Evolution (Episode 1) is the first of the series to be released in about 14 years and is one of three other episodes. If you’re new to it, you’ll be introduced to what happened over on a space station, doomed for destruction, as well as how the aliens were released.

You can either kick alien butt alone or multiplayer from the same console or through Xbox Live. The enemies will be able to hear, see and smell you, so this game takes a little bit more than just randomly firing you weapons.

Oh, and did I mention that every episode ends with a cliffhanger?

Image: Xbox.com

Post from: EveryJoe

“Alien Breed Evolution” Now on Xbox Live

In Deb’s latest newsletter she talks about all the refrigerators that used to be in showrooms that talked about being connected to the Internet and networked with everything else in your house. They had LCD’s or even small computers embedded in the door even.

Where did all of them go? They were cool. The idea was nice. The price tag was a big pill to swallow and the average consumer just didn’t grab a hold of the idea. But does that make it a bad idea?

As I think about opportunities for home automation in the kitchen, I think less about the devices themselves and more about the functions and helpful features that could be seen.

Imagine combining bar code scanning with perhaps RFID technology so your refrigerator and pantry could build your shopping list for you and automatically send you a list to pick up some things on your way home. Imagine mashing that together with a coupon service that points you to both where and when to buy certain products to get the most value.

Or, what if your pantry and fridge could chat it up with each other and start coming up with tonight’s dinner menu using what you already have available?

Post from: EveryJoe

The Automated Kitchen Is Grate!

Screen capture software is a must have for almost anyone but especially bloggers. This indispensable tool allows you to capture a window, pane, or specific region of the screen.

You’re no doubt familiar with Snagit, one of the most popular apps in this category. It is an excellent tool with a robust set of features. There is a free 30 Day trial after which a user must purchase the software to continue using it. While it is worth every penny, some people are simply addicted to FREE. Can’t fault that.

If you’re one of those so addicted then you might want to give Jing a try. TechSmith’s lightweight screen capture tool is easy to sign up for, and your only a quick download away from getting started.

With Jing you will be able to:

• Take a screenshot (and add a caption, highlights, or an arrow)
• Record video of action on your screen (Great for simple, fast tutorial creation.)
• Share via IM, email, Twitter, Flickr, etc…

There are a few different ways to share your screen capture. There’s the standard “copy & paste” option; paste your Jing screenshot right into an email, document, or instant message; save it as a file and send it the old fashioned way; or create a Screencast link to share. It’s also possible to put HTML embed code onto your clipboard or upload to FTP.

Editing features are very limited but quick & simple is the point with an app like this. Get something like Snagit, if editing power is important. Jing Pro version is available for $14.95 per year, offering more video features.

Thanks for sharing with us a little bit of What Bill Thinks.

Post from: EveryJoe

JING: Simple, Free Image and Video Sharing

If you’re 2K games, you probably think Spec Ops: The Line.

This new shooter, from the same guys who made Borderlands and Bioshock, is set in a sand ravaged future Dubai and could draw special attention from the National Media Council of the UAE if the NMC feels Spec Ops: The Line is representing Dubai in a negative light.

Keep in mind that all games sold in the UAE are reviewed by the National Media Council to make sure that the games don’t break any local laws and if they do break laws, the NMC has the option of banning the game. The fact that Spec Ops: The Line developers chose to base the game in Dubai makes the game an easy target.

Regardless of the NMC’s future decision, Spec Ops: The Line will be available sometime after November 2010…plenty of time to change that lackluster title.

Images/2K Games Lead/The National and G4TV

Post from: EveryJoe

Spec Ops: The Line Will Draw UAE Scrutiny

Kobo, which is already available as a downloadable app for smartphones (seen above), will join with Borders to launch a selection of ereader devices sometime in 2010. Borders has released few details about the devices; the line doesn’t have a name or price point yet. But the devices will come with WiFi included, and will be sold in Borders bricks-and-mortar stores, as well as online.

In the meantime, Kobo’s library of 2 million ebooks (1.8 million of which it says are free) is being absorbed into Borders.com, a process expected to be complete by Q2 2010. But that shouldn’t delay ebook sales; Kobo publishes its digital books in a “device neutral” format, so that its ebooks can be read by virtually any ereader device currently available, including the new Barnes & Noble Nook, with the notable exception of Amazon’s Kindle. Expect prices to be competitive with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with new titles starting at $9.99.

Can Borders compete even though it’s arriving late to the party? If it creates an attractive, user-friendly device at a killer price point… absolutely.

Image: Kobobooks.com.

Post from: EveryJoe

Borders taking on Kindle & Nook with Kobo

If you’ve ever lost the music on your device, then you know the pain of wondering why in the world you weren’t able to back this stuff up a little better. It takes forever to get everything synch’d back together with normal methods.

CopyTrans4 helps transfer music between locations 16x faster and doesn’t get duplicates inserted into the mix when they shouldn’t be there in the first place. CopyTrans4 doesn’t just recover the files themselves, but also protects the loss of all the meta data that goes along with your music like album artwork, play lists and iTunes tags like Play Count and Date Added.

For those of you with an iPhone, iPod or iPod Touch that would like to get your hands on a copy of the CopyTrans4 software and will also let us know what you think, just leave a message in the comments below. I’ve got some free licenses for our readers as long as they last.

Post from: EveryJoe

CopyTrans4 – Make Your iPod Manageable

These parking meters are more than just wireless enabled to let you pay and reserve them. They’re also hooked to a network of sensors for the parking spaces so the parking network knows what spaces are available and when they’ll be available.

You can access the network from your iPhone or other smart phone or wireless device and determine if there are parking spaces available in the area you’re needing to visit. This kind of knowledge might encourage you to visit at a different time of day.

The network also allows the city to change the parking rate depending on volume needs and different times of the day.

Doug questioned whether or not Indianapolis would ever install these because of the revenue that would be lost on people being able to more easily put more money in the meter wirelessly. However, the San Francisco network discovered that there was significant money lost to people risking not paying for parking and not getting caught.

As these networks become more widely available, it’s not much of a stretch for companies like Garmin and TomTom to integrate this information and functionality into their GPS devices don’t you think?

Post from: EveryJoe

A Wireless Digital Parking Meter Network

Lost City of Z takes place in 1925 after British Colonel Percy Fawcett traveled to the Mato Grosso region of Brazil with a small crew to search for the mysterious City of Z, a civilization that was considered to be “lost.”  Unfortunately, Fawcett and his crew never returned and now it’s up to you to figure out what happened.

Here are some details from the game description:

• Follow the clues left by Colonel Fawcett to lead you through the mysterious rainforest.
• Play 5 exciting new mini-games to challenge clue solving skills.
• Watch thrilling footage from the National Geographic chronicle of the Lost City of Z as seen on TV.
• Take photographs of the beautiful scenes and wild life around you and catalog them in your daily journal.

images: Amazon

Post from: EveryJoe

“National Geographic: Lost City of Z” for PC

Before the web got all Web 2.0 on us, web pages didn’t update very frequently. Connection speeds weren’t what they are these days and it actually could take awhile for that page you’re looking at to load into your browser.

When your browser downloads a webpage it saves all the individual files that make-up the webpage in it’s temporary Internet files cache. The next time you visited the page, if it didn’t think anything had changed, it would load the files from the cache instead of downloading all the files again.

For the last 5-10 years I’ve been using the web, I haven’t had to worry about my download speeds being an issue, and have just changed my Internet Options in IE to reflect that desire. Just follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, look for “Browsing history” and select the “Settings” button
3. Under “Check for newer versions…” be sure and select the option for “Every time I visit the webpage”
4. Click “OK”

That’s it! You’re all set. Every time you hit a website it will always check for and download the newest files to your browser for you to see and read.

Post from: EveryJoe

Is Internet Explorer Missing Changes to Pages

I think the big fear is that people think unless you uncheck this “Allow Indexing” checkbox then absolutely everything you post on Facebook will now be available to search engines. From my understanding that’s just not the case.

If you read the text under the settings it says (emphasis added by me):

“Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone“

The only thing Facebook is going to allow to be indexed is that information that’s publicly available from their site already, and anything you’ve set to be available to “Everyone” in your new privacy settings that you can configure for different things: i.e., photos, status updates, links, friends, About me, etc.

I’d recommend going into your Settings > Privacy > Profile Information and specifically decide what you want to share and with whom.

It’s also interesting everyone that narrows this down to Facebook is allowing “Google” to have all this information and they’re “indexing” everything. Folks, they’re opening it up to ALL search engines, not just Google and “indexing” isn’t EVIL, it’s what search engines do to collect the information on the web to populate all those search results you’re looking for online.

I’m not sure about the “Facebook Search Results” section, I’ll have to read up on that one.

Post from: EveryJoe

Facebook’s New Privacy Settings and Search