I haven’t attempted to hide how much I enjoy the games G5 Entertainment brings to the iPhone and iPad – from time management to hidden object to story-based mini-game collections, G5 does a great job bringing right-sized casual entertainment to the platforms. They also have loads of great contests and sales – and THAT is why we are here today! For one day only their game Mushroom Age will be available for free on the iTunes App Store! Here are some details: Make a present to everyone you love – give the gift of Mushroom Age on February 14! Travel through time to help Vera find her fiancé in this romantic hidden object adventure Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I wanted to put in a quick mention for Tru, the service that offered to send me an international BlackBerry Bold 9700 to use for Mobile Congress Week along with their Tru SIM. The ultimate goal is that we’ll compare what I would have spent on the same amount of Tru usage versus AT&T’s best international rate (since they are my regular carrier) after Mobile World Congress is done. Here’s where it gets even better, though. DHL came through and got the BB Bold to me before I left. Because Tru was worried that it wouldn’t arrive in time, they also sent a BB Bold via DHL to Helena’s and my hotel in Barcelona. When… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

CES saw the release of the new Sony Ericsson Experia Arc, but tonight we got to see three new Experias: the neo, the pro and the long-awaited PLAY — the Playstation phone. Oh my. I had a chance to attend the press conference where these were introduced, and a moment to fondle all three. The Experia neo: The phone I am most excited about personally is the neo; it has a beautiful screen and an amazing camera that works well in even the worst lighting situations. This phone is very media focused, and it comes equipped with HDMI support, an 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera. The camera… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! Hopefully you have realized that Monday February 14th is Valentine’s Day, so that whatever plans you have are aligned with those of your significant other. But once past the mounting pressure of the biggest ‘Hallmark Holiday’ of the year, Tuesday brings a bunch of new releases. There are multiple major releases across consoles, handhelds and PC. For consoles we get Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, which hopes to continue the trend of improving on its predecessors. For handhelds we get two games: the DS port of the classic Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Mitchell Back in early 2010 I reviewed the HTC Desire, and I liked it a lot. I liked it so much that I actually bought one the day that it was launched here (which lined up well with the day the review unit went back). Unfortunately the love affair ended about 2 months later, and I returned to my iPhone. Why? Apps. Not just the selection of apps, but the polish that so many iOS apps display that other platforms didn’t at the time. My iPhone also had the major advantage of being jailbroken so it was even better. As it stands my iPhone 4 sits on… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy Lolpics) Oh Borders. They’re only a few days away from bankruptcy (so says the Wall Street Journal), and I had an experience in one of their stores today that sums up the reason fairly well. It’s not really about the exact statement, more about the history and philosophy that came with it; I walked away and immediately said, “And that’s why this company is falling apart.” I was standing by the awfully-named “Area-E”, checking out their ebook readers, when an employee approached me and began to pitch the devices. Their Cruz Tablet was broken, but the woman helping me tried very hard to sell me on it. I was… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Calvin and Hobbes courtesy of Bill Waterson and Universal Press Syndicate I am so totally stoked to see more and more publishers (like Touch Press) starting to use the capabilities of the iPad for more than just text-on-a-page books.  I think the iPad–and other tablets–has incredible potential to expand the “book experience” in positive ways (i.e., not just flashy stuff, but things that help you learn), and I’m glad to see it happening more. Like with National Geographic’s new iPad app, Ultimate Dinopedia.  Available for an MSRP of $5.99, Ultimate Dinopedia looks like a great app to get for that Dino enthusiast in your life.  Like Calvin up there.  So surf on… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

[Sigh]  I miss Graffiti. I was pretty fast writing with Graffiti on my old Palm devices. I’ve never been very speedy typing with my thumbs. I carried a BlackBerry for years because that is what my employer supported, but I never was all that fast (or accurate) typing with a thumb keyboard.  The BlackBerry keyboards were great, but, you see, I’m just not all that coordinated. Of course, more recently voice recognition has gotten much better and is now being deployed for mobile devices – and I love it – but still, there are situations in which you just aren’t free to dictate your emails out loud. A while back, I wrote a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So you’re watching a movie, right?  And one of the characters was born in the middle part of the 20th Century.  One of the ways they help establish a character’s background, identity, relationship with parents, and what-not, are through mock-casual distribution of old-timey photos.  Look, there’s the character as a tiny moppet, all bundled up against the snow!  Look, there he or her is again, riding the ponies at the local county fair?  And then again, surrounded by beaming family members as he or her gets his or her college degree!  Etc! You might think to yourself, “Geez, what are they going to do now that all photos are digital?  Leave thumb drives lying around… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve been to CES 9 times in the last 10 years, and for discovering or covering consumer electronics, there is no better show. But for really digging into the latest mobile phones and the technologies that power and differentiate them, there has been one show that has long been on my radar: Mobile World Congress. Last year, I was talking to Helena from Chip Chick, another long-time tech blogger who has never been. When the subject of MWC came up, we both got reflective, remarking upon how we had both always wanted to go. Without much thought for how we were going to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There’s nothing like boarding an international flight with the worry of whether or not your battery will die become you are done working, or if you’ll luck out and have a charging port under your seat. Swiss Air takes a proactive approach and sticks a USB charging port at eye level; its the perfect solution for people traveling with Mobile devices!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I was in college–the time it seems like every young guy wants to Join a Band–one of my very favorite books was The Guitar Handbook (with an interesting forward by Andy Summers of The Police).  It didn’t matter that I really didn’t have a lick of guitar talent–the gods had given it all to my absurdly-talented brother–I loved reading about guitarists, different types of guitars, different guitar sounds, and on and on.  Maybe I couldn’t really be a guitar player–although I came close with a bass, stopped only be fingers that were too short–but I could read and dream.  (And if ever there were a type of book that cried out for a fully-feature… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve not been shy to admit that I like iFrogz cases.  They’re interesting, colorful, useful, and reasonably priced.  (I also like the feel–tacky enough for a good grip without being too sticky.)  I have one on my iPhone 4 right now, as a matter of fact, and often get compliments on how it matches my shirt (when I wear that nice teal number that Sami likes so much).  So I’m never shy to let you all know when they have new products available. Today’s offering is designed to fit your Verizon iPhone–and yes, the Verizon version of the iPhone is just a teensy bit different; just enough so that your cases don’t fit quite right… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I have always been a fan of space being a Star Wars fanatic (not a Star Trek guy though). How fun could it be to take a sweet spaceship and buzz around the universe visiting strange and uncharted worlds. With that said, most any space game has always been entertaining to me. Whether it means blasting ships and aliens or making friends with them for business reasons, space is always a fun place to game. I jumped at the chance to review Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space for these very reason.  Let’s take a look. Choose between… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Over the last week or so we have read about Verizon completely selling out of pre-orders of the iPhone 4, then an estimate that those pre-orders were 500,000 or more, and then that there was some shock that there weren’t lines and crowds outside of Verizon and Apple stores across the country. Keep in mind that this phone is 9 months old and just coming to a new carrier – and as noted by HTC they expect their phone life-cycle to be well under 9 months … so selling 500,000 at this point is already pretty amazing! According to an article at MacRumors, Chitika Insights has set up a Continue reading on Gear Diary …