Spotted at PAX, someone managed to get this sneaky picture (and a whole load more) of a whole new set of achievements for Halo 3, which are based on the recent Heroic and Legendary map packs, as well as an as-yet unannounced map pack which may or may not have something to do with this.

The achievements total an extra 750 points, and here’s a complete list thanks to a post on Ascendant Justice, a Halo 3 fan forum:

Read the rest of this entry »

Say hello to the Raon Everun Note. It’s a 7″ UMPC/mini-netbook/micro-note, which features a built-in SIM slot for 3G access as well as the expected bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity options. It’s pictured above next to the already surprisingly tiny 10″ EeePC.

Read the rest of this entry »

Much-anticipated Xbox Live Arcade game Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball will be releasing today, Microsoft has announced. We’ll be getting two other games as well, but with PvN finally releasing I’m guessing that they’ll be getting less than their fair share of attention. The games are:

• Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball, a game that involves pirates, ninjas, robots, and a few other teams going head-to-head in the ancient art of dodgeball in various comedy settings. It’s selling for 800 MS Points.
• Shred Nebula, a space shooter type game which uses the Robotron dual-stick controls (much like the recent Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2). Also supports 8 player multiplayer over Live. 800 MS Points.
• Gin Rummy, the game of the game. The card game, in fact. Not much more to say about this one, so even Microsoft didn’t bother to make a page about it. It’ll cost 400 MS Points.

So there you have it. A pretty good week for XBLA, and with Castle Crashers, Braid, and Geometry Wars 2 in our recent memories, perhaps gamers are starting to love the service again. I know I am.

How cool is the ad for Mercenaries 2? Very cool, that’s how cool. There’s a making-of documentary here, and you can even download the special full-length mix of the rather catchy ‘Oh No You Didn’t’ song from Pandemic Studios’ website here if you so wish.

(thanks Bubba!)

Here’s a great idea, a handheld console that takes all of those little “TV Game” things you can get and turns them into cartridges for one mega-handheld. It’s based on a Gameboy Advance, among many other things.

Technologically it’s quite an impressive feat, but this guy really should hire some sort of designer as this baby has the kind of looks that only a mother could love. Still, I think we can overlook that and appreciate the sheer retro gaming powerhouse that this monster has become.

Check out the build pictures on the modder’s homepage here.

(via)

If you’re looking for something a little different to plonk your arse on, something that’s a chair and also a talking point, then perhaps you should check out this creation by Pli Design. It’s made from 9 old Playstation 2 consoles which have been melted down, saving 2.4KG of plastic from going into landfill.

It’s known as a Reee chair, for reasons only known to themselves, and disassembles for easy storage. You can get yours from swanky UK high street department store Selfridges for £100 starting on September 10th, although for that price you could probably buy 9 PS2’s with dead DVD drives on eBay and melt them down yourself.

(via)

Since Asus’ hugely popular EeePC was released, it seems like every major hardware manufacturer has entered the ‘netbook’ fray with their own similar, yet slightly unique, visions of the low-cost ultraportable form factor.

Well, now it seems like born-again retro gaming company Commodore are also after their slice of the pie with this neat-looking little laptop known as the UMMD 8010/F. It’s based on Via’s C7-M processor, and features a 10in screen, 1GB RAM and an 80GB HDD (presumably mechanical rather than SSD). It also comes with built-in wi-fi and bluetooth, as is to be expected from these new-fangled mobile systems.

It’ll be availabe in October for £325 (about $600), making it one of the pricier examples out there, but it does come with that 10″ screen after all. The price also includes Windows XP, as apparently there won’t be a Linux version available at all.

(picture credit)

Meet HAL.

Who is HAL?

I am glad you asked, and the good people over at Ai Research have, regarding their interesting project, provided us with an answer:

“Artificial Intelligence Research (Ai) presents HAL: The Virtual Child: A software program capable of acquiring language like a child: Through practice and training, trial and error. HAL was developed based on the principles established by Alan Turing over half a century ago, in line with Turing’s own recipe for true AI: Build a “child machine”, a learning algorithm capable of learning from experience, and teach it to speak along the same developmental milestones demonstrated in language acquisition by human infants.”

Is that right? That’s not how I remember it!

I distinctly remember a wonderful movie by the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey offering us a slightly different take on the matter!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea that there are some individuals out there who dedicate their lives to research into artificial intelligence and if you happen to have an interest in this area I highly recommend visiting their site, but ignore the warnings in fictional works at your peril!

Just have a look at the language used in the excerpt above, it’s warm, friendly, and cuddly. When you read “Virtual Child”, “acquiring language like a child”, “child machine”, “human infants”, it makes you feel better, doesn’t it?

Sure, it’s all fun and games, until a computer goes rogue and starts killing people!

This geek-tastic T-Shirt from Threadless brings back many happy memories of those old wireframe Atari games of yore. It’s just a shame that this specific game, known as “Playing God”, never actually existed. I’m guessing that the old arcade cabs couldn’t handle this kind of poly count anyway.

(via)

Looks like Google’s ongoing plan for world domination is coming together quite nicely. Yesterday, a leaked comic revealed the existence (and quite technical inner workings) of a web browser from the company, due to be released today. It uses the popular WebKit rendering engine, which is well-known for its speed and efficiency.

The browser will also feature an interesting twist on the tab-based interface, with the tabs at the top of the screen, a unique Java Virtual Machine (re-written from the ground up) which doesn’t freeze up the computer while Java apps are loading, and some very interesting tweaks under the hood.

These tweaks include things like running each tab as a seperate process to minimise system instabaility, as well as much improved memory management over current browsers. Chrome is completely open source, meaning that developers can expand and improve upon it as they wish, and even use Chrome technology in their own projects.

A Windows-only beta will be released later today, with Mac and Linux versions soon to follow. The screenshot above was featured on the Google Chrome site, which has since been taken down. The site is expected re-launch to coincide with Google’s press conference at 11am PDT (7pm BST) today.