Social Game Developer Zynga Acquires MyMiniLife

Social game developer Zynga keeps on growing and has announced the acquisition of MyMiniLife, a virtual world and social networking site that allows its users to build and decorate homes and other environments. The MyMiniLife team and technology will be assimilated by the game developer as it builds an even bigger portfolio of games. Zynga is now the largest social game developer in the world, claiming a collective 68 million monthly active users.

“We’re constantly looking for the highest quality talent and technology to help us build our business,” Mark Skaggs, VP and GM of Social RTS at Zynga, said. “The MyMiniLife technology and team is a perfect complement to the top notch teams here at Zynga.”

Zynga has become the biggest developer of social games in the world, attracting close to 70 million monthly users (depending on the source) on Facebook, double the traffic of its closest competitor. It has built a very solid collection of games, with many of its releases having become big hits on the platform. One of its latest successes is FarmVille, which now gets about 6 million unique users every day and is one of the top apps on Facebook.

MyMiniLife boasts 4 million registered users to the site and also has a Facebook app that only gets about 2,000 monthly active users though, with Zynga behind the project, that is sure to change soon. The company has a history of investing in smaller game developers and has an interesting approach. It “invests” early on in promising projects by providing them with traffic and, if the game picks up, it then acquires the team altogether, a sure way of guaranteeing the quality of the developers.

“We’re very excited to join Zynga and help grow the business in any way we can,” Sizhao Yang, CEO of MyMiniLife, said. “We’re looking forward to being an integral part of Zynga’s leadership and growth moving forward, and are happy to have supported FarmVille’s amazing success with MyMiniLife’s technology.”
(By http://news.softpedia.com)
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PayPal Is Now Supported by Xbox Live

The Xbox 360 is a very popular gaming device, largely due to the fact that its Xbox Live service is one of the best online features in any current generation console, offering a wide amount of content, downloads and getting new aspects everyday.

One of these is the fact that Xbox 360 users can now use the popular Internet service PayPal as a method of payment on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Don't think that you will be able to pay directly with it though, as if you go to the Xbox.com website, you will be able to buy Microsoft Points in order for them to be added to your credit balance.

This is something extremely good, especially since many users weren't really inclined to associate their credit card information to their Xbox Live account. In case you don't have a PayPal account, getting one is quite easy and, in just a few steps, you will be able to tie it with your Xbox Live profile.

First, you have to sign in to the Xbox.com website and go to the account summary page. Then, you need to choose Manage Payment Options, and click the Add a new PayPal account button. All you need to do is introduce your details and you're good to go for buying new MS Points.

Here are some important things that the Xbox 360 community manager, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, revealed on his blog alongside his announcement of this new feature:

- PayPal is currently supported for Xbox LIVE users in the U.S. only.
- PayPal can only be used to purchase Microsoft Points on Xbox.com.
- PayPal accounts are not available for purchasing Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360 console.
- You can associate multiple Pay Pal accounts with your Xbox LIVE account.

Overall, seeing that PayPal is used by many people all around the world, this new feature was somewhat of a no-brainer, but it's quite nice to see it implemented. Alongside other incoming features like integration with Facebook, Twitter or Last.fm, Xbox Live is getting more and more attractive.
(By http://news.softpedia.com)
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Google Reader Adds Support for PubSubHubbub

It's all about the “real time” now, with every site and service out there adding this type of features, whether they benefit it or not. And, with Twitter taking over as the fastest and most popular way to share stories, some are even quick to declare RSS/Atom feeds dead. But not if Google has anything to say about it, as a new distribution protocol, PubSubHubbub, has now been integrated into Google Reader, the Internet giant's feed reader app.

“Speed is very important at Google, and the Reader team is no exception. One way in which we take speed into account is to try to make consumption of feeds be as efficient as possible. We also want to make it as fast (and as easy) as possible to interact with your Reader data on the rest of the web,” Mihai Parparita, one of the Google software engineers who worked on the project, wrote. “We're therefore happy to announce that Reader has begun adoption of the PubSubHubbub protocol, beginning with the publishing of our shared items.“

PubSubHubbub is a new protocol that won't replace Atom or RSS feeds but will bring them up to date with the “modern” web, and it works as an extension to the current protocols. Users have to subscribe to a new feed just like they always did but after this, if the feed has a “hub” server set up, the reader app doesn't have to constantly ping the source for new content. After setting up a hub server, the publisher just has to “notify” it when new content is available and the hub then does all the work by actively pushing the feed to the subscribers, not having to wait to be pinged. This allows new content to reach subscribers in a matter of seconds.

Google Reader has started adopting the new protocol and the first step is supporting it for “Shared Items,” meaning that any service that implements the protocol can now be notified immediately of the new content. The Google Reader support was a “20% project” of Mihai Parparita, Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick and, for now, the only major service to support PubSubHubbub is FriendFeed. However, the aim is much greater and, as the project picks up traction, it should eventually replace the current feed system to allow it to compete with the much faster Twitter and even FriendFeed.
(By http://news.softpedia.com)
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First Look: KDE 4.3.0

On the 4th of August, 2009, the KDE community released KDE 4.3.0, delivering its user base the first iteration of this next-generation KDE desktop environment. It boasts a modern and beautiful desktop, with over 10,000 bugs fixed and close to 2,000 features implemented over the older versions, such as the more buggy KDE 4.2.

Our test machine isn't an extreme performer, but it fits pretty well the description of the typical office computer. These are its hardware specifications:

· GigaByte GA-8IP900 Motherboard
· Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GhZ Processor
· Nvidia GeForce FX5500 Video Card
· 1024 MB of RAM
· LG CD-RW/DVD-ROM Drive
· 19" Samsung Syncmaster 910n Monitor

For the KDE test we decided to use the KDE Four Live 1.3.0 Build 3.1 ISO image, which is based on openSUSE 11.1, since it has a stable base system for KDE to run on. We can't say the same thing for Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Daily Build, a moving target that may introduce its own set of bugs into the KDE desktop environment.

The first thing that we laid our eyes on was the login screen of the Air theme, which was a bit too clunky for our taste. However, it fits in the general KDE 4 look – glossy graphics and transparent panels.

The desktop is quite impressive, even with all the gloss and shading; there is no menu lag or window dragging slowdown, which was to be expected since the proprietary graphics card driver wasn't installed. Even so, the memory usage was not great, KWin alone using more than 250 megabytes of memory and the whole system topping at more than 700 megabytes. Our test system's hardware configuration doesn't feature an Nvidia graphics card from the 8000 or 9000 series, so we weren't able to test KDE's performance after the recent bugfixes for those cards when hardware acceleration was enabled.

There were no widgets on the desktop by default, so we proceeded to add some, especially the system monitoring ones and the different clock styles. Upon rebooting to install the Nvidia graphics driver we stumbled upon a bug: adding and then removing the System Monitoring Applet will cause the other widgets from the same category (RAM, Network, Hardware Info and so on) to appear independently on the desktop after the system starts up. Even so, that is only a minor problem that can be easily corrected by the user.

Another impressive feature is the way thumbnails are generated for a folder's contents and displayed on that directory's icon in Dolphin. Also, previewing media files directly in Dolphin is a handy feature of KDE's file manager.

File transfers are handled by a system tray indicator that has the option to remain hidden in the panel, showing a progress indicator and some details on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. It can also display the full details, including the file sizes. Impressively enough, downloads initiated in the Konqueror web browser are handled in the same manner, removing the need for a built-in download manager. Multiple simultaneous actions are stacked, giving an unobtrusive way to monitor them.

After you get hardware acceleration working, the desktop goes from impressive to breathtaking. You get all the usual Compiz effects, like transparent windows while moving and resizing, but the animations are especially smooth. Windows close with a brief fade-out, switching to another virtual desktop is done with a distinct scrolling effect and tooltips slide and fade. The panels are slightly transparent too and in the System Settings panel you will notice a cool pop-up with the content of the respective entry.

Switching windows with Alt-Tab is done via an expose-type effect, with the open windows getting real-time reflections on the lower part of the screen, while the upper part of the screen shows the wallpaper.

The Social Desktop integration is done via the openDesktop widget. Upon adding that to the desktop you are required to provide a user account or API key for the opendesktop.org website. After filling those and opening the configuration window for the widget we got to see the new Geolocation DataEngine, which pin-pointed where we were quickly and accurately. This is also true for the World Clock widget from what we saw.

Still on the social networking side, we were pleased to see that the Microblogging widget supports both Twitter and its open-source counterpart, Identi.ca. It's a bit of a hassle that you have to supply your credentials twice when logging in to Identi.ca, once to log on to the service and a second time to access its API. We don't know if it was an error on our part or a KDE bug, but on both of those widgets the "Configure" button remained visible even after logging in.

The RSS widget is useful in helping you keep up with your feed subscriptions, right on your KDE desktop. Also, an interesting feature that we thought was worth mentioning is the ability to include multiple RSS feeds, creating an impromptu aggregator.

In conclusion, this latest installment in the K Desktop Environment's development continues the ongoing trend of the KDE 4 branch: it keeps getting faster and more feature-filled, while gaining visual effects that are evermore stunning.

If you want to have a go with the new KDE 4.3.0 download the openSUSE 11.1 Live CD right now from Softpedia.
(By http://news.softpedia.com)
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Full Tracklist Revealed for Guitar Hero: Van Halen

The Beatles Rock Band might dominate September but the music game of December will likely prove to be Guitar Hero: Van Halen, the title dedicated to the '80's band, which Activision has confirmed as coming out on December 22. To make sure that interest in the game reaches big values, the publisher has also offered the full list of tracks that will be featured in Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

The upcoming game is set to include the following songs from Van Halen themselves:

“Ain't Talkin Bout Love;”
“And The Cradle Will Rock;”
“Atomic Punk;”
“Beautiful Girls;”
“Cathedral;”
“Dance The Night Away;”
“Eruption;”
“Everybody Wants Some;”
“Feel Your Love Tonight;”
“Hang 'Em High;”
“Hear About It Later;”
“Hot For Teacher;”
“Ice Cream Man;”
“I'm The One;”
“Jamie's Cryin;”
“Jump;”
“Little Guitars;”
“Loss Of Control;”
“Mean Street;”
“Panama;”
“Pretty Woman;”
“Romeo Delight”
“Running With The Devil;”
“So This Is Love;”
“Somebody Get Me A Doctor;”
“Spanish Fly;”
“Unchained;”
“You Really Got Me.”

There are also some tracks from other bands included in the game: “Come To Life” by Alter Bridge; “White Wedding” by Billy Idol; “First Date” by blink-182; “Space Truckin” by Deep Purple; “Best Of You” by Foo Fighters; “Double Vision” by Foreigner; “Stacy's Mom” by Fountains of Wayne; “Pain” by Jimmy Eat World; “Painkiller” by Judas Priest; “The End Of Heartache” by Killswitch Engage; “Rock And Roll Is Dead” by Lenny Kravitz; “I Want It All” by Queen; “Sick, Sick, Sick” by Queens of the Stone Age; “Master Exploder” by Tenacious D; “Safe European Home” by The Clash; “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” by The Offspring; “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind; “Dope Nose” by Weezer and “The Takedown” by Yellowcard.

One problem with Guitar Hero: Van Halen is that Sammy Hagar, the vocalist who replaced Lee Roth in the band, will not be featured in the game. Still, plenty of fans will likely line up to get the music sim on December 22.
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Sprint to Launch HTC Touch Pro2 on September 3

Windows Mobile-based HTC Touch Pro2 is on its way towards the United States market, and it is expected to become available on T-Mobile's airwaves as soon as August 12. However, it seems that it might also make it in the lineups of other carriers in the country, including Sprint and Verizon. While no official details have been unveiled so far, some hints about the upcoming availability of the handset have emerged, including a possible launch date with Sprint as well.

According to phone Arena, mobile phone users in the US will not have to wait too long before the HTC Touch Pro2 will become available through more carriers than just T-Mobile. To be more precise, the site points towards September 3 as the possible day that will mark the device's release with Sprint, which is less than one month from now (see image below).

The Sprint-bound HTC Touch Pro2 made an appearance only a few days ago, yet no details on the release date were available at that time. September 3 seems to be close enough for Sprint enthusiasts, yet we should wait for an official announcement before betting on the near availability of Touch Pro2. Verizon subscribers are also rumored to soon have the opportunity to enjoy the device, but more details are expected to surface in this regard too.

n the meantime, we should say that the possible pricing for the handset on T-Mobile has been unveiled. The device will become available with the carrier in four days, yet nothing on its cost was known until now. According to TmoNews, the phone will go for $299.99 upon the signing of a two-year contract agreement with the operator. Apparently it will also be available with one-year contracts, for $349.99. The Touch Pro2 might be one of the greatest handsets launched by T-Mobile, yet the price might seem a little too high for some.
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Men Spend 43 Minutes a Day Staring at Women

All those who ever got into a fight with their partner for catching him or her eyeing up someone else (perhaps someone they considered more attractive than them) must know they have overreacted a bit. A new study performed in the UK shows that an average man will spend 43 minutes of his day ogling 10 different women, while the ladies themselves spend an average of 20 minutes doing the same, as The Telegraph can confirm.

Men like to look at women, and women like to look at men, and this eyeing up thing remains one of their favorite flirts, the findings of the study indicate. While the gents like to focus on more “specific” things, like a woman’s figure or distinct parts of her anatomy, women usually look first at a man’s eyes or his face, researchers have found. Both, however, hope eye contact will lead to something more, except in those cases when they’re already in a serious relationship and they gaze or downright stare at someone else almost involuntarily.

Speaking strictly numbers, researchers have found that, if a man looks at women for 43 minutes a day, it adds up to 259 hours a year, which, in turn, translates into 11 months and 11 days between the ages of 18 and 50. Similarly, women too spend a lot of time looking at men, although they cut it almost in half: 20 minutes a day, which adds up to six months between the same ages. As noted above, the things they focus on first also differ from men to women, with the gents looking at the figure first and women at the eyes.

“Men are renowned for looking at women but it’s interesting to find out exactly how long they spend eyeing girls up. A year of their life is a long time to spend with their eyes fixed on [women]. However, men have their work cut out if they are going to impress a woman as they spend half the amount of time gazing at guys.” Mark Ireland, spokesman for Kodak Lens Vision Centres, which commissioned the study, explains for The Telegraph.

The same poll also revealed that men size women up in places like supermarkets, clubs and bars, while women prefer those locations that offer them the strategic advantage, such as a bar or a terrace. Moreover, most men feel “happy” when they see a woman checking them up, while women’s reactions differ: some are flattered by it, 16 percent feel uncomfortable, and 20 percent say being eyed up is a completely embarrassing experience.
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World of Warcraft Returns in China, Looks Different

The Chinese version of World of Warcraft has been offline for more than one month. The downtime has been a direct result of the change of operators from The9 to NetEase. Blizzard is set to get more licensing money from the new deal but it might also lose a lot from a possible reduction of the number of players of the game, especially now that there are reports that some aspects of the title have been changed because of requests coming from a Chinese government agency.

As part of the license transfer for the MMO, the General Administration of Press and Publication has reviewed the game in order to make sure that it complies with all the rules and regulations that govern videogames in Communist China.

The country has no videogame rating system in itself, so each title is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. And it seems that World of Warcraft might have all its bone-related content eliminated, while blood might become a black substance in the Chinese version of the popular MMO.

Some screenshots captured by MMOSite are showing that piles of bones have been replaced by piles of sandbags. Previously, the undead characters in the game had their visually exposed skeleton removed. Now, the icons representing talents with pictures including skulls, bones and blood are also modified. This is in line with the policy of the Chinese government of eliminating content that might impact on the fragile psyche of young MMO players.

At the moment, World of Warcraft is in closed beta in China, meaning that only those who already have an account are able to log in and play. The game is set to be back shortly. Blizzard has not commented on the changes, preferring to leave the Chinese version of the title in the hands of NetEase.
(By ; http://news.softpedia.com)
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Barnes & Noble makes Wi-Fi free via AT&T

Tue Jul 28, 2009

Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide offer Wi-Fi access, and the majority of them are already hotspots through AT&T. Those stores now offer free access via Wi-Fi, with a focus on expanding customer awareness of the Barnes & Noble’s burgeoning e-book library.

Since its debut in 2005, AT&T access has been a subscription-based affair, but on Tuesday the two companies announced that AT&T Wi-Fi has gone complementary. Users with laptops, Wi-Fi equipped smartphones and other wireless devices can now surf the Web in stores without having to set up an account or pay.

Barnes & Noble recently fired a shot across the bow of Amazon.com and its Kindle e-book reader, announcing its “eBookstore” and plans to release a dedicated e-book reader of its own, in development by Plastic Logic. While the eBookstore is only passively mentioned in Barnes & Noble’s press release, the move to make Wi-Fi available for free in all Barnes & Noble stores seems partly geared to build customer awareness of the new eBookstore, along with promotional content like bestseller lists, new releases, celebrity book signings and more.

The Barnes & Noble eBookstore launched with 700,000 titles. The number certainly seems impressive compared to Amazon.com’s Kindle inventory, measured at 300,000 volumes — but Barnes & Noble’s number includes 500,000 e-books which are free public-domain offerings from Google.

Given the current absence of a dedicated e-book reader, Barnes & Noble is offering its e-book inventory to Mac and PC users, iPhone and iPod touch users, and BlackBerry smartphone users, who access the e-Books through a dedicated “eReader” software application.
(By Peter Cohen - http://tech.yahoo.com)
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