Video game news and reviews site Crispy Gamer has acquired GamerDNA, the social network/automated gameplay notification system and ad network. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Founded in 2006, GamerDNA went through a few iterations before growing into a community that attracts around 10 million monthly unique visits. It changed its name from GuildCafe, and raised $3 million in funding from Flybridge Capital Partners in 2008. It went on to acquire 360Voice, which provided the technology that let members post automatic updates and progress reports from their Xbox LIVE-connected gameplay. That score-tracking and social-sharing technology is likely a big part of what made GamerDNA an attractive buy for Crispy Gamer.
You do realize that all those Atom-based netbooks on sale for the holidays will be abandoned entirely in January right? Go ahead and pull the trigger for that “new” ViewSonic netbook if you must, just realized that you’ll be running last-gen hardware in less than a month if rumor, innuendo, and leaks all converge with the release of Pineview netbooks as expected. More details have appeared today at retailers listing specifications and pics for the unannounced ASUS EeePC model 1005P and 1005PE. Sporting the Eee PC Seashell design, we’re looking at a pair of 10-inch LED backlit displays with a 1,024 x 600 pixel resolution, Intel Atom N450 proc, 1GB DDR2-RAM, and a Windows 7 Starter Edition preload riding GMA 3150 graphics — a slightly faster version of Intel’s G31 based GMA 3100, though still too weak for gaming or 1080p Flash videos. The PE model sports a bigger 250GB hard disk and higher capacity 6-cell battery for a reported 12.5 hours of go-go juice thanks, presumably, to the more efficient N450 CPU. Expect to see these Eees get official with price and launch date any day now.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks there is a social paradox in the location space. A new service, Rally, believes the power of location lies in less rather than more. That is to say, fewer social connections rather than more of them.
It’s an idea that you don’t hear a lot of social networks talking about these days as each tries to build a social graph that’s as sprawling as possible. But the team behind Rally is taking this different approach largely due to their past experience. Much of the team is the same one that built 12seconds, one of the video platforms that rose as Twitter began to become popular. And eventually, 12seconds started relying heavily on Twitter’s large social graph for its own service. But co-founder Sol Lipman isn’t convinced that’s the right way for services going forward.
Until that iPhone N64 emulator guy makes with the goods, it looks like folks wanting that Super Mario 64 experience “on the go” are going to have to turn to the generous talents of the modding community. Claiming to be “officially” the world’s smallest (we don’t know who the sanctioning body is for this title, so we’ll let him duke it out with the N64Mini guy), YouTube member spiritwalker47’s portable console is quite a number: featuring a 5-inch display, polycarbonate case with all the necessary controls, and a presumed battery life of three hours or so, the Starlight 64 is perfect for all your portable retro gaming needs. In addition, this guy has a docking station that throws composite video, S-Video, and up to four controllers into the mix. Ready to see the thing in action? Of course you are. Video’s after the break.
Continue reading Starlight 64 stakes its claim for ‘world’s smallest’ N64 mod
Since the dawn of computing, gamers on a budget have been flaunting their ability to best higher-spec’d systems courtesy of a little extra cooling and a lot of time fiddling with BIOS settings. So, no real surprise here that an Intel Core i5 processor can keep up with a Core i7 when properly configured. What is surprising is that you can get one suitably configured with a warranty. The provider in this case is Digital Storm, the system is the Core i5-750, and the warranty is three years. HotHardware put one through its paces and found that, if anything, it was too aggressively overclocked. But, with a few minor tweaks (which hopefully will be made standard for future iterations) the machine was stable, fast, and rather noisy. It managed to keep up with Alienware’s Core i7 Aurora ALX in most benchmarks, despite being about $2,000 cheaper. That kind of savings should buy enough thermal paste to last you at least 18 months.
Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment group founded by Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, has increased its stake in social networking leader Facebook to more than 5% of the American company, Russia’s leading business newspaper Kommersant reports.
Furthermore, DST is looking to increase its stake in Facebook even more, according to Yakov Sadchikov from Quintura, who picked up on the news this morning.
Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment group founded by Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, has increased its stake in social networking leader Facebook to more than 5% of the American company, Russia’s leading business newspaper Kommersant reports.
Furthermore, DST is looking to increase its stake in Facebook even more, according to Yakov Sadchikov from Quintura, who picked up on the news this morning.
If you feel like geeking it up (or, as they say back east, “getting your geek on”) there really is no better combination than gaming and comic books — that’s why we’re stoked to hear that the PSP comic store is set to go live at 3:00 PM today. In addition, the European PlayStation blog states that the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa stores should become available at 5PM GMT, while the store in Ireland is being held up due to technical issues. The store boasts “hundreds of new and classic collections,” including your favorites from Marvel, IDW, Titan, iVerse and 2000AD. Check out playstationcomics.com to give it a shot yourself — but not before peeping the video after the break.
Continue reading PSP Digital Comics set to launch in US today
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Shanghai-based social market researchers Kai Lukoff and Lucas Englehardt from BloggerInsight, a company spun off from