The incredible Half-Life 2 series is gearing up for its next episode later this year, in the shape of Half-Life 2: Episode Two – what Valve has described as its very own ‘Two Towers’, before the ‘Return of the King’ finale with Episode Three.

You ever notice how movie stoners always have only one name?

The legendary Gene Simmons (of KISS fame) rocked hard in Times Square promoting the newly released Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360. The nation’s (supposed) top Guitar Hero masters were invited to perform in NYC’s Virgin Megastore, and the top hero would be gifted with an autographed guitar and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with Simmons. Of course, as any legitimate rock star would do, he played with the ladies too.

In the four page interview with Greek news site Contra.gr, Katrinakis talks about Wii Music, a game that sounds remarkably similar to the conductor demo shown at last year’s E3. In addition to the general Wii-remote-as-conductor’s-baton control shown at the demo, Katrinakis reveals that Wii Music players will be able to take control of specific musicians and send saved compositions to other Wii users.

Katrinakis goes on to describe Health Pack, a Wii game that will lead the player in various exercises. Sounds kind of basic, until Katrinakis adds that the game will collect biometric data and send it to local hospitals (contracted by Nintendo) through a Wii channel. According to Katrinakis, this data will be processed by the hospital and sent back as a home check up a few hours later. No word on how the data will be collected or processed, but the idea sounds ambitious if nothing else.

Resident GlovePIE enthusiast Tiger is at it again, this time implementing Wiimote controls with the Dreamcast title Rez. Not content to stop after showing us how the Wiimote could be used with Panzer Dragoon and House of the Dead 3, Tiger has implemented the script into Rez, which he is emulating on his PC

A couple of you guys just emailed me about this, and I had to check for myself. Well I’m happy to say I have the final version of the Wii Opera browser on my console right now. You can download it too – just go to the Shop Channel and hit that update button.

Bigger than an ice box!

Web-based calendars have been around for ages, but one year ago Google Calendar came onto the scene and changed the game. Once upon a time Yahoo! Calendar had my heart, but today Y! Calendar looks frumpy and dated next to GCal’s slick, dynamic interface, multiple calendar support, fun extras and collaborative features.

Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died Wednesday night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.

We asked each of our 4000 respondents to select among a list of 17 common internet activities and tell us which they did or did not do. This is what we found:

* E-mail is by far the most common Internet activity, with 90% of all Internet users claiming to be e-mailers