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Nintendo officially announces Nintendo Network, promises personal accounts for Wii U
Nintendo's third quarter financial briefing just spilled the beans on the recently spied Nintendo Network, causing Nintendo fans everywhere to collectively sigh, "It's about time." Company head honcho Satoru Iwata says the network will offer "competitions and communication among users, as well as the sales of digital content," and in the case of the Wii U, will introduce personal user accounts. Iwata stopped just short of confirming that the Nintendo Network will end the company's policy of tying downloaded titles to Nintendo hardware, rather than individual users, but mentioned that it packed an infrastructure that supports not only add-on content, but fully downloadable retail games as well."This concept was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure," Iwata said, "We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U. However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it." Iwata pointed to Mario Kart 7's community building features and DLC offerings in the upcoming Theatrythm Final Fantasy as an early look at how the Nintendo Network is trying differentiate itself from the outfit's existing Nintendo Wi-Fi connection services. Hit the source link to read Iwata's briefing for yourself.
iPad Wishlist: Separate user accounts
We have a huge iPad problem in my household, and it looks like we are not alone. The problem is, we only have one. Just one iPad and a handful of rapacious gadget-loving geeks. While the iPad offers the same physical hardware for each user, we would all benefit from some system of user accounts, allowing us to segregate our own personal files from each other, just like we do on our desktop systems. As our own Victor Agreda put it, "Separate user accounts was probably the first thing I thought of when I brought the iPad home." He, like other users, was hoping to make accounts to limit access to e-mail identities, certain applications, and private files. Read on for more on why this would be a great idea... and why we may not see it anytime soon.
Mac 101: Disabling automatic login
If you use your Mac as a public computer (or family computer), then you might not always want it to load your user account when the computer starts up. By changing one option in the Accounts System Preference pane, you can have your Mac display a list of user accounts upon startup. Just open System Preferences and go to Accounts > Login Options. Click the "Automatic Login:" drop-down box and select "Disabled." Please note that you will need to authenticate as an administrator to change any of these settings. You can further customize the "login window" by choosing either "List of users" or "Name and password." If "list of users" is selected, you will be prompted to click your user account name and give your password in order to login. If name and password is selected, you will need to type in both your username and password to login.
Latest PlayStation Network numbers, 1.5 Million accounts
Any fear that the PlayStation Network wasn't pulling its fair share of subscribers can be put to rest. PlayStation Universe says 1.5 million user accounts were created since its inception, with 775,000 stemming from North America alone. Barring the fact users could have subscribed twice for multiple regions, the numbers are still impressive. Xbox Live only garnered 500,000 in the same six month time frame (including Silver and Gold memberships). Six million pieces of content were downloaded during this time. These numbers build on earlier reports of 1.3 million subscribers with over 3.2 million pieces of content downloaded.As far as gobbling up content, our appetites are always demanding more. Not to worry. As Sony Gamer's Day coverage should indicate, we have a feast coming very soon. [Via Qj.net]
