Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Tuesday evening, everyone. Earlier today, we found out that Samsung may be planning a Nexus 10 tablet, complete with a resolution to give the third-gen iPad a run for its money. ZTE gave its response to yesterday’s allegations that it may be helping the Chinese government spy on the US, and Apple started shipping the fifth-generation iPod Touch to the first customers today. We heard that the rumored 32GB Nexus 7 variant might be replacing the 16GB model, and speaking of the Nexus 7, it received Android 4.1.2 today, which adds a much-needed landscape mode.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has scooped up its first “handful” of Martian soil, while Verizon announced today that it will have 4G LTE in 418 US markets by the end of the day on October 16. Not only did Samsung announce the Galaxy Music smartphone today, but it also started teasing a “groundbreaking” Windows 8 device reveal for October 15. Microsoft has released a Windows 8 update ahead of its launch at the end of this month, while we heard that Windows Phone 8 pre-orders might open up on October 21.

Despite Apple’s best efforts, its Lightning chip has been cloned, and today the company was said to be in a long-running relationship with a carbon fiber manufacturer. We got to take a look at some snazzy new iPad Mini renders today, and were told that BlackBerry 10 might not launch until sometime in March 2013. Today was the day that Felix Baumgartner was supposed to attempt his record-breaking skydive, but at the last minute Red Bull had to pull the plug on the mission due to bad weather, with tomorrow’s jump called off for the same reason. Firefox 16 was released today, and Amazon filed a new patent for an online haggling system.

Ice Cream Sandwich finally hit the Motorola Atrix 2 today, while Jelly Bean was arriving on Galaxy S IIIs in Korea. Tens of thousands of Chrome users have fallen victim to a bogus adware app claiming to be Rovio’s Bad Piggies, and Valve has invited players to fill out playtest surveys for a chance to come into the studio to test new games and hardware. Gearbox released the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2 a week early today, and the Humble Bundle is back, only this time it doesn’t feature any games. Skype users are being plagued by a trojan, so if you use the service a lot, it’s probably a good idea to check out our post to see what you can do to stop it from infecting your computer.

Finally tonight, we have a pair of original posts for your to read through. Chris Davies tells us why a Nexus 10 won’t solve Google’s problem with getting developers to make apps aimed at Android tablets, while Chris Burns has given us a review of the Acer TravelMate P243 notebook. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 9, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve entered the last full week of September, which means that autumn, pumpkins, and little children asking for free candy are all in the near future (for some of us anyway). Today we found out that the iPhone 5 managed to sell 5 million units in its first weekend of availability, and that iOS 6 has been downloaded by 100 million users since it was released last week. Some enthusiastic analysts were left explaining their generous iPhone 5 sales predictions today, while others were saying that the iPhone 5 could top 50 million sales by the end of Q4.

Apple TV was upgraded to iOS 5.1 today, while the company reminded iCloud users that former MobileMe accounts will be downgraded to 5GB of free storage on September 30. Verizon says that its version of the iPhone 5 will remain unlocked, while iOS developers were sending out updates for their apps left and right. One of these developers was Google, which launched an iOS 6/iPhone 5 update for Google Chrome, with Sparrow promising that iPhone 5 support will be coming soon.

Samsung released a list of devices that will soon be updated to Jelly Bean, and T-Mobile was seen trying to pull attention to its 4G network, which is due for some upgrades soon. The Aakash Android 2 tablet was revealed today with a super low price tag, and Facebook did its best to dispel rumors that private messages are popping up on public timelines. Google’s stock hit an all-time high today, breaking company records set back in 2007, and Sony announced some new super-slim external batteries for mobile devices.

Toshiba had some skinny offerings of its own to show off, unveiling the new Canvio Slim 500GB hard drive, and camera samples for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus 2 leaked out today as well. Experts warned that BlackBerry growth has become stagnant and that BlackBerry 10 may not do much to help, while YouTube enhanced its caption translation tools for content creators. In one of the most surprising stories of the day, Myspace began showing off its incoming redesign, and it actually looks really good. Meanwhile, we heard about a particularly nasty Borderlands 2 bug, and Sony reiterated plans to support the PS3 through at least 2015.

Finally tonight, we have a new column by Chris Davies that examines why iPhone 5 users may eventually save the poorly-received Apple Maps app in iOS 6. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, so go out and enjoy the rest of your night!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: September 24, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Two of the most well-received games this year are both sequels, which were also released within a few days of each other: Torchlight II and Borderlands 2. It turns out these two games shared more than just a launch week, they also shared a robot:

Yep, that’s CL4P-TP aka Claptrap. Actually that’s a lot of Claptraps. Redditor anti087 was messing around with Torchlight II’s console commands when he discovered that he could summon the robot from Borderlands 2. According to several Redditors, to summon a unit in Torchlight II, all you have to do is bring up the console and type “unit monstername, x” or “monster monstername, x”, where monstername is the name of whatever it is you want to summon and x is the number of units of that monster that you want to appear. For example, if you want to summon one Claptrap, you can type in “unit claptrap,1″ or “monster claptrap,1″ (minus the quotes).

But why can you summon a Claptrap unit in Torchlight II?  Because he’s actually in the game as an Easter egg! Here’s proof from YouTuber pronstorestiffi:

Did he just give away his nut? Gross.

[via Reddit]

The release of the highly-anticipated Borderlands 2 is just two short weeks away, and it won’t be long after that September 18 release that the game gets its first DLC. We’ve known for a while that this DLC will add a new class – the Mechromancer – but what we didn’t know is when it will launch. This weekend at PAX Prime, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford finally gave an actual date, saying that the pack will be available “by October 16.”

That’s just about a month after the release of Borderlands 2, which is a lot sooner than what Gearbox had originally said – after the Mechromancer DLC was announced, Gearbox said that it should be available “60 to 90 days” after the release of the base game. Still, most will be happy that its arriving sooner rather than later, especially considering that it’s a free bonus for those who pre-ordered the game. For those who aren’t going to pre-order, the Mechromancer DLC will cost $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points.

After the Mechromancer DLC hits, Gearbox plans to deliver four more DLC packs for Borderlands 2, just like it did with the original Borderlands. Pitchford assured that these aren’t going to be paltry offerings either. “We have committed ourselves and are in pre-production on four campaign DLCs,” he said. “These are all big original, themed, fully built out campaign DLCs. This isn’t just ‘here have a couple of guns.” Pitchford also said that all four of these DLC packs will be similar to the scope of The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, which is widely considered to be the best DLC released for the original game.

So, we’ve got the Mechromancer DLC about four weeks after release and four General Knoxx-sized DLC packs in the pipeline. This means that we’ll be getting a nice amount of additional content for Borderlands 2, which already seems to be a massive game. Are you excited about Gearbox’s DLC plan for Borderlands 2, or does it leave you feeling a little uneasy?

[via Polygon]

Borderlands 2 Mechromancer DLC release date outed by Gearbox is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With company after company issuing excellent quarterly financial reports lately, it was only a matter of time before one of them reported less-than-stellar results. That company is Take-Two, which today reported GAAP losses of $110.8 million, ballooning from the reported loss of $8.6 million in the same quarter last year. Net revenue took a dive too, falling from Q1 2012′s $334.4 million to $226.1 million for the period ended June 30.

Similarly, gross profit fell by a rather large amount year-over-year, with Take-Two reporting a gross profit of $39.4 million, which compares poorly to the company’s report of $123.16 million a year prior. This disappointing report for Q1 has forced Take-Two to adjust its outlook for fiscal year 2013 ever so slightly, saying that it now expects to make $1.7 – $1.8 billion by the time the fiscal year comes to a close at the end of March. That’s only down from the $1.75 – $1.85 billion it was expecting previously, so it looks like this negative first quarter won’t take too much of a toll on the company’s pocketbook overall.

Though Max Payne 3 and Spec Ops: The Line were listed among Take-Two’s strongest earners for the quarter, CEO Strauss Zelnick blamed the poor quarterly report on lower-than-expected sales for both. It isn’t all bad news, however, as catalog sales – which were led by the Grand Theft Auto franchise and Red Dead Redemption – were up 50% in the quarter, and accounted for 24% of Take-Two’s net revenue. Digitally delivered content was on the rise as well, gaining 33% year-over-year to provide 14% of net revenue for the company.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, Zelnick did not let loose a release date for the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto V. He did say that Grand Theft Auto V is “in full development and showing substantial progress,” though, so it may not be much longer before we have a solid release date to look forward. Take-Two is expecting better looking quarters as the year goes on, thanks in part to the upcoming releases of Borderlands 2, NBA 2K13, and BioShock Infinite. Frankly, we can’t wait, so bring on the rest of fiscal year 2013!

Take-Two Q1 financial results ‘below expectations’ is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.