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Though late, Activision released a single player demo for Modern Warfare 2 on PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

With this new demo of the game, gamers will be able to play the most recognized levels in MW2, Cliffhanger.

Players can start playing on a snowy cliff face, they dig out enemies in treacherous conditions, also get spotted and need to race for survival on snow under heavy enemy fire.

Many fans waited for about a year for the arrival of the demo to make up their mind to purchase it or not.

Now, the day has arrived to decide whether to buy it or not.

In 2009 Activision sparked sparked controversy when Modern Warfare 2 was launched. Many believed that the Collector’s Edition of MW2 was the most ridiculous one that has been ever seen for a video game.

But, the Prestige Edition of the game sold out quickly which was priced at $150.

It is natural that consumers talk about their individual wallets. So, for Black Ops also Activision will be bringing back the Prestige Edition.

A leaked information was published on Elder-Geek.com and it indicates that it will feature regular, hardened and also prestige editions. Below are the SKU numbers:

Call of Duty: Black Ops Hardened Edition (PS3) – 047875840225
Call of Duty: Black Ops Hardened Edition (360) – 047875840218
Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition (PS3) – 047875840249
Call of Duty: Black Ops Prestige Edition (360) – 047875840232

The Hardened Edition of MW2 contained the game, an art book along with a token to download the CoD Classic. All these were packed in a slick-looking steel enclosure.

Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition had the aforementioned items along with a pair of night vision goggles. Well, nobody used the goggles though. So, Activision may include something useful this time such as a Zippo lighter or Hello Kitty umbrella.

We are well aware of the gun attachments that are available in the market for Wii, for the upcoming PlayStation Move motion controller and few more paid or free war games. Now, it is also being discussed about the shooter game Modern Warfare 2.

The company is on the way of offering to gamers a gun controller that is juat a replica of the functionality of the regular DualShock PS3 controller.

Well, it is of course a neat way to play Modern Warfare 2, but without any real aiming and shooting in fact in it beyond the use of the thumbsticks.

Not to forget that plastic guitars can take off for music games so why not the same can happen with plastic automatic weapons.

The attachment will cost $65 and it runs on two AA batteries, making shooting noises.

The data released for the week ending July 22 reveals that video of Modern Warfare 2 has topped YouTube in the video games category.

Modern Warfare 2 secret old lady WTF!!! has been viewed 1,545,649 times on YouTube. Below is the video:

Surprisingly, it was also discovered that another video of Modern Warfare 2 ranks 4th in the top ten most viewed on YouTube from the gaming industry for the week ending July 22. It was Modern Warfare 2: OpTic Nation’s Top 5 kills.

It was viewd 311,398 times. Here is the video of it:

Below is the complete list for the week ending July 22:

1) Modern Warfare 2 secret old lady WTF!!! – 1,545,649 total views
2) Skydiving Out My Front Door- 428,484 total views
3) HD Starcraft 2 IdrA v Masq – 371,636 total views
4) Modern Warfare 2: OpTic Nation’s Top 5 Kills – 311,398 total views
5) Duck Hunt Behind-the-Scenes – 472,736 total views
6) TheLittleOne vs WhiteRa – 289,413 total views
7) HD Starcraft 2 Dimaga v Painuser – 300,427 total views
Crazy Craft Walkthrough – Levels 1-13 – 298,533 total views
9) Alien Swarm – 281,861 total views
10) Bleep Bloop: Hotel Room – 246,785 total views

On the PlayStation Network it was another busy week. It was mainly due to the prominent digital release of $15 Resurgence map pack of Modern Warfare 2. This map pack was released on the Xbox Live a month ago. It features 5 maps. Three of the maps are brand new and the remaining two are the recycled one from the original Modern Warfare.

The maps are Fuel, Trailer Park, Carnival, Strike and Vacant. The details of each are as given below:

Fuel
It is an oil refinery site and also the largest in Modern Warfare 2 till date.

Trailer Park
It is just like the Fuel map, located around a variety of motor homes and picnic tables.

Carnival
It is on abandoned fairgrounds. In it the rides and attractions are left to rust. Gamers will see here themed areas that range from futuristic to medieval. One can use castles and rocket ships type of landmarks to coordinate their efforts.

Strike
It features Mideast setting and contains some of the reasonably frantic urban combat.

Vacant
This map is set in an abandoned Russian office complex. The popularity of this map peaked in the original Modern Warfare.

Conor Friedersdorf has a great post at True/Slant on one example of how the right (wrongly) vilifies the ACLU. That’s one thing I’ve always found very, very strange. The ACLU and the Cato Institute walk in virtual lockstep on practically every civil liberties issue. Since civil liberties are the sole focus of the ACLU and Cato is a decidedly right-leaning (actually libertarian) think tank, it seems a bit strange to try and label the ACLU as so anti-right wing. Personally I’m a pretty big fan of both organizations (you can find evidence of that in my blogroll).

From the link:

It’s almost as if the conservative media complex is systematically misleading its audience about the nature of the ACLU, so much so that right-of-center commentators across the Internet spontaneously mocked the organization for failing to intervene on the right side of this case, despite it being precisely the kind of case where the ACLU reliably does exactly what the critics themselves would want.

Perhaps the confusion comes from listening to talk radio hosts and reading blogs that cast all of American politics as a grand struggle between the left and the right, liberals and conservatives, tyranny and liberty. The rank and file, rightly judging that the ACLU operates on the left, automatically concludes that they are the enemy in any case worth caring about.

Awhile back, Jonah Goldberg doubted whether or not there were actually compelling examples of epistemic closure on the right. Well, there you go: an information loop so faulty in explaining the ACLU to its audience that even a blog called Stop the ACLU doesn’t understand what’s going on.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

“Technology proposes itself an architect of our intimacies,” explained Massachusetts of Technology Professor Sherry Turkle to an engrossed audience at the Harvard University Extension School. The event, “The Tethered Life: Technology Reshapes Intimacy and Solitude,” was the concluding public event of the School’s yearlong centennial celebration.

“As we instant message, e-mail, text, and Twitter, technology redraws the boundaries between intimacy and solitude,” she said. “Teenagers avoid the telephone, fearful that it reveals too much. Besides, it takes too long; they would rather text than talk. Adults, too, choose keyboards over the human voice.”

Tethered to technology, we are shaken when the unplugged world does not signify or satisfy. “After an evening of avatar-to-avatar talk in a networked game, we feel — at one moment — in possession of a full social life, and in the next, curiously isolated in tenuous complicity with strangers.”

In this thought-provoking lecture, Turkle, who is founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, shared her observations on the significant impact technology has had on our personal lives — on our children, our families, and our notions of privacy, and how it has offered us less than positive substitutes for direct face-to-face connection with people in a world of machine-mediated relationships on networked devices.

The May 14 lecture was based on Turkle’s new book, “Alone Together: Technology and the Reinvention of Intimacy and Solitude,” due for release by Basic Books in January 2011.

Is this Barbie dressed inappropriately?

Along with Cabbage Dolls and G.I. Joe action figures, Barbie owns a place in the record books as one of the most treasured toys in American history. After all, she’s a quintessential icon of modern femininity. But she’s no stranger to controversy, and the plastic dynamo — who masquerades as everything from a doctor to and entrepreneur — is in hot water once again: this time over her wardrobe.

The outfit featured on a new adult collector’s edition Barbie doll has some parents questioning whether the item should be displayed on the toy aisle.

Each doll in the new “Barbie Basic Collection” is dressed in that essential must-have for all fashionistas, the little black dress. The toy creating the controversy is Doll No. 10 in the Basic Collection. One of four African-American dolls in the series, Desiree — who sports a long-flowing weave, a clevage-baring top, and stilettos — has been nicknamed “Busty Barbie” by some critics. The New York Daily News even calls the doll’s dress has “a deep, plunging neckline – revealing bowling-ball cleavage that would make one of Tiger Woods’ mistresses jealous.”

Ouch!

Mattel’s website has a different take on things; the toy manufacturer describes the doll like this: “Model No. 10 features the Desiree face sculpt, African American skin tone, a striking black dress with plunging neckline, and long sleek hair.”

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The site states the the doll is for the adult collector; a fact that hasn’t done much to curb the cries of angry mothers, who complain that the Barbie Basic Collection is available for sale on the toy aisle — where impressionable children are treated to a plastic peep show.

“I don’t want (my daughter) to think she has to be this, you know, busty Barbie who’s constantly wearing heels and these low-cut shirts,” Minnesota mom Andie Whitaker told NBC this week. “And that’s really the image I think a doll that you’re going to buy for a child is portraying.”

For now, the doll remains on store shelves. National chains are selling the doll for around $19.99. Target, for one, has said it will continue to carry the line. Mattel has refused to comment.

We’re somewhat skeptical of the various “cyberharassment” laws out there, as they leave themselves wide open to interpretation (often in dangerous ways). In April, we wrote about one case involving a son who sued his mother for harassment after she used his Facebook account (she went to the computer and he had not logged out) to post angry messages on his wall, pretending to be him, and then changed his password and locked him out of the account. (As a quick aside: I just checked, and as with most online services, Facebook appears to require you to type in your old password before you can enter a new one — so I’m wondering how she had access to his existing password…).

Either way, Rose M. Welch alerts us to the news that the mother has been found guilty, told to pay $435, given a 30-day suspended jail sentence, and ordered to take both anger management and parenting classes. Clearly, what she did was wrong, though I do wonder if it really reaches the level of harassment. Some of the judge’s reasoning also is a bit suspect. Part of the reasoning for the guilty ruling was that the mother had left messages on her son’s voicemail that included curse words. The son is 17, so it’s not like he hasn’t heard those words before — and the mother insisted that this was part of their normal joking banter. The judge, however, declared it “totally, completely inappropriate.” Now, I’m not going to say that leaving voicemail messages to your children with curse words is a good parenting technique, but it still seems a bit extreme to use that as evidence of harassment.

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Green Right Now Reports

Got a rabidly green roommate who times your showers, follows you around turning off lights and has lined all the window sills with edible plants?

Apartments.com is looking for the Roommate of the Year

Turn this difficult experience into a winning proposition: Nominate him or her for Environmental Roommate of the Year. They might just win grand prize of $10,000, which should at least allow you to mooching rights to their solar charger.

Or, if you’re the geekiest green roommate you know nominate yourself and buy offsets with that 10K (maybe). The winner also gets free rent for a year.

The contest is a promotion by Apartments.com. The green award is one of several offered in their 2nd annual Roommate of the Year Contest.

You’ll have to put together a video about yourself or your roommatet, and make the deadline of June 14, 2010 at midnight EDT. See the website for details.

Augmented Reality may not be super practical yet. But it sure is cool, and a lot of fun. And a new Android game looks to make it even more fun.

Space InvadAR is a new Android game by Zenitum. It’s the world’s first “vision-based” AR game, according to the team. And it looks awesome — watch the video below.

iPhone users know the pain of dropping their device and ruining the screen or LCD and not having insurance on the device to get it replaced.  Worry no more, iPhone fans, as Boy Genius Report has received a tip from an AT&T employee saying that iPhone users will soon be able to get insurance for their device.  Previously, one could only buy AppleCare for an iPhone directly from Apple, which cost $69 and only covered technical problems with the screen, battery, or headphones.  The new insurance plans from AT&T will be titled “MobileProtect” and will be run through Asurion. The plans will be available for purchase through Apple’s App store for $13.99 a month, charged to the credit card that Apple has on file.  Deductibles range from $99 for the 8 GB 3G all the way up to $199 for the 32 GB 3GS.  Also, the insurance plan must be purchased within 30 days of buying your new iPhone.  The whole thing sounds kind of pricey, but it may be worth it to have that sort of protection for your precious iPhone.  Would any of you buy this service or will you be a rebel, risking your iPhone’s life daily without any sort of insurnace plan?

Via Boy Genius Report

Robert Reich has a good column on”why deficit hawks are killing the recovery.”

Consumer spending is 70 percent of the American economy, so if consumers can’t or won’t spend we’re back in the soup. Yet the government just reported that consumer spending stalled in April – the first month consumers didn’t up their spending since last September. Instead, consumers boosted their savings, probably because they’re worried about the slow pace of job growth (next Friday’s report will likely show gains, but the number will continue to be tiny compared to the overall ranks of the jobless), as well as a lackluster “recovery.” They’re also still carrying enormous debt burdens. One in four home owners is still underwater. And median wages are going nowhere.

So what’s Congress doing to stoke the economy as consumers pull back? In a word, nothing. Democratic House leaders yesterday shrank their jobs bill to a droplet. They jettisoned proposed subsidies to help the unemployed buy health insurance, as well as higher matching funds for state-run health programs such as Medicaid. And they trimmed extended unemployment insurance. “Members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit,” Nancy Pelosi explained.

It is worth noting explicitly that unemployment benefits are stimulus, and a highly effective form of it. When the government cuts an unemployed person a check, that person is necessarily jobless. He tends to have close to nothing in savings; Harvard’s Raj Chetty has calculated that the median person currently unemployed had only $250 in liquid savings at the time of job loss. He tends to have no other source of income. And so he generally goes out and spends his unemployment check — raising consumption, that all-important 70 percent of the economy — rather than saving it. That means that if Congress trims $40 billion in unemployment benefits, it trims $40 billion in stimulus and somewhere close to $40 billion in consumer spending as well.

Despite talk of an exclusive agreement with Verizon, the folks at Skype are now saying that a Skype app will hit the Android Marketplace later this year and be available to everyone regardless of carrier. [SkatterTech via Android Central] More »










Android – AndroidMarket – Handhelds – Verizon – AndroidMarketplace

Earlier this month Navistar announced it had begun production of the first Class 2c-3, 2-ton, medium-duty commercial electric truck in the U.S. — the eStar. It’s also the same vehicle that FedEx has announced it will be testing for fleet use in LA this year.

Now Navistar says that the first market the eStar will be commercially available is in “one of the nation’s most environmentally sustainable cities and a leading advocate for energy-efficient transportation,” Portland, Oregon.

(more…)

The arrival of the Palm Pre Plus in the UK (Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Available Soon for O2 Customers in the UK ), buzz about HP’s first webOS tablet and the possibility of a HP webOS printer,  and more reviews of the Palm Pre Plus were the main topics talked about this week. There was also quite a bit of interest in the SIM unlock now being available for AT&T Palm Pre Plus.  And speaking of AT&T, we mentioned last week how the Pixi Plus will be available on June 6.  The big question is whether the next day, Steve Jobs will be unveiling the next generation iPhone at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference AND if AT&T will remain the exclusive carrier.

Let’s talk Palm…

read more

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson feel nostalgic as they are down to the last two weeks of shooting the final Harry Potter film. Radcliffe, 20, said at the National Movie Awards in London, “I will be devastated (when it’s over). There is nothing I watch without it triggering a series of memories. Everything (about the films) is so linked to my life. At the same time, it is exciting. It is the end.” Producer David Herman said, “We will finish in two weeks’ time. It is a very strange feeling. We have been 10 years together.”

The Harry Potter series that started their careers began ten years ago and the last scenes of the second installment of the final film, Deathly Hallows, are being shot in London this week. “I feel like someone’s dying, I know that sounds like an exaggeration but I really do,” said Watson who plays Hemoine Granger in the Harry Potter series. “I’m not planning to do anything this summer – I’m going to need time to collect myself and get myself back together a bit. So I’ll take a bit of a break.” She added “This kind of love and recognition is just incredible. It is also really emotional for me. I am proud.”

Deathly Hallows is split into two movies where the first half will be shown this November and the second in July 2011.

Related posts:

1. Watch Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows HQ Movie Online Trailer
2. Popular Harry Potter Quotes
3. Twilight Top’s National Movie Awards @ Royal Festival Hall

[JURIST] An Indian court on Friday charged Sajjan Kumar [official profile], a former member of the Parliament of India in the ruling Congress Party [official websites], in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots [TOI backgrounder]. Additional Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta of the Northeast District of Delhi [official website] charged [TOI report] Kumar and five others with conspiracy, murder, dacoity, and promoting enmity between communities under the Indian Penal Code [text]. The court found sufficient evidence to presume that a conspiracy and speeches made by Kumar incited the riots. The court is scheduled to begin hearing witnesses July 1. Kumar and his co-defendants pleaded not guilty, and, if convicted, they could face the death penalty.

The case was transferred [PTI report] from a special judge in the Central Bureau of Investigation [official website] to the Delhi court in April. The riots were precipitated by the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for Operation Blue Star [BBC backgrounders], a military campaign against Sikh militants. The riots spanned three days in October and November 1984, mostly affecting communities in Delhi, and leaving thousands of Sikhs dead.