Posted 07/04/09 at 01:07:37 AM by Nathan Grayson

Sometimes, crying is ok – like when a loved one dies or it’s your party. Bawling like a little girl, though? Well, that’s only permitted when Tim Schafer’s involved. Typically, of course, Mr. Schafer’s games turn on the waterworks by sending players into fits of laughter thunderous enough to awake even your newly deceased loved one. But now, he’s finally got us blubbering out of sincere grief. Why? Because Brutal Legend is a console exclusive.

Eurogamer asked Schafer why he’d make such a glaring omission, to which he replied:

“Well it's really an action game, that when you play it you'll see that it was meant to be on a console."

However, all hope isn’t lost just yet. While a PC version may not be in development at the moment, Schafer neither confirmed nor denied the possibility of such a port in the future.
 
“We are really focused on the Xbox 360 and PS3 version right now,” he said.
 
Pray to the rock gods, people. It’s all we can do at this point. And if you think that’s sacrilege, well, look at it this way: The normal gods didn’t give you Brutal Legend on the PC. What have you got to lose? 

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6

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gaming, Software, news, Electronic Arts, Brutal Legend, Double Fine Productions

Posted 07/03/09 at 05:45:33 PM by Paul Lilly

After several delays and a lot of anticipation, Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox 3.5, officially joining the next-generation of browser wars where heavy focus has been put on JavaScript performance. But is the new browser ready for prime-time?

Due to the number of complaints users have been posting -- ranging from longer load times to intermittent crashes believed to be a result of the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine -- Mozilla has issued a community "BugDay" set for July 7 to stomp out the bugs.

"We will try to narry down any important bugs that were missed, or were regressions from Firefox 3.5, and get them into a point update quickly," reads a post on quality.mozilla.org.

Some 55 known bugs exist in the latest release, some of which will be addressed in Firefox 3.5.1 expected to be released by the end of the month.

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17

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Software, browser, Mozilla, bug fix, firefox 3.5, bugday

Posted 07/03/09 at 05:29:22 PM by Andy Salisbury

Until now, it was assumed that Microsoft would only sell single license versions of Windows 7. But, thanks to a recent discovery in the latest license agreement, there’s some evidence suggesting otherwise.

In section two, there’s a new clause that clearly details a family pack, which will allow you to “install one copy of the software marked as ‘Family Pack’ on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there.” Which, for those keeping score, would finally let them combat Apple in this particular field.

Still, there’s no official word from Microsoft on pricing or availability, or if this is even true.

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5

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windows, microsoft, Software, apple, windows 7

Posted 07/03/09 at 05:19:54 PM by Paul Lilly

Many of our readers were taken off-guard when we rated Norton Internet Security 2009 a 9/Kickass in last year's antivirus roundup, and we even admit to being surprised at Norton's transformation from a resource-heavy sloth to a lean and competent antimalware package. We hope the trend continues, and we'll have a chance to see if it does now that Symatec has released beta versions of its upcoming 2010 releases to the public.

The new version features a new protection model codenamed Quorum and will put a heavier focus on reputation-based malware detection. While it won't replace existing signature-based detection for known threats, Norton says the reputation model can detect zero-day malware that's never been seen before.

"Our new approach changes the rules by both enhancing traditional security techniques to make them more aggressvie and by making it dramatically more difficult for attackers to evade detection by simply changing their malware," said Rowan Trollope, Symantec senior vice president, Consumer Business Unit.

Other features include an overhaul to parental control and spam filtering, more detailed information provided by Norton Insight, which identifies known good programs for faster scanning, and a new feature called Autopsy, which is designed to help the user understand what just happened when Norton automatically removes an infection.

Norton Internet Security 2010 Beta
Norton Antivirus 2010 Beta

Had a chance to try either one of these out? Hit the jump and let us know about it!

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0

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Software, Security, antivirus, antimalware, norton, AV, symantec, internet security 2010

Posted 07/02/09 at 12:10:48 PM by Nathan Grayson

Last week was just full of surprises. (RIP, all.) Thankfully, though, one shining, heroic force swooped in to save the world from snowballing into complete unpredictability. That final bastion of normalcy – that conqueror of chaos -- was, of course, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

The film – which starred explosions, Shia Labeouf, and explosions (but unfortunately, not Shia Labeouf exploding) – defiantly dodged negative reviews, negative word of mouth, and a near-negative Metacritic score to gross $112,000,000 in its opening weekend. Yep – nothing like a vapid, needless summer blockbuster to restore your faith in the world by destroying your faith in humanity. The movie’s success, though? Not surprising in the least. It’s a loud, action-packed film with more carnage than meaningful dialog. It’s simple, easily digested cheese. People eat that stuff up.

But then, no one expected Transformers to tug at our heartstrings and revolutionize storytelling as we know it. That’d just be silly; I mean, it’s a movie about robots fighting. Clearly, all eyes here are focused on the action – no time to roll them at the plot.

So then, how come we often expect tear-jerking, thought-provoking tales from big-budget videogames with premises nearly as dramatically inhospitable as Transformers? Why do we expect triple-A videogames – which, at this point, are quickly sneaking into movie territory in terms of development costs – to mold angry men, gunfire, and shrapnel into spellbinding tales when our prior buying tastes (see, for instance: Transformers) have shown that all we want is a loose thread to hold the action together? Especially when other story genres (you know, anything that's not action) lend themselves far better to interesting plots, untethered by the need for a five-minute shootout every six minutes?

Transform and roll past the break for more. 

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3

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gaming, Software, columns, transformers, BioShock 2, Braid, The Passage

Posted 07/02/09 at 11:59:25 AM by Gordon Mah Ung

Get Robert Stack on the phone! In what could be the greatest tech unsolved mystery since the disappearance of Intel’s Tejas, someone has kidnapped Premiere Elements 5.0 and 6.0!

Just kidding. There’s no crime here unless you believe that it’s flat-out wrong for Adobe to jump from version 4.0 to version 7.0 just to ensure that Premiere Elements matches version numbers with Photoshop Elements 7.0.

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1

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Software, Adobe, reviews, Premiere Elements 7.0

Posted 07/02/09 at 11:38:23 AM by Paul Lilly

If solid state drives (SSDs) are to ultimately replace standard hard disk drives (HDDs) as the default storage option, they're going to have to do it the old fashioned way - by offering a better, or at least comparable, bang for buck.

Because Windows 7 offers better support for SSDs than either Vista or XP, it was thought that Microsoft's upcoming OS might help bolster SSD sales and push the flash-based storage medium further into the mainstream. But this isn't likely to happen, say notebook vendors, who point out that the price gap between SSDs and HDDs is still too large.

SSDs currently check in at about $4-5 per GB, whereas HDDs cost less than $0.50 per GB, and that includes some higher end models. And despite rapid advancements in SSDs, it might be another three years before HDDs are finally dethroned.

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4

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operating system, Software, storage, OS, ssd, solid state drive, windows 7

Posted 07/02/09 at 09:59:09 AM by Paul Lilly

Panda Security's free Cloud Antivirus, released in beta form just a couple of months back, has apparently been well received with "millions" of downloads. Based on feedback from those who have participated, Panda this week released the second beta for what it refers to as the first free cloud-based antivirus thin client.

Several new features and fixes have been added to the newest beta, some of which include:

• Undo option for the Recycle Bin to recover deleted detections for a period of 3 days in case of false positives
• Synchronous real-time Cloud scan
• A response control mechanism that prevents programs from executing before they can be scanned
• Background and on-demand scans no longer run simultaneously, improving overall scan times

For a full list of fixes of changes, as well as download instructions, see here.

No word yet on when the final release of Version 1.0 will go live, however Panda did say it plans to release a third beta sometime around September.

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3

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Software, Security, antivirus, cloud, panda