Wii Sports Resort Still Selling Very Well

In Japan

By Andrei Dumitrescu, Games Editor
13th of July 2009, 18:55 GMT

Japan seems to be still interested in handhelds and in Wii Sports Resort or so the charts coming out of the country suggest. The Nintendo DS is the best sold gaming console and the Nintendo made game still leads the software charts by a huge margin.

The DSi has sold no less than 46,855 units in one week with its only rival, the PlayStation Portable from Sony, taking second place in the chart with sales of 32,849 units. The DS Lite is still selling, despite being considered a bit obsolete, moving a little over 7,500 units in one week.

The Nintendo Wii is the best sold home gaming console with close to 25,000 units sold in one week, which is more than the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 managed to sell together. The Sony-made console sold a little over 11,000 units, while the Microsoft one is close to 6,000. The PlayStation 2 finally seems to be close to disappearing from the chart, with just 3,734 consoles moved in one week to gamers.

But the big news is coming from the software charts, where Wii Sports Resort, a game bundled with the fresh Wii Motion Plus add on, sold another 155,000 copies in the second week of its shelf life, going over half a million units sold overall.

Second place went to Hatsune Miku: Project Diva for the PlayStation Portable, which managed to move more than 100,000 units in the first week on sale, capitalizing on the rhythm game trend that has swept Japan. In third spot, with sales of 63,000, is Tomodachi Connection from Nintendo for the DS.

The last two places of the top five are PlayStation Portable games, which is a rare sight in Japan. Boku no Natsuyasumi 4, translated as My Summer Vacation 4, from Sony sold 50,000 units, while the budget version of Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G is at number five, with 14,000 copies added to the impressive 3.5 million, which the series has sold since release.

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FIFA Manager 10 Gets Online Multiplayer Mode

Outmanage another human being

By Andrei Dumitrescu, Games Editor
13th of July 2009, 21:51 GMT

EA Sports has announced that FIFA Manager 10, which is due to be released on the PC during the fall, is set to be the first game in the series that will have an online play mode allowing players to go through the management simulation title against one or more human beings both via the Internet or via LAN.

FIFA Manager has always been in the shadow of well-known and liked management simulation titles like Championship Manager and Football Manager but EA Sports is pressing forward in its quest to make the game relevant by adding multiplayer options, which have been asked by players repeatedly.

Gerald Kohler, who is the lead designer of the FIFA Manager videogame series, declared that “We’re incredibly pleased to be able to give fans what they’ve been asking for with the new online mode in EA SPORTS FIFA Manager 10. This is the first time that they will be able to compete against each other and really find out who’s the best manager. The online mode is free and you can play at least two seasons with up to eight players in one session.”

FIFA Manager 10 is also set to include other improvements with EA Sports saying that most of them have been based on the feedback that the development team received from players of the series. EA Sports is promising better Artificial Intelligence, both when it comes to overall management and to match tactics, better animations for the 3D mode, a customizable desktop for the player with 30 widgets and 50 desktop objects, which can be used and customized.

When it comes to the database included in FIFA Manager 10, EA Sports is saying that more than 3,6000 clubs are simulated and 31,000 players have their stats simulated in the game, of which 9,000 have original pictures. It also has an Editor function allowing any gamer to add new players and change the stats for those already included.

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Google Translator Toolkit Has Been Launched

The new tool from Google should prove useful for people doing regular translations


By Lucian Parfeni, Web News Editor
10th of June 2009, 15:20 GMT

Google has launched a new tool to supplement its automated translating service Google Translate. The fresh product, called Google Translator Toolkit, aims at bringing a human touch to translations by allowing users to edit and enhance computer generated translations.

The tool enables anyone to upload a document, which can be HTML, Microsoft Word, and a number of other formats, enter the URL of a page they would like translated or even a direct entry from Wikipedia or Knol. Next, Google will generate an automatic translation showing it side by side with the original content. Users will be able to edit the automated translation correcting it where necessary and then click publish when done. The most interesting part is that the automated translation takes into account the changes made by the human editor and learns from them.

The toolkit also searches for previous human translations made for the document and if it finds any, they will appear under the Search Results tab. The next tab is the computer generated translation, which can provide a base for your work. If available, Google will also show glossaries with words or phrases to help maintain consistency across different translations of technical terms.

The feature offers dictionary search so you can look up specific words. An important element of the toolkit is the Wikipedia integration that the Wikimedia group itself has praised, which enables a very simple way of translating Wikipedia articles. This makes the Google Translator Toolkit a very important tool for the translation of Wikipedia's English articles to other languages.

The application may be helpful for a lot of people but it could help Google more than its users. The Google Translator Toolkit is a perfect way for its automated translating systems that are based on statistical algorithms to get first hand data from which it can 'learn.' And the thousands of Wikipedia articles being translated are a great way of accumulating that knowledge.

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Mac OS X 10.6 Build 10A402 Ups Visual Ante - Screens

Apple delivers new, visual enhancements in the latest Snow Leopard dev beta

By Filip Truta, Apple News Editor

13th of July 2009, 07:02 GMT

A Snow Leopard Build 10A402 was reportedly handed to developers last week, with various sources now pointing out to the many changes this seed brings. Among the major changes, MacRumors lists contextual Dock menus in List View, a tweaked-up Exposé, functional, third-party pref. panes, a smaller footprint on MacBook batteries, and more. Others even suggest there’s serious evidence of Multi-Touch features making their way into the UI.

Reported last week, a World of Apple post said that, “Apple has today issued a new update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard via the built-in Software Update application. The update which pushes Snow Leopard to build 10A402 weighs in at 1.31GB.” Early tests showed visible changes, such as tweaked Dock menus, the source added, which appeared “in a black HUD style,” as well as altered check boxes within applications, and magnifier knobs.

Later, MacRumors chimed in with additional details regarding Mac OS X 10.6 Build 10A402, signaling major changes / improvements with the OS. As listed by the Mac-focused site, the documented changes are available below, complete with imagery.

Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Build 10A402

- Contextual Dock Menus in List View: Apple has modified the theme of contextual menus within the Dock when using list view. The menus now utilize what some users are calling a “heads-up display” theme of white text on a charcoal background.

- Finder Window Slider Button: The new-in-Snow Leopard Finder window slider button for adjusting icon sizes has now taken on a grey color, as opposed to the standard blue buttons found elsewhere.

Review imageReview image
Snow Leopard Build 10A402 Contextual Dock Menus and Finder Slider Button
Credits: MacRumors

- Exposé for Multiple Monitors Fixed: Exposé reportedly now functions correctly when using multiple monitors, with windows remaining on their respective monitors in Exposé rather than all being collected on the primary monitor.

- System Responsiveness and Speed: Many users are reporting greater system responsiveness and significant increases in speed. Startup and shutdown times appear to be significantly improved.

- Third-Party Preference Panes: Third-party System Preferences panes reportedly are now functional.

- Battery Life for Notebooks: A number of users have reported their battery life indicators estimating significantly longer run times than under previous Snow Leopard builds. This has not, however, been confirmed in actual battery life tests yet.

- New QuickTime Version: QuickTime X has been upgraded to Build 10.0 (42). There is no word on any visible changes in the new build.

As noted above, others have found what they call pretty obvious proof that the latest Exposé features are bringing more and more touch capabilities to Snow Leopard. 9to5Mac suggests Apple is paving the way for Snow Leopard to land on some kind of touch-based device.

Snow Leopard is scheduled for a release in September, this year. Apple is also beta-testing the current Leopard version, with an incremental 10.5.8 update soon making its way into our Software Updaters.


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