Sick of just being a name associated with old, out-of-date means of photography, Polaroid may have found a way back into the fray. A plan to open retail stores where consumers can edit and print out photos from their smartphones and online services will begin next month, with the first store opening in Florida.

Polaroid has managed to exist long after the instant film camera went out of style. Now the company finally has the opportunity to return to its forte. Polaroid is preparing to launch retail stores, called Polaroid Fotobar, that will allow people to edit and print photos from their smartphones.

The company plans to open ten of the Fotobars over the course of 2013 with the first set to open its doors to the public next month in Delray Beach, Florida. The concept is to essentially allow passers-by to walk in, wirelessly send photos from their phone or access them from their social network accounts, and make edits like red-eye removal or adding a filter on the desktop workstations, and print off the finished product.

One of the biggest selling points of the Fotobar is the amount of options available on each step of the process. Sources for images can range from the camera on a mobile device to the photos stored in apps like Instagram and Picasa or shared on Facebook. Editing options will allow for customization in contrast and brightness, along with other means of image manipulation. The picture can be printed on various material like metal or bamboo and then can be framed in any variety of ways. Finished products are shipped out from the Fotobar within 72 hours of completion. Not quite as instant as the original Polaroid cameras, but we’re betting it looks a little nicer.

Plans for the Fotobar don’t seem to stop just at printing pictures. Polaroid appears to want the stores to function as a sort of an analog-style art resurgence, with fine art hanging on the wall as inspiration, an extra studio room for classes, and experts in store to offer tips to customers during their photo development.

While Polaroid is still a notable name in photography, it’s been awhile since the company has really been relevant. Perhaps the Fotobar, along with its new digital cameras, will be its first step back into the mainstream, as we’re sure the company isn’t surviving on hipsters buying vintage cameras from thrift stores.

The Nintendo 3DS has been impressively secure since its release in 2011, protected from the piracy that plagued the Nintendo DS. Members of the Nintendo homebrew community now claim they've cracked the system, paving the way for bootleggers.

The honeymoon is over for the Nintendo 3DS. The Nintendo handheld’s greatest success to date hasn’t been turning around its sales performance after needing a massive price cut six months after its 2011 launch. Where the 3DS has soared compared it the original DS is in its blocking of piracy. Developers abandoned the Nintendo DS even though the device is the best selling video game hardware in history because of rampant piracy through R4 flash carts and other devices that worked around the device’s security. The Nintendo 3DS has been safe to date, but now the handheld has been hacked, opening the door for pirate software.

It all started on Dec. 16 when console hacker Yellows8 posted images online of a Nintendo 3DS displaying a screen reading, “We hacked it!” The 3DS in question was running the most recent firmware released by Nintendo which the company has said is the most secure to date. At the time, the hacked 3DS could only display text and members of the 3DS homebrew community believed the exploitable aspects of the 3DS’ firmware could be fixed immediately with another patch at Nintendo.

On Sunday, though, homebrewers showed that they’ve already made significant progress with the device, posting images of homemade code producing images on both of the 3DS’ screens. While many celebrated the cracking of Nintendo 3DS because it would allow the device to run homemade software as well as allow players to work around regional restrictions to play import games, others noted that this means the Nintendo 3DS would be vulnerable to the same piracy that plagued its predecessor.

“Piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe,” said Renegade Kid’s Jools Watsham. Watsham created 3DS eShop title Mutant Mudds as well as DS shooters like Dementium and Moon. “We’ll never know how/if Dementium II landed in as many hands as the first game, Dementium: The Ward due to the rampant piracy at the time. Dementium: The Ward sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide, which is a great success for an original mature-rated title on the DS. Recorded sales of Dementium II are less than half that.”

“If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games. Some say that piracy leads to more game sales, claiming that it enables players to try before they buy. Bullshit… If these hackers really want to mess with the guts of a 3DS, why not become legit developers for it and let the world enjoy their talents?”

Nintendo declared the 3DS piracy free in September with the release of firmware version 4.4.0-10U. “While some acts of piracy are still possible in its DS-compatibility mode, as we had to ensure that the Nintendo DS software could still be played on the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo 3DS itself still maintains a robust security system, even after this much time has passed since its launch.” Now the company has to go back to the drawing board.

With sci-fi developments like Tobii's Rex camera becoming more common, it could be just a matter of time before the mouse and trackpad are consigned to the trashcan.

For those of you who have found the touch controls of the Windows 8 interface troublesome, Tobii has a new approach for navigating your computer. According to Engadget, Tobii is launching Rex, an eye-tracking camera that can be used to control a machine running the latest Microsoft OS. 

The eye-tracking technology will work with the full range of Windows 8 computers, from tablets to hybrid laptops to desktops. About the size of a pen, the USB-connected camera attaches to the bottom of your monitor. Rex is meant to be used with a trackpad and mouse, so you won’t be able to toss those in the trash just yet. The mouse gives a greater degree of control over the clicking and selection, but your eyes do most of the broad navigational motions. The product is built on Tobii’s Gaze UI, which debuted similar features of eye control for a proprietary Windows 8 laptop last year. 

The bar-shaped Rex bears more than a passing resemblance to Microsoft’s Kinect. The Kinect has been touted as a tool for the military and for doctors, but it seems unlikely that Microsoft hasn’t considered the potential to link up the motion sensor with its own computers. In fact, Surface general manager Panos Panay said during an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit that Microsoft used Xbox 360 controllers with the Surface tablet, but had not tested out Kinect for that purpose. With the extra competition from Tobii to push Windows 8′s navigation into new territory, perhaps the Microsoft crew will be more interested in developing alternative approaches to controls. 

Rex is currently only available as a special edition for developers at a price of $995 through the company’s website. Tobii said it anticipates making 5,000 consumer units available later this year. The price point for the consumer model will need to be significantly cheaper because, despite the serious coolness factor, the audience for a Windows 8-only device is pretty limited. It will be interesting to see if and when similar eye control setups appear for other computer models and operating systems. 

Skeptics thought Torchlight 2 might suffer thanks to its proximity to Diablo 3, but the Runic Games dungeon crawler has done quite well, selling 1 million copies in its first three months.

When we look back at 2012, we remember at as the year of Kickstarter, the year of the indie game like Fez, the year of the indie mod-cum-standalone official game like DayZ. Really though, 2012 was the year of Diablo. Blizzard’s dungeon crawler returned to the prominence it held over a decade ago. Not just because of Diablo 3 either. The minds behind that series returned to the format big time, developing upcoming titles like Marvel Heroes and major hits like Torchlight 2. Nothing demonstrates the popularity of the loot crawl like Torchlight 2’s success. The game has sold 1 million copies after just three months.

Developer Runic Games announced the milestone on Monday to celebrate the close of a big year.

“We had an amazing 2012, and proud to say that Torchlight 2 has sold over 1 million units!” said the studio on Twitter.

The original Torchlight, released at the tail end of 2009, was also a success but at its current pace the sequel is set to outpace its predecessor by a wide margin. Torchlight didn’t hit 500,000 copies sold until six months after its initial downloadable release. It wasn’t until July 2011, nearly two years after that release and following a retail PC release, a Mac version, and an Xbox Live Arcade edition, that the game hit the 1 million sold milestone. Torchlight 2 has sold 1 million copies as a PC-only game, though, and Runic has no plans to port the game to consoles this time around.

There was some worry that Torchlight 2 wouldn’t connect with gamers, predominantly because it was releasing so close to Diablo 3. Runic originally announced Torchlight 2 as a spring 2011 game before delaying it until July 2011 and then later into 2012, closer to when Blizzard would unleash its years-in-development sequel. Runic founders Max and Eric Schaefer, two of the minds behind original Diablo studio Blizzard North, actually found that the huge popularity of Diablo 3 helped their game. “We’re doing pre-sales on Steam, and the day Diablo 3 released they shot up by 40 percent,” said Max Schaefer in an interview this past summer, “They’re bringing in lots of people into this genre, and people are becoming aware of what we’re doing through them. We’re kind of piggybacking on their marketing.”

What’s next for Runic? There are “no plans” for a console version of Torchlight 2 and the plan to make a Torchlight MMO has been junked. “We really need to take a break,” said Runic’s Marsh Lefler, “Something slightly different will be nice. We still love RPGs, especially action ones.”