thanksgiving
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Happy Thanksgiving from TUAW!
For most of us in the USA today is Thanksgiving, often spent with family gathered around a table full of food to remind us of what's important. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of our TUAW readers for taking the time to enjoy what our hardworking writers and editors put on the site every day. Thanks to you all for the comments and emails -- and for sharing our stories with your friends. As we look forward to 2014 I can tell you we have a few (good) surprises in store. Happy holidays (and Happy Hanukkah!) to you all. PS - If you happen to fix a family computer during Thanksgiving be sure to check out our contest with FilmThis.
The Thank Tank: What are you most thankful for in the MMO genre?
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the USA. so it's only natural that we ask a thanks-related question for this week's Think Tank. As much as we, as a fanbase, like to be critical of our favorite genre, it's important to take some time to be thankful for what it is to us. So I asked the Massively team members what they're thankful for in MMOs. Grab a turkey leg dipped in cranberry sauce and stuffing (go ahead and double-dip; Uncle Leon won't mind) and follow along after the cut for our thoughts.
Humble Store Thanksgiving sale: Kentucky Route Zero, Gone Home, Rogue Legacy
The Humble Store Thanksgiving sale runs from November 27 to December 3, and it's stuffed with savings on 18 games, including Kentucky Route Zero ($12.50), Rogue Legacy ($7.50), Gone Home ($10), Frozen Synapse ($5), Game Dev Tycoon ($7), Godus ($15), Vessel ($3.75), Worms Reloaded ($6.50) and The Bridge ($3). The Humble Store is the latest installment in the Humble franchise, normally offering daily deals on sweet indie games. It's like a Steam sale, but every day – most games in the Humble Store come with Steam keys anyway. Games previously featured in the Humble Store are still available on the sale page, in a list underneath the current deals.
Apple Stores set holiday hours for Thanksgiving and Black Friday
There's good news for Apple Store employees and terrible news for people who like shopping on Thanksgiving. Only one Apple Store will be open for business during this year's great annual family gathering of Thanksgiving/turkey massacre. According to IFOAppleStore, only the Royal Hawaiian store in Honolulu will open on Thanksgiving day this year. Presumably this is some sort of karmic debt being paid for getting to live in Hawaii year-round. The store's hours will be 10 AM to 10 PM. But don't you worry Apple-minded shoppers; the Apple Stores will be ready for you on Black Friday, with most US stores opening at 6 AM to accommodate your iPad-acquiring needs. When your shop will close on Black Friday depends on a number of factors, including the store's leasing agreement, local permits and other regional oddities. Las Vegas' Forum Shops Apple Store will be the last to close on Black Friday at 11:59 PM while the Greenwich Avenue store in Connecticut will close its doors at 7 PM. Check with your local Apple Store to make sure you know exactly when it will be closing. There is one bright spot for those Apple Store employees working in the Honolulu store this Thanksgiving however. Their store won't open on Black Friday until 8 AM, giving them an extra few hours of sleep on their other Apple Store brothers and sisters. If you've been wondering why exactly so many stores have fought to be open on Thanksgiving this year, rather than, say, let their employees spend time with their families on one of our few remaining important national holidays, consider this. In 2013, there is one less week between Christmas and Thanksgiving than normal, meaning one less week of sales for those stores. Considering many businesses make one-third of their total yearly profits during the holiday buying season, their desire to stay open is understandable. But if you're, for some reason, actually setting foot in a store on Thanksgiving day, please, for the love of God, be kind to the people who are forced to work that day. They're sacrificing a day with their families so you can get what might be just an illusion of a good deal.
GTA Online rifles and accessories are half-off this weekend
Rockstar is bringing holiday cheer to Grand Theft Auto 5 with a couple of discounted pieces of in-game content for GTA Online. Players can celebrate Thanksgiving with half-off deals for all rifles and rifle ammo and attachments, specifically the game's assault, carbine, heavy, advanced and sniper rifle weapons. The sales start tomorrow and last through December 1. Additionally, Rockstar discounted all black-colored clothing, accessories and vehicle modification items to celebrate Black Friday by 50 percent (though the sale for these items are also good through December 1). The vehicle modification items include window tinting, black license plates and black tire smoke for your car of choice.
Tell us your holiday IT nightmares in video and you could win!
Ever go home for the holidays and wind up troubleshooting or fixing family computers? Ever spend an hour with an aunt or uncle showing them, finally, how to set up email on their iPhone? Or use FaceTime? While Apple's software and hardware are notoriously easy to use, it is inevitable that the circuit-savvy among us will be called into active nerd duty when we head home for a spell. With that in mind, we're working with Los Angeles startup FilmThis to bring you a fun holiday treat this year. Just express your holiday IT stories in video form and use this special FilmThis page to enter. The videos with the most votes will win the prizes listed on that page, courtesy of your friends at TUAW. Be creative and have fun! You're not limited to Apple stories, really, as many a family has converted to Mac after spending too many Thanksgiving dinners trying in vain to get Skype to work on an aging PC at grandma's house. Tell us your craziest stuff and put it on the FilmThis page (note: You'll need a Facebook account to log in and enter, plus our normal giveaway rules apply as do those for FilmThis). To everyone going somewhere for the holidays, we wish you patience and safe travels!
World of Warcraft gives thanks with Pilgrim's Bounty
It's finally that wonderful time of year when Alliance and Horde alike come together (not with each other, of course) to, for some reason, give thanks for their continued existence in a world that seems perpetually on the brink of catastrophic destruction. World of Warcraft's in-game Pilgrim's Bounty event is going on now and will continue until December 2nd and, much like its real-world counterpart, it's mostly about food. Cooking daily quests make up a good deal of the event's activities, and it's only during Pilgrim's Bounty that players can acquire the recipes for seasonal dishes such as pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkey. No seasonal event would be complete without some unique items and achievements to go with it, of course, and Pilgrim's Bounty has that covered too. Players can bring some old-world flair to their characters' wardrobes by gathering an outfit of pilgrim's clothing, and there are nine achievements for players to complete over the course of the event. Completing all nine achievements will unlock the Pilgrim meta-achievement, which grants the cute and potentially delicious plump turkey companion pet. For all the details on Pilgrim's Harvest, head on over to the World of Warcraft official site.
Reminder: It came from the Blog's Pilgrim's Bounty 2013 is tonight MONDAY
Tonight's the night It came from the Blog celebrates Pilgrim's Bounty and you're all invited! When: Monday, Nov. 25 at 10:30 p.m. EST (7:30 p.m. PST, 8:30 p.m. server/mountain time) Where: Meet at the Ruins of Lordaeron on Zangarmarsh/Hellscream (US-PvE-H) Who: Any Horde character level 10 or above How: Ask any It came from the Blog member for an invite, if you're not already in our family of guilds Note: The Zangarmarsh/Hellscream connection happens today, so the server time may change. We'll be completing achievements and quests while hopping from city to city. Well, running or porting from city to city -- hopping is optional. Come throw food with us tonight! Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild ranks can invite, so /whisper Tizzi or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.
Talkcast tonight, 10 pm ET: Thanks, giving
It's Sunday, and it's time for the TUAW talkcast! Tonight, we're looking ahead to a very special week -- it's the US holiday of Thanksgiving on Thursday, which coincides with the first day/second night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Since this alignment hasn't ever really happened before, and (in the absence of changes to either the US or Jewish calendars) won't happen again for thousands of years, we take this unique opportunity to wish you all a very happy Thanksgivukkah. In the spirit of the holidays, we're planning to run down several of the things we're thankful for this year, and also look ahead to the unofficial kickoff of shopping season on Black Friday. Join us at 10pm ET, won't you? Thanks to the fine folks at Fuze, we're using Fuze Meeting to record the show (rather than the legacy Talkshoe system). This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in this very post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time. Your patience and forbearance with our new tech is appreciated in advance. For the time being, the podcast feed of the show will continue to originate from Talkshoe and should be there within 24-36 hours. See you tonight!
It came from the Blog: Join us for Pilgrim's Bounty 2013
Pilgrim's Bounty begins on Monday and It came from the Blog is going to celebrate it as we do every year. We'll be completing some quests and achievements in honor of the holiday. When: Monday, Nov. 25 at 10:30 p.m. EST (7:30 p.m. PST, 8:30 p.m. server/mountain time) Where: Meet at the Ruins of Lordaeron on Zangarmarsh/Hellscream (US-PvE-H) Who: Any Horde character level 10 or above How: Ask any It came from the Blog member for an invite, if you're not already in our family of guilds Note: Zangarmarsh will be connected to Hellscream on Monday, so the server time may change. We'll be bopping around from city to city throwing food as well as passing it politely. Come join us! Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild ranks can invite, so /whisper Tizzi or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.
Daily Update for September 30, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Talkcast 10pm ET: Thankful review, Cyber Monday preview
The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, and with it the traditional Black Friday kickoff to the holiday shopping season. Savvy online shoppers know to wait, however, for the Cyber Monday rush of discounts and deals (apparently a lot of those shoppers are browsing from their iPads). We'll look ahead to tomorrow's frantic shopping time. Also tonight, we're welcoming special guests Jeff Gamet of the Mac Observer and Chris Foresman of Ars Technica. With these alpha geeks and the usual gang of ruffians, we'll consider the question: what are we thankful for this year as Apple fans, Mac users and iOS customers? Of course, we are thankful for all of you -- and we want to know what you're thankful for. To participate live during the show, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients (aside from Skype or Google Voice), basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Instaturkey: Instagram hits all-time high, over 10 million pictures shared on #Thanksgiving Day
They say a picture is worth a thousand words -- and boy did Instragram's servers have a colossal amount of words to deal with yesterday. Via its blog, the Facebook-owned picture sharing service announced that, on Thanksgiving Day, more than 10 million holiday-related images were shared on the social network, which saw peak hour come in at around 12:00pm Pacific time with over 200 filter-packed (no filter, in some cases) images per second being Instagrammed. Moreover, Thanksgiving marked one of the app's most active days in its short history, with Instagram saying that yesterday "broke all records as we saw the number of shared photos more than double from the day before, making it our busiest day so far." Now bring on the #leftovers.
Chillingo and 10Tons offer discounts on popular games
It's Black Friday, which means there are discounts galore on hardware and software for Mac and iOS owners. Starting on November 22, game makers Chillingo and 10Tons have discounted a wide number of their game titles including Azkend 2, Tiny Troopers and Cut the Rope. You can browse through the full list below and check out our earlier post which highlights sales from Gameloft, EA and more. 10Tons King Oddball: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] On sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. Blow up tanks! Crash helicopters! Squash puny humans! Collapse structures! Hurl boulders until nothing remains! END THE WORLD! Heroes of Kalevala HD: [iPad, Category: Games] On sale for $0.99, down from $4.99. Build your very own village in the magical world of Kalevala on your iPad! Heroes of Kalevala: [iPhone, Category: Games] On sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. Build your very own village in the magical world of Kalevala! Sparkle the Game: [iPhone, Category: Games] On sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. Break the Orbs and Save the World on your iPhone or iPod touch! Grim Joggers: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] On sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. Jogging becomes bloodsport in this arcade style survival game with Game Center leaderboards and achievements. Puzzle Craft: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] Now free, down from $0.99. Puzzle Craft is the ideal game for Thanksgiving with its bountiful harvest of match-three farming combined with a fun, unique town building simulation. See why fans have been raving about Puzzle Craft. Azkend 2: [Mac, Category: Games] On sale for $3.99, down from $5.99. Step aboard a fantastic adventure! Enjoy amazing match-three gameplay and discover some of the most astonishing worlds ever imagined. Joining Hands: [Mac, Category: Games] On sale for $1.99, down from $2.99. A handtastic puzzle that leaves no hand behind! Full of charm, innovation and originality, but very easy to learn! Chillingo Tiny Troopers: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] Now free, down from $0.99. For those of you seeking something a little more explosive this Thanksgiving, we're giving the gift of Tiny Troopers. Lead a miniature army through 30 missions packing awesome visuals, tactile touch controls, and a cracking sense of humor. Totem Runner: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] Now free, down from $0.99. Legend and lore is the inspiration for Totem Runner. Transform into different animals and mythical creatures to sprint, fly and rampage through a beautifully crafted world that transforms at your heels. Swipe the Deck: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] Now free, down from $0.99. Forget good old-fashioned card games and give Swipe the Deck a go this Thanksgiving. An addictive mix of poker and match-three, keep up with your friends this holiday by swiping their decks in asynchronous multiplayer battles. Critter Escape: [iOS Universal, Category: Games] Now free, down from $0.99. It's never too early to start celebrating Christmas and no one knows that better than the sneaky critters of Critter Escape. Help the critters escape through levels blanketed in snow, sprinkled with gift boxes and brimming with Christmas magic in this seasonal update. Cut The Rope HD: [iPad, Category: Games] On sale for $1.99, down from $3.99. Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks and feasting and what better way to celebrate than with Cut the Rope's lovable green creature with an insatiable appetite, Om Nom. This physics-based puzzler is a holiday treat that keeps on giving.
The Guild Counsel: Guild-friendly features for which to be thankful
If you're reading this, it's probably well into Thanksgiving Day, which makes me wonder why you are reading this -- it's Thanksgiving Day! Perhaps you're playing catch-up while you finish up that slice of pumpkin pie. Or maybe you're back home, raiding the fridge for a late night turkey snack and a quick MMO update. Whatever your reason, there are many things that we can be thankful for when it comes to our MMOs. We've come a long way when it comes to guild-friendly features, and it's worth taking a look at in this week's Guild Counsel.
Sega's Thanksgiving Day sale is a digital feast
Sega's Thanksgiving Day sale features games discounted across XBLM, PSN, Android and iOS devices, with an extra-special discount on some titles for PS Plus members. It's kind of like getting the plate with extra gravy.PSN highlights include Jet Set Radio ($7 standard, $4.90 PS Plus), a bundle of Sonic 1 and 2 ($5, free), a Hell Yeah! bundle with two DLC packs ($15, $10.50) and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Complete Edition ($20, $15).We covered the Sega offers in the XBLA Black Friday sales post, but it's nice to see that still includes a handful of Sega Vintage Collections, Space Channel 5: Part 2 and Daytona USA, all for half off at 400 MS Points.iOS gets a smattering of games, such as Crazy Taxi and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2, both for $3. Android gets two games, Sonic 4: Episode 2 for $3 and Virtua Tennis Challenge for $2.Take a peek at the entire list below.
Our favorite iPhone photo apps for capturing and sharing the holiday spirit
Here in the US it's a holiday weekend, and we'll be visiting friends and family as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Of course a holiday gathering means pictures are going to be taken, and I have put together a list of some of my favorite apps for the iPhone that will help you take great photos and share them. Most of the apps I am talking about also run fine on the iPod touch or the iPad, but I expect the great majority of iOS photos are taken with iPhones. The iPhone camera has really improved over the years. More and more people are leaving their pocket camera at home and letting the iPhone become their camera of choice. Even better, very few conventional pocket cameras let you edit and send your photos to others (the Android-powered Nikon Coolpix aside), so the iPhone handily wins that race. OK then, let's dig in. First, you will want to capture those scenes at the dinner table. Newer iPhones running iOS 6 (5 and 4S models) have the built-in panorama mode. It's perfect where you need a wide angle to capture the moment. Just remind people to stay relatively still so everything blends well. If you don't have an iPhone 4S or 5, you can still get those wide shots with apps like AutoStitch ($1.99), 360 Panorama ($0.99) or Panoramatic 360 ($0.99). The free Photosynth will also take some nice extreme wide shots. Family portraits are easy as well. The iPhone camera with flash will work fine, but the iPhone, especially newer models, will do nicely in lower light, so you can forego the harsh light of the flash. Again, the built-in camera app works fine, but if you want a bit more control, or timers, and more adjustments, I suggest Camera+(on sale for $0.99), Fotor ($2.99) or Camera Genius ($2.99). If you want to tweak your photos after the fact, there are a lot of options. Apple's iPhoto ($4.99) for iOS has a wide range of features, but I prefer Photogene2 ($0.99), FX Photo Studio ($0.99), Snapseed ($4.99) and Alt Photo ($0.99). All these apps let you share your finished photos via email or the major social networks. If you want to fix a portrait by improving skin tones, or smoothing wrinkles on grandma, Perfect365 ($0.99) does that. It packs a lot of power in an iOS app. Of course, sending photos out one at a time can be a bit of a hassle, so there are a few apps that will create collages or nice web presentations all on your iPhone. For collages, I like Diptic ($1.99), Photopath (free) and TurboCollage ($1.99). For getting your photos to the web easily, Apple has Photostream, but I really prefer Photoset, which is free and creates instant web pages you can share with others. We also recently took a look at Beamr (free), which builds mini-magazines for the web and devices using your iPhone photos. Then there's the whole concept of taking thousands of still photos one after the other, and showing them to people at the frantic pace of 30 or so per second. Yes, you can bet the iPhone will be busy taking videos at many holiday parties. Apple's built-in video camera works just fine, but if you want more features take a look at FiLMIC Pro ($3.99). It has every feature a videographer could want. To do some quick and easy edits, Mike Rose suggests you check out One Second Epic ($1.99), which is a cool way to quickly string together short clips and then email them or share with Facebook. Have a happy holiday, and be sure to check that your phone has enough space on it for all those photos and videos. If you've synced your phone to iPhoto or Aperture but you still have "zombie" photos in your camera roll, you can easily delete the unwanted images with Apple's Image Capture utility on your Mac. Got more iPhone photo tips for the family gatherings? Please leave us some of your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
Guild Wars 2 celebrates Black Friday with in-game sales
ArenaNet has decided to honor Black Friday with a full weekend of Guild Wars 2 in-game sales. It's a Thanksgiving miracle! We know you've been asking yourself if ArenaNet will take your money. The answer is yes -- the answer is always yes. But on this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, ArenaNet will take far less of your money! On each day of the holiday weekend, three different items will be sold at a discount of up to 70% off. Naturally, telling you what's available would be far too simple, so you'll have to pop in-game to check out the daily deals.
5 apps to help make your turkey tasty this Thanksgiving
Before you pop that turkey in the oven and start whipping those potatoes, you better make sure you have your recipes out and your ingredients in order. If you are hosting a big Thanksgiving meal and need some help in the kitchen, here are five apps that'll help save the day. You might also check out our past coverage of iPad kitchen racks, tips for protecting your devices in the hostile cooking environment and an amazing DIY cabinet door mounting setup -- just don't let Grandpa chop the vegetables. Substitutions for iPad (iPad, $0.99) Substitutions is a straightforward app listing substitutions tables for cooking. It includes over 400+ substitutions that are organized into categories like alcohol, dairy, herbs & spices and more. It's a life-saver when you're making pumpkin pie and realize you bought sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. The app is also available for the iPhone. Butterball Cookbook Plus (iOS Universal, $4.99) The ultimate turkey cooking app from the folks who sell the turkeys that'll grace many plates this Thanksgiving holiday. Delectable Wine (iPhone, Free) An app for wine connoisseurs to help you remember and share some of the best wine you've tasted. Perfect for getting the best vino for your holiday dinner table. Appetites (iOS Universal, $0.99) Appetites is an interactive cooking show that you can install on your iPhone or iPad. A new Thanksgiving pack will help you cook the perfect meal. Wave Timer (iPhone, Free) Wave Timer is a hands-free app that'll let you stop a cooking timer by waving your hand at your phone. It'll help keep your phone clean while you cook.
Gameloft titles and other games on sale for Thanksgiving
This week, we're celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States, which also happens to be the official start of the holiday season gift-giving countdown. And that means sales in most places where entertainment is bought and sold, including the App Store. Here are a few of the most interesting sales we've heard about so far. Gameloft is having a big company-wide sale, with most of its apps on multiple platforms seeing discounts. That means The Amazing Spider-man app is just US$0.99, as is the action platformer BackStab and Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard. These prices might not have updated just yet where you live, but we're told they'll be discounted starting on Thursday and all through the weekend. Capcom's also got a sale going on, with Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile at $0.99 as the centerpiece. Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights is also down to just a buck, and we may see more titles go cheap before the weekend ends. PictoSoft has sent nearly all of its titles down to free for the weekend, including the popular 8th Floor: Secret of Castle. I've mentioned this sale a few times now, but it's worth mentioning again: Puzzle Craft is free to download right now. This is the iOS game of the year, people, at zero cost to you. EA's got Real Racing 2 and the traditional Monopoly game down to 99 cents. FIFA 13 is $2.99, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted is $4.99. Stay tuned -- this is likely only the first of plenty of EA sales this year. Sega's brought Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2 down to $2.99, which is the cheapest it's been in a while. Crazy Taxi is also just $2.99 as well. Bit-1 is a crazy little platformer that's now free, and it looks worth a download for sure. This is just the beginning. There are likely to be quite a few more sales going on this week and weekend due to Black Friday. The biggest sales actually come right before and after Christmas, when all of those newly unwrapped iPhones and iPads go looking on the App Store for games and apps to download. Stay tuned for lots more.
