Tech Culture

After an 80-year stint, Newsweek is cancelling its print publication and will go all digital come 2013.

The news was revealed today on the Daily Beast, the online news site that merged with Newsweek in 2010. Daily Beast and Newsweek editor Tina Brown and Baba Shetty, CEO of the combined company, said that the December 31 edition will be the magazine's last print version.

Known as Newsweek Global, the new digital edition will provide news and information on a worldwide scale. Access to Newsweek Global will be available via paid subscriptions for both Web and tablet users. Certain content … Read more

Imagine a game where your character traverses a frozen tundra with heavy snowfall. Upon entering this barren area, your controller gets cold, and you must move on before your fingers freeze up.

The next-generation motion controller by Sony could contain a key feature currently unavailable (at least, on a wide scale) in the video game ecosystem: thermal feedback. With so many ways to play video games these days, using a simple motion controller or camera-based motion capture device may not necessarily impress the experienced gamer any more. … Read more

I am not sure that texting drivers can ever be stopped.

They use sneaky methods. They try to keep the phone below dashboard level. Or they merely prop their cell phone on their steering wheel and multitask.

Texting is just too important, isn't it? You have dinners to plan, children's pickups to organize, and friends to constantly tell about your latest amorous pursuit.

And yet Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is not giving up. He has dedicated $550,000 to a new method of spotting motorized texters, a method that governments have used since before John Le Carre began writing: yes, spies.… Read more

Kixeye CEO Will Harbin, who abruptly found himself in the middle of a lawsuit with his social-game rival Zynga, is firing back at the CityVille maker.

"Zynga is burning to the ground and bleeding top talent and instead of trying to fix the problems -- better work environment and better products -- they are resorting to the only profit center that has ever really worked for them: their legal department," Harbin said in an e-mailed statement to CNET.

Harbin's issues with Zynga relate to Alan Patmore, a former general manager on CityVille that left the game maker … Read more

I huddled around my iPad connected to the City of Albuquerque's public Wi-Fi, waiting as Felix Baumgartner started his pre-jump checklist from 24 miles above the earth. The video stuttered, then stopped.

I missed most of the record-setting jump, but I don't feel so bad about it since I found the Lego reenactment. All of the excitement is pretty accurately captured in little plastic detail.… Read more

Vouchers, coupons, and discounts are often a good tool to entice new customers or promote a product. However, if discount codes are not secured properly, forums and social networking can become a real headache for the company involved.

That is exactly what happened to Electronic Arts over the weekend.

A single post on a gaming forum that included a discount code for $20 worth of software from EA's online store sparked a downloading spree, much to the delight of Reddit users after the code made its way to the popular link aggregation site. Not only could the code be … Read more

RapGenius was created for those of us who just might not be urban enough to understand what the hell Li'l Wayne is rapping about or what specific kind of "gas" 2 Chainz is "smokin' on."

The site is basically a huge wiki intended to explain the lyrics of any and all rap songs, and since the entire Internet is invited to participate, there are naturally a few Justin Bieber songs up in the mix as well. But lately, some non-music entries have been uploaded to the site, including the Terms of Service for iTunes, which has already begun to be annotated to hilarious effect.… Read more

Regular readers will know that my love life is akin to that of Elizabeth Taylor -- without the joy or the marriages.

For example, the last one -- no, wait. You'll cry at the serendipity, the love, the miscommunication, the emotional blindness, the stuffed toys on the window sill, and the cruel, cruel end. Tears are not good for a Saturday.

I have tried online dating and met some very peculiar people -- though, luckily, just the one stalker.

So I am unremittingly fascinated by a new dating site called Tandem.

Tandem, you see, offers protection from some of … Read more

New statistics from the creator of League of Legends (and a variety of industry sources) indicate that the free multiplayer PC real-time strategy game had an average of 3 million concurrent online users in July, besting the entire combined total peak player count for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox 360 (1.4 million) and people playing the top 100 games on Steam (650,000).

Riot Games, developer of League, also noted in an infographic that the game usually sees an average of 12 million players a day, with about 32 million active players logging in every month. Just for reference, when World of Warcraft sat at the top, it had about 12 million subscribers total.… Read more