Ten thousand years have passed since the treasonous acts of Chaos toppled the Golden Age of mankind. Fires burn brightly throughout the galaxies, illuminating carnage and slaughter as mankind defends itself from ancient enemies. Hardened forces collide with one goal in mind, the complete extermination of their opposition. "Game of the Year" developer, Relic Entertainment, brings the world's most successful tabletop war game to the PC. Control one of four unique races in head-to-head or cooperative multiplayer action, where faith, skill, and strategy are requisites in ruling the universe.
Features:
Cinematic quality melee and ranged combat that show battle in detail never before seen in a real-time strategy game.
Improved resource model that focuses action on the frontline.
Tactical features, such as cover, squad-based gameplay, morale and hero units, which promotes unit strategy over mass assaults while still allowing for large-scale battles.
4 unique races, each with their own unique strategies.
Epic ‘Single Player Campaign’ employing classic storytelling elements of treason and conspiracy.
2-8 player multiplayer via LAN or Internet providing endless re-playability.
New multiplayer features, including customizable squad colors, banners, badges, insignia and names, and the ability to ally with other players.
Glenn Estate Auction in London. Flynn primps in his tux and struts with a reasonable degree of suaveness. Until he takes a sip of champagne and spits it everywhere. He checks with Charlene over the phone. He's supposed to keep someone from getting a Ming vase -- without going over budget. He gets a call from an angry and increasingly drunk girl, Katie. Mid-auction he gives her another excuse and she says he's given 100. He repeats that and has suddenly bid higher. Charlene calls on the other line, watching the numbers escalate online, asking if he's trying to bankrupt them. A series of twitches, outbursts and accidental bids later and, in an effort to get quickly to Katie waiting in the bar, Flynn jumps all the way to 1 million pounds. Charlene hyperventilates and Flynn gets the vase. The auctioneer congratulates him on appreciating fine art. Flynn picks up the vase and promptly drops it. He picks up the Philosopher's Stone from the shards. It can turn anything it touches into gold, like arm of the other bidder's henchman. Golden fist and others come after Flynn for the stone and a sword fight ensues. They stop to admire the art mid-fight and Flynn checks his watch and goes on to win.
But at the bar, he's too late. Katie has left for the airport.
Somewhere in the Carpathian mountain range some Russian goons rappel into a castle. They find the tomb they're looking for.
Flynn returns to the Library, where Charlene is on the phone, trying to explain that Flynn wasn't authorized to make that high a bid. She starts in on him, but he doesn't want to hear it. And he's ruined his tux. It's a rental.
She takes him to the large collections annex, which goes on forever. The library is as big as they need it to be. It's holding Noah's Arc and Judson is testing the Fountain of Youth. They have another job for him, translating a manuscript, and Excaliber wants to do their weekly sword training.
Flynn goes a little cuckoo, complaining that he has no life and his best friend in a sword. Since he's been working there, he hasn't been in a relationship with a woman that lasted more than six months. Judson tells him to just think of himself as a celibate monk. That doesn't help. They think maybe he should take a vacation.
University of Bucharest, a professor lectures about Vlad the Impaler. Cheery stuff. After the lecture he's approached by a man named Sergei Kubichek, who recently resigned as security minister for the Russian government. They tell the professor they found a body -- Dracula's body. Professor Lazlo says it's a hoax, he's searched for it his entire life. He looks at one of the scrolls they brought and recognizes the Judas Chalice.
Charlene shows up at Flynn's house. Her combination speed dating-wine tasting was two streets down. She seems to have enjoyed at least half of it. He's playing on-line poker in his pajamas. She tries to get him to leave town and suggests locations, like New Orleans. But he's worried New Orleans will dump him, that he'll get his hopes up and be disappointed. She tells him to follow his dream and see where it leads him. She stumbles out (she's biking).
There’s a new kid on the micro-blogging block and that’s Plurk. As a fairly long-time Twitter fan I was intrigued to see so much commotion about it going on in the Twittersphere so I had to check it out for myself.
A Brief Video Tour of Plurk
I put together a short video showing how Plurk and Twitter compare and in the video I also mention a tool called FeedTweeter that allows you to take your Plurks and automatically Tweet them so if you want to test out Plurk while you continue to use Twitter this is a way to do that without too much extra effort.
Plurk has hit the market in a fully-featured way. It has quite a sexy ajax interface and comes with some significant features that make it stand out from the crowd.
How will Twitter, the hugely popular micro-blogging service (among the tech-savvy crowd anyway), make money? That’s the polite version of the question posed today by Allen Stern over at his CenterNetworks blog. Stern writes: “As Twitter usage has grown, have they f’ed themselves out of a real, sustainable business model?”
Twitter doesn’t charge for use of the service, though there can be some costs associated with sending SMS messages (with both Twitter and users footing the bill depending on whose sending and which country they’re based). Additionally, Twitter doesn’t (yet) serve ads — and to make matters worse, many of its regular users access Twitter through third-party clients, such as Twitterific, which utilize Twitter’s own free APIs.
Stern continues:
Most of the heavy Twitter users use the service via the API and “offsite”. I actually use the Web site and refresh the page every few minutes while I am at home. How can they monetize the API usage? If a Twitter user already paid $15 for a piece of [third-party] software, would they then be willing to pay Twitter for their account? It’s like paying for mIRC and then having to pay for the use of IRC itself.
In a fun post on his own blog, Dave Winer responds by saying that there are far harder problems than this particular web 2.0 conundrum (my words not his).
When I was in college, professors used to ask questions that are much harder than the question Allen Stern asks in this piece.
The NY Times crossword puzzle is harder.
Geez, installing a new hard disk in a MacBook is harder, and as I’ve found out that’s pretty easy.
According to Winer, Twitter has a number of potential business models, all of which rely on the service acquiring a large enough user base in the first place.
Become a distributor of third-party apps and services that use Twitter and take a cut in return.
Design and sell hardware such as a cellphone with “Twitter baked in”.
Or, better still, partner with mobile device makers and carriers to offer superior Twitter integration.
And finally, sell the service to a carrier.
The first and third suggestion seem the most viable. Setting up a Twitter products and services store would be similar to Skype’s shop that sells USB phones and other products that utilize Skype’s API. And partnering with mobile carriers seems a “no brainer” and might provide a way to reduce SMS costs. Although, as Winer also points out, making Twitter more stable should be a first priority.
Steve O'Hear is a London-based consultant, educator, and journalist, focussing on the Internet and all aspects of digital technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
SG ERP is an iPhone/iPod Touch application that provides on-the-go solution to obtain prices of Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) Gantries in Singapore.
FEATURES: 1) Sorting of ERP Gantries by DISTANCE or ALPHABETICAL order (At startup, default sorting is by nearest ERP) 2) Prices of ERP Gantries all vehicle types. 3) Changing vehicle types, timing and day to see the change in prices.
Users locations are determined using signals from GPS satellite (iPhone), cell towers (iPhone), and WIFI hotspots (iPhone & iPod Touch).
As ERP rates are updated from time to time, SG ERP will also be updated to reflect the most recent rates when the information is made available to the public.
SG Wireless automatically logs on to hotspots such as Wireless@SG.
The app will remember your hotspot provider, username and password. Each time you start SG Wireless, the app will immediately logs on to the connected hotspot! One click is all you need to get connected!
SG Wireless is similar to paid apps such as AutoWiFi, Easy Wi-Fi and devicescape. However, SG Wireless is FREE. Download it from App Store today!
Video Recording Phoenix will record via the built-in iSight camera* and send out alerts together with other important information; IP addresses, machine serial number, MAC Hardware Address and even details of nearby wireless networks out immediately!
Twitter With Twitter service, owner can also receives the alerts via IM, email, from the web and even as SMS Text message to your phone. Find out more about anti-theft for Mac
100 copies free giving away for bloggers for reviews.
For years, stories have circulated about a secret place in the middle of the Nevada desert, known for unexplained phenomena and strange sightings. It is called Witch Mountain, and when a Las Vegas cab driver (Dwayne Johnson) finds two teens with supernatural powers in his cab, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of an adventure he can't explain. When they discover that the only chance to save the world lies in unraveling the secrets of Witch Mountain, the race begins, as the government, mobsters and even extraterrestrials try to stop them. "Race to Witch Mountain" is a fun and thrilling adventure featuring incredible special effects.
This is the age of microcelebrity--with just a keyboard or a digital camera, almost anyone can find an audience online.
Of course, there's a big difference between a hundred people reading your blog and being recognized by fans when you walk down the street. In this, the third annual edition of the Forbes.com Web Celeb 25, we track the biggest and brightest stars on the Web, the people who have turned their passions into new-media empires. From stay-at-home moms to geek entrepreneurs, these are the people capturing eyes, influencing opinion and creating the new digital world. Read More >
LONDON - The Oracle of Omaha is unlikely to have predicted this. Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's holding company, said Thursday that it would pour an extra $2.6 billion into Swiss Re to prop up the company's capital base after the reinsurer posted an $861.3 million loss for 2008.
The shock news sent Swiss Re's shares down 14.2%, or 4.28 Swiss francs ($3.69), to 25.88 francs ($22.30), during morning trading in Zurich. In addition to the extra cash raised from Buffett, who currently owns a 3.0% stake, Swiss Re said it would have to raise an extra 2.0 billion Swiss francs ($1.7 billion) from shareholders to re-establish a "strong level" of capital. The company said its current surplus capital was at least 1.5-2.0 billion ($1.3-$1.7 billion) Swiss francs below the minimum to keep its "AA" financial-strength rating.
Buffett's official statement was typically contrarian. "We are delighted to have this opportunity to increase our investment in Swiss Re," he said. "I am very impressed by [chief executive] Jacques Aigrain and his management team."
Swiss Re's stock performance over the past year would suggest that investors disagree. Since January 2008, when Buffett threw the company a lifeline, Swiss Re shares have fallen more than 67.0%. The company's exposure to financial products like credit-default swaps and other derivatives, which together racked up a 6.0 billion Swiss-franc ($5.2 billion) mark-to-market loss for the year, has pummeled investor confidence.
In addition to taking a voting stake in Swiss Re, Buffett promised to shoulder 20.0% of the company's property and casualty business until 2013. This helped Swiss Re handle hurricane season in 2008 slightly better than it otherwise would have. (See "Buffett Helps Swiss Re Weather Hurricane Season.")
Swiss Re spent most of 2008 buying back shares, but it suspended this program in November, after reporting a quarterly loss of 304 million Swiss francs ($262.1 million).
Buffett's love of contrarian value investing has not proven entirely successful lately. Berkshire Hathaway investments in Wells Fargo, American Express, Moody's and U.S. Bancorp are all taking a hit from the financial meltdown. (See "Has Buffett Lost His Touch?")
