Filed under: Gaming

When you’re out trawling for a copy of the rapidly selling out Rock Band, you may run into a cheap knock-off or two of the rhythm game genre. Our tipster spotted several units including a Guitar and DDR imitation in Macy’s, and a Drum game in another store. All of them plug directly into a TV, but none are particularly cheap at around $40 each. The usual target audience for these kind of gadgets are unsuspecting parents looking for a present for the kids, so make sure you include a rigorous education program in the perils of game rip-offs when you hand in your holiday wish-list.

[Thanks, Seth]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: PlayStation Network, e-Distribution Games, Game Patches

InsideGamer has somehow unearthed images from the upcoming Warhawk expansion, Operation: Omega Dawn. The screenshots reveal a brand new vehicle: the KT-424 Combat Dropship transports 1 pilot, 6 soldiers and 1 ground vehicle and includes a new weapon, the MBEC-3 Heavy Support Cannon. A new level, the Omega Battlefield, will include 5 map layouts.

Screenshots also reveal new lighting for the older levels, and new nighttime missions sound too good to pass up. Hopefully, we’ll get more details of this upcoming expansion soon.

[Via NeoGAF]

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Google and Paypal are waging a war this Xmas to convince online shoppers to use their system for paying for online purchases:

This year, Google is offering two frequent-flier miles on any of seven airlines (all the majors except American) for every $1 spent. It also offers $5 to $50 discounts, with minimum purchase, at several dozen merchants … PayPal has fewer merchants but its offer is more lucrative for shoppers in some ways, with 20 percent of purchases credited to the buyer’s PayPal account.

Are incentives like these going to convince you to try one system over the other? And what incentives are you offering visitors to your sites this holiday season?

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Action, Casting, Fandom, Scripts, James Bond, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Daniel Craig

Coming Soon has a new interview with Daniel Craig, and he’s talking Bond 22. The script is done, and filming is expected to start very soon to avoid conflict with a possible Screen Actors Guild strike (different from the WGA strike — ay caramba!). Craig confirms that Bond 22 immediately follows the events of Casino Royale, and praises director Marc Forster, saying, “If you look at Forster’s current body of work, that in itself makes me very excited. If you look at Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, and then Kite Runner, which is just stunning, it’s such a diverse look at the world, I’d want us to have that. Marc is very solid.”

You Ian Fleming fans might be disappointed with one tidbit from the interview — Craig says the new script isn’t based on Fleming’s work at all: “There’s nothing left, as far as I know.” As for Craig’s controversial mention of adding Roger Moore-style “humor” to the new Bond, Craig insists he was “lying,” and adds “I’m not going to shy away from the fact that occasionally there should be humor. I just don’t like gags. I don’t like written gags. That’s not the way I’ve ever liked working and I don’t think that’s funny myself.” And Craig fans can rest easy, he says he’s totally game for another Bond, as well as a sequel to the soon-to-be-released and surprisingly controversial The Golden Compass. There is no Compass sequel script yet, but there is an outline Craig says is “pretty good.” Just pretty good? Show us a little enthusiasm there, DC! The Golden Compass releases December 7th, Bond 22 on November 7th, 2008.

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King Midas decided to drop by Casio’s factory and gave the G-011BD-9AVER G-Shock model a touch, and while you won’t be able to pawn this off and get a reasonable amount for it, at least you can be assured of the traditional G-Shock qualities such as shock-, vibration- and water-resistant (up to 200 meters for the latter) with the G-011BD-9AVER. Features include stainless steel bands and multi-dial displays. The gold G-011BD-9AVER G-Shock timepiece can be picked up for £180.

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Filed under: Newspapers, Google (GOOG)

Peter Lynch called it diworsification: the hubris that overtakes a management team that has been successful, and convinces them that they can achieve similar success by branching into new industries. For Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), we can just call it “renewable energy”.

According to the New York Times, Google will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to hire engineers and energy experts. This raise three important questions: What the heck? Why are they doing this? and What are they thinking?

I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but this is sort of reminiscent of Enron. While that company will mainly remembered for the lessons it taught about accounting fraud, internal controls and the importance of investor skepticism, Enron’s descent into fraud began as a business failure. Having developed a strong niche as a natural gas trader, Enron decided it could do anything: Trade water, bandwidth, build power plants, etc. The problem was that Enron had no expertise in any of those fields (something competitors were well aware of, and sought to exploit), and the ventures led to huge losses. Of course, Enron used creative accounting to hide those losses and you know the rest.

I’m not saying Google is Enron. But investors should be on the lookout for signs of management hubris that could cause a company to stray from its core competency. Google investing in renewable energy looks like a great example of that.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

Apparently Blockbuster Video is wooing mobile device makers in an attempt to make mobile video content consumption a little easier on the consumers. While no names were specifically mentioned, Blockbuster CEO James Keyes did say that they were in talks with virtually all major handset manufacturers. We’ve no clue how the vids will be delivered if this gets off the ground, but wouldn’t be too averse to downloading flicks on the device if the file size — and data tariffs — could be kept sane. Mr Keyes went on to say that he’s started watching films on his BlackBerry thanks to a little technical help from a Blockbuster employee and from Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion. Of course, we’re sure the technical help mentioned didn’t have anything to do with DVD Decrypter and the illegal copying of DVDs, right guys?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt walked out of the Yerawada Jail after a 37-day stay behind the bars.
Dressed in a white kurta and a pair of blue jeans, Dutt seemed very happy as he waved to the crowd that had thronged to have a glimpse of the ‘Munnabhai’ and did not interact with the media or […]

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Filed under: Cell Phones, Green Tech

Kim Hoon, the doctor who examined the dead man’s body, said that the man’s ribs and spine were broken. According to Hoon’s report, the explosion — and resulting shrapnel — damaged his heart and lungs, leading to his death.

LG, a South Korean company that manufactures phones in both Asia and the United States, hasn’t said a word yet about which phone or battery model caused the explosion, but we’re hoping they will let that information out soon in case recalls are necessary. It’s entirely possible that the phone isn’t at fault at all — the worker was in a quarry, presumably chock-full of water and other minerals that could react with a cell phone battery. [In an update the AP posted after its initial story, scientists say that the injuries are too extreme to have been caused by a lone cell phone battery, but final results won’t be known for 15 days).

That said, this death is very similar to another exploding-phone death we recently covered, in which a Chinese welder was killed when his battery exploded, broke through his ribcage, and sent phone and bone shrapnel into his heart.

We have covered a surprising number of cell phone-related deaths in the past year, though just how much a cell phone is actually involved in each case and how much has to do with pre-existing conditions or just plain human stupidity varies with each case. Here’s a brief list of the most recent:

• Cell Phone Battery Explodes, Kills Chinese Worker: In this strikingly similar case, a Chinese man was found with a melted cell phone in his shirt pocket.
• Cell Phone Blamed for Train Death: Paying attention to your cell phone while crossing train tracks: not a good idea.
• Teen Struck by Train While Text Messaging: Once again, cell phones and trains do not mix.
• Kid Drowns in Lake After Trying to Rescue Sinking Cell Phone: Sometimes it’s best to just let the cell phone go.

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From AOL News

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Filed under: News

Sega has released an updated release schedule that goes to the end of the fiscal year and if they’re serious about these dates, we’ll have two fairly anticipated games to enjoy come February by Sega alone (we’ll also be diving into Devil May Cry 4 around that time).

First off, Sega will be bringing The Club to us, courtesy of Bizarre Creations, on February 8th. Soon after that, scheduled for the month of February but given no specific day, is Condemned 2. It looks like February is going to be another month where we find our money flying out the window, much like how November has been. If you’re unsure what either game is, the former is a mish-mash of genre, and the latter is a pretty intense horror/action game.

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