Easily the biggest thing hurting 3D today is that you have to wear glasses to see the 3D effects. The need for glasses is why many consumers haven't adopted the tech and the glasses are often very expensive too. There are a few 3D sets hitting the market that use passive 3D glasses that are cheaper than the active glasses often required to watch 3D programs.

Toshiba has announced that it will be showing off new screens at CES 2011 in January that need no glasses of any sort to view. The autostereoscopic screens will be larger than the 20-inch versions that Toshiba showed off this year at CEATEC. Although it has only been three months since the 20-inch screen was seen Toshiba says the tech is already better.

Toshiba plans to make even larger screens next year. The downsides to this sort of screen is that it has worse viewing angles that screens that need glasses and getting the best spot for ideal viewing is harder to accomplish.

Most people feel comfortable using an Xbox 360 controller, but a keyboard and mouse for FPS is a superior, easier and much, much more precise way of playing. It allows micro-movement of your aiming (while also being much faster) compared to much slower, un-precise aiming.

XIM devices have been around for a while, bu the new XIM3 seems to fix the previous editions issues. XIM3 is housed in an LCD box with a touch-screen display which should make connection and config much easier (and better to look at!)

The XIM3 acts as a "translator" or "bridge" between your Xbox 360 and PC peripherals - a user plugs in their PC's mouse and keyboard into the XIM3, then plugs the XIM3 into the Xbox 360 and you should be all good for some owning.

Telltale Games are releasing the first episode of Back to the Future: The Game for PC and Mac on Wednesday. The game picks up 6 months after the end of the original movie trilogy.

After these 6 months in the Back to the Future world, Doc Brown's lab is on the verge of being sold off because of his absence. Marty gets a surprise visit from the DeLorean where it brings him to the past, where he must help a teenage Emmett Brown to keep all of space and time from unraveling.

Bob Gale, co-creator and co-writer of the films has said:

Futuremark have today released the first major update to 3DMark 11. The update introduces some critical stability improvements to 3DMark 11 and addresses some specific bugs that needed squashing.

One of the fixes with v1.01 included a problem with the SystemInfo component that prevents the Physics and Combined tests from running, crashes related to the absence of DirectX 11 API and .NET, and updated SystemInfo component, etc.

A full list of changes is below:

There are numerous studies that have looked at gaming and the incidence of violence and other issues when it comes to players of games with violence. The studies come down on different sides of the topic often with some showing no link between video games and how people act in the real world and others showing an alleged link between games and real world behavior. A doctoral student at the University of the Rockies did her dissertation on the relationship between demographic factors, social anxiety, proneness to boredom, grade point average and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game playing.

The student found that college students that are prone to excessive playing of MMORPG titles often miss meals, classes, and lose sleep to play their favorite video game. The study found that males are more prone to excessive play, but the effects are the same for males and females. The study author is Sabrina Neu and she claims that 42% of those in the survey cited online gaming for interfering with work or academics.

Neu also found potential good benefits for online gaming. "Players cite social opportunities as a primary reason for play. Players can overcome shyness, actualize previously untapped talents, mentor other players, free themselves from physical disabilities, develop a sense of purpose and achievement and engage in altruistic, heroic and generous acts," she said.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say restocking fees suck. We all know it doesn't really cost companies 10% or more of what the purchase price of a gadget is to restock them. Those fees are just a way for the company to help talk us into keeping the gadgets we really don't like and would return if we didn't have to pay a fee. Best Buy has announced it has finally stopped being such a douche and eliminated restocking fees.

The fees were killed off on December 18 and the store will even refund you that restocking fee if you made a return in the 30 days or so prior to the 18th and were charged 10% or 15%. The old restocking fees were 10% of the price on an iPhone and 15% on other electronic devices like notebooks, TVs, GPS devices and more. Those high fees could add up to some really big losses for the consumer.

An email that Best Buy sent to stores across the country ended up in the hands of The Consumerist and it read:

One of the best selling gadgets on the Amazon website and one of the most popular eReaders on the market is the Kindle. The Kindle sold in droves since the reader first debuted and many of those buyers also picked up the official Amazon Kindle case for the reader too. Many consumers who purchase the case with no light have noted some serious issues with the case.

There have been many reports that the non-lighted case for the Kindle is causing the Kindle to have screen freeze issues and to reboot repeatedly. Amazon has announced that it is investigating the cause of the issues when the kindle uses the non-lighted case. The company also notes that anyone who purchased a non-lighted Kindle case can return the thing for a replacement or a full refund.

The issues with lockups and reboots are thought to possibly be a result of metal hooks integrated into the case, but that is unconfirmed. The lighted case for the Kindle has not suffered from the same issues. "There have been some forum discussions regarding the non-lighted Kindle cover, and our engineering team is looking into this," the company said in an email statement that was also posted to its customer forum where users were complaining. "Regardless, if anyone is having any problem with an Amazon-manufactured Kindle cover, please contact us at kindle-response@amazon.com, and we will be pleased to replace it for free or accept a return for a full refund, no matter when the cover was purchased."

Last week Blizzard's Five-Year plan was leaked, which had a few super-duper golden nuggets of information including a next-generation MMO coming in 2013.

At the moment, Blizzard have a next-gen MMO coming in 2013 currently codenamed "Titan". Other tidbits of info included Diablo III released in Q4 2011, StarCraft II expansion and Phoenix campaign for Q4 2011 also, another StarCraft II expansion in Q1 2013 with Diablo III expansions in 2013 and 2014.

A World of Warcraft movie is listed and showing a release period of somewhere in Q4 2012, another WoW expansion ready for Q2 2012 and then yet another for Q4 2013.

I have talked about the different types of PC gamers before when it comes to peripherals like mice and keyboards. Some like lots of macro capability some want smaller and more compact keyboards. The same goes for mice, some want low-resolution mice and others want high-resolution mice. Mouse pads typically have different sorts of gamers too. Some want a smooth and slippery hard surface; others want a textured cloth mat to suit their needs.

If you are, the sort of gamer that likes hard and smooth pads for gaming Razer has a new offering for you. The new mouse pad is called the Scarab and it has a new Fractal 2.0 gaming surface. The surface is supposed to be uniform in construction allowing the mouse to track more smoothly when gaming. The bottom of the pad also has a new rubber base.

The rubber base will keep the pad in place no matter how hot the acting gets and the soft rubber is supposed to be able to smooth irregularities under the mouse pad to make your mousing even smoother. Razer ships the mouse pad with a carry case to keep it safe when you travel to LAN parties. The mouse pad will ship next month for $39.99.

When it comes to HDDs you can usually have a really thin drive or you can have a high-capacity drive, but not both. Hitachi has unveiled a new HDD that gives mobile devices the best of both worlds with a thin design that also packs in a lot of storage space. The new HDD is the Travelstar Z5K5000 and it is the thinnest 2.5-inch 500GB HDD in the world.

The HDD packs 500GB onto a single platter allowing the thickness of the drive to be only 7mm. That means that the thin profile device will work in devices that are really thin and typically rely on more expensive and lower capacity SSDs for storage. The drive spins at 5400 rpm and is a direct replacement for 9.5mm thick drives in all sorts of notebooks and external storage devices.

Other than being thin, the drive is also very green needing only 1.8W when reading or writing and 0.55W during idle. The drive is also nearly silent with 1.9 bels at idle and 2.1 bels during seek. The drive uses Hitachi advanced format tech to allow for HDD sectors of 4K bytes rather than 512 bytes improving capacity and reducing errors. The drives are shipping this month at an undisclosed price.