Hasta La Gadget!

Atari has decided that it’s time to give some of its classic games a fresh coat paint, launching the new Atari Arcade. Eight of Atari’s classic games have been updated using HTML5 and are playable in your browser for free. That’s not the end of it though, as Atari has also teamed up with Microsoft to bring these games to Windows 8 tablets.

Though these games can be played in your browser, it seems that Atari is attempting to make the Windows 8 version of Atari Arcade really stick out. The arcade was built with Internet Explorer 10′s touch-based interface in mind, and the legendary Nolan Bushnell says that Microsoft was a “natural partner” for a project like this. While the announcement of these remakes is cool enough, there’s even more: developers can make games for Atari Arcade, and can earn money by displaying ads in their games or by offering in-game purchases.

It’s definitely nice to see classic Atari games Combat, Pong, and Asteroids get updated visuals, but the idea of another developer-friendly platform is even more exciting. Naturally, since Atari Arcade just launched, there aren’t any indie dev-made games available yet, but hopefully those are coming soon. The brains behind this project have come together to give users a behind-the-scenes look at Atari Arcade, which you can check out below.

In all, there are 8 games that can be played in the Atari Arcade right this very minute: Pong, Asteroids, Yar’s Revenge, Combat, Missle Command, Lunar Lander, Centipede, and Super Breakout. With Windows 8 just around the corner and a slew of new Windows 8 tablets announced at IFA 2012 this week, expect to hear more about Atari Arcade soon. In the meantime, you can always head over to the Arcade and play these games in your browser. Stay tuned.

Atari remakes gaming classics in HTML5 for browsers and Windows 8 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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One of the more recent features to turn up in IM programs and services is to notify others when they have read your messages. This can be both good and bad. If this is something that annoys you on Facebook Chat, then you should try Chat Undetected.

Chat Undetected is a Chrome/Firefox/IE extension allows you to keep the status of your messages under wraps. This basically cloaks your message viewing and users won’t be notified when you read their messages. Since it’s a browser extension, it’s pretty convenient.

This extension allows you to somewhat nicely ignore annoying people, so they don’t know you’ve seen their messages. Of course, you could simply switch Facebook Chat off, but many people just leave that on by default.

[via The Next Web]

User agent profiles on the web aren’t always guarantees of what you’ll get in a future device, but this is one of those moments where we’d like the details to be true. A Samsung-made Windows Phone 8 device for T-Mobile, the SGH-T899, lines up closely with the higher-end Odyssey we’d previously only seen in a purported roadmap. Along with alluding to the OS itself through the presence of Internet Explorer 10, there’s a reference to the hinted-at 1,280 x 720 screen that you won’t find on any Windows Phone 7 gear. The profile even contains a suggestion of LTE support, although we’re still wondering whether or not this would be very aggressive futureproofing or just an incidental aspect of the possible Snapdragon S4 chip — Magenta isn’t flicking the LTE switch until 2013. At least the rumored fall release date gives us a comparatively short wait before we learn whether the Odyssey and T899 are one and the same, or real at all.

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung SGH-T899 for T-Mobile emerges on the web with potential Windows Phone 8, LTE originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many advertisers weren’t thrilled when Microsoft proclaimed that ‘do not track’ would be the default for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, but that reaction hasn’t made the folks in Redmond flinch. Brendon Lynch, the company’s Chief Privacy Officer, announced that the ‘do not track’ default is already baked into the code of the October-bound operating system that has been released to manufacturers. Upon booting Windows 8 for the first time, users will be greeted with a choice between “Express Settings” or “Customize,” the former of which has “do not track” enabled. IE 10 on Windows 7 will receive a similar treatment, with a “prominent notice” about the setting being switched on appearing alongside a link to additional information. Despite Microsoft’s efforts, it’s possible that advertisers could ignore the web browser setting if they feel their negotiations have been for naught. Considering the response to Microsoft’s initial default announcement, we suspect this won’t be the last development in the saga.

[Image credit: Tomas Fano, Flickr]

Filed under: Software

Windows 8 RTM will include ‘do not track’ by default for Internet Explorer 10 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s Senior Vice President of Chrome & Apps Sundar Pichai confirmed to the crowd back at D10 that Chrome browser use was soaring — particularly in the consumer space — and StatCounter’s latest data most definitely backs that up. The newest report, ending July 2012, shows the Chrome creeping up to 33.8 percent worldwide from 32.8 percent in June. Internet Explorer is sitting at 32 percent, while Firefox is seen slipping a bit to 23.7 percent; meanwhile, Apple’s Safari picks up the Participation Award with 7.1 percent. As The Next Web points out, it’s also worth nothing that Chrome is doing particularly well in Europe, South America and Asia, while IE is still charging in the UK, US and Down Under. Granted, StatCounter is hardly the end-all when it comes to browser usage; that said, it’s definitely useful to get a general idea of which browsers are moving in which direction, and it’s certainly astonishing to see a piece of software that didn’t exist four years ago already claiming such a significant piece of the pie.

Google Chrome claims one-third of global browser share, according to StatCounter originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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