EA and Danger Close release their second Medal of Honor collaboration, Medal of Honor: Warfighter this Tuesday on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 (and eventually Wii U). We have all the news you need to prepare you for the launch of one of the biggest games of the year.

There is no question that Call of Duty is the current undisputed king of the first-person shooters — and all games for that matter if you are count these things by sales figures – but there aren’t many franchises that can claim the same level of history that the Medal of Honor brand features.

Originally debuting in 1999, the WWII-themed series has influenced all first-person shooters in one form or another, but somewhere along the way the franchise lost its way. The property was shelved, and during its absence Call of Duty broke from its own WWII era mold with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and went on to create the first consistent billion dollar franchise.

Then in 2010 the brand made its return with a new, modern setting, and a multiplayer component designed by the DICE team, developers with a proven track record for multiplayer thanks to the Battlefield games. Of course, if you are even passingly familiar with the series you already know all that, just like you know that this Tuesday marks the release of the second Medal of Honor game set in modern times, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Can it topple the reigning king and surpass Call of Duty in sales? Maybe, maybe not, but even if it doesn’t touch the billion dollar milestone the game is almost certainly going to be a hit. So with that in mind, we offer you a quick preview of the 14th offering in the series, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Check back this week for our full review, but for now click the image below for all the Warfighter new you need to prepare for one of the year’s biggest releases.

AMD's new "Never Settle" bundle which includes up to three free games and 20 percent off Medal Of Honor Warfighter.

AMD is hitting the ground running this holiday season by taking the wraps off some new bundles for select video cards that include up to three recently released games for free. The company is also announcing a major driver update that is available immediately.

The bundles are available on AMD Radeon HD 7900, 7800 and HD 7770 GHz Edition video cards. The more expensive cards predictably receive more games. Here’s how it breaks down.

• HD 7900 Series – Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs for free. 20 percent off Medal of Honor Warfighter Deluxe Edition.
• 2x HD 7800 Series or 2x HD 7770 GHz Edition – Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution for free. 20 percent off Medal of Honor Warfighter Deluxe Edition.
• HD 7800 Series or HD 7770 GHZ edition – Far Cry 3 for free. 20 percent off Medal of Honor Warfighter Deluxe Edition.

These bundles are available immediately via participating retailers. An end date for the promotion was not provided, but the company said that this promotion will exist in conjunction with Black Friday sales and other holiday discounts. This suggests the bundle will be valid for most of the holiday shopping season.

AMD’s driver announcement is focused on what it calls the Never Settle driver, also known as Catalyst 12.11. The company claims that installing this driver will improve performance of its video cards by up to 15 percent in many games including hits such as Battlefield 3 and Dirt Showdown. It should also provide better performance in the upcoming Medal Of Honor Warfighter.

Today’s announcements are just the latest shot in an ongoing bundle battle fought between AMD and Nvidia, which is currently offering a free copy of Assassin’s Creed 3 with every GTX 650 Ti graphics card.

An update to the third-generation iPad with added Lightning connector is the latest rumor to come out of Apple's announcement next week. This is after whispers that the iPad would receive an upgrade to the A6 chip currently in the iPhone 5.

Apple’s upcoming announcement on October 23 has spawned a nauseating amount of rumors teasing which products will be unveiled and others that will simply be repackaged with improved internals.

Unless you’ve been avoiding the rumor onslaught — and who could blame you? — the iPad Mini is the new device everyone expects to be announced next week. But in light of recent evidence provided by 9to5 Mac‘s sources, it seems Apple will be refreshing its full-sized iPad line at the same time. This refresh won’t be considered a true successor to the current iPad, but more of a 4S-style upgrade.

Allegedly confirming previous rumors about an iPad refresh, the sources say the new iPad will keep the same price scheme ($500, $600, and $700 for WiFi-only) at the same respective storage sizes (16GB, 32GB, 64GB). It’s also suspected the new iPad will incorporate the Lightning connector that debuted on the iPhone 5 and Apple’s newest iPods. Global support for LTE may be tossed in for good measure as well, and (if the rumor is true) Apple may decide to bump up other specs like processor speed or battery. The supposed proof is in a list of leaked barcodes, half referring to the current iPad generation and the other half to an updated line.

Whispers of an iPad refresh began back in early October, when MacRumors posted that a developer had found evidence of a device called the “iPad3,6″ that targets the new ARMv7s architecture used in the custom A6 chip. This older rumor combined with the newer one above seems to point to a new and improved iPad with a beefed up processor and Lightning connector.

If the rumor ends up coming true, it could be a deadly blow for Microsoft, which has its own Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 announcements scheduled around the same time as Apple. Looking to previous iPad reveals, it’s fair to assume the refreshed tablet would spread like wildfire as consumers gear up for the holiday season. But as with every rumor, we have to look at this one with the appropriate amount of skepticism. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Apple will undoubtedly make a killing if it unleashes an iPad Mini and a new iPad right before the holidays. 

Do you think there’s any truth to this rumor or is the evidence too much of a stretch to be considered fact?

The address book is a smartphone staple, but it's a tired one. Check out these apps that take your boring old contact list and turn it into an engaging, iterating social network.

Everyone’s familiar with the contact exchange drill — we know it all too well. You meet, you trade numbers or names, you look new friends up on Facebook or Twitter, or get an email address if it’s a more professional meeting. With this ever-expanding list of people to manage, meet with, and remember, a new concept to turn address books into their own type of social network is sweeping the app ecosystem. So where can you turn for social-friendly contact lists? Here’s our hands on impression of a view options. 

Brewster

Brewster is a beautifully designed address book app that pulls in and combines contacts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, your address book, and your email client.

The information presented on your contact’s page (email addresses, phone numbers, where a person lives) is digestible and easily accessible. You can even call, text, or email them from within the app.

Right after signing up, you’re prompted to select your “Favorite” contacts. We recommend you select at least a few contacts for this list, if only to get rid of what’s otherwise a big empty white space every time you open the app. This is also a big part of Brewster’s function: Giving you quick, easily digestible information about your connections. 

The app focuses on maintaining your relationships. In the “Lists” tab, where contacts are curated, people that you haven’t talked to in a while are filed under “Losing Touch;” people that you talk to on a regular basis are found under “Frequently Contacted.” And you can even view the contacts that you have the “Most Mutual Connections” with.

Additional features include the latest updates about your contacts, including birthday reminders, updated cities, and group messaging.

Brewster is available on iOS devices. Check out our hands on impressions for more info. 

Ringya

Ringya is a privacy focused app and intentionally doesn’t automatically pull your contacts from your social networks and email account. In fact, you can only add individuals strictly from existing contacts on your smartphone’s address book. Adding contacts onto Ringya who aren’t on your phone already is tedious since you’re forced to plug in names manually one-by-one. But some of you might prefer an address book where you’re more likely to be selective with the contacts that you’re adding — and if you feel like your address book as is functions well for your contact needs, then you’re good to go.

The app isn’t the most visually appealing, however, and we were somewhat disappointed with the scarce information available on our contacts’ pages. The basic information like email address and phone number are there, but that’s about it.

To the app’s credit, group messaging is a cinch and it offers a unique feature that digitizes paper lists. You can digitize fifty names and email addresses from a piece of paper in one fell swoop by photographing the page with Ringya. The contact information on the page is processed and uploaded to your contact list. Users can also import lists of contacts from an Excel, Word, or PDF document.

Ringya is available on iOS devices.

Gather 

Gather is a newcomer among address book apps and hits the social approach hard, focused on interacting with your contacts. Gather is a social address book so connected with networking that it could be used as a limited third-party social media client. The app supports uploading contacts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your address book. Users can message, call, or email contacts through the app.

Gather’s emphasis on social media became more apparent while we tested out the app. There’s a personal newsfeed called “Message,” where you can read posts you’ve publish to your social networks as well as post content to LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

Gather shares a few similarities with Brewster. Under a tab titled “Compass” contacts are curated by default categories including your friends’ likes, companies, and location. And because Gather is focused on social, you can also view the “Image of the Day” or see the most discussed topics among your friends, supplied from your connections’ social networking posts and updates. 

As an added bonus, there are a few bells and whistles that heavy networkers and conference-goers might enjoy: Users can add contacts by scanning a business card or QR code, for instance.

Gather is available on iOS devices.

Youlu

Youlu was developed by a Chinese company based out of Beijing and is among the leading address book apps on the market. When you first dive in, the app is admittedly not the easiest to use. It packs an arsenal of features, and in general Youlu is best described as a hybrid between SMS messaging and an address book app, and the result makes it sort of a Jack of all trades, master of none.

Its address book features are nothing out of the ordinary, looping in email addresses, social media profiles, phone numbers, and offering options for calling, texting, as well as FaceTime access. The app even adds a QR code that’s associated with each of your contacts, which makes it easy to share their information with someone else.

There are a couple of features that users might find confusing about Youlu. The first is the far left navigation button on the app which opens up a traditional dial pad. But it isn’t used for making direct phone calls — instead it launches an in-app search engine for finding your contact by phone number or name. This ended up being more annoying than anything else. 

Second, updates made on the app aren’t automatically synced to your phone. Instead you’re required to manually sync the latest changes on Youlu, which then gets pushed to its cloud. For those of you spoiled by automated services, this alone might prove to be a turn off.

On the other hand if you’re interested in talking to your friends that also have Youlu installed, you can chat using its push-to-talk or text-based messaging service, share pictures, and invite up to 50 people to one group chat. But there are other messaging apps out there that offer a less confusing experience, like Whatsapp, Kik, and WeChat.

Youlu is available on Android, iOS, and Symbian OS devices.

Smartr

Smartr offers users a clean, easy-to-use interface, if being a bit unremarkable. Like many other address book apps, you can import contacts from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, and your phone address book. It connects all this information for your connections, and you can call, message, and email contacts using the app. But the powerful search engine under the hood makes up for where it’s unexceptional.

The homepage of the app displays a search engine where you can find contacts by company, company title, name, and email address. Where the app distinguishes itself is in explicit information that it’s able to pull about your relationship between you and your contacts. For example, an “analytics dashboard” displays the number of messages that have been exchanged between you and your contact, what it was you talked about during the first conversation, and the email threads that you’ve shared exclusively with them.

That feature alone is a powerful service, especially if you’re talking to new people on a daily basis. Smartr can help you remind you about the type of professional relationships you have with your contacts.

Smartr is available on Android, iOS, and BlackBerry.

The Verdict

If you’re looking for a productivity address book app where you’re looking to quickly index a large number of contacts (especially on paper) and send messages to the appropriate groups, Ringya might be your best bet.

Brewster is useful for managing existing relationships with our contacts. It’s a favorite of ours, but the caveat is that it’s currently only offered for iPhone.

If you frequent conferences and need a quick solution to publish posts to your social network, find trends in your contact’s social activity, or digitize a physical business card, Gather might suffice. However we found that the app was particularly slow to process our contact list and business cards.

Youlu, fails to provide a single feature worth using that we couldn’t find elsewhere. Searching for contacts on a traditional dial pad and manually syncing our updates to Youlu’s services is inconvenient, and the app doesn’t offer any dynamic features like algorithmically curating the address book. Its messaging service isn’t convincing us anytime soon to retreat from the messaging apps that we’re using already. For us there isn’t much here that other apps couldn’t offer us.

If we had to recommend an address book app, Smartr would be our pick. While the app is unremarkable, it manages our contacts with a robust algorithm and it’s stripped of bells and whistles while still getting the job done. Smartr is also available on three different types of operating systems, which can’t be said for the other four address book apps.

Apple can't catch a break these days, and Microsoft is more than happy to take advantage of the void in the spotlight. Meanwhile, mobile device owners have plenty to complain about regardless of brand. Plus the best apps and games of the week.

 The mobile market may be entering a brave new world in the coming years. New phones that improve upon old technology come out all the time, but those are little changes. We’re talking big things here — massive movements. There’s a lot of cases where companies stay within their own borders or region, whether it be with a service or a product. But not anymore. This week saw one of the biggest moves to unifying the global market. Our world will be rocked thanks to a cell phone that is powered by Coca-Cola. Take that, everyone who said corn syrup isn’t a viable fuel source. Oh, also Sprint was purchased by Japanese carrier Softbank, creating the world’s third largest mobile network. But seriously: Coke phone. This week: Apple’s looking forward to the future because it’s present isn’t going so well, Microsoft is hoping the near future holds lots of tablet sales, and current cell users just want to stop getting shafted now. All that plus the best apps and games from the week of October 14-19, 2012.

Apple can’t win…

Apple might be the most profitable company of all time, but man has it been missing its target lately. The iPhone 5 is a full month old now, but there are still people with their pockets filled with nothing but promises. International customers have it even worse than the American market, as Apple has halted its international rollout in countries not named in its initial launch. Until MacGyver makes his way into the Foxconn facility and starts putting together phones with paperclips and glue, we get the feeling the rollout won’t pick up, and Apple probably won’t talk about it either. It’s pretty fitting, as Apple’s been quiet about a lot of things lately. Most notably, the court-ordered statement that the Cupertino company has to make to inform consumers that Samsung did not copy the iPad. We’re going to go ahead and assume Apple’s October 23 announcement isn’t going to be a public apology. Even the latest acquisition of Apple is a bit of a blunder. Purchasing the remnants of Color Labs will bolster the Apple patent portfolio, but that company just has bad mojo.

Phone owners can’t win either

Early adopters of mobile technology are often the first to experience some of the fastest-changing advancements in consumer tech. The mobile industry moves fast, but some things might not be changing quick enough. For example, anyone with a smartphone or tablet that has 16GB or less of memory is probably starting to notice their device flash “System memory full” quicker than usual. We can thank the growing size of apps and games. While their functions are often improving, the size of these downloads has increased by 42% over the past 6 months. That takes a toll on memory. For Americans, it hits the wallet hard, too. Studies reveal that Americans pay a significant amount more for LTE networks than most countries. Sweden’s service costs 1/10th what U.S. providers charge, but their version of Siri is the Swedish Chef so it’s a trade off. 

Microsoft tries not to scratch Surface

Microsoft is doing its best to gain back some ground in the mobile game, and so far it appears to be working. The tech giant has been doing its best to make a case for its Surface tablet, and customers may be buying in. With a price tag comparable to the the iPad and an operating system that looks like it may be hip to be square, Microsoft executives may spend launch day doing more dancing than the Surface ads. Of course, not everyone is impressed. While the basic 32GB pre-order is now delayed three weeks, the models that come with the Touch Cover case are still available for the October 26 launch. Apple’s doing its best to rain on the parade with a press conference that is likely to be tablet related a few days before the Surface surfaces but other consumers just aren’t sold on it. Microsoft may be hoping that a voucher that reserves a Surface tablet on launch day will incentivize potential buyers, likely by showing them just how much more functional a tablet is in comparison to the piece of paper. Whatever it takes, guys.

Fresh New App of the Week

 

Muse Me (Free, iPhone) – Got a question about an outfit your putting together or a a purchase you’re going to make? Let your friends be your better judgement with Muse Me. This app allows you to take a picture of anything that you’re trying to decide between — shoes, brands of yogurt, paintings — and put them to a vote. Assuming your friends don’t lead you astray, this app will help you make those tough choices that may require a second opinion…or third, or fourth, or fifth.

Ever2Drop ($2, iPhone) – Get the full potential out of EverNote and DropBox by combining their functionalities with this helpful tool. 

BeatBang (Free, Android) – An interactive map that takes users through the history of electronic music with samples, stories, and in-depth backgrounds of the popular genre.

Fresh New Game of the Week 

Carmageddon ($2, iOS) – Carmageddon skips over all the waiting and teasing that comes with normal racing games and gets right to the heart of what we all truly want: giant, explosive crashes. Based on a PC game from the late ’90′s, Caramgeddon makes a come back on the portable screen of your iOS device. With tons of cars and environments to totally destroy, you can experience every part of the game that was once banned around the world. Like you need a bigger selling point, you rebel.

Hum This (Free, iOS/Android) – Part Draw Something, part name that tune. Hum a song and send it off to a friend to see if they can guess it. 

Cracking Sands ($3, Windows Phone) – Take the road less travelled with this off-road racer. There are no laws or rules on these roads–just do what it takes to win.