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Nintendo extends deadline to redeem 3DS and Wii U eShop codes until April 3rd
Nintendo was supposed to shut down its Wii U and 3DS eShops for good on March 27th at 5PM PST, but it looks like you'll have a little more time.
Disney’s lawsuit against Redbox may have backfired
Disney's attempt to prevent Redbox from buying its discs for rental and resale may have blown up in the House of Mouse's face. The Hollywood Reporter describes how District Court Judge Dean Pregerson sided with Redbox to shoot down a Disney-mandated injunction. In addition, Pregerson contended that Disney may itself be misusing copyright law to protect its interests and its own forthcoming streaming service.
Scan Spotify Codes to play songs instantly (updated)
Sharing songs with your buddies while on the go has typically been a hassle, with weird Shazam-style workarounds to get a song from one phone to another. It looks like Spotify knows this, too, as it's rolling out a new feature to use Snapchat-style codes that will let you grab a photo of your friend's screen to grab the song they want to share with you. We've confirmed the new feature in the Spotify app, though there's been no official word yet.
Snapchat is developing scannable ads
Snapchat users could soon be scanning more than each other's snapcodes. The company is reportedly working on scannable ads that would unlock sponsored content within the app. Like QR codes before them, these machine-readable advertisements can be integrated into stuff like product packaging or movie posters. Upon being scanned, the ads will grant users access to item discounts, sponsored content, and other goodies, while presumably providing Snapchat and its partners valuable marketing data about its users' interests. According to The Information's pair of unnamed sources, these ads should start rolling out sometime this fall.
Devs can now generate 100 promo codes per app release
Apple is now allowing developers to generate 100 app promo codes per app release, according to many developers. Before today, developers were limited to just 50 promo codes, which are usually given out to members of the press so they can review apps without having to pay for them. With the bump to 100 promo codes, that means developers can enable many more journalists to potentially write about their apps between releases. Once the promo code limit is used up, developers still have to wait until their app is next updated to generate more codes. As always, the codes can be generated in iTunes Connect.
EA and Origin plug up unintended game giveaway
EA hosted a survey this past weekend that, when finished, awarded a nice prize: A code to download one free game, under $20, on the company's digital distribution site Origin. Just a few things went wrong, however.It turns out the codes distributed weren't matched up to a specific Origin account; they could be used by anyone. Oh, and the codes worked multiple times, which means users could download as many under-$20 games as they wanted. Oh, and one more thing: Reddit figured all of this out.As you can imagine, all hell broke loose on Origin, as what must have been thousands of users downloaded games like Dead Space 2, Burnout Paradise, Sim City 4, and Mass Effect 2 for exactly zero dollars. The site went down, and when it came back up the codes (which were supposed to work until October 21) had been disabled. Not only that, but all promo codes have been disabled for the time being, apparently.There's no word on if EA will still honor the codes from the survey [see update: They will], or if there will be a new system in place at all, but we can almost guarantee that whatever solution EA comes up with, the IT team will probably have double- and triple-checked it for security, just to be sure. We've contacted EA for comment on what its plans are, and will let you know if we hear anything more.Update: EA has gotten back in touch to say that those users who completed the survey will be getting new codes via email soon, to provide the specified discount. In other words, no more stealing allowed.
Dutch coins feature QR codes, promise 'surprises'
Governments cram all manner of bizarre imagery onto the back of currency, so really, what's a few little QR codes between treasury departments? And heck, who are we to suggest that these new coins from the Royal Dutch Mint aren't the beginning of a larger barcoded money trend? The mint is celebrating its centennial with two new QR-packing collectable coins. The codes bring their owners to the mint's website, which promises a "surprise," once the coins are officially available later this month. Some sort of cloud-based vending machine, perhaps?
Snag a Faxion Online token code from Massively!
Is greed your favorite vice? We hope so! The folks at UTV True Games have given us a multi-use code that will grant 100 of our quickest-clicking readers 30 tokens apiece for use in Faxion Online, the heaven-and-hell-themed MMO that released only last month. To redeem the code for yourself, log in to the official Faxion Online website, head straight to the store redemption page, and enter the key. Then pause a moment to roll around in your piles of free tokens. You've earned it. Here's the mega-key: FAXIONMOGULE9P1 -- good luck!
Valkyria Chronicles 2 codes collected
Over the past few weeks, Sega has been updating its blog with new codes for Valkyria Chronicles 2. These codes can be entered under the "Extras" section on the title screen, and unlock a variety of stickers and characters.
Scott Pilgrim's heartbreaking 'Blood Code'
We already shared the code to unlock Boss Rush in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but we've just learned of another and ran to try it out. Pictured above is the result of the "Blood Code" (X, Circle, X, Square, X, Circle, Circle on PS3; or A, B, A, X, A, B, B on Xbox 360 -- get it?) Scott Pilgrim's interpretation of "blood" is pretty adorable: Whenever a hit connects, the spark effect is replaced by a pink, heart-shaped splash. The effect is active until you quit the game. Though it brings us great joy to experience the nostalgia of writing about newly-discovered cheat codes, this may be the last time we get to do so for Scott Pilgrim, as most (if not all) of the game's codes have been discovered and GameFAQs'd.
PSA: How to redeem Mass Effect 2 DLC codes ('cause it can get complicated) [update]
BioWare has posted a clarification for those having issues redeeming Mass Effect 2 promotional codes received in the Collector's Edition of the game or as pre-order bonuses from retailers. The codes require you to go to MassEffect.com to redeem, and although PC players just have to download a file in most cases, it's the Xbox 360 users that are stumbling into an issue. Take note: If you have played a recent EA game with an online component (like Battlefield 1943) on your Xbox 360, chances are you already have an EA.com account linked to your Gamertag. If this is the case, do not create a new account on BioWare's or EA's site to redeem your code. Xbox 360 owners that have played an EA game online and have their Gamertags tied to an account should not input their codes until they can log into their EA.com accounts. If you've already tied your Mass Effect 2 DLC code to a new account, the only way we know to get the game content is to transfer your new account over to an existing one, which requires getting in contact with EA. We're currently contacting the publisher to see if EA can implement a streamlined process to transfer accounts and will update as soon as we hear back. Update: We've placed EA's suggestions on fixing various Mass Effect 2 DLC issues after the break.
Engadget meets Woz
Engadget's Josh Topolsky got to chat with none other than Woz recently, and they've finally shared a great video of their meeting. Woz says a lot of interesting things in the video (he runs six navigation systems at a time in his car just for comparison's sake, and carries two iPhones nowadays, just in case the battery life runs out), but the most intriguing thing about this video is just seeing the great Wozniak thinking machine race along at the speed of Woz. For example, those two iPhones he carries are the two different colors available. Why? "White and black, black and white. Resistor color codes: zero and nine. Those are the digits they end in!" Gosh, we love Steve Wozniak. You can watch the whole video after clicking the link below.
WoW Insider Show's 100th episode live tomorrow with BigBearButt
Our podcast has hit a landmark -- can you believe we've been doing this thing for almost two years? Yes, it's been a full 99 times that we've sat down and recorded our thoughts on the latest and greatest news from the World of Warcraft community, and tomorrow's show will be number 100. It will be a lot of fun -- we'll welcome back our good friend John "BigBearButt" Patricelli, and he'll join Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington, Turpster, and I to talk about all the most popular posts here on WoW.com, including Sam Raimi's upcoming movie and what we expect from it, Ghostcrawler's thoughts on class balance going into BlizzCon, and the Druid and Hunter Q&As that have appeared from Blizzard lately.And I guess since it's the 100th show we should do something fun: Turpster and I will be on video during the show, so you'll get to see our faces as we chat, and we'll be doing a look back at our favorite moments from the podcast so far. In fact, we also want to hear your favorite moments from the first 100 episodes, and to give you a little incentive, we're giving away some more loot cards. Two random commenters on this post who tell us their favorite moments from the show's past will win a loot card code each, courtesy of our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com. You can only enter once, please use a valid email address when you enter (so we can contact you when you win), and you must enter before tomorrow night, Saturday the 25th of July, 2009, at midnight Eastern time. Good luck, and give us your memories!Our show kicks off tomorrow at July 25, 2009 3:30 PM EDTvar date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); ) over on our Ustream page, or, as always, you can find the embedded stream below. We'll see you tomorrow afternoon for show number 100!
iTunes gift cards cracked
This seems like bad news for Apple, to say the least. A few Chinese websites are now selling $200 gift certficates to iTunes for less than a few bucks, which means that it's likely hackers have figured out the algorithm to determine gift codes on Apple's music store. As with most online codes, iTunes gift certificate numbers are generated by a formula somewhere -- figure out the formula, and you can generate your own codes (though it's of course tough to do and highly illegal).The good news is that this might be an easy fix for Apple: they'll just have to re-figure the formula. The tougher thing to do will be to determine which of the old codes to honor -- they'll want to make sure to approve all of the cards on the shelves at Best Buy right now, while still trying to catch all of the illegal codes generated by hackers.But then again, we're talking about a digital store that's already making cash hand over fist. Maybe even if one hacker on a shady website has figured out how to generate iTunes codes, Apple isn't too concerned about losing a few thousand dollars when they're still selling millions of dollars worth of music and content legitimately.
LittleBigPlanet beta codes available on Joystiq
The opportunities to get your hands on those ever-elusive LittleBigPlanet beta codes keep on coming. Joystiq is running a week-long giveaway, with ten to give away each day. Simply comment on today's post (read the post fully for specific rules) over at Joystiq and check back every day for a new one. It's not time restricted, simply post at some point during the day and you're in for a chance of being picked at random as a winner. Keep an eye on the Joystiq twitter feed too, as they seem to be using that to hand out the goodies, too. Good luck!
Authenticator failure revisited, Blizzard responds
We created a lot of waves with this post about Blizzard's Authenticator key allegedly failing -- as you know if you've been listening to the podcast, lots of people have emailed us with their own input on the situation, alternately thanking us for making it known that the Authenticator wasn't 100% secure, and lambasting us for being "ignorant" about how Blizzard's security token works. At the base of the story, there are two things we know are true: that someone was using the Authenticator on their account, and then was subsequently hacked. For that reason, we've stood by the "Authenticator fails" story -- while having an Authenticator on your account is a helpful line of defense, it, like all other computer security measures, isn't a 100% guarantee against getting hacked.Most people agree on that. Where opinions differ are in how the account was hacked -- originally, we and a few other sources speculated that the Authenticator had been somehow removed from the account in question. But now Belfaire has responded (we believe to the incident in question, though a link to our story was removed from the original post), and says that as far as he can tell, the Authenticator was not removed from the account. In fact, after the password was changed back, the Authenticator's serial key was asked for and given, so the Authenticator remained attached to the account the whole time.Of course, that just leaves the most important question: how did the account get hacked? We've heard all kinds of various insights as to how the Authenticator works (it only lasts for 60 seconds, supposedly each key can only be used once, so there's no way a keylogger could nab the Authenticator code and reuse it), but the fact remains that the person we're talking about was using the key, and still got hacked. One hack out of all the Authenticators sold so far is a terrific record, and could prove that, statistically, an Authenticator is good as 100% security. But the fact remains that this person got hacked while using the key (however it was done), and if security can be broken once, it will be broken again.
Homebrew app Ocarina makes cheating that much easier
You've got to love the Homebrew community. They're constantly trying to cut corners and this latest app, Ocarina, is no different. Instead of spending time inputting button commands in-game, you can simply inject them, Game Genie or Action Replay-style, into the game. For example, in Twilight Princess, the Ocarina app allows the user to climb ladders super fast, have infinite bombs and use a variety of items underwater. Among other things, Link can also use the Spinner in a really imaginative way. [Thanks, RupeeClock!] The homebrew community has been hard at work creating wonderful experiences for you to enjoy with your Wii. Did you know about homebrew game Masteroids? Or how about the shmup OpenTyrian? Outside of games, people have been using the Balance Board to come up with some really neat stuff. Keep up with the homebrew scene by staying current with our Homebrew category!
Mythic publishes Warhammer Online pre-order FAQ
Mythic has created the beginnings of a FAQ intended to help would-be-customers sort out all the details about pre-ordering Warhammer Online. Info included in the FAQ: how to pre-order in Canada, who to poke to get pre-order codes when you place your order through an online store, and details and definitions on the beta testing phases, among other things.Mythic promises that the FAQ will be updated with new information in the future, but doesn't say what kind of information it'll be.The FAQ has some helpful information if you have those specific questions, of course. If you want a more in-depth and badass guide to pre-ordering WAR, though, check out our WAR collector's edition pre-order guide. Which retailer distributes codes in the most helpful way? Which one gives you the best extra goodies? It's all there!
And now, the good news
Friend codes, shmf ... shmiend ... point is, whatever. A minor inconvenience, we say! Hah! Bearer of good fortunes, Matt C. has this to say in his holy scripture mailbag feature, revealing "[Online is] coming, guys - Pokemon Battle Revolution kicks it off in the near future, but in the next six months you're going to start seeing a wave of third party games that take Wii online, too. Developers have had the online SDK for months now and the next wave of titles will incorporate it."Goodness me, we're excited. The longer the developers have had the development kits, the better chances of getting some decent multiplayer going on. Even if these titles suck, the more online experience Nintendo has before Brawl (and possibly Prime?), the better. Friend codes be damned, I'll enter a million digits if it means kicking the crap out of all of you with Icarus. Oh yeah. Wii Game Night is so going down.
LicenseKeeper tracks your serial number collection
The crew at Outer Level (developers of the kid-friendly, bug-chomping game Bullfrog) apparently have a problem in common with me, and plenty of other Mac users: too many software license codes and no system for organizing them. Excel and FileMaker, too bulky; flat text files, too plain; leave them in email and let Spotlight sort them out... tempting... but no. Enter LicenseKeeper, a $20 solution to this age-old challenge.LicenseKeeper 1.0 will let you type or copy in your registration info, sure -- but it's also prepared to keep track of vendor website URLs, support email addresses, and lots of the other bitsies that tend to go missing when you need them. It will import directly from Mail.app and scan for serial numbers in the inbound registration message (a killer feature if you use Mail; I'm waiting for the equivalent Entourage capability). You can even attach files to the serial number records. A downloadable demo will handle up to five license records and three attachments each before asking you to pay up.There are two other options for this task that I haven't mentioned so far: a general snippet organizer like Yojimbo or KIT, or a free license tracker like Licensed. Either path might work for you if LicenseKeeper isn't to your taste.Thanks to those who sent this in.
