RPS:

“Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first game add-on for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), is in development and targeted for release in early 2010.

Dubbed “The Passing,” the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360.

Targeted for release in early spring, “The Passing” takes place just after the Dead Center campaign of L4D2. Set in a small town in rural Georgia, players assume the role of the L4D2 Survivors as they meet with the L4D1 characters.

In addition to the new co-operative campaign and associated narrative, “The Passing” will include new arenas for Survival, Versus and Scavenge mode and introduce a new co-operative challenge mode of play. The Passing will also include a new “uncommon common” zombie class, melee weapon, and firearm.

“The Passing will become the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story, as all the Survivors are being called together in one campaign,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “It will also be a huge offering of new gameplay content, with something new for every game mode plus a new uncommon common and weaponry.”

Gizmodo:

Gizmodo: “These staffers at the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, CA might seem really excited, but the clearly rehearsed dance routine comes across more like some kind of Stockholm syndrome.”

Gizmodo:

Gizmodo:

“Good thing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer didn’t turn around during his spot on The Today Show. Clearly, someone at NBC either really loves Macs or can’t tell the difference between a MacBook and a PC.

On the other hand, Maybe Ballmer noticed and didn’t care. In the spot he discusses hardware diversity and this sort of proves his point. After all, you can run Windows 7 on a Mac. It’s an amusing gaffe, but beyond that, the clip is interesting because it touches on Windows 7, the image battle between Apple and Microsoft and the issue of CEO pay all inside five minutes.” [Crunchgear]“

Gizmodo:

Lifehacker:

Lifehacker:

“Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Omnibar extension makes Firefox’s awesomebar act like Google Chrome’s omnibar, collapsing the address bar and search into one single text box.

We’ve mentioned Omnibar in passing in a couple of posts, namely our guide to turning Firefox into a Google Chrome clone and our post detailing how to use the Firefox 4.0 theme, but it’s a useful extension whether or not you’re trying to make Firefox look like another browser. You can still switch your default search engines, you can still use keyword bookmarking (my favorite Firefox feature), and the extension features special shortcuts for searching non-default engines (try your query with @y, for example, to search Yahoo).

Omnibar is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.“

RPS:

“Valve have sent word of a fourth game mode to be included in Left 4 Dead 2, called Scavenger Mode. It’s like this: “Scavenge mode challenges players to compete in round-based games of up to 8 players (Survivors vs. Infected). The Survivors must battle both the Infected and the clock as they collect gas cans to refuel a generator located in each map. Every can the Survivors pour into the generator scores their team a point and adds time to the clock.” Needless to say, the infected have to stop them. Just as interesting, perhaps, is the confirmation of previously discussed Ai Director 2.0, who will have “the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance.”

Video below.”
(…)
Read the rest of L4D2: Scavenger Mode

Gizmodo:

“Jason lurves Windows Home Server—it does automated backups over your network, streams movies, music and photos and is a general-purpose fileshare. If you don’t wanna hand HP $400, Maximum PC’s got a build-to-stream guide to rolling your own.

And, even if you’d rather buy a pre-made box—built-in Time Machine support for Macs is a good reason to go with HP’s, for instance—they’ve got some essential add-ins and performance tweaks to get the most out of your Home Server.” [Maximum PC]