On May 21st at 10am Pacific time, Microsoft will unveil its next-generation Xbox console. And if this article were titled "What we know for sure about the next Xbox," we could end it here. Microsoft has been very tight-lipped about the successor to the Xbox 360, but that's about to change.

Sony revealed the Playstation 4 in Feburary, promsing more info at the E3 Expo in June. Sony set the bar, and now it's up to Microsoft to clear it. In truth, there's not a lot of really solid information about the next Xbox. Rumors have circulated online for years, and seem to change with the tide. That said, when you hear the same things repeated often enough, from generally reliable sources, you start to get a reasonable idea of what to expect. We know what we would like to see in the next Xbox, but what are we likely to see?

The name

The code name for the next Xbox is Durango, but just as the console called Xenon was formally named Xbox 360, Durango will soon shed its development name in favor of a public moniker. Some have colloquially called Microsoft's next console the Xbox 720, because that's double 360, but that can't be the name, because frankly, it's dumb.

The International Business Times in the UK claims to have sources stating the name will be Xbox Infinity, which isn't half bad. This rumor gained a lot of weight thanks to a very official-looking marketing mock-up by a Reddit user going by the name of "C-Ron." Xbox Infinity might be the name (it has a nice ring to it and is suitably broad in appeal), but a fan-made logo is in no way proof of anything.

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Memorial Day may mark the beginning of summer in some ways, but it's winter for electronics shoppers, seeking bargains on TVs, computers, and other gear.

"May is typically not a good time to purchase electronics: it's generally a month of transition," writes Louis Ramirez for bargain hunter website DealNews.com.

For example, new HDTV models have started to enter the market. That means prices are starting to be slashed on older models. But in another 90 days or so, prices will start slipping on those newer models, too, so if you can be patient, your procrastination will be rewarded.

Memorial Day is also very close to number of high-profile events that will impact the computer and gaming markets.

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Security researchers found serious vulnerabilities in the engines of several popular first-person shooter video games that could allow attackers to compromise their online servers and the computers of players accessing them.

Security researchers Luigi Auriemma and Donato Ferrante from Malta-based security consultancy firm ReVuln found memory corruption and buffer-overflow issues in “CryEngine 3,” “Unreal Engine 3,” “Hydrogen Engine” and “id Tech 4.” These are game engines that are used in video games like “Quake 4,” “Crysis 2,” “Homefront,” “Brink,” “Monday Night Combat,” “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars”, “Sanctum”, “Breach,” “Nexuiz” and many others.

The vulnerabilities found by the two researchers can be used to launch remote code execution or denial-of-service attacks against game clients and servers by sending maliciously crafted data packets to them.

Auriemma and Ferrante presented their findings Friday at the NoSuchCon security conference in Paris and released a video showing proof-of-concept attacks against Crysis 2 and Quake 4 servers. More details about the vulnerabilities are available in a research paper released Monday.

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Unity Technologies has added the ability to develop for Android and iOS games for free using its platform.

Unity’s cross-platform development tools can be used to create games for a multitude of different platforms, including smartphones, PCs and game consoles, simultaneously. Previously, developers had to pay $400 each if they wanted to create games for Android and iOS, but that will now be completely free, Unity CEO David Helgason said in a blog post Tuesday.

The change in pricing is an extension of Unity Free, which the company launched in 2009, according to Helgason. Doing that was a fantastic decision and allowed Unity’s community to grow from 13,000 people to almost 2 million today, he said in a video clip attached to the blog post. The company now hopes this latest change will help the platform continue to increase the number of users.

“Mobile game development has exploded into probably the most compelling part of the industry, especially for small studios and independent developers,” Helgason said.

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Sometimes, you just need a quick game fix. And even if you have a high-powered gaming rig at home that’s raring to go, it won’t do you any good while you’re standing on a corner, waiting for a bus.

That’s where mobile action games come in. Action games for Android come in a multitude of forms and sizes. And from modern-day war games to cartoony jaunts through Zombieville USA, the Google Play store has them all. You just have to know where to look. These eight titles are well worth your while as you while away some spare time.

Zombieville USA, $1

Zombieville USA assigns you the familiar yet thankless role of sole survivor of a zombie apocalypse. But instead of being dark and twisted, this game is bright and bold, with some of the cutest cadavers ever. Your goals are simple: Survive (of course), and gather loot—lots of loot. The formula is simple: Kill zombies, collect cash, escape levels, purchase goodies, and then do it all over again. Just goes to show you: Even when you’re the last person alive after an apocalypse, you can still buy stuff.

As one of Mika Mobile’s earlier productions, Zombieville USA isn’t much of an overachiever. The most pressing issue for you is how to optimize your limited stash of ammo. But thanks to its respectable collection of weaponry, Zombieville USA deserves a place on your screen—at least until its successor finally comes out for Android.

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Tower defense games are what many in the industry would call an acquired taste. At the most basic level, they operate on the same concept: The gamer has a central point to defend, a bunch of turrets to construct, and waves upon waves of enemies to defeat. Though often criticized as repetitive and overtly brutal, fans of the genre know that tower defense games are an addictive, soul-sucking diversion. Whether you’re a stoic fan or you’re just curious, read on through our round-up of some of the most interesting tower defense games in the Google Play store today.

Tower Defense: Lost Earth

What better way to start this collection of tower defense titles than with one named after the genre itself? Tower Defense: Lost Earth plops you down in a futuristic space setting, and you’re charged with defending against an unending hoard of ghoulish aliens. The game doesn’t aim to redefine the genre—it’s just here to deliver what fans want: a masochistic game characterized by its nine different types of towers, ten kinds of aliens, and the occasional resource-gathering. If you don't want novelty with your tower defense, this game will keep you busy with its panoply of decently balanced game modes and challenge stages.

Price: Free

Plants vs. Zombies

One of the more unusual and iconic tower defense games, Plants vs. Zombies replaces traditional turrets and weapons with zombie-hating vegetation. The bright and colorful game has you using plants to prevent attacking zombies from reaching your home. Bizarre as all that may sound, the whole idea actually works swimmingly. It’s a little silly, a little simple—and an excellent download for both seasoned veterans and those new to the genre entirely.

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Demiurge Studios' Shoot Many Robots has gone from consoles to PCs—and now a port of the game is available on Android. Robot shooting purists might dismiss the simplified mechanics of the mobile version, but this is still a light-hearted romp though a post-apocalyptic world with too many robots and guns.

Shoot Many Robots, as you might imagine, has you shoot many robots as you continuously run from left to right. You’ll spend most of the game dealing out lead to these machinations by spamming the fire button. But this isn’t a walk though fields of machines—there are multiple paths you can take and you'll have to keep an eye out for obstacles. It’s a fast paced game that keeps you on your toes while you decide which path will net you biggest amount of nuts (the game's currency) and bot kills.

A typical game goes on forever through an apocalyptic industrial backdrop starting with a dirt trail that eventually leads to a defunct oil field. The fun only ends when you meet your inevitable demise by touching a robot, spike wall, explosive barrel or generally any surface.

In between bouts of run-and-gun action, you return to your doomsday preparer's RV to upgrade your load-out. This includes improving your infinitely dumping revolver, as well as a zanier supply of consumable flamethrowers and Tesla guns.

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Forget the silly name. Gears of War: Judgment takes a distinctly different tone and shift towards a more arcade-like sort of gameplay that's light on story and heavy on action. It's the right direction to take, keeping Judgment from becoming just some superfluous prequel.

It’s been a year and a half since we’ve seen a Gears of War game, and in that time games have changed. Thankfully, so has Gears—gone are the big set pieces and instrumental narrative moments, replaced by quick, arcade-style campaign sections split across easy checkpoints. 

While Gears of War: Judgment takes place years before the events of the original Gear of War, not much is different. You play as Baird instead of Marcus Fenix, but you still have all the same weapons, kick open just as many doors, and shoot plenty of Locust scum. Your characters still yell out the most ridiculous lines,  but because of the drastic shift towards a lighter story it feels like a completely different game.

That said, the simple arcade-like campaign breakdown jives with one of Judgment’s biggest additions, Declassified missions. When activated, a set of parameters is displayed, altering the gameplay conditions and thus, Baird’s memory of the events (the game relies heavily on flashbacks as a narrative device.) These challenges are fairly unique, often limiting line of sight or the weapons you can use, bringimg a new dynamic of play into each scenario. These modifiers afford you the opportunity to change the game and keep it interesting, something that the series was in dire need of. There are a few Declassifed missions that are easy to miss though, so it quickly becomes necessary to start hunting for one before doing anything else after a section loads.

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Apyr’s new iOS game, Sushi Mushi, combines a love of sushi with a love of mobile gaming, without the fear of dropping your iPhone into a side of soy sauce.

Sushi Mushi is a fast-paced timed puzzle game where you, an adorable monster character of your choosing, challenge your opponent, an adorable monster of the game’s choosing, to a competition of matching up sushi rolls. You can either challenge a random opponent or can invite your friends through Facebook or your contact list. It’s a cute and novel spin on the classic match-the-tiles type of game.

Each match consists of three 90-second rounds fought against your opponent where whoever has the most total points wins. You have one relatively simple task: match up the sushi to earn points. You can match up the rolls by two different ways, by color or, if you’re looking for a slightly more difficult way, by shapes. The total points add up and eventually you’ll earn your achievements and promotions for your little monsters, which start off with a white belt and then advance all the way to the rank of black belt.

Sound easy? It is. Within a few rounds, you realize that Sushi Mushi isn’t a hard game, but it’s fun, and there’s actually some strategy to it. In no time you’ll be foregoing the easy three-piece matches for the more challenging, and rewarding, 17-piece tsunamis. And although you’ll hate to admit it, when the in-game music switches to its “time is almost up” tune, your eyes and finger will be left feverously darting across the screen in hopes of finding those remaining matching raw fish.

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Did you own or have access to a computer in the '90s? If so, you've probably flirted with a point-and-click adventure game at least once. Though hardly a ubiquitous delight, titles like Monkey Island, Loom, and Grim Fandango are fixtures in the annals of video gaming history. Even if you didn't enjoy their company terribly much, you knew who they were—kind of like Gangnam Style (except less annoying).

Sadly, fame is fleeting. As the years passed, interest in the genre dwindled and, for a while, people worried over its possible extinction. Thanks to the ingenuity and continued efforts of developers such as TellTale Games and Wadjet Eye Games, however, that fear is slowly starting to ebb. As shown in this recent piece on PCWorld, adventure games are making a comeback.

And while the best ones are still reserved for platforms other than Android (oh, Walking Dead, how could you deny us of your putrid pulchritude?), we've got a list of great adventure games to help you jump-start that trip down Memory Lane.

Machinarium

There's reason why Machinarium collects accolades the way Ash collects Pokemon: It's just plain beautiful. It's Wall-E without the special effects, the cutesy obese humans, and the dialogue; a robotic love story told with hand-painted, steampunk sensibilities. As the protagonist, you're responsible for penetrating a city's labyrinthine depths, finding your missing girlfriend, dealing with the intrigues of the Black Cap Brotherhood, and testing your mental acuity in the process.

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City of Steam continues to simmer away, as the steampunk game slowly comes to a boil, and I've used my allotted number of lame puns. [When it's stewed a bit longer and is ready to serve in open beta, we'll be there.—Ed., using editorial allotment of lame puns.]

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Few of us will enjoy the Super Bowl this year, since the Philadelphia Eagles aren’t playing it. Still, we can’t allow our sour grapes regarding Andy Reid’s unpleasant swan song in Philadelphia to taint our enjoyment of all things football. And thankfully, your mobile device offers plenty of gaming options to get your pigskin fix, whether it’s in preparation for Sunday’s Eagles-less Big Game or to stave off the misery of a football-free offseason.

Football fun comes in various forms for touch screen-based gaming. There are true football simulators that aim to recreate the action of the game as much as is possible with entirely finger-based controls, and there are more arcade-style games that instead choose to focus on a singular element of the game: running back jukes or field goal kicking, for example.

We’ve looked at football-related iOS games before, including the long-in-the-tooth but still enjoyable Super Shock Football HD, a pair of field-goal focused apps, and the delightful running and tackling-focused Backbreaker Football 2. But here’s a fresh look at some other football titles available from most mobile app emporiums of your choosing.

Big Win Football

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Galaxy S III? Nexus 7? In any case, congratulations on your new Android phone or tablet. What’s that? Someone told you there were no decent games on Android? Well, as 2013 rolls in, not only have most iPhone developers ported some of their best titles to Google's mobile OS, but we’re also seeing many great games that are available only on Android. Read on for a list of fun, accessible, and affordable Android games that will keep you glued to your phone or tablet wherever you go.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is, by anyone’s count, the once and future king of mobile games—three years after its release, it’s still impossible to ride the subway for a week without seeing someone playing this game. The premise is simple: Pigs have stolen the Birds’ eggs, hence the Birds are Angry; use the touchscreen to slingshot your Angry Birds at the pigs. The levels are creative, you can use birds with special abilities, and the game's theme song will stick in your head for the rest of your life. Highly recommended—and if you ever finish it, you can move on to Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Price: Free

Pac-Man Championship Edition

Who doesn’t love Pac-Man? No fair answering “people born after 1990.” Okay, who doesn’t love Pac-Man with high-definition retro graphics and a weird trance-rave aesthetic? Also people born after 1990? Huh. Well, tell you what—Pac-Man is a classic, and this is a great, stylish, fast-paced remake of a classic. The ghosts are faster, the levels are more varied, and Pac-Man himself is more agile, skidding around corners like a 1972 Trans Am.

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Frozen Synapse (iOS, $6.99)

I’ve never gave Frozen Synapse much of a shot when it launched on PC (and Mac) a couple years ago. It's a fast paced, turn-based strategy game with brutally competitive multiplayer—and the thought of needing to fire up my gaming PC just to play a few quick turns always rubbed me the wrong way. Fortunately, and after a bit of a hefty wait, the long-promised iPad port has arrived.

The Frozen Synapse experience is alive and well on the iPad, and survived the journey to a touchscreen device largely intact. The game's objective will be familiar to strategy game fans: inflict harm on your opponents with a range of weapons, while occasionally rescuing hostages or securing locations. The twist here is in the pacing—you have an immense amount of control over your squad's actions, but turns are divided into five-second chunks. The game demands coordination and a lot of planning, but the end result are firefights that are at once chaotic and choreographed, with the best laid plans collapsing with nary a warning.

It's great fun and also offers cross-platform play, so you can be trounced by friends who have been playing on a PC for the last few years. It's well worth seven bucks, but if you're still on the fence you can grab a demo for the desktop version and see what all the fuss is about.

Sonic The Hedgehog (iOS, Android; $2.99)

Sonic the Hedgehog was ported to iOS years ago, but the latest update to version 2.0 brings the first entry in the classic series to Android, and adds a host of new features. The graphics have been beefed up, with support for widescreen devices and higher resolution displays. The sound track has been remastered, and there's also a new Time Attack mode that challenges you to complete zones (and the entire game) as quickly as possible. You'll even be able to unlock Tails and Knuckles as playable characters, which bodes well—I can't be the only person desperately awaiting a portable Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

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You may not be able to run next-gen games and graphics from Electronic Arts on your Wii U, but it looks like you’ll get them on your iPhone. Electronic Arts has put up a new site for the company’s Frostbite 3 gaming engine where it confirms that Frostbite is coming to mobile.

“One of our most exciting current projects is called Frostbite Go,” EA says on its site. “A mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite’s proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.”

Frostbite was created by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE), an EA-owned gaming studio based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Although EA doesn’t come out and directly confirm this, it certainly suggests that Frostbite Go will be based on Frostbite 3. The newest version of Frostbite will be the gaming engine behind a number of highly-anticipated titles from EA including Battlefield 4—the first Frostbite 3-powered game—and Dragon Age 3. Frostbite 3 is also expected to power several as yet unannounced games including new Star Wars and Mass Effect titles.

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Google I/O doesn’t officially start until Wednesday morning, but the developers’ show is already seeing some action. Two warring factions, the Resistance and the Enlightenment, are vying for control of various “portals” at key landmarks throughout San Francisco, which are leaking dangerous amounts of radioactive energy, to determine the fate of the city and ultimately the world.

If that scenario sounds a bit incredible, it’s because it’s playing out not in reality but on dozens of attendees’ Android-powered smartphones, within a game called Ingress.

Follow our live blog of the Google I/O keynote Wednesday

The mobile game, which Google is referring to as an MMOG, or a massively multiplayer online game, is currently in closed beta and only available by invitation from the company’s Play Store. But it has already attracted some pretty serious players at I/O, as part of a competition at the show.

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Plenty of games are already available for Android devices through Google Play. But just ahead of Google I/O, a leaked APK indicates that they're all about to get a lot more social.

Android Police is an authority when it comes to leaked APKs, or Android application package files, which are the file format used to distribute and install application software on the Android operating system.

Code in the APK indicates the new platform will include matchmaking, in-game chat, achievements, leaderboards, invitations, and more. Best of all, it will save game data in the cloud so that if you want to pick up where you left off later, or on a different device, you’ll be able to do so.

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The bad news keeps on coming for Nintendo's Wii U, with an Electronic Arts tech director confirming that the company's next-generation games won't run on the console.

Johan Andersson, technical director at EA's DICE studio in Sweden, wrote on Twitter that the company's Frostbite 3 engine “has never been running” on the Wii U. EA did some tests on the Wii U with the current Frostbite 2 engine, but the results weren't promising and EA “chose not to go down that path,” Andersson said.

The Frostbite 3 engine will power several EA games for next-generation consoles, including Battlefield 4, Dragon Age 3 and unannounced Star Wars and Mass Effect games. Without Frostbite 3 support, it's unlikely that the Wii U will offer those games.

To make matters worse, EA confirmed last week that it will skip the Wii U for Madden NFL 25, marking the first time since 1991 that the series won't be available on a Nintendo platform.

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By modifying a Microsoft Kinect sensor, a research project at the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference demonstrated how gamers in a wheelchair could interact with motion games.

“If we were using the Kinect SDK in the traditional way then people would be sitting in one fixed location and using their hands and arms as input,” said Kathrin Greling a Ph.D. student at the University of Saskatchewan. She said the modification that she made to the Kinect meant that the system could take into account the position and movement of the wheelchair.

She said the research isn’t aimed at just children, but older adults too who would be able to use motion gaming as exercise. She said some wheelchair bound patients at nursing homes and other long term care facilities could benefit from the exercise and entertainment provided by gaming.

Nick Barber

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Since the 18th century, people have been fascinated by the idea of machines that could play chess against humans. With the advent of the digital electronic computer in the mid-20th century, that dream finally became feasible. What followed was six decades of intense development in the field of computer chess, from research projects to commercial products. Over that period, computers grew from playing only a limited subset of chess to beating the World Chess Champion in a six-game match. Today, a worldwide computer network (the Internet) facilitates play between humans all over the world.

Clearly, computer chess has come a long way. Let's take a compressed look at some key moments in its evolution over the years.

A research project on show at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Paris uses a small electrical current to give the sensation of force feedback while gaming.

The system, developed by researchers at Germany’s Hasso Plattner Institute, involves sticking electrodes on gamers’ forearms and then delivering a small pulse of electricity from a 9-volt battery. The pulse makes the muscle contract and it’s the fighting of that contraction that delivers the feeling of force feedback.

“Traditionally I think people are going to remember arcades in the 80s or 90s and playing with force feedback,” said Pedro Lopes, a Ph.D. student at the Hasso Plattner Institute. “Your car was drifting on gravel or something like that and you would feel physical forces.”

With the advent of mobile gaming, force feedback has all but gone away, he said at the CHI conference Tuesday. Some other research projects have experimented with delivering force feedback, but they typically involved “motors or exoskeletons or a crazy actuator.”

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Android gaming is starting to make gamers look like overly amorous honeybees in a halvah factory: The prospects are so sweet that they might put your teeth at risk. With the advent of dedicated Android gaming devices such as the Ouya and Project Shield, Android is quickly gaining respect as a serious gaming platform alongside consoles and PCs. And with powerful phones rapidly becoming ubiquitous, Android is beating the pants off of iOS as a gaming platform for enthusiasts and nongamers alike. In this article, we’ll help you stay on top of evolving Android hardware, and use it to its maximum high-scoring, social-browbeating, multicore-rendering potential.

All shapes and sizes

First of all, let’s review those dedicated gaming devices. Last summer’s Kickstarter darling, Ouya, starts shipping this spring, with Nvidia’s Project Shield and others expected to reach market soon afterward. These stand-alone game consoles are likely to set the tone for the next generation of gaming on Android phones. I say “next generation” because, for all the fancy new tech that rolls out every month, the first truly mature group of Android devices (from 2010 or so onward) can still run almost any game on Google Play.

Of course, a device's ability to run a game at all doesn't mean much to a gamer who wants to play at full speed and top quality; and owners of two-year-old phones may find themselves resorting to games’ low-spec options more often, resulting in games that may look as though they came straight out of the early 1990s. Still, aside from graphics-intensive titles like Horn and Dead Trigger, you won’t have much trouble with the current crop of games on a single-core, first-generation Snapdragon processor (just ask my old HTC G2). Accessibility is a good thing; PC-quality visuals are even better. So how do you keep up, in a market that encourages people to throw something new in their pocket every two years and hope for the best?

A safe bet would be to skew as close to dedicated gaming devices as possible, knowing that the high-end games of 2013 and 2014 will look and perform as well on your phone or tablet as they would on your HDTV. That means insisting on Qualcomm’s quad-core S4 Pro hardware—which in turn means springing for one of the current top-of-the-top smartphone models: the LG Optimus G, the HTC Droid DNA (which also has Beats audio), or the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

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But even though they have multiple reasons to leave LAN parties behind, gamers love their LANs. There’s a mythical quality about showing up at a friend’s door, a six-pack of soda in one hand and a monitor in the other, prepped for an all-weekend gaming session with one’s closest buddies.

But you, the aspiring LAN party host, have a more difficult quest to tackle. What are you going to do when 12 eager, caffeine-fueled gamers pack your living room with PCs? How will you address the squabbles over which games you’re all going to play? The blown power circuits from all the systems you’ve crudely strung together? The slowness of everyone’s Web connection because one of your friends is downloading the latest Game of Thrones episode?

You might go so far as to build a dedicated LAN setup directly into your home. For the rest of us, a great LAN party is still possible if you plan ahead. When it comes to LAN parties, preparation is key — and we’re sharing our clipboard. Follow our simple guide to LAN-party success and you’ll be shooting your friends in a multiplayer match before you can even finish your first party Sandvich.

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We're here to help. If you took the plunge and bought a cutting-edge 3D HDTV, spend a bit of time to implement the following simple tricks, which will help you improve your 3D HDTV viewing.

Use a Backlight

Whether you're playing games or watching Blu-ray movies, you'll probably be using your HDTV in a darkened room to replicate the immersive theater experience, but marathon sessions in front of a bright screen can wreak havoc on your eyes. With 3D activated, most 3D HDTVs run brighter to compensate for the tinted eyewear that makes the 3D effect possible. Prolonged exposure in a darkened room can exacerbate headaches and mental fatigue, but you can fix this glaring issue pretty easily.

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So how does jailbreaking work, and what does it actually do to your coveted iDevice? Can you jailbreak on other platforms or hardware besides Apple's? What are the risks involved, and is it even legal? Read on as we try to answer all of your jailbreaking questions. And if we don't, feel free to ask more questions the comments!

Here to help out is none other than notorious iOS hacker Jay Freeman (aka saurik), technology consultant and creator of the alternative App Store, Cydia.

What Is Jailbreaking?