Facebook's 'Press Enter To Comment'

It's often futile to complain about Facebook changing. However, sometimes I can't help but have a moan. 

Facebook recently changed their comments system, and it's irritated me more than any other change. The new concept that you can simply press Enter to post your comment, has led to many a deleted comment, or hasty explanation. I know I could press shift+enter but it just doesn't feel right. 

For me, comments are for reasoned and considered responses, which often involve using paragraphs, or line breaks, sometimes for comic effect. Pressing enter to send makes perfect sense within the context of Facebook chat, but not comments.

Augustana album review

Their latest self titled album, released 26/4/2011, is a peaceful collection of sweet little melodies from the Californian rockers. Unlike their epic song 'Boston', this album's songs feel light hearted and cheerful. After listening a few times a feeling comes to mind; that the band have found their sound and are comfortably writing in it. Question is, are any of these songs big enough to land numerous TV show appearances like 'Boston' from their second album. A very laid back album, it's simple and chilled out. 6.

Twitter responds to Osama's death

I don't know if you've heard, but, Osama Bin Laden died. Of course you've heard, this has been quite the major event. As with all major events these days, particularly deaths, the socials networks went crazy. Today Twitter released it's statistics from last night. Just before President Obama made his speech, Twitter users were generating around 5,000 tweets per second. That should give you some indication of just how much this moment resonated with people. 

It was also possible to measure the unoriginality of humour during the announcement. Both 'Megatron' and 'Jack Bauer' were among the trending topics. Everyone's a comedian. 

How far will the Internet go to show you love?

The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-communications, have successfully created a device which allows users to transmit the feeling of a kiss, via the Internet. 

This miraculous device can be placed into the mouth, and incorporates software that memorizes the movement of your tongue sending signals to the other connected device, which in turn moves accordingly. 

But isn’t this over stepping the boundaries a little too far? Making it too convenient for inhabitants to stay locked up indoors, glued to their blank computer screens IM’ing mysterious masked figures rather than venturing outdoors and meeting real people, with real personalities. 

Support acts at gigs.

Recently I went to see my favourite band, Underoath, perform a gig in Sheffield. Full of excitement I met the band backstage with a photo and autographs. I thought my night was perfect, until the support acts.

First support were a local band, who enjoyed running on the spot and playing their set with their backs to us. Second support were Devil Sold His Soul, a tight band who make amazing music and really got me in the mood for what I thought wouldUnderoath next. There was a third support act Deaf Havana. If this generic pop punk band hadn't have played then my favourite band would have played more.

Gigs are becoming ridiculous, three support acts is far too many and it's reducing the time we have to see the bands we actually pay to see.

Amia Venera Landscape: The Long Procession Album review

Amia Venera Landscape's debut album The Long Procession was released 4/12/2010, over a year after their first, self titled, EP. This album has genuinely left me lost for words. Originally I was in love with the EP, though it was short at three tracks, it was enough to induce hyper anticipation of their future album.

This band has put no less than everything in to their album, and no less than perfection has come out through the album.  A careful balance of brutal and symphonic soundscapes have been created by the Italian sextet. Their wide instrumental sections are a place no other hardcore bands could produce, possibly bar Underøath. Their music is deep and from the heart, which is the only way to describe them without listening yourself. 9.

http://amiaveneralandscape.bandcamp.com/

Birds Tweeting.

It was bound to happen. Latvian birds have been allowed to 'tweet' after someone decided to attach fat to the keys of a keyboard and let the birds 'type' by eating. The tweets are, as you'd expect, unintelligible strings of random letters and numbers. Despite this, they're quite entertaining to see. The birds are streamed live at birdsontwitter.com. Unfortunately, the birds are away for spring and will be back in winter. My suggestion is to follow them now @hungry_birds and once November rolls around, you might be treated (or should I say 'tweeted') to the works of Shakespeare. 

Pepsi Social Vending Machines

Pepsi is beginning to roll out new 'social' vending machines in the US. 

It seems Pepsi are hopping on the 'social' bandwagon. How exactly can a vending machine be social? The new machines allow users to select a drink as a 'gift' for a friend, by entering their name and mobile number. This then sends a code to the friend that can be used to redeem the drink at one of pepsi's special machines. This seems to fall between utterly pointless and futuristically cool. I imagine buying someone who happens to be miles away a drink would have it's novelty. 

New Oddworld projects announced

Oddworld studios accompanied their delay of Strangers Wrath HD with three extra announcements at Gamecity Nights that got such an Oddworld fan as myself reminiscing.  Firstly, Munch's Oddysee will be receiving the PS3 treatment, the same as strangers wrath...good start.  Second, Oddboxx (a whole compilation of the four titles to this legendary series) will be coming over to the suite of consoles available to us now.  And third, and probably most interesting, the mysterious "Hand of Odd" (disappeared off the map when Munch's Oddysee was transferred to the Xbox) and released on PC/Mac/iOS and one unannounced mobile platform...Windows Mobile or Android basically.  The freemium route will be taken temporarily when this missing link is released, so if you're as much of a nerd for Oddworld as we are, I suggest keeping your ear to the ground.

Strangers Wrath HD delayed

A night of both bad news and excitement was in store for Gamecity, as Just Add Water's boss Stewart Gilray took the stage.  It's no surprise that this ensemble was working on reviving Strangers Wrath for our fair PS3; but the delay from it releasing this week until the summer is a shot to the arm of any expectant fan.  To remedy this, JAW are adding PS move and 3DTV support...two features a vast majority of us do not care about.  The third is a feature that couldn't be discussed; but made pretty obvious through Steward saying "it's something that ties PSN and PC close together" to be steam support (the same as you'd find with Portal 2).