Celebrate Thanksgiving with some jolly games full of hearty eating.

Part One. Documentary about the Vikings. These pagans came from Scandinavia, and raided and colonised parts of Europe from the 8th to 11th century AD. Famous for their fighting prowess and seafaring ability, they were also reported to have travelled as far west as Newfoundland and as far east as the Volga River.

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Submitted By: ShapeSphere
Tags: warriors ancient vikings scandinavia

Ever-expanding MMO publisher NCsoft has revealed that it is giving its European development capabilities a huge boost ? doubling in size in the next 18 months alone.

The target was revealed as NCsoft?s chief executive officer Geoff Heath told MCV that its first PS3 project should be hitting retail this time next year ? and that its hugely popular City of Heroes/Villians franchise is due for a major expansion.

Check out our game guides for Assassin's Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, and Crysis.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Scientists at Ben Gurion University in Israel are out to make detecting dangerous biological agents as simple as a pregnancy test with their yet-to-be-completed BioPen, which they say could eventually be in use everywhere from the battlefield to the veterinary lab. The pen uses a modified form of Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (or ELISA) antigen detection to detect potentially harmful compounds, and can apparently also be used to determine if water is drinkable, along with ratting out environmental toxins, Ebola, Hepatitis B and C, Dengue, West Nile virus, and bird flu, among other nasty things. It works by taking a blood sample with a disposable tip, which is then automatically processed in the non-disposable cap, delivering the verdict in twenty minutes or less. Of course, they haven't actually gotten it into pen size yet -- for that, they're looking for one or two million dollars of funding -- but when/if it gets fully developed, they foresee the BioPen being a fairly affordable option, costing about $15 per test.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

If you're an Xbox 360 arcade fan you must remember that Mad Catz Arcade GameStick we showed you a little while ago. We've some more details on this controller, which is meant to control all those classic games like Galaga, Street Fighter and Frogger.

The controller itself has a main stick, a smaller stick (corresponding with the right analog) and the same number of buttons as the 360. It'll work on any 360 game, and can even be plugged into your PC for Windows games. It'll retail for $49 in about a month. If you're looking for the authentic retro experience, this should fit the bill fairly nicely.

Hit the jump for package shot.

– Jason Chen

Product Page [GameStop (price is wrong)]

Lets developers play loose with Live Search.

Microsoft has launched a revamped Live Search API for enhancing search capabilities on websites.

From OLGn.net:

"I once predicted the Wii was the future of video game consoles. I said, since the Wii changes how we play games instead of just how we view them, it would be able to overtake the Xbox 360 and PS3, which certainly go farther in terms of hardware power, but don't fundamentally do anything different than the original PlayStation...what really amazes me, however, is the public's almost unquestioning acceptance of the Wii's new terms of playing games..."

Callpod has introduced the Drone, a plug-and-play USB to Bluetooth 2.0 adapter. The Class 1 output is claimed to offer a range of up to 100-meters. If a user is listening to music when a VoIP call comes in, Drone will automatically switch to voice communication. The device supports A2DP and AVRCP profiles, allowing music from a variety of audio sources such as CDs, iTunes, or Windows Media Player...

Capcom updated their all-time sales data at their investor relations site. Notably, two PSP games are in the top 10 (both Monster Hunter) and Devil May Cry 4 weighs in at 8th.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Gibson's limited-edition Robot Guitar was undeniably cool when we played with it last year, and it looks like the sequel's going to be even hotter -- say hello to Dark Fire. The flame-red axe features a second-generation Robot tuning system can get up to pitch in less than a second -- and not only is it smaller and lighter than the weighty original, battery life has been significantly extended to 500 tunings on a single charge. Once you're in tune, you'll be able to make almost any noise you want with the Chameleon Tone system: in addition to a P90 and a bridge-mounted humbucker, there's a third piezo pickup in the bridge that can be blended with the standard units for what Gibson called an "incredible array of tonal possibilities." In case that's not enough for you, the Dark Fire also ships with the Robot Interface Pack, a powered breakout box that lets you integrate your axe into almost any digital audio workflow you can dream up: there's two quarter-inch balanced line outs, headphone out, FireWire (sorry, MacBook owners), and a special hex connector that carries the output of each string from the piezo pickup -- these can either be broken out into individual quarter-inch outputs or used to control MIDI guitar controllers with an adapter. Original Robot owners aren't being left out: Gibson says it'll upgrade them for "close to cost," after the Dark Fire launches on December 15th. Pretty wild, all in all, but we'll wait for pricing information to hit before we consider trading in our battered old Tele.

[Via Music Radar]

Gibson kicks out the Dark Fire second-gen Robot Guitar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can't say they didn't try.

Sheldon is the star of Monday nights. "The Big Bang Theory", on CBS at 8pm, has brought us the most unique, and eccentric character since Frasier. How can you not love Sheldon's precise & analogical view of the world around us. And he loves "Star Wars" too! Find out what else is on tonight in chronological order, after the jump...........

Crafty hackers break the site for the young R&B singer, add redirects to a site with a rootkit.