Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation

It took just four months for Call of Duty: Black Ops to become the top-selling game of all time in the U.S. But instead of  resting on their laurels (the game's still hovering around the middle of the all-formats top-ten), publisher Activision continues to keep Black Ops' stunningly popular multiplayer modes fresh.

This week sees the release of the second downloadable map pack for Black Ops. Dubbed "Escalation," it's available on Xbox Live right now, and will be along on PS3 and PC at a to-be-announced future date.

And in most aspects, Escalation is a case of second verse, same as the first. Call of Duty fans will be thoroughly familiar with its

Scrabble - Hasbro Scrabble, one of the last bastions of grammatical purism in
a world overrun by cell phone text abbreviations, is capitulating to the times.

The board game plans to add 3,000 new words to its official dictionary, including several slang terms like "thang" (9 points) and "grrl" (5 points) as well as pop culture touchstones, like Facebook and MySpace.

Turning the most heads is the inclusion of "innit," a condensation of "isn't it" that will earn you 5 points - and the undying hatred of any English majors who are playing along.

In addition, two new "Q" words have been added that don't require a "u". "Qin" (a Chinese zither, with strings stretched across a flat box) will earn you 12 points,

Black Ops

Every day, the average Facebook user spends 55 minutes clicking through the popular social networking site. That's an impressive time
sink -- but players of Call of Duty: Black Ops have them beat.

Activision says since the First Strike downloadable content pack was released on February 1, players have averaged 58 minutes per day playing online. Given that the game itself is now over six months old, that's a
seriously dedicated fan base.

In fact, since the game's release, Black Ops players have logged over 1.2 billion hours of online play. To put things in perspective, that's just shy of 137,000 man years.

And the publisher is looking to hook that fan base in even further. During an

Bog-standard 6-sided dice - Morguefile They've been with us forever, providing civilization after civilization with convenient,
pocket-sized random-number generators to supply their gaming, gambling, and
entertainment needs.

But of all the shapes in the world, why did they all settle on the cube as the perfect shape for
dice?

Actually, there aren't all that many suitable shapes, considering the needs of game players.
Most importantly, a die has to be fair -- that is, it must have an equal chance
of landing on any of its faces. It also needs to roll well, but not too well,
and have a clearly identifiable top face. Trickier than it sounds.

Fortunately, math provides us the perfect place to get started, with the set of shapes

How to see more of this stuff. - Morguefile Energy costs are sky-high, and they're not going down any time soon. And although
video games provide more bang for the buck than some other pastimes we could
name, it's not exactly a money-saving hobby.

But with a few simple tweaks, you can overhaul your gaming habits and equipment,
reduce your energy usage, and increase your ailing bank account. Here's how.

Turn it off!

Obvious, right? Convenient though it might be to leave a game running while you run out
for more delicious Cheetos, you're wasting energy that could be put to better
use. Even if you're forgetful, there's no excuse: all modern consoles have
auto-power-off features buried down in the set up menus. Set 'em, forget 'em,
save

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer apologized to users of its PlayStation Network and other online services, breaking his silence on the biggest Internet security break-in ever.

Stringer's comments, which did not specify when services would resume, come after criticism of his leadership since Sony revealed hackers had compromised the data of more than 100 million accounts used for accessing games and music over the Internet.

"As a company we - and I - apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack," Stringer said on Sony's U.S. PlayStation blog late on Thursday.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer - Reuters The incident may prove to be a significant setback for a company looking to

Pac-Ban Don't look for a Pac-Man machine in Marshfield, Mass. And forget finding a place to play Golden Tee as well.

Located 25 miles southeast of Boston, the small city of 4,297 is the only town in America where arcade games are illegal. And it likes it that way.

Twenty-nine years after citizens of the town voted to ban the placement of video game machines in public places, Marshfield voters were asked if it was time to get rid of the law. The vote, held during a town hall meeting, was 655-554 against making any changes.

Arcades, of course, are relatively hard to find anywhere these days, but that's more due to the popularity of home systems than because of legal restrictions. So what, exactly,

Associated Press

The massive data breach at Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Network has left accountholders worrying that their credit card information could fall into the wrong hands. Now the technology giant is hoping to ease concerns by offering free identity theft protection to affected customers.

The PlayStation Network links gamers worldwide in live play and serves the company's Qriocity movie and music services.

The Details

Sony says the ID theft protection will be free for 12 months after enrollment. The company says PlayStation Network and Qriocity account holders should expect an email in coming days with instructions on how to enroll in the AllClear ID Plus program by Debix Inc.

Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer - Getty Images Those who enroll will