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Microsoft’s News Bar adds a scrolling news feed to Windows 10
In case you didn't already feel inundated with news, Microsoft is introducing a new app that will display a scrolling news feed across your desktop. News Bar, currently available as a beta for Windows 10, will curate the top regional news from over 4,500 publications, and if you choose, it will include customizable stock info.
Facebook now flags fake news
After taking heat for months in the run up to the presidential elections, Facebook has been cracking down on fake news spreading through its social network. The company recently began using third-party fact-checkers and gave its users the ability to manually report fake news posts. Late last week, the company announced that it will soon include "Disputed" labels for these false reports as well.
Mass Effect 3 goes trick-or-treating with a Halloween Challenge
BioWare is celebrating Halloween with a special trick and treat-inspired multiplayer challenge in Mass Effect 3. Beginning today and running through November 5, there are three new tasks for players to take on to earn a special holiday reward: Players need to run five extractions on the Firebase Ghost map (or its Hazard version), earn 7500 points against zombies (also known as husks or abominations in the Mass Effect parlance) and earn 10,000 points against monsters (which includes brutes, scions, praetorians, and banshees). Completing the tasks on any difficulty will earn players a Halloween Challenge Banner. What's too bad is that you won't get the Halloween-themed characters teased above to join your gang. Bioware doesn't say, but we're pretty sure they're crew members for some other Mass Effect 3 team, maybe helmed by one Commander SCARE-perd of the USS Norman-DIE! Boooooo! [Ed. Note: You're fired.]
Daily iPad App: Say Anything lets you get somebody's attention without saying a thing
Sometimes you need to get a person's attention without saying a word. You can wave your hand wildly at them, but all that vigorous movement may scare them away. A better way to get someone's attention is to pull out your iPad and fire up a banner app like Say Anything from Appy Inc. Say Anything is a simple banner app that lets you type in text and scroll it across your iPad's display just like a ticker tape. It has a swipe-based interface that uses both vertical and horizontal swiping gestures. A horizontal swipe sets your banner in motion and controls the speed, while a vertical swipe lets you scroll among your messages. Speaking of messages, your messages can have unlimited characters and you can save them for later use. You can save an unlimited number of preset messages (99-cent in-app purchase required) and use a favorites list to make it easy to find your most used messages. Unlike the paper banners of yore, you can jazz up your messages on the fly by changing the background color and adjusting the font color and face. There's also a mirror mode that's available as a 99-cent in-app purchase. Your message and its background are fully customizable, but, like mirror mode and unlimited presets, these changes come with a cost. If you want to adjust the size of the text, add more fonts or swap out the background for an image or a texture, you have to activate those features via an in-app purchase. Each feature costs 99-cents, but you can save yourself some cash and buy all five features (fonts, scaling, background, mirror and unlimited preset messages) for a reasonable US$1.99. What sets Say Anything apart from its competition is its ease of use and quality design. It's a fast, responsive app with a clean UI that lets you get your message across to someone in just a few seconds. I've been using it off and on for the past few weeks and am pleased with its performance. The developers are also responsive to problems and committed to producing a quality app. Say Anything is available for free from the iOS App Store, so you can try the basic features of the app without spending any money. If you like the app, then you should spend the $1.99 to unlock all five features and get rid of those pop-ups that appear every time you click on a paid feature that you haven't bought yet. You'll be glad you did.
More Cataclysm precursors found in Patch 3.3.3 PTR files
While we haven't heard much new Cataclysm news lately, the Patch 3.3.3 PTR files have provided some pretty tantalizing hints as to what may be to come, including some new models associated with the Twilight's Hammer cult. First off, we have a series of portals. These portals are topped by a crystal that looks very similar to the wind stones of Silithus, and in fact, each portal and crystal seems specifically marked to summon a specific element. There's also a bloodstained sacrificial altar and a couple of banners, all of these have a very specific dragon-like motif. The Twilight's Hammer has already been confirmed to be working with Deathwing in Cataclysm, and since they're an elemental doomsday cult dedicated to bringing about the return of the Old Gods, busting Deathwing out of prison is right up their alley. We should probably expect to see these models in game relatively soon, and probably as part of a plot by the Twilight's Hammer to summon Deathwing back into the world -- a plot which will, of course, eventually succeed. Stayed tuned for more coverage of Patch 3.3.3 and the Cataclysm opening event as it develops! %Gallery-86068%
Mythic releases trio of WAR launch day videos
As busy as the Mythic folks have been gearing up for launch this week, they still took the time to have some fun and meet some fans. All of their antics have been recorded for your viewing pleasure, with the credits posing as a particularly entertaining -- if not lengthy -- video. Also, our hope is that Josh and everyone exposed to too much radio-frequency energy at least gain some kind of superpowers. There's a lot to watch between the three separate videos, but it's all fairly entertaining for any fan of the Warhammer Online guys. We hope they're starting to recover from launch day at least a little bit, but if these videos are any indication then they've only just begun.
World of WarCrafts: Banner of brutality
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Show the world where your loyalties lie with this horde-riffic signage. The bold red backdrop is guaranteed to garner attention while the blood spatter technique would make even Thrall proud. Here is what you will need: Wooden Frame (I used a Make Me Frameous frame from Michaels) Wooden Letters (I used Provo Craft Carved Letters from Michaels) Acrylic Paint (deep red, black) Fine Red Glitter Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic Spray Paint Brush Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-26732%
Terminal Tip: Create a text banner
Want to create a "Happy Birthday" or "Congratulations" banner? Want to skip all the "how do I get a large font to print sideways?" stuff? The command line "banner" command may help. It allows you to create a sideways message that you can open in TextEdit, print out and (with a bit of help from scissors and scotch tape) hang from the rafters. The banner command defaults to an old style text width of 132 characters, so you'll want to tell it to keep that width down to 72 or 75 if you're going to use TextEdit's default font. (You can always play with the font sizes in TextEdit and the width in the banner command if you want.) Use the -w flag to set the width and put the text you want to bannerize in a string. The bit about "open -f" pipes the results into TextEdit. banner -w 72 "Happy 75th Birthday" | open -f
Microsoft: The WOW starts... with a MacBook?
Microsoft's "The WOW Starts Now!" Vista promotion campaign has taken just about every computer and technology venue by storm. Everyone from the likes of Best Buy to Bob's Computers has at least some kind of hanging banner, floor signage or postcard handouts featuring the mind-numbing array of Vista flavors, but we're curious as to who actually designed all this promo material. Filippo Corti at the Mac Blog (crummy Google translation to English here) snapped this pic which features what must be a MacBook alongside four of the major versions of Vista. Considering that Vista's EULA forbids virtualizing any versions besides Business and Ultimate, this either amounts to a grossly mis-leading advertisement or a fox sly, pro-Apple designer among sheep.[Update: Right on cue, some debate as to whether this is actually a MacBook or even a piece of Apple hardware at all has ensued. Some eagle-eyed readers have pointed out that the side ports actually say iBook, and we tend to agree. Still, this looks like a piece of iconic Apple hardware, and Microsoft could have made a more distinctive choice.]
WWDC 2006 banner
Our good friends at Engadget came across this picture of a 2006 WWDC banner in Moscone Center (that' where WWDC takes place in sunny SF). So, what does this banner tell us? Well, that thing that looks like a G5 tower probably contains an Intel chip (I assume) which might be 64 bit (hence the 64 bit logo). We can also see the subtle leopard print on the OS X disc, which isn't as obnoxious as I thought it might me.Check out the Engadget post for more pictures and share your thoughts in the comments.
