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Republic Wireless to open next beta of hybrid VOIP service this summer
The $19 all-you-can-eat smartphone service that seemed great, then not-so-great, then great again is about to re-open public beta testing. We're told that the first phase of the beta is "going very well", to the point where Republic Wireless feels it can "skip the baby steps" and offer its hybrid VOIP/cellular goodies to another batch of experimental folks starting in June. The provider also promises a new handset as early as April, a smoother transition between WiFi and cellular calling (on Sprint's frequencies) in May, and a full-on public launch at some point in the undeclared or undecided future. Not ready to abandon your Big Cell provider just yet? Then Republic Wireless makes one more promise: a way for customers with other carriers to save money on their bills even before they make the leap. Consider us intrigued![Thanks, Ryan]
Pocket Informant planning public beta for cloud service
The team from Pocket Informant is at Macworld|iWorld this week to show off the app and announce a new cloud-based service that will share information across all of the company's mobile apps and new web interface. Pocket Informant is a GTD/calendar/tasks app that combines all sorts of functionality in one place, and during Macworld|iWorld, both it and the HD version are on sale for just US$9.99. The app is great (and we've spotlighted it here before), but the online service should make things much easier for many users. You can sign up on the website now for the public beta of the web app. WebIS, the company behind Pocket Informant, told us that it wanted to start the beta as soon as this week, but it's instead waiting to see what the response is like before launch. The web app will be a fairly open beta, and the company will widen it as time goes on. The iOS beta, on the other hand, is a little harder to roll out. WebIS will do a closed beta using Apple's Enterprise distribution, so the public won't have much chance to try that cloud service before it's ready to go. But once the code is all set, Pocket Informant users will get a free update that will sync their information across all devices. And while iOS is first, the app will eventually sync info to Android apps as well, so if you use multiple devices, this should really come in handy. Check back with us all week as our team at Macworld | iWorld is providing complete coverage of all the goodies on the expo floor.
Starhawk beta goes public starting with PSN Plus subscribers next week
For the last few month, LightBox has been running a Starhawk private beta, which just concluded on January 3. Like a big bouncer guarding the door of your city's hot new club, the developer barred entry to all Joe and Jane Schmoes looking to get their taste of what's to come. Boys and girls, soon you'll have your chance: the beta's going public. PlayStation Plus subscribers get first crack at the public demo starting next week on January 17 for the US and January 18 for Europe, PlayStation Blog reports. If you picked up Uncharted 3, you'll get a crack at the public beta two weeks later: January 31 in the US and February 1 in Europe. Finally, if you've got a regular ol' free PSN account, you can jump in on February 21, when the beta is open to all US users; European users get in on the following day. If you were one of the lucky few to get into the private beta, you'll have access to the public beta starting next week, granted you didn't erase your original beta files.
Starhawk dev rethinking DLC strategy: It 'might be surprising'
Starhawk will enter public beta soon in North America, Europe, Japan, Korea and Latin America, senior produer Harvard Bonin tells Respawn Action. The closed beta ended Jan. 3 and Bonin says the mix of veteran Warhawk and new players caught a lot of unsurprising bugs and balance issues, and that update 1.2 will fix a lot of these. There are plans for "a bunch of" free DLC that "might be surprising," Bonin says, although he adds that he'd be "happy to take your money" for some of the planned content. "We rethought our DLC strategy and we'll reveal more about it as we get closer to release," he says. More information on the Starhawk public beta will come "very soon," Bonin says, and the game will release "when it's damn good and ready."
Firefox 5 for Android adds CSS animation, support for Do Not Track browsing
The Firefox team is moving as quick as a...well, you get the idea. Nearly two months after releasing its latest browser to the masses, the folks at Mozilla have unleashed Firefox 5 for Android as a beta for willing souls who happen upon it in the Market. The latest rendition will hook you up with support for CSS animations, improved canvas and JavaScript performance, and lower memory usage. You're also going to find Do Not Track included for the first time, which is a privacy setting that prevents other sites from following you around. Otherwise, for a major release, there isn't a ton of meat -- then again, Mozilla's switched things up a bit by popping out updates on a more frequent basis, making few changes to each one, so anyone feeling a bit underwhelmed should know that the team's already hard at work on Firefox 6. Head down to the source links to download the beta and learn what's new.
Diablo 3 'external' beta coming Q3 2011
Wrap your mind around that headline: Some time this year, specifically between July and September, someone that doesn't work for Blizzard is going to be putting some heavy time into Diablo 3 ... or at least that's the plan. Here's the full quote from Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime, speaking today during Activision's quarterly earnings call, for fear you won't believe it unless it's straight from the source: "We began internal company-wide testing last week," Morhaime confirmed. "The game looks great, and we're currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing." Though Morhaime says the team's working to get the game out before 2012, he stopped short of making any official release date announcement. Surprise.
Battlefield Play4Free plans staggered launch, open beta on April 4
Joystiq got to see Battlefield Play4Free in action late last night at GDC 2011 and, while a full interview is still incoming, we were able to get details on the plans for next month's beta launch. Right now the game is in closed beta, and we were told that at peak times, developer EAsy has "a few thousand" players enjoying the game so far. On March 31, EA plans to send out codes for the beta to players of other Battlefield games, including the also free-to-play Battlefield Heroes, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Then, on April 2, invites will go out to selected followers on Twitter and Facebook, and finally, on April 4, EA will open the game up for a public beta, with an official launch later on this year. So mark your calendars: Assuming everything goes according to EA's plan, you could be sniping fools and earning battlefunds as soon as 4/4. Stay tuned for more about the title from the hands-on event.
Killzone 3 public beta starts October 25 in the US
Guerrilla Games' Killzone The Tres is set to unleash a public beta on October 25, the PlayStation Blog promises. Of course, there's a catch: in order to get in on it, you'll need to be a PlayStation Plus subscriber before the beta rolls out, and download a custom Killzone 3 XMB theme, which'll release on October 19. The first 10,000 to download the theme will get access -- 5,000 from the US, 5,000 from Europe. You'll also want to keep an eye on your email inbox, because Sony plans to mail out codes on October 25 to the lucky 10,000 who snagged the XMB theme first. To help tide you over, Sony's got a new trailer, which you can check out past the break.
Gears of War 3 gains multiplayer beta in 2011 'featuring dedicated servers'
Who said delays weren't good for something? In an effort to fill the intervening months between Gears of War 3's one-time April 2011 release and its new "holiday season" 2011 release, publisher Microsoft issued the following terse announcement: "We plan to host a public multiplayer beta for Gears of War 3 in 2011 featuring dedicated servers." With all that extra development time between release and the beta, Epic should be able to implement feedback from gamers into the final boxed product. We don't have many other details regarding the beta, but we do have a preview of the game's multiplayer component, in which lead level designer Jim Brown told us that dedicated servers should level the playing field for gamers and help the dev circumvent the issues Gears of War 2 experienced at launch.
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures public beta accepting recruits
Launching on September 15, Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures has gone into public beta. You can head to the official site (linked below) and play right now. Three character races are available, but you are not (able to be) a Jedi ... yet.
Windows 7 SP1 public beta now ready for download
Slightly ahead of schedule, Microsoft has dished out Service Pack numero uno for Windows 7. The hot-selling OS has been a revelation since its release and it's therefore no surprise that this update pack does nothing remarkably new or important. It collates all of Microsoft's patches since launch into a neat little (well, not really, it's 1.2GB in size) package and throws in a few other hotfixes to boot. Microsoft treats its betas rather unceremoniously, however, so don't expect any support with this thing until it goes final -- which we're hearing might not be until early 2011. We'd say that's a long way out but it's not like Windows 7 isn't treating us well enough already. Hit the source to obtain the download, if you must. [Thanks, JagsLive]
Don't get fooled again, watch this tutorial for the R.U.S.E. public beta
When we last played R.U.S.E., we weren't shy about expressing our initial difficulty with the game's steep learning curve. After all, the game is a deep real-time strategy title and still in beta (set for release on June 8). It's extra nice, then, that senior producer Mathieu Girard and creative director Alexis Le Dressay created this eight-minute-long walkthrough of the various gameplay options at your fingertips in the public beta. From faking army advances to the importance of reconnaissance, Girard and Le Dressay will have you up to speed on the forthcoming game's variety of tactics in no time. There are even subtitles for those among us who don't speak French-accented English or haven't played Heavy Rain -- talk about accessible! %Gallery-48492%
RUSE June 3 release date is no trick; beta next week
If you were paying close attention to Twitter this morning, you might've noticed Ubisoft community developer Aymeric Evennou noting that a R.U.S.E. public beta would be strategically moving itself onto Steam on March 9. More importantly, though, if you were looking way too closely into the French publisher's YouTube video details, it's possible you would've seen this little tidbit about the game's release date: "R.U.S.E. will be available on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on June 3, 2010." (June 3, a Thursday, is likely the European retail release date. We've contacted Ubisoft to confirm the North American date.) From Ubisoft ... ahem ... tricking us into believing the game would see release in Q1 2010, to a private beta last year, and now the announcement that we'll get a chance to play the game next week, it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for us over the last year at Joystiq. Thankfully, Ubi also released five minutes of soothing fan service in video form that we've embedded after the break for you (and for our own well-being). %Gallery-48492%[Via Big Download]
Planet Calypso debuts their new mission system with a bang
A literal bang, actually. Not only has Planet Calypso updated to version 2010|01 (their new system uses the year and update number, rather than version number) but they've also had a small volcanic eruption that's changed part of the map. Blizzard, eat your cataclysmic heart out. While the newly re-terraformed area of Cyclops has been visually improved by the team and patched in under the 'guise of a volcanic explosion, the version update also brings the anticipated mission system to Calypso. The mission system, which is in a public beta, more or less, is only currently offering 5 tutorial missions to newbies landing on Calypso for the first time. Once you complete those five missions, be sure to offer your feedback in the survey that pops up at the end. That information will be used to make more missions for higher level players, so don't be stingy! Also, there's fish. Remember those fish we showed last time? Yeah, those fish. If you value your ankles, you'll watch where you swim.
MAG in open beta until January 10th
It's last minute, we know, but if you're a PS3 owner then you might want to scoot over to the PlayStation Store and download the MAG open beta client. The system's MMOFPS will be online until the 10th, when they take the game off the store and prep it for the official January 26th launch. Beware you have room on your hard drive and time to leave your PS3 on to download, however, as you'll be looking forward to a 2 GB download. A headset is nice to have too, so you can communicate with your squadmates (they'll appreciate it,) but it's not required to play the game. So this weekend enjoy conducting a war with 255 other people on the battlefield with you. Try not to get shot too much!
PSA: The Love Beta is out (or 'We feel like playing Love -- and now we can!')
Our illicit affair with pseudo-MMO Love has officially begun, with today marking the the opening of the game's public, but paid, beta. The paid aspect of the beta is minimal, we should note -- a €3/30 days price hardly seems like a lot. As the game's sole developer Eskil Steenberg explained to us in an email after last week's news announcing the public beta, "The Beta is open to everyone, but unfortunately I need funds to run the server farm, so it will cost 3 Euros to get 30 days of access." Moreover, Steenberg stands to make no profits from the beta entry fee, telling us he simply needs "to afford the bandwidth and hardware to keep it running." We're pretty okay with it, if only for the fact that we get to tell people that we're paying such a low price for Love.
First Look: Snagit for Mac Public Beta
Switchers were elated earlier this year when TechSmith, developers of the fabulous Camtasia screen recorder application for Windows, finally shipped their flagship app for the Mac. Those switchers were probably also wishing that TechSmith would create a Mac version of their screen capture application, Snagit. Well, their wishes have been granted! TechSmith has announced the public beta version of Snagit for Mac, and a first look at the application shows that it's a worthy screenshot snapper for the platform. The company has made the beta available for feedback on operation and features, so this is a perfect time to download the program and give it a try. After installing the application and launching it, all that is visible is a small "tab" that pops out from the side of the Mac screen when you hover over it. The tab has a drop-down for choosing the capture mode and a red button for taking the screen shot. There are two capture modes -- all-in-one capture and window capture. Window capture mode displays all open windows Exposé-style, and you click on one of the windows to select it for capture. Once captured, it appears in a screen where you can annotate the screenshot in a number of ways, or add effects. At this time, there are no effects and the app shows that the feature is coming soon.
MAG pre-order beta has begun, game to launch on January 26th, 2010
If you've been itching to try out your trigger finger with 127 of your friends, then your wait is pretty much at a close. MAG's public pre-order beta has gone live as of Monday and you can jump in by simply going out to your local GameStop/EB Games and pre-ordering the game.The beta will be continuing until November 20th for all of the pre-order beta players, while those who got in thanks to their Qore subscriptions will find their play time ending on November 8th.MAG has been confirmed for a release on January 26th of next year, so there will be some downtime between the beta and the release of the game for Zipper Interactive to do some bug fixing and further polishing.
Rumor: Blue Mars to go into open beta on September 2nd?
According to an anonymous source, the new virtual world game on the block, Blue Mars, might be entering into open beta on September 2nd. What does this mean for you? Well, it means that another CryEngine 2 MMO might be making an appearance soon to do battle with Planet Calypso.Currently we are unable to confirm the exact time of the opening of the Blue Mars open beta, but we can confirm that the game has been shut down and is being prepared for the "public beta" according to posts on the forums.Blue Mars is the middle ground between Second Life and Planet Calypso. Where Planet Calypso acts as a game with a real money economy and Second Life allows all users to create content and change the world to their preferences, Blue Mars signs up and approves select developers to create content for their world. Standard users will have the ability to open up small shops and/or purchase living quarters (at the developer's preference) as well as interact with the games and events the ruling developer sets up for their players.
The Daily Grind: No beta, no thanks
It's pretty much impossible for a development team to thoroughly test an MMO solely with in-house QA. Because of this, they involve the community in the testing process, giving the keenest fans a chance to try a game early and play a small part in shaping its future. However, not all games will offer a truly "open" beta, where anyone can sign up and play during that phase of testing. What we're noticing is that many folks are not willing to pick up an MMO at launch these days if they don't get this unofficial free trial beforehand.This attitude is quite understandable, given a few factors of the current climate. The economic turmoil of late has caused a lot of people to think a bit harder about how they spend their entertainment budget, but beyond that, we've also seen a lot of MMOs launch in a state that many would consider "less than ready". If folks don't have a chance to get in-game and make that call themselves before launch, many are happy to cross that game off their lists (at least until they hear more about it post-launch, either good or bad). Today, readers, we wanted to find out if you have taken this stance towards upcoming MMOs. Is it "No beta, no thanks"? Even if you had high hopes for the game?
