Code Retard

Do you like Mass Effect? Do you like DLC? What about action figures? If you said yes to all three questions, then man have we got a deal for you. It looks like EA, the publisher behind Bioware’s upcoming space-RPG Mass Effect 3, has an interesting plan for delivering DLC to gamers: toys.

According to information posted by the Big Bad Toy Store, series two of the Mass Effect action figure series will come packaged with special codes, valid for special “in-game bonus content.” Every figure apparently comes with its own bit of DLC, so it’s safe to assume the updates are limited to weapons, armor and other small accessories.

Here’s a list of the figures coming in series two:

• Miranda
• Mordin
• Garrus
• Legion

There’s no information available on whether you’ll have to buy the toys to get this DLC, or if it will be made available to regular players without a penchant for plastic. In the meantime, it does seem to be a cool way to sell DLC – who wouldn’t want a mini Miranda on their desk?

Would you buy toys to access DLC?

[RPG Site]

You can warp into both inanimate and animate objects in Warp.
Image courtesy Electronic Arts

The puzzle-stealth-action platformer Warp will kick off Microsoft’s Xbox Live House Party, an annual lineup of weekly downloadable games, the Xbox 360 maker said Monday.

Warp will launch for Xbox Live on February 15 at 800 Microsoft Points ($10). Publisher Electronic Arts said it will be downloadable on the PlayStation 3 and PC on March 13, also at $10.

On February 22, Microsoft will release Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, the downloadable sequel to 2010?s Alan Wake, for $15.

The following week, publisher THQ will release Nexuiz, an arena-based first-person shooter based on the eponymous freeware, Quake-inspired 2005 game. It will be downloadable on Xbox 360 for $10 on February 29.

Publisher Ubisoft will release post-apocalyptic action-adventure game I Am Alive on March 7 as a download for Xbox 360. It will run you $15.

Threat Tracker’s information screen shows some interesting facts about mobile security threats.

(Credit:
Lookout Mobile Security)

Lookout Mobile Security‘s latest project app peels away some of the secrecy and uncertainty surrounding mobile threats. Debuting today, the Threat Tracker provides information about mobile threats going back two weeks.

The app is meant to help people understand that mobile threats do exist, explained Derek Halliday, senior product manager for Security at Lookout. “We’re showing people what they’re being protected against,” he said. It was originally created by a Lookout summer intern in 2011.

Here’s how it works. Tap the home screen that opens when the app launches, and the app jumps to a spinning blue globe of Earth. It populates the globe with green dots, representing people around the world that Lookout says it has protected from threats. You can drag the globe around to see how different parts of the world are affected.

Below the globe is a timeline chart of mobile malware threats over the past two weeks. It gets updated hourly, and you can slide your finger along it to change the map of blocked threats above. At the top of the app are three links. The one in the upper left corner goes to the Lookout Mobile Security listing in the
Android Market, while the question mark explains the app’s features.

The i in the upper right corner shrinks the globe and pulls up more information on threats. A slider shows the percentage of spyware versus malware (41 percent to 59 percent, as I write this on Monday) and below that are the top three threats over the past two weeks. Tap one to get an explanation of what the threat is and what it does.

At the time of writing, the top two mobile threats according to Lookout are RuPaidMarket, Depositmobi, and Legacy. The first two send premium SMS without permission, a growing threat on smartphones of all kinds. Legacy contains a Trojan that exploits a vulnerability on some Androids to gain control of the device.

The app is a bit thin on features. For example, it doesn’t tell you the countries where the top threats lurk. They’re currently bigger problems in Eastern Europe than in the United States. Halliday admitted that it doesn’t do much now, but said that more of Lookout’s security data would be revealed in future updates to the app.

Lookout Threat Tracker isn’t going to make you more secure in and of itself, but it ought to help end questions about whether mobile malware exists and what threats mobile malware can pose to people. Halliday concluded, “This is a way to answer those questions without having to experience the malware yourself.”

These are instructions on how to perform an untethered jailbreak of your iPhone 4S using Absinthe for Windows.

Warning***: Before you continue make sure to do a backup of your device in iTunes as you may lose your Camera Roll during this process.

Step One
Download the latest version of Absinthe from here.

Step Two
Double click to extract the downloaded archive and launch the Absinthe application.

Step Three
As prompted, connect your iPhone 4S to the computer via USB. Make sure to remove any passcodes or VPN settings you’ve previously set.

Step Four
Click the Jailbreak button to begin

Step Five
The application will take you through several steps of the jailbreak: Sending initial data, waiting for reboot, waiting for device to finish booting, Preparing jailbreak data, and Sending payload data.

Step Six
You will be informed that the jailbreak is ‘Almost done’.

Step Seven
On your device, locate the Absinthe icon and press it to complete your jailbreak. It could be on any homescreen.

If the server is down and you get an Error establishing a database connection message then tap the Settings icon on your springboard and turn on VPN.

You will get a configuration error; however, after about a minute your device will reboot with Cydia on the Springboard!

High-performance PC hardware doesn’t always deliver the speed users expect. But you probably shouldn’t blame the hardware. The slowdown may be due to a software conflict.

A reader named Abe Ibrahim contacted me last week to ask about the cause of his slow
Windows 7 PC:

My system: Asus Rampage III Extreme MB, Intel i7 980x CPU, 12GB Tri-Bus Memory, 128GB SSD (OS), and 9TB RAID-5 storage. One would think no matter what you ran, the system would scream through it. That is not the case with my system: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit boots in 51 seconds… [When] I use it to zip and unzip files, video or photo editing, the system crawls…. Low system performance while in low CPU and memory usage! Why?

One of the greatest challenges PC users face is figuring out why the machines run so slowly. You can easily spend more time trying to fix the problem than the problem causes you to lose in the first place.

Windows 7′s built-in diagnostic tools can help you find the source of startup and other performance woes. I’ve had mixed results with the OS’s troubleshooting utilities, which I described in a post from last June, “Handy Windows 7 utilities you may not know about.”

Tech Republic’s Greg Schultz explains how to use Windows 7′s Event Viewer to root out the source of slow startups. Sandro Villinger of IT Expert Voice goes into even more detail on snooping through Windows 7′s performance and troubleshooting utilities to hunt down the causes of startup delays.

Another option is to use Microsoft’s free Process Monitor utility to find slow-loading startup items and figure out whether you need the laggards to start automatically. Martin Brinkmann steps you through the process on Ghacks.net.

If you use the Ultimate, Professional, or Enterprise editions of Windows 7, you have access to the Group Policy Editor, which lets you track down startup slowpokes. More information on the diagnostic tools in Group Policy Editor is available on the Guiding Tech Network.

Most likely causes of Win7 startup delays
The first thing most people do to speed up Windows’ boot times is to trim the list of programs that start automatically. Microsoft’s free Autoruns utility simplifies the process by categorizing the programs that start with Windows. You can set the program to hide Windows’ own entries to minimize the chances of unchecking an entry that needs to auto-start.

Your PC’s slow bootup could be due to a malware infection. Make sure your antivirus definitions are up-to-date and your real-time protection and firewall are active. Then perform a full-system malware scan. To make doubly sure your system isn’t infected, scan again with a different antivirus program, such as the free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Sometimes the slowdown is caused by your system creating too many restore points. The Microsoft Support site describes the problem and offers a hotfix. Another Microsoft hotfix addresses delays resulting from displays being changed from the default 96 dots per inch.

Unfortunately, the source of your PC’s slow start could be relatively obscure, such as a faulty hard-drive power connector (switching the drive to a different power connector solved the problem) or use of a solid-color background (start times improved after using a photo as a background).

Free Windows diagnostic utility shaves seconds off startups
It seems counterintuitive that you can improve your system’s performance by adding yet another program. In addition to the time required to download and install the software, there’s the chunk of system resources the new program uses itself. That’s why I was skeptical of the performance benefits promised by Kingsoft’s free PC Doctor, one of which was faster starts.

I tested the program on a 5-year-old PC running Windows 7 Ultimate. During installation, the program offered to install the Maxthon browser–in fact, the option was prechecked. Be sure to uncheck this option to prevent installing more software than you bargained for.

The PC Doctor installer preselects the option to add the Maxthon browser, so uncheck the setting to prevent the unsolicited addition.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

After restarting the PC to complete the installation, PC Doctor generated a pop-up alerting me to six potential hazards.

PC Doctor identified six potential security risks the first time the program ran after installation.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

The test system is set to download and install required Windows updates automatically, so the notice of pending updates was a surprise. (To prevent PC Doctor from starting automatically, click Settings General and uncheck the option under Boot Configuration at the bottom of the window.)

Uncheck the option under Boot Configuration in PC Doctor’s Settings to prevent the program from starting with Windows.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

PC Doctor includes many security, diagnostic, and troubleshooting tools, but my focus was on the program’s Startup Booster. Initially, PC Doctor timed my test system’s start at 57 seconds, which garnered a Good rating. The utility suggested that I disable several of the 85 startup items it identified.

PC Doctor’s Startup Booster tool recommended that I disable several of the auto-start programs on my test PC.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

The My Startup tab lists the PC’s auto-start apps and shows the number of seconds each requires to get going.

See a list of your system’s auto-start apps on PC Doctor’s My Startup tab.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

After running PC Doctor’s System Optimizer, the program reported that it had shaved nine seconds off Windows’ start, which still rated as Good. According to my own unscientific timing, the test machine’s starts were reduced from 72 seconds to 64 seconds.

After running PC Doctor’s System Optimizer, the utility reported that Windows’ start time dropped from 57 seconds to 48 seconds.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dennis O’Reilly)

In the course of its optimization, PC Doctor knocked out the the driver for the machine’s Wacom
tablet. The time it took to reinstall the tablet driver and restart the system likely wiped out any performance gain resulting from the optimization–not to mention the time the optimization itself required.

So I was left pondering once again whether the time lost by installing and running the optimizing utility will ever translate into time saved by faster Windows 7 starts and enhanced performance generally. Chances are it’s a wash, but there is some comfort in knowing your software isn’t slowing down your hardware unnecessarily.

Rockstar hasn’t said anything yet, but ESRB ratings have been assigned to Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the PS3. It’s hard to tell what form these games will take in this early stage, but they will probably be PSN downloads. On the other hand, HD remixes of these games would certainly be welcome on store shelves – especially if they were packaged together in a collection.

Believe it or not, this year marks the 10-year anniversary of Vice City, and October was the 10-year mark for GTA III. Damn I feel old.

Would you welcome the return of Claude and Tommy Vercetti?

To celebrate, let’s all watch Dave Chappelle’s classic tribute to Grand Theft Auto. “I need this!”

Over the past year we have regularly covered new malware threats that have emerged for OS X, which included attacks like MacDefender, BlackHole RAT, Flashback, and Revir, among a number of others.

While our coverage of these threats may make them appear significant, when looking at the overall
Mac malware scene in review it’s apparent that despite the increase in Mac malware prevalence, the threats for the Mac platform are still quite minimal. Additionally, data suggests Mac malware trends may not follow market share as many suspect it does.

Recently security company F-Secure released an analysis of the Mac malware that was released Q2 through Q4 of last year. Overall, there were a mere 58 new variants that were released between April and December of 2011, most of which were Trojan horse or backdoor attempts, and none being viruses or worms.

The breakdown of the malware shows that as with other platforms, social engineering is the primary means of spreading malware, but the main observation is that the overall number of 58 threats is nothing when compared to other platforms. According to UK-based security company GData, starting in 2009 the number of new malware threats for computers and Web-based services has surpassed 1,000,000 per year. Therefore, even though the threat level for OS X is higher than it has been in past years, when compared with the rest of the industry malware on the Mac is almost negligibly minuscule.

F-Secure’s analysis shows two general time frames where Mac malware was released last year, suggesting a break from an expected continuous rise that follows market share.

(Credit:

F-Secure)

An interesting point of argument that F-Secure’s data does bring up is to the notion that the number of threats to the Mac platform will increase as its market share rises. While it might seem logical to expect that as the Mac becomes more popular one would see an increase in attacks, the data from F-Secure suggests this may not be the case.

F-Secure’s analysis clearly shows two time frames where malware has been released for OS X: one instance around June and another instance around October of last year. F-Secure describes these as “opportunistic bubbles” sandwiched between periods of inactivity. This is different from the steady rise in the Mac’s market share in the past year, which according to NetApplications has increased by 17 percent from February 2011 to 6.36 percent worldwide, and which has recently surpassed 12 percent in the U.S., according to Gartner.

This bubblelike malware trend in the face of steadily increasing market share counters the idea of a continuous rise in malware releases that one might expect from a steady rise in Mac malware; however, this interpretation may be a bit premature.

While it is possible that Mac malware could maintain a release pattern of “opportunistic bubbles,” it is entirely possible that these bubbles could start increasing in prevalence and eventually blend into each other to form a steady increase of malware that is more continuous in nature.

So far there is not enough data to either support or refute this possibility, since right now we’re observing this bubble trend with only 58 samples strewn out over the course of a year. Additionally, it’s worth noting that successive releases of malware variants for one or two malware programs contributes to these bubbles, and not the release of multiple independent malware programs. For instance, BlackHole and FakeMacDef variants were released around June, and a number of Flashback and Revir variants appeared around October.

Some additional considerations against the notion of malware being released in “bubbles” is that this suggests malware developers somehow work in conjunction with each other to release their attacks in coordination, which is likely not the case. Additionally, it suggests that malware is released seasonally, which besides holiday scams, would be highly unlikely and does not parallel with the continuous nature of malware release on other platforms.

Despite these considerations, right now the data we have shows that Mac malware was released in two general timeframes, though whether this trend will continue remains to be seen.

Overall while these observations are interesting, ultimately it is important to keep in mind that despite the reports of malware throughout the past year, the level of malware for OS X continues to be minuscule when compared with the millions of malware programs released through the year.

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or e-mail us!
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

Masahiro Sakurai is a developer given to excess. His Super Smash Bros. fighting games are some of the most feature-packed, info-dense videogames ever attempted, filled to bursting with characters, stages, musical tracks and trivial references to Nintendo’s gaming past. It’s practically absurd just how much he crams into each one of them. Should we have imagined, then, that Kid Icarus: Uprising would be any different?

Nintendo showed a playable version of this 3DS shooter, loosely based on the cult classic 8-bit game, at E3 last year. But that small sliver of a demo didn’t even begin to convey the staggering cornucopia of options that will be packed into the final game, which is to be released on March 22.

In the original game, the little winged cherub hero could shoot arrows at enemies. In Uprising, you can choose from Blades, Bows, Cannons, Arms, Claws, Palms, Staffs, Clubs or something called “Orbitars.” And that’s not the half of it. Let’s say you want a club. Well, you could have a Babel Club, a Halo Club, a Black Club, an Ore Club or a Skyscraper Club, and that’s just what they put in the demo version. Who the hell got all this Skyrim in my Kid Icarus?

I exaggerate: It’s not my Kid Icarus. It might be yours, but then you’d be in the rather small group of diehard fans who have been patiently waiting for the last 20 years, each E3 expecting that a new game in the “series” was right around the corner. It’s been so long since a Kid Icarus game that the name is a total blank slate. And Sakurai wants to fill every single square inch of that slate with miniature writing.

At a recent demo of the game, I played Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8. Nintendo representatives, with their characteristic reticence, did not tell me how many chapters total will appear in the game. Using simple logic we can deduce that it is greater than 8 and fewer than ?. Sakurai, of course, wants us to play each of the game’s chapters approximately ? times each.

Sick of bows and arrows? How about a gigantic drill instead?
Image: Nintendo

Kid Icarus: Uprising does not have a difficulty switch. It has a difficulty slider, which goes all the way from 0.0 up to 9.0. Before you begin each level, you can make minute adjustments to the difficulty. This has a wide variety of effects. As you make the levels more difficult, you will get more Hearts, the game’s currency. You will find better items and weapons in the treasure chests. And you will also get your ass kicked.

To raise the difficulty level, you need to wager a small amount of your Hearts. If you die, the difficulty level will go down by 1.0 and you will lose some of those Hearts. For instance, I tried Chapter 1 with difficulty cranked to 9.0. I died almost instantly. By the time I finished the level the difficulty had fallen to 6.0. But it was still a net benefit for me, since I won a great deal more Hearts than I would have on the 2.0 standard setting, and won better weapons.

I was also able to enter an “Intensity Gate,” which are doors in the levels that only open if your current difficulty setting is equal to or higher than the number on the door. In the case of Chapter 1, behind the door was a massive tank with a weak spot on its back. The Nintendo representative helpfully let me know that he had sent me in there with a heavy Cannon weapon, which would cause Pit to move more slowly and thus make it much more difficult for me to circle-strafe the tank.

You may find miniature centurions in treasure chests to help you out.
Image: Nintendo

Each level is divided into two segments. The first is flight combat, in which Pit takes down enemies while soaring on a controlled path through the air. The second is on land, which gives you the freedom to run around and shoot in a less linear environment. It’s a complex game. You have to move Pit out of the way of enemies with the circle pad, aim your shots with the stylus and touch screen and fire shots by pressing the L trigger.

If you’re left handed, you’re probably SOL unless you buy the helpful Circle Pad Pro attachment, which will let you control Pit with your right thumb. (But it doesn’t allow for dual-analog play, Nintendo said.)

But even for the right-handed, this may quickly become a painfully crampy position. Hence, Nintendo is including a plastic stand with every copy of the game that will let you prop your 3DS up on a table. I played both with and without the stand. I can go either way, although I should point out that without the stand I just ended up resting the 3DS on my leg.

If you can get past figuring out how exactly you’re going to play it without developing carpal tunnel, Kid Icarus: Uprising is a fun and funny game. The graphics are gorgeous, the writing is surprisingly amusing. Pit and the goddess Palutena, along with a variety of supporting cast members, keep up a running chat during each level which is also displayed in text on the lower screen.

There seemed to be many different features in Kid Icarus which we aren’t even able to discuss at all yet. So whether people fall in love with it or are turned off by having to prop their 3DS up on a stand to play it, one thing is for sure — people who really like Kid Icarus will play it for a long, long time.