At the E3 gaming expo this week, Nintendo unveiled its next console, the Wii U. The device will deliver far better graphics than the company’s current console, as well as a new controller that dazzled crowds and made many wonder if this would be the future of gaming as we know it.
Starting on Monday, the biggest gaming event of the year, E3, will kick off in Los Angeles. Each year, the event is home to major announcements, new games, and all kinds of gaming-related news that will have a direct impact on our lives in the coming months and years.
Nintendo is arguably the most beloved game company in the world. For years now, it has delivered lovable characters, like Mario and Link, outstanding hardware, like the SNES and Wii, and some of the best games to hit store shelves. Its fans are dedicated to the company, and with each new device it launches, they’re more than willing to stand in line to get one.
There’s a whole lot riding on Windows 8. Windows 7 may be the big player on the desktop, but when it comes to tablets Microsoft has carved itself a niche in the corner. The company has arguably been the longest proponent of the tablet form-factor – Windows XP Tablet Edition was released almost nine years ago – but in recent years its stylus-centric hardware has failed to gain traction amid iOS and Android models. Now, with its first demonstration of how Windows 8 will handle this new generation of tableteers, Microsoft is setting out its stall for where it sees the slate segment developing. Finger on the pulse or just plain out of touch?
What is a friend? Has the definition of friend changed since the dawn of the social network? Are we now friends with people whom we might have ignored years ago? There was a point when I thought of my Facebook friends list as a collection, and I tried to gather as many friends as I could. I even thought of it as a competition, trying to ‘friend’ more people than my best friend. You don’t have to tell me why that was a stupid idea, I already wrote a column saying as much. CNN recently published an article from a former Facebook employee. He has created a new social network that only allows you to have 50 friends. I pared back from about 350 people to just under 200, and I could still probably cut a few more and hardly notice, but mostly because they are inactive on Facebook, not because I don’t want to hear from them. But now I think it’s time to stop cutting. It’s time to take a step back and think about what truly makes a person a friend.
“Chris, I have bad news,” my email starts. I’m sitting in front of my computer, and my room is a mess. My face is dimpled and red. “I messed up,” I continue, “I really messed up. There might be no movie review next week.” I’m about to hit send. My head is hung in shame.
Maybe it was too many Transformers toys when I was younger, or because I have a frustrated engineer inside me, but I – like plenty of others – can’t take my eyes off the ASUS Padfone. The new tablet/smartphone hybrid, fresh (after a leak or two) to Computex 2011 this morning, taps into a geeky, childish “slot this gadget into that gadget and make it better overall” mindset that also left us jonesing for an ATRIX after CES. Question is, after the lust fades, does the reality the Padfone offers actually bear up?
When Sony’s PlayStation Network service was hacked in April and the company was forced to take it offline until earlier this month, there were many gamers out there that were upset to see it go. Those gamers had been playing online titles for quite some time on their PlayStation 3 devices, and if they didn’t have an Xbox 360, they didn’t have a worthwhile online-gaming experience to turn to.
Amazon and B&N are taking pot-shots at each other this week, each competing on whose ereader lasts longest. As ereaders gain in popularity and become more mainstream, too, I’m increasingly asked which model I’d go for and, more often, whether I’d pay extra for those with integrated 3G or save my money and opt for WiFi-only instead. Funnily enough, my stance on 3G ereaders is the complete opposite of my thoughts on 3G tablets.
As someone who streams Netflix content through several different devices, including my HDTV, the iPad, and others, I recently decided to give some other streaming offerings a chance to win my affection. My first choice among the many out there was Hulu Plus.
Now, I should note that I’ve used Hulu quite often. While I’m having lunch, I’ve been known to surf to Hulu’s Web site and watch some episodes of shows I might have missed recently. I guess you could say that I’ve been a Hulu veteran for quite some time now.
In-N-Out opened in Dallas this month. I was in Korea on business when it happened, but as soon as I returned I decided to swing by and get a burger. The restaurant opened early in the week. I showed up on Saturday to a line of cars that was probably a half mile long, at least. That was just the drive-through. The line of people outside on a gorgeous Texas spring day was more than a hundred strong. Maybe you heard about all of this. Maybe you saw the woman crying tears of joy at the opening of a new fast food restaurant. It did make national news, after all.
As you know from my columns here on SlashGear, I’m a bit of a technology fanatic. Whether it’s a boring external hard drive or an oh-so-exciting HDTV, I’m always willing to get my hands on the latest and great products tech firms have to offer.
But as of late, I’ve come across a surprisingly large number of people who have taken issue with my mentality on buying tech goodies. They say that buying gadgets too soon is a huge mistake, since the kinks aren’t necessarily worked out just yet. And the idea of buying worthwhile options now makes little sense to them, since they’ll become “obsolete” in no time.
