Hasta La Gadget!

EA has announced something that a lot of gamers out there will not appreciate. EA CFO Blake Jorgensen was recently at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference and noted during a speech he gave the EA would be building micro-transactions into all PC and console games it makes. While some gamers like micro transactions, others see it as a sort of legalized way to cheat.

Micro-transactions typically allow players to do things like upgrade weapons and buy better game items to help them compete without actually having to earn them in the game. A bit of controversy has been swirling around the game Dead Space 3 because it uses micro-transactions for upgrading weapons. Many gamers probably won’t have a problem with micro-transactions as long as you don’t have to spend money to be able to progress in the game.

Being able to pay real money to get a weapon earlier as long as you can still get the weapon by traditional means in the game might not be such a bad thing for gamers on single player titles. Much of the controversy around micro-transactions for EA has centered on Dead Space 3, but EA has offered micro-transactions on other titles in the past. Specifically, micro-transactions where offered in the Mass Effect 3 multiple player game.

The company has also offered the ability to purchase car packs in games like Need for Speed for a long time allowing players to unlock better vehicles well before they would be able to via game play alone. The problem many people have specifically with Dead Space 3 and the way micro-transactions are handled is that some feel the game is made to guide players towards spending real money on upgrades.

[via EuroGamer]

EA will bundle micro-transactions into all PC and console games is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Trust. It’s a valuable commodity. But serial twitter-sleuth evleaks has done enough to earn ours for this latest leak. A Windows Phone 8 device — apparently known internally as the Tiara — which will be one of the first to run the next revision of the mobile operating system (GDR2). With a reported 4.3-inch display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera and 1GB of RAM, it bears more than a resemblance to another recent addition to the HTC fold. If you had hopes that it might also borrow from the firm’s latest Android flagship design, then sorry to dash them, as the sources suggest otherwise. The Tiara moniker is unlikely to remain, with evleaks taking a stab at it coming to market mid-May, possibly as the HTC 8W. Not a bad guess. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if all that trust is truly well placed.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: Unwired View

When it comes to Android smartphones Samsung makes some of the best out there. The company’s Galaxy S III is one of the best smartphones on the market and has sold in huge numbers for Samsung. That smartphone is also one of the strongest competitors to the iPhone from Apple.

Word has continue to circulate that Samsung is set to launch the next Galaxy S smartphone. While we don’t know exactly what hardware will be featured or what the specifications for the device will be, we do now know when it will be unveiled. Samsung has offered up a tweet, which you can see above, inviting everyone to the launch of the device.

The tweet invites people to Times Square in New York City to watch the unveiling live. While the tweet doesn’t say specifically how this will be accomplished, it’s presumably going to be via one of the giant Times Square TV screens that will be broadcasting the event. The Samsung Unpacked 2013 episode 1 event will be held on March 14.

Anyone who wants to venture down to Times Square on March 14 at 7 PM will be among the first in the world to get a glimpse at the Galaxy S IV and learn all of its details. A lot is expected of the S IV and the device is sure to be incredibly popular.

[via Twitter]

Samsung Tweet invites everyone to Times Square for Galaxy S IV launch is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

“Supernatural” has dealt with many kinds of gods, rituals and belief systems over the course of the series so far, but “Remember the Titans” was the show’s first real attempt to tackle the dense and iconic mythology of the Greek gods.
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Weather can do some bizarre things here on Earth. From flooding to volcanoes to tsunamis, our planet has a lot of strange phenomenon that it can throw at us. A picture has been making the rounds of some very strange cloud formations over New Zealand. The first time I saw the photograph, I thought it was a Photoshop fake.

As it turns out, the picture you see above was snapped above Hamner Springs in Canterbury, New Zealand and is an actual cloud formation, albeit a very rare one. The picture turned up on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day webpage this week, although the photograph itself is from 2005. The cloud formation is unofficially known as Undulatus asperatus.

According to the NASA website, this cloud formation is very unusual and remains relatively unstudied. Undulatus asperatus has even been suggested as a new type of cloud. This formation appears to have a lot of vertical structures hanging underneath whereas many other types of clouds have the vertical formations above a rather flat cloud base.

According to NASA, this particular cloud formation could be related to lenticular clouds that form near mountains. Since the cloud formation is relatively unstudied, what causes the clouds is up for debate. The Undulatus asperatus clouds are believed to also possibly be related to mammatus clouds that are associated with thunderstorms or another phenomenon known as foehn wind. Foehn wind is a type of dry downward wind that flows off mountains. In fact, that type of wind is known to stream towards the east coast of New Zealand and is called the Canterbury arch.

[via Twitter – Lidija Davis]

Bizarre cloud formation over New Zealand isn’t Photoshopped is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.