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Google's Chrome OS tablet leaks in vivid detail
Yes, Google is still having trouble keeping a lid on product news ahead of its October 9th Pixel 3 event. MySmartPrice has posted what look to be images of Google's first Chrome OS tablet, believed to be called the Pixel Slate, and there's clearly more to the story than we saw the first time around. There's a newer (and possibly Pixel Slate-specific) interface than what we saw on Acer's Chromebook Tab 10, for one thing. The image also provides a clearer look at how detachable keyboards will work, with a pogo pin connector on one side turning the Slate into a laptop -- and yes, Google would have its own keyboard (below).
Google's Chrome OS tablet might support Windows 10
Google's rumored Chrome OS tablet may have an extra trick up its sleeve: namely, that you might not have to run Chrome OS at all. The 9to5Google team has discovered some code references indicating that Google has been working on Windows 10 support for the future slate, codenamed Nocturne. "Windows 10 will BSOD early during boot," one Nocturne developer wrote.
This might be Google's first Chrome OS tablet
If you suspect that Google might have more to show at its October 9th event than the Pixel 3 series and the Home Hub, your theory could be well-founded. About Chromebooks has discovered a Chrome OS tablet keyboard from Brydge that includes an image of what appears to be Nocturne, a likely Google-made tablet that has appeared in Chromium code for the past several months. While there is a chance that it's just a render, there are hints that this isn't just a flight of fancy.
Tranquility lets you work on your laptop in the dark without blinding yourself or everyone around you
Macs have simply beautiful displays, but still there's no getting around how tired your eyes can get while staring at a screen. Even beyond your own personal comfort, there are other people to consider. How many nights have you kept a significant other up because the glare from your screen was making it hard to sleep? Tranquility is here for you. Developed by Pixio, the Mac app offers a quick way to switch to a darkened, night vision-optimized screen view. It's free, easy to use and customizable. Do you prefer a monochromatic view to a dark color palette? You can select that. Want to disable shadows or hide the desktop to free you from distractions? Tranquility understands and wants to help you. You can even set it to dim your menu bar when you're working, day or night, to help keep you focused. It's a wonderful little app. When you first activate the app, it will present you with an optimization menu to mark your settings. From then on, the app will live in your menu bar, ready to be turned on at a moment's notice when you find yourself in need of low-light display options. Some readers may remember a similar app called Nocturne, which ceased updating. Tranquility is a spiritual sibling of that app, built from its source code after Nocturne's developer abandoned it. If you enjoyed Nocturne, jumping into Tranquility will be like putting on old shoes. You can find Tranquility as a free download directly at Pixio's website.
Meet Ether Saga Online's "My Little Pony from Hell"
Letting fans design mounts is always an interesting idea, but here's a mount that really leaves a burning mark on the land -- Ether Saga Online's new "Dark Noturno" mount. Dark Noturno, originally named Nocturne, is the fan-made creation of ESO player Monaka. She submitted her designs for Nocturne during their "create a mount" contest and her designs made it to the official ESO artists in China. After a few tweaks here and there to her designs, Dark Noturno finally came to life and Monaka was the first player to recieve the devilish new mount. Perfect World recently caught up with Monaka to ask her about the experience, so check out their interview with her over at their official company blog. Nice mount, Monaka!
Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 3/10-3/16
"If you bundle a game with a special brush stylus, they will come," the heavens whispered to Nintendo. While we expected Beautiful Letter Training (also known as Bimoji or Calligraphy Training) to do well, we didn't expect it to sell 66,000 copies in its first week. This first-party effort by Nintendo looks as polished and full of content as a calligraphy nongame could get, but we're still surprised by the high demand for this game in Japan. Nintendo has understood sales markets better than anyone else this generation, though, so we probably should have expected this.Also appearing on the charts are both versions of Hayate the Combat Butler, as we predicted. The mansion edition was slightly more popular, as preference was given to the little girls in little black dresses. At the sixth spot was Shugo Chara!, which, in case you were wondering, is yet another manga/anime-based game about a school girl.Harvest Moon: Shining Sun and Friends, meanwhile, jumped back into the top ten, while Soma Bringer dropped down a few notches. One other notable game on the chart is the infamous Duel Love, which debuted at spot twenty-seven. That's not a great start for the title, but perhaps nipple rubbing is more niche in Japan than we thought.Despite making a killing in software and having fifteen games in the top thirty, the DS remained in third for hardware sales. Still, considering that everyone and their mother already owns a DS in Japan, we're somewhat surprised that it comes so close to the top, week after week.Mosey on after the break to see the numbers in full, folks.
Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 3/3-3/9
Japan loves Doraemon, and it shows. Not only did the manga-based robot cat have a successful DS baseball game, but now a game based on the manga itself debuted in the top ten. Soma Bringer was still the top dog for the handheld, though, selling a total of 68,000 copies in two weeks. Are numbers like these high enough to motivate Monolith Soft to bring the game to English speaking markets? Well, we certainly hope so, but that remains to be seen.As for hardware, the DS stayed in third place again last week, but wasn't too far behind the PSP: Wii: 57,068 PSP: 53,924 Nintendo DS: 48,658 PlayStation 3: 21,008 PlayStation 2: 10,429 Xbox 360: 2,891 The numbers and placings for software are listed after the break, so if you're curious, just click away.
15 Minutes of Fame: Leadership by committee
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous. At first glance, the tip 15 Minutes of Fame first received from Nocturne on the Khadgar realm appeared to be one of that "Interview my GM; he's the coolest evah!" kind of tips: "very helpful to all players"; "truthful"; "anxious to make compromises that suit all players"; blahblahblah ... But buried near the end of the note, we spotted this little gem: "We have a rotating GM system which sees all officers take a spot in the leader chair! Weird, huh?"Being insatiably curious about anything even remotely "Weird, huh?" -- as well as harboring a voyeuristic fascination with what most people would consider the train wreck of leadership by committee – we hit the Reply button. What we found at the other end: a fun-loving group of European raiders that rotates administrative tasks so that everyone gets the chance to relax and enjoy the fruits of their common effort. We visited with a half-dozen of the officers' cadre to uncover the secrets of their success.
Nocturne: "night vision mode" for your Mac
When Nicholas Jitkoff (of Quicksilver fame) pops up on twitter and announces a new app, it's probably worth a look. In this case it's called Nocturne and is a simple program to put your Mac in "night vision mode." The main thing it does is invert the colors on your screen (which you can accomplish natively just by hitting cmd-opt-cntl-8), but it also has options for making the display monochrome and tinting it (the default is a kind of sepia) as well as suppressing your Desktop picture and window shadows. I think the idea is simply that white on black is easier to read at night.Nocturne is a free download from Blacktree.
Housewife Superstar: home-ec minigames
This looks totally strange, and totally endearing. Insert Credit's Brandon Sheffield found this poster at GDC, for a DS game called Housewife Superstar, developed by Studio Nocturne. It looks like a minigame collection, but based on the idea of becoming the perfect (stereotypical) housewife. There are games about things like embroidery, flower arranging, knitting, and dressing up.The non-serious tone keeps this from being completely insulting, and the art style, which is kind of a stylized 1960s anime (a little like Mr. Driller color-wise, but not as severe), looks really nice. We have no idea when or where Studio Nocturne plans to release this, but we hope it is somewhere close and sometime soon.
