Code Retard

What if Skyrim were set in 2012?

A new comedy video (above) answers that question, doing its best modern impression of the popular role-playing game, which publisher Bethesda released last year for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Fortunately for everybody involved, the makers wisely decided not to include any “arrow in the knee” jokes.

http://mssalesdemos.com now includes a demo machine for SQL Server 2012. This includes the Telco demo that was present in the BI X demo machine as well as new demos on SQL Server 2012 functionality. There’s a set of demos on PowerPivot, including the auto sales demo which has been shown at various events and one on the food consumed on picnics. There’s also a demo on the new Master Data Services functionality.

These demos have a distinctly BI flavour but the machine is configurable if you want to build some demos of your own.

This machine is available either hosted or as a download. Just be prepared to wait a long time for the download.

LAS VEGAS–Moscow-based game developer ZeptoLab has today announced Cut the Rope HD for BlackBerry PlayBook.

Om Nom came out swinging here at
CES with a demo of the new HTML5 version of the game for IE, followed by the announcement of a licensing division to bring Cut the Rope plush toys to the consumer market. And now, at the tail end of the week, fans of the popular physics-based puzzler get yet another juicy bit of news.

Cut the Rope HD is now available for download in BlackBerry App World for $2.99.

Alex Horton is a former animator for gaming juggernaut Rockstar Games, with titles like Red Dead Revolver and Grand Theft Auto 3 under his belt. And now, he’s just been made the Chief Creative Director of Jagex. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, Jagex is the company behind one of the most successful F2P MMOs of all time, RuneScape.

According to a press release issued by Jagex, Horton’s role will primarily be “working across the studios with our game design, development and creative teams to ensure all of our games achieve their true mass market potential.”

Jagex has been in the biz for years, and has just released into beta a “casual” strategy game titled 8Realms. Horton will no doubt be a strong presence in the company, with more than a few high profile AAA titles under his belt. 

There’s no word on whether Horton will be involved with the newly created mobile wing of Jagex, but all indications are that he will be taking a prominent role within the company and overseeing several titles at once.

[MMO Junkie]

These are instructions on how to perform an untethered jailbreak of your iPhone 4 on 5.0.1 using RedSn0w for Mac. The Windows version of this tutorial here.

This procedure will cause you to upgrade your baseband potentially ruining your chances for an unlock. Please follow a tutorial on how to update to iOS 5.0.1 using a custom ipsw if you need an unlock.

If you want to jailbreak a lower firmware version you can find the appropriate tutorial here.

Step One
Create a folder on your desktop called Pwnage

Download the latest RedSn0w from here and place it in the Pwnage folder. Likewise, download the 5.0.1 firmware from here and place it in the Pwnage folder. (Note: you do not need to download the 5.0.1 firmware if you are already on iOS 5.0.1)

Extract the RedSn0w zip file by double clicking it.

Step Two: (You can skip this step if iOS 5.0.1 is already installed on your device)
Connect your iPhone to the computer and launch iTunes.

Select your iPhone from the list of devices on the left. Now hold down Option and click the Restore button. Restore is preferred as it won’t create any wasted space on your iPhone.

Navigate to the Pwnage folder on your desktop and select the 5.0.1 firmware ipsw. Click the Choose button to continue.

iTunes will now update your iPhone to the new firmware.

Step Three
Launch the redsn0w application from the redsn0w folder we extracted earlier.

Step Four
Once RedSn0w opens click the Jailbreak button

Step Five
Plug your iPhone into the computer and make sure its OFF then click the Next button

Step Six
RedSn0w will now guide you through the steps to get into DFU mode. You can find more help with DFU mode here

Hold down both the Home button and the Power button for 10 seconds.

Release the Power button and continue holding the Home button until RedSn0w detects the device.

Step Seven
Your iPhone will now reboot

Step Eight
RedSn0w will now prepare the jailbreak data.

Step Nine
Select Cydia from the list of options and click Next.

Step Ten
Your iPhone will now be rebooted again and RedSn0w will begin uploading the new RAM Disk and Kernel.

Step Eleven
Once this is complete you will be notified that RedSn0w is done. When your iPhone finishes rebooting (5 minutes or so) it will be jailbroken with Cydia on the SpringBoard.

*As usual a big thanks to the iPhone Dev-Team, pod2g, and Geohot for their hard work and contribution to the iPhone community.

Shazam Player visualizes song lyrics while you listen. Cool!

(Credit:
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

I’m a sucker for cool visuals, which is why I’m gaga over the new Shazam Player app for iOS. It takes something fairly straightforward–song lyrics–and presents it in a visually stimulating, impossible-to-look-away way.

Shazam, of course, is best known for the eponymous app that listens to and identifies the song that’s playing on the radio, in the cafe, during that TV commercial, etc.

Shazam Player aims to replace the stock
iPod app with one that offers a few nifty amenities, starting with LyricPlay, a slick feature that visualizes song lyrics as you listen.

For any “compatible” song (more on that in a minute), Shazam Player will stream the lyrics using one of several cool themes. Think karaoke machine, but with fancy fonts and cool transitions.

For example, sometimes the lyrics scroll from the bottom of the screen to the top. Sometimes they fly in from the side and then shrink into the distance. There’s even a kind of reverse “Star Wars”-style text crawl. The player mixes up its various streaming modes with different fonts, font sizes, and background colors, so it always looks a little different.

When it’s not in lyric-streaming mode, Shazam Player works like most typical music players.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

Ads appear at the start and finish of each song, but they’re barely a distraction.

LyricPlay rocks. I had a blast “watching” some of my favorite songs (and learning the right words along the way). And for anyone who likes to sing along, karaoke-style, Shazam Player makes it a breeze.

But it’s not perfect. I found that the lyrics shown (or highlighted) weren’t always in perfect sync with the song. What’s more, when you’re in visualization mode, you have no access to player controls. You can’t pause or skip tracks without returning to the main player interface–very annoying.

Also, the LyricPlay library is currently limited to around 30,000 songs. When Shazam Player scanned my
iPhone‘s library of 1,200 tracks, it found only about 300 that matched–and I have fairly mainstream tastes. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary, but don’t be surprised if you can’t get lyrics for some–if not most–of your tunes.

The good news is that Shazam Player can play your entire library or just the LyricPlay-compatible tracks. And for any song, you can tap an arrow to bring up extra options: YouTube videos, tour dates, bios/reviews, and Facebook/Twitter sharing options. It’s a pretty fun way to get more from your song library.

And it’s free, so I definitely recommend taking Shazam Player for a spin. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to finally learn the words to Young MC’s “Bust a Move.”

As always with a new C4E iXtreme release (LT+ v3.0 SLIM Lite-On), Team Jungle comes with a new version of JungleFlasher to add full support for the new firmwares.

What’s new/fixed:
* Support for LT Plus 3.0
-Lite-on Slim 0272, 0225, 0401, 1071

Official Site: http://www.jungleflasher.net
Download: here

Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com

Semi Essessi is a name you may not entirely be familiar with but after this week, we hope you are. Essessi worked on the unfortunately crap, Bodycount. Probably one of the most forgettable and average FPS titles from last year. Essessi talked with Eurogamer last week about the fact that Codemasters had put him and several of his coworkers under unlawful working conditions

Essessi claims that he was not paid for or compensated for over 400 hours of overtime he worked leading up to crunch time for the game. He goes on to add that Codemasters promised him time off as compensation for over time but the only time he was given was when he was let go from Codemasters Guildford studios once they shut down in 2011.

He then talked to Codemasters HR department who told him that he was not entitled to any overtime. This was due to the fact that Essessi and his co-workers recieved an extra month of pay on their final paychecks…which Codemasters then asked for back, claiming it was an accounting error. They then wanted him and his coworkers to pay it all back immediately.  Unfortunately for Codemasters, Essessi had spent it on a lovely amount of debt he’d acquired from moving to Guildford.

Essessi says that he is “sick and tired of big business being incompetent and getting away with it because of fear and naivete. I don’t like bullies, I never have, I never will.” And now it was Codemasters time to say what needed to be said, possibly an apology?

Codemasters responded to Eurogamer saying (in full): 

The company has been, and continues to be, in open dialogue with Semi regarding the reimbursement of funds paid into his account following an administrative error, as it is entitled to. As the conversation regarding his personal situation is ongoing, the company has not, as alleged, pursued it as a legal matter with him. The company adviser’s are now aware of the additional comments that Semi has published and these will be addressed with him directly through the appropriate channels as necessary.

Right…but about the money you owe everyone and the lack of compensation and care and…wow. Just wow. I mean, it’s no Ocean Strategy but it’s just so vanilla and doesn’t explain a goddamn thing about their practices and how they cocked up the situation. 

Via [Kotaku]

Maybe you want to save Web pages for offline reading, or maybe you want to archive a page you created.

There are all sorts of reason to want to save pages, but it can be hard to tackle saving multiple pages at once. ZipTabs is a Chrome extension that lets you save any or all open tabs in one ZIP file, making the process much smoother and more convenient, Here’s how to use it: 

1. Download and install the SingleCore extension. This is required to use ZipTabs, but you don’t need to do any more than install it. 
2. Download and install ZipTabs. 
3. Restart Chrome. 
4. When you’ve got a set of tabs open to Web pages you want to save, just click the ZipTabs icon in the upper right and select which open tabs to save. 
   

   Step 4: Select tabs to save.

5. Select a name for the ZIP file, then click “OK.” 
6. When the ZIP file is created (it can take a little while), it is saved to Chrome’s download folder. This can’t be changed, though you can point Chrome toward a different folder in its Options settings. 

That’s it. Your ZIP file is easy to save and share.

Thanks to Guiding Tech for the link!