 2008. Oliver Starr, chief evangelist for Pearltrees, explains to me that Pearltrees started out as a Web app, but was developed for devices like iPhone in mind. The Web app was just an intermediary platform, since at the time Apple’s mobile wouldn’t be able to support the tech required to develop Pearltrees for the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone app wasn’t launched until July of this year.

Pearltrees was founded on the principles that Tim Burners-Lee, the godfather and founder of the Web, had in mind when developing what we know as the Internet. First, anyone should be able to view any piece of information published on the Web — the leading thought of Web 1.0. The second is that anybody should be able to publish any piece of information, which happened with the rise of blogging, wikis, and Twitter. Finally, and most importantly, the third criterion was that anyone could organize collections of this information.

Pearltrees visually aggregates bookmarks of websites, photos, and anything found online into visual “pearls.” Collectively the pearls make up a tree of information, clearly where the app gets its name. Users can save their latest interests from around the Web individually, but multiple users sharing the same interest can collaboratively curate a single pearl as well. It sort of feels like a visual, graphic Wikipedia without the user-contributed text. For instance, one of Starr’s favorite pearls has over 150 members and curates TED Talks. As he took me through it, the pearl was admittedly expertly curated and there didn’t appear to be any irrelevant information to be found.

The moderation of community pearls is left up to the devices of its members. Despite this, Starr tells me he’s only had to administratively ban approximately fifty accounts, including spam bots. It’s an astoundingly small number considering the 700,000 active users, two million unique visitors per month, and about 30 million pearls. And Starr knows a thing or about community moderation. “Being a veteran of moderating tech comments, I can tell you that’s not the norm.” Starr was Michael Arrington’s first employee at TechCrunch and responsible not only for creating “MobileCrunch,” but also worked as the tech blog’s first community moderator.

Pearltrees has access to unprecendented information about its users through its interest graph, called TreeRank. It can group pearls into similar interests and display them to you. Should you search for “Wolves,” the app would then display all pearls relevant to your search query. But since the algorithm scrapes your interests, it knows exactly what Pearltrees’ users interests are and similar things you’d want to see. It’s a powerful feature that, and one you’d think a marketer’s dream.

Despite this goldmine of user information, the company refuses to sell out. “We’ve kept true to the spirit of the company and the product, which is that we wouldn’t leverage what our users do through marketing,” says Starrs.

Instead, Pearltrees is taking the more difficult and less traveled route to making money by selling services. Luckily, the for-pay feature was one requested by the users. Now users can pay $4.99 per month or $49.99 for one year to make pearls private. But this model serves a dual purpose: It implicitly improves Pearltrees’ platform as a repository of valuable curated content. Putting a price on something will increase its value, and while that can be difficult to prove, it’s been done before — sites like Quora, Wikipedia, and even Evernote have showed us this.

By default all pearls are public, so anyone can see your pearls. With Pearltrees’ mantra to be host to a library of valuable content, Starrs explains that the pearls that users want to hide are typically content that Pearltrees wants you to pay to hide anyway. If it’s a pearl containing embarrassing content or even something not worth sharing, then it’s likely not content that would be helpful to other users should they find that pearl. So users should help pay for the hosting costs if it’s not going to contribute to the benefit of Pearltrees as a whole.

It’s a big bet, but one that the site is confident it can take. Pearltrees 1.0 is available now via the Web and for iOS devices. 

It seems like the Motorola Droid RAZR M is getting a cousin. Today U.S. Cellular announced the Motorola Electrify M, which has an edge-to-edge display and other features that fit very closely with the Verizon-only Droid RAZR M.

The new smartphone has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 4G LTE, an 8MP rear cam, 1.3MP front cam, NFC, 2000mAh battery and is loaded up with Android 4.0.4. U.S. Cellular suggested it was more than capable of getting in on the Jelly Bean action, though they have given no specific date regarding when.

The Electrify M will come to U.S. Cellular’s website starting November 8th and in-store by the 9th. The new Motorola smartphone will cost $99 with a two-year contract and a $100 mail-in-rebate for those in LTE markets. Unfortunately, those of us in less-speedy 3G markets aren’t getting as good of a deal and will be paying $149.99 after a $100 rebate.

The good news is that U.S. Cellular has plans to bring its 4G LTE service to 30 new markets by November 5th, and to about 58% of their customer based by the end of the year. So how about it, any U.S. Cellular customers interested in getting their hands on the new Motorola Electrify M?

EA has finally offered up a release date for Army Of Two The Devil's Cartel: March 26, 2013.

Another day, another publisher reveals that their upcoming big-budget blockbuster game is going to hit store shelves in the already-packed early part of next year. Specifically, EA has announced that Army Of Two The Devil’s Cartel will debut on March 26, 2013. 

As per usual, this release date was not the only impetus for EA’s announcement. The company also wants you all to know that those who pre-order Army Of Two The Devil’s Cartel will receive a bonus (dubbed the “Overkill Edition”) that includes the following:

• Early Access to Three “Overkillers” Contracts: Unleash massive destruction with three Contract variations designed for maximum rampage! Players must kill enemies and cause environment destruction to earn enough points to continuously stay in Overkill while making their way to the extraction point.
• Tactical Co-op Gear: Lay down sustained cover fire with the TAH-9 side arm while decked out in the polymer textured outfit and mask or wield the Double D automatic shotgun while battling in the intimidating Overkill mask and outfit.
• Celebrate the Day of the Dead: Bust out the Day of the Dead themed assault rifle and take on Mexico’s most ruthless drug lords in Day of the Dead themed outfit and masks designed by popular tattoo artists.

Another Wednesday, another Xbox Live update peppered with non-gaming apps. This week brings WSJ Live and Gol Stadium to Xbox 360, two apps that represent that sort of corporate content partnerships that will redefine Microsoft's game business.

One day, the diehard gamer that still has their original Xbox Live account name from when they downloaded the broken Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic DLC onto their 2001 launch Xbox is going to wake up and ask, “When did my Xbox 360 turn into this weird cross between a PC and a cable box?” The answer: Slowly but surely since 2008.

Wednesday’s Xbox update brought with it a selection of non-gaming apps that further broadened the Xbox 360’s entertainment purview. Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb announced that News Corp. strengthened its ties with Microsoft via the WSJ Live app. WSJ Live is the Wall Street Journal equivalent of Fox News’ Fox Broadcast app that hit Xbox Live back in September, with “live and on-demand original programming from over 2,000 journalists.” It will have 4 hours of original programming per day and full access to the WSJ’ video archive.

Of less immediate interest to readers in the US is the addition of the Gol Stadium app to Xbox Live in Spain. It’s a streaming version of the Spanish television channel Gol Television, a subscription-based premium channel streaming soccer matches. While US fans still carrying a torch for Spanish soccer after its World Cup and Euro championships in 2010 and 2012 respectively might feel left out, take heart. This new partnership is just one more entry in Microsoft’s expanding line up of sporting network partnerships.

Neither Gol Stadium or WSJ Live are particularly noteworthy on their own. Microsoft has plenty of sporting network partnerships, like its one with Disney subsidiary ESPN and the MLB. It also has a longstanding relationship with News Corp. and has been increasing its news magazine content on Xbox Live for two years. Together, though, these apps highlight how Microsoft is subtly transforming its video game console business.

Companies like Google and Apple have struggled to get “web TV” products off the ground. Google TV and Apple TV set top boxes have sold, but they’ve never been a force in the market. Microsoft has taken a different tack in its bid for living room entertainment supremacy, starting with a popular gaming machine and then transforming it into an Internet television box.

Xbox Music, Xbox Video, non-gaming apps like WSJ Live—They’re all part of the tapestry of Microsoft’s future as a broad entertainment provider. It’s already developing more original television content on its own.

Xbox 360 isn’t a game console any more. It’s an Internet television set top box with an install base of 70 million consoles around the world.

Apple's new iMacs are mighty impressive, but we're still left wondering why the company doesn't just give us its next big thing: an iTV.

Running his hand along the slender 5-millimeter-thick edge, Apple’s Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, debuted the company’s newest iMac. “It’s hard to believe there’s even a display in there,” Schiller said, highlighting how outlandishly thin it is.  

Though Schiller said the new iMac “epitomizes something Apple does so well, to create an innovative, breakthrough product,” the last time an iMac was a breakthrough product was when it was introduced in 1998. Yes, everything on display at the October 23 launch featured top-of-the-line specs and dazzling improvements, but nothing felt truly new. Where are the disruptive technologies of launches past? The one area that many of us have prayed Apple would dive into is the HDTV market. So where is the iTV?

There’s a market for computers large enough and thin enough to double as televisions, and Apple has all the key ingredients to build one. Creating an Apple-branded flat-screen HDTV that doubles as a powerful computer would surely make an impact on the television market. And though it’s a good start, Apple has only inched into the arena with its current Apple TV set-top box.

Computers are far more versatile than TVs. Not only can people watch televised content through a myriad of sources, including Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, HBO Go, and iTunes, but they can also enjoy full Internet browsing and productive capabilities native to a computer. That being said, today’s Smart TVs are already doing a pretty good job at blurring the lines between computer and TV. Most Smart TVs offer streaming from the above sources, and many of them offer Internet browsers with support for Flash; what they don’t offer is the kind of clean, simple user interface that Apple has leveraged through the years to turn customers into obsessives.  

As TV manufacturers struggle to integrate the increasing functionality of their products, Apple could easily leapfrog ahead of them. But don’t take our word for it. Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs’ authorized biographer, quotes the late Apple founder on the subject in Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography:

“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

Although we know Apple can do it, the company has not yet made large displays with competitive pixel resolution. The new iMacs lack Retina Display, but come packing a 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution on the 21.5-inch model, and a 2560-by-1440-pixel resolution on the 27-inch model. Coupled with the laminated screen and 300-nit brightness, it is almost ready to wrangle with some of the HDTVs already on the market. No, it’s not Plasma or LCD/ LED technology, but it’s very good, and it leaves us with no doubt that Apple’s talented staff could (and perhaps do) already have a prototype capable of making current purveyors like Sony tremble.

Perhaps more important than the hardware, though, is the need for a content ecosystem robust enough to convince the average consumer to cut their cable cords. The Apple TV is a good start, since it marries iTunes, Netflix, Vimeo, and other streaming services, but Apple would have to up its ante to compete with traditional cable companies.

Jobs knew this, as evidenced by his efforts to reach out to content partners in a possible attempt to create a streaming media service. Reported back in March by Engadget, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves disclosed Jobs’ advances towards establishing a partnership. Moonves chose to decline the partnership due to concerns about the impact it would have on existing revenue streams.

One way of working around the challenges of quickly establishing a content system as comprehensive as those of cable companies is to shift the emphasis away from the convenience of browsing channels over to the convenience of having a mounted computer. As more television networks have recognized the importance of streaming content, more shows have become available online. In an ideal world, the TV industry would have the future of computers built into TVs, but we think the future of TV is actually on computers. Because of that, it makes sense that an iTV would do more to blur the lines between computers and TVs than any other product so far. It also makes sense for Apple to stop trying to fit the outmoded concept of network time slots into its usually forward-thinking vision, and champion streaming.

What Jobs claimed to have “cracked” remains out of his company’s reach for the time being. Apple’s recent launch introduced some attractive devices, but none of them shifted paradigms in the same way as the iPod, iPhone, or iPad have done in the past. And though the company isn’t quite there yet, it won’t have another watershed moment until it introduces something as legitimately game-changing as an iTV – or something equally novel.

Layoffs and consolidation throughout Sony's empire helped trim the company's losses over the summer quarter, but its video game business continues to flounder. How will Sony reinvigorate the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita market?

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai continues to take blows as his first year at the head of the Japanese technology giant rolls on. His company reported earnings for the summer quarter on Thursday, and the massive layoffs and consolidation throughout Sony’s empire are helping to stop the fiscal bleeding. Losses continue to drop year-on-year and quarter-to-quarter. Between July and September, Sony recorded a net loss of just over $193 million, down from the $337 million it reported during the same period in 2011 and from the $312 million loss it recorded during the April to June quarter this year. The company is well on its way to a fiscal year where it doesn’t report a $5.7 billion total loss. While Sony itself recovers, though, the PlayStation division continues to drag the company down.

Sony’s video game division reported revenues of $1.85 billion for the quarter, down 14 percent for the approximately $2.2 billion it earned during the same period last year. Operating income fell to just below $29 million for the period.

Hardware, unsurprisingly, is the culprit. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 sales fell hard, total home console sales falling from nearly 5 million machines during the period in 2011 to just 3.5 million this year. Naturally the ongoing erosion of PlayStation 2 sales, about to enter its thirteenth year on shelves, was a contributing factor, but the real culprit is the still-expensive PlayStation 3.

Sony’s handheld business fared much worse. The PS Vita and PSP sold a combined 1.6 million units. During the same period in 2011, Sony managed to sell 1.7 million PSPs and the Vita was still months from releasing in Japan. As a result, Sony further downgraded its forecast for total handheld sales in the fiscal year, from 12 million total to 10 million. Unless the Vita gets a major push in the market, you can expect Sony to keep lowering that forecast after the holiday quarter.

Game sales, at least, were up albeit slightly. Sony sold more than 41 million home console games and just under 9 million portable games, up from above 40 million and 8 million respectively in 2011.

Sony’s between a rock and a hard place. Both the PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita need to drop in price to create sales momentum. Bundles with new games and new models are simply not enough. The PlayStation 3 is old news compared to Wii U and too expensive compared to Xbox 360. The PlayStation Vita is too expensive and too limited in terms of functionality compared to iOS and Android devices. At the same time, Sony needs every penny it makes on the units it does sell. There’s no obvious solution to the company’s predicament in the games industry, but if it doesn’t make a change soon, the PlayStation business will be in grave danger of fading out.

Four years after Criterion finished Burnout Paradise, the studio returns to the open world format. While the sterile seriousness of the Need For Speed series has seeped into its formula, Criterion has made another spectacular game.

Need For Speed Most Wanted starts with all the humor and self-awareness of a Levi’s ad in the back of Maxim. It’s got that same wet-eyed sense of self-importance and put-on sexiness as those horrible “Go Forth” spots. A Muse song simmers in the background as dramatic, hazy shots of the city of Fairhaven and its automobile citizens parade by and a breathy female voice welcomes you to the game. It’s not the invitation back into Criterion’s open world driving that people have been waiting for these four years since Burnout Paradise. If that game was full of youthful guileless and boundless enthusiasm, Need For Speed: Most Wanted comes off like a petulant teen that’s too cool for school. Bright-eyed fun? That’s for babies.

The comparison to Paradise is unavoidable. The sprawling highways and city streets, the industrial parks and massive jumps, all those delightfully crushable billboards and security gates to the side of the road: This is Burnout Paradise 2 in everything but name. As first impressions go, though, the one made by Most Wanted is misleading. It does indeed take itself too seriously, but it is a beautiful and deeply fun machine all the same — the opposite side of Paradise’s coin.

Take It Easy

Before talking about the game’s vehicles, it’s important to talk about Most Wanted’s most distinguishing feature: EasyDrive. Criterion has sloughed off the baby fat that made Burnout Paradise’s beautiful bay and surrounding hills difficult to navigate. No more getting lost on your way back to the start of an event you want to retry and no more hunting for the car you need for a specific race right when you need it.

Mapped to the directional pad on your controller, EasyDrive is a pull up menu that addresses your every need. Pressing right brings up a menu for selecting which car you want, car customization options, your current car’s events (each car has five individual races), access to multiplayer, and the Most Wanted list (more on that in a moment.) Picking which race you want highlights the fastest route to the start on the map below, but after you’re tried it once, you can start the event automatically from Easydrive. It’s hard to overstate how smooth this system makes the game, efficient without sacrificing the do-what-you-will feel of the open world.

Even the game’s odd geographic rules for the cars don’t muddle it too much. Picking a new car sends you off to where you discovered its Jack Point on the map, potentially on the other side of the world from your current location (Most Wanted’s crime theme is pretty loose, having you boost cars in the wild, but since there are no pedestrians in Fairhaven it feels a little silly). I only found that I needed to change cars so I’d have a better machine for a Most Wanted race I’d already lost, so it’s not a huge annoyance.

Incredible Machine

There are ten Most Wanted races in the game, and those are the heart of the campaign. Most cars are discovered tucked away in Fairhaven’s dark corners, and most of your time is spent searching for them then playing their five events. These break down into circuit races on a looped course, sprints on a single path, sprints where you have to keep a high average speed, and escape the cops events. Provided you win, you’re awarded with upgrades (nitrous boosts, lighter chassis, off road wheels, etc.) and Speed Points. Once you have enough Speed Points on your profile, you get to take on the top ten Most Wanted cars; rich man’s machines from Lexus, Mercedes, Lamborghini, and others. You race these machines in a car of your choice — it really needs to be fully upgraded for you to prevail — while avoiding increasingly aggressive cop cars and blockades. Beat it, then take it down to add the car to your roster.

It’s marvelously addictive and more varied than it seems at first look. Sampling exotic cars like a Porsche 911 and an Audi R8 Spyder before taking on the Most Wanted makes it feel like all the races for each car are the same, but hop into stocky beasts like the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and you’ll find the sprint races transformed into jump-filled rallies across construction sites and train tracks. There’s always something new to do, even if it’s just cruising around, hunting for new cars.

Speaking of those cars, they are indeed beautiful, a bountiful collection of real world vehicles that range from the most mundane Ford pickup to the most wild Italian concept. Fairhaven is also beguiling. The spray of mist kicked up on wet roads and the flush of lights on its streets, perpetually shadowed even in daylight, make this the most visually impressive Need For Speed I’ve played. There’s a pervasive sterility in the game, though. All of the cars and city blocks feel too perfect. When you zip around a park, knocking down street lamps and trashcans in a reign of destruction only to find everything perfectly replaced on the next lap, it’s disconcerting. Fairhaven doesn’t feels less like an actual place, as Paradise City did, and more like grownups’ Matchbox playset.

Sexy sterility is Need For Speed Most Wanted’s bag in every regard really. When you’re introduced to a race and one of the Most Wanted cars, it’s through an arty short with weird camera angles and effects like a car being sucked out of what looks like white paint, glimmering as it emerges like a Playboy centerfold for engineers. When you got a new car in Burnout Paradise, it plopped down in your garage like a dirty heap of parts.

Autolog, Multiplayer, and Vita

But wait! There’s more to Most Wanted than the console and PC game’s core! Special mention needs to be made of the PS Vita version of the game. Criterion itself made the portable version of Most Wanted, but “portable version” is something of a misnomer in this case. Most Wanted Vita is the exact same game — same city, same cars, same races — as the one on Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3, plus a smattering of exclusive races to boot. Everything said above holds true, but the Vita version of the game does lay bear how great the racing truly is.

The primary difference between it and the console versions is the look of Fairhaven. The cars are almost just as glossy, but the environment has been stripped of the textures, lighting, and particle effects (sparks, etc.) that make the console versions such spectacles. It doesn’t look bad. Far from it. The Vita city simply looks much simpler. The game doesn’t suffer for it. All the things that make Most Wanted good are preserved and it’s one more precious essential for Sony’s handheld.

For those of you thinking about getting the Vita version and the PS3 version for seamless home and portable gaming, bad news: Cross play isn’t supported. There is, however, cross play-like functionality between the Vita version and all console versions thanks to EA Origin and the game’s Autolog. Since your Autolog and its attendant Speed Points are tied to your EA Origin account, that same account carries over to your PS Vita game. You won’t have all the cars you’ve unlocked on PS3 or Xbox 360 accessible on your Vita (and vice versa), but you will have the requisite points to automatically compete in Most Wanted races.

You will also have complete access to your ranking and roster of cars in multiplayer. Multiplayer in Most Wanted includes a variety of unique events as well as the race types seen in the campaign. Competing and winning earns points, which raises your level, which in turn unlocks new cars to use when playing with friends. This being Autolog-specific info, multiplayer is ready to go on both platforms provided you use the same accounts.

Conclusion

Need For Speed Most Wanted is Burnout Paradise’s equal. The driving is pristine and primal, the drifts succulent and the crashes shocking, just as it always is in Criterion’s drivers. The crisp efficiency of EasyDrive makes Most Wanted a more direct game than its predecessor, a boon for achievement-oriented players, but there’s no sense of messy freedom and goofiness here. A winking DJ Atomika doesn’t compliment the greasy pop soundtrack. You can’t press in the analog sticks to suddenly cause a massive pile up on the highway, crashing for points. It’s a matter of taste. Do you prefer the fantasy of the beach or the cool logic of the city grid? If you lean toward the latter, Most Wanted is your game.

Score: 8.5 out of 10

 (This game was reviewed using PlayStation 3 and PS Vita copies provided by Electronic Arts)