TechDew-The World Of Technology

Nokia Oyj will close its battered gaming service N-Gage next year, acknowledging failure in its first major services offering.

Nokia is looking for new revenue from online services as its traditional handset market matures, with games and music being the first focus areas.

Yet the handset maker's mobile gaming push has encountered major challenges, with consumers first shunning its dedicated gaming phones which went on sale in October 2003, accompanied by a major global advertising campaign.

The online gaming service, which opened last year, took over the N-Gage brand and also never moved beyond a niche audience of hard-core gamers.

"We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform," Nokia said on its N-Gage blog, to which a user calling himself Jon replied: "It's a sad day for N-Gage fans."

It said the games from its first major services offering could be purchased until the end of September 2010 and the community site would remain in operation throughout 2010.

"It's a sign of a more realistic approach. It's time to bury the dead and focus on the future," said Tero Kuittinen, analyst at MKM Partners, adding Nokia had great opportunities in other areas, such as location-based services, micro-financing and mobile email.

Nokia's leading position in the cellphone market had attracted all the top mobile game makers -- including Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Digital Chocolate -- to create special games for N-Gage.

After closing the N-Gage service, Nokia will continue to sell mobile games at its Ovi Store, a smaller rival to Apple's popular App Store.

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NextGear L720EV4-WS64 is the next monster gaming machine mouse computer that has been powered by a Core i7-920, 6GB of PC3 10600 RAM, 1TB of HDD SATA II, DVD Super Multi, NVIDIA GeForce GTS250 with 1GB of VRAM and Vista Home Premium 64 Bit etc. At the same time, the computer will be powerful and enough to let you run the latest game like available in the market smoothly. Other details of the computer have not yet been released except price.

If you have 126 000 Yen (918€) in your pocket you are eligible for buying this NextGear L720EV4-WS64. This computer is expected to be available only in Japan.

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As the days go by, the competition between giants such as Microfoft, Google and Yahoo has become tougher. In such a way, each of them is keen on introducing new features.
Now MSN is the point to introduce new features including games. You can get 100% free Fantasy Football games. If you want to enjoy the games, you should sign up in the site. If you will sign up by August 9, you may win a chance to have a trip for Las Vegas with your eleven friends. With the fantasy football you can play faster, you can set a game plan and you can get a real time updates.
Moreover, it is possible to have live scoring stats and update your team points as the action happens. Besides, you can have expert analysis and flexible draft times to help you land a strong lineup.
Some important features you can have with this Fox Fantasy Football :
•Draft Guide.
•Live Draft Application.
•Real Time Scoring.
•Fully Customizable.
•Expert Analysis.
•Research Tools

Play Fantasy Football

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It’s indeed a dream pairing. Social networking are meant for IT savvy people. Gamers, are, one of the biggest IT savvy groups in the world, looks to be the perfect people to fall into the charm of social networking. Both parties, game makers and social networking companies, tried countlessly to win the gamers over. But did it work? Well, I personally feel that it’s not likely.

First of all, let’s talk about the most likely place to lure them in: Facebook. In my school, my entire cohort gets to buy and use laptops (macbooks) and bring them to school for study. Of course, games are not allowed. However, most of us found a “clever” way to continue playing but avoid being caught.

Well, the game is known as Mousehunt. Guess what, it has taken our school by storm and everyone’s playing it. It has been surprisingly popular- only needing to click a button once every fifteen minutes.

However, will it draw actual gamers in? I doubt so. My first online game was Neopets, and that was few years back when I was 8 years old. Since then, I tried the online gaming known as Xbox live, and I will never go back to “refresh games”. Now, how will this apply to gamers?

Most gamers will not be enchanted by this. Many will like the RPG system, but not actually play it, because there are already many other alternatives.

Moving on, there are games on facebook which is meant for gamers. For example, Guitar Geek. It is in simple terms, a Guitar Hero/ Rock Band clone. However, its VERY lacking. Instead of licensed songs from famous bands such as Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, it gives you songs which seem to be inspired by people screaming in hell. Really, its target audience would already have games a hundred times better.

No matter how fun a rhythm game is, you need to have good syncing. That doesn’t come. You see, when you play on consoles, you need to click the strum bar whenever you hit a note. However, you don’t need to click anything expect those few buttons. It instantly loses it’s “feel”. When you click or hit a note in a “professional” game, you get that satisfaction that you are winning, something you don’t get in this game. Besides, whether are the plastic instruments? It has been a few years since Facebook and Myspace boomed, and most gamers are using them. Now, people are using that spark. Tune in next week where I reveal top top few gaming sites which tie in to Social Networking.

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One rumor that refuses to die is the rumor of a PSP (PlayStation Portable) Phone by Sony. Now it looks like Sony Ericsson President Hideki Komiyama might have just reignited the rumors, as he has been quoted as saying that no plan is too crazy or far-fetched to consider, and a PlayStation-branded phone “could happen”. Will it become a reality?

It seems as though with each passing release of the PSP firmware, Sony's handheld gaming console is creeping towards PS3 territory in terms of features. The firmware update 5.50 will see PSPs installed with this an "Information Board" to the XMB, enabling PSP owners to retrieve news bytes from Sony whenever there are new additions available on the PlayStation Store. Other features of the firmware update include creating and accessing sub-directories on the Memory Stick, a trial of Trend Micro's "Kid's Safety" service on the browser and Internet search games among others. Have your already made your update for the PSP, and how do you find it so far?

Microsoft has confirmed that an Xbox 360 "Game Of The Year" bundle coming up. The bundle is basically an Xbox 360 Elite with Halo 3 and Fable II. If you do the math, the games come for "free". This bundle is expected to be available in most markets, except Europe.

There's a lot to love about the special edition 160GB Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete Cloud Black PlayStation 3 bundle that was unleashed this week in Japan -- a fancy Strife Wolf emblem, a copy of Advent Children Complete on Blu-ray, and a Final Fantasy XIII demo you can't play anywhere else -- but perhaps our favorite part is the console's matte finish. For us, a smudge-resistant PS3 is well worth the 49,980 yen (US $505) price of admission. 1UP has the unboxing, hit up the read link for more pics.

Nintendo will launch this summer title in an attempt to spur Wii sales in Japan. Wii Sport Resort works with the Wii Motion Plus. The game is effectively 10 little games that includes Jet Ski, Frisbee throwing and sword fighting (as seen in this image). It reminds us of the "Decathlon" concept, although it not button-smashing this time. So, hit or miss? what's your take?

In an ideal world, all console should have access to Netflix. Fortunately it seems like we're heading there: a job posting at Netflix mentions an engineer with "deep experience developing and testing media rich applications on current generation gaming consoles." That's certainly enough to spark rumors about upcoming support for the PS3 and the Wii (see previous rumor). The Xbox 360 is already Netflix-friendly, thanks to its "PC" DNA that Netflix engineers know all too well. In the meantime, we're using PlayOn to stream Netflix to a PS3 (via a PC) and to be honest it works a lot better than the flash player on PC.

This is a new 15.4 WUXGA notebook, comes in collaboration of Capcom and PC Koubou. This notebook features a Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.53GHz), a GeForce 9600M GT with 512GB of VRAM, 2 GB of 1066 RAM, 250GB of 5400rpm HDD, DVD Super Multi, WiFi ABGN.

It has come out with preinstalled Hunter Monster and available for just 129980 Yen (980€).

Elite Sim has designed a perfect ultimate racing simulator to fulfill your taste. It has been equipped with advanced technologies to bring a true-to-life racing experience. This device has come out with a fully adjustable racing seat to fit all sizes, a revolutionary vibration technology, a huge 32-inch Sony 1080p LCD screen, a full Sony Bravia 5.1 surround system, a high-end PC with 4GB of memory, 500GB hard drive and a Nvidia SLI graphics card.
Moreover, this simulator features the higher end Trackstar 6000 wheel and a state of the art paddle set. This art paddle set has been designed to steer the wheel.

Games Video Recorder is a new tool, which has come out with the ability to grab and record the games running on your system.
This handy game recorder is a handy and simple tool, which can record the games using DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology. This tool can automatically detect any PC game running in the foreground of your system. All we have to do to record the videos is just press the hotkey combination to begin the recording.
You never worry about to record video because it is capable to record every single frame of the game and compress the frame data to a video file. It can support screen capture, automatic naming of all screen captures, provides real time recording of streaming video with sound, video size is customizable, provides FPS indicator in the game, allows to easily compress video clips to more smaller and comfortable size, and a simple user interface.

Click to DOWNLOAD

UserInfo Tip will be very useful to those who like to mark their files, folders icons and add

descriptions to them efficiently. With this tool, you can change the properties of files, files icons,

file name extensions and name of a file. Therefore there would be no better tools available than this.

Any description attributed to our files and folders will be displayed in the explorer pop up Windows.

Moreover, with this tool you can find the full content and size of the files and sub folders that are

displayed in a pop up.

Click to

Anyone who knows me well enough knows how obsessed I am with F.E.A.R., a game I’ve played multiple times since its release in 2005. A slew of sequels sporting the F.E.A.R. name were released subsequently but none of them impressed as much as the original game since they weren’t being developed by Monolith. And then I heard the rights to the F.E.A.R. franchise had passed back to them and they would be the ones working on a full fledged sequel. Tears of happiness flowed.

Last week (or was it the week before that?) they were generous enough to release a single player demo that allowed us to sample nearly two levels of slow mo horrific action and for some reason it was somewhat of a downer.
Having played the first F.E.A.R. game on the PC I went straight up for the PC demo (demo is out on PSN and XBL as well) and nearly one and a half gigs later, I was ready to kick some undead kid arse. The demo started off from where F.E.A.R. ended so the city (where F.E.A.R. took place) has been devastated, Alma and her minions are free in the city once again and you play as one Michael Beckett who’s supposed to snuff her out once and for all.

As far as atmosphere is concerned the demo delivers. The first level took place in an abandoned school of sorts and had a good amount of scares to keep you on the edge of the seat but when it came down to the action I was pretty disappointed.
Now one of F.E.A.R.’s main draws (for me) was the over the top, John Woo inspired action. The exaggerated rag doll physics that kicked in as and when you decimated a soldier in slow motion with a shotgun or the way body parts flew all over the place never got old. In F.E.A.R. 2, it’s all gone. Shoot a solider in slow mo and he just slumps down or just slumps back minutely. Decapitation was pretty disappointing as well. Also environmental destruction has been scaled down to a certain extent and I never felt that wanton sense of satisfaction shooting up an empty room or lobbing a nade into it.

What irritated me further was the fact that weapons sounded like cheap fire crackers; something that’s a huge turn off in first person shooters. The shotgun from F.E.A.R sounded like one and packed a mean audio punch when fired. Nothing of the sort here.

And then there was the much hyped Mech section where you pilot a Mech and go to town on a bunch of soldiers and other Mechs and for some reason I nearly fell asleep during that sequence. It was that uninspiring!

And that one word pretty much summed up my feelings for the demo – Uninspiring. Sure it looked good and was creepy enough but it lacked the visceral gameplay that made me fall in love with F.E.A.R. nearly three years ago. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its covers so I’m going to try and apply that proverb over here by not judging the game too harshly based on this demo.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin releases for the PC, Xbox360 and PS3 on the 13th of February 2009.

Everything social is trendy nowadays, so today, hi5 launched its social entertainment platform with 42 flash based games. Although hi5 claims that it has higher CPM than its competitors, generating revenues from social networking sites is a challenge, and creating a social gaming section is an opportunity to generate new revenue streams. In game advertising displayed during loading time gets higher CPMs, and gamers will be able to purchase premium gaming features and status upgrade using hi5 Coins, the virtual currency launched in December. According to Mike Trigg, VP of Marketing and Andrew Sheppard, Executive Director, Interactive Media; this monetization model will be particularly successful in South East Asia. The 15-24 years-old age group represents 60% of the site users (Comscore), which is a younger audience compared to Facebook (30+), and they are more inclined than the older crowd to engage in the social gaming experience. Hi5 is one of the world's largest social network site with over 56 million unique visitors a month with 80% of its users outside the US. Hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008 which is more than twice the rate of any of the top 10 social networks. (Comscore, June 2008)

Bluetribe is a new pair of Bluetooth 2.1 headphones from Sigma-Apo of Japan, and it will sell with a couple of earpads to fit most ears. Won't be of much help if you're Goofy or Mickey Mouse though. How many of you out there think the form factor is way too retro to meet the criteria of a well-designed pair of headphones? We're not too sure whether the hexagon earpad is appealing or not, but let's just allow the sales figures to do the talking instead. Chances are this will be a Japan-only product, so no word on pricing at this moment.
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Soccer (or football to the rest of the world outside of America) is the most popular sport in the world, and it goes without saying that a large percentage of football fans love foosball as well. One of the more common foosball tables on the market are under the Tornado brand, but 2eleven throws a spanner in the works by introducing a whole new level of luxury to their foosball table - it features built-in cup holders, monitors or advertisement displays on either sides, an automatic ball lift and a score display. Talk about being complete - now you no longer need to keep track of the score using wooden abacus-like rings which are open to cheating especially when you have had a wee bit too much to drink. We're not sure how much this will cost though, but it might induce a heart attack for some of our readers.

Electronic Arts’ much loved Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 will be gracing the PlayStation 3 this March in the form of an "Ultimate Edition" complete with new multiplayer maps, videos and more.
Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 blends the over-the-top humor and fast, fluid and fun gameplay the series is known for with exciting new innovations for the RTS genre, including fully co-operative, story driven-campaigns and an unprecedented emphasis on naval gameplay. PlayStation 3 gamers will navigate the C&C style, action-packed gameplay via the Command Stick 2.0 interface, an intuitive control system that allows gamers of all skill levels to easily and efficiently command their units on the battlefield.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Ultimate Edition also packs in a tremendous amount of bonus content, including:

* Five exciting new multiplayer maps
* Behind the scenes videos and trailers, including Raising the Iron Curtain Documentary, From Pens to Pixels, the Girls of Red Alert 3, Bloopers & Outtakes, the Red Alert 3 Remix and many more!
* PS3 exclusive Command & Conquer TV programming, including PS3-dedicated BattleCast PrimeTime and a special episode of Command School focused on tips, tricks and strategies from the development team
* In-depth profiles on all the Red Alert 3 Units
* The official Red Alert 3 soundtrack

Mobile gaming is getting bigger and better on a daily basis. Dedicated gaming handsets are being designed just to provide for that demand. So far, one of the better gaming handsets available on the market, or at least the one that games look best on according to us is the iPhone. The problem has always been control though as the handset’s lack of buttons sometimes poses a problem.
iPhone games will be glad to hear that a site called iControlPad.com has developed a console like controller casing for the handset that should allow for a true gaming style feel on the phone. The casing is simple and very neatly designed to slip right over the device. It features -

* A D-pad for navigation
* Action Keys (ABXY)
* A start button
* Power LED
* Select key

The controller add-on has been in development for sometime now and has finally reached a stage where the developers believe it’s ready for mass production. In order to use the device though, your device will need to be jailbroken. There’s no confirmation yet, but it’s likely that the company would also develop an iControlPad for the iTouch.

The availability of the device or pricing has not been disclosed. All we can say is, it's going to take mobile gaming to a whole new level.

Check out the developers demo video here.