You might not have heard of Blippy before that, but after today, you can be certain that it’s a name that you’ll remember, albeit probably for the wrong reasons. The site is supposed to be a “fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone else is buying”. That’s just fine in concept, but it seems that the company accidentally let loose a whole bunch of its users’ credit card numbers online, along with their usernames (which in many instances are the users’ real names). In a official blog post, the company stresses that the situation is not as it looks, but you have to confess that allowing customers’ credit card numbers to seem on Google is certainly a poor move.

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When Dawn of War II was released in 2009, the real-time strategy sequel offered an outstanding competitive multiplayer that experienced fans really enjoyed. Except that Dawn of War II lost the sinister Chaos Marines from the original game. All that’s about to change with the Chaos Rising standalone expansion pack, which will restore the forces of Chaos in all their glory, add new heroes and powers, and plus offer plenty of new gameplay features for all Dawn of War II players regardless of whether they actually get the expansion. We recently had a chance to play through some multiplayer sessions with the expansion, particularly as the forces of Chaos, and have much to report.

Check out this teaser:

We should mention right off the bat that although many new changes and additions are coming with Chaos Rising, the only one you have to pay for is the Chaos faction. Every other addition will be made available for Dawn of War II owners free of charge. These include, first and foremost new multiplayer free-for-all victory point mode that will challenge you to scramble for control of seven strategic locations on a map in either head-to-head matches or two-on-two-on-two team matches. Capturing and holding a strategic location will add to your ticking point count, and the more locations you control, the faster your point total will tick up to the magic number of 1,000. In addition, the launch of the expansion will add seven or eight new multiplayer maps (one of which will take place on an abandoned cruiser-class ship, inspired by the classic Space Hulk tabletop scenario) for all Dawn of War II owners. Multiplayer will plus be fully updated to be compatible with the expansion so that no one will need to play on a separate server whether you don’t have Chaos Rising–you’ll even be able to play multiplayer matches with Chaos Rising owners (you just won’t be able to use the Chaos faction yourself).

Additionally, don’t forget the psychic powers that augmented the Warhammer future realm. Those who don’t get the expansion will additionally still get the five new multiplayer units for the sequel’s four factions (each faction gets at least one new unit), which were added to the game to fill in key gaps in each side’s strategy. The Space Marines will receive the assistance of the Librarian, a wizardly fellow with a knack for hurling lightning bolts; the Orks will receive the Weirdboy, a long-range support unit whose powers come directly from the heated shouts of “Waaagh!” from other Ork troops; the Eldar will receive a much-needed heavy infantry unit that can take some real punishment in the Wraithguard; and the Tyranids will receive two new troops in the durable Tyrant Guard melee warrior and the Genestealer Brood (another reference to Space Hulk), a swift melee warrior that automatically infiltrates (becomes invisible) after remaining still.

[The forces of Chaos are preparing to take Dawn of War II’s multiplayer by storm. (image courtesy of GameSpot)]

Our day with the multiplayer included plenty of quality moment with the mighty forces of Chaos, which, like the other factions, have multiple options for commanders (Dawn of War II’s hero units). Interestingly, even though Chaos is already, according to Warhammer 40,000 fiction, arguably the most malevolent and evil force in the universe, the Chaos faction in the expansion will be aligned with one of three Chaos deities with different portfolios. The chaos lord, effectively the Chaos version of the Space Marines’ melee force commander unit, will be associated with the god Khorne, the deity of melee combat and blood. The defensive commander, the plague champion, worships Nurgle, the Chaos god of death and decay, and has a variety of defense abilities such as healing powers and defensive auras. The support commander, the chaos sorcerer, is a disciple of the deity of magic, Tzeentch, and is described by the Relic team as a “toolbox” character with a bag of very interesting tricks, including mind control and teleport abilities. Just like in the original Dawn of War II, you’ll start each competitive multiplayer match as Chaos choosing one of these commanders to bring into battle, equipped with various types of equippable wargear items that supply miscellaneous bonuses, expendable items such as grenades, and usable abilities–that’s on top of additional global abilities which different Chaos commanders possess.

From what we’ve seen, even though the Relic team remains committed to maintaining a strong, fair balance of potential amidst each faction, it has additionally gone out of its way to load up the commanders of Chaos with an embarrassment of riches in the profile of loads of interesting new abilities and strategic combinations. While we’re assured that Chaos will be a well-rounded faction for players of all skill levels, and the faction does, indeed, seem to have a good mix of melee, ranged, and vehicle units with suitable inherent potential to get the job done, Chaos plus seems to have plenty of interesting details that will help skilled players who take the moment to learn these nuances excel in matches.

For instance, the faction’s marine units (which include basic space marines, havoc heavy infantry marines, tactical plague marines, and dreadnought walkers) can be upgraded to align with one Chaos god or another, which will change their operate to be anti-infantry or anti-vehicle, or to focus on ranged or melee. In addition, several units and abilities seem like they’ll reward players with excellent micromanagement skills, such as the tier-two bloodletter daemons, which are already-powerful melee units with a limited teleportation ability, and the Great Unclean One, the faction’s top-level unit and something of an avatar of Nurgle–a giant, bloated daemon which can vomit bile on its enemies or lasso them closer with a strand of its exposed intestines. The faction’s commander abilities seem very useful, but several of these will plus be best used by skillful micromanagers, such as the plague champion’s “mass warp” teleportation spell and the chaos sorcerer’s “noxious cloud” (a swirling green cloud that damages any foes it touches, but persists for several seconds in the world and can be given continual move orders like a regular unit to chase down enemies on the move).

[Oh, hi. that is the Great Unclean One (image courtesy of GameSpot)]

We had the opportunity to play through a handful of head-to-head skirmishes and some free-for-all matches as well, and found Chaos to be a faction that seems to benefit from leapfrogging from expansion to expansion, capturing a key strategic point and fortifying it as soon as possible. Although the faction has supreme military units, its basis of support lies with heretic units–these are now used to build supporting shrine structures (best placed near control points), and can next be used to worship at these shrines. Depending on which commander you’ve chosen, worshipping at a shrine will produce different effects–chaos lord shrines will briefly summon some bloodletter melee daemons that will vanish after a short period; plague champion shrines will heal nearby allies; and chaos sorcerer shrines will cause nearby units to infiltrate and can additionally fire energy bolts like a turret. Chaos seems to have a very even mix amoung forceful melee and vigorous ranged units and will afford players more than decent opportunity to mix and match to their tastes.

Our most memorable match was a four-player free-for-all multiplayer skirmish in which we played as a plague champion hero and focused primarily on ranged units and vehicles. Partially fueled by the desire to take good notes for that preview, and partially fueled by the desire to not be crushed in the first five minutes of the match, we played it safe, quietly nabbing the nearest strategic points and energy generator points and fortifying them with heretics while waiting for other players to either clash among themselves or to come to us. Defensively “turtling” will only take you so far in free-for-all, however, since your victory will depend on how many points you can earn by capturing strategic locations on the map; the more locations you capture, the more quickly you’ll earn your points. However, controlling strategic points plus still limits your unit cap, so whether you hang back and hide, you’ll not only be surpassed in point counts by more-ambitious players, you’ll additionally limit the size of your armies and won’t be able to really mass troops. next again, in free-for-all, whether you assemble too aggressive a push too early and take a quick point lead, you’re basically painting a giant bull’s eye on your forehead as being the separate biggest threat whose point advantage must be neutralized.

[Chaos will be a well-rounded faction with strong ranged units and strong melee warriors, like these bloodletters (image courtesy of GameSpot)]

Regardless of what anyone thought of the single-player campaign in Dawn of War II, most fans agreed the multiplayer was great. And Chaos Rising will add a whole lot more to the already-excellent multiplayer with new units for all four base factions, a new multiplayer mode, a fistful of new maps, and a new faction with a whole lot to offer. The expansion will ship in March.

Read more at GameSpot

She…is…so…Beautiful (on the screen, that is).  Shiseido’s has wowed the public in the past with their range of make-up that is capable of turning any plain Jane into a stunning bombshell, but today they supply that wow factor via a different route – the Digital Cosmetic Mirror. that device allows users to experiment make-up and recommendations without having to so much so as use a mascara brush in the process. that is made possible thanks to augmented reality that offers a novel method to powder your face sans samples, and widespread adoption of that technology could spell the end for testers and samples. A camera will scan your face, compute a list of tailored recommendations and applies make-up on your virtual face in real-time for instant viewing of results.

More info at Ubergizmo

Here’s a phone design that you most likely haven’t seen before – the world’s hottest cigarette lighter cell phone. There probably have been USB lighters before that, but have you ever seen a cell phone with a built-in cigarette lighter? Dubbed the Machismo, you just have to slide open the safety hatch at the back of the phone, and you’re just a few seconds away from a freshly-lit cigarette. In case you’re interested on the specs of the phone, for $69 you’ll get:

• Tri-band GSM phone
• Dual SIM slots
• 2.5-inch touchscreen
• 1.3-megapixel camera
• Multimedia playback

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Hearing aids have certainly come a lengthy way from being an embarassment initially for its wearers to something that is deemed normal and essential in that day and age for folks suffering from hearing loss. Well, brains of that generation has further shrunk the hearing aid to manufacture it fully implantable, with the FDA’s Ear, Nose, and Throat Advisory Committee discussing whether it approve Envoy Medical’s fully implantable hearing aid for general use or not. Hopefully so, as that would certainly eliminate the potential of having you misplace your hearing aid.

Full story from UberGizmo: Fully implantable hearing aid

That’s gonna leave a mark. The Jedi knight guts his foes with a lightsaber and knocks out the unlucky with a well-placed Force push (image courtesly of GameSpot).

An time-warping moment ago, in a galaxy far, far away, game developer BioWare, a studio founded by two medical doctors on the foundations of nerdy swords-and-sorcery role-playing, made the jump to deep space with Knights of the Old Republic, a Star Wars-themed role-playing game that told a story that predated the events of the motion pictures by several centuries. Some years later, the developer is now working on a massively multiplayer online game in the same universe–a game that will let you play as a Boba Fett-like bounty hunter, a Han Solo-like smuggler, or a Mace Windu-like Jedi Knight…among others. We recently had a chance to get a bit more insight on the game from its developers, and we plus had our first chance to play the game using the Sith inquisitor profession, which we’ll discuss shortly.

All of the eight playable professions have now been revealed for the game. Previously revealed classes:
the Republic trooper, the smuggler, the Sith warrior, the bounty hunter, the Jedi knight, and the Imperial Agent. The studio has now revealed the final two professions: the Sith Inquisitor, an evil Force-powered character reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine who is capable with a lightsaber but possesses an array of even-deadlier Force powers; and the Jedi Consular, which is patterned after the Knights of the Old Republic profession and is plus good with a lightsaber, but better with light-side Force powers and tends to look for ways to resolve clash with words, rather than with a fight.

The development team reiterated its commitment to deliver an enjoyable Star Wars experience above all else, and suggested that that outlook additionally influenced the game’s character design. Rather than focus on standard online RPG archetypes such as “healer,” “tank” (frontline fighter who soaks up damage from enemies), and “DPS” (or “damage per second,” a combat character that focuses on dealing as much damage as possible), the team is focusing on creating characters who are fun to play and supply the kind of experience you’d expect from playing such a character in a Star Wars game.

However, in the interest of game balance, the studio is adding several game features that will help assemble the game enjoyable to play without having lopsided character classes or forcing players to group with assured other professions to have any kind of chance. For starters, each class is being designed around a number of different themes that can apparently be specialized in to customize your character around your playing style. The example given was the smuggler profession, whose general themes include “luck,” “recklessness,” “opportunity,” and “cowboy.” These themes contributed to designing the class around two different archetypes: a “gunslinger” archetype that uses such skills as taking cover in combat and using a “dirty kick” attack in melee, while carrying dual pistols into battle and using smooth-talking skills to get out of sticky situations; and a “scoundrel” archetype that focuses more on stealth and critical headshot hits, as well as unconventional medical skills–reminiscent of the way Han Solo rescued a frostbitten Luke in The Empire Strikes Back by gutting a tauntaun and shoving Luke’s body into the beast’s warm carcass.

In addition to the open-ended character design, the team will additionally add computer-controlled “companion” characters that your character will meet and join by moment, and can shout upon as needed. Two examples shown by the developers were “Khem Val the Dashade,” a Sith inquisitor whose effective lighting-based abilities supply excellent ranged damage, while “Xalek the Kaleesh,” a Sith apprentice, deals heavy bursts of damage with his lightsaber attacks.

The presentation ended with a hands-off demonstration of the Jedi consular character in motion on the Jedi home planet of Tython as the character did battle with squat, humanoid “flesh raider” enemies. The consular seems to be pretty handy with a lightsaber but is even better at using Force powers, including “mind maze”–an ability that temporarily stuns a group of enemies and prevents them from attacking, and “Force slam,” a telekinetic potential that lifts an enemy in the air, soon after smashes it down into the ground. The consular additionally has a “meditation” skill which briefly incapacitates the character, but quickly regenerates spend Force powers–a much-needed feature that would clearly have been welcome in Knights of the Old Republic, and will probably construct the lives of Jedi characters much easier in The Old Republic.

We next moved from hands-off demonstration to hands-on day with the Sith inquisitor profession on the starting planet of Korriban. Korriban, as you may recall from the Knights of the Old Republic games, is the homeworld of the evil Sith–effectively, the dark Jedi of the Star Wars universe. In both of those previous games, Korriban was a world in transition–while the Sith have established a home base and training ground on the planet, they additionally run an active excavation outfit in the “Valley of the Dark Lords,” a series of abandoned desert tombs where mighty Sith warlords, and their mighty Sith secrets, lie entombed.

In the Knights of the Old Republic games, players ran missions for the Sith to explore these tombs in search of artifacts, escaped slave laborers, and treacherous rival Sith students. In the Old Republic, as a Sith inquisitor, you’ll end up with similar tasks, though you’ll additionally take on new quests and find yourself working for, and against, numerous Sith academy trainers in short order. Our session began with our character’s initiation with an initial meeting to speak with our first Sith instructor. Once we did, the game initiated a dialogue sequence reminiscent of those in Knights of the Old Republic, complete with branching dialogue options (including straightforward answers and wise-guy remarks) and quick camera cuts amoung different characters. The instructor, who addressed us simply as “Slave,” made a few casual death threats before sending us out to the Valley to retrieve a set of holocrons (basically, documents discs) from the tomb of the fallen Sith lord, Zash.

Eager to explore Korriban and zap as many folks, places, and things with lightning as possible, we made our way to the shortest possible route to the valley entrance using the onscreen mini-map, but not without passing by another quest-giving Sith trainer, who demanded we assist her with a different mission–that of smuggling a captured and brainwashed Jedi off the planet to help spread confusion and chaos on Tython. While the trainer very much seemed like a cold-hearted Sith and repeatedly threatened us when we did not immediately accept the mission, it raised an interesting question–who precisely had been brainwashed, the captured Jedi or the Sith trainer who demanded we smuggled the prisoner safely off Korriban? We pondered following through on the quest, but decided that it might not offer as many opportunities to zap things with lightning, and instead made a beeline for the exit.

The Valley of the Dark Lords in The Old Republic looks like a much huger, more-detailed version of the preliminary dig sites from the Knights of the Old Republic games. The entire area is still an inhospitable desert, but in that case, is bathed orange from the intense heat of the sun. The valley opens up into a series of huge dig sites laid out next to each other, and the central walkway is cluttered with metal girders, digging equipment, and other industrial debris. We made our way down to the valley and headed to the tomb to which we were assigned, which was helpfully marked by a waypoint on our mini-map, to meet an archeologist character waiting on the outside. The character, who was not a Sith warrior, but still seemingly as cruel and impolite as any Sith, demanded we seek out something called the “Red Engine,” essentially a multiple-location puzzle which could be fully activated only when each differently-located fragment was anointed with the blood of a slain enemy. That was all we could stands (we couldn’t stands no more), so we went running headlong into the tomb in search of something, anything, to start zapping.

Fortunately, the ruins were full of living things to form dead. On entering the tomb, we found a separate holocron left by a dead Sith initiate that claimed that rebellious slaves had turned on their captors and reprogrammed the local maintenance droids to attack Sith. So we not only had a reason to destroy escaped slaves and mutinous droids, we plus had a quest to do so. In addition, the tomb was infested by giant caterpillar-like monsters known as “K’Lor Slugs,” which, to our delight, turned out to not be immune to lightning bolts.

Our character was apparently built up to be a few levels higher than a character in that area normally would, and was equipped not only with a deadly lightsaber, but plus with numerous special abilities. Like all massively multiplayer games, these abilities are bound to hotkeys on your keyboard, expend a assured amount of energy (in that case, your character’s Force energy), and require a convinced amount of moment to “cool down” before they can be reused. However, unlike World of Warcraft and EverQuest, and more similar to games like City of Heroes and Champions Online, The Old Republic doesn’t have a basic auto-attack that will automatically produce your character repeatedly whack away at your currently-targeted foe. Instead, our character had a basic “saber strike” melee attack and various lightning-based and telekinetic Force powers, such as a simple damaging blast known as “shock,” a energetic stunning attack called “overload” which caused our character to leap upwards and strike the ground with his lightsaber while stunning all nearby enemies, and “whirlwind,” a telekinetic potential that incapacitates a loner foe by lifting it off the ground with a gust of wind.

These powers helped us easily carve up our enemies into mincemeat as we both activated the first few parts of the Red Engine by slaying enemies nearby while picking up the first few holocrons for our main quest. Sadly, instance flies when you’re destroying enemies you have completely outclassed, so we were unable to complete any of our main quests within our allotted playtime. However, we had plenty of opportunities to crush our enemies, and found that while the inquisitor class seems to have limited lightsaber skills, its Force powers more than compensate and definitely invent you feel like you’re playing a very energetic and dangerous character.

The Old Republic seems like it has much to offer–powerful character classes built on Star Wars fiction rather than stodgy old massively multiplayer archetypes; playable Jedi and Sith characters from the outset; and did we mention the lightning? Though we’ve finally had a chance to play, we can’t help but feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface of what seems like a very deep game. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more updates.

More info at GameSpot

It seems like the US Air Force is a big customer of Sony’s. Previously, they had purchased a few hundered units for supercomputer research. But now, news has broken that they’re planning to pick up another 2200 PS3 consoles, which should bring a huge smile to the executives by at Sony. One thing is for certain, whether the folks by at the US Air Force ever need to take a break, they won’t be short of ways to entertain themselves.

More info at: Ubergizmo

In a move that certainly won’t go down well with a lot of public, Microsoft has started to cut off gamers from its Xbox Live service for modifying their consoles to play pirated games. It’s been estimated that as many as 600,000 games will be affected by that move. Microsoft describes it as a “small percentage” of the 20m Xbox Live users, but angering 600, 000 users can’t be a good move, albeit piracy isn’t very nice either. Do you have a modified Xbox console? Did that move affect you? Drop us a comment and let us know.

More info available  from Ubergizmo

Now here’s a remote controlled car you don’t see everyday. Takara Tomy’s latest remote controlled car, dubbed the Aero Spider Laser, can drive on walls or ceilings, without having to be bitten by a radioactive spider! It gets better, to direct the car, you have a gun-shaped controller which projects a bright red light beam, telling the car where to go, something like getting a cat to chase a laser beam. It’s currently going for ¥6,000 (appx. $65 USD) and will start shipping soon. Check it out in action in the video here.

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Ever wondering how your car could become more high-tech, without having to be turned into a time-travelling DeLorean? Well, a partnership amidst tech companies and subject matter providers are cooking up the view of a prototype “LTE Connected Car”. that car would basically sport 4G mobile broadband connectivity, along with a bunch of cloud-facilities, like video-on-demand, audio libraries and online gaming. In effect, your car could turn into a Wi-Fi hotspot, which is quite an appealing notion. It seems that the Toyota Prius has been selected as the experiment model for such a setup.  The p ress release can be found here.  Now, if we can just get Team Fortress 2 projected onto the windshield HUD…

Find more info at  LTE Connected Car Of The Future