Changing Sites

As many of us know, “lametechblog” isn’t the best choice for a URL. So, we will be moving to YourATB.wordpress.com. Soon. We’re waiting for all the writers to accept their invitations before we make the transition. I’ll keep this site up and running for a little while, but all the posts and comments will be transferred to the new site. We hope to bring you guys more content: videos, reviews, editorials, podcasts, and we’ll even let you write guest posts if you’d like. If you want to tip us, contact us, write a guest post, or wish to join the team, email us at anothertechblg@gmail.com.

Samsung to Start Selling Flexible Phones Next Year

Just a few days ago, Nokia showed off their flexible concept phone. On Friday, Samsung said that they’re going to launch cell phones with flexible displays in 2012, with tablets and other portable devices shortly afterwards. There’s no word on whether the UI will be a “bend UI” similar to Nokia’s concept, or if the screens will just simply be flexible. Regardless of which they choose, I’m sure it’ll be interesting to see these new phones next year.

Via: PC World

Halloween Horror Game Weekend! Part 2

Halloween is here and what better way to celebrate than by playing some of the best horror games on the market? Over the next few days me and my better half will be virtually fighting off zombies, demons, necromorphs and more.

Day two of my descent into the best gems of horror that gaming has to offer has come and gone and although I haven’t had time to get as much gaming in as I would have liked I did still manage to get some time curled up in front of the computer for a few more scares.

Of course there was some more zombie slaughter with a little more time spent with Left 4 Dead 2 but that is not the star of this article. The main event today was finally sitting down to some time with Amnesia: The Dark Descent, another game purchased during the Steam Halloween Sale, which is right now on sale for only $4 USD.

Even just sitting at the title screen is more than a bit unsettling of this Lovecraftian horror game.

Amnesia is a spiritual successor to the Penumbra series and shares a lot of unique game play ideas that were brought forth in that series such as analog interaction with the environment, and an emphasis on how vulnerable your character is. Interesting world interaction and play style aside this game also has more than a passing resemblance to the GameCube classic Eternal Darkness in that the lore of the game has a very strong Lovecraft influence and has you managing the sanity of your character along with your health. Unlike Eternal Darkness though you never have any sense of empowerment in the form of weapons and attacks. The way you deal with your adversaries in this game is by running, hiding and hoping that they aren’t able to find you.

This game uses its oppressive atmosphere, mind fuck insanity tricks, and inability to defend yourself to keep you on your toes and cursing every light extinguishing breeze that runs through castle Brennenburg. I was only able to get through about an hour of the game, which isn’t really saying much as I’m too scared to move quickly through the game, and already I can say that this is the scariest game I have played since Silent Hill 2. This game is an absolute must have for horror fans.

Now if you will excuse me I need to huddle up in the corner of my apartment in my pillow fort clutching my bat and hoping that the lights don’t go out. Remember, Stay Out Of The Water!

Nintendo 3DS Review Coming Soon

Nintendo's most recent handheld, the 3DS, boasts glasses-free 3D and a host of other features right out of the box.

I’m sure you’ve heard all the hype over Nintendo’s newest handheld, the 3DS. This system has been touted as having all the fun and portability of past DS models, but now with a glasses-free 3D gaming experience. However, the originally high price-tag caused an awful lot of sticker-shock among the potential consumers, and the launch of the 3DS didn’t go over so well for Nintendo.

An open letter for HP to get their head out of their ass and set things straight with webOS

Open source the whole fucking thing. It’s not hard, and I’m sure you can find some way to write it off. You have proven over the past year and a half that you have no fucking clue what you are doing; not only in mobile, but in general, and it is the least that you can do to make up for essentially killing a mobile platform by inaction. Yes, Palm was in really rough shape a year and a half ago when you swooped in and purchased them under the guise of being the white knight webOS needed to run with the Android and iOS big boys (as an aside I was yelling back then for Palm to open source webOS but they decided not to listen to me). In the end, all you ended up doing was get our hopes up, lie to consumers, developers, and shareholders just to kill it after having your first major device on the market for only 49 days. The worst part about all of this is that right now the best we can hope for is that you sell off webOS for patents, and at worst make it your defacto printer OS. Just release it to the community so that way we can keep our super phone dreams alive and do whatever the hell you want within the realm of the GPL.

Want to tell HP to give webOS to the community? Sign the petition to free webOS and tweet #freewebOS to HP.

Halloween Horror Game Weekend! Part 1

Halloween is here and what better way to celebrate than by playing some of the best horror games on the market? Over the next few days me and my better half will be virtually fighting off zombies, demons, necromorphs and more.

First game for our horror weekend is Left 4 Dead 2 which we just picked up yesterday during the steam Halloween sale.

I know it's a 2 year old game but I'm just now getting around to playing it.

Me and Soleil, my aforementioned better half, just last month finished playing the first Left 4 Dead all the way through. For me this was about the 23rd time I had done a full run of the game but it was her first full play through. I honestly hadn’t touched the game since well before it’s final major update, The Sacrifice, was released and I was pleasantly surprised by how much damn fun that game still was and good times were had by all.

When we saw that it’s sequel, Left 4 Dead 2, we thought we would be nuts to not pick it up. Having never played Left 4 Dead 2, but being a veteran of the original, I have clocked around 50 hours in that game, I thought I knew what I was in for and though the game is definitely more Left 4 Dead it’s far from a quick cash in rehash. The game, like the original, is brutal, fast, suspenseful, and most importantly fun as hell. I’m not going to lie, there have already been a few times where the game made me yelp and there has been more than a little yelling in our house when it comes to the end of a stage and there is only one of us left hobbling towards the safe house. This game is by far the most fun I have had with a co-op online game since… well since the first Left 4 Dead.

My only complaint about the game is that I didn’t pick this up sooner. If you have a moderately powered PC and need something to do, and if for some reason you are an idiot like me that hasn’t played it yet, do yourself a favor and get your ass on Steam and download this game now. It’s only $6.79 USD right now and is a great way to kill (Ha, get it because you shoot zombies) some time.

webOS Making A Comeback?

While this is pure speculation, I do like to believe this is true. As an avid webOS user, I follow a few sites that deal with purely webOS. Tonight, my RSS reader let me know that there was anew article. As usual, I clicked on the article. And something peaked my interest. That thing in particular, is this picture:

What do we have here?

That picture can actually be found here under the specs list for the DM1Z series laptop by HP. Now, HP did say that webOS was going to be on every laptop made in 2012. Then again, that was before they discontinued the Touchpad and phones… Then again, Bradley did shut down the rumour of webOS being killed off in the immediate future.

At the end of the day, it’s purely speculation, and for those in favour of webOS being revived, all we can do is cross our fingers, and wait for “the coming months.”

 

Via: Mobile Roundup

Microsoft’s Vision of the Future

Just a few days ago, Microsoft uploaded two videos of what they imagine the future to one day be like. The first video is from 2009, and the second is from 2011. They show a world in where most things are automatic, technology truly speaks to you, and where our connected, productive world, becomes even more so.

So, what do you think about the videos?

HP decides to keep it’s PC division

Hopefully they will reinvent their R&D strategy and get back to making awesome devices

Today HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman  announced that it has decided to keep it’s PC division in house instead of spinning it off or selling to another company. Not a huge surprise as when this was announced it caused a more than 20% drop in their stock price and led ultimately to the ousting of then CEO Leo Apotheker. No word on what they are doing with webOS but my guess is that they have no clue yet. As a very open webOS fanboy I hope this means good things to come for the mobile OS that could but with HP still at the helm I’m not holding my breath.

 

Via: Engadget

BREAKING NEWS: ICE CREAM SANDWICH CAN BE PUT ON IPHONE, NO JAILBREAK REQUIRED.

Courtesy of Twitter user @kiernanproud.