firehose

Apple's marathon keynote session at yesterday's WWDC began with the following video. Graced by soothing piano music, a minimalist monochromatic palette, and a set of elegantly transitioning geometric shapes, the ad does a great job of conveying Apple lead designer Jony Ive's pursuit of purity and simplicity in design. There's only one small problem with it: when the onscreen narrative declares that "there are a thousand no's for every yes," it inserts an apostrophe where one does not belong.

Whether you consult the Oxford English Dictionary, The Chicago Manual of Style, or Dictionary.com, you'll find the acceptable plural forms of "no" to be "noes" or "nos." Apple's unnecessary use of punctuation proves to be a rather ironic answer to the company's own rhetorical challenge: "How can anyone perfect anything?"

Apple's latest iteration of its mobile operating system, iOS 7, introduces a number of long-awaited features. For everyone other than iPhone devotees, however, much of what Apple presented on stage looked eerily familiar.

The new interface, devoid of leather, felt, and stitching, invites comparisons with Microsoft's “Metro” UI found on Windows Phone and Windows 8. Apple has played a game of design catch-up to some extent, adding settings toggles, a simpler multitasking interface, and swiping gestures to its OS.

Super Mario 3D World is the first three-dimensional entry in the core platforming franchise with a multiplayer mode. After my ten minute hands-on demo with the title, I was left incensed, with a question burning in my mind: What the hell took them so long?

Super Mario 3D World for Wii U mimics, both in controls and aesthetics, Nintendo EAD's Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS, with diorama-esque worlds filled with coins, power-ups, obstacles and hidden objects. It has the same shiny, bouncy veneer of 3D Land, thanks to Nintendo EAD's involvement on this new title.

The biggest difference is that four players, controlling the classic Super Mario Bros. 2 roster of Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad, can explore the world simultaneously. Each has the special trait granted to them in the classic NES title — Peach can float for a bit and Luigi's got mad hops, for example — which they can utilize to bash enemies, hunt down the three stars hidden in each stage and compete to finish the level with a higher score than their compatriots. The game even rewards the high scorer with a crown that they can carry with them into the next stage.

It is, as you might imagine, pretty frantic. The camera does a decent job of scaling back to capture all four players' actions simultaneously, automatically moving any stragglers back into the action in a bubble in a manner similar to the 2D multiplayer Mario titles. When your four-player crew enters a new, unsullied part of the level and scatters to pillage its coins, the action can become a little Smash Bros.-esque, with thrown items (and thrown players) flying every which way.

Super Mario 3D World looks to have some fairly smart co-op elements, as well. The aforementioned player-tossing can be used to reach new heights and unaccessible hidden items, much like the New Super Mario series on Wii and Wii U. Your team shares an inventory of reserve items, which you can access on the fly when you're in desperate need of a power-up. Another neat, simple perk of playing co-op is when you pick up a Super Star, you can share your invulnerability with another player just by running up and touching them.

You can also turn into a cat. Four cats, if you've got the players, and can collect enough of the bell-shaped power-ups to transform them. In feline form, players can climb flat surfaces and perform (surprisingly visceral) claw attacks on walking or aerial enemies. Needless to say, the franticness of multiplayer was exponentially increased when everyone was dishing out dashing combo attacks and scrambling up every wall they saw.

Everything, from level design to core gameplay, seemed tailored to make the game a much faster-paced affair than 3D Land. The light competition gives players impetus to move just a bit quicker than their cohorts. Running in the same direction for long enough gives you a boost of speed. Some new traversal elements lend themselves to haste as well; some pipes are now clear, allowing you to see your character as you shoot through them at high speed, changing direction to dodge foes and collect items. Rolling treadmills send players, enemies, items — anything that lands on them — soaring.

You can, of course, stop and smell the roses. The GamePad — which also supports full off-TV play — can be used to tap around the environment to scope out hidden items or hold enemies, similar to Super Mario Galaxy's Co-Star mode. Completionists will still be racing against the series' ever encroaching time limit, but will have plenty of treasures to uncover along the way.

If there were any unsolved logistical issues related to getting four people in the same 3D Mario game simultaneously, I didn't see them in my demo. Having extra Mushroom Kingdomites alongside me seemed like a long overdue improvement to the series, not an overcomplicated hassle — though that never really softens the betrayal of being hurled to your death by a trusted friend.

My time with Bayonetta 2 during a hands-on pre-E3 demo session was very brief, giving me a look at little more than a handful of combat encounters. Still, those battles were enough to illustrate one important point about Platinum's Wii U-exclusive sequel: Its destination console hasn't required it to lessen its violence by any conceivable metric.

Bayonetta's combat is as fast-paced and combo-centric as it was in the series first, cult classic outing. She's just as capable of meleeing, kicking and shooting her way through crowds of angelic enemies as she was in the original, gaining advantage on her foes by dodging their attacks and activating Witch Time to bring their movements to a near stop.

The brutal Torture Attacks the first game became known for are also back, letting players execute weakened foes with a brief quick time event and a summoned, hair-based murder machine. It's on a Nintendo console, but Platinum hasn't held anything back; the Torture Attack featured in my demo involved a pair of grinders and a fatality reminiscent of the treadmill fight from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Bayonetta's not without her new tricks, though. The most prominent of her new abilities is called Umbral Climax, which — after filling up a meter charged by successful combos — turns her regular attacks into enormous, screen-sized strikes. Her attacks in this state are just as stylish as her other special maneuvers, sending enemies flying with giant, floating fists and feet made from her trademark raven hair.

The series' pervading sexuality hasn't been cut back on the Wii U, either. The ratio of attack power/clothing is very much still in effect, leaving Bayonetta with little more than a few strands of hair covering her body after pulling off a huge combo. It's not surprising to see that Platinum didn't cave on that major stylistic element of the first game, but it certainly didn't make it any more comfortable to play it in a room full of attentive Nintendo handlers.

The game's style hasn't suffered across the board, actually, in the series' transition to Nintendoland. The aforementioned battle took place on the back of a speeding harrier jet flying through the heart of a congested city, chased by other jets and massive, horrific angels. This scene was loaded up without context, leaving me with no idea why any of those things were where they were. The only familiar element in the scene was a cameo appearance by Bayonetta's foil from the first game, Jeanne — Nintendo wouldn't comment on whether her reprise role meant Bayonetta 2 would feature an oft-requested co-op mode.

In terms of Wii U-exclusive features, the only thing demonstrated was full off-TV play, allowing you to get through the game playing entirely on the GamePad. The title will also feature a cinematic "Touch" mode, allowing players to control Bayonetta using the GamePad's touchscreen. The specifics of this mode weren't shown off, but Nintendo hinted that it would be designed to make the game more palatable to casual audiences.

Hopefully, the game's other improvements will be shown off soon, but it's reassuring that the game's more mature elements haven't been lost in translation. Bayonetta's still as violent and provocative as ever. Yes, she's gotten a drastic haircut in between games, but she's still got enough to weave into magical torture implements.

The US National Security Agency's recently revealed Internet surveillance program PRISM has been broadly condemned by tech companies, even those whose networks were allegedly involved. But now some organizations and companies going further, sending a letter to Congress today calling upon lawmakers to immediately halt PRISM and other forms of internet surveillance. Mozilla, Reddit, 4Chan and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are among the 86 different organizations that have co-signed the letter, and they are also launched a new campaign online,

If the move sounds a bit like the great online SOPA/PIPA protests of early 2012, that's by design. As Mozilla's privacy and public policy officer Alex Fowler wrote in a blog post today announcing the effort: "We need to rekindle that energy more than ever so our elected officials take the necessary actions to illuminate how current surveillance policies are being implemented." The campaign was coordinated in part by liberal advocacy group Free Press, which is holding a press call today at 1 PM to elaborate on the campaign. We will update with more details once that commences.

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