Tower of Guns – self styled as the “ultimate bullet-hell” first person shooter is gunning for an Xbox One launch on April 10th.

Featuring procedurally generated levels and enemies, Tower of Guns seeks to recapture the rawness of the old school FPS, providing players with ridiculous weapons, huge and elaborate boss fights, vast potential for upgrades, secrets and endless legions of enemies just begging to be blown up.

The Garmin vivofit 2 lets you track steps, calories, distance, and more right on your wrist without having to charge it for an entire year.

The vivofit 2 is a refinement of last year’s original vivofit and brings with it an improved screen with a backlit display, activity timing, and auto sync. The move bar has also added audible notifications so you don’t have to look at your wrist to know you need to get moving. While the vivofit series may not have all the bells and whistles of other fitness trackers, it’s a tradeoff some folks may want to consider in exchange for what is pretty much endless battery life.

The good

• No charging necessary for at least 1 year
• Comfortable design that is easy to forget about
• Modified clasp that doesn’t snag or cause the band to come undone
• Backlit display that’s user activity
• Activity timing right on your wrist that syncs with Garmin Connect
• Water resistant up to 50 meters
• Automatic sleep tracking
• Available in a wide range of colors, additional bands available through Garmin

The bad

• Garmin Connect app could use some updates

The vivofit 2 improves upon the original vivofit by adding a few features that make it more useful right on your wrist. One of the most welcome additions is a backlit screen. Just like the first vivofit, there’s only one button. A short press and hold activates the backlight. You can then continuously press the button to filter through all the different screens. By default the vivofit 2 shows steps, how many steps you still need to take to meet your goal, miles walked, calories burned for the day, an activity timer (which we’ll talk more about later), the date, and the time. If there are certain types of information you don’t really care much about, you can disable those screens in the Garmin Connect app.

The activity timer is another addition that lets you do more without actually having to pick up your phone. A long press and hold will start the activity timer. When you’re done, press and hold again. Garmin Connect then syncs your data with your Garmin account and you can customize a session later, leaving you to your workout without having to fiddle with an app. When you filter through the different sections of the vivofit 2, Garmin also has an activity data set that shows your total active time for the entire day, a nice added feature that gives you an overall picture of your day.

Since the vivofit 2 is water resistant up to 50 meters, you can shower with it, swim with it, and do pretty much any other water activity you’d like. That means you aren’t missing potential activity by having to take it off. It’s also one less opportunity for you to forget to put it back on, which is constantly my problem. I had no problem sleeping with the vivofit 2 and have been doing so for over 2 weeks now. For the most part, I forget it’s there, except when I’m not being active, and then it reminds me.

The vivofit 2 features the same move bar the first generation did, except this time it offers up audible alerts — don’t worry, you can disable them in favor of your phone vibrating instead if you prefer. The move bar remains static on top of your vivofit’s screen. After an hour of inactivity, a single bar will appear. For every 15 minutes that you are inactive, another bar will appear. If it fills the screen, that means you’ve been completely sedentary for at least 2 hours. The only way to reset the move bar is to get up and walk around for a bit. It’s a good motivator for anyone that wants to make sure they aren’t remaining stationary for too long, which lots of us behind desks tend to do.

The most noticeable improvement over the last generation vivofit is auto syncing. This means that you don’t actually have to open the Garmin Connect app unless you want to view your data. The first generation vivofit required you to sync your wristband by opening and triggering a sync. This isn’t the case any longer, and it’s a welcome change. The Garmin Connect app is long due for some updates so I appreciate not having to rely on it as much.

That being said, going to garminconnect.com on your iPhone or computer is actually a pleasant experience. I prefer it in every way over the actual app. Regardless, the Garmin Connect app does sync reliably and shows me what I need to see at a quick glance. I just hope that Garmin plans on bringing some of the Garmin Connect web interface and user experience to their iPhone and Android apps soon.

Heart rate sensors have become a thing in fitness trackers this year. The vivofit 2 can pair with external monitors but does not have one built in for reasons that should be obvious. If you want a year’s worth of battery life, an internal heart rate sensor won’t be an option. It’s a tradeoff but one that some folks will be happy to make. The vivofit 2 does however track sleep, and it does it well. You can confirm sleep times but even if you don’t, the vivofit 2 syncs all your sleep data to Garmin Connect, where you can see the quality of your sleep each night.

In terms of accuracy, I’ve never had issues with any Garmin tracker. Both manually tracking my steps and comparing the vivofit 2 to my UP24 produces similar results. Garmin reflects slightly lower calorie counts but nothing alarming enough to mention.

A fun feature of the vivofit 2 worth mentioning is that Garmin offers mix and match bands. They come in packs of 3 and are currently priced at $29. Not necessarily a feature but something a lot of people will enjoy taking advantage of.

The bottom line

If you want GPS, heart rate tracking, and every other advanced feature on the market, the isn’t the tracker for you. However, if you’re willing to trade some of the more power hungry options other trackers feature for a year of battery life, the vivofit 2 has a lot to offer. It’s a great personal motivator and accurately tracks all your steps and calories, on land and in the water. It’s comfortable to wear and only makes its presence known when it’s time to get moving. And for some people, that’s more than enough.

• $129 – Buy now

Microsoft is having some fun with us today for April Fool’s with the launch of MS-DOS Mobile, computing from the past brought into the modern age. Despite being an elaborate prank we’re enjoying playing around with it and its fully working ASCII Camera.

It’s not going to shoot any award winning photos, but that doesn’t really matter. Come and share your creations in the Windows Central forums!

Like many people, I get most of my news nowadays via Twitter. Whenever I find a story that interests me, I usually read it right away using the in-app browser.

My Twitter client of choice is Tweetbot. I do this at the expense of a read-it-later service like Instapaper, because I find more often than not that I want the information right now and I’ll take the time to get it. Unfortunately, my desire for instant gratification has relegated my use of Instapaper virtually non-existent in practice, despite the fact that I continue to hold the service (and others like it) in theoretical high esteem.

Although I will read a story within Tweetbot’s in-app browser, the reading experience isn’t ideal, especially on iPhone. In those cases, I will use the Action button to send a page to Safari to read there. Unfortunately, there are times when the trusty pinch-to-zoom gesture won’t work with a website, so I switch to Reader View. I’ve found Reader View to be great: it’s not perfect, but it’s a handy tool and, most importantly to me, visually accessible.

Reader View in Safari is a rudimentary version of Instapaper, insofar that it strips webpages of everything except text and images. The idea is, of course, that the removal of any distractions makes for a more pleasant reading experience. Tap the icon on the left side of the address bar and you’re presented with a white page with black text and a button for controlling text size; tap it again and you’re taken back to the original page. Apple even lets you know when Reader View is available for a page, flashing a quick “Reader View Available” message in the address bar as a website is loading.

There is both good and bad about Reader View. The good is twofold: (1) I’m able to read in a calming, distraction-free environment; and (2) I’m able to make the text as big as I need in order to see comfortably. I feel no eye strain or fatigue while reading. Conversely, the bad is that Apple gives you no other font choices except for Helvetica Neue.

Personally, I like Helvetica Neue and find it perfectly legible, but my opinion is my opinion. Furthermore, while I can adjust the font size to be as big or small as I need it, the act of adjustment could be better. As it stands today, pressing the “Aa” button will show you the text getting bigger in real time. I find this a bit too abstract for my vision, as sometimes I miss the incremental changes in the size. I’d prefer it if Apple would add a number to each size, akin to what you find in word processors such as Word and Pages. This way, I could see and know what, say, 18 point font looks like, and maybe even save it as a global setting.

The accessibility merit of Reader View is high, at least for me. Its feature set is decidely more bare bones than, say, Instapaper’s, but that’s okay. All I want to do is read something quickly without necessarily having to use another app, and Reader View provides that for me. There is no extraneous page cruft and I can make the font as big as I need it to be. Yes, more font choices and the like would be welcome additions, but Apple’s gotten the foundation right. In short, I find Reader View to “just work” for what I want out of it.

Like with pinch-to-zoom, Reader View, at first blush, seems like a small thing, but the reality is its usefulness is underrated. As a visually impaired person, I find Reader View to be one of iOS’s best, albeit unheralded, accessibility tools. It makes reading better for me, plain and simple. I hope Apple continues to improve its functionality, as I very much enjoying using it.

During the conception of the original Xbox, Microsoft is said to have considered several proposals, including one that meant giving the console away for free.

More games! Stealth Inc 2 ditches the linearity of its predecessor and returns with a gloriously expansive Metroidvania style overworld.

Stealth Inc 2 tasks players to escape from a meticulously detailed bit style factory crammed with nefarious puzzles, deranged traps, hostile machines and environmental hazards.

Future Factory is a new Windows Phone game that hit Store shelves last week. This arcade styled shooter provides you with plenty of robot targets to blow up and shoot up.

The story line has you battling your way out of a secret factory where robots rule and humans are not allowed. The game has appealing graphics, challenging game play and plenty of weapons to buy and upgrade.

While the game is not available for low-memory devices (the developers are working on it though), it is another quality product from the AppCampus project and well worth a try.

Customers affected by HTC One M9 delays are being offered updated shipping info and money off accessories.

Chinese consumers are reportedly disappointed by Apple’s trade-in prices for old iPhones, offering substantially less than what’s available through private recycling stores.

According to a ZDNet report, consumers aren’t content with discounts offered by Apple when looking to trade-in their old products for the new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or other hardware by the company:

“One woman in Shanghai was ‘stunned’ to learn that her old iPhone 4 was only worth $40 credit to Apple’s products, according to a Sina news report. In China, the 16G iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6, and iPhone 5s are officially priced at 6,088 yuan ($973), 5,288 yuan ($846) and 4,488 yuan ($718), respectively.

Apple is adopting a unified trade-in price for iPhones of the same generation in China, regardless of the memory sizes and conditions, as it still offers up to $240 even if it is a “new” iPhone 5s, according to the report.”

What’s interesting about the report is that prices offered by Apple are reportedly far lower than what consumers can receive from the recycling market. Apple offers around $240 for the iPhone 5s, $80 for the iPhone 4S and just $40 for the iPhone 4. ZDNet cites latest data showing substantial differences between the two, with private outlets offering up to $176 for the iPhone 4S.

Source: ZDNet

Net Applications has posted its desktop operating system market share numbers for March 2015, showing a big gain for Windows 7 worldwide. Meanwhile, numbers for Windows 8 and 8.1 remain steady for the most part.