Tech News

Modern Warfare 2 Filled with Controversy

Today is a big day. The follow-up to Modern Warfare (Call of Duty 4) is now available on the PC (the game has been available for consoles for the past couple of days), and I can’t wait to dive right in. As mentioned the other day in our news, developer Infinity Ward is giving PC gamers numerous reasons to shun this platform-specific version, so it will be interesting to see if that will affect sales or not. With this latest release, though, there’s a lot more controversy surrounding the game than meets the eye.

As I couldn’t wait to take a quick look at the game, the pre-load status on Steam was dropped at around midnight last night, so I loaded it up. The first thing I saw was quite unique… “Disturbing Content Notice“. Sure, MW2 is rated M, like the vast majority of other PC FPS titles, but this was the first time I recall ever being greeted with such a warning. It goes onto say, “Some players may find one of the missions disturbing or offensive.” Interesting.

The more interesting point might be the fact that the game actually allows you to skip over that mission in its entirety, with no penalties towards your normal progression. After digging up some information, it appears that the controversial mission happens earlier on in the game, and has the player take control of a CIA agent who goes undercover to work alongside terrorists. That’s not the problem… the problem is that there’s player-controlled killing of civilians involved – a first for the series.

Is Infinity Ward deliberately pushing the envelope, or is there a reason for such a mission to exist? I plan to begin the single-player campaign later this evening, so it shouldn’t be too long before I find that out, especially as the game has only a predicted 7 hour single-player campaign. Slightly off-topic, Modern Warfare 2 will likely replace World at War in our GPU reviews very shortly. Both games are based on similar engines, but MW2 has some updates, and is brand-spanking-new, so it makes sense to include.

The most-anticipated game of the year and the sequel to the best-selling first-person action game of all time, Modern Warfare 2 continues the gripping and heart-racing action as players face off against a new threat dedicated to bringing the world to the brink of collapse. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 features for the first time in video games, the musical soundtrack of legendary Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Grammy Award and Tony winning composer Hans Zimmer.

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Processor Shipments Break Record in Q3

With a recession, especially like the one we’re in now, many people begin to appreciate the value of money a lot more, and tend to cut back on their regular spending. After all, is a new appliance really that important if it means rent will be hard to pay next month? Certainly, there are a few markets that can escape an economic downfall, with food being one of them (but even there I’m sure some cut down, and in my case, that wouldn’t be a bad thing!). But as we’re discovering now, it’s becoming apparent that PC processors is another market that can escape a decline.

During Q3 2009, processor shipments didn’t just break a record, but it broke the record of total parts shipped in a quarter. There was a staggering 23% increase of shipments between Q2 and Q3, with a revenue gain of about 13% during the same period. Notice how those two figures don’t quite line up? The reason of course, is the netbook. While companies like Intel would like everyone to believe that netbooks aren’t a replacement, but rather an addition, I’m willing to bet that at least right now, many people who were thinking of purchasing a full-blown notebook, have decided on a netbook instead.

I’m no authority on the matter, however, so I could be wrong. But, if the trend continues into Q4 and Q1 2010, we might just begin to understand the full force of the netbook, and just how imperative they are to our PC industry. Netbooks may be underpowered when compared to a regular notebook, but a proven fact is that most people don’t need more power. Today’s computing focuses almost entirely on the Internet, so as long as a netbook can handle online tasks without issue, many people aren’t going to understand or appreciate the benefits of moving up to a real notebook.

Thanks in part to its Atom processors, Intel had a dominating lead in overall processor sales during Q3, with the Santa Clara company accounting for 81.1% of total shipments, at the same time accounting for 88% of the mobile market. AMD had an increase to hit an overall 18.7% and 11.9% in the mobile market, while Via was left with 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.

“The story about 3Q09 leads with Atom processors being sold in mini-notebooks (a.k.a. Netbooks) manufactured and sold in China,” said Rau. “While Atom processors led the PC processor market to reach record unit shipments, on the revenue side, their low average selling price led to notable price erosion, more than 7 percent.” Among vendors, Intel kept its place at the top of the charts, enjoying an 81.1 percent share of the worldwide market for processor shipments. That left AMD with 18.7 percent and third-place Via Technologies with 0.2 percent.

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FRAPS 3.0 Released with Support for Windows 7, DirectX 11

Here at Techgage, our virtual toolbox is chalk-full of various applications and utilities that we can’t do without. We pick and choose from our collection depending on what we need done, whether it be to stress-test a CPU, kit of RAM or a graphics card, or to compare performance from one component to another. But there’s one tool in particular that we simply couldn’t go without, and over the years, it hasn’t been replaced or ignored, as it’s far too valuable.

That tool is FRAPS, by Beepa. FRAPS is best known as being the small tool that allows gamers to capture their gameplay as raw video, but what we use it for mostly is for its benchmarking feature. With it, we’re able to start an FPS recording as we begin a benchmarking run, and stop it a minute or two later, at which point we’re supplied with a file that gives us the minimum, average and maximum FPS information. This information works its way into our reviews, wherever game benchmarking is involved.

The reason I bring all this up is because the company has just released a new major version, 3.0, and it includes a few new features worth talking about. The first and most notable is that it supports DirectX 11. That counts for both benchmarking, taking screenshots, and also recording video. The previous version just won’t work. And with DirectX 11 support must mean Windows 7 support, and no surprise, it’s indeed found here also.

Interestingly enough, there’s even support for NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D Vision. FRAPS will essentially record a “stereo AVI” that can be watched back with the glasses. So what you see during your real gameplay can be experienced a second time. I haven’t test this out, but I’m assuming this would result in file sizes twice as large as a normal recording. Other features include the ability to record video to lossless RGB, and also the ability to mix both game sound and an external audio input, like a microphone.

Unlike most companies who charge an upgrade fee for a new version, there’s no such thing here. If you own a previous version of FRAPS, you can simply log into the site and grab the latest version. If you don’t own a copy, or haven’t use the application before, you don’t know what you’re missing!

New features and a new look! Fraps is now compatible with Windows 7 and the latest DirectX 11 games. Ventrilo & TeamSpeak users have long wanted a way to record their microphone and speakers at the same time. For Windows 7 and Vista we’ve added realtime sound mixing to our video recording so you can now capture both sides of the conversation! NVIDIA have recently included stereoscopic 3D support directly into their drivers. If you play your DirectX9 (D3D9) game with 3D Vision enabled you can use Fraps to record the game in full 3D too!

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The Quest for Useful Real-World SSD Benchmarks

As I have mentioned in our news section in the past, we’ve been working on getting some storage-related content up on the site for a while, but as things go, issues keep arising, and it never seems to happen. As it stands, however, we’re closer than ever to getting such content up, and I’m confident that you’ll be reading some articles in the next few weeks to come, tackling both HDDs and SSDs.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few months, though, it’s that storage benchmarking is hard. Alright, let me elaborate. It’s not that benchmarking is hard in general, but it’s hard as heck to find appropriate benchmarks that people care about. Throughout all of our content, we strive to deliver as many real-world results as possible. I think it’s fair that if we are to deliver information, it should be as realistic, and it should be information people can relate to.

But with storage, things are tough. Synthetic benchmarks will show benefits of faster drives fine, but when it comes to real-world tests, the task of showing the benefits of either HDDs or SSDs becomes very complicated. Believe it or not, the vast majority of scenarios we’ve tested simply don’t show real differences in performance from drive to drive, as long as we’re talking about drives with like speeds (7200RPM drives would of course be faster than 5400RPM, but even then, it’s primarily the synthetics that would prove it).

For the past month or two, Robert and I (yes, there’s another Robert in case you haven’t noticed) have been working together on conjuring up the best possible SSD test suite. The problem, of course, is despite having a nice collection of synthetic benchmarks, we have almost no real-world tests, with the main exception being SYSmark 2007 Preview (ironically, still not a true real-world benchmark). In our CPU reviews, I focus a lot on applications such as image manipulators, video encoders, 3D rendering tools and more, but in all of our testing, performance differences between an HDD and SSD in either of these is non-existent.

As a specific example, our Adobe Lightroom test sees 100 RAW files converted to 100 JPG. You’d imagine that a test like this could push a storage device nicely, but that’s not the case. In the end, the time-to-completion was identical on both an HDD and SSD. The same applies to video encoding. The problem is that neither of these scenarios push the kind of bandwidth we need to see faster drives, like SSDs, excel. But on the other hand, our scenarios are realistic.

What’s frustrating about all this is that SSDs are fast, and offer real benefits to consumers. But for the most part, what we’re seeing is that the benefits have exclusively to do with application loading, Windows loading, game level loading, and other like processes. Random writes are of course much faster on an SSD as well, but outside of a synthetic benchmark, it’s very difficult to find a real test that can help prove that.

So my question to you all is this… what would YOU like to see us tackle in our upcoming SSD content? Is there a real-world test that you’re confident would highlight the benefits of an SSD, or benefits from one SSD to another? Please let us have it, because we could sure use some ideas. If not, we’ll have to resort to including some more mundane tests, such as SSD noise levels! *

* Yes – that was sarcasm.

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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.

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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.

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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 1280×720.

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.

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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.”

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NVIDIA Uses Comics to Poke Fun at Intel

As we touched on just the other day, it’s not uncommon to see companies using various forms of creative advertising to get their point across. Again, the most common example to fall back on is Apple vs. Microsoft, as the TV spots that continually poke fun at everything Microsoft are memorable, whether you want them to be or not. But, there’s also another rivalry that never seems to wane… and that’s Intel vs. NVIDIA.

Actually, that should be “NVIDIA vs. Intel”, because the majority of the time, it’s the green team who’s poking fun. In its latest round of creative jabs, NVIDIA has hired an artist to create a few comics for its site, “Intel Insides”. Yes, that’s the name of an NVIDIA-owned site, believe it or not. And despite the fact that Intel is in the title, NVIDIA states that the site’s particular focus is on the “largest, and most commented-upon competitor”, but it seems as though we could expect comics featuring companies aside from Intel in the future. AMD, perhaps?

Intel in no way finds any of these remotely funny I’m sure, but I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the one below. I certainly don’t believe the comic to be representative of how things really are, but it’s creative nonetheless. You can check out the site for all five comics posted so far.

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Steve Jobs Named Fortune’s CEO of the Decade

Step back, and take a hard look at the business world. Where CEO’s of tech companies are concerned, who first comes to mind? Of course, there are many CEO’s out there whom many would consider to be invaluable to the tech industry, but there only seem to be a handful who most people think of first. Could it be Intel’s Paul Otellini? NVIDIA’s Jen-Hsun Huang? Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer? Google’s Sergey Brin? It could be those, and more, but I’m willing to bet that the first name to come to mind for most  is none other than Apple’s Steve Jobs.

With his buttonless turtleneck shirts and casual dress, Steve looks like a man who loves to keep things simple. That’s not far off the mark, as keeping things simple is reflected throughout Apple’s entire product-line. But as simple as Steve might be, he’s proven himself to be one of the smartest and most forward-thinking businessmen out there. How many CEOs do you know came back from a hiatus to a company on a decline, and managed to turn it around in the fiercest way possible, with unbelievable profit  growth year after year and a turned the company name into a household name?

Very few, and it’s for that reason that Fortune magazine named Steve as its “CEO of the decade”. It’s a fitting title, because even as someone who doesn’t much care for Apple’s products, you simply can’t deny Steve’s business saavy, and keen ability to predict what’s going to do well, and what won’t. There have been many products that Apple’s released over the years that were scoffed at upon launch, but ended up growing on people over time. It’s as if Steve knew better than the rest of us what we wanted from a product.

Take the iPod, for example. It’s a product that’s simple in almost every way, yet it’s the most popular audio player on the market, bar none. Even people who aren’t attuned to technology like the rest of us have to have one, and as bizarre as it might seem given I’m not an Apple fan, I also own one. Although I don’t find iTunes to make much sense most of the time, the same applies here. Plus, and perhaps the most important thing, what other CEO do you know that looks as polite as can be, but also has the effect to scare the wits out of his employees when sharing an elevator?

Rather, Jobs is understandably driven by a visceral ardor for Apple, his first love (to which he returned after being spurned — proof that you can go home again) and the vehicle through which he can be both an arbiter of cool and a force for changing the world. The financial results have been nothing short of astounding — for Apple and for Jobs. The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple’s groundbreaking “digital lifestyle” strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google.

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Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Close to Final Release

Although it hasn’t been that long, it feels like I’ve been tracking the release of Thunderbird 3 forever. But, it’s still in beta. As things are looking now, though, it’s not going to be in that state much longer. A near-final version is expected next week, with a final release towards the end of the month. Since I take my e-mail seriously and can’t risk it to an unstable client, I haven’t given the beta up to this point much of a go, but so far, things are looking quite good, and the final release should be well worth an upgrade from users of 2.0.0.x.

When I took a brief look at the previous beta during the summer, there wasn’t much to say. As a whole, TB 3.0 didn’t look much different than 2.0, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The latest beta doesn’t change much, although the top pane has experienced a minor revamp, and numerous icons have been updated. According to the latest beta page, what’s new with the latest beta in particular is improved search and filtering tools, a redesigned toolbar, new mail account setup, improvements for developers and numerous bug fixes.

One of the most noticeable changes is the new mail account setup, which aims to make the process of adding an account as simple as possible. The setup box is just that, simple, with three options. You input your name, e-mail address and also your password, and the setup will do all it can to configure the account without further user intervention. Assuming that the e-mail domain matches the one found in your e-mail address and there’s no special configuration, you should be good to go within seconds. If not, it will leave what data it could verify, and allow you to configure the rest.

Another feature I noticed quickly this time around (despite it being in previous betas) is the new tabbed “browsing”. It’s like tabbed browsing for the Web, but for your e-mail. It’s a simple feature, but when you are juggling multiple e-mails, it’s useful. Unfortunately, the tabs cannot be used for anything other than e-mails. I’d personally find it very useful to be able to open up a link that someone has sent you in another tab, rather than in your actual Web browser, as it would save time from juggling both the e-mail client and browser. Hopefully, something like this would be added to a future version, as I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d appreciate such a feature.

If you’re a Thunderbird user and want to explore all of what’s new in the upcoming version, without actually trying it out, you can check out the page here which explains all (or at least most) that’s important for the regular user. Likewise, developers can go here, but chances are if you’re a developer, you already have the page bookmarked!

There is a new Mail Account Setup Wizard accessed via File | New | Mail Account. After you enter your account information, Thunderbird attempts to fetch details about how mail at that domain should be configured. (Setup and configuration information has been collected by the Thunderbird team and is stored on http://mozillamessaging.com.) Note that the domain name portion of the email address is the only information sent to Mozilla Messaging’s servers and that Thunderbird fully abides by the Mozilla privacy policy.

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Congratulations to Brett and Michelle!

It’s not too often that I make personal posts here, but I can’t think of a better reason to break that mold than this.

Techgage’s fearless Senior Editor, Brett Thomas, marries his highschool sweetheart, Michelle Maiorano, this weekend. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Michelle, but judging from what Brett tells me, she’s one of the sweetest women around, who genuinely cares about everyone around her. I couldn’t  be happier for the soon-to-be married couple, as I know what kind of person Brett is… a true friend, and I’m sure an equally ideal husband.

Brett, huge congrats from your extended family at Techgage, and see? Sometimes nice guys don’t finish last ;-)

Please feel free to give your best wishes to Brett and Michelle in the thread below!

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World of Warcraft Introduces Paid Collectible Pets

There are many out there who believe that hardware innovation has slowed down, and to some extent, it could have. Processors, graphics cards and more are continually updated with new features and faster performance, but rarely do we see anything truly innovative. On the software side though, particularly gaming, there’s a constant stream of quality titles hitting both the PC and the variety of consoles. In fact, if I could gain just an hour each day for one thing, it’d be gaming. Especially around this time of year, there’s a true deluge of quality titles.

There’s one direction plaguing gaming right now that I admittedly can’t stand, and that’s micro-transactions. If you have to ask what those are, they’re essentially in-game items that require real-life cash to acquire. It seems a bit ironic to me that gamers and developers are up in arms over “gold-sellers” in MMORPG’s, but when it comes to companies themselves selling in-game items for real-life cash, no one sees the problem. Personally, I do see a problem, because purchasing an in-game item for my real-world hard-earned money seriously detracts from the experience I should be having.

In some regards, I’m a hypocrite, because there are rare occurrences when micro-transactions don’t bother me too much. If a developer is selling the rights to an item that in no way effects the players level of advancement, then I say, “so be it.” There’s real money to be had with such micro-transactions, and if there’s one company that well understands how to extract funds from gamers, it’s without a doubt, Blizzard. I don’t mean to say that in a misleading or derogatory way, because the level of service and fun Blizzard’s games provides are top-rate, so I can’t rightfully complain.

But, even Blizzard has decided that micro-transactions are a good way of beefing up the revenue even further, and if a company like this knows it, and proves it with its actions, then you know for certain that this is just the beginning. The company has just unveiled in-game pets that offer little except to supply the player some companionship. Blizzard isn’t so clear as to whether or not you have any control over the pet at all, but I’d assume you would be able to make it dance, wave or do whatever else current pets in the game could manage.

There are some obvious downsides and upsides to this kind of service being offered, but Blizzard knows one thing… gamers will be willing to part with their cash for such items. Call it a luxury item, if you will. The first two pets, Pandaren Monk and Lil’ K.T., currently sell for $10 a piece, with half of the proceeds until the end of the year being sent to the Make-a-Wish foundation.

Give the gift of diminutive undead companionship with this Blizzard Pet Store exclusive-Lil’ K.T., the mini-lich. What Lil’ K.T. lacks in size, he more than makes up for in sheer malicious intensity. Watch with misplaced pride as he randomly freezes critters and laughs maniacally at your vanquished PvP foes. Once activated, this World of Warcraft in-game pet key applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license.

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Novation Releases “Launchpad” – Music Controller for Everyone

Want to create some incredible beats, but don’t know the first thing about going about it? Ever download a DJ mixing application, like Ableton Live, FL Studio or Sony ACID Pro, but were lost at the sheer complexity of it all? The Launchpad, by Novation, looks to cater to every group of DJ, from novice up to professional. It can be used to create music, or spice up your live shows. The best part? The price, at $199, and what it includes. If you don’t currently own a piece of DJ’ing software, you’re covered here.

Compared to some higher-end controllers, the Launchpad is “simple” in that it doesn’t include knobs and faders, but it rather sticks to a large 8×8 grid of buttons that can be used for more than one function. These include queueing and loading samples, mixing your music, controlling the volume, panning and more. Mastering the usage of these buttons will undoubtedly take some work, but once you have things down pat, you’ll hardly have to touch the PC.

To see all of what this controller is capable of, I recommend checking out the demo video posted by Ableton at YouTube, as it shows off a wide-range of capabilities with the device. Not only can you play tracks or samples with a simple push of one or two buttons, you have full control over laying samples on top of each other, and perhaps the coolest part, you can change the function of the buttons to become virtual sliders, knobs and faders to better achieve the effect you want.

Robust controllers can cost upwards of $400 or more, and don’t include software. The Launchpad costs $199, and includes a “Launchpad Edition” of Ableton Live, one of the premier DJ’ing tools out there, regularly used by the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Daft Punk, Darren Price, Gabriel & Dresden, Kaskade, Mogwai and more. It’s even been used by non-dance artists on some tracks, such as by Nine Inch Nails and my personal favorite hip-hop artist, Del.

We’ll be receiving one of these for evaluation soon, so keep an eye out for a full review in the near-future.

Jointly designed by Ableton and Novation, Launchpad places Ableton Live at your fingertips. Whether you’re a DJ, performing musician or studio producer, Launchpad gives you all you need to truly ‘play’ Live. With a multi-colour 64-button grid and dedicated scene launch buttons, Launchpad is purpose built for triggering and manipulating clips in Live, it also offers a totally new way of controlling Ableton Live’s mixer. Launchpad’s buttons can be used to sketch out beats with drum racks, and they can be assigned to other functions in Live using Ableton’s ‘Learn’ mode.

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AMD vs. NVIDIA: Anti-Aliasing in Batman: Arkham Asylum

There’s an on-going war of words being exchanged between AMD and NVIDIA, and in some cases, also Eidos and Rocksteady, regarding the recent PC hit, Batman: Arkham Asylum. The story surfaced well before the game’s launch, but spread like wildfire when it became available to consumers, as gamers began to experience a downside when running the game with an ATI card installed: no anti-aliasing. While AA is indeed possible with ATI cards, the method of applying it is complicated, compared to any in-game solution.

With all the details boiled down, it appears that NVIDIA is the one in the hotseat, as multiple sources, including developer Rocksteady, claim that the company disallowed the in-game anti-aliasing code to be applied for non-NVIDIA cards. This of course enraged AMD and gamers alike. Simply changing your ATI card’s vendor ID to match NVIDIA’s would enable anti-aliasing once again, adding even more fuel to the fire.

The story is long and complicated, but Bright Side of News*’s Theo Valich has taken an exhaustive look at the situation from various angles, and has even gotten comment from developers not at all related to the game. Some have praise for NVIDIA, stating that its dedication to game developers is unparalleled. In some cases, NVIDIA has been known to provide not only hardware to developers, but support at no cost. AMD, on the other hand, seemingly does the bare minimum.

The case has a sticking point, though. Half a year before the game’s release, Rocksteady approached both AMD and NVIDIA regarding Unreal Engine 3’s lack of native anti-aliasing support. NVIDIA went ahead and wrote some code, while AMD decided to focus more on DirectX 11 titles, as the company knew it would be way ahead of the curve (and it is, although we’ve yet to see such titles). The argument is that if NVIDIA wrote the code required, why should it allow AMD’s graphics cards to take advantage? NVIDIA states that AMD didn’t do anything to help with the development of AA in the title, and therefore, it’s at fault – not NVIDIA.

Believe it or not, despite the fact that Unreal Engine 3 (mentioned earlier here) is one of the most robust engines on the market in terms of features and performance, it doesn’t natively support anti-aliasing. This is proven by loading up almost any UE3-built game, including Unreal Tournament III. Players do have the option of forcing AA in the graphics driver’s control panel, but that’s a less-than-elegant solution.

Not much is sure to come from this, but two things do seem to be proven. For one, Unreal Engine should include native anti-aliasing support. It’s kind of absurd that the engine has been around for years, and hasn’t included a feature that’s been around for well over ten. Second, AMD really has to step up its game (no pun of course) when it comes to catering to game developer’s needs. I’ve heard this from game developers first-hand in the past, so it does seem to be a real issue.

What got AMD seriously aggravated was the fact that the first step of this code is done on all AMD hardware: “‘Amusingly’, it turns out that the first step is done for all hardware (even ours) whether AA is enabled or not! So it turns out that NVidia’s code for adding support for AA is running on our hardware all the time – even though we’re not being allowed to run the resolve code! So… They’ve not just tied a very ordinary implementation of AA to their h/w, but they’ve done it in a way which ends up slowing our hardware down (because we’re forced to write useless depth values to alpha most of the time…)!”

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Are Retailers Slow to Catch onto the Current Consumer?

When the recession hit last fall, or even earlier based on some opinions, retailers didn’t know what to do. It’s not too often that most of us are affected by something all at once. The reality hit most people that money is important, and shopping sprees aren’t. So, naturally, retailers such as Walmart dropped prices on a lot of merchandise, in order to entice the casual shopper. It wasn’t just retailers though, but car prices went down in some cases, as did lodging, and even food.

But as an MSNBC.com report shows, retailers might not be cluing into how the current consumer operates, and they may be hurting themselves more than helping by offering rock-bottom prices on a lot of popular merchandise. The number one reason for this comes down to the fact that the current consumer has come to expect ridiculous deals on product, so when the economy does improve, people are going to continue expecting the same kind of pricing.

There’s also the issue that, again, due to the economy, product manufacturers aren’t exactly giving people a reason to run out to the stores this season to pick something up. What’s the “must have” product? According to the article, there doesn’t seem to be one. The question is also raised, if a product is sold for a low price, but consumers don’t need it, is it really a deal? After all, spending money on something you don’t need and won’t use doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Some retailers are going even further with their deals this year than last. Walmart, for example, has already had leaked fliers that show Black Friday-esque deals that will happen soon… long before the official and usual date of Friday after Thanksgiving. What are your thoughts on this? Are retailers doing the right thing by charging so little, or will it come to bite them in the rear in the fiercest way possible?

Many retailers are aiming to lure shoppers with marketing messages appealing to sentiment but focused on value. Home products retailer Crate & Barrel, for example, is touting “holiday moments at prices to celebrate.” Analysts say customers in this post-bubble era are looking for value, but that means more than just a great sale price or alluring marketing message. Today many consumers are thinking carefully about whether they need the product on offer, even if the price seems too good to pass up. “A bargain on something you don’t need isn’t a bargain,” Flickinger notes.

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Epic Releases Unreal Development Kit

In what should please up-and-coming game developers everywhere, Epic today announced the release of the “Unreal Development Kit”, a full-blown toolset based around Unreal Engine 3, for free. That’s right… the same tools that were used to develop such games as Batman: Arkham Asylum, BioShock, Borderlands, Gears of War, Mass Effect and of course, Unreal Tournament 3, can now be had to anyone looking to utilize the tools to either learn, or develop their own non-profit game.

That last point is the main caveat. Although Epic is kind enough to release its robust tools for free, publishing games developed with the tools is restricted to non-profit games or applications. For commercial software, you’ll need to refer to Epic’s licensing page. Depending on the number of game developers, the prices given could be manageable even if a modest fee for the game was made, but there are far too many angles to look at things from, to say the least.

Even though this kit is to be used for non-commercial / educational use, its release is a huge win for game developers who have wanted to experiment and learn the tools but were previously unable to. This should help give developers exactly the experience they need with such a mainstream engine, and hopefully land them a good job. It’s also a great thing for hobbyists, or mod-builders, who do intend to release their product for free.

What the entire kit includes is the Unreal Engine 3 engine itself, and its editor, the Content Browser that makes searching and using game assets a breeze, UnrealScript, an OOP-based programming language, Unreal Cascade, an advanced editor for particle physics and environmental effects, and even support for NVIDIA’s PhysX, should you want to take advantage of it. There’s much, much more to this, so I recommend reading through the press release, and then going to download the UDK.

An unprecedented milestone in game development, the release of UDK awards free access to the same world-class tools and technology used by many of the world’s best video game developers and publishers. Unreal Engine 3 is a constantly evolving game engine, and UDK contains all the most recently added features and technological enhancements, including many that have yet to be seen in an Unreal Engine game. Furthermore, Epic Games will release ongoing, upgraded builds of UDK for free.

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Intel to Include USB 3.0 Support in its Chipsets in 2011

For those who were hoping to see some USB 3.0 support in an Intel chipset, you’ll have to wait a while. Oddly enough, it was NVIDIA who began pushing the fact that Intel’s chipsets won’t support the new standard until 2011, but judging by comments from Intel employees, it looks as though it’s true. The reason NVIDIA has anything at all to say about it is because its taking an opportunity to boast the fact that its own chipsets have always been rich with features.

The reason NVIDIA might have reason to raise concern is because Intel essentially pushed them out from being able to create chipsets based around its latest processors. In a sense, Intel won’t support USB 3.0 now, but won’t allow others to, either. In that sense, I have a hard time disagreeing with NVIDIA on this one, because we’ve been lead up to the USB 3.0 release by Intel for quite a while, and it’s even a technology that Intel has a hand in, so to not see a chipset support it until 2011 is a little strange.

It’s important to note, however, that motherboard vendors, such as ASUS and Gigabyte, are fully capable of adding in USB 3.0 via additional chipsets on the board. This is not uncommon, as most of today’s motherboards include extra chipsets for other components already, such as an additional LAN port, and also additional S-ATA ports. Without the support in Intel’s chipset, it means we all pay a wee bit more for the support.

The reason behind Intel’s decision to not roll out USB 3.0 in its chipsets right now is unknown, and whether NVIDIA would have actually had a chipset prepared now with such support is also. But the good thing is that those looking for USB 3.0 support aren’t going to have to go without. Boards might cost a little more, but they’ll be there for those who want them. Now, let’s just see more USB 3.0 devices, so we have something to get excited about!

“We [have also] learned that Intel is postponing USB 3 introduction until 2011. With no competition in chipsets, it seems Intel has decided that innovation is not needed for USB any time soon,” said Burke. “With no one to push Intel to innovate, PC enthusiasts are left with Intel chipsets and the features and performance they deliver, or lack there of.”

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Taking iPhone for Ransom, Then Asking for $7 for the Fix?

If there’s an interesting method of making some cash, someone is bound to figure out how to execute it to the best of their ability. Over the years, we’ve heard of stories where someone would code up a robust virus/trojan, release it, and then do horrible things to people’s computers. The catch is that the data seemingly ruined by this malware isn’t actually ruined, but can be recovered if the user wants to pay a ransom fee.

As horrible as that practice is, I can’t help but laugh at it’s ingenuity. Ten years ago, I would have never thought of data being held for ransom, as if it were a person, but it’s rather common today. Someone in the Netherlands took a very similar route recently, but there’s an interesting twist… he had no intention of damaging or ruining people’s data, but rather demands cash for the solution on how they could secure themselves.

The product in question is none other than the iPhone, in a jailbroken status. Apparently, there’s a security hole somewhere that can allow a cracker to get in and essentially take over the entire phone, including personal data. As you can see in the screenshot below, the words “hacked” are listed at the top. There’s also a message that centers itself on the screen that states that the phone’s security has been circumvented, and that this person has full access to all the files.

It’s not all bad, because should the user want to regain their security, a URL is given. Although down now, the page requested $7 to be sent to a PayPal account, at which point this person would e-mail the victim to explain how to better secure their iPhone. Since this news broke, though, the person had a change of heart and decided to tell everyone how to fix their jailbroken iPhone with a few simple steps, which you can find here. Hopefully this event is one of the very few we’ll see happen. With the insane popularity of mobile phones though, something tells me this is just the beginning.

Apparently, the hacker used port scanning to identify phones on the T-Mobile network in the Netherlands running SSH (Secure Shell network protocol), which is commonly used by jailbroken iPhones and allows a user to “log in via Terminal and run standard UNIX commands,” according to Ars Technica. iPhone users who don’t change the default root password after jailbreaking the device leave the phones vulnerable to attack, the site said.

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AT&T Suing Verizon Over 3G Map Advertising

There are times when advertising can be extremely effective at getting the point across, and one way to accomplish this is to single out a competitor and attempt at proving to the general public that you’re company is better than theirs. For the past few years, we’ve seen this with Apple, which has continually poked fun at Microsoft’s Windows from every possible angle. Today, it’s not computer companies who are at each other, but rather cell service providers.

Recently, Verizon launched a campaign to show just how incredible its 3G coverage is, and during the commercial, a map of both its own, and also AT&T’s coverage is shown on the US map. In it, Verizon has so much coverage area, that it appears that it has about 9x or 10x as much coverage area. In some states, AT&T doesn’t seem to offer 3G support at all. This alone isn’t so much the problem, though.

According to AT&T and its lawyers, the map is confusing to the regular consumer, who doesn’t understand that 3G != general cell service. The company believes that when consumers see this map, that they will be lead to believe that AT&T has absolutely horrid cell phone support, when in truth, the map is singling out 3G and 3G alone. On one hand, I can understand why AT&T would be concerned, but on the other, the commercial is very clear about the fact that it’s talking about 3G, and nothing else.

The other question is whether or not the maps are at all accurate even where 3G is concerned. Could AT&T really be offering absolutely no service in most of middle America? I’m not familiar with AT&T or its 3G service, but it would seem a little odd to have no support whatsoever in certain states. Whether AT&T has a hope of winning its case is yet to be seen. Verizon seems very clear in its ad, but a judge might not see it that way.

Consumers are interpreting the white or blank space on the maps to mean that AT&T customers who are not in an AT&T “3G” coverage area have no wireless coverage whatsoever, and therefore have no ability to use their wireless devices for any purposes in vast areas of the country. This interpretation is not surprising as Verizon, in its own coverage maps, uses white space to inform customers that no coverage of any kind exists.

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Has the Nintendo Wii “Stalled”?

When the Nintendo Wii came out towards the end of 2006, no one, and I mean no one could have predicted what was to become. I can’t think of a single product out there that suffered shortages for more than a year, but the Wii did. People I knew who didn’t even like video gaming wanted a Wii, and people who hadn’t owned a console since the regular Nintendo wanted one. One person bought one, and word spread. If only it were that easy to sell all products!

Even today, the Wii is beating out every other console in sales, and combined with the Nintendo DS(i), Nintendo is a true juggernaut where gaming is concerned. But, believe it or not, company executive Satoru Iwata revealed that the “Wii has stalled”. Although still beating out the competition, the Wii’s overall sales have fallen month over month since this past summer. What could be the reason for such quick change?

Iwata goes on to elaborate, and he primarily blames the lack of quality games, and states that the “good mood has chilled” as a result. This could be true, and it’s been a problem with every Nintendo console that’s ever been sold. First-party games are usually fantastic, but the vast majority of the market is clogged up with third-party games whose developers who don’t put near as much time and energy, or passion, into their games.

What the company is likely to do to reinvigorate Wii gamers is a few things. First are plans to release Netflix for the console, to allow people to download movies to their home. Personally, I think it’s is a waste of time, as the resolution of the Wii is in some cases worse than standard television. If someone owns an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, it’d make more sense to do the Netflix thing there. Also, Nintendo is likely to either re-release the Wii as a true high-definition console in 2010 or 2011, or release an entirely new console altogether – one that would very likely be a proper follow-up.

Notably, reports have emerged that Nintendo is planning a number of enhancements to its console. Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Nintendo would be introducing Netflix’s online video-streaming service to the console, functionality that is already available for the Xbox 360 and will soon be introduced to the PlayStation 3. Analysts and industry insiders also expect the publisher to launch an HD version of the Wii or an all-new system in 2010 or 2011 to better compete with Microsoft and Sony’s consoles.

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Ubuntu 9.10 Brings on Some Fresh Changes

Where Windows and Mac OS X releases are concerned, people take notice. After all, each OS gets a complete new version only every few years. That’s not so much the case with Linux, however, where there’s a sheer number of new distro versions each month. So when one occurs, most people don’t think too much of it. But with Ubuntu 9.10, the release has been long-awaited, even for non-users of the distro. Canonical promised some fairly big things, but did it deliver?

Since I’ve yet to install the latest version and give it a whirl, I can’t say, but it is downloaded and burned, so I hope to soon. Since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to touch the latest version right away due to time, I didn’t make it a point to check out the official site last week when the latest version launched. I finally got around to checking it out earlier, though, and I have to say… how Canonical has handled the launch of its latest distro is quite interesting, and in a good way.

First and foremost, the official site has experienced a total makeover, and it looks fantastic. It’s clean, bright, easy-to-read and gets the point across. I was keenly interested in the “For your netbook.” remark, as I didn’t realize the “Netbook Remix” version of Ubuntu was now an official product. That in itself is rather notable news. I proceeded to “Take the Tour”, and geez, what does it remind you of? Apple, perhaps? It can’t be denied… this looks like an Apple page straight off that company’s site, aside from the colors.

Up and down the page are many listed features, which aim to explain what the OS is all about to people who either haven’t used Linux or Ubuntu before, or are upgrading and want to know what’s new. Of what’s listed here, the “Software Center” is listed at the top, showing off just how easy it is to install new applications, games, tools and whatever else, which is followed by a quick look at the e-mail and communication features, a mention of Firefox 3.5 as being the choice for Internet browser, photos, music and video and even a blurb about gaming.

I have to say, Canonical did a splendid job of delivering the information about Ubuntu 9.10 to anyone who’s interested, despite the feature’s page sharing a likeness with Apple’s own. Beyond that, even downloading the distro is easier than ever. Rather than selecting from a specific server, the site auto-selects one for you, depending on which country you choose. You can either download the first version they provide, or use other available options, such as being able to install through Windows, or text-based, and downloading via BitTorrent, if you want to save the company some bandwidth.

I plan to give the latest version of Ubuntu a try within the next few days, so I’ll report again once I have formed some opinions.

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you’ll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools. Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge. You do not pay any licensing fees. You can download, use and share Ubuntu with your friends, family, school or business for absolutely nothing.

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MAINGEAR Launches SHIFT “Supercomputer” with GPGPU Focus

Given that we at Techgage are so acutely focused on system components and personal PC building, we rarely ever post about pre-built machines. But, every so often such a machine will grab me by the shirt and force me to read what it’s all about. One such computer was released yesterday, by…..

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Western Digital Enters SAS Market with S25 Drives

Earlier this year, Western Digital issued a press release that revealed something not too surprising… that it was getting into the solid-state side of things. This happened via way of an acquisition of SiliconSystems, and we saw the first products to result from this a few months ago. Today, the company unveils yet another venture, this time focusing on the enterprise market. The company’s S25 SAS hard drives are its first, and are designed for “mission-critical” applications.

The company’s move to SAS at this point in time is an interesting one, because the technology isn’t entirely new. Its new-found commitment to the drives show that it must believe that there’s still a long life for SAS ahead, which will be interesting to anyone believing that SSD is sure to take over within the next few years. Although SAS drives are typically faster than regular hard drives, thanks in part to higher-grade components and 10,000 RPM rotational speeds, their read and write still can’t compare to solid-state storage.

Compared to the VelociRaptor, also an enterprise drive, the real-world transfer rates are likely very similar, but the SAS drive experiences improved seek times, from 4.2ms to 3.6ms read, and 4.7ms to 4.2ms write. These tighter latencies would be appreciated in server or enterprise environments where a lot of reading and writing is going on all the time. As for transfer rates, the S25 is specified as being 128MB/s, but whether that’s read or write, or both, I’m uncertain.

Pricing on the S25 drives hasn’t been revealed, but you could expect a noticeable premium over the VelociRaptor drives, where the current 300GB model retails for around $270. The two available densities are 147GB and 300GB on the SAS side as well, with support for both 3Gb/s and 6GB/s interfaces.

“Our entry into the traditional-enterprise market continues the strategic expansion and diversification of WD’s broad market and product portfolio, and significantly increases our addressable revenue opportunity,” said John Coyne, president and CEO of WD. “As with our previous market expansion and diversification efforts, WD will approach the traditional enterprise space with the same focus on quality, customer service, technology and value that has earned us strong positions in every market we serve.”

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Apple’s Sleek Magic Mouse Gets Reviewed

A few weeks ago, to much fanfare, Apple announced a slew of new products for general consumption. These included new iMac models, coming in 21.5-inch and 27-inch sizes, updated MacBook’s with LED-backlit displays, and of course, the Magic Mouse. After these launches, I posted about how I felt that Apple price gouges its customers, rather than talk about a product in particular, or its features. So, when I spotted an Ars Technica review of the Magic Mouse, I gave it a read to see what’s up.

If there’s one thing that can be said about Apple, it’s that it values aesthetics higher than most other companies. In some cases, its products could be considered a work of art. Take the Magic Mouse, for example. It’s the sleekest mouse on the planet, and I could picture if being placed in a gallery somewhere. But for me, there’s a rather fine-line between what I’m willing to put up with for overall styling in lieu of comfort. When I saw the Magic Mouse, which favors extreme sleekness over ergonomics, I wasn’t immediately  impressed.

For the most part, the author of this review agrees, although he points out certain other features that make the mouse a winner, or a loser, depending on your viewpoints. What makes the Magic Mouse most unique is its multitouch capabilities. It features no scroll wheel or ball whatsoever, but allows you to rather use your finger to replace whatever your mouse wheel could handle – except with a major caveat… you cannot use a middle click.

That to me alone would be a deal-breaker, but the fact that it also interprets some movements as swipes would become annoying very quickly. For users of Exposé and Dashboard, some functionality is lost there as well (regained through various hacks). On the upside, the mouse proved to be a little more accurate than the last that the author used, and the momentum scrolling (think Logitech’s Revolution scroll wheel) works quite well also. At $70, the mouse has it’s upsides and downsides, so it’s really up to you to decide if moving on up is worth the time and money. It primarily comes down to how much you love multitouch and can handle the extreme sleekness, so your decision shouldn’t be too difficult.

The two-finger swipe is quite useful when browsing the Web, and I’ve already stopped right-clicking to go backwards and forwards through my browser history. You don’t even need to grip the mouse as you swipe; there’s enough static friction to keep it from moving if you perform a hands-off gesture (I’ve tried on glass, wood, and granite). If you have used screen zoom with the Apple Mouse, you’ll find the implementation with the Apple Mouse to be fairly intuitive—simply hold down the control key and swipe your finger across the top of the mouse.

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