The news of the 1,600 bans came by way of Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward when he tweeted, “Any attempt to cheat, hack, or glitch in #MW3 will not be tolerated. 1600+ bans issued. Updates in works. Please cont. to report offenders.” I am glad that I am not the only one that takes their multiplayer gaming seriously and wishes to crush cheaters’ testicles with the might banhammer of Thor.

In addition to console cheaters, Infinity Ward is also mass-banning cheaters on the PC version of the game. Fixes and hot patches are inbound for all version of the game to patch known glitches. Despite these annoyances, MW3 is still selling by the boatload and has racked up more than $775 million in sales so far.

[via Computerandvideogames]

But before you start hoarding computers and drooling at the prospect of earning money without doing anything, know that CPUsage will “only” pay you $10 (USD) a month for every four hours of daily work – or about $10 for 120 hours monthly – that your silicon slave does. I’m pretty sure that that’s not even enough to cover the cost of electricity that your computer will consume in that same time period.

Edit: CPUsage co-founder and CEO Jeff Martens corrected my assumption in his comment below, saying, “I’d like to address the electricity usage. In our analysis, the most power hungry Dell dekstop would consume about $7/month in electricity if the CPU was pinned at 100% utilization for the entire month…every minute of it (depends on your state’s electricity costs, of course). While it is unlikely that CPUsage would utilize your computer every minute of every day for an entire month, that same Dell desktop would earn you in the area of $75 in rewards. For $7 in electricity.” Learn more in this shaky-cam interview with Martens:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As Martens said in the video, the longer you lend them your computer’s power, the more money you’ll earn. Also, the more power you lend, the more money you’ll earn. But still, I don’t think people should expect to earn big money from being a CPUsage participant. Speaking of earnings, it’s not clear yet whether CPUsage will pay people with actual money or with gift cards.

Still, if you frequently use your computer anyway, then it would be nice to get the most out of it and earn a few bucks or items. Then again I’m no computer expert – who knows, there might be a way to game this system and earn lots of money from it. Check out the CPUsage website for more information.

[via The Next Web]

According to Fits.me, 25% of online purchases are returned, mostly because customers discover – or decide –  that the clothes they ordered don’t fit right. But with the FitBots, along with a virtual fitting room, customers will be able to see right away what the clothes will look like on them. The only downside to this? You have to know your exact measurements, because that’s what the software will use to adjust the bot’s body. Wrong measurements, wrong fit.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can test the virtual fitting room over at Fits.me’s website. Again, you’ll have to enter a few measurements to adjust the FitBot. Maybe the best solution lies with a Kinect-like device, but I imagine it would be quite a while before PCs with built-in full body scanners become standard.

[via DiagonalUK]

Above is an example of an isle of tune. Doesn’t look intimidating right? It kind of looks like one of Zynga’s Facebook games. But at the same time it’s not readily apparent how it makes music, because it kind of looks like a Facebook game. And yet it does make music! But how? In Isle of Tune, you lay down roads, which dictate the length and the progression of your musical piece. Then you place the “instruments”, which as you may have guessed are the flowers, streetlights, houses and other roadside figures.

Here’s another example:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Weird right? It looks like a game, but it’s not. It’s actually a music sequencer, but it’s not a very intuitive and natural one. But I have to admit that it looks fun, and like casual games, Isle of Tune could serve as a gateway software of sorts for people to learn how to create music via digital means. The people behind it are working on an iOS app, but for now you can use Isle of Tune online. Feel free to share the landscape and music you make in the comments.

This ginormous Pac-Man game was created by Soap Creative to show of the HTML5 capabilities of Internet Explorer 9. The massive map is actually made up of literally thousands (currently over 4000 to be exact) of interconnected Pac-Man mazes. So instead of looping back to itself when you exit a maze, you end up in another one. I’m pretty sure you could spend years trying to get through them all, what with the countless power pills and ghosts to consume. The cool thing is that the mazes are all unique, and you won’t always be able to use the standard arcade strategy to defeat them all.

Another cool feature is the global stats board. The game tracks the total number of dots eaten (at this point over 51 million), lives lost (over 249k), ghosts eaten (over 550k), as well as the number of mazes played and created. Yes, you read right – you can create your own mazes and contribute them to the world map, so the game will keep growing. Each maze maintains its own stats and bookmark-able URL too. Check out my very own Technabob map, complete with hairpin turns and precarious power pill placements (yes, I fixed that impossible-to-reach power pill #7 after I grabbed this screenshot):

Also, you don’t have to play it in Internet Explorer 9 if you don’t want. I managed to play just fine in Firefox 4, Chrome 10 and Safari 5 too. Just don’t tell Microsoft I said so. So what are you waiting for? Check out The World’s Biggest Pac-Man now.

[via Kotaku]

Selecting a device to play will make it zoom in and take up almost the whole page. The first time I clicked on one of the games and it zoomed in was a magical moment for me.

Even if I didn’t get to play most of them when I was a kid – I didn’t even know most of these games existed before I saw them – everything from the  design of their cases to the simple gameplay and graphics is just so familiar. If you grew up playing Game & Watch games or any of these handheld games, you owe it to yourself to visit Pica Pic.

You can play any of the games for free, and there’s even a list of people who got the highest scores for each game, but for some people just looking at these games is entertaining enough. I sincerely hope this site doesn’t get taken down by the companies who own the games.

[via Joystiq]

I don’t even know who made this game, but even if I did, I don’t know whether to thank or hate that person. Now excuse me, I have a digital ball to drop.

If your browser has the HTML5 chops, follow me at your own risk.

[via the bbps]

I’m sure Sears just won the approval of CURE with this move.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Check out the stunt at Sears’ website. Sorry I don’t know how to say that in Zombian. Um, cliiiiiick heeeeeere?

[via The Presurfer]

MiMedia can send customers a 250GB hard drive –the company calls it a Shuttle Drive – through the mail. You fill it up, then send it back through its pre-paid box. Sure, 250GB may not be The drive’s maximum size is 1TB, so that alone may be enough to house your entire collection of data, including your music and videos in there. Best of all, your data gets backed up to your account the following day. No upload speed can top that.

As you can see in the gallery above, MiMedia also organizes your media files so you can easily access and view, watch or listen to them online. I just don’t know if this organization is mandatory or if it can be turned off. The only downer I can see about MiMedia is that it can be quite expensive.

Pricing starts at 25GB of storage for $5 (USD) per month or $50 per year,  topping out at 2TB for $140 per month or $1300 per year. By contrast, Mozy offers unlimited storage at $5 a month and Carbonite offers the same deal for just $55 a year. Still, if you need your data backed up ASAP, MiMedia  seems to be your best bet. Check out their website for more info.

[via Chip Chick]

As you’ll see in the screenshots below, there’s plenty to do in the world of Boring RPG (which apparently is Middle Earth). You can chat, set up a shop, manage your inventory. The cooldown of the click increases after each click; anyone familiar with online games will realize that here’s where the site makes money – you can buy tokens for more clicks. Prices start at 8 tokens for a $1(USD), all the way to 2,500 tokens for $100. You can also find tokens as you adventure, and if you don’t want ‘em you can sell them to other players.

Bored? Sign up and get clicking. The developers of this game should make a mobile version. I’m actually surprised that these fun clicking RPGs don’t have iOS/Android apps yet. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a button to click. I hope I run into that blind falcon again.

[via reddit]

A lot of thought went into their new world map, including “statistical inference, random sampling, non-random sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea leaf reading, goat sacrifices” as well as just plain “making stuff up.” Now that’s my kind of cartography!

It’s probably best to view the map in its largest form here. You’ll be surprised at how many fun details there in there.

[via xkcd]

As CrunchGear has pointed out, the Jungle is equipped with at least a keyboard and a touchpad. I’m not sure if both of the circular shapes on either side of the touchpad are directional pads, but at least the one on the left is indeed a d-pad, as shown in Gizmodo’s exclusive image. We can see shoulder buttons in there as well.

There’s no mention if the screen is a touchscreen, but apparently it displays HD, and when it was tested by a few people at PAX they were very impressed with its quality. Look at the first picture and you’ll see that the Jungle does have a mini-HDMI port, so I guess that’s a yes on the HD screen. Here’s the very ugly and vague teaser for the Jungle:

Currently, only one game has been officially announced for the handheld – Battlestar Galactica Online.

I hate teasers like that, because they barely give any indication of the game’s quality. So all we know is that players will be have the option to play as a Cylon. Those two videos – as well as a third that introduces a weekly show by Machinima – can be found on the handheld’s official website, and there’s literally nothing else on there at the moment.

I am quite curious though about the possibility of playing MMOs on a handheld. Will we see separate versions of popular MMOs? Perhaps there’ll be a complementary version with limited functionality, similar to WoW’s Mobile Armory for iOS devices? Or, since we’re just speculating, could full versions of MMOs make it to the Jungle? What do you guys think?

[via CrunchGear & Gizmodo]

Alex Blagg writes at BajillionHits.biz, where he dishes out strategies on winning the Internet “formspringed” from his brain. He’ll be happy to provide “a relevant strat customized to your individual monetization needs” and “give your biz the next-lev bottom line your board will be looking for in the next Q.”Here’s is Blagg’s Viral Vidifesto:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Check out Bajillion Hits for more marketing BS. I love his YouTube vs. Vimeo comparison. He calls YouTube the place for people who want mad hits, while Vimeo is for “aesthetically-obsessed hipsters”. He also says Tumblr is the Vimeo of blogging platforms. Yes, his blog is on Tumblr.

[via Techi]

Drag it to your bookmarks bar, surf to your desired battlefield and commence your attack. Use the arrow keys to control your ship, and press the space bar to shoot. It may just be because my laptop is old, but I recommend you not mash the space bar too much, because when I did that Firefox didn’t like it and became sluggish.

Practice your evil laugh and destroy some websites!

[via Download Squad]

The picture above shows you the basics of Google Scribe. By default, it will offer suggestions as you type. Just press the corresponding number and the suggestion will be filled in for you. You can also set it so that it will only offer suggestions if you press the Tab key.

The letters you see below the last suggestion are sorting schemes for the suggestion, and this is where the funny thing about Google Scribe comes in. ‘A-Z’ sorts suggestions alphabetically, ‘S’ sorts by “typing savings”, ‘R’ sorts by “relevance”, and ‘G’ sorts by “Google Rating”. You’d think that typing savings would mean that the answers are arranged from the most number of characters to the least, but that’s not always the case. I’m not quite sure how Google Scribe sorts by “relevance”, but in my experience I found it to be the most helpful sorting scheme. Unfortunately, Scribe uses Google Ratings by default. Look at the screenshot below:

Flattering, yes, but do you realize now how Google Rating works, and how potentially irritating and/or hilarious Scribe can be? No? Here’s one more example:

Google Rating is just like Google Search – it suggests terms based on how popular a phrase is. In this case, as explained by Google Operating System, it seems that the phrase “Why choose IngentaConnect” is used frequently on IngentaConnect’s website, and perhaps on other webpages as well. So Google Scribe is indeed an interesting tool, but I suggest you stick to the Rating sorting scheme. I found that the suggestions offered by the Rating scheme not only made more sense, they also helped me think of other ways to say what I was going to say.

The presence of potential phrases also helps if you just can’t seem to start writing, because Google Scribe will start writing for you. Finally, you don’t have to stay at Google Scribe’s homepage to use it, because Google made a bookmarklet so you can call it up wherever there’s a text field. Go check out Google Scribe for yourself, and let us know what you think. Also, see what’s the weirdest suggestion that you can coax out of it.

[via Google Operating System]

Awesome result for very little effort! Let’s do it again, just to prove to you that Psyduck’s face makes for a winning Pokémon:

The opposite of Psyduck would be Wigglytuff:

Awwww. Of course, you can also have fun with their names. Here’s an example, made by Redditor jcs1:

There are currently 76 Pokémon on the list, and since combining the same Pokémon results in the same monster, there are 5,700 fusions in all. This being the Internet, I’m betting all of them have been made and rated. Personally I don’t care that I didn’t discover anything new. Hell, I still haven’t tried Psyduck’s face on all the monsters on the list. Check out Pokémon Fusion now!

[via Reddit]

The real treat in The Pac-Man Dossier starts after dispensing with the requisite history of the game. Before providing strategies, Pittman breaks down the aspects of Pac-Man, with statements like “Whenever Pac-Man makes a pre-turn or post-turn, his orientation changes, and he starts to move one pixel in his new direction for every pixel traveled in his old direction, effectively doubling his speed as he moves at a 45 degree angle”, and pictures like this one:

And charts like this one:

And videos like this one:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I doubt that I’d be able to apply the tips and strategies shared by Pittman, but I will definitely go back and read his site. To me it’s a fascinating reminder that video games are just a fun kind of math and physics. If you have the time, check out The Pac-Man Dossier.

[via 4 color rebellion]

As you can see, the leveling curve in Guild Wars 2 is actually a line. Cartwright explains, “We expect content—not long, grindy progression—to be the deciding factor that keeps people playing our game. We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance.”

Guild Wars 2: it’s not the size of your experience bar, it’s how much you enjoy the experience. Read Cartwright’s full post here.

[via Reddit]

The Revolving Internet was made by Constant Dullaart, as a response to Chris Collins’ Uneven Google, which is Google but is tilted by 1 degree. I’m not sure why Collins made Uneven Google, and why Constant Dullaart felt it warranted a response. But they both did, and here we are.

Check out the The Revolving Internet for the full, nauseating experience.

[via today and tomorrow]

The quality of the video is approximately the same as the screenshot you see above, but there are caveats of course, not least of which is the fact that video sites like YouTube compress any video that’s uploaded.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Surprisingly good right? And he was even playing via a wireless connection. According to Hill, he got “SD” quality video over his 3Mbps connection, but with a 4Mbps or 5MBps connection, you’re supposed to be able to stream games in “HD”.

It would’ve been better if Hill mentioned what his laptop’s specs were though. But overall, there seemed to be minimal lag and I think that’s the most crucial factor here. If you’re interested, you can check out OnLive’s website for more info; you can sign up on the site for a chance to win a one year free subscription.

[via Gamertell]