Living now on the west coast, I am used to waking up, checking my email and being greeted by new and interesting (though sometimes expected) pieces of news. Yesterday, I woke up to an email that was far from what I could have imagined. Along with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD Bundle which is a great play to try and get people to purchase a Wii U by remaking a legacy title and presenting it as something new, Nintendo also announced the Nintendo 2DS. That’s right. The 2DS.

Now at first glance, it definitely sounds ridiculous. The Nintendo DS was a success so it spawned the Nintendo 3DS which brought 3D to handhelds. Even after a shaky start, Nintendo was able to pull it together and make the system a success. And now they announce the Nintendo 2DS. It will be a fixed unfoldable design and play the 3D content exclusively in 2D. What? Why take away one of the key features of the 3DS by removing the 3D?

If you want the latest news about updates and improvements to Google services, you won’t find a much better source than Vic Gundotra. As Senior VP of Engineering for Google, he’s privy to pretty much everything that happens at the company. And he likes to share.

So, when he touts a new update for Google+, we listen. In fact, that’s just what he did this morning. According to his post, the update introduces a new navigation drawer that is “more consistent with other Google apps.” In addition, notifications will now sync across devices so you no longer have to see the same notifications from device to device if you’ve already dismissed them.

You also get a new notifications tray with a bell icon that lets you know if there’s something for you to see as well as unread and read trays. So, some nice improvements. This update should start being availbe today for Android and the web with iOS update to follow.

Here’s what the changelog says about the update:

For things like movies, TV shows and games, it’s pretty easy to get excited about a certain product when you see a trailer or other prmo-type material. Movies, TV programs and games are tangible things we have a lot of experience with so we pretty much know what we’re getting into. Then there’s something like Google Glass.

This is a product so different and, at the moment, so scarce, it’s difficult to really know what to think about it. Is it the “next big thing” or is it jus another fad that will disappear as fast as it appeared? Time will tell.

What does help answer this question, at least a bit, is all the videos and more Google are putting out about Glass. In this latest one, a pretty comprehensive ‘How To”, Glass’ features and use are explained in detail.

The video shows you how to navigate the UI with the side touchpad, adjust the display for optimal viewing, and put the device to sleep to help conserve battery. It also gives a better look at the whole experience than what we’ve seen so far.

We’re still not convinced that Google Glass is the “next big thing” and/or a “must have.” However, it is nice to see more of what Google has in mind for the product. Who knows, if they keep this up, they might just convince us after all.

As fans of Apple and its products, we love things like this. Sure, these kinds of results should be taken with a grain (or three) of salt, but still, it’s kinda cool to see and makes us love Apple stuff even more.

What are we talking about? Well, this week ZDNet reports that based on a new study from Soluto, which uses “data from its massive online database of PC crashes, hangs, and performance metrics to identify the 10 most reliable Windows PCs you can buy today”, the most reliable Windows PC in the world is a 13″ Retina MacBook Pro running Windows via Boot Camp.

How abou that? According to the study, the MacBook Pro is “at the top of the list” with other hardware like the Acer Aspire E1-571, the Dell XPS 13, the Dell Vostro 3560, the Acer Aspire V3-771 and Apple’s 15-inch Retina-equipped MacBook Pro taking the next spots.

What about other vendors like Toshiba, Lenovo or market leader HP? Yeah, they don’t even crack the top ten. Sad, but true.

So, if you need to run Windows and are looking for the best, most reliable hardware out there to run it on, guess you should get a Mac. We’re not really surprised. We could have told you that.

Like all good things done by Nintendo, it’s time for special edition hardware. With the Pokemon franchise being possibly the most recognizable mobile game in the world with its original GameBoy roots, Nintendo is bringing the pocket monster flair to their behemoth (only in terms of importance, not size) pocket based console.

Retailing for a cool $199.99, the Pikachu themed 3DS XL will come with a 4 GB SD memory card and be available in limited qualities. From the look of the above image though, it may only be the top of the 3DS XL that features the Pikachu treatment as the hinge appears white, meaning the actual body of the system may be white as well.