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Daily Roundup: E-Reader buyer's guide, Google blocks Microsoft's YouTube app, Amber update arrives on Lumia devices, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Razer announces the $79 Tartarus, a more affordable gaming keypad
Most PC gamers are content to game on the standard QWERTY keyboard layout, but a select few prefer a special niche peripheral: the keypad. Razer's been building these single-hand keyboards since it helped Belkin create the n52te SpeedPad and it's still at it, today announcing the Razer Tartarus. Featuring 15 face keys and 25 programmable buttons (including an eight-way directional thumb pad), the Tartarus is billed as a successor to Razer's Nostromo -- although it actually has more in common with the $130 Orbweaver. Like the high-end keypad, the Tartarus has fully programmable keys with unlimited-length macro support, Razer Synapse 2.0 for profile syncing and key-binding and the company's modern design language, but it eschews the Orbweaver's articulating ergonomics and mechanical keys to hit a lower $79 price point. These efforts shaved 50 percent off of the product's sticker price, but also cost it an additional row of keys. We spent a few minutes with the device and were pleased at how well it worked right out of the box, handily emulating the standard WASD gaming setup it's built around. We did miss the Orbweaver's additional buttons, however, as the smaller keypad's three-row setup left us reaching for a row of numerical analogs that simply weren't there. It's not the game controller for everyone, but it's good to know that there are options for niche peripheral fans on a budget. Read on for the company's official press announcement.
The Firing Line: 16th century fragging edition
What do War Thunder, World of Warplanes, Leonardo da Vinci, and Tribes: Ascend have in common? Not a whole lot aside from their respective appearances in this week's edition of The Firing Line. Won't you join me after the cut for a rundown on some recent and notable online shooter news? If you're feeling particularly ornery, you can point and laugh at the fact that I'm still not in the War Thunder beta.
Tribes: Ascend getting two new maps, custom loadouts in Tartarus update
Tribes: Ascend continues to be both free and excellent, which is to say we were pretty excited this morning when we heard that a content update is in the works. Two crazy-looking new maps, custom loadouts, and a variety of requested player tweaks are planned for the Tartarus update, which is said to be "coming soon."
