Dear readers: I want you. And I want you to stay.

For each of the past three summers, I've spent some time on the road, driving around different regions of the United States, reporting on some of the most interesting destinations I could find, and road-testing some of the coolest gear around. The CNET Road Trip has taken me through 17 states (and one Canadian province) in the Pacific Northwest (2006), the Southwest (2007), and the Southeast (2008).

The trips have been hits, but I have struggled to organically build an audience throughout each journey. Rather, it seems most … Read more

Electronic Arts may get criticized in the press for its reliance on long-running franchises, but if the record first-week sales of The Sims 3 are any indication, gamers aren't concerned with such matters.

The game giant reported Tuesday that The Sims 3, the latest full iteration of the storied Sims franchise, sold 1.4 million copies in the first week following its June 2 release. That made it, according to EA, the best launch of a PC game in the company's history.

In the newest version, as in the previous iterations, players can create sims--lifelike simulated people with … Read more

LOS ANGELES--Start saving simoleans, everyone: "The Sims 3" has finally launched.

The latest full iteration of the famous "Sims" franchise--"The Sims" launched in 2000 and became the best-selling PC game of all time, and "The Sims 2" released in 2004--the new game presents a chance for its publisher, Electronic Arts, to bolster its bottom line, even while trying to push the boundaries of what game players are used to.

The original "Sims," from the hit-making game designer, Will Wright, was a game in which players could control a household … Read more

It might not be as hotly anticipated as the "Beatles: Rock Band" game, but Microsoft announced at its annual press briefing at the E3 Expo that Facebook and Twitter will be coming to the Xbox Live service.

The press event included short demonstrations of what are effectively Facebook and Twitter clients for the gaming console, aesthetically adapted to the Xbox Live interface.

With the Facebook app, which will be a download from Xbox Live, members will be able to engage in a limited number of features including photo browsing, status updates, and looking at friends' profile "streams.&… Read more

LOS ANGELES--It may be an off-year in the video game console, but you wouldn't know it by the lines outside the Galen Center at the University of Southern California, where Microsoft is having its annual E3 press conference.

Expected announcements include some form of motion-control system; new features and offerings for its popular Xbox Live service; and several hot new games, both from its own publishing outlets and third-parties. Among them is "Halo 3: ODST."

This blog followed Microsoft's announcements--including its new motion-control system, upcoming games, and several new features being added to the Xbox Live … Read more

For many of the devoted fans of the PostSecret project, Frank Warren's constantly updated collection of secrets anonymous people have sent him on postcards, buying Warren's books is a no-brainer.

Already, he has had four PostSecret books published, and for several months, he has been encouraging submissions of new secrets for the next hard-copy installment, "Confessions on Life, Death&God." And on May 19, he wrote on Sunday, as part of his weekly online presentation of a set of new secrets, he worked late into the night in a New York hotel laying out on … Read more

Here's a conundrum: when the world is deep into hysteria over a potential pandemic like the swine flu, how does someone who wants to poke fun at the problem do so?

For Jude Gomilla and Immad Akhund, the answer was a single sleepless night about 10 days ago during which the two San Francisco entrepreneurs built what has become a massively popular Flash game called Swinefighters.

In Swinefighters, players--dressed as giant-syringe-wielding and mask-wearing doctors--are tasked with killing off rogue viruses in the form of sneering pigs. Each time you hit a pig with the syringe, it is wiped out, … Read more

NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.

For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--It will likely come as no surprise to anyone familiar with virtual worlds and online games that they can be hacked. But what might come as a shock is the sheer breadth of types of exploits that are possible.

That was the broad message of a Thursday panel called, appropriately, "Exploiting Online Games" at the RSA 2009 security conference here.

Moderated by Gary McGraw, CTO of software security consulting firm Cigital and an author of several books, the panel took the audience on a deep dive into the diverse ways that hackers and others have figured out … Read more