Think Sony isn't doing enough to reach its fans? Think again! The company lets the good times literally roll by announcing the return of its PlayStation Patrol trucks. These road monsters are rigged with mean gaming hardware and killer titles that'll make you drool all over yourself. The best part is that LittleBigPlanet is on this tour and will be accessible to those who want an early experience with it. More after the jump.

If your head is still spinning with the number of sequels to Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii), don't look now because a new challenger has arrived. This time, British rock band U2 will supposedly take center stage from a mysterious comment posted on the Rumor Mill of EGM magazine.

You can find out more about it in the full article!

In case you're opting to get in some early practice for the upcoming SingStar game for the PlayStation 3, we've got something for you. Sony Computer Entertainment has just released a list of the 30 songs that are expected to launch alongside the upcoming title and includes familiar names such as "Feel Good Inc." by The Gorillaz and "Beautiful Day" by U2.

Aside from this initial line-up, Sony's Karaoke-turned-video-game for the PS3 is expected to be supplemented by a further 350 songs that can be purchased online - unfortunately, we don't have any details on this other racklist. The tune titles and their corresponding artists are available below:

• Blink 182 - All The Small Things
• Blur - Coffee & TV
• Britney Spears - Toxic
• Coldplay - Fix You
• Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
• Gwen Stefani - Cool
• Junior Senior - Move Your Feet
• Macy Gray - I Try
• Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie
• Ne-Yo - So Sick

The rest of the songs are available in the Full Article.

The Venezuelan Solidarity network, an organization of activists and religious parties, has written a letter to U2 lead vocalist Bono to step up and stop the launch of Pandemic's Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

The organization deemed that no man was better positioned to derail the title's launch than the activist rock star from Ireland. Bono is a board member of Elevation Partners, the arbiter company which brought Pandemic and Bioware together for the project.

The opposition stems from the fact that Mercenaries 2 is going to be a hellacious shoot 'em up set in Venezuela. The mission objective can't be closer to reality: Overthrow a "power-hungry tyrant."

The religious-activist group was apparently further offended because of the fact that the game carries a gameplay theme of "if it moves, it dies." Players can shoot anything and destroy some real-life structures found in the locale. This, the group says, will not only compound political frills between the two nations but it can potentially heighten the paranoia of a U.S. invasion of South American states among the civilian ranks.

The organization is now working at pulling off a signature campaign among various religious leaders for their letter to Bono (in PDF format), with a working deadline of March 31, 2007. The letter shall then be sent to the rock icon the following day, April 1.

Let's just hope Bono doesn't take this as some kind of April Fool's joke.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is set for release in the Xbox 360, PC, PS2 and PS3 platforms later this year.

 

Let's say you have your router upstairs or just on the other side of the room and the stock WiFi antenna on your laptop can only gather the WiFi signals at half a dozen paces away. Bummer if you want to work your couch in front of the TV on the other side of the house. Or another sad scenario: your laptop doesn't have WiFi capabilities.

Fret not. Here's an adapter from Buffalo, the WLI-U2-SG54HP. It boasts of boosting reception range by 210% plus it sticks to the back of your monitor. Additional specs: Vista compatible, Wi-Fi b/g, WEP 64/128bits, WPA-PSK and IPv6.

It retails at around US$ 31 and would be available sometime next month. We all know that this can also be used for less than legal purposes but don't get any ideas.

Now you can wave a copy of Time's annual year-end issue in the faces of anyone who told you YouTubing gets you nowhere. If you're one of the millions of people who uploaded (even the silly ones) videos to YouTube, pics to MySpace, contributed knowledge to Wikipedia, or blogged about anything, you're it.

How did you end up (figurativelly) on the cover of "Time" with other former honorees such as Albert Einstein (1999 Man of the Century), Bill Gates, and U2's Bono (2005), as well as Adolph Hitler? Every year the magazine editors choose a person or object (the PC was Machine of the Year in 1983) that good or bad has most affected the course of the year.

According to the magazine, everybody who "took part in this global media... working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game....changing the nature of the information age" is Time's Person of the Year for 2006.

Congratulations!

First of all, I just have to say...OH.MY.GOD. No wait, make that oh.my.effing.god! Can this be true? The Beatles are finally gonna have their songs on iTunes store after the whole Apple vs. Apple fiasco?

And not only that, Apple (as in the computer company) is allegedly in negotiation with Britain's EMI group. Apple wants to gain them rights to come out with a Beatles edition iPod, much like the U2-inspired edition that Apple currently has.

As we told you guys in an earlier article, The Beatles remains as one of the very few bands that haven't taken a bite of Steve Jobs' apple. Bob Seger and Metallica have already given in, and so has the Red Hot Chili Peppers. To date, iPod users have resorted to downloading their fave Beatles tunes off Limewire or other download services. Is all that about to change now?

Being a Beatlemaniac myself, I couldn't be more psyched about this but then again, these are all still mere speculation. And when Apple was contacted regarding the matter, the company's spokesman merely said that the company does not comment on "rumor and speculation."

But the latest buzz is that Apple is "close" to reaching an agreement with EMI to become The Beatles' exclusive online music store for a limited window of time. Oh, and that's not all, Apple is also said to be wooing EMI to let them use a a Beatles song for a company ad. Trivia: Nike was the only company to ever have used a Beatles song for an ad - "Revolution" - back in 1987, for which the company was sued by the Fab Four.

During that whole controversy, the Beatles was reported to have commented that they "don't sing jingles to peddle sneakers, beer, pantyhose, or anything else." Perhaps mp3 players then? Hahaha. I dunno 'bout the rest of you guys, but if Apple does come out with a Beatles-edition iPod, not even George and John's rise from the grave will stop me from getting one.

The two pop icons of Celebrities With A Cause, Oprah Winfrey and U2's Bono, teamed up with Apple to raise money to combat AIDS in Africa. Dubbed as the "Magnificent Mile", the event takes place in malls and takes the form of a shopping spree.

"Some people won't put on marching boots, so we've got to get to people where they are at, and they're in the shopping malls," said Bono. "Now you're buying jeans and T-shirts, and you're paying for 10 women in Africa to get medication for their children with HIV."

Apple pledged to contribute US$ 10 from the sale of of its new red-colored iPod nano, which retails for US$ 199. The projected sales of the iPod alone is estimated to reach millions of dollars for The Global Fund. Apple also plans to donate proceeds from iTunes Red gift card to the organization. Also on the shopping list are special "red items" from Gap Armani and Motorola stores.

Who knew Mall Rats would someday help change the world?

Buffalo, the company that specializes in many-in-one card readers, recently introduced its 29-in-one USB card reader. Marketed as MCR-C12H/U2, it is a powerful card reader that supports the new 4GB SDHC memory cards, micro SD, and various memory sticks. It can read mini-cards without any adapter and can/read write simultaneously with two cards (with certain restrictions) inserted in it.

The MCR-C12H/U2AES also comes with SecureLockWare, an encoding software that provides data security. It is available in clear blue, silver, black and white and retails for about $25 (if we got our figures right - the website is in Japanese). The MCR-C12H/U2 is powered by the USB and normally does not require driver installation. But in case it doesn't work, a driver for Windows 2K/98SE/98 and Mac OS 9/9.2.2 can be downloaded from Buffalo's website

Thanks for the price correction, guys!

It's not the real U2, but it's for a good cause (one.org). The virtual version of the popular music group has performed live in the MMO Second Life for the second time. It's obviously all dubbed from one of their live DVD's, but since it's all for charity I doubt they'll get any problems with U2's lawyers. The crowd in the video isn't too large because it was invitational only. Imagine what happened if everyone went to it - total chaos.

As you may know Second Life is a subscription-based MMO made by Linden Lab in 2003. It is, like the title of the game says, a second life. You can do pretty much everything you can do in real life, including owning a house, shopping, you name it. People have actually made lots of money from the game by designing houses and clothes, and also owning houses and renting it.