Before Twitter implemented features that allow images linked in a Tweet to be shown directly on Twitter as part of that Tweet, the role of attaching pictures to Tweets was one mainly followed by the third party service, Twitpic. Though largely redundant since, Twitpic still retained a following with its own subset of loyal users; and some would argue there was a small feeling of comfort in knowing that despite all, the service was still around.

Sadly, that’s all about to change.

Due to a legal demand from Twitter, Twitpic has found itself forced to close its service on September 25th. The exact reason, according to founder Noah Everett, falls over a dispute regarding the company’s five-year old trademark:

A few weeks ago Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API. This came as a shock to us since Twitpic has been around since early 2008, and our trademark application has been in the USPTO since 2009.

So why not take up the battle, you may ask? Surely if they’ve owned and use the trademark for five years, Twitpic should have a case regarding their legal right to use “Twitpic” as a name? Unfortunately, Mr. Everett believes the legal costs for such a defence are such that the company can’t afford to pay, so closing is the only option.

Twitpic will be building a photo/video exporting feature to help users past and present reclaim their pictures and videos for a short while before the service shuts up shop for good, though it was not ready at the time of writing.

It’s that time again, so let’s see what goodies Major Nelson has unleashed for us lucky XBox Live gold subscribers…

Xbox Live Games with Gold for September 2014

Coming up in September, Xbox Live Gold members can look forward to three new free games on Xbox One and Xbox 360. Super Time Force is coming to Games with Gold on Xbox One as a free download, replacing Strike Suit Zero (so grab it now if you haven’t already). Crimson Dragon will continue to be available for Xbox Live Gold members as a free download for Xbox One.

    

Then, on September 16th, Xbox Live Gold Members can download Halo: Reach (normally US $24.99) for free through September 30th.

    

*Titles are available as free downloads for qualifying Xbox Live Gold members in all markets where Xbox Live is available. Some regions may offer different titles depending on market availability.

Woah…   HALO Reach for free?    Well I know what I’m getting (and trading in my disc copy)

When Nintendo came out with the Circle Pad Pro accessory for the original Nintendo 3DS – which added a second Circle Pad and extra buttons to the 3DS which allowed for even more control; and which Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate made good use of – many asked why a second Circle Pad could not have been a standard feature of the 3DS. When the 3DS XL was released and also lacked the second pad, the complaints became even more vocal.

Colour choices at launch for the New 3DS and New 3DS XL

Today in Japan, Nintendo have not only finally heeded the call, but have gone even further. The company announced all new models of their popular hand-held game consoles, the Nintendo 3DS and the 3DS XL (called the 3DS LL in Japan), which along with extra controls, make a number of other additions and improvements over the previous models.

If you actually care that the new models are a few mm bigger in most directions, you probably have an Apple device and/or no shame
(click pictures to enlarge)

The real big news of the announcement, however, comes in the form of a small toy.

If you’re wondering why this pic shows just the Amiibo logo instead of an actual Amiibo, blame Nintendo.

With the new consoles including an NFC Reader, the new 3DS and 3DS XL will come with built-in support for Amiibo, Nintendo’s upcoming range of NFC-enabled figurines. Previously thought to be exclusive to the Wii U, the new addition enables future 3DS games to also offer the ability to allow select Nintendo characters to be stored and shared across compatible games or to use the toys for special in-game functions; and use of the feature in the 3DS version of Super Smash Bros. is already confirmed – what it consists of is yet to be announced, but if one is to make a guess, imagine something like the sticker mode in Brawl, but with an actual physical toy to enhance and make your own character with.

Those colourful SNES-like buttons.

As to the controls, the new 3DS and 3DS XL will add a splash of colour to the A/B/X/Y button. The new 3DS gets the more significant facelift with fully-coloured buttons, while the XL simply gets coloured button labels. The colours are the same as those originally used on the Japanese SNES controller, in a nice homage to Nintendo history.

…But that’s not what you care about, is it? The bigger news is both devices finally feature a second Circle Pad – well, kind of. Dubbed the “C-Stick” by Nintendo in another homage (this time to the yellow analogue stick of Nintendo’s own GameCube controller), the new stick is much smaller than the main Circle Pad – in fact, it’s roughly the same size as one of the four A/B/X/Y buttons. This isn’t accidental – according to Nintendo’s own Satoru Iwata, while the new control will function like a stick, it’s also designed to be used as though it were a button itself. Iwata also claims the new C-Stick “is easy to use”; with Nintendo releasing a picture showing that the size and positioning of the button should make it easy to control with the same thumb used to press the lettered buttons – it remains to be seen if this turns out to be the case. The new C-stick will be used in Dragon Quest X: Online, Final Fantasy Explorers, and Monster Hunter 4G to control the in-game camera function, and in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS to unleash Smash Attacks.

The back of the New 3DS XL. Notice anything different?

The new 3DS models will also include ZL and ZR buttons on the back beside the existing L/R buttons, thus making the Circle Pad Pro accessory entirely redundant. Because there is no longer space for the game card, the game card slot is now found on new 3DS and XL’s bottom-left side, which seems poorly thought out – surely it’ll be right underneath your left palm thus making it easy to accidentally push the card in and eject it? The space at the top previously occupied by the game card slot now houses the charging port, which has been moved from its original off-centre position.

Battery life comparisons (given in minimum to maximum expected time between charges) for the New 3DS XL (left image) and New 3DS (right image) compared to their predecessors
(click to enlarge)

Nintendo claim that the new 3DS and XL models also make small improvements on the battery life, with their rated maximum life up half an hour on the XL to 7 hours; and up a whole hour on the regular 3DS to 6 hours. Part of the reason for these gains are due to a new adaptive brightness feature, where the screen will automatically brighten or darken depending on the currently displayed picture, which is also aimed to improve colour quality. Another big reason for the small improvement is a new, more efficient processor – which also grants the new models a small speed boost to make downloads and loading times quicker – though exact specs are not yet known. Speaking of downloads, you’ll also now be able to use Micro SD cards with both new 3DS models, with a new slot located under the bottom covering.

The new Nintendo 3DS models also have an improved 3D function. With the original 3DS and XL, if you viewed the 3D effect from the side and didn’t stay in the “sweet spot,” the graphics became all blurred. However, the New 3DS has improved 3D, enabling players to continue to see the 3D effect even if viewed from an angle. Using the device’s cameras and gyroscopes, the new 3DS and 3DS XL actually track your face to work out the angle the screen is being viewed from – and will adjust the 3D effect to what’s best for your view. Clever!

Though the international launches of the new 3DS and 3DS XL models is still to be announced, both will be out October 11 in Japan. The New Nintendo 3DS is priced at 16,000 yen (approx. £92.75 at time of posting) and the New Nintendo 3DS XL is priced at 18,800 yen (approx. £109 at time of posting) – given the usual mark-ups, however, I’m personally predicting prices of £129 and £159 when they hit the UK. Sorry, that’s business.

So, as PredictedCyborg mentioned in her post yesterday (Mojang take over Bukkit development after project leads quits), The Minecraft 1.8 – The Bountiful Update has been pre-released has dropped today and here’s the patch notes

 

 

Hello!

 

It’s time for us to pre-release the next major Minecraft update, the Bountiful Update! This will bring Minecraft to version 1.8, and should be officially be published in the launcher on Tuesday, September 2. This is the update that to date has taken the longest time to create (over 300 days), and is the result of many, many changes.

 

These changes consist of both new features, and large game structure changes such as replacing the hard-coded “block renderer” with a system that is able to read block shapes from data files, or performance enhancements such as multi-threading the client-side chunk rendering. We hope you will enjoy it!

 

Here’s a list of the major changes in the game:

 

-Added Granite, Andesite, and Diorite stone blocks, with smooth versions
-Added Slime Block
-Added Iron Trapdoor
-Added Prismarine and Sea Lantern blocks
-Added the Ocean Monument
-Added Red Sandstone
-Added Banners
-Added Armor Stands
-Added Coarse Dirt (dirt where grass won’t grow)
-Added Guardian mobs, with item drops
-Added Endermite mob
-Added Rabbits, with item drops
-Added Mutton and Cooked Mutton
-Villagers will harvest crops and plant new ones
-Mossy Cobblestone and Mossy Stone Bricks are now craftable
-Chiseled Stone Bricks are now craftable
-Doors and fences now come in all wood type variants
-Sponge block has regained its water-absorbing ability and becomes wet
-Added a spectator game mode (game mode 3)
-Added one new achievement
-Added “Customized” world type
-Added hidden “Debug Mode” world type
-Worlds can now have a world barrier
-Added @e target selector for Command Blocks
-Added /blockdata command
-Added /clone command
-Added /execute command
-Added /fill command
-Added /particle command
-Added /testforblocks command
-Added /title command
-Added /trigger command
-Added /worldborder command
-Added /stats command
-Containers can be locked in custom maps by using the “Lock” data tag
-Added logAdminCommands, showDeathMessages, reducedDebugInfo, sendCommandFeedback, and randomTickSpeed game rules
-Added three new statistics
-Player skins can now have double layers across the whole model, and left/right arms/legs can be edited independently
-Added a new player model with smaller arms, and a new player skin called Alex?
-Added options for configuring what pieces of the skin that are visible
-Blocks can now have custom visual variations in the resource packs
-Minecraft Realms now has an activity chart, so you can see who has been online
-Minecraft Realms now lets you upload your maps
-Difficulty setting is saved per world, and can be locked if wanted
-Enchanting has been redone, now costs lapis lazuli in addition to enchantment levels
-Villager trading has been rebalanced
-Anvil repairing has been rebalanced
-Considerable faster client-side performance
-Max render distance has been increased to 32 chunks (512 blocks)
-Adventure mode now prevents you from destroying blocks, unless your items have the CanDestroy data tag
-Resource packs can now also define the shape of blocks and items, and not just their textures
-Scoreboards have been given a lot of new features
-Tweaked the F3 debug screen
-Block ID numbers (such as 1 for stone), are being replaced by ID names (such as minecraft:stone)
-Server list has been improved
-A few minor changes to village and temple generation
-Mob heads for players now show both skin layers
-Buttons can now be placed on the ceiling
-Lots and lots of other changes
-LOTS AND LOTS of other changes
-Removed Herobrine 

The pre-release is available if you have activated development versions in the launcher.

 

Sincerely, the Minecraft and Minecraft Realms teams

So yeah, there’s the prerelease, but we have two weeks until the full release of it apparently

As everyone knows, the premise of Nintendo’s popular beat-em-up franchise Super Smash Bros. revolves around characters from several different Nintendo game series, who would never normally meet in their own games, coming together for an all-out brawl. But with the upcoming games Super Smash Bros. for 3DS / Wii U throwing not just more Nintendo characters into the mix such as the Wii Fit Trainer and the Animal Crossing human, but also entries from Namco (Pacman) and Capcom (Mega Man) joining too, Nintendo thinks it might be a good time for us to familiarise ourselves with the games behind the new names ahead of the official launch.

Nintendo UK and Nintendo of Europe today jointly announced a new promotion, cleverly – if lengthily – titled “Super Smash Bros. Character Sale: New Challengers“. Starting today (14th August) for one week, Nintendo gamers across the UK and Europe will be able to download select eShop titles for 3DS or Wii U featuring one of Smash’s more recent faces – from the old classics like Pac-Man and the six Mega Man NES titles, to more recent entries such as Animal Crossing: New Leaf – each at a generous discount ranging from 20% to 50% off the original eShop prices.

(Click to enlarge) These pictures, tweeted by Nintendo, show the games and discounts offered to gamers in the UK (left) and elsewhere in Europe (right).

Punch-out fighter Little Mac gets a double-billing with his two debut games, Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!! both at 50% off. Mii Characters also get two seperate outings, with Wii U owners getting Wii Party U for 30% off (now £24.49 / €31.49); while 3DS owners get Tomodachi Life at 20% off (£27.99 / €31.99) – weirdly, this results in Wii Party U, which is normally five Euros more expensive than Tomodachi Life for the rest of Europe, actually becoming the better deal, now undercutting by just half a Euro.

With the surprising introduction of the Wii Fit trainer as a fighter, Wii U users exclusively get Wii Fit U for 30% off this week too (now £20.99 / €24.49). Meanwhile, 3DS owners get the double-whammy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Kid Icarus: Uprising also at 30% off each (£24.49 / €27.99 and £20.99 / €24.49 respectively). Always-hungry pill-popper Pac-Man gets his classic arcade outing reduced to 50% off for both 3DS and Wii U. Finally for all you Mega Man fans (yay!), prepare for a Mega week as all six of Mega Man’s original NES outings are 50% off on 3DS and Wii U as well.

As the new challengers prepare to square off against unfamiliar opponents in Nintendo’s arena, this week gives Nintendo fans the chance to play their histories for even less than before. Who are you backing?