At GDC this year Nintendo detailed an upcoming game finally coming to American DS systems: Rhythm Heaven. The game was a hit in Japan, and Satoru Iwata seemed confident that it will be a hit in North America as well: he treated everyone who came to see his keynote with a free copy of the game. Unfortunately, the title seems to ...

Guitar Hero has become something of a juggernaut of a franchise—and this is probably going to inspire some hate in the comments—but the more Guitar Hero games Activision Blizzard sells, the more the quality seems to take a nose-dive. We reviewed Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero On Tour in one feature: they ...

''Is there a word for someone who blocks themselves from accessing everything work-related, leaving them only with Twitter?'' That's the question I asked shortly after blocking myself from everything Ars in an attempt to test out SelfControl, a simplistic (if not strict) distraction-blocking app for the Mac. Created by ...

Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, has reached the beta testing stage. The beta release, which was made available for download last week, provides users with an opportunity to get an early look at the features that will be included in the new version of the popular Linux distribution. Ubuntu 9.04 includes GNOME 2.26, the ...

Telltale has stumbled upon a pretty great formula, turning popular franchises like Sam & Max and Homestar Runner into episodic games with classic point-and-click adventure gameplay. Now the company has set its sites on the claymation duo of Wallace & Gromit. But how well does the series translate into the game world? ...

Interim Federal Communications Commission chair Michael Copps donned his Grim Realist hat and told Congress on Thursday that even with the deadline extended to June 12, the DTV switch won't be smooth. ''Some may say that we won't be ready on June 12 either, and that there will still be consumers left behind. And that is ...

iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski, who recently released the AMBER Alert for iPhone app, has a new app designed to help keep deleted data from being recovered from your iPhone. Called iErase, the app ''zeros'' all the free space on your iPhone and makes sure trashed files stay, well, trashed. The iPhone, like most ...

At GDC, Sony's upcoming action game Infamous was on display for us all to see. I sat down with some of the game's levels at the Sony Bloggers' Lounge and spent a great deal of time putting this ''ground-based superhero'' title through its paces. The impression I came away with? Infamous could be the next big action franchise ...

If flying a paper airplane to catch floating paperclips sounds like an appealing way to waste some time, then Paper Pilot for the iPhone is the game for you. In this first-person flier, you maneuver your aircraft through a variety of rooms, trying to catch each waiting paperclip. Catch it and it explodes for your pleasure. This ...

Despite popular perception, even those at the top of music business have a sense of humor, something captured repeatedly in Steve Knopper's new book, Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. In Knopper's telling, the decline of the major labels isn't just about technology ...