Computers

Yes, Time and Eternity is an eccentric RPG based around the protagonist, Zack, being assassinated during his wedding ceremony, only to discover his soon-to-be wife is actually two women's souls trapped in the same body. As the ladies travel back in time to try and prevent Zack's death, Zack will be faced with the decision of which lovely lady he truly adores -- his fiancé Toki or the brash woman that shares his fiancé's body, Towa. Toki and Towa; Time and Eternity. Feeling like I just slapped you in the face while screaming Japan is the proper reaction at this moment. There are more red flags waving in the first few hours of playing Time and Eternity than in front of the United Nations. Noted? Noted. Let's talk about the game now. Starting out in Time and Eternity I expected a standard JRPG with a very confusing premise, despite better than average localization from NIS America, a la Hyperdimension Neptunia. I was surprised to find that Time and Eternity was very straightforward in its premise however, with rather unique combat mechanics. More than that, I was surprised to find that most of my time with the game was taken up by dialogue, to the extent that I initially thought I was playing a visual novel or dating sim. I'm still unpersuaded that it isn't, but figure the world will open and combat will figure more prominently further on. At least I was spot on with regards to NIS America's localization. They continue to do the job right. A Harem of Not Real Women Time and Eternity opens with a conversation between Zack and his fiancé Toki discussing how excited they are to finally be married so that they can finally spend the night together. In fact, they haven't even so much as kissed yet. Their talk is filled with sexual innuendo that should go right over the head of younger audiences, make young adults smirk, and fills the eyes of fan-service hunting otakus with glee. If you're not one of the aforementioned, it should be immediately apparent that Time and Eternity may not be for you. Unless you've got a touch of perversion to you. From there one of the game's more interesting gameplay mechanics begins. Three of Toki's friends appear, initiating a long bit of exposition, followed by the opportunity to talk with each one individually. This becomes the game's home base where quests typically begin and end, where the player can save, or where the player can simply converse with the game's various characters. Each of the characters involved at that point of the story will have their portrait listed at the top of the screen. Selecting each will start a bit of dialogue with that character. If the portrait is marked with an exclamation point, obviously something important is related to their discussion. Something about sitting in this room and talking with a harem of ridiculous ladies cracking ridiculous jokes, each of them fidgeting between a handful of animations endlessly repeated -- this was the Time and Eternity experience. No more, no less. Eventually the wedding cinematic happens and we're introduced to our second potential love interest, Towa, and now we get to actually play the game. We take on the role of Toki (and eventually Towa) as she explores a semi-open area chock full of random battles. Combat is an active battle system that allows you to switch between melee and ranged at will. Typically each fight is a process of mashing a standard attack until you've built up enough SP to cast combat attacks, mixed in with reactionary presses when enemies attack. Yes, you can defend or even counter attack enemies, but you also have to be aware of their timing so they don't interrupt combinations. Add in flourish finishers and fights can become a sort of rhythmic dance. Even early in the game I found this intriguing, so I'm actually excited to make some progress, gain some levels, and try it out further. At the heart

Still no hints about any new hardware.

You could win a brand new ThinkPad ultrabook. Good luck!

Fractal Design has announced the white version of the Node 304 chassis.

Get your top deals over this Memorial Day weekend!

Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean" has been spotted at the Thailand Mobile Expo.

Perennial Intel competitor AMD on Thursday launched three additions to its 2013 A-Series and E-series mobile accelerated processing unit family. They include the Elite Mobility APU, previously code-named "Temash," and the Mainstream APU, formerly code-named "Kabini."Both are system on a chip solutions based on AMD's "Jaguar" microarchitecture for low-power processors. They "are the first single-chip quad-core x86 SoCs in the industry," said Gary Silcott, a senior manager at AMD.

Kim Dotcom, founder of the seized file-sharing site Megaupload, hinted via Twitter that he might sue the slew of companies using two-step authentication, for which Dotcom claims to own the patent. Dotcom provided a link to a patent that deals with two layers of identification, corroborating his purported ownership. That said, it is hard to know if the patent, which was filed for in 1998 and granted in 2000, would cover the two-step authentication that has become all the rage on the Web.

Creative blogging platform Jux is shutting its doors on August 31. In a blog post, the company revealed that its growth wasn’t “large or fast enough to attract further investment” as the reason. It has released a feature that will allow users to download their work. The New York City-based startup launched in August 2011 as a mixture of Tumblr, About.me, and Flavors.me. As TNW reported back then: It’s creation. It’s sharing. But it’s also permanent and personal. Jux isn’t about one off creations a la Tumblr. It’s a place where you can create a story, own a topic and be proud of your blogging. The goal was to help people make better stuff. Prior to launching, company CEO Ted Metcalfe told us that 50,000 people had signed up for the service. The company was founded by Mark Gorton, who created Limewire, the once popular peer-to-peer file sharing client. In the past couple of years, Jux has made some steady improvements to making it more accessible and useful for its users. In October 2011, it released a new way to share on the iPad with an HTML5-powered interface. Two months later, it became available on the iPhone before announcing its integration with Google Maps’ Street View and the addition of several social features. Since its August 2011 launch, Jux said that it has seen a 30 percent increase in posts and page views, with 20 percent of its traffic coming directly from links shared on Twitter and Facebook. Metcalfe once told us that his company was focused on one main goal, that being growth: “Growth (sans expensive advertising) validates the idea and invigorates the community.” Running up against endless comparisons to Posterous and Tumblr, he believed that Jux would be able to serve as that “fun and magical place” for people to create. Sadly, Metcalfe’s vision didn’t pan out. Jux managed to raise some funding, but looks like it wasn’t able to capture the attention of investors. Of course, Jux took to Twitter to announce their news and some users felt that the timing couldn’t have been any worse: @tactixian timing couldn’t be worse! jux iphone app days from release and tumblr joining best western, err, yahoo, some irrelevant brand :) — Jux (@JuxDotCom) May 25, 2013 With Posterous already closed after its acquisition by Twitter and rumors of people leaving Tumblr after Yahoo snatched it up, could this offer Jux a bit of a reprieve? Highly doubtful as the company would probably need a huge influx of users to make it sustainable — and it’s not charging users to create their blogs either. Current users of the site have until August 31 to download their work. To begin, Jux says that users can go to https://USERNAME.jux.com/!/mystuff (where “USERNAME” is the user ID) and a zip file will begin downloading. The company asks users to be patient as the download may take a long time, depending on how much work is stored on the site. For those interested in migrating their data to another service like WordPress or Tumblr, Jux says that it does not have a feature that will automatically import content into those services. Photo credit: Thinkstock

Intel and IM Flash Technologies executive says 2-D NAND flash memory can scale to 10-nm and that 3-D NAND needs to be manufactured with at least 32 layers to be economic.View the full article HERE.