You'd think that writing a book day and night on a BlackBerry smartphone would eventually render your thumbs useless, but a woman from London has done just that, and now her novel is selling on Amazon.

If you were going to write a book, the chances are you’d sit yourself in front of a full-size keyboard connected to a full-size computer screen before you embarked on your full-size project. Not so Brit Georgina Campbell.

She bashed out a 55,600-word book on, of all things, her BlackBerry smartphone. The 41-year-old Londoner said the idea to put thumb to keyboard came about after watching the 2011 sci-fi movie Attack the Block. While daughter Lorra loved it, Georgina thought it was abysmal and so bet Lorra she could write something better. It was then she grabbed her writing tool of choice and started work on her novel.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Georgina said it took four months to complete the gritty tale of a group of girls growing up in inner-city London, writing it entirely on the phone’s native MemoPad app.

“When I started writing the book I would normally do it after a 12-hour shift at work and it would be a breeze – I loved it and wrote through the night,” she told the Mail. “It was almost like a holiday – I’d just sit down and start typing the book out on my BlackBerry using my two thumbs.”

Georgina said the phone was the ideal writing tool simply because it was with her all the time. “I was writing on the train, on breaks at work, waiting for a bus, having a bath, when I was walking around – anywhere. It completely took over my life – all I thought about morning to night was writing the book.” Four months after tapping out the first word, The Kickdown Girls made it  to Amazon.

Possibly the most remarkable part of the story, however, is that despite her round-the-clock commitment, her thumbs are still fully operational instead of finishing up as mere worn-down stumps; she didn’t even develop BlackBerry thumb, the repetitive strain injury linked to excessive use of the physical keyboard so beloved by BlackBerry users.

Whether Georgina’s work is better than the script of Attack the Block is something for readers to decide, though at the time of writing the publication is languishing at 257,164 in Amazon’s book chart and has no reader reviews.

Though Apple's been using Intel chips in its iMacs and MacBooks since 2005, word is the company is planning to ditch Intel for ARM to create a more unified structure among all of its devices.

In a late-day news kerfuffle, Bloomberg reports that Apple is considering switching its chips in future MacBooks and iMacs from Intel to ARM. Rumor has it that the company is looking for ways to replace its Intel processors in its Macs with chips based on designs in its iOS devices.

Bloomberg says that the chips used in its iPhone and iPad will some day be powerful enough to run larger machines, like iMacs and MacBooks. And that makes some sense; with tablets and smartphones becoming more or less replacements for computers, Apple may want to unify its chip platform. In five years, according to Bloomberg, if Apple wants a “seamless experience” across all of its devices – including televisions! – it will want all of those disparate devices running the same chip architecture.

Take this information with a grain of salt, since Bloomberg’s source is “people familiar with the company’s research.” We’re a bit skeptical, too. But while we don’t think it will happen overnight, there is a possibility that this could happen within the next five years. We don’t expect Intel to go down without a fight, however. The chipmaker has been furiously trying to break into the smartphone and tablet market, which is now held by rival ARM processors, and has made great strides toward designing powerful chips that suck up less power and don’t require loud fans to stay cool. Apple sold 4.9 million laptops and desktops last quarter. 

What do you think? Will Apple really leave Intel for a unified ARM structure across all its devices, or is this just Apple nerds creating rumors due to sheer boredom between new iPad mini releases and we’re still waiting for new on the iMac’s release?

We originally thought Microsoft was being generous with 32GB storage standard for the Surface RT, but it turns out only 16GB of that is available to users. The rest of the storage is taken up by Windows RT and Microsoft Office.

If you thought a $500 Microsoft Surface RT with 32GB of storage was too good to be true (compared to the iPad’s 16GB for the same price) then we’re here to say you’re right. If that was your dream then you may want to start amassing memory cards because Microsoft had to use half of that 32GB for Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and other software.

Microsoft broke the news in a new post titled, “Surface disk space FAQ”, outlining exactly how much space on the Surface RT is available for apps, music, videos, and photos. According to the FAQ, the 32GB version has 16GB of free space and the 64GB version will have 46GB free. We are hoping this isn’t a universal issue for all Windows RT devices, but keep it in mind next time you read about a Windows RT device with an attractive storage size.

Another part of the FAQ explains that 32GB is actually 29GB when using it in the real world. Silly us for trusting the quoted storage sizes. Here’s the official explanation:

The advertised local disk size is shown using the decimal system, while Windows displays the disk size using the binary system. As a result, 1 GB (in decimal) appears as about 0.93 GB (in binary). The storage capacity is the same, it’s just shown differently depending on the how you measure a GB (decimal or binary).

At least Microsoft was kind enough to feature expandable memory through microSD cards that can hold up to 64GB of extra data. There’s also a standard USB port if you are in need of something in the terabyte range for a massive media collection.

Still, Microsoft routinely boasts that the Surface has double 16GB of storage when only 16GB is available to users. Windows RT has enough uncertainty surrounding it with its basically useless classic desktop and nearly empty app store. It doesn’t need this storage drama added to the mix. The Microsoft engineer quoted last month saying Surface RT users would have 20GB of space available only makes things more uneasy.

With iOS and Android optimized for mobile storage sizes, we kind of expected Windows RT to be relatively svelte in terms of gigabytes. It wouldn’t be surprising if Microsoft addressed the size of Windows RT in a future update. Perhaps it will prune it down as time passes and eventually — fingers crossed — phase out the legacy features and classic desktop altogether.

What do you think of Microsoft’s misstep? Is expandable memory enough to make up for less internal storage?

Chris Olivera has plead guilty to stealing nearly $2 million from his former employer GameStop.

Until last year, Chris Olivera served as GameStop’s vice president of corporate communications and public affairs. Given the sheer number of ads the company pushes on its customers in-store, by mail, on television and via the ‘net, it seems that he was pretty successful in spreading the word about GameStop’s various sales and special offers. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the extent of Olivera’s talents, as a newly uncovered federal indictment reveals that Olivera also has sticky hands. Very, very sticky hands.

According to the document (.pdf), Olivera began siphoning money from GameStop in July of 2009. Instead of just swiping a handful of bills from petty cash though, Olivera’s scheme was like something out of a lazy John Grisham novel. Olivera, the court claims, set up a company called Cloud Communications LLC that while innocuous on paper, didn’t actually exist in the real world. Nor did any of the Cloud Communications employees Olivera named as contacts when he used his VP position to hire the fictional firm as a PR consultant for GameStop. As he was an otherwise solid employee, Olivera’s colleagues saw nothing amiss in his interactions with Cloud, though all the while Olivera was redirecting all money paid to Cloud to his personal accounts.

In total, over the course of roughly two years, Olivera managed to steal nearly $2 million from the retailer before his larcenous efforts were discovered.

Now that the jig is officially up, Olivera has officially plead guilty to one count of mail fraud. That may seem minor, but the government takes the postal system very seriously. The maximum punishment Olivera now faces could include up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Of course, that’s before any civil action is taken against Olivera by GameStop. Given the huge amount of money the company lost to Olivera’s scheme, it only seems reasonable to expect that it would want to recoup some of its cash (or, failing that, exact a pound of flesh to set an example to future would-be thieves). We contacted GameStop and while the company refused to elaborate on its official plans for this situation going forward, it did confirm that Olivera left the company at some point during 2011. Though we pressed the issue, GameStop wouldn’t clarify why Olivera departed, though we have to assume that the discovery of his theft probably had something to do with it.

When Halo 4 officially launches tomorrow, it will not include the Competitive Skill Rank system. Don't know what that is? 343 Industries offers a substantial explanation.

With Halo 4, Microsoft and developer 343 Industries hope to create the multiplayer shooter of 2012. This would be exceedingly simple if every player was at the same skill level, but since the Halo 4 audience includes people of all stripes, 343 has created a system to make sure that skilled veterans are matched up online with other skilled veterans, and that new, inexperienced players are free to learn the game’s quirks with other players of similar skill.

Dubbed the “Competitive Skill Rank” system (henceforth CSR), this feature is similar to the matchmaking systems seen in modern fighting games. From the moment you start playing Halo 4, the game’s servers will be tracking your exploits and assigning you a rank based on how efficiently you’re able to wipe out other players, capture arbitrary flags, and so on. Though the CSR system will be accumulating data from the day Halo 4 launches, the ranks it assigns won’t become public until the system launches in earnest, and that won’t happen until some nebulous point in 2013.

343 Industries explains:

The short version is CSR will launch early next year when it’s ready. We have an extensive post-launch plan for Halo 4, including DLC, playlist updates, and title updates. As soon as we have a confirmed launch date for the Waypoint update that includes CSR, we’ll make an announcement. Set your expectations for release timing appropriately since this will require delicate tuning, testing and implementation for Waypoint Web, Waypoint Console and Smartglass integration and is a feature designed specifically for the competitive community.

Alright, that makes sense, but 343 has had years to complete Halo 4. Why isn’t this system ready to go in time for the Halo 4 launch? According to 343′s run-down, the studio is utterly dedicated to creating the most entertaining, thrilling, and even more crucially, fair multiplayer experience for Halo 4, and to do so it needs time to test the CSR system. All the data gleaned by the system between the Halo 4 launch and the CSR system’s official launch both serves as a baseline for the ranks that will eventually be assigned to players and as a makeshift beta test, designed to weed out any flaws in the CSR system before it becomes a vital component of the Halo 4 online multiplayer experience.

“We know how important skill rank is, and we take skill integrity very seriously – we want to make sure we’ve taken the time to test, tune, and balance the CSR system in a live environment, and identify problems and potential exploits before launching the system publically,” the studio claims.

Gripe about the content delay if you’d like, but in the end the CSR system (or lack thereof) will have little notable effect for most players. The hardcore competitive set will be slightly inconvenienced by the delayed rollout, but that’s a small minority of players, and they’ll likely get over their disappointment after a short period of moping. We’ll keep you all up to date on 343′s plans with regards to this CSR system as they emerge.

When you use the Internet for everything from ordering pizza to shuffling around thousands of dollars between bank accounts, why can't you use it to cast a simple vote?

With national elections looming, many Americans are getting ready to show up at their polling place and mark paper ballots. Some have already cast their votes via absentee ballots, early voting, or vote-by-mail options.

But in this age of broadband Internet, smartphones, tablets, and near-ubiquitous connectivity, paper ballots – and all the problems they entail – seem tremendously backwards and counterproductive. After all, we trust billions of dollars in financial transactions to the Internet every day: Why can’t we use technology to do something simple like vote?

The reasons, of course, are complicated.

Advantages of online voting

Americans have been casting ballots at polling places for more than 200 years, but few would argue requiring citizens to show up in person at precincts, schools, churches, and other locations to cast votes is a perfect system. Simple access to polling places is a major issue for many voters, including the disabled and elderly, students away from home, folks living or working overseas, and many others. Sometimes, voters face hours of waiting when they get to a polling place — leading many to give up without voting — and the primarily paper-based technology used by many localities is distinctly old school. Remember the 2000 presidential election where the outcome hung on dangling chads? Not the greatest moment for a country that went to the Moon and is putting rovers on Mars. And this leaves aside substantial issues with voter registration, and identifying voters who do cast ballots.

The most appealing arguments in favor of online voting address some of these issues. The first is enfranchisement, empowering democracy by enabling more eligible voters to cast ballots. Many voters currently have no access (or limited access) to polling places, but a recent report from the Federal Communications Commission found that 94 percent of Americans currently have access to the Internet, meaning they could potentially vote online without going to a polling place. What if voting were extended to mobile phones? The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently found 85 percent of American adults have a mobile phone, with about half of them having smartphones — numbers which are almost certain to increase rapidly in the next few years. Internet and mobile technology could bring voting to citizens who are historically under-represented in the current electoral process simply by eliminating the need to get to a polling place.

Online voting technologies could potentially lift some barriers for folks who have trouble meeting voter registration requirements: Perhaps they’ve never had a passport or a driver’s license, or are living with parents and have no utility bills or other means of asserting their identity. With broadband increasingly being viewed as a utility, the ability to maintain a mobile or home Internet connection might be enough in some locales. After all, in some places presenting a utility bill and even an expired photo ID will get you on the voting rolls.

Another compelling argument is convenience: Think how much voter turnout might rise for elections (particularly mid-term or local elections) if voters could make their voices heard using computers or smartphones. Online voting could be particularly appealing for younger voters who are the most comfortable with the technology, but who historically don’t seem to turn out in great numbers for elections. With online voting, voters wouldn’t have to visit a polling location and potentially wait for hours for their turn. When more people participate in an election, the democratic process more accurately reflects the will of the people.

“As more and more Americans begin to wonder why they have to trek to the polls, find parking, stand in line, sometimes in rain and cold, while at the same time banking or buying books via their iPad, smartphone, or other connected device, they will begin to demand a more up-to-date and convenient method of voting,” said William J. Kelleher, Ph.D., author of Internet Voting Now!.

Another argument is cost. Although estimates vary, the cost of conducting a presidential election in the United States is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Localities have to purchase, operate, and maintain voting machines, hire election workers, staff polling places, prepare ballots, and (of course) tabulate results, among many other things. Shifting to online voting could lower the costs of conducting elections by reducing the need for polling places, staff, and equipment. Just as it’s less expensive for Amazon to take an order via the Web, states could lower their costs conducting elections online.

So why the heck aren’t we voting online?

Barriers to online voting

Online voting isn’t a far-flung dream; plenty of countries are already studying and experimenting with it. In Canada, several dozen municipalities have used Internet voting in municipal elections (often via systems provided by Canadian firm Intelivote). Markham, Ontario, has offered online balloting since 2003 and an independent study from Delvinia found online voting was well-liked by participants, convenient, and could produce a modest increase in overall turnout — although younger voters haven’t been terribly enthused. Estonia has offered online voting since 2007, with roughly a quarter of its population of 1.3 million voting online — although, it should be noted, Estonia also has a national smart-card ID card system.

Things get more complicated in the United States. First of all, the United States has no national election system. Although the U.S. Constitution and federal law outline aspects of federal elections, most of the mechanics are defined and handled by individual states, including election methods, setting voter eligibility requirements, conducting both state and local elections, and (for presidential elections) managing the state’s electoral college. Diving down further, polling places are usually managed by individual cities, counties, and townships — all told, there were over 4,600 voting jurisdictions in the United States in 2010. The result is a mishmash of procedures and systems that makes implementing online voting very complicated. An online voting system that’s acceptable to one municipality won’t be acceptable to another. It also means implementing a one-size-fits-all approach to nationwide online voting would be a matter of policy and politics first, technology second — and we all know how fast policymakers move on this stuff.

Another key issue is voter validation. How would an online voting system recognize legitimate voters? Estonia has national smart card IDs that citizens can set up with PIN numbers and use remotely to authenticate with a voting system (and other services). The United States has no similar system: not everyone has a passport, drivers’ license, or state-issued ID. As a result, the most practical way to validate people for online voting may be to send them one-time PIN numbers via postal mail. Besides the issue of mail theft, this omits newly eligible voters, the homeless, some disabled, deployed military personnel, or others who might not have fixed addresses or access to postal mail. Maybe we could use passwords? If there’s one thing the Internet has proven it’s that people pick crappy passwords — and often forget them. Would you remember a password you set up for a presidential election four years ago?

What about securing online voting systems? The two primary ways to approach online voting are to let voters cast ballots using their own devices, or a device operated and maintained by local election authorities. Letting people use their own devices is far more convenient — and convenience is one of the main attractions behind online voting, after all — but it’s a potential security nightmare. Millions of people already have spyware and malware on their PCs and (increasingly) on their mobile devices: Letting people vote with their own devices is essentially exposing the electoral process to the same bands of organized, sophisticated cybercriminals who have been exploiting security flaws to steal identities and clear out bank accounts for decades now. Requiring voters to use systems operated by local election officials should be far more secure, but doesn’t solve the access problems of today’s balloting systems. Voters would still have to go to polls, or have devices brought to them by election officials. Both methods are potentially vulnerable to attacks on servers and election infrastructure: it doesn’t matter whether voters’ own devices or state-administered devices are secure if the voting system itself can be hacked. One lesson of the digital revolution is that no system is completely secure.

Can e-commerce technology enable online voting?

It does seem ridiculous that Internet users can buy almost anything online but online voting isn’t commonplace. If the technology exists to validate buyers and sellers and handle secure financial transactions, why can’t that same technology handle something as simple as voting?

Many of the same encryption, authentication, and validation technologies used in e-commerce will undoubtedly play roles in any online voting system. However, online businesses and financial institutions have very different goals than a local, state, or national online election efforts.

“If an unauthorized banking transaction occurs, you can see it in your statement,” wrote SRI International’s Jeremy Epstein in ACM Computing Reviews back in 2009. “The bank is responsible for losses, and has the ability to reverse an erroneous transaction. And, above all, you and your bank both know that the transaction was on your account.”

These principals do not apply to voting due to issues of anonymity. Secret ballots are one of the cornerstones of democracy, the idea being that voters cast their ballots privately, free from intimidation and coercion, and their votes cannot be linked back to them. This is why voting booths in many polling places have curtains, and why no one is allowed to go into a voting booth with you when you cast your ballot. Voters do not get a statement at the end of each election cycle listing their votes and when they were tabulated; elections officials cannot pull up the record of a particular voter and inspect it for errors or irregularities.

Being able to reconcile financial transactions is one of the primary ways of detecting online fraud and identity theft, and it’s a enabler of online commerce. When fraud and mistakes happen, they can usually be worked out. Banks, financial institutions, credit-card companies, and online retailers have invested billions of dollars in trying to secure their processes while making them widely accessible to consumers.

Businesses have always operated on the principle that they’ll never be able to eliminate all theft or fraud, but they can try to keep it down to an manageable level. Visa subsidiary CyberSource estimated online fraud totaled up to $3.4 billion in 2011, with about 0.6 percent of all online transactions being fraudulent. That’s actually the lowest number of fraudulent transactions in 13 years, although the total amount of money lost has gone up.

To date, there have been no known instances of election fraud in online elections. However, outside of Estonia and parts of Canada, online voting hasn’t been conducted on a significant scale, and we know that the over 4,600 electoral jurisdictions in the United States don’t have the same sorts of budgets, experience, and technical expertise as major banks, credit card companies, and online retailers. And online election tampering doesn’t have to be limited to fake votes. Using spam, phishing attacks, malware, and other techniques, would-be election-riggers could prevent votes from being filed at all, or lure voters to a fake Web site where they think they’re voting…but aren’t.

Will online voting ever happen?

This may all sound like doom and gloom for the possibility of online voting, but the reality is really more when than if. Although the U.S. military scrapped a planned online voting program for overseas personnel in 2004, in 2008 Arizona became the first state to let overseas military and civilian voters to vote in a national election via a secure Web site. (It was remarkably clunky: Voters filled out ballots they received via postal mail or printed themselves, then made scans they sent back to election officials.) West Virginia tried true online voting for overseas military personnel in 2010: it covered just 125 people, but was deemed a success.

There’s a theme here: military voters deployed overseas. According to the Military Voters Protection Project, in 2008 only 20 percent of the 2.5 million military voters were able to request and return their absentee ballots on time, and fewer than 5 percent had an absentee ballot for the 2010 election. These are the men and women who have voluntarily put their lives on the line for their country– the least we could do is make it easy for them to vote.

“The issue of better serving overseas and military voters has been the single most important driver of this issue lately,” noted Rob Weber of the blog Cyber the Vote. “Paper absentee registration and voting does not serve military residents well, and both Congress and the states are looking to improve that situation. Several states are now allowing emailing of ballots for overseas military voters. It is a step in the right direction.”

Although the military backed away from online voting mechanisms in 2004, if states and other jurisdictions are able to develop secure online voting mechanisms that work well for overseas military personnel, those technologies could be extended to other voters. The most obvious candidates would be other overseas residents and disabled voters within a local jurisdiction. From there, assuming the systems hold up, they could be extended to larger portions of the population — and once online voting systems have proven themselves, more local jurisdictions will begin to take a close look at online voting.

“Here is where the decisions to implement Internet voting will be made,” said Dr. Kelleher. “As more folks demand of their local election officials that the voting technology be brought into the 21st century, these officials will demand of their legislatures laws allowing them to buy Internet voting systems.”

Budget issues may also drive jurisdictions towards online voting. With most U.S. states facing budget shortfalls, the prospect of lowering the costs of elections through online voting may be very appealing to lawmakers. However, election officials will have to be careful to balance new costs associated with online voting against the continuing cost of current election systems – since those aren’t going to go away overnight.

In the meantime…

Online voting lies at a peculiar intersection of technology and public policy: Even if we have all the software and connectivity necessary to operate widespread electronic voting, implementing it will probably involve at least as much politicking as technology.

Over the next few years, we can expect more widespread (if tentative) implementation of online voting systems, initially to serve troops overseas, but perhaps also being extended to some local voters. Online voting efforts in other countries will also be watched closely.

And, even though you can’t do it from your smartphone or computer, please do vote in the general election this Tuesday.

“Vote” image via Shutterstock / Feng Yu
Phone vote image via Shutterstock / WimL
El Paso 2008 Primary voting image via Shutterstock / Frontpage
Smartphone voting image via Shutterstock / Clenpies Design

Samsung is currently enjoying its spot atop the Android market with its Galaxy S3. But no crown is safe from a good challenge, and LG is looking to provide one with the Optimus G. Can sheer power push LG's handset past Samsung's current king?

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 has managed to make itself the go-to phone when people look for an Android handset. Making its way up the sales charts on the back of its gorgeous Super AMOLED display, impressive processing power, and solid reputation of its predecessors, the Galaxy S3 snagged a top spot for Android-powered handsets right out of the gate. In a market marked by tons of competition though, there is someone vying for the throne. LG, Samsung’s South Korean rival, is hoping its Optimus G is capable of doing just that. With 2GB RAM and processor speed that matches the Galaxy S3′s offering and an HD screen of its own with the True HD IPS Plus Display, LG is making quite the case for itself. Take a look at how all the intangibles add up and see which phone best fits your needs.

Read our full reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the LG Optimus G for a more in-depth look at each option.

	Galaxy S3	LG Optimus G
Price	$200/$300 (with contract)	$200/$300 (SIM-free)
Availability	AT&T, Sprint, T-Mob, Verizon	AT&T, Sprint
OS	Android 4.0.1 Touchwiz UX/US	Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Processor	Exynos 4412 (Quad-core)	Snapdragon S4 Pro (Quad-core)
RAM	2GB	2GB
Display	4.8″ Super AMOLED	4.7″ IPS LCD
Resolution	1280×720 pixels	1280×768 pixels
Dimensions (WxDxH)	5.38″ x 2.78″ x 0.34″	5.19″ x 2.71″ x 0.33″
Weight	4.69 oz	5.11 oz
4G LTE	Yes	Yes
NFC	Yes	Yes
Wi-Fi	802.11 b/g/n (dual-band)	802.11 b/g/n (dual-band)
Rear-facing camera	8 megapixels	13MP Sprint, 8MP on AT&T
Front-facing camera	1.9 megapixels	1.3 megapixels
Video capabilities	1080p recording	1080p recording
Internal storage	16/32GB	32GB Sprint, 16GB AT&T
SD card slot	Yes (up to 64GB)	Yes (up to 64GB)
Max. battery life	11 hours (2100mAh battery)	10 hours (2100mAh battery)

What it means: LG clearly has a contender when it comes to the numbers. But with any boxing match, the tale of the tape only tells so much. You’d be best served taking each phone in hand and playing around with the UI. Both phones run on a modified version of Android 4.0, and those tweaks may be a deciding factor for you in one feels more natural than the other. You may also want to consider your carrier, because the Optimus G base model comes with a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, but AT&T has neutered the device and dropped it to a standard 8-megapixel camera. The Optimus G ups the ante on the processor, jumping to a quad-core compared to the Galaxy S3′s dual-core. However, Samsung’s offering has the benefit of a sizable market share and some impressive NFC features that only work if two people have Samsung phones. If sheer power is your biggest sales point, consider the Optimus G, but if features outweigh numbers on your scale, the Galaxy S3 may be the way to go.

Angry Birds Star Wars officially arrives on November 8, and to herald its debut Rovio has issued a gameplay trailer that is pretty much exactly what you'd expect based on the game's title. Luckily, that's not a bad thing.

When you first heard about Angry Birds Star Wars, what did you immediately imagine? Well yes, obviously George Lucas accepting huge bags of cash for the Star Wars licensing rights, but after that what did you come up with? A game largely akin to existing Angry Birds titles, except with lightsabers and force powers in place of the traditional suite of avian superpowers this franchise normally showcases? Perhaps a handful of sound effects seemingly ripped straight from the Star Wars films themselves? An overall sense that while this marriage of two disparate intellectual properties may make sense financially, it also holds the potential to devalue both IPs in the eyes of devoted fans?

Assuming you came up with any of those things, congrats on being so prescient! As you can see from the footage embedded below, the first official trailer for Angry Birds Star Wars features all of these things. Normally being so predictable would be a knock against an upcoming title, but in this case the game looks rather entertaining. Launching the birds seems to be as simple as it’s ever been, but those new Star Wars powers should open a wealth of strategies for beating each level. If nothing else, deflecting laser blasts with a lightsaber while flying through the air is a pretty novel addition to the Angry Birds series.

The big question remaining after viewing this trailer is whether or not the game’s level design can properly take advantage of all the new gameplay quirks added for this latest Angry Birds iteration. Those new abilities mean that new, specially-designed stages have to be built, and while we have little doubt of Rovio’s ability to craft endless reams of fun levels, we can’t really comment on that aspect of Angry Birds Star Wars until after we’ve played the title. Luckily the wait for this game’s debut is a short one: Angry Birds Star Wars arrives on almost every computer and mobile phone platform in existence on November 8. If history is anything to go by, we’ll see it appear on every other possible gaming platform shortly thereafter.

Microsoft is reportedly putting Windows Live Messenger to rest, and replacing the messaging client with Skype.

We got a first glimpse of Microsoft’s plans for their $8.5 billion purchase of Skype late last month when Microsoft enabled Facebook, Hotmail, and Windows Live logins through Skype. Now The Verge has caught wind from his sources that Microsoft may be taking this a step further by replacing Windows Live Messenger with Skype altogether.

The announcement that Windows Live Messenger will be put to rest after thirteen years since its founding, first introduced as MSN Messenger in 1999, may come as early as this week. The report adds that Windows Live Messenger’s backend is slowly being integrated into Skype, which means that the only change for existing Windows Live users is that they’ll have to login through Skype’s client.

Skype has already been married into Windows 8 as a default native app to the Microsoft operating system, and Microsoft is free to do with Skype as it wishes — so the decision makes sense. The news of Windows Live Messenger’s retirement however isn’t official just yet and users have yet to be notified of Microsoft’s intentions, so as for the answer to how tightly integrated Skype will be with Microsoft’s products, we’ll have to update you once we hear back from a spokesperson.

Windows Live Messenger has been in use by 300 million users per month in 2010, although we suspect that number has dwindled due to new competition Google Talk and Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, and of course the many mobile messaging apps on the market today. Skype’s CEO, Tony Bates revealed the latest figures show it had 250 million monthly users in May of this year.

Skype has been subject to a number of face lifts as of late. We’ve been content with the majority of the updates, but there have been just a couple of caveats. For instance all of the cross-platform integration means the Skype contact list is consequently flooded with friends, so users are either left to clean up with lists, deal with it, or forego using the new login integrations altogether. 

But the pros outweigh the cons. Messaging Facebook and Live Messenger friends on the Skype client is admittedly a far better experience. Skype acts as a prompt to video call friends you otherwise might not using Facebook. 

Pushing Windows Live Messenger clearly wasn’t in the forefront of Microsoft’s mind with the service since it’s Skype acquisition. With a robust messaging and video calling service like Skype, Microsoft has room to offer more comprehensive monetization strategies, like its conversation ads rolled out in June, as it doubles up Skype’s user base with existing Messenger users.

The newly-released Assassin's Creed III is shattering sales records in the United Kingdom, trumping Ubisoft's previous best-seller by more than 100,000 units.

When Ubisoft first announced Assassin’s Creed III, we expected the game to be a success. After all, it’s another entry in a fan-favorite, blockbuster video game series, and Ubisoft has proven a willingness to spend huge amounts of cash promoting titles just like this one. Plus, the game is centered on the Revolutionary War, and what red-blooded American wouldn’t want the chance to virtually assassinate a few redcoats in the name of colonial freedom? Of course, that doesn’t explain why Assassin’s Creed III is selling like gilded hotcakes in the UK, but we’re sure Ubisoft would rather not look that gift horse in the mouth.

According to Chart-Track (a site that tallies media sales in Ireland and the UK) information released on November 3, Assassin’s Creed III has been Ubisoft’s most successful UK release to date. It currently occupies the number one spot on Chart-Track’s list of best selling games, ahead of FIFA 13, the latest entry in a series that perennially dominates worldwide sales charts. Further, during the period immediately following the Assassin’s Creed III launch, the game trumped Assassin’s Creed: Revelations to pick up the record for Ubisoft’s most successful launch of all time. As you might expect, these triumphant sales figures place the Assassin’s Creed III launch as the number two UK video game launch of 2012 (second only to the FIFA 13 launch).

We won’t go so far as to question the motivations of an entire country, but we have to ask our British readers for some kind of explanation here. You blokes and birds do realize that Assassin’s Creed III is focused on the American Revolution, right? That big war that painted the UK as a tyrannical force of draconian old world fops who were bested by the plucky, resourceful spirit that would eventually propel the original 13 colonies into the world’s sole economic and military superpower? Maybe we don’t have any perspective on this, what with being Americans, but shouldn’t the UK be a bit more touchy about this subject?

Or maybe Assassin’s Creed III is the panacea our countries have been hoping for since 1776. Maybe the visceral joy of stabbing some jerk in the face finally sinks any lingering ill will the British might have for us Yankees. Maybe the only thing that can truly unite mankind is the opportunity to murder evil George Washington. Whatever the reason behind these massive sales figures, one thing is for certain: Britons don’t seem to have much issue with knifing virtual representations of their ancestors.

The next The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim DLC, “Dragonborn,” will be released for Xbox 360 on December 4. The third expansion for Skyrim will cost 1600 Microsoft Points, or $20. No word yet on a PC or PS3 release.

Remember that story we posted last week about a mysterious image from Bethesda that we suggested might mean the new DLC announcement was on the way? Nailed it!

Ok, it really wasn’t a major leap to assume that the long awaited third DLC for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was on the way, but we now have the official confirmation that Dragonborn is set for December 4. At the moment the release has only been confirmed for the Xbox 360, thanks to the deal between Microsoft and Bethesda that grants the 360 a head start on the release.

A PC release is sure to follow, but PlayStation 3 users are still on the outside looking in when it comes to Skyrim DLC. The two previous releases, Dawnguard and Hearthfire, have yet to debut on Sony’s system thanks to technical issues, and at this point it’s unclear if PS3 users will ever get Skyrim DLC.

The new add-on will introduce us to the first Dragonborn, who is apparently unsatisfied by death and so decides to make a triumphant comeback, of sorts.

Beyond that, details are still scarce, and most ideas are based entirely on conjecture. It appears that players will return to the island Solstheim, which was originally introduced as an expansion to Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It also looks like the long rumored ability to mount and ride dragons will become a reality, but neither have been confirmed.

Expect to hear more details in the weeks leading up to the December 4 release, when Dragonborn is released on the Xbox 360 for 1600 MS Points.

Get the most out of your iPhone battery by following these steps, which should see you return the phone to it's charger less often.

It’s one of those first-world problems that we’re all trying to solve: How to make the battery on our iPhone last just that little while longer. Thanks to Apple’s wisdom, we can’t pull the battery and replace it with a fully charged one, so we have to examine our usage and the phone’s activities to extend the amount of time between charges.

The basics

Battery life can be increased just by familiarizing yourself with the Settings menu and toggling a few switches, some of which are fairly obvious, while others not so. Let’s get started: Open the Settings menu, and pay close attention.

• Wi-Fi: This one is an easy one: If you don’t need it or are using 3G/4G, then turn off Wi-Fi. The convenience of not having to switch it on and off isn’t a fair trade for the power it uses while searching for networks.
• Bluetooth: Another obvious one, but leaving Bluetooth on when you aren’t using it causes considerable battery drain.
• Location Services: This one needs some consideration, as some apps — Maps for example — require location services to be active, so you may want to explore the Location Services menu (found under Privacy in iOS 6) and only turn off those you don’t use on a regular basis. For example, does IMDb and Ocarina really need to know where you are?
• Time Zone: While you’re digging about in the Privacy menu, scroll down and tap System Services, where you’ll find a range of options including the chance to turn off automatic time-zone changes. In iOS 5 this was found to be a power hog, so if you don’t need it, turn it off. In fact, while you’re there, turn off Location-based iAds and Diagnostics too.
• Push: Whether it’s Push emails or Push notifications, your phone will be chatting to the network on a regular basis with both activated, and therefore using precious power. Email accounts can be individually set up for Push data, so switch off those that you don’t always need to check, or if you’re serious about saving battery power, turn them all to “manual.” You’ll find these options under Settings, Mail/Contacts/Calendars and Fetch New Data. For notifications, there’s an entire menu dedicated to them in iOS 6, and each app that offers Push notifications can be activated or crucially, deactivated. Like Push emails, if you’re serious about your iPhone’s battery, turn all but the essentials off.
• Brightness: Turn Auto-Brightness on, but at the same time drag the brightness slider down as low as you dare. This will save significant energy.

Intermediate level

By managing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Push, and the brightness of your iPhone’s screen, you’re well on your way to a longer lasting battery. But if you want more, then you’ll want to try these suggestions, although the effect won’t be as great as those described above.

• Manually Close Apps: This is a controversial one, as Apple will tell you that apps living in the app tray are in stasis, and shouldn’t drain your battery at all. Possibly, but many users will know certain apps still draw power when in this state. So, double tap the Home button, hold down an icon to enter “jiggly” mode, and close everything using the little “x.”
• Siri: If you never ask Siri a question, shut her down under the Settings menu. She doesn’t do much unless you ask her something, but one less active feature can only be a good thing.
• Screen Lock: Make sure your phone locks itself — which turns off the screen — after one minute. The less time it’s idle with the screen on, the better. Do this under Settings, General, and Auto-Lock.
• iCloud: This works in a similar way to Push, where data is being transmitted from your phone to Apple’s servers in the background. If you don’t need to back up to iCloud, turn it off under iCloud in the Settings menu. You can also individually select what’s backed up too, and the fewer there are, the less time it takes. Plus, there’s the added benefit of using less iCloud storage space too.

For the hardcore among you

So, you’ve done all that you can, but the charger still beckons. Then it’s time to get serious. If you want your battery to last, really last; then sacrifices need to be made.

• Cellular Data: No arguing, if you don’t need it, head to Settings, General then Cellular and turn it off. If calls are unimportant, putting the iPhone into Airplane mode will really stretch the battery’s life too. You’ll just be left holding the equivalent of an iPod Touch.
• External Battery Packs: You may not be able to change the battery, but you can add a battery to the iPhone instead. There are many long-life battery packs available — mostly using the 30-pin connector, but that will change over time — where you sacrifice size and weight in return for a heavy duty battery case plugged into your slim and light iPhone.

Finally, if you want the best from your battery; look after it. Regular charging patterns are good for phone batteries, and continually having it at 10-percent and only charging it halfway will shorten its lifespan, and provide poor performance. Modern Li-ion batteries may not have the same issues as older Ni-cad cells, but that doesn’t mean they don’t respond to proper treatment.

Samsung and AT&T announce the Ativ and Galaxy Tab 2 for a November 9 release, bringing new Android and Windows 8 devices to the carrier this week.

If you were planning to buy a tablet this holiday season, rest assured you’ll have plenty of variety to choose from when you head to the stores on Black Friday. Today AT&T has announced two more tablets to hit stores on November 9: The Windows smart PC Samsung Ativ, and latest member of the Android-powered Galaxy family, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. The Samsung Ativ will retail for about $8o0, and the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 will cost about $500 — neither of which require a contract for purchase. 

The Samsung Ativ comes as the first of Microsoft’s beefier Windows 8 tablets to hit the market in contrast to its Windows 8 RT tablets released late in October. The tablet features an included clamshell keyboard for high-speed typing when you need it, and a multi-touch display to take full advantage of the Windows 8 UI experience. The device also features an Intel Atom 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 64GB of internal memory, and 2GB of RAM all viewed from a crisp 11.6-inch display. Clocking in at $800, this tablet is a small fortune, but runs the robust Windows 8 OS for a totally mobile and productive experience.

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 serves as Samsung’s sequel to their Galaxy Tab 10.1 released back in 2011, and features Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), an external storage slot, and a slightly beefier battery all viewed from a high resolution 10.1-inch screen. At $500, the Galaxy Tab 2 is certainly not the cheapest Android tablet out there, but nonetheless a feature rich one. Read our full DT review on the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 for more info.

To encourage new customers, AT&T is offering a promotional discount for those who buy two qualifying Samsung devices this holiday season. With a new 2-year agreement, customers can get an instant $100 discount for buying any Samsung Galaxy Smartphone along with any Samsung smartphone or tablet of equal or lesser value. As Sprint also announces its roll-out of the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 for November 11, it’s safe to say AT&T is trying to grab some essential territory before the rest of the carriers release their tablets for the forthcoming holiday season. 

The tablet market this holiday season is well inundated with devices of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the iPad Mini to Windows 8 smart PC — the only question is figuring out which one is right for you, and just what the wake of the coming holiday-season tablet war will bring to the market.

The countdown has begun for Election Day 2012. With only a few hours left until the polls open, here are the Web and mobile resources you should have on speed dial to make casting your ballot as pain-free as possible.

The United States will know who its president is for the next four years by Tuesday night – assuming nothing goes wildly wrong, of course. (We’re looking at you, year 2000.) In the mean time, tens of millions of Americans will flood to polling locations around the country to cast their vote – a feat made abnormally difficult for those in the Northeast thanks to Hurricane Sandy upheaval. Lucky for everyone, the Pew Center on the States has created the Voter Information Project (VIP), and partnered with some of the biggest technology companies in the U.S., to keep voters in-the-know on Election Day.

“The way VIP works is, states directly participate in the feeds. They provide official election information, including what’s on the ballot, the polling place information,” David Becker, Director of Election Initiatives at the Pew Center on the States, told Digital Trends. “And we’ve even collected information that we call ‘rules of the road,’ which are relevant election rules that everyone should know.” These rules include things like whether you need an ID to vote in your state.

All of this data collected by the VIP from state election offices is the fed through an API, which tech companies, including Google, Microsoft and AT&T, have used to create Web and mobile tools for voters. Here are the VIP tools – plus a couple bonus resources – you should know about on Tuesday.

Google Voter Information Tool

Google’s Voter Information Tool, which can be embedded into any website, incorporates Google Maps and VIP election data to create perhaps the most useful mashup on the Web. With a quick search of your address, you’ll find out all the presidential and congressional candidates on your local ballot, their party affiliation, and a link to your state’s online election hub, which provides additional details.

Facebook

Facebook has also joined in on the VIP party, with its own polling place locator, which is built into the social networks U.S. Politics page. Users can also tell their friends about their Election Day plans with the “I’m Voting” pledge. At the time of this writing, roughly 344,000 people told their Facebook friends that they plan to vote.

VoterHub app

Built by AT&T and Politics360, VoterHub is a free app for iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone devices that provides everything from polling place locations to Associated Press real-time coverage of Election Day. It also allows users to share information easily through the gamut of social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, as well as email. If you don’t feel like downloading an app that – let’s face it – you’re going to delete by Wednesday, you can simply visit VoterHub.us to access all the Election Day goodies.

Foursquare I Voted

Late last week, Foursquare unveiled a new free app called I Voted, which also provides polling place locations, and details about what you’ll find on your local ballot. Once you’ve voted, you’ll receive a “I Voted” badge, and be placed on Foursquare’s real-time map of I Voted users.

Video the Vote

Finally, we have the Video the Vote project, which urges citizens to document any suspicious activity at their polling places using their smartphones. Video the Vote provides concerned voters with all the information they need to properly record things like vote intimidation, and how to share their videos with the public. To join the Video the Vote project, click here.

Image via Chromatika/Shutterstock

A new home computing set up can rack up dollars pretty quickly, but there are a few places you can overlook to cut back some costs. Here's our guide on which home computing items you should considering saving or splurging.

We know first hand that technology is expensive, but it’s also an investment because these little gadgets are meant to last you a long time. So, when setting up a home computer, are there ways to pinch pennys?  We asked out Computing editors for some tips on where to save on computing accessories, and where to splurge for the long run.

Splurge

Laptop and Desktop

The core of your home computing system, a computer is definitely worth the investment because the cost of repairing a cheap and easily broken one can amount to higher costs in the long run. By splurging on a strong laptop or desktop with high quality specs and upgraded software, you’re setting yourself for a device that should last you 3-to-4 years or even longer. Would you rather buy a new cheap laptop every year or just one awesome computer that you don’t have to constantly set up or transfer information out of? Trust us: the cost is more or less the same.

Tablet/laptop hybrid

The tablet/laptop hybrid is a relatively configuration currently offered by a variety of well-known manufacturers like Lenovo and Asus. By either storing the keyboard into the monitor, or allowing the two to separate from each other, it’s a one-time cost that gets you the functionality and processing power of a computer with the mobility of a tablet. Yes, cloud services can help link accounts together so you have access to the same files across different devices, but hybrids allow you to keep all your files in one place and you never have to trade productivity for media consumption. 

Operating system

This one is a bit more of a judgement call that requires good research before the investment. Operating system updates are meant to help you work better, use all the new features your computer is capable of, and help with bugs previously unaddressed by the former OS edition. By being stingy and cutting back on OS updates, you could be missing out on the full potential of your computer. And why spend all that money on a great computer if you can’t maximize its capabilities?

Hard drive

Small hard drives are obviously cheaper, but let’s face it: The more you use your computer, the faster you’ll fill these babies up. Splurge on a large hard drive – 1TB to start would be ideal – and use Internet superstores like Newegg and Amazon to help you find the best deals. In addition to external hard drives, you can utilize free services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive, and Box to help alleviate some costs. Keep referring some friends for extra free space.

Save

Monitor

You invested in a fancy new computer, so why not have a grandiose monitor to show it off with? Because televisions and monitors are getting cheaper every day that you really don’t need to spend the big bucks on quality displays. Unless you intend to use your monitor as a TV, save money on this one. If you’re concerned about brand names, AOC, Asus, Samsung, LG, and Dell all offer affordable, quality monitors. If you’re still obsessed with resolution, you can trade monitor size for picture quality.

Computer chair

You spend a lot of time at your computer, so you deserve to be comfortable, but any chair that keeps your posture in check is all you really need.

If you simply must get some cushion or massage while you’re working on the computer, get yourself a massaging chair pad that you can use with any seating in the house. Besides, sitting for too long is bad for you, and if you get yourself something a bit too comfy, you might never want to get up from it.

Router

There are plenty of routers these days with extra fancy USB and touchscreen menus, but they’re unnecessary. This is the kind of gadgets that you set up once and shove in a corner, so there’s no reason to spend extra money just because they look good. Find the one that can expand your wireless Internet signal to the distance you require, and don’t worry about the speeds – speed issues with your home network usually have more to do with your Internet service provider, not the router itself.  

Mouse

Unless you’re an pro gamer or an artist an expensive mouse really isn’t a must for your home computing set up. Laptops these days are made so the trackpad is more responsive than ever, and by using an average external mouse, you might miss out all the touch gestures and shortcuts built-into your device.

Apple has announced that it has sold three million iPads over the opening weekend, but fails to break down that figure into how many were iPad Mini tablets and how many were fourth generation full-size model.

Apple has sent forth its traditional, post-opening weekend press release trumpeting how many new iPads it has sold. We say iPads — plural — because it wasn’t only the iPad mini that went on sale, but the fourth generation iPad too, despite it being almost completely ignored by the press.

From November 2 to November 5, Apple sold 3 million iPads, which it says “doubles the previous first weekend milestone of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation in March.” Neither of the two new iPads have cellular connectivity yet, but 4G models will ship in the next few weeks.

Just in case you didn’t quite catch it, Apple CEO Tim Cook chimed in to confirm that the company “set a new launch weekend record,” and adds that it had “practically sold out of iPad minis.”

So, a resounding success? Well, possibly, but there’s no breakdown of exactly how many units of that 3 million magic number were iPad minis. Reports from around the world on Friday didn’t contain the same degree of excitement over the iPad Mini as they have for previous Apple products, and described shorter lines at stores.

This didn’t stop it from selling out, a fact that anyone could gather from a cursory glance at Twitter late in the launch day, as frustrated buyers found the shelves empty at their local stores. Apple’s statement closes with reference to online pre-orders selling-out too, confirming that “demand for the iPad mini exceeded the initial supply.”

Three million sales needed for success

Prior to the weekend, an analyst from BTIG said Apple needed to shift at least 3 million iPad Mini tablets for it to be hailed a success. For some context, the iPhone 5 sold 5 million over its opening weekend and as we reported last week, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has taken nearly 40 days to reach 3 million sales.

Apple analyst Gene Munster warned the company may fall short of this figure, estimating between 1 million and 1.5 million iPad mini devices would be sold. He noted that this lower than expected figure is because the iPad mini will be a “grower,” and that once people see and try it, demand will increase.

Without the aforementioned sales breakdown, it’s impossible to know how close Munster came to the truth, but he’s probably not far off. At least we assume he’s not, as for all we know, the fourth generation iPad could have been responsible for 75 percent of the total.

With the iPad mini selling out online and in stores, it certainly looks like another successful launch for Apple. But it’s difficult to say just how much of this was true demand, and how much was lack of supply. Among the endless iPad Mini rumors, you may recall an analyst warning that there would only be “acceptable” iPad mini stock levels for the first month, due to problems with the supply chain. This rumor may have come true, and comes soon after the iPhone 5’s similar problems.

The iPad mini came out in 34 countries on Friday and according to the Apple Store, is currently limited to two per customer with a two-week wait before it ships.