Techknology’s Blog

Behold, the first screenshot of the yet to be officially revealed Halo 3 multiplayer map Sandbox. You know, the map that’s one third of the upcoming Mythic Map Pack. The image comes way of the official Austrian Xbox Blog, which sort of jumped the gun plasma rifle by releasing information about Sandbox and the other Mythic maps, Assembly and Orbital. Bungie must have caught word of the photographic leak and decided to host a super high-res shot of their own.

What we gather from the Sandbox screenshot is that the map looks a lot like Halo 3 arena Sandtrap, but darker and with fewer hills. If you look really close, each chunk of the map seems movable, meaning that Sandbox will be a true Forge experience. And if you investigate even further, the Austrialian Xbox Blog mentions the Mythic maps will cost 800 with an XBLM a Halo Wars bundle release on March 3rd. Go ahead, grab a shovel, start digging and see what you can find.

Update: Microsoft just informed us that the Mythic Map Pack will be available bundled with Halo Wars CE on March 3rd and will release as a stand alone XBLM download later this Spring.

War is hell… unless you’re getting twice the experience. This weekend, Call of Duty: World at War is once again rewarding players with double experience for all multiplayer modes. Not enough for you? World at War is also introducing two brand new game types into its playlist rotation: Team Tactical and Mercenary TDM. Team Tactical is a 4v4 playlist that pits two teams up against each other in random objective scenarios, while Mercenary TDM does not allow for parties in favor of random team match-ups.

New playlists have gone live today for both Xbox 360 and PS3 players. The Double-XP event will run from today, January 30, until February 1. Happy hunting.

Here’s a clock for geeks. It’s $20 on Etsy.

Explanation of clock numerals:

1 Legendre’s constant

2 “An infinite number of mathematicians…”

3 A Unicode character as a HTML entity

4 Modular arithmetic

5 The Golden Mean reworked a little

6 Three Factorial (3*2*1)

7 6.99999.. Though a different number than 7, still equals 7

8 Graphical representation of Binary code

9 An example of a base-4 number

10 A Binomial Coefficient

11 An example of Hexadecimal encoding

12 The cube root is the inverse of 12^3

We can’t 100% verify the legitimacy of this bit of intel, but everything looks believable enough to warrant just a wee bit of excitement. The folks over at HipTop3 have uncovered what looks to be a spec sheet for an upcoming Sidekick model. The Sidekick LX 2009 sports a number of features that the Danger faithful have been clamouring after for years, including GPS for turn-by-turn directions and…wait for it…a 3G-capable radio. While the inclusion of a 3G radio isn’t exactly revolutionary in this day and age, it’s certainly a first for the Sidekick family, and it’s something that many have seen as a deal breaker as folks have been fleeing the Sidekick ship for more data-friendly waters over the past couple years. Other improvements include the conspicuous presence of Microsoft Outlook/Exchange support, which could signal the Sidekick’s first foray into the corporate workplace. Then again, imagining a legion of suits carrying Sidekicks is a bit hard to stomach, though we suppose anything is possible. If this document is correct, other features for the Sidekick LX 2009 will include:

Social Networking Suite of Apps
- Facebook
- MySpace w/ video upload
- Twitter
- YouTube Mobile Access via browser
Content Creation
- Blog publishing, editing, and management client
- Photobucket Upload and Management
- Video recorder and upload to MySpace/Photobucket
Hardware
- Large (3.2 inch WVGA) screen with sharp 854×480 resolution
- Thin design
- 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and video recording
- Large QWERTY keyboard
- Expandable memory up to 8GB via MicroSD

Let’s hope T-Mobile and Danger manage to rush this thing out relatively quickly, as the aforementioned specs are enough to plant a small seed of hope in our Sidekick-deprived hearts.