In-Game Web Browser Round-Up

theodp writes "CNET takes a look at Web browsers you can run inside of the latest video games, offering mini-reviews of PlayXpert, Steam, Rogue, and Xfire. Why run these instead of your standard browser? Well, these browsers run lean and mean, play nice with full-screen apps, provide hot keys that can make them appear or disappear in an instant, and offer transparency so you can continue to play a game in full screen while chatting, reading e-mail or looking up cheat codes. So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?"

Tired of hitting Alt-F4?

These new in-game browsers are great! I used to be annoyed that I'd have to hit Alt AND F4 to switch away from my game to check my stock prices, but now with these new in-game browsers I can simply hit Shift+F4 and browse at my leisure.

This is a huge step forward in usability. I can't wait until Emacs includes a browser that can be toggled with an intuitive set of keystrokes.

Oh good. Something else to do while driving

So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?

Hopefully never. People already have enough things to distract them while driving. Do they really need another one?

Re:

Its actually quite scary. I was on the bus this morning on my way to work when I look out the window at a women driving. She is completely beyond reality and roughly 2 car lengths from the nearest car, fumbling for gloves that she clearly needs right that moment, then lipstick.
I was genuinely boggled when she pulled out a nail file and started working on her nails. All the while, oblivious to the cars around her.

Re:Oh good. Something else to do while driving

Yo dawg, I heard you like to browse, so I put a browser in your browser so you can browse while you browse.

FTFY.

On windshields?

So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?

I hope that we never see this. Not as long as there's a human steering the car. Do we really need yet ANOTHER distraction from driving? People are texting, putting on makeup, calling, eating, drinking, reading and doing too many other things than driving. Imho if a police should see you doing this they should sell your car and take your license since you're too stupid to figure out that 3000kg at 100km/h is a force to be respected.

Re:

You are right. It sounds like a joke when, in the country where I live at least, there is a law against driving and using a cell phone at the same time.

Re:On windshields?

So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?

I hope that we never see this. Not as long as there's a human steering the car. Do we really need yet ANOTHER distraction from driving? People are texting, putting on makeup, calling, eating, drinking, reading and doing too many other things than driving. Imho if a police should see you doing this they should sell your car and take your license since you're too stupid to figure out that 3000kg at 100km/h is a force to be respected.

The funny thing is that people are far more likely to "pull over and chat" in an FPS (where they can respawn) than in a real car (where they can't).

Re:On windshields?

So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?
3000kg at 100km/h is a force to be respected.

3000kg * 28 m/s isn't a force, it's a momentum. ;)

Now, when you hit something that makes you stop in .5 seconds...

3000kg * -56 m/s^2 = -168000 N Now THAT'S a force to be respected. *G*

Re:On windshields?

When I was in college, I used to eat subs, eye drops in my eye, splash cold water on my face (long drives), take off a jacket, even pull off a pullover while driving. Once, I even had a plate of spaghetti on my lap.

So what do you think would happen if a ball rolled out into the street in front of your car, followed by a laughing child?

You were a complete asshole when you drove like that. I hope you've wised up, but it sounds like you still think your masterful driving expertise allows you to control things outside your card.

Needs Adblock

As with most geeks, no browser will get our full attention until it gets adblock.

I don't like it.

All it does is encourage people to multi-task more. And that is not a good thing. Our brain isn't good at multi-tasking (in terms of focusing on different things), we end up doing each job half-assed. And have a big switch when we go from one to the other. It is like a drug though because we use so much extra brain power multi-tasking we feel like we are being more productive however you are better off doing job 1 then job 2 in order. With this happening more we are training our kids not to sit down and solve a problem but jump back and forth until until we fail at all of them.

Re:I don't like it.

Speak for yourself. I'm excellent at multi

Item # Price
15876 39.99
15887 45.02
16986 25.36
12547 44.78
13698 87.54
15478 21.66
11224 12.74
1447 36.85

Some of the above prices aren't matching what we were given by the vendor. Can you verify these for me by the end of the day?

Thanks.

tasking. You obviously haven't had enough experience with it. Keep practicing and you'll be able to do 3-4 things at the same time without any major problems.

I seldom alt-tab

Usually I have all my chat windows etc open on second monitor where I can see them. Second old 17" LCD does the trick.

DeathRace 2012

"So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?"

just as soon as I mount those rockets, .50cal, smoke screen, oil slick, caltrop seeder, and armor on my truck.

Oh, and I need to mod the controls to let me handle steering and acceleration/defense devices with a joystick and the aiming/offense with a mouse.

I can imagine how this technology originated

Level pally...watch porn...level pally...watch porn...

hmmm...

EUREKA!

Looking up cheat codes in the car.

looking up cheat codes. So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?

What's the cheat code for enabling infinite fuel in my car?

Window up, window down, window up, window down, turn signal left, turn signal right, turn signal left, turn signal right, AC, emergency brake, ignition.

Re:

Now that AIGLX lets you run any window as an OpenGL mesh and texture, it's not a stretch to map that into a surface in your game. But it would require some cooperation from the game itself, since it has to take a reasonable place in the OpenGL command pipeline unless you just want it hovering over everything.

Re:So.. the Video Game is the Computer?

Yep. With the way the economy is going, the user interface will be a rifle or shotgun.

The killer app

Actually, I think the best thing to do with these in-game browsers is to play in-browser games.

Hopefully, those games will include browsers, too, so we don't get bored.

Re:

Eve Online's IGB is a joke.
What's worse is, the joke suck!

Re:Thottbot

If you're just looking for something to look up info there is no need for a browser in WoW.

Install the Questhelper and lightheaded addons and you're all set.

Questhelper points you to the quest locations and lightheaded parses all comments from wowhead on quests in a ingame addon.

Questhelper has too large of a performance impact for me in my 3.8 GHz C2D with 4 gigs of ram. I'm glad you mention wowhead, which the GP should be using instead of thotbot. I think a good solution is cartographer and playing the game in windowed (but maximized) mode. In windowed mode, alt tabbing out is instant instead of incurring the 2 second delay of full screen. Of course, windowed mode incurs a performance penalty too, but it's less than QH and it can easily be turned off when not in need of constant reference material.

Re:Thottbot

Questhelper has too large of a performance impact for me in my 3.8 GHz C2D with 4 gigs of ram.

Sir...I call bullshit. I can run Questhelper fine on a crappy Compaq laptop running Vista on 1 GB of RAM.

Although TourGuide (w/ the WoW-Pro guides) is better, and I use that now anyway.

I'd rather not

Actually, I find that trying Questhelper has pretty much killed all my interest in WoW.

Now I do appreciate having Thottbot or such, for when I got lost or couldn't figure out the directions after trying for half an hour. But just following the cube makes me feel like a bot could do the same thing, and probably better. There is no need for any more complex thought above "click on that guy because Questhelper says so" or "head that way because Questhelper says so." There's nothing left to discover (technically QH discovered it already for you), nothing worth remembering (QH already tells you whether you need to go east or west, so no point in even trying to remember where the quest told you to go), you don't even need to look at the major landmarks (if it's behind that hill, QH will tell you so.)

And you can tell. I know people who play exclusively by Questhelper (heck, mom does) and frankly, they don't seem to actually use any brainpower in playing the game. Often they won't even remember what they just did or where some major landmark is, because really there was no more thought involved than obediently doing what the bot told them to. They've run along some road a dozen times, but ask them to show you where it is, and you find that they couldn't find their own arse with a map and a compass, but without QH. Or you see them forgetting they had to use some unique item, and some whole group trying to take down some elite boss the hard way instead, because none of them bothered even reading the quest text and QH doesn't tell them, "dude, use the shreder".

Now if that still keeps you entertained, good for you, and I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. But it's just not for me. For me it makes the whole thing boring as heck, and takes away any kind of sense of achievement too.

Re:I'd rather not

Actually, I find that trying Questhelper has pretty much killed all my interest in WoW.

Really??

*goes to download Questhelper*

Dear Lord, please let this work...

Re:IRC?

A/S/L?