Valve’s popular cloud-based PC gaming platform Steam will now be accessible from your iOS and Android-based mobile phone, according to a press release sent out today by Valve.

The app is currently available, though the service itself is in closed beta. From the press release:

With the Steam app, gamers around the world may chat with Steam friends, browse community groups and user profiles, view screenshots and user-generated content for their favorite games, read the latest gaming news, stay up to date on unbeatable Steam sales, and more.

“The Steam app comes from many direct requests from our customers,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. “Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale - these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone.”

To be considered for inclusion in the beta, users should log into their steam account from the app, which is available for free via the Apple App Store and the Android Market. Valve says that more and more users will be signed up for the beta as time passes.

Finally, we can blow tons of cash on Steam sales from the bus!

Steam Mobile App [Steam]

via Kotaku by Kirk Hamilton on 1/26/12 

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Unfortunately, there is only a limited amount of space.  I was lucky enough to get in and get signed up before they closed it down, but there’s still time for others!  If you’re a part of the BlackBerry Beta Zone, you are more than likely eligible to sign up for the Facebook 1.9.0 Beta release.

Click here to go to BlackBerry Beta Zone now and get registered/logged in!

According to CrackBerry.com:

Key new features of Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones v1.9 include:

·         Dedicated Inbox – View your Facebook messages in one separate inbox or within your BlackBerry messages inbox. The app pre-fetches 30 of your existing messages, and will then continue to sync messages on your BlackBerry smartphone with your Facebook inbox.

·         Facebook Search – Search for individuals and pages, making it easy to find mutual friends, add friends and “like” pages. For BlackBerry 6 users, Universal Search will pull Facebook results too!

·         Enhanced Friends List and Page List – View Friends profile photos and pages in list form

·         Redesigned Navigation Bar – View your own profile and click on the Search and Message icons with the new navigation bar

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We have 25 beta codes for Killzone 3 to giveaway! To enter this contest, we just want you to head on over to the Killzone 3 group and create a blog about anything Killzone related. Talk about how much you’re looking forward to the game, what your favorite parts are, the gun you like to use the most — whatever! So long as it has something to do with the Killzone series.

You have until October 25 at 12:00PM CDT to enter. We’ll be randomly giving out the codes to on people on Monday. These beta codes will only work for US residents, but you can probably just make a US account for all of you foreigners.

via destructoid.com

If I find the time this weekend, I may just have to do this… worth a shot, right?

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Hootsuite is an incredibly popular desktop app and the BlackBerry version has been long awaited. The app is now free and in public beta so give it a try. Hootsuite for BlackBerry gives you the ability to update both Facebook and Twitter, plus on-board stats, scheduling and the other core HootSuite web features you rely upon. Other features of Hootsuite for BlackBerry include:

• Manage multiple social identities and networks
• Receive optional background notifications for updates
• Create custom views for tags and searches
• Schedule messages to send in the future
• Share and store photos & files
• Shorten URLs with built-in Ow.ly tool

Go to hootsuite.com/blackberry to download the public beta. The company has done a great job of supporting a wide variety of BlackBerrys including including OS 4.2.1, 4.5, 4.6, 5.0, and 6.0 – and it’s even touch-enabled where possible.

[View Full Article at BlackBerryCool.com]

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Today, @majornelson tweeted that the Xbox LIVE Update Preview would be released to people who were accepted into the program at one point today.  The update is the new Xbox LIVE Dashboard that was created to work alongside the Kinect and also includes the new ESPN and Zune music features.  Fortunately, I was accepted into the program last week and I can’t wait to get home from work and download the update!  The only downside is that I cannot Party Chat with friends who are not a part of the Update Preview program.  My friends I party with the most have since gotten accepted into the program, so now all is well.

Below is a letter that was released at GamerScoreBlog.com earlier this morning by Marc Whitten going into more detail about the Xbox LIVE Update that will be released shortly.  I’ve provided the letter for you to read below or you can view the full article at GamerScoreBlog.com, if you wish to do so.

A LETTER FROM MARC WHITTEN: THE FALL OF 2010 XBOX LIVE UPDATE

Dear Xbox LIVE members,

Just three months ago at E3 2010, I shared with you the latest entertainment experiences coming to Xbox LIVE, including ESPN and Zune music. Today, I’m excited that tens of thousands of you will receive an advanced look at these new experiences through the Xbox LIVE Preview program.

What you’ll find is that we’re continuing to bring you amazing content to enjoy on Xbox LIVE, we’re making your entertainment social and interactive, and we’re continuing to refine and build on our best experiences.

With this update, we are adding 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events per year, including out of market games, from ESPN3.com and 11 million music tracks from Zune at launch in the US. We are also adding Netflix search to existing features like movie parties to ensure Xbox LIVE continues to be the best way to enjoy Netflix.

With ESPN on Xbox LIVE, available to members in the US, we’re building in interactive features that will let you keep up on the latest scores from around the sports world without leaving the game you’re watching, follow your favorite leagues, predict a winner and see how the rest of the community voted on a particular game. The social nature of our LIVE platform will let you voice chat with up to seven friends on the other coast while watching the big game as if they were sitting next to you in the stadium.

Last year, we delivered tens of thousands of videos instantly in up to 1080p HD to Xbox 360 for the first time, and this fall with the expansion of the Zune music experience on Xbox LIVE, members in the US, U.K., France, Italy and Spain can enjoy unlimited, instant streaming of millions of songs via a Zune Pass music subscription and see what their friends are listening to on the largest screen in the house. What’s better is that you’ll be able to enjoy Zune music and video across your Xbox 360 console, PC and, this holiday, Windows Phone 7.

Also included in this Xbox LIVE update is the launch of Netflix on Xbox LIVE in Canada, a refreshed Xbox LIVE dashboard and updated Xbox LIVE Family Settings so you can help choose the right play and viewing settings for your family. 

But this is only the beginning. With the launch of Kinect for Xbox 360, I truly believe that the best of Xbox LIVE will become extraordinary. This amazing technology will allow you, your friends, and family to navigate ESPN, Zune, Sky Player, and Last.fm on Xbox LIVE with just the sound of your voice and the wave of your hand.

I’m also excited to confirm that Video Kinect will integrate with Windows Live Messenger at launch, so Xbox LIVE members can video chat with hundreds of millions of PC users around the world. Video Kinect will use Kinect to bring the people you care about right into your living room without a headset, and adjust automatically to capture everyone in the room.

Every year we’ve pushed ourselves to deliver the best games and entertainment, and I’m incredibly proud of my team, and what we’re delivering to Xbox LIVE this fall. Our goal is to continue innovating and delivering experiences that are meaningful to you. So you can enjoy the entertainment you want, with the people you care about, in a simple way. Keep playing, keep sharing, and keep pushing us.

See you on LIVE,

Marc Whitten

Gamertag - Notwen

www.twitter.com/notwen

Not all features are available in all Xbox LIVE regions. Netflix subscription required to use Netflix features. An ISP that supports ESPN3.com is required to use ESPN features. Xbox LIVE Gold Account required to use some features.

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The first beta of Internet Explorer 9 dropped this morning, and like IE8 before it, IE9 takes another big step closer to competing with other modern browsers. IE9 introduces a new streamlined interface, improved performance, Windows 7 integration, and more.

Click on any of the images below to get a closer look.

New Interface

The first thing you’ll notice when launching IE9 is that the interface is completely new and takes up very little vertical space. Gone are the days of a million toolbars and lost screen real estate; in fact, the top toolbar is even more pixel-friendly than Chrome. It combines the most important navigation buttons, unified search and address bar, tabs and options buttons all on the same line. You can resize the address bar if need be, too, to fit your preferences, and all your options are available under one unified button, just like the newest version of Chrome. The address bar is pretty handy, giving you suggestions from your history and from Bing, complete with inline images to help you find what you’re looking for. You can, of course, add other search engines if you so desire.

Standards and Performance

IE9 takes a flying leap toward its competitors in the under-the-hood realm, adding hardware acceleration (using your GPU to help render more intensive webapps) and lots of HTML5 support. Microsoft has a nice Test Drive page from which you can test these features out through little games and video demos. It’s certainly not without a few issues (one of the games crashed my display driver, though there’s no way to tell whether that was the browser’s fault), and there are definitely a few random rendering issues—our one line “quicklinks” on Lifehacker are a good example. It is, of course, a huge step up from IE8, and it’s still in beta, so I’m sure we’ll see any issues resolved as time goes by. And, as far as regular browsing goes, it’s the snappiest IE we’ve seen yet.

Windows 7-Supported Application Shortcuts

While Chrome became popular for its ability to create “Application Shortcuts” to webapps that you can pin to the taskbar, Microsoft has taken it a step further by partnering with certain web services like Facebook, Twitter, and Pandora to create their own taskbar-docked bookmarks, complete with jumplist support. For example, dragging the Facebook URL from the address bar down to the Taskbar, it will give me a shortcut with a jumplist that can navigate me to specific parts of the site, like my News Feed, Profile, or Inbox. Then, when you open it up, it will open in its own window, with all the buttons matching the color scheme of the site itself.

Other Tweaks

Finally, like Firefox and other popular browsers, Internet Explorer has a nice little window from which you can monitor and manage your downloads. It’s not revolutionary, but if you prefer this method to the way IE used to do it (or the way Chrome still does it), it’s a pretty welcome change.

Tab management has improved quite a bit in IE9 as well. The biggest change is tab tearing: if you want to separate an open tab into a new window, you can just click and drag it away from the tab bar. It won’t reload your page either; so if you’re watching a YouTube video it won’t start over or anything like that. Plus, since it turns into a window almost instantly, you can drag a tab straight to the side of the screen to invoke Aero Snap. Check out the video above for a quick demonstration.

The new tab page looks a lot like Chrome’s, featuring your most recently visited pages. It’s not nearly as good-looking as the other ones out there (in fact, it’s pretty darn ugly), but it’s useful nonetheless. You can download the beta right now; just hit the link below to check it out.

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Great news, everyone! We’ve decided to extend the online hours of the MAG Beta in order to allow more people access to our newest upcoming content. Instead of the current two four-hour time slots, we’re now going to run a single session that’s a full 12 hours in length!

The new beta session schedule is as follows:

• Hawaii: 5am-5pm
• Alaska: 7am-7pm
• Pacific: 8am-8pm
• Mountain: 9am-9pm
• Central: 10am-10pm
• Eastern: 11am-11pm
• GMT: 3pm-3am

The MAG Beta will continue to be run Monday through Friday. Don’t forget to leave your thoughts on the beta in our beta-specific discussion forum by clicking this link!

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Online Beta Update

For those of you paying attention, you’ve probably heard that LittleBigPlanet 2 beta codes are being distributed. Here’s the skinny: Yes, beta codes are going out. But globally, we’re taking steps to best test our server environment, so we’re distributing beta codes in phases. The first phase of testing started earlier this week with our European LBP community. In a few weeks, we’ll be growing the participant base with US and other countries. More news to come…

Start Featurettes

With so many new features in LittleBigPlanet 2, its impossible to discuss all the new things in one sitting. So we’re introducing a series of LittleBigPlanet 2 Featurettes that highlight some of the many new things you can do in LBP2, such as the new Grappling Hook and the revamped SHARE experience. Stay tuned to the PlayStation.Blog for continuing episodes of LBP2’s Featurettes.

PAX Ends

The dust is still settling from this past weekend’s PAX 2010, and we had a blast seeing all our fans. From watching all the four-player fun, community corner activity (stay tuned next week when we start our “Bloggie” reports), the feverish lines for free Sackboy T-shirts, and the extremely sought after Sackboy plushies. Thanks to all our fans in making PAX 2010 our most memorable yet! And thanks to comphermc, confusedcartman, jaeyden, and morgana25 for hosting our Community Corner.

Here’s a quick glimpse of the fun we had over the weekend:

Mm’s Tom & Spaff right before the doors open

Sackboy plushies for sale!!!….before we sold out

Four-player goodness

And EPIC music sequencer usage

Tweet, Tweet!

We recently “officially” obtained the @LittleBigPlanet Twitter account, and our community managers at Media Molecule have been great at keeping our fans up-to-date on all things LBP. Follow us! (I have a wager that we can get over 100k followers by the end of the month, so please tell your friends and help me win!!!)

LittleBigChallenge

And finally: here’s a glimpse of the fun drawings from the previous artwork challenge. Great stuff guys, thanks for putting your links in our comments section!

This week, the challenge is to show us a picture of your in-game Sackboy. We’d love to see how creative you guys have been with the different outfits (I’m still working on my football outfit, but can’t seem to get it right). Add your link to the comments below and we’ll be sure to check it out.

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