The army of the slow-moving undead are returning to the local mall, and photojournalist Frank West is on hand to dispatch them, one swing of his aluminum bat (or whatever other weapon he has handy) at a time. The Wii port of Dead Rising, subtitled Chop Til You Drop, is on its way from Capcom, and we had a chance to take the brief demo for a spin during Nintendo’s fall press summit last week.

The timed demo let us take control of Frank while he unloaded his aggression on a food court full of shambling zombies, using every weapon at his disposal. Highlights included the aforementioned bat, a cheap-looking lightsaber knockoff, and a mall bench, which Frank could pick up and swing with about as much ferocity as you imagine you could swing a big, awkward wooden bench with.

You use the weapons in Chop Til You Drop with the Wii Remote by pressing the A button or flailing around with the Remote itself. Either approach works pretty well, and the zombies go down in typical comical fashion. Of course, Frank has also has access to firearms when he really wants to get down with the zombie murdering–it looks like he’ll be able to haul four guns at once. We had access to a simple handgun and a shotgun that you aim with the Wii Remote and fire with the B button. One of the best tricks in the game was to temporarily stun a zombie with a well-placed pistol shot to the face, then run over, arm your bat, and build up power by shaking the Wii Remote quickly before letting loose with a David Ortiz-like shot to the dazed zombie’s grill.

Producers told us that Chop Til You Drop will be a port of the original game for the Xbox 360, and the mall will be the same size as the original game’s. As for original content designed specifically for the Wii, all we saw were two new enemy types–a flying zombie parrot that would dive-bomb Frank’s head periodically, and an equally ridiculous zombie poodle that didn’t know the meaning of the word “heel” (but did understand the shotgun blast to the face).

After the timed demo in the mall, we were taken to part two, a one-on-one showdown with an insane clown who had chainsaws instead of hands and liked to blow up balloons…deadly balloons. The fight took place on a rooftop and there were a slew of weapons on hand to take him down with. This was an agile insane clown, mind you, and he rarely stood stil long enough for us to plug him full of lead, so a more personal touch was needed in the form of the kind of baseball-bat beating that we’ve all wanted to administer to one clown or another over the years.

It was an admittedly short amount of time with Chop Til You Drop, but Capcom seems to be doing the best it can with the Wii’s limited power in making a faithful rendition of the original game. It’s not going to have as many weapons and certainly doesn’t look nearly as nice as the 360 game, but those who missed out on the original will have their chance when the game arrives some time next year. Look for more on Chop Til You Drop from the 2008 Tokyo Game Show next week.

A pre-release alpha version of a Mac version of uTorrent, the popular BitTorrent client for Windows, has been leaked to the public.

Available from the Swedish torrent Web site The Pirate Bay, the Cocoa-based client has been expected since 2006 when BitTorrent, Inc., bought uTorrent and promised to develop a Mac version. There was little said since then, until this past August when uTorrent developer Greg Hazel announced that a Mac version would be ready ”in a few weeks,” according to the torrent news Web site TorrentFreak.

Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Development, responded to the leak by saying that the version currently in the wild was not supposed to get out and is not recommended for use, although he hopes that people now believe him when he says that there is a Mac uTorrent client in the works. There is an official notification list for eager users available at the uTorrent site. http://mac.utorrent.com/

Certain key features don’t work yet, such as searching. Comments about the app on The Pirate Bay confirm its bugginess. So far it only seems to work on Intel-based Macs, and only those running OS X 10.5 or higher. Because this is an extremely early build of the client, it’s not clear at this point how it will stand up to established Mac torrent clients such as Transmission, how it compares to its Windows sibling, or even if this means that a BitTorrent-branded Mac client is in the works.

Ironically, you’ll need a torrent client to download this torrent client, since it’s only available from a torrent Web site.

From: CNET.COM

Google’s Chrome is a stripped-down, no-nonsense browser, and unlike Firefox, it doesn’t have an array of add-ons available to change its behavior. So at first glance, you might think there’s not a lot you can do to hack Chrome or bend it to your will.

Think that and you’d be wrong. In fact, there are plenty of secrets hidden beneath Chrome’s shiny surface. Whether you want to do something as simple as reload the past 10 tabs you’ve closed or something fancier like force Chrome to use a different theme, peer into the mysteries of the Chrome “about:” page, or power up Chrome with “bookmarklets,” we’ve got help for you.

Power up Chrome with bookmarklets

Firefox fans will be disappointed by Chrome’s lack of add-ons. Chome is still in early beta, so there’s a possibility that add-ons will be in the browser’s future. But even now, there are ways you can use add-ons to Chrome, via bookmarklets.

Bookmarklets are little pieces of JavaScript that you can store as a bookmark, and when clicked upon, they run as a kind of miniprogram. They don’t include a full set of features and interactivity, as do Firefox add-ons or Internet Explorer’s ActiveX controls; think of them as one-trick ponies that accomplish a single task.

Because Chrome is in beta, not every bookmarklet will necessarily work with it. But there have been a number of bookmarklets written specifically for Chrome, and other bookmarklets work just fine with it.

To add a bookmarklet to Chrome, first display Chrome’s bookmarks bar, which appears just below the Omnibox. (Pressing Ctrl+B toggles the bookmarks bar on and off.) Once you do that, when you get to a page with a bookmarklet link, drag the link to the Chrome bookmarks bar. Once it’s there, to run the bookmarklet, click on it.

The Blogote blog has a list of bookmarklets that are supposed to work with Chrome. You can drag the bookmarklets to Chrome’s bookmarks bar from there.

For example, the “Adblock+” bookmarklet is useful for those who want to surf without a lot of flashing, noisy ads. While it won’t block all ads, it can block third-party iFrames as well as ads with Java, Flash and music. After you’ve installed it, when you’re on a page whose ads you want to block, click the bookmarklet, and it does its work.

For bookmarklets designed to work with many browsers, not just Chrome, head to the CyberNotes page on CyberNet. Unfortunately, although the site has icons to show whether each bookmarklet works with Firefox, IE or Opera, there’s not yet a Chrome icon. So if you see a bookmarklet that looks interesting, just grab it and see if it works.

I’m a fan of the “View site’s cookies” bookmarklet, which displays all of the cookies placed on your PC by the site you’re currently visiting. The screenshot to the right shows both bookmarklets in action.

You can also do a Google search for bookmarklets and try each of them out with Chrome. Note that not all will work, and even those that have supposedly been tested with Chrome might not work with the latest version of the browser. (For example, I couldn’t get the Gmail This bookmarklet to work. It’s supposed to mail the current page via Gmail, but it didn’t work in my Chrome installation.)

Reload closed tabs

At first blush, Chrome appears to have one very serious shortcoming — it doesn’t seem to be able to reload tabs that you’ve closed, something that both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8 can do. But there are in fact several ways to reload closed tabs.

If you want to reload the last tab you’ve closed, press Ctrl-Shift-T, and Chrome will open it for you. Want to open the tab you closed before that? Press Ctrl-Shift-T again. You can do this for up to the last 10 tabs you closed.

You can also use the New Tab page to reopen a tab you closed fairly recently. When you open a new tab, you get a page showing thumbnails of your nine most-visited sites, plus blue search and bookmarks boxes on the right. If you closed any tabs within the past few minutes, you’ll also see a yellow box containing your three most recently closed tabs, which lets you skip directly to the site you want.

Finally, there’s a setting that lets you start up Chrome displaying all the tabs that were open when you last closed it down. Click the Tools icon, choose Options, and on the Basics tab, select “Restore the pages that were open last,” then click Close.

From now on, when you open Chrome, the browser will launch and reload all the tabs that were open when you closed it.

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 is dropping the built-in Vista applications for email, photo management, and movie making in favor of applications downloaded from the Web:

The software maker included Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker as part of Vista, but later chose to offer separate downloadable Windows Live programs that essentially replaced those components with versions that could connect to online services from Microsoft and others.
…
In a follow-up interview on Monday, Windows Vista general manager Brian Hall said Microsoft made the decision to remove the tools from Windows for several reasons, including a desire to issue new operating system releases more quickly than it has in the past. The move also removes the confusion of offering and supporting two different programs that perform essentially similar functions.

“It makes it much cleaner,” Hall said.

Two different applications for the same purpose is certainly an unneeded luxury and one can sympathize with the difficulty in getting multiple applications with different update frequencies to a coordinated Windows 7 launch date, but I can’t help but think that this shifts the pain to the end user. The consumer with a shiny new PC already has a lot of work to do to transfer files and applications to the new system and this just adds to the burden unless it is completely automatic.

Microsoft is coy about how streamlined the acquisition process for these applications will be, but the above news report from Ina Fried suggest that Microsoft fears antitrust scrutiny of making the process too automatic and suggests that they will instead work with partners “to enable really great experiences.” I assume that partners means OEMs where, frankly, great experiences are usually in short supply.

Finally, while we are talking Windows 7, Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2008 is coming up in late October and Microsoft’s Denise Begley reminds us that there will be plenty of Windows 7 information including a Windows 7 keynote by head Windows honcho Steven Sinofsky. A list of all of the PDC08 sessions shows 22 of them on Windows 7.

New York — Scanbuy, a global leader in mobile marketing solutions, today announced that it has secured a global agreement with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. to preload the ScanLife mobile 2D barcode application on Samsung’s camera phones. Samsung will begin selling these phones in Spain, Italy, and Denmark starting as early as next month. Availability will quickly expand to other major markets including Mexico and the United States.ScanLife technology uses camera phones to connect the physical world to the digital world. The application reads EZcodes and other major 2D barcode formats designed to quickly recognize and process information. Marketers and content providers use the ScanLife Code Management Platform (www.scanlife.com) to extend brand engagement onto mobile devices, while end users scan EZcodes to get information quickly and easily. The ScanLife solution gives consumers and code publishers both national and international interoperability for the use of 2D codes.

Samsung is the second largest phone manufacturer in the world, and is expected to sell over 200 million handsets in 2008. Samsung’s extensive line of popular phones include the Blackjack, Glyde, and the recently released Instinct.

“The 2D barcode solution delivered by Scanbuy is a valuable technology, making phone navigation simpler and more effective for end users,” said Wonsik Lee, Vice President of R&D Planning Team, Samsung. “We are dedicated to continually improving our customers’ experience using Samsung mobiles, and the ScanLife application allows them to instantly access information anytime and anywhere.”

As part of the global agreement, Samsung will pre-load camera phones with the ScanLife application for each new country rolling-out Scanbuy’s complete solution. Samsung will also use EZcodes to promote and market their extensive portfolio of consumer related electronics.

“This agreement with a global leader in phone design and manufacturing is a watershed moment for the 2D barcode market. It underscores the widespread demand throughout the mobile ecosystem for improving information discovery and access on every device,” said Jonathan Bulkeley, Chief Executive Officer of Scanbuy. “Scanbuy is wholly committed to working with all organizations including carriers, manufacturers, and content creators to ensure 2D barcodes reach their full potential in enabling the mobile phase of the digital information age.”

About Scanbuy

Scanbuy is the leading global provider of mobile marketing solutions that use the camera phone as the link between the physical world and the digital world. The ScanLife client application and Code Management Platform are revolutionizing the way media companies, marketers, handset manufacturers and carriers around the world provide information and services to consumers on their mobile phones.

Founded in 2000, Scanbuy has a strong and growing intellectual property base in 2D barcode technology. The company’s investors include Longworth Venture Partners, Masthead Venture Partners and Hudson Ventures.

As expected, there will be a new a version of Adobe’s Photoshop image editing software, Adobe Photoshop CS4, on display this morning when visitors hit the show floor at Photokina 2008.

Presented preliminarily last month, Photoshop CS4 is both a stand-alone piece of software and an integral part of Adobe’s total graphics and web design package, Creative Suite 4.

Not surprisingly, one emphasis of the redesign involved the development of additional “smart” tools. Content-Aware Scaling is the big one, automatically recognizing disparate scene elements as such and allowing users to resize the background without distorting what’s in the foreground of the shot, for instance. It sounds like serious techno-wizardry, and it’s one area where we’ll want to do some further exploring.

Adobe’s press announcement also highlights the software’s Auto-Align and Auto-Blend modes, which can be used to “generate composites based on extended depth of field and 360 degree panoramas [...] with seamless tones and colors,” according to the manufacturer.

Another talking point for Adobe concerns a reworked Bridge function, with more seamless organization tools and a better interface. Additionally, launch speeds – an ongoing gripe with Bridge – have been addressed in the new release.

An separate version of the software, Photoshop CS4 Extended, also moves Photoshop into the realm of 3D design and graphics manipulation. The ability to merge and manipulate 2D images in 3D spaces should be particularly appealing for those who work primarily in 3D.

Under the hood, Adobe has revamped how CS4 interacts with system GPUs, which should lead to smoother, faster on-screen rendering when working with tools that require complex redrawing (and provide support for advanced 3D work in Photoshop Extended). Likewise, the new software is 64-bit compatible for PCs, if you care about such things.

After initial discussions with Adobe, it seems that the big news here for most users is just how much work has gone into revamping Photoshop’s interface and making the Bridge tool a faster, more integrated part of the experience. There’s a lot to wrap your head around with the new release not mentioned above; we’ll be sampling it all at greater depth today, and will post more analysis of the new release as soon as we’ve had some time to dig into the software.

Of course, if you’re ready to pull the trigger on a Photoshop CS4, Adobe is prepping both Macintosh and PC versions of the software for delivery next month. As of this morning, you can even pre-order via Adobe’s website. Though we don’t have information on upgrades yet, expect to pay around $699 for Photoshop CS4, or $999 for Photoshop CS4 Extended.

the era of information technology

Around one hundred and fifty years ago, businesses ran their day to day operations completely different from what businesses of the modern era do to run their day to day operations. People back then worked under candle light doing math calculations on paper, the old fashion way, before electricity came about in the early 20th century. Now, most of the civilized world wouldn’t know what to do with themselves without technology. Imagine not even having a calculator for math or the internet to do research. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe people were able to survive without these advanced tools that we take for granted each day. The advances in communication combined with the evolution of the IT industry has made it possible for people to do business throughout the world in real time. Improvements in IT improve our lifestyles and business by allowing computers to reduce complications and enrich possibilities.

These days, the name “Information Technology” has managed to encompass many aspects of computer technologies invented in the past couple decades. These IT spectrums can be covered in many types of professional fields such as Management Information Systems, Computer Networking, and Software Design. Our ancestors couldn’t even fathom what our society has accomplished.

In medicine, Information Technology also plays a substantial roll. Doctors take pictures with machines like a computerized axial tomography (CAT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and can print out three dimensional images of bones, muscles, and organs. These images can help map out patient’s problems and help save lives. This day and age, it is difficult to find a field or industry that IT has not been greatly affected.

IT is completely responsible for how organized our civilization has become. The corporate world was only made possible by the communication information technology has put in place between both computer software and hardware. From a personal stand point, it would be difficult for most people to name a single person doesn’t use the internet on a regular basis.

With the increasing new technologies coming out everyday, employees in the Information Technology work force must constantly re-educate themselves with all the new technologies. This makes IT a very demanding field as it is always developing and perfecting. The process of improvement is what makes this such a desirable aspect to almost any business. It is very important for anyone in the IT field to always stay up to date with all newly developing technologies that relate to their industry. IT is now the complete backbone to almost any business and its ability to be competitive and efficient.

IBM 3800 model printer

The ‘Model 3800’ by IBM was the first laser printer, introduced in 1975. Very soon, the ‘ND 2 by Siemens and the ‘9700’ by Xerox also came out. The technology of laser printers was revolutionized by the introduction of the LaserJet in 1984, by HP. After that, the prices of laser printers have continued to drop.

A laser printer uses a laser beam to print images of supreme quality. This is done by first producing the image on a photosensitive drum with the help of a laser beam, and then transferring the image onto paper using a usual printing process.

Accuracy, economy and speed are the major advantages of laser printers. This is because the laser can move very fast and print with a better speed than an ink jet. And since a laser travels in a single line, it is more precise, thereby avoiding the spilling of ink. Even though laser printers are more expensive than inkjet printers, their toner is cheaper and long lasting. It is because of this that laser printer is used more often in offices.

Cost can be a disadvantage of laser printers, as they are expensive compared to mechanical printers. The maintenance required by laser printers can be very costly. Also, the quality produced by laser printers is very book-like, and hence they can also be misused.

Before one decides to buy a laser printer, there are a few features that should be kept in mind. These include the speed and printing capability (24 ppm for a workgroup printer), the standard resolution, which is 600 dots-per-inch, the printer languages and the paper handling of the printer. The top brands of laser printer include Hewlett Packard, Lexmark and Xerox.

By Phillip Pavis

Playstation2 Cheat Codes strategy is essential in computer or console gaming. To enable to win, one must know the strategies that will help him achieve that purpose. One of the most utilize strategies in playing playstation2 is by the application of playstation2 cheat codes during or off the game.

Playstation2 cheat codes are the combination of buttons or passwords that the gamer apply to the game for him to have an easy advantage to his opponent. Playstation2 cheat codes prove to be efficient in obtaining the desired results that a winner wants. Playstation2 cheat codes provide the necessary ways in order for the gamer to have access to hidden passages, Easter eggs, level-ups and many more.

Playstation2 cheat codes are best use in role-playing games (R P G). Role playing games are forms of entertainment wherein the player assumes the role of the character he is playing on a certain game. One of the first and the one of the best R P G is Hamurrabi, perhaps the ascendant of War craft.

These playstation2 cheat codes are now in demand in both online and offline market. This is due to the apparent reason that more and more people are getting addicted to video games and their necessity to win those games. And they want to have the most updated Playstation2 cheat codes to be more advance and have all the weapons that they have to beat their opponent/s. That is why it is considered as one of the vital gaming strategies.

Playstation2 cheat codes are recommended to people who are new to the concept of playing through the PS2. Games are tedious to learn especially for the first timers. Playstation2 cheat codes can help them by providing an easy approach to jump up to other levels without having to experience the frustrating first sections of the game. Playstation2 cheat codes also can give the character the player is using the boost of power that they needed or special weapons that can defeat the most lethal of enemies. Playstation2 cheat codes are advisable also for application of the busiest gaming enthusiast, because it can actually save one,s time.

So you people, who haven,t try employing playstation2 cheat codes in your favorite games, don,t fret. You have all the time to visit the Web to look for the Playstation2 cheat codes you needed.

The nation’s new moon rockets will be outfitted with shock absorbers to buffer astronauts from jackhammer-like vibrations during rocky rides into orbit.

A spring-and-damper ring will separate the first and second stages of Ares 1 rockets, which NASA is developing for missions to the International Space Station, the moon and later Mars.

Sixteen actuators that act like shock absorbers also will be added to the bottom of the rockets, significantly reducing the gravitational forces and vibrations astronauts will be exposed to in flight.

“The good news here is we’ve got a solution that will solve the thrust oscillation phenomenon,” said Steve Cook, manager of Ares Projects at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA’s Ares 1 rocket is being developed to launch Apollo-style Orion crew capsules.

The rocket’s first stage will comprise a five-segment solid rocket booster derived from the four-segment boosters that help propel shuttles into orbit. The second stage will be powered by a liquid-fueled engine.

NASA design engineers found the Ares 1 — dubbed the “single stick” due to its slender shape — would shake violently near the end of a two-minute firing of the rocket’s first stage.

This “thrust oscillation” is induced as solid fuel in the first stage depletes, leaving a long, empty metal case that takes on the characteristics of a pipe organ, resonating at frequencies between 12 and 14 hertz.

The resulting vibrations could shake the Orion crew capsule enough to make it difficult for astronauts to read cockpit displays. In a worst case, astronauts might be injured or critical components of the spacecraft could be damaged.

An internal NASA task force determined the second stage of the vehicle and the Orion crew capsule would naturally dampen resulting pressure pulses.

The astronauts, however, would be subjected to forces five or six times that of normal gravity — or about double the three G’s shuttle crews are exposed to during nine-minute climbs into orbit.

The task force recommended NASA add the shock absorber system, which will reduce gravitational forces to 0.25 G, or about the same level that Mercury and Gemini astronauts were exposed to.

The system will reduce the lift capacity of the Ares 1 rockets by 1,200 to 1,400 pounds. But Cook said the rockets still will be powerful enough to fly missions to the space station and moon.

NASA aims to debut the Ares 1 rocket and Orion spacecraft by March 2015 — five years after the agency’s shuttle fleet is retired. The target for the first moon mission is 2020.