LEGO today (July 16, 2010) announced that it is extending its closed beta hours and that a LEGO Universe beta will be available for Mac “soon.”

Here’s the text from an email sent from “The LEGO Universe Team” to closed beta players…

Nelson Tethers is the FBI’s top puzzle agent, in fact he’s the FBI’s ONLY agent. One day at work, the president calls Nelson and tells him to investigate the troubles of a important pencil factory (the president needs his pencils!)

He arrives at the town of Scoggins to discover that something strange is going on involving the disappearance of factory workers and some very strange lawn gnomes. Nelson needs to use his powers of puzzle solving to get to the bottom of this strange affair.

The game play is very much like the Professor Layton series. You talk to people and ask them questions about the case and, once in a while, they won’t answer you unless you…

Wow, talk about a major burn. To improve internal security, Internet overlord Google is said to be encouraging its employees to move away from Windows and use Macs or Linux instead.

Google supposedly started making the shift some time after January 2010, after the company’s Chinese operations were hacked. It makes sense, then, that Google may be concerned that a similar security breach can occur at its main headquarters.

The Macintosh computer system has come along way in making a name for itself next to the more popular Windows-based PCs today.

Here’s a “quick” look back at Apple’s history focusing on Mac-based games.

“Byte into an Apple”

The first Apple computer was created by Steven Wozniak on April 1, 1976. Wozniak, a former Hewlett-Packard employee, and his high school friend Steven Jobs, who worked in the games engineering department as a basic circuit designer at Atari Inc. Although Wozniak was great at creating electronic gadgets Jobs was better at marketing ideas. The two would take Wozniak’s design and create the computer in Jobs’ bedroom, then later demonstrate it at The Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto where he would introduce his design for the Apple I. But no one would take him seriously, mostly because the Apple I was based on the MOStek 6502 chip and most computers at that time were built using the Intel 8080 chip.

Wozniak wrote in an article…

Title: AquariaPrice: $30System(s): Mac OS XRelease Date: November 13, 2008Publisher (Developer): Ambrosia Software, Bit BlotPros: Utterly gorgeous, intuitive gameplay, an engrossing world, smart design.Cons: Gamers with itchy trigger fingers need not applyOverall Score: Two thumbs up, 98/100, A, ***** out of five.

It’s a funny thing about being a Mac-owning gamer – it’s so rare that anything genuinely interesting comes to the platform that it’s almost a shock when a title with as much polish and ingenuity as Aquaria shows up.

I’m not sure what is going on, but according to Forbes reporter Brian Caulfield, that Apple products may kill the Nintendo DS with applications that may turn cellular phones into a portable gaming system.

Caulfield wrote:

“Unlike Nintendo, which has created a gaming console with a motion-sensitive controller and a touch-sensitive handheld gaming system, Apple has crammed both capabilities into its iPhone and iPod Touch… The ability to pour fresh software into the iPhone, wirelessly, at the touch of a button already has game developers interested. … The worst sign: Sophisticated games such as Electronic Arts’ ambitious new god-game, Spore, are already slated to be released for the iPhone at the same time it goes on sale for PCs, Macs and the Nintendo DS. … Looks like the handheld gaming business, so long dominated by Nintendo, could be about to undergo a little evolution too.”

The iPhone could never replace a good old fashion handheld gaming system like the Nintendo DS…

Apple has finally decided to release an iPhone software development kit (SDK), allowing companies to create applications for the phone. The beta version of the SDK is already in developer’s hands and the full version is expected to be released June 2008.

After Apple made the SDK’s announcement at a press conference last week (March 6, 2008), Apple’s VP for iPhone Software, Scott Forstall, demonstrated a space game (Touch Fighter) developed in only two weeks (“and only 10,000 lines of code”), promising touch controls and tilt-sensitive steering.

Perhaps an effort to help the expensive hardware more attractive to a larger audience, game companies have already been…

Prepare yourself Macaddicts, Electronic Arts Inc. is finally showing you a bit of proper videogame respect.

The ginormous game maker is releasing its first ever batch of EA-published games available for the Mac: Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. Games cost $29.95-$39.95.

Mac users can either order the OS X (ver. 10.4) compatible games now from Apple.com or wait until they hit store shelves either August 21 (for Need for Speed and Harry Potter) or August 28, 2007 (Battlefield and C&C). I know, you can actually hold an EA mac game in your hands, hug it and squeeze it and call it George if you really want to.

Future EA-produced games for the Mac will include…