SEGA downsizing. NOOOOOOOOO.

Sega is expecting a loss of £54m (¥7.1bn) as it restructures its US and European operations.

Parent company Sega Sammy Holdings has today said it will carry out a ‘structural reform’ of Sega’s consumer business. It said it will ‘streamline’ its US and European video game operations and “create a smaller company positioned for sustained profitability”.

As part of the changes, Sega will reduce the number of games it produces and cut the development of several titles, while focusing more on digital content.

cvuk.com

WOOOO!

Not the biggest Halo fan but this should be a good one.

New Humble Bundle, now with androidiness!

Four awesome games for your Android device. Jump start your mobile game collection with Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE. If you pay more than the average price, you also get the indie classicWorld of Goo!

Playing at your desktop? No problem. Buying the Humble Bundle for Android also gets you Mac, Windows, and Linux versions of the games.

Soundtracks included. When you buy the bundle, you'll also get the soundtracks to all the games!

Pay what you want. If you bought these games separately, it would cost around $60, but we are letting you set the price!

The games work great on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android.

It's back! World of Goo is worth the money on it's on, playing it on your phone is like Christmas came early.

humblebundle.com

Mac Classic back to life! iPad has a house.

Well, as much as I am kinda against people slashing these things to pieces, this is a lot better than a fishtank!
It's awesome how neatly the screen fits. Almost as if it was the plan all along. I know Apple are forward thinkers, but not this much.

I implore everyone to do this. It makes my Mac Classic more valuable.

http://bit.ly/ipad-classic

Weebly website maker 1 month free

Weebly is a pretty bad-ass tool for making a website. It has a drag and drop interface, you just drop boxes of 'text' or 'image' or 'video' onto the page like building blocks. The output is actually quite pretty html (shockingly) and it's pretty SEO friendly too, particularly the file structure. Basically it's great to the point that I can't be bothered with fiddling around in notepad++ anymore.

More to the point, you can have a month free (and me too) if you sign up through tbtgta (yes that's us, to be this good takes ages... I'd like to pretend it's an homage to TMWRNJ but it's not).

Click to sign up. Making sites is totally free, you can even point your owned domains at it via a records (easy to do), the only 'con' is the little 'made with weebly' tag at the bottom. If you upgrade to a paid subscription you can lose that, and it's only $70 for 2 years with 10 (count 'em) sites included so it's a pretty good deal.

Check it out. 2 million people use it, they can't all be idiots. Ok they can, but they're not. Because it's good.

weebly : stupidly easy site maker

For nice tips once you've signed up, try http://weeblyforums.com/

[edit]
HEY READ THIS:
weebly discount voucher, 33% hosting discount!
Patience really pays of with these guys. If you open a free account and create your site (really, do try it, it's super super easy and pretty fun), after about a week you are very likely to receive a 33% off voucher for upgrading to 'pro' (host 10 sites, no 'weebly' link on the pages, custom video player, other nice stuff). I just bought 2 years of hosting (for 10 sites, remember, no size or traffic limits) for just over £30 (about 50 bucks). That's a great deal even without the awesome page builder tools.

'neXtBox' (see what I did there?) 6 times as powerful

“More power!” You can imagine Steve Ballmer yelling it through Microsoft’s halls but that’s exactly what is happening with the Xbox 720, according to reports from IGN.

The next Xbox — rumored to be the “Xbox 720″ — will ship to retailers in late October or early November 2013 and have six times the processing power of its predecessor, the Xbox 360, sources close to the project toldIGN.

The next console will use the AMD 6000 series, which should run similar to the Radeon HD 6670. That all sounds a bit jargon-y but essentially it’s a super-fast processor that supports DirectX11, multi-display output, 3D and 1080p HD. Production of the GPU should start by the end of this year.

All that anticipated extra power on the fabled Xbox 720 isn’t just about graphic fidelity. It allows games to have more detailed environments, longer draw distances (think open world games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), better enemy artificial intelligence, faster multiplayer experiences and the ability to cram more stuff on the screen.

Please forgive me for sending you to Mashable. I know how shit and whiney and Apple-horny they are, but occasionally there's something of interest over there.

mashable.com/2012/01/25/xbox-720-rumor/

Kodak trying to sue itself out of bankruptcy

Eastman Kodak is suing Samsung over claims its patents have been infringed. The US camera and printer maker said the complaint relates to five of its digital imaging technologies. It is the latest in a series of patent lawsuits filed by the firm since the start of the year.

Kodak said on Wednesday that it was seeking bankruptcy protection. That followed an announcement in July that it was looking to sell or license about 1,100 digital imaging patents. Kodak has also filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC involving the same five patents. In addition it is suing Fujifilm over a separate, but overlapping, set of claimed infringements. Kodak alleged that the Japanese company had made use of its technologies including the "quick review of last captured image" and "user selectable image record size".

What I can gather from all this is that the best way to make money these days is to go back in time and make a really loose patent application for, say 'a portable box from which video and audio eminate', then come back to the present and just watch the money roll in through your solicitor's office.

Also Kodak is going out of business because they never managed to make a single half decent digital camera, and all their products since 35mm film have sucked. As far as I can tell, companies that make stuff that sucks go out of business. It's a crazy world out there.

bbc.co.uk/news

Best Xbox Live Gold price

Ok I seem to remember I posted about amazon being cheap for xbox live membership. Well mine came up and this place is cheaper:

http://electronicfirst.com/cheap-xbox-live-codes/12-2-xbox-live-gold-mw3-avatar-download-code/

Obviously I'm only posting about it because it came through and is entirely trustworthy. If you don't trust me (WHAT!), simply google them. I got the 'MW3' one, which gets me some kind of avatar thing (...). There's also a GOW3 version which gives you a special gun or something. I dunno, I'm only in it for the 14 months of gold. Enjoy, folks.

'Free' phone dock from two bulldog clips

This is pretty nifty

The endlessly versatile binder clip is one of our favorite tools for MacGyver-like inventions, and reader David writes in one of his favorite creations: a 5-second smartphone dock.

flickr.com via lifehacker.com

Create an iTunes account without entering a credit / debit card

I just had to open an iTunes account to use the App Store on an iPhone I inherited. I didn't want to enter my credit card just to open an account I don't plan to buy things from. The Apple website has these cunning tips to open an account without adding payment details, which is nice of them! I've copied them here:

If you already have an account, open iTunes. From the menu bar choose Store > Sign Out.

Click iTunes Store (on the left side of the iTunes window) and pick your country by clicking the appropriate country flag located in the bottom-right corner of the main iTunes Store page.

Navigate to the App Store by clicking on App Store from the top navigation bar.



Important: Before proceeding to the next step, you must download and install a free app. To find a free app, navigate to the Top Charts column on the right hand side of the App Store window. Scroll down until you can see the list of Free Apps. Select any app by clicking on it, then click Free App underneath the app icon. 

In the pop-up window, click Create New Account.



You are directed to the "Welcome to the iTunes Store" screen. Click Continue.



You'll need to read and agree to the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions. Make sure you check the box next to where it says "I have read and agree to the iTunes Terms and Conditions."

Click Continue.

Enter your email address, create your password, continue to create and answer your security question, then enter your birthday. Click Continue.

Select None as the payment option.

Continue to fill out the required name and address fields.

You'll then see a screen that says 'Verify your Account'. Click Done and then check your email for a verification email from iTunes Store.

Open the email and click the link enclosed in the email to activate your account.

Once you click on the link, iTunes should then prompt you to sign in with your account name and password.

You'll then see the below "Congratulations" screen. Click Done to be taken to the App Store home page.

support.apple.com