"There used to be nothing better than going to the store, buying a brand new game, and putting it in your system of choice to sit down for a nice day of gaming. This should be a grand moment: you just bought a game you're excited about playing, and the publisher has your money. These days, however, it has become a wonderful opportunity to punish you instead. Here's how that goes down, and what I don't want to do when I buy a new game..."

"With its open-ended nature and robust creation tools, Minecraft has been used to create some amazing things. And as one teacher learned, those very same elements that make the game so compelling also make it a great educational tool.

"Kansas City, Kansas will have a new Internet provider next year, one that operates a 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home network, provides "open access" to any ISP wanting to use the pipes, and charges fees in line with current rates for much slower connections. That new Internet provider? Google.

"When you rolled out of bed this morning, did your thoughts turn to preserving your data in the case of hardware failure? If so, you either work with databases or you remembered that today, March 31, is World Backup Day. In fact, it's the first World Backup Day. The concept emerged from our sister site, reddit, where one intrepid redditor suggested the idea a week ago, and the reddit community quickly jumped onboard.

"I have a buddy named Matt who's a digital pack-rat. He's the guy you call when you need a movie or a TV show, because chances are he's got it. Among the finer things in his collection is the entire multi-decade run of "Dr. Who," including lots of rare black and white Hartnell stuff. He's long since reached the point where he could put his collection on random play and die of old age before he sees a repeat.

"The PC industry is tightly coupled to and utterly reliant upon the world of semiconductors. As Moore’s Law grants ever more transistors, hardware progresses, becoming more advanced and more integrated. This has accustomed the whole world to an astonishing pace of innovation. The PC ecosystem always seems to be in a state of transition, moving from the old to the new and more efficient. 2011 is a year on the threshold and in the midst of many major changes—more so than in years past.

"Metered broadband billing has become a volatile regulatory question in Canada. It has also become a political issue, with that country's Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic parties taking stands on the question of whether big telcos like Bell Canada can sell wholesale network access to smaller ISPs via a metered or usage-based-billing (UBB) system.

"EA's Battlefield 3 event was everything wonderful and terrible about gaming journalism. I waited in line, herded like a cow until I put on a name tag, was shown the open bar, and was handed a piece of meat on a stick to eat until the game was shown. The crush of crowd was fantastic; EA seemed to have underestimated the amount of people who would be interested in the game.

"SiGNa Chemistry Inc. is launching a hydrogen-producing cartridge, the mobile-H2™, that will work with a portable, pocket-sized fuel cell charger to provide instant power for cell phones and other mobile devices. You simply add water to the cartridge, and the device will charge depleted batteries on the go. For further convenience, any water will do (even waste water). Unlike solar battery chargers, you don’t need to worry about getting enough sunlight. According to its press materials, these cartridges provide a steady level of power from beginning to end."

"Dedicated portable gaming devices may have some stiff competition these days, but that hasn't stopped Nintendo from launching the 3DS in Japan. With less than half a million units for sale and a somewhat paltry launch line-up, how did the handheld fare? Quite well, actually.