The final week of Sony’s Holiday Essentials sale is upon us, and this promotion is ending on a high note. Most notably, there’s Sound Shapes and Tokyo Jungle, which are now $10.49 each, or $7.35 each for PlayStation Plus members. However, those are hardly the only good deals here:

AR PLAY (Sale: $6.25, PS Plus: $4.38, Regular: $8.94)
Assassin’s Creed 2 Deluxe Edition (Sale: $13.99, PS Plus: $9.80, Regular: $19.99)
Batman: Arkham City (Sale: $20.99, PS Plus: $14.70, Regular: $29.99)
Bulletstorm (Sale: $13.99, PS Plus: $9.80, Regular: $19.99)
inFAMOUS 2 (Sale: …

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Via Gizmodo

Who the @!#* is Kevin Dent? That’s how the 2012-encapsulated story of THQ’s demise as a publicly traded company began in January. Dent, an industry insider who also chaired the IGDA Mobile SIG, became a bomb-dropping soothsayer of THQ’s future. Industry pundits didn’t know what to do about him, but as 2012 concludes, it’s clear he was the Cassandra of the year.
As the financial and human toll of THQ became bleaker over the year, the company finally admitted in early November it was seeking “strategic alternatives” and its stock …

Velocity Micro is refreshing its NoteMagix line of laptops with three 14-inch Ultrabooks: the U430, U450 and U470. These models aren’t the thinnest machines in their category — the aluminum design tips in at four pounds — but all three have enough room for a DVD drive. All three models also feature a 14-inch display with a resolution of 1,366 x 768 — and, notably, none of them come with bloatware. Other specs include a 1.3-MP webcam, integrated Intel HD 4000 Graphics and a rated battery life of …

Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.

2012, we salute you. All in all, you’ve been a pretty good year. There’s been highs, lows, and lots of inbetweens. Above all else, though, you’ve been generous in the alternative arena. Whether it’s the discovery of certain particles, or activities in space, 2012 had it covered. What better way to finish it off, then, with a disease smelling dog, a plan to catch an asteroid and a growable hangover cure. …

It used to cost ridiculous amounts of money to record video from other sources, especially in HD. But these past few years companies like Hauppague, Pinnacle, AVerMedia and others have released affordable boxes that let you capture footage directly to your computer for editing and saving. Taking the price down from thousands to hundreds for these boxes came right in time for the explosion of streaming and sharing video on the internet.
One of the most popular of these devices was Hauppague’s HD PVR video recorder, released about five or six years ago. For less …

If you were worried by the permanence of a “Crimson Omen” tattoo on your chest, you may wish to consider the less drastic measures to support of just getting a shirt with Gears of War: Judgment on it.
Epic Games’ online store has products covering Infinity Blade, Gears of War, Fortnite and the Unreal Engine – just wait a few seconds for the colors and logo to fully load before you walk out the door.
Epic’s online store covers you in Gears, Fornite and Infinity Blade originally appeared on Joystiq on …

Filed under: Podcasts

This week’s Super Joystiq Podcast is crazy, and thus plays all games with inverted controls.
It’s the holidays, but not even copious amounts of food and drink can keep us away from our podcasting duties! Join Xav, Ludwig, Alexander, and Dave “inverted” Hinkle for a look back at some of the best games of 2012.
Be sure to keep an eye out next week for a special live video edition of the show.
Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:

Subscribe to the Super Joystiq Podcast in iTunes
Super …

Magnetic levitation is central to the fastest trains we know today, but it’s that dependence on electromagnets and rails that limits how and where it’s used for transportation. Aoyama Gakuin University has a unique alternative: changing the material properties themselves. By floating graphite over a bed of circular magnets, taking advantage of its tendency to generate an opposing magnetic field, researchers can move the graphite just by blasting its edge with a laser. The heat skews the magnetic behavior of that area enough to unbalance the graphite, either …