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Previously Blizzard mentioned that players will be able to customize all 20 of their character’s skills in Diablo III by applying one of five different colour Runestones to each of their own specific ability. But how does that work out? Well, today Blizzard is going to show you, at least abit, through five new examples of skills fully customized.

There are five runestone colors–crimson, indigo, obsidian, golden, and alabaster–which will alter skills uniquely. The different colors will generally follow a singular theme, such as crimson Runestones increasing damage dealt, and golden Runestones reducing the cooldown or cost of the skill. Well, you get the drills.

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The famous Ghost Recon game from Ubisoft is going MMO-style as the company has announced Ghost Recon Online. Yes, this is the exactly same third-person shooter moved onto MMO-style with an unusual cover system, with three player classes, and unlockable weapons and abilities. It’s built for 16-player games, uses dedicated servers and is exclusive to PC. There’s no server browser, but there is a party system to let you play with friends. The graphic obviously isn’t Crysis-class, but for an MMO-FPS game, this is considered very decent. Is Ubisoft trying to take on Call of Duty and Battlefield? That sounds very challenging.

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Barnes & Noble has released another new device for their Nook lineup. Previously it’s the colourful Nook Color, now it’s the new Nook, the simple e-Reader.

There’s no ‘Color’ behind the name Nook, because this thing is pure black and white. The new Nook uses the same Zeforce infrared touch layer seen on the Kobo, and lasts up to two months on a single charge. The Pearl E Ink screen boasts “80-percent less flashing” during page turns, something that many fans of the devices will rejoice, as they have resigned themselves to having their eyes assaulted by the previous one.

B&N also ‘boost’ that the ‘simpler’ Nook has 37 less buttons than the Kindle 3. Around the back is a soft-touch rubber surface that should feel great in the hand while reading, according to B&N at least.

The new Nook has a redesigned home screen with your current reading list and suggested titles. It also adds a few new features like FastPage Zoom forward, which lets you jump to any page in a title, and (finally) displays the number of pages left to go. Loaded inside is Android 2.1, 2GB of storage, which can be expanded using the microSD slot, and a WiFi radio — but sadly no 3G. You’ll also be able to share quotes, lend books, and update your status on social networks using Nook Friends, which debuted last year with the Nook Color.

You can pre-order online and in stores now and the updated Nook should start shipping to customers June 10th. You’ll also be able to pick one up at BestBuy, Walmart, Books-A-Million, and Staples for $139 at the same time.

SOURCE via Barnes & Noble

There isn’t many 7-inch slates running Honeycomb on the market, heck I think there isn’t any. Now we may be able to guess why. There’s a compatibility issue found on Honeycomb that may specifically only appear on 7-inch slates, well at least on Acer’s.
DigiTime’s unnamed sources say Acer has encountered problems with certain applications and that Google, meanwhile, is “busy resolving other issues.” All in all, precisely the kind of complication that Ice Cream Sandwich promises to circumvent.
In related news, DigiTimes adds that the Iconia Smart might go on sale in July due to earthquake-related supply shortages.

SOURCE via DigiTimes

While others are trying to demonstrate the e-paper field and IPS panel and flexible/foldable display, Sony seemed to stand strong on its belief in the OLED religion. The Japanese electronics giant is confident that its new OLED panel will deliver high quality images with enhanced, glitch-free brightness.

The 9.9-inch screen transmits images in 960 x 540 resolution, boasts a ninety-six percent color gamut, and is powered by a Self-Aligned Top-Gate TFT (in which the gate material is placed above the insulator) that reduces disparities in luminosity. To achieve this, Sony developed a new, four-part manufacturing process that lowers the parasitic capacitance between the gate electrode and the TFT. The top-gate structure, moreover, shortens the TFT’s channel length, making it easier to adapt the technology to larger, high-resolution displays.

OLED promises a better future than conventional LED and LCD, but they’ve yet to successfully penetrate the display market in mass. Hopefully we will be seeing Sony deliver the success of OLED, before some other new technology invades.

SOURCE via OLED-Display

We previously heard that car manufacturers are developing a new system to monitor the health of the drivers, and it seemed that Ford is the first to show off such system. The American manufacturer has developed a new prototype vehicle seat that is able to monitor your heart activity while you’re driving. Their aim is to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities that occur as a result of motorists having heart attacks behind the wheel. That’s a good thing and very welcomed new technology for vehicles. Read more…

Nokia has announced yet another new phone, still running on Symbian, but the phone looks awfully familiar. It’s called the new Orco, and it’s essentially the older C7 slapped with some gold paint and a rear cover made of real leather. The Nokia Orco still has the same 3.5-inch AMOLED screen, 720p video recording, 8 megapixel camera, a pentaband radio, and the dreadful Symbian OS thought. Price wise, well anything slapped with gold will be pretty pricey. The Nokia Orco is going to sell for €800 ($1,126) before taxes and subsidies and launch is expected in Q3 in select countries across Europe and Asia. Russia in particular is called out as a successful market for such “premium” phones, with Nokia’s Gabriel Speratti, General Manager for its operations in the country, explaining that:

“We have a large number of users who are looking for products with a build quality and superior materials that attest to their success and social standing. In some areas, possession of such premium products is the passport to being taken seriously.”

The Nokia Orco is going to sell for €800 ($1,126) before taxes and subsidies and launch is expected in Q3 in select countries across Europe and Asia.

SOURCE via Nokia