OpenOffice Mouse Features 18 Buttons & Analog Stick

Although I enjoy the odd fast-paced game now and then, whether it be a single-player FPS or an online game, I've never found myself upset at the number of buttons found on my mouse. As long as I have a scroll wheel, back and forward buttons near the thumb-rest and of course, the left and right mouse buttons themselves, I'm golden. Some gamers would disagree with me I'm sure, as companies such as SteelSeries and Razer have released mice in the past with 10+ buttons. There's obviously a market for it, somewhere.

I admit... 10 buttons on a mouse sounds a little ridiculous to me. With that many, the mouse sounds less like a gaming mouse and more like a peripheral with a very specific purpose, such as for design work. Well, carry that thought over to the OpenOffice.org mouse, or OOMouse for short, which features 18 (EIGHTEEN) buttons. I first noticed this late last week, but I assured myself that it was a joke. But based on the  amount of press it's been receiving, and the fact that it's using the OpenOffice.org name, it doesn't seem to be.

Given the name on the mouse, OpenOffice, one might assume that it's designed for that application only, but that's not the case. In a press release posted late last week, the company boasts support for a variety of applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Office and of course, OpenOffice.org.  Notice that all four of these are design-related applications? It might be a good time to note that the mouse even includes an analog stick on its left side...

With the 18 available buttons, users can configure using a wide-range of options, including the ability to mimic up to 52 key commands - that is, to assign a command such as CTRL + A to a button. The focus might be on design, but the company behind the OOMouse, WarMouse, boasts huge gaming potential as well, listing specific titles such as World of Warcraft. The mouse might seem a little bizarre, but the company's prepping for a launch in early 2010, and will sell it for $74.99. If there's a best part, it might be that it's cross-platform, with drivers promised for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

The OOMouse includes default profiles for the five core OpenOffice.org applications based on 662 million datapoints compiled by the usage tracking facility incorporated into OpenOffice.org 3.1. These profiles can be easily customized to suit the user's preferences using the included OOMouse setup software. The setup and customization software is an application that will be released as an open source software project under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 in the first quarter of 2010. Default profiles for 20 other games and applications are also included; the OOMouse supports up to 63 profiles to be stored simultaneously in the mouse's memory.

ScamVille: Companies Starting to Back Off

Last week, I linked to a story at TechCrunch that exposed the dangers of online game offers that target titles usually found on social networking sites, such as Facebook or MySpace. According to our RSS traffic, that news story had an abnormally large number of follow-thrus, so it's obviously of great interest to many of you. I noticed that TechCrunch has been following-up to its story since then, so I thought I'd also post one.

It appears that Michael Arrington, like no one else, can act as a virtual blender, because some recent events are rather incredible. The biggest is that Zynga, the developer of some of the largest games being played on social networking sites, has decided to take the steps needed to remove scam advertising offers, essentially removing gamers from a risk. This wasn't a small step, either, because apparently, these ads accounted for almost 33% of the company's supposed $250 million in revenue.

Likewise, the company that Zynga had in charge of the ads, DoubleDing, shares the same sentiments as and have vowed to adhere to the high standards and clean up its act, and has gone as far as promising to donate any money gained from these misleading programs to charity. In all regards, these two changes are rather major, and it looks as though it's a huge win for gamers, right? Well, I'm still a little skeptical.

Reading through the comments section for TC's latest follow-up, some visitors are claiming that instead of these scam ads, the companies are resorting to pushing in-game sales much harder than before, meaning more messages in the game itself. This isn't so much of a surprise, though. If your company just pulled a source for 33% of its revenue, steps like this would undoubtedly be made fast. I guess at this point, it comes down to the gamer, and how much they want to put up with. The game is free, so its little surprise that there's going to be some downsides somewhere.

It is our intention to fully comply with all Facebook, as well as partner (e.g. Zynga), advertising standards. Zynga’s standards require us to remove all mobile offers which do not offer a clear user value. We take 100% responsibility for any issues that arise from our actions and commit to correcting any errors. Finally, to reiterate our commitment and seriousness of our intent to adhere to high standards and bring value to the growing virtual currency space, we will be donating ALL revenues derived from this and any future mistakes of this sort to charity.

Dell Releases World's Thinnest Notebook, Adamo XPS

If there's one single trend that's appreciated by the vast majority of people affected by it, it would have to be the one that sees our gadgets getting smaller and smaller over time. There's of course limits, but if you take a look at notebook PCs, cell phones and other tech toys that were released just ten years ago, the differences are staggering. Back then, a cell phone was almost the size of a brick, while today, people regularly misplace them due to their size.

The slimming down of notebooks in particular isn't only important, but necessary. After all, carrying around a 10 pound notebook all day in no way could be considered fun, while a 3 - 4lbs offering is far easier to deal with. When Apple first released its MacBook Air, it set a new standard where thin notebooks were concerned. This was so much the case, that stories emerged of complications that people ran into when trying to go through an airport. The notebook is so thin, that some people thought it was fake.

Well, as it stands today, the MacBook Air might look like a heavyweight when compared to Dell's new Adamo XPS, a notebook that at its thickest point is just 9.99mm (0.4-inch). When I saw the press release for this in my inbox, I didn't think too much of it. After all, thin notebooks come and go all the time. But this is far different. At 0.4-inch thick, the Adamo XPS is almost half as thick as the MacBook Air. It's even thinner than a standard 2.5-inch notebook hard drive, which are typically 0.50-inch thick.

Based off of the small image I've provided below, it's hard to appreciate just how thin and good-looking this machine is, so I highly recommend heading over to Dell's Flickr page to see the notebook from various angles. It's a very unique design, but given the thickness goals, it has to be. The specs are fairly modest as you'd expect them to be, but aside from the ULV processor, nothing is really lacking. Included is 4GB of memory, Intel wireless (a/g/n), Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit even!). As for screen size, that's a 13.4-inch WLED, which supports a resolution of 1280x720.

Ironically, the pricing of this thin notebook has the neat ability to thin out your wallet as well, with a price of $1,799. You can sign up for the notification list here if you are looking to purchase one upon release, which should be before the end of the year.

Last spring Dell set the computing industry abuzz with the introduction of its Adamo brand, and along with it the world’s thinnest laptop PC. Today, the world meets a new champion of thin: The Dell Adamo XPS, measuring 9.99mm or just four-tenths of an inch. Both laptops set new standards for craftsmanship, design and engineering excellence. Adamo XPS is a stunning laptop whose design provides a unique experience. With the swipe of a finger, the keyboard appears from under the display as the system is open.

Modern Warfare 2 Set to Disappoint PC Gamers

Imagine you were an executive in charge of a very successful game developer. To date, all of your games have sold incredibly well, and gamers just can't seem to get enough. The next game queued for release is a big one. One that anyone who's played any game from the series would want to play. To live up to the hype, would you give gamers what they'd expect, and more, or go the opposite direction, and give them less, or much less?

As hard as it may be to believe, Infinity Ward seems content to take the latter route with the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Before you say, "It can't be that bad!", hold off, because you might just regret it. One of the biggest concerns fans of the series have is the lack of dedicated servers. That's right... rather than have all gamers in a given match hook up to a centralized server, they will instead be connecting to one server, which would be hosted by an involved player.

The biggest issue with this is the lack of stability. If the player you're connected to gets disconnected from the Internet, that means a foolish five-second delay in the match for everyone else. Then there's the issue that whoever hosts the game (the game chooses who hosts it) would have a 0ms ping, while the rest of the players certainly wouldn't. To carry into this issue comes another... the maximum amount of players per round. It's been dropped to 9v9, or 18 total, which is a stark contrast to the 40 that was allowed in the previous few titles.

Think this is all bad? It gets even worse. First, no more console. That means, that hosts of servers will be unable to adjust specific features, and on the single-player side, gamers will no longer be able to change their FOV or quickly load a specific level, among other things. Second, the ability for gamers to mod the game is gone, which has its obvious downsides. There's even more, so I recommend checking out the article below to see the rest.

As a huge fan of the CoD series (multi-player primarily... I've never beaten a single-player campaign), Modern Warfare is looking to be a huge letdown in so many ways. With all that's dropped, I actually feel thankful that LAN play has been retained, since that's one feature I use often. Despite all the disadvantages of MW2, a feature has been added to have your player profile based online, which will be hugely appreciated by anyone who's lost it before (it sucks to re-level up). Still, Infinity Ward has clearly pushed the wrong button of many gamers, and it shouldn't be too much longer to see if that will affect PC sales.

This is, for all intents and purposes, a console game that plays on your PC. You won't be able to make any tweaks, you can't adjust anything, and even better? You won't be able to make recordings of your matches. The question in the chat showed just how far the gulf between what gamers want and what Infinity Ward is giving them has become. "Is there a /record feature? Answer yes... please. We're trying to give you a 'chance'," the gamer asked. The answer was a simple "No."

Tech Roundup - November 9, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• AMD Phenom II X4 965 125W - Bjorn3D
• AMD Phenom II X4 965 125W - PC Perspective
• AMD Phenom II X4 965 125W - PCSTATS
• ASRock M3A785GXH/128M - Legit Reviews
• MSI NF980-G65 - Neoseeker

Displays & Video Cards
• Gigabyte GeForce GT 220 - Bjorn3D
• HIS Radeon HD 5850 1GB - TweakTown
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1GB - techPowerUp
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 - Neoseeker
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X - Techgage

Memory & Storage
• Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3K2/4G - Overclockers Club
• Patriot Viper II Sector 5 PVV34G2000LLK - PCShopTalk
• Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB - Hardware Canucks

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Apple Magic Mouse - Digital Trends
• ASUS RT-N13U Wireless Router and Print Server - ThinkComputers
• Yamaha RX-V2065 A/V Receiver - Digital Trends

Cooling
• Aerocool DCC-C900 CPU Cooler - OverclockersHQ
• Xigmatek Bifrost VD1065 GPU Cooler - TweakTown

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master Lab Test Bench V1.0 Chassis - Madshrimps
• Enermax Galaxy EVO 1250W Power Supply - PureOverclock
• Sapphire PurePSU 950W Power Supply - Technic3D
• Synology DS209 Advance NAS Enclosure - Pro-Clockers
• Thermaltake Element Q Mini-ITX Chassis - Metku

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Lenovo IdeaPad U350 Notebook - InsideHW
• Toshiba Satellite T135 Win 7 CULV Notebook - HotHardware