Populous Coming to a Japanese DS Near You

With all the focus on SimCity and SimCity2 on the DS, it seems one of my favorite city building games is getting overlooked.

Populous, the finger pointing god game is finally making it's way onto Nintendo's popular handheld! EA Japan already has a website up for the game that looks to have been up for quite a few months.

The site is minimal and all in Japanese, but it does have some small screen shots and such tucked in there for the adventurous clicker. The splash page announces that the game will be released in Japan on Feb. 21, 2008 and something tells me the US version will not be too far behind. At least I hope...

Xbox Live: still up and down ten days later

It's been ten days since we started tracking The Great Xbox Live Outage of Late 2007 -- ten days that the team at Microsoft has spent working 24/7, apparently unable to quash the issues affecting untold thousands (or millions) of users. Things were supposedly looking better until earlier today when they apparently got worse again, resulting in Xbox Live's service status box making a decisive turn towards the apology side of the spectrum. Granted, the whole thing may seem a little gratuitous at this point, especially considering that the issues are still tagged as intermittent -- but at least our informal polling at Engadget HQ has improved, with some of us even able to get on and play a game (slow and sticky though it may be). We suggest everyone get a little extra drunk tonight on behalf of all those at the Xbox NOC who will be ringing in the new year sitting at terminals so we can have our precious Live service back.

OLPC sells 150,000 laptops to public, may do Give1 Get 1 next year

Shockingly enough, Laptop magazine -- of all magazines in print today -- wanted remind everybody that tonight's the last night your hard earned (and increasingly devalued) American currency can be exchanged for an OLPC. But they also got a few words out of NickNeg as to how many OLPC units sold in the decidedly successful Give 1 Get 1 program (150,000+, not counting big buyers like Birmingham, Alabama), and why not continue the program indefinitely ("We are a charity and not a business. If we continued it, it would become 'sales' versus a charitable promotion.") While we kind of take umbrage with that attitude -- isn't it better, after all, to seed as many machines to underprivileged children as possible under any circumstances you can? -- we're hopeful at least that the gang at OLPC will bring back the G1G1 program next year with their v2 hardware. Hopefully by then some sovereign nations will have actually bought some OLPCs of their own.

Mega Drive Portable gets rebadged, available to order

It looks like that Mega Drive Portable we caught sight of a couple of months back is no longer exclusive to retro-happy gamers in Brazil, as a suspiciously similar-looking device has recently turned up for order at Play-Asia.com. As with the TecToy version, this one from AtGames is apparently officially licensed by Sega, and includes the very same line-up of twenty Genesis titles, including Golden Axe and Altered Beast, among other games with decidedly less hacking and slashing. Best of all, this incarnation the handheld is also a good deal cheaper than the TecToy, with it setting you back just $40. According to some early buyers, however, it seems that the emulation isn't entirely faithful to the originals, but at that price it's hard to complain too much.

Sony officially quits rear-projection TV production

Remember how we told you that Sony, like so many others, is quitting the rear-projection TV business? Well, they finally decided to officially announce as much today, stating that come February its three RPTV plants would quit production of the sets and the company would focus its energy henceforth on LCD and OLED (huge surprise there). Don't let the door-of-obsolecense hit your ass on the way out, RPTV.

Rumor: Microsoft's "Metal Gear" for the 360

It seems absolutely impossible to notice that Microsoft is unfazed by Metal Gear Solid 4, the titan of all games released during the year on the PS3. Splinter Cell: Conviction might not be powerful enough to scratch our beloved Solid Snake, so Microsoft has decided to bring something as brilliant as the game on the 360. Word has it that the company is in collaboration with a highly talented studio that can give their 360 something way better than Snake.

Netscape finally dead...

Although Netscape was once a mighty pioneer in the world of internet browsers, it didn't take long for Microsoft's Internet Explorer to overtake it and squash its dreams of market dominance. Granted, we highly (and we stress "highly") doubt any viewers reading this now are relying on Netscape Navigator as their primary browser, but seeing it finally bow out is a bit surreal. According to a post on the Netscape Blog, support (and subsequent updates) for it will no longer be provided by AOL (disclosure: AOL is our parent company's parent) after February 1, 2008. Sure, old versions will still be available for those who just hate to move on, but the team is suggesting that any remaining Netscape users (a show of hands, anyone?) make the leap to Firefox, and they even point you in the direction of a Netscape theme should you find yourself uncomfortable with change. Rest in peace, dear Netscape -- it's about time that last heap of dirt was finally flung.

iPhone firmware 1.1.3 leaked?

Looks like there may have been a possible leak of the next version of Apple's iPhone firmware, 1.1.3. According to Gear Live, it can now handle SMS to multiple recipients, the springboard (home screen) supports reordered icons and pagination (as well as web bookmarks), and Google maps gets hybrid view and that nifty cell-based location system. If this is all Steve plans to announce iPhone-wise at Macworld next month, we think there will be more than a few disappointed iPhone users out there. Then again, home screen pagination would kind of imply an SDK to make use of all those slots, so maybe the real news is under the hood.

Pentax's K200D DSLR surface?

Just over a month ago, we got word that Pentax could be readying a pair of new DSLRs, and now it seems that we've been blessed with a plethora of shots of the K200D. 'Course, we suppose they could be doctored, but we just don't believe someone would spend that much time working up Pentax fakes, ya know? Regardless, feel free to hit the read link and check out what's probably the outfit's next shooter -- or some mighty fine 'shops, worst case scenario.

Nikon D60 gets rumored, set to replace the D40x?

Ready for another go on the Nikon rumor carousel? Apparently, the mythical D60 could be next in line to replace the D40x (pictured), but of course, all of this should be taken with a copious amount of salt for the time being. Based on rumors suggesting that the D60 is coming next Spring (by the same fellow who called the D3, purportedly), combined with reports that the D40x is at the end of its own rope, we're left to believe that Nikon may be swapping the latter out and replacing it with the prior. Hit the links below for the beginning of what's sure to be a long road to denial / confirmation.

Intel's newest gaming platform, Skulltrail

Intel seems like it's going to be making a bigger push at gamers with the launch of Penryn, and HotHardware managed to score some deets on the company's upcoming "Skulltrail" platform, which is built-around server-class hardware reconfigured for gaming. The new mobo pictured here supports dual quad-core Penryn Xeon processors, SLI graphics, and four PCI Express x16 slots, as well as two standard PCI slots. You're also looking at a whopping six internal SATA ports, dual eSATA ports, six USB ports, a lone FireWire port, and Gigabit Ethernet. That's quite a foundation for a gaming rig -- let's just hope pricing is at least pretend reasonable, eh?

MPillow promises to relax you with light and sound

This one looks to still be a good deal away from showing up at a store near you, but if a group of designers have their way, their so-called MPillow could one day be working its magic to lull you to sleep (although it will have quite a bit of competition on the high-tech pillow front). Helping it stand out are some built-in wireless capabilities that'll let you stream MP3s from your PC or pull some presumably relaxing sounds off the MPillow servers, as well as some soothing lighting that changes color and intensity along with the music. As you can no doubt guess, however, there's no indication that the pillow is actually headed for commercialization, so you'll just have to make do with some of the current music-playing pillows for the time being, or not.

Nintendo Wii fully hacked for native homebrew

The homebrew scene hasn't gotten a whole lot accomplished with this latest round of home consoles -- which isn't surprising given the difficulty of the task and lack of incentives to succeed. Especially with the PS3 shipping with Linux compatibility, the Wii boasting VLC, and the 360 being such a chore to hack and keep hacked, there's really not much of a point. The Wii was compromised pretty early on to be able to play burned discs and GameCube homebrew such as Linux, but until now Nintendo has managed to isolate Wii hardware such as the extra horsepower of the console and wireless connectivity from hackers. But the walls are coming down. Some hackers from Germany have just showed off their fully hacked Wii at the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress. Nothing fancy is running yet, all they've achieved so far is a proof of concept that they've bypassed the Wii's protection with some encryption codes they swiped from the Wii's memory. Apparently a bootable Linux DVD is on the way, and we can't wait to see what homebrew coders manage to pull off with that Wiimote pointed where it belongs.

How would you change the OLPC XO?

Don't adjust your screens folks, as this actually isn't a year-end case of déjà vu. Rather, we're looking to give you an(other) imaginary shot at tweaking the OLPC XO now that it has moved beyond the initiative phase and been productized for the general consumer. In case you've been parked squarely under a rock for the last few months, you should know that the XO's journey through production has been quite a lengthy one, and while a few countries have made substantial bulk purchases to inject these machines into their respective school systems, we're interested in seeing how the average joe / jane located in a developed nation sees things.

Needless to say, One Laptop Per Child's "Give One, Get One" program has been quite the success, and by now, we're confident that some of you have already received your own. 'Course, we're sure there's at least a few of you that chose this over that other low-cost laptop (and many that chose it over this), and we're curious to know how you'd improve the newly commercialized XO now that it actually has a rival. Yeah, we too would love an even skimpier price tag, but beyond that, what hardware / software changes would you like to see on the next version? Could you stand to have a few more megabytes of RAM? Still yearning for dual-boot capability out of the box? How's about a design scheme that doesn't involve opaque white and bright green? As stated, we're well aware that these things weren't designed with LAN partiers in mind, but now that NickNeg is offering 'em up to these very citizens -- not to mention every other type of user in North America -- why not toss out a few suggestions for making it more suitable for you?

Shark Gun For The Wii

So you've got yourself a Wii for Christmas, and you've managed to snag the system's best games, maybe a controller sleeve or one of those nifty charging cradles, but one thing still bothers you. Where the hell's the shark gun?

Here the hell's the shark gun. $10.86 at DealExtreme snags you the Paga Shark Light Gun for the Wii, finally adding the "True Experience" of pointing a shark at your television, just like the U.S. Military. Just slip the Wiimote up top, plug the nunchuk (also named mushroom head?) into the shark's anus and you are good to go! Marine sodomy has never been so much fun!

As you can see, I wasn't making up the mushroom head thing. In case you were wondering why you would need a shark-shaped light gun for your Wii, the answer is right there, plain as day.

"With lively appearance and smooth lines, shark gun makes you feel comfortable, and give you a strong sense of shark-like invincible force."

It kinda sounds like Cake lyrics if you space it out just right. I don't even know why I am still typing. You've already all left to order yourself one of these. Just remember, "This product shouldbe put in the dranghty and rentilafect no matter being used or leave unused." Or else.