Just for Laughs - Bane Memes

I love these. Just wanted to share. The Bane character was so awesome in The Dark Knight Rises yet he's also so easy to parody.

Preview - The New iPhone - What We Know and What We Hope We Know

Its getting to be that time of year again. After taking a longer than average 16 month break between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4s, the iPhone is now firmly entrenched in the Fall release window for all future releases. September-October is the perfect spot for new iPhones to come out because the mad rush of holiday shopping will be right around the corner. So what can we expect this year? I will break down what we know and what we hope we know.

What we know:
The New iPhone, as I believe it will be called is going to be coming out sometime in the next 2 months, as upticks in parts manufacturing have already confirmed. The only real hard facts we have on The New iPhone come on the software side of things, meaning that some older iPhones (4 and 4s mainly) can also make use of these features, but we'll touch on a few of them anyway.

The first iOS 6 feature will be Maps. Apple has dropped their partnership with Google Maps for this iteration of iOS in favor of their own Maps app. This new Maps will offer turn-by-turn navigation, real time traffic updates, and 3D flyover views of major cities. Siri will also be getting smarter in iOS6 (The Siri we know right now is still just a beta). An entirely new feature is Passbook, which will be a smart way of keeping your airline tickets, movie tickets, coupons, and retail store cards all saved on your phone for easy access right when you need it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be at least one more big surprise feature on the software side of things that we haven't seen yet but it might be that for The New iPhone the hardware will be the biggest surprise.

What we hope we know:
(The following is all going to be rumors and my opinions)
To compete in the ever expanding smart phone market The New iPhone is going to have to go big or go home and I mean that literally. If my sources are to be believed The New iPhone will drop the 3.5 inch screen that has been dwarfed in the shadow of gigantic Android monstrosities and go for a large but not cumbersome 4 inch 16:9 screen. The new screen size will keep the iPhone in the game with other phones, making movie watching and web browsing that much easier but still allowing the device to be comfortably pocketable.

The New iPhone may also be dropping the back glass panel and going for a solid, two-tone, aluminum (or liquid metal?) unibody enclosure to save on space. Along with new thinner screen technology for the front panel, this should allow more than enough room on the inside to beef up the specs of the processor, memory, battery, etc. If past trends continue we will also likely get a camera upgrade as well (fingers crossed for a higher quality front facing camera). Other new additions we can see in the supposedly leaked photos are the new mini dock connector and mini sim card slot both of which Apple has been pushing for.

Things we can't see in photos specifically but can still hope for are 4G LTE support and NFC. We will have to wait and see what the final product looks like and pray that it surpassed our expectations. Another rumor flying around is the elusive 7 inch mini iPad which may be shown off at the same time as The New iPhone. The iPhone event is said to take place September 12th with the product releasing 9 days after that.

Source: engadget iLab Factory

Arnold Is Back!

 
"I am the sheriff"

Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the king of action movie one-liners. Although you can catch him in Expendable 2 starting today, his first real starring role in a movie since his return to film won't come until Janurary 2013 when The Last Stand comes out.

The Last Stand looks like a pretty generic action movie from what we can see in the trailer, with Arnold playing a sheriff in a town along the border. When that town comes under siege from a drug cartel, its up to Arnold to stop them from getting through into America. It also appears that Arnold may try to play his character with a little more depth and emotion than we are used to from him. Whether that will really comes across well on the screen has yet to be determined though. For big fans of the Governator or generic action movies The Last Stand will be for you, but I don't think it will provide much beyond that.

As a side note, another Arnold movie in development that I think has a lot more promise than The Last Stand is a movie called The Tomb. No its not an Indiana Jones rip-off, it actually has Arnold as a prisoner in a supermax prison which is on a freighter floating out in the middle of the ocean who must team up with Sylvester Stallone, the designer of the prison, when Stallone's character is wrongly incarcerated in the prison he designed. Jim Caviezel plays the hardened prison warden who tries to thwart their plans. Below is the first set photo from The Tomb showing Arnold and Stallone in costume.

Look for The Last Stand January 18, 2013 and The Tomb on a TBD release date in 2013.


The Last Stand - Trailer

Opinion - Counter Strike: Global Offensive Beta

For my first opinion piece on The Dharma Files, I wanted to talk about a game I just recently started playing this week, Counter Strike: Global Offensive. As someone new to the Counter Strike series, I wasn't sure what to expect when I pre-purchased CS:GO on Steam to gain access to the beta and 10% off. But for under $15 I figured it wasn't too much of a risk.

After about a 20-30 minute download, my steam library had two new additions, CS:GO which is locked until August 21, and the CS:GO beta which I had access to right away. So I sat down at my macbook pro to try the beta for a short while and was pleasantly surprised with the polish and uniqueness of the game. As stated earlier, this is my first foray into the world of Counter Strike, having only watched a friend play the original CS years ago. Being new to the series, I was happy to see the inclusion of an offline option to play with bots. — A bit of advice from The Dharma Files: When playing any online FPS for the first time, if there is an offline or private match mode available, make use of it! Instead of fumbling around the maps for the first time in ranked online matches, first take the time to learn the game, maps, and weapons before taking yourself online. — Anyways I played offline with bots for about two hours now and have enjoyed every second of it. I was surprised by the large number of maps available and the graphics were also very good for a $15 game. The weapons also have a Battlefield 3-esque feel to them which is hard for me to explain. In other words, they aren't like CoD weapons, which could really just be reskins of the same weapon with different fire rates. Also like BF3 there is recoil which must be dealt with; None of the weapons shoot straight like a laser beam. But thats a good thing. I just hope there will be more guns included in the full release of the game.

I'll wait to give a review until the full game releases and I put in a couple hours playing online, but I do feel comfortable to give the recommendation to pre-purchase the game on Steam if you so desire. CS:GO releases on August 21 for PC and Mac on Steam, Xbox Live, and PSN.

-Nate

What Are The Dharma Files?

I'm glad you asked.

The Dharma Files are the continuation of a now defunct YouTube channel that I used to run, but had to place a hold on back in January 2012, due to time constraints. All of my old videos can still be seen at the old channel here, www.youtube.com/user/thedharmagamer but bear in mind the most recent video is 7 months old so they are a little out of date. Although my channel never took off as I had hoped, I was always proud of the content I was able to produce. I had overwhelmingly positive reviews on my videos and I loved making commentaries, but as senior year of high school became more demanding, I could not devote the amount of time needed to continue with that same level of quality in my content.

The abrupt ending to my YouTube channel has been bugging me ever since. Over the past month I have had the urge over and over to make a comeback, but the opportunity had to be right. Today is the day. I am now opening The Dharma Files.

So what can you expect from reading The Dharma Files?

The Dharma Files will be a place to come for information, news, opinions, and reviews on the latest happenings in the world of gaming, technology, and entertainment. New articles will come as often as I deem necessary, and only when there is something I find worthy of being added to The Dharma Files. For a taste of my style, check out my old backlog of videos here, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDharmaGamer/videos, and stay tuned for more in the coming days. I will continue to use my old twitter so you can also look for updates to The Dharma Files here: https://twitter.com/DharmaGamer

-Nate; The Dharma Gamer; Founder, President, and Head Writer for The Dharma Files