Gear Diary

For the Swankest Party Pad, Just Add the Spyra Glowing LED Bar Table

Judie Lipsett Stanford — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:00:30 +0000

Gadgets and Gear’s Spyra Glowing LED Bar Table looks like it would be right at home in an Austin Powers’ movie, and I mean that in the best possible way! At 42″ tall with a 23″ round top, the Spyra will hold your drinks and give you some pretty groovy mood lighting.

The multi-colored LEDs hidden in the table phase between red, blue and green, giving the table its one-of-a-kind glowing edges. The table is made of clear acrylic with visible etching when off or in the daylight.

At this price you could get a few to scatter around your basement gameroom / bar … and if you really wanted to get shagtastic, you could get the full glowing effect by adding a couple of Gadgets and Gears’ fuzzy Moonlight Cushions to the seating area. Yeah baby … yeah!!

Gadgets and Gear’s Spyra Glowing LED Bar Table

Gadgets and Gears’ Moonlight Cushions

Austin would approve.

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Speck’s CandyShell Case Now Available for Sharp FX and Samsung Eternity II Smartphones

Douglas Moran — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:15:23 +0000

We’ve revealed quite a few Speck cases here at Gear Diary, with a sometimes-heavy tilt towards iPhones and iPads. But that doesn’t mean that Speck is neglecting the other areas of the market, and they have just announced cases for the Sharp FX and Samsung cell phones.

Available both online as well at your friendly neighborhood AT&T store, the cases go for either $29.99 or $34.99 (depending on the case). Drop by AT&T, or surf on over to the Speck site and check them out.

Full information below.

Speck has expanded the ever-popular CandyShell case line to bring the highly coveted soft-meets-hard shell protection to a pair of new smartphones the Sharp FX and the Samsung Eternity II available at AT&T retail stores nationwide and online at www.wireless.att.com. For images of these new cases, please visit:http://www.speckproducts.com/content/at-t-smart-phone-cases.

With a soft silicone interior layer and a sleek hard shell exterior, CandyShell has proven itself as a leader in protection and style since its introduction. Since then, tales of CandyShell cases saving phones and other devices from sudden death during epic fumbles has been consistently proclaimed by Speck’s dedicated CandyShell customers.

The soft rubberized interior helps insulate from drops while the raised front bezel trim design further protects the phone’s face and touchscreen when placed face down. The smooth, hard shell exterior allows the phone to slip easily in and out of pockets. Attention to detail and a thoughtful approach enabled Speck to customize CandyShell designs specifically for the Sharp FX and Samsung Eternity II smartphones, while retaining all the unique features and functionality of each phone. The Speck CandyShell case for the Sharp FX smartphone is available in black with grey accents for a MSRP of $34.99 while the CandyShell for the Samsung Eternity II smartphone is available in black with blue accents for a MSRP of $34.99. Both cases are available for purchase now at AT&T retail stores and online:

Speck CandyShell for Sharp FX:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/accessory-details/?q_categoryid=all&q_sku=sku4830282&q_manufacturer=sharp&q_model=prod4670221

Speck CandyShell for Samsung Eternity II:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/accessory-details/?q_categoryid=cat1370025&q_sku=sku4850260&q_manufacturer=samsung&q_model=prod4720391

Additional information also available from Speck at:
http://www.speckproducts.com/products/candyshell/sharp-fx/250
http://www.speckproducts.com/products/candyshell/samsung-eternity-ii/251

Happy Days ‘Jump the Shark’ Writer Suprised the Phrase ‘Still Has Bite’

Michael Anderson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:30:19 +0000

Even for those not alive in the late 70’s, the phrase ‘jump the shark’ has an immediate contextual meaning: the moment you can look upon as when an otherwise enjoyable and/or high quality show started a downward spiral into oblivion. Every writer / actor / director would love the thought of having a great show and going out on top, leaving everyone with high quality episodes that simply have you wanting more. But the networks want to ride their high-rating shows as long as possible, and end up throwing more and more money at the show to keep people on-board. The result? Rehashed ideas and increasingly desperately obvious grabs for ratings, like last year’s girl-on-girl episode of Desperate Housewives for example … there is a huge difference between a moment of unexpected passion and ‘OMG we r zo edgY!’

A few days ago Fred Fox Jr., the writer responsible for the infamous ‘Jump the Shark’ episode of Happy Days, wrote a guest editorial for the LA Times as a sort of retort against the usage of that phrase and a defense of the episode:

“Happy Days” was finishing the 1976-77 season as the most popular series on television, an accomplishment we were all proud of. That year had begun with a highly rated three-part story in which Fonzie ( Henry Winkler) rekindled the flame of a former love, Pinky Tuscadero. Because of this success, ABC and Paramount wanted us to open the next season, our fifth, with another three-part story.

After discussing different scenarios, we decided to take the “Happy Days” gang to Hollywood, with Fonzie invited for a screen test. One of the plot lines would be Fonzie clashing with “The California Kid,” a cocky local beach boy. Since Henry water skied in real life, it was suggested the characters race and then, as a tiebreaker, have to jump a shark in a netted area in the ocean.

For me, those two paragraphs tell the entire tale. You had a show that had tremendous success in four seasons using essentially two sets – the Cunningham house and Al’s Drive In. A multi-episode story arc worked before, so naturally the tendency is to do exactly the same thing – but BIGGER! Suddenly Fonzie is being scouted and everyone is taking a trip to Hollywood! Having a midwest cool dude versus west coast cool dude showdown … and so on. Let’s not forget that in the first season Fonzie didn’t even wear a leather jacket – yet by this episode the producers and writers had the jacket so tied to the identity of the Fonzie character that he goes water skiing with it on!?!

By the time this episode aired, the ‘trip to Hawaii’ multi-episode arc of Brady Bunch was already well known as an early form of ‘jumping the shark’ … though without the term we all just thought it was a sign of pure desperation on the part of the producers, second only to Cousin Oliver!

The fact that no one had any issues with any of that doesn’t make it OK … in fact it should signal in retrospect that there were deeper issues. I mean seriously – pretty soon we had aliens and all other sorts of absurd plot-lines involving Fonzie as though the writers thought taking his ‘cool powers’ to a sort of Star Wars ‘Force’ level made any sort of sense. But back to the LA Times article:

Which brings us to the question: Was the “Hollywood 3″ episode of “Happy Days” deserving of its fate?

No, it wasn’t. All successful shows eventually start to decline, but this was not “Happy Days’” time. Consider: It was the 91st episode and the fifth season. If this was really the beginning of a downward spiral, why did the show stay on the air for six more seasons and shoot an additional 164 episodes? Why did we rank among the Top 25 in five of those six seasons?

Ah, the ‘if it sucks so bad why is it so popular’ defense. To me that has always been a sure sign of desperation! It is like discussing musical artists with someone, making a criticism about their favorite artist and having them retort ‘yeah, well they have a lot more money than you!’ OK, fine …

It seems that Mr. Fox is equating the ‘Jump the Shark’ nomenclature to calling the show moribund. That misses the point. As noted, that season featured aliens (the spin-off for Mork & Mindy) and other odd battles. The focus also started to shift to Joanie and Chachi, and the 50’s era focus started to drift as the popular mindset had left that nostalgia behind. And then Ron Howard left the show, and a nephew came in as a pseudo-replacement.

The point isn’t that the show died when Fonzie jumped the shark, but the slow and agonizing road to death really began with the story arc that started the 5th season and climaxed with that absurd water-skiing competition.

Interestingly, the site Mr. Fox refers to, the eponymous ‘Jump the Shark’ site created by Jon Hein, has itself had an interesting transformation. Created in 1997 as an open community where folks could vote for possible reasons a show had ‘jumped’ and look at a wide array of ‘common themes’ such as cast changes, new kids, marriages, and so on. It was great fun in the late 90’s, though quickly it became popular to try to use the term in a predictive rather than retrospective fashion.

In 2006 Jon Hein sold the site to TVGuide parent Gemstar, who in early 2009 completely overhauled it and pretty much dismantled anything that made the site popular in the first place. Rather than listing shows and themes and other things of interest, the site is now just an ad-filled gossip site. Heck, for good old Ted McGinley, who joined the Happy Days cast after Ron Howard left, and served as a ’second stringer’ on enough shows in decline that he became the ‘patron saint’ of the site … here is the entirety of the listing:

Ted McGinley alert! The “patron saint” of Jump the Shark will be appearing in a Hallmark Channel movie, The Note II: Taking a Chance on Love, alongside sudser queen Genie Francis. Will you tune in?

Yep … an advertisement for a lousy Hallmark movie from more than 18 months ago! (I call it lousy because my wife and I watched the first one earlier this year and then it started into the second one … and we just couldn’t take anymore!)

Now there is a site called ‘Bone the Fish’ that is an attempt to recreate the original feeling of Jump the Shark. Here is their info:

The term “Bone the Fish” was created in direct reference to TV Guide parent Gemstar. Sometime in 2006, Jon Hein decided to sell the website known as “Jump the Shark” or “JumptheShark.com”. Hein sold his company, Jump The Shark, Inc., to Gemstar (owners of TV Guide) on June 20, 2006 for “over $1 million”. After Jon Hein sold it he went to work with Howard Stern. Some Howard Stern staff have speculated that the site sold closer to $5-$10 million, however. We like to say that was the point in time when the website Jump the Shark “Boned the Fish”.

Looking at the site, it seems clear that the whole concept of the original site is largely lost on the folks who contribute opinions. For every insight by someone who saw Barney Miller, there are several nonsensical comments from younger kids watching reruns bemused by the fashions and sensibilities and who just think the whole thing is crap. That misses the point in several ways. The original site looked at shows we loved and that were lousy by the end and tries to figure out if there is some inflection point or points where decisions made by producers led to certain failure.

For a recent example look at Ghost Whisperer. A charming little show with fun characters and ‘freak of the week’ storylines (and self-admitted scantily clad Jennifer Love Hewitt to provide ‘eye candy’ in her own words), each year there was a major cliff-hanger, from the death of her business partner to her own near-death experience. But then her husband Jim got shot and killed and his spirit took over another dying body … and a whole Jim/Sam dichotomy played out for the season – though most fans probably didn’t see it to its conclusions. Others say it is the birth of the child and 5-year time jump, but that was just a purely desperate attempt to revive the corpse the show had become …

On the other hand, ABC Family launched a show called ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’, which dealt with a 15-year old girl going into high school who attended band camp the previous summer … and got pregnant by an older ’smooth operator’. We watched the first season with our kids, as it offered a decent look at kids and families in difficult situations. But by the end of the first 11 episode season, it was already starting to drift into the typical teenage show ‘everyone sleeps with everyone else’. The kids were done, my wife and I watched more … but it was amazingly ironic that a show whose foundation was the consequences of teenage sex would so quickly become a titillating look at abnormally attractive teens constantly discussing having or not having sex. The show was never good, therefore looking for a ‘jump the shark’ moment is an exercise in futility.

What about you? Do you have Happy Days memories? Thoughts from the Jump the Shark site? Other shows?

Source: LATimes via Neatorama

Gear Games Viewpoint: Apple’s Funny Math (again!), Puzzle Quest’s PSP Woes, and the Irrelevant Hardcore Gamer

Michael Anderson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:00:19 +0000

After watching Steve Jobs last week on the live stream of their media event, I was all ready to start a scathing post about their use of numbers … and I wouldn’t be alone in doing so. I had done a similar thing last year, calling out Apple’s touting of their massive numbers of entertainment titles in the App Store. But quickly I realized that while the statistician in me might be affronted by Jobs’ penchant for bad math and claims that lack any sort of ‘truthiness’, the larger picture in Apple’s portable gaming dominance claims were more important to explore.

But I do have to start off with a look at the numbers: Apple has made claims of being the #1 handheld game system, though I know the wording Jobs used was loose and vague enough to avoid anyone pinning him down. It certainly can’t mean overall, since estimates put overall ‘iOS device’ units (including all iPods, iPads and iPhones) at ~120 million, Nintendo DS sales at ~140 million and PSP sales at ~65 million. Even Apple wouldn’t directly claim that 120 > 140 + 65!

To break down the iPod Touch sales further, take some info from AppleInsider:

We know that there were 59.6 million iPhones sold through June (from SEC filings)

We also know that 3.2 million iPads were sold.

If we assume about 8 million iPhones and 4 million iPads were sold during August and July, the total number of iPod touch sold is 45.2 million.

One common assumption is that what Jobs was talking about was the most recent quarter. Based on the recent numbers, we can either assume either the 37.7% total share or the run rate of ~1.25 million per month, both of which wind up ~3.5-3.75 million units per quarter. For comparison, Nintendo sold 3.15 million DS units and Sony 1.2 million PSP units, for a combined total of 4.35 million units.

So if Apple had a really good quarter for iPod Touches, it is possible that they did outgun both Sony and Nintendo. In fact, it is likely that as the iPod Touch has become more dominant in the iPod lineup that its sales FAR exceeded 4.35 million! What we don’t know is how many of those iPod Touch sales are used for predominantly games, compared to how many have a few dozen games but see less than 1 hour per month of actual game time.

Just look at those numbers: more than 45 million iPod Touch sales in 3 years. If you assume that Apple continues selling ~4 million per quarter while Sony sells 1.2 million, then the iPod Touch will reach parity with the PSP in 7 quarters and outnumber the PSP within 2 years. And since the iPod is ascending while the PSP is declining, the iPod Touch could outnumber the PSP within a year! As for the DS … the iPod wouldn’t reach the DS install base in 6 years even with an optimistic forecast.

As an aside, I have had some call into question iPod Touch numbers because Apple pushes out a new model each year, with the 4th generation just now shipping 3 years after initial launch. In some ways they have a point – in our house we have a 8GB 3rd gen, my 32GB 1st gen and my recently ordered 32GB 4th gen … all attached to the same iTunes account. But I also have a PSP-1000, 2000, 3000 and Go attached to the same PSN account, and also 2 Nintendo DS, a DS Lite and a DSi … so it is hard to say that the iPod Touch has any more ‘version bloat’ in sales figures than any other platform.

But while we don’t know about the gaming habits of iPod Touch owners, we do KNOW that (a) there are loads of apps in the App Store, games and other entertainment included, (b) some of those games (~1 in 1000) actually sells enough to make a reasonable amount of money, (c) the cost model is difficult for most developers, but that (d) the cost model is attractive enough to be bringing in more and more large developers.

So what does that tell us?

It tells us that while Steve Jobs once again got up and spouted some half-truths and misleading potential information, the core of his argument (incidentally something he never said but really should have) is extremely valid:

The iPod Touch has utterly changed the gaming landscape and with each new iteration continues to take the lead while Nintendo struggles to keep pace and Sony looks more and more incompetent and irrelevant.

So that brings us to the PSP. I believe I tipped my hand when I just called Sony’s handheld efforts “incompetent and irrelevant”. Without getting into too much detail, I have talked about how Sony has attempted to rewrite history by relabeling what they once called a ‘premium product’ (as in boutique) as an ‘experiment’; I have also noted how they continue to fail to get their premier third party developers to release their games on PSN day and date that UMD releases occur, in spite of the digital service being inherently quicker. Finally, I have talked about how badly the PSP Minis games are selling compared to similar games on the App Store.

But here is yet another great example of the state of the PSP, from an article at Joystiq:

Steve Fawkner, CEO and president of Infinite Interactive, confirmed with Joystiq that the PSP game would only be available as a PSN download — there will not be a UMD version. “Although we’ve received great support from D3 and Namco for all previous Puzzle Quest releases, PQ2 PSP is the first Puzzle Quest game that Infinite is doing by itself, without a publisher, so we’re not really able to handle a full UMD release at this time,” Fawkner told us. He went on to say that “it’s important to get a PSP version out there for all the people who enjoyed the original PQ on PSP and wanted the second one.”

Fawkner offered further insight into why Infinite would be publishing the PSP version itself (given that other versions were published by D3). “The truth is that most publishers really aren’t keen to take a risk on PSP these days, which is kind of sad, because it’s ‘taking risks’ that gets great games like Puzzle Quest published in the first place!”

So while we are seeing huge releases like this week’s Kingdom Hearts and the upcoming God of War: Ghost of Sparta, and a fair share of movie tie-ins and multiplatform releases (though it seems the first platform cut is always the PSP), and even sequels like Patapon 3 … that statement makes me wonder whether we would even see games like Loco Roco or Patapon now.

The PSP has an audience, but it has gotten more and more fragmented over the last few years – for many folks the PSP was all about a ‘non-kiddie’ gaming experience. But the DS has delivered loads of great games, generally at $10 lower cost. The load times of UMD games has always been a hassle, so the introduction of the iPod Touch, allowing there to be a high-definition video system with quick loading. This is demonstrated nicely with GTA Chinatown Wars, with a DS version for special dual-screen mini-games and the iPod Touch offering PSP-level visuals and audio for less money and without the load times.

So that brings us to ‘the hardcore’. I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer and few would argue – but there is a difference between BEING a hardcore gamer and having some elitist ‘I AM TEH H4RDC0R3′ attitude. As I have said, I choose to be a PC/Mac/handheld gamer. Console gaming in front of a TV is just not for me – but that doesn’t make me somehow better or make PC or handheld games inherently better or worse than anything else. THAT is the attitude that would be part of ‘the hardcore’.

As an example, we have recently seen major franchise releases on handhelds from previously console-only games: Dragon Quest IX and Valkyria Chronicles 2. The announcement back in 2006 that Dragon Quest IX would launch on the Nintendo DS created quite a stir, with gaming news sites and forums falling all over themselves about how this would the demise of … well, something. Similarly, the release of Valkyria Chronicles 2 for the PSP led some to speculate that there must be something forcing it to happen, such as this: “I have no clue why Sega thought it was a good idea to release VC2 as a PSP exclusive … this reeks of contractual obligations.”

I can understand the frustration of having a game franchise on your platform of choice migrate to another platform, along with the inherent changes need to make such a transition. I have been harsh about the failings of the PC version of Oblivion and Fallout 3, for example, both of which were primarily targeted for the XBOX360. Similar criticisms could be made for the second class treatment afforded the XBOX360 and particularly the PS3 version of Dragon Age: Origins, a PC-first development.

But that is different from what happened in these cases: there is a clear feeling amongst ‘the hardcore’ that handheld gaming systems are inherently lesser and inferior. To them, the move to the DS for Dragon Quest is akin to ’selling out’. That is because they consider the Nintendo DS to be a ‘kiddie’ platform for playing casual, Mario & Zelda titles. Not for their beloved franchises!

The move to the PSP for Valkyria Chronicles 2 is admittedly somewhat curious: the PSP is certainly not a ‘kiddie’ platform, but it is also not viewed anywhere as being ‘on the rise’ as the PS3 certainly is. At the same time, that might be part of the reason for the choice – the PS3 is getting more and more crowded with top-tier games, so a release on the PSP could gain more attention. Or something like that.

So … why does any of THAT matter?

Because while ‘hardcore’ console gamers look down upon handhelds and handheld games, ‘hardcore’ handheld gamers look down upon the iPod Touch and the games in the App Store. You could see that attitude reflected in the recent ad from Sony on the PSP. In that article I reflected on how Sony was taking a fingers-in-the-ears ‘I can’t hear’ you approach to the fact that many of the games from the PSP are now on the App Store – and in every case they are cheaper!

I have posited here more than a couple of times about the critical need for the App Store to figure out a way to develop a viable business model. And while I still don’t think that the transformation is complete, I think there is a case to be made that rather than building a model to suit the $20 million budget game, they are teaching developers to adapt their games to certain price points and price games according to features.

And I think the iPad has definitely helped – there are tons of games and apps in the $10 – 15 range, with a bare-bones price of $5 for anything of substance. And people are BUYING! As a result, the water level for iPod apps – which I had concerns due to seeming endless pricing down-spiral – has risen so there are more apps selling in the $2-5 range, and more than ever feature-rich apps can command a premium price. Folks are willing to pay $5 for a 10 hour RPG with great graphics and features, and $10 or more for a great multi-function utility!

When you look at the other platforms, some things are obvious: gamers are less willing than ever to drop $30 – $40 for a handheld game, and that is having a HUGE impact. Nintendo actually lost money, and they attributed the loss not to hardware sales – which were doing fine – but to a huge decline in SOFTWARE sales! Certainly the smaller amount of high-profile titles this year compared to last during the same period hurt, but their bread & butter casual segment has all but disappeared to the iPod Touch. Sony … okay, aside from pointing out again that most people won’t pay $5 for a PSP Mini identical to a $2 iPod Touch game, I think I’ve already pounded on Sony enough.

Even with console and PC games we are seeing an uptick in the expectations that post-release DLC will arrive frequently as a way for gamers to stay connected with a game world they love and experience new things – for a reasonable ($5-10) price. Hmmm. Even indie developers seem to be altering some of their tactics, with Hazen: The Dark Whispers on Steam for $8 as episodic content and a new announcement for a game called Beyond the Pillars, a set of 7 episodes for $5 each for the Mac and PC.

Hmmm … notice the pricing – more and more stuff is drifting towards $5-10 for a few hours of entertainment. It seems that rather than App Store developers being forced to adapt their model to existing frameworks, that the popularity of the App Store is forcing the video game industry to adopt a model that recognizes a continuum of pricing models from $0.99 to $60 per game.

It is obvious that within this new reality there are going to have to be changes – as I have said it doesn’t make sense that a game that cost $5 million to make could sell for $1.99 … the sales requirements are just too great (>3.5 million or ~10% of all iPod Touches ever sold). It also seems fairly obvious that people will not be willing to pay $30 for the exact same game they can get for $10. What remains to be seen is how it all shakes out. As I have said, I consider the PSP a lost cause – but I also believe that Sony has positioned it as such and done nothing to stop it from progressing that way.

Nintendo needs to do a couple of things – the first is getting out the new 3DS as soon as possible in 2011. That is more or less straightforward, as the hardware is pretty well done, and there is massive customer pull for the system – ensuring a solid sales stream for at least a few games. But once the dust settles from all of that, they will need to address the reality that the $20 casual market they dominated has migrated to games selling for $2-5 on the App Store. That is a tougher thing to deal with … but something that is critical, if last quarter’s results are any indication!

So let me state it again:
The iPod Touch has utterly changed the gaming landscape and with each new iteration continues to take the lead while Nintendo struggles to keep pace and Sony looks more and more incompetent and irrelevant.

In 2004 Nintendo launched the DS and in 2006 they launched the Wii, and with those two systems changed the face of gaming. Those systems invited people into gaming in ways that complex PC and console games with their cumbersome interfaces never really had. Games like Elite Beat Agents invite you to tap to the beat on the DS screen, Nintendogs lets you scratch the belly of your virtual pooch, and organizations still use Wii Bowling for virtual bowl-a-thons to raise money. And companies continue to expand their use of those technologies.

But in the summer of 2008, right as we were heading into a major recession, Apple launched the App Store, allowing all sorts of games and entertainment and utilities to be bought and installed on the iPhone and iPod Touch. And as we have seen, it has completely changed the face of mobile gaming. No longer confined to crappy Javascript games on slow handsets, we could play Plants vs. Zombies or FieldRunners or Doodle Jump or GTA Chinatown Wars on a bright 3.5″ screen with a robust graphics system.

So while I still bristle when I think of the way Steve Jobs plays fast and loose with numbers, making insinuations and semi-assertions that are fraught with factual half-truths and misleading conclusions … what I also realize is that everything has changed. People who would lay out $30 for Puzzle Quest on the PSP in 2007 are now going to get it for $20 on the DS or be content to wait to pay $10 for it on the App Store.

Much has been made over the other app stores, such as the Android Market and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 marketplace. As of right now I think they have a long way to come (personally I think the Android Market is a total mess and useless to browse), but with the Android smartphone hardware becoming better every day and the promise of XBOX Live functionality in Windows Phone 7, the transition to a broader low-priced mobile gaming ecosystem is clearly not going to stop.

It remains to be seen what impact Apple’s new Game Center will have, but given the massive popularity of Steam’s community for PC & Mac gamers, XBOX Live, and the Playstation Network, my assumption is that if it is done well and is convenient to use (unlike Nintendo’s friend code system), it will be a massive success.

What are your thoughts on Steve Jobs and his ‘loose with the truth’ ways? How about the iPod Touch as a gaming platform – and the impact of the App Store on the overall gaming world? What do you think will be the impact of iOS 4, the Game Center and the new Pixel Display iPod Touch over the next year? Let us know!

Source: AppleInsider

Zinio Gets Branded… Gets Into the Branded Apps Business That Is…

Dan Cohen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:30:10 +0000

As I have written previously, I have been reading eMags for a number of years thanks to Zinio. I first used the service on my computer but found it to be truly useful when I began using Tablet PCs. Later, during my UMPC stage I found it even more ugreat since, due to the light weight and small size of the UMPC, I was able to carry it with me pretty much everywhere. I share this bit of personal tech history because, for me, Zinio is a well-known brand. I see their name or logo and I automatically think “eMags”. It is for that reason that I immediately downloaded Zinio to my iPad when it arrived a few months ago and have since used it as my source for any and all magazines I read. (Assuming they are available through Zinio, of course.) For me Zinio is the brand that says- magazines.

For other, however, this is not the case. Many people don’t know Zinio. For them the idea of locating a specific magazine title and purchasing/downloading it makes more sense. For them the magazine IS the brand. In order to get them to start using Zinio there has to be some education regarding what Zinio is and how it functions. That kind of a learning curve, as slight as it might be, is an obstacle to Zinio extending its reach even further.

That, I suspect, is part of the reason that Zinio has just made a significant move into “branded apps”. Now you will find a growing assortment of magazine apps in the iTunes App Store that look like they are published by that specific magazine. They look that way because… they are. The difference is that when you launch the app in order to read the magazine you’ll see the words “Powered by Zinio” briefly appear. That’s because they ARE Zinio-powered apps but they are individual magazine apps rather than part of the larger Zinio catalogue. At the same time, however, the magazines you purchase AS APPS will also enjoy Zinio’s UNITY platform that allows access to all magazines you purchase across your devices. The only difference is that you go straight to the app in the App Store or on your device rather than through the Zinio app as a portal.

As Rich Maggiotto, President & CEO of Zinio explains,

“During this time of clear industry transformation it is exciting to be in a position to offer our growing portfolio of 3,000+ top magazine titles a direct line to ignite even more passionate experiences with the readers through a branded app all the while maintaining the richness, utility, expansiveness, convenience, and efficiency, of our global service.”

Personally I much prefer using the one Zinio app as a portal to my entire bookshelf of magazines than the idea of having a lot of individual magazine apps on my iPad but from a marketing and reach perspective this is a brilliant move. Now, rather than people having to learn about Zinio they just need to look for their favorite magazine. Either way you get the benefits of Zinio’s system. You just get to the magazines in the manner you prefer.

The full release follows…

Zinio Introduces ‘Branded App’ Global Solution for Magazine Publishers Within iTunes™ App Store

UNITY™ Platform Extension Leverages National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and Sporting New Today as Launch Partners
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ — Zinio, the global leader in digital-publishing technology and services, today announced an expansion of their product offering and services to include Branded Apps for the Apple ITunes™ App Store. This announcement further extends the reach of its “read anywhere” Zinio UNITY™ platform and enables additional discoverability for publishers in their multi-device efforts to drive subscription growth and brand affinity.

Each branded app powered by Zinio includes the same highly engaging and interactive features that have driven Zinio’s top ranked magazine newsstand and reading app. National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and Sporting News Today are the first, with many to follow, to take advantage of this product and service extension offered exclusively to Zinio clients. As of today, fans of these specific brands can enjoy browsing featured articles, purchasing single issues, back issues and subscriptions right from a standalone title-branded app. By leveraging Zinio’s UNITY™ distribution platform, consumers are provided immediate access to their full library of issues for these titles whether purchased through the branded app itself, or through any other enabled retail or device extensions with Zinio’s quickly growing global network.

“During this time of clear industry transformation,” said Rich Maggiotto, President & CEO of Zinio, “it is exciting to be in a position to offer our growing portfolio of 3,000+ top magazine titles a direct line to ignite even more passionate experiences with the readers through a branded app all the while maintaining the richness, utility, expansiveness, convenience, and efficiency, of our global service.”

“National Geographic Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler have experienced successful expansion and growth in the six months since we have launched our digital versions with Zinio” said Paul Levine, EVP Interactive Platforms Group, National Geographic Global Media. “Combining this experience with the successes of our Complete National Geographic software product, our iPad Atlas app and the like makes perfect sense. We continue to successfully grow and engage our global consumer base through added multi-channel exposure, and we see these interactive magazine offerings as pivotal to drive broader consumer reach and to explore new digital business models.”

“Zinio continues to be a terrific partner for us, and a key part of our value proposition,” said Jeff Price, president and CEO of Sporting News. “Since the launch of Sporting New Today on Zinio, we have heard from countless subscribers who begin each morning downloading and reading the latest daily issue on their iPad before school or work. As we continue to enhance our iPad edition with photo slideshows and extra videos, as well as a fully interactive, state-of-the-art scoreboards we know our content will be received even more enthusiastically by highly engaged sports fans.”

All branded apps will be offered for free, and include issues as a bonus. All apps, including Zinio’s universal global newsstand and reading app, are all available for download at zinio.com/apps or directly by searching for each brand name within iTunes at www.apple.com/itunes.

About Zinio:

Zinio is the world’s largest newsstand and bookstore. With its many digital products and services, Zinio creates better ways for people to discover published content, get more of it and do more with it. Now, readers can purchase content once to be read on any screen. Zinio provides the ability to shop for, search inside, read, share and save digital content in 25 local newsstands in any country in the world. Through the ZINIO UNITY™ reading platform, readers can move seamlessly within each publication page between text, interactive graphics, animated illustrations, videos more on most operating systems. Offering hundreds of thousands of the best digital issues, Zinio’s e-stores and applications are revolutionizing reading. Founded in 2001 and privately held, Zinio is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in New York, London, Paris, Barcelona and Taipei.

About National Geographic:

The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” the Society works to inspire people to care about the planet. National Geographic reflects the world through its magazines, television programs, films, music and radio, books, DVDs, maps, exhibitions, live events, school publishing programs, interactive media and merchandise. National Geographic magazine, the Society’s official journal, published in English and 32 local-language editions, is read by more than 38 million people each month. The National Geographic Channel reaches 330 million households in 34 languages in 166 countries. National Geographic Digital Media receives more than 15 million visitors a month. National Geographic has funded more than 9,400 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education program promoting geography literacy.

National Geographic Global Media combines into one group the consumer content units of the National Geographic Society, including National Geographic Books and the National Geographic Magazine Group, and the business units that make up National Geographic Ventures, a wholly owned, taxable subsidiary of the Society. These business units are National Geographic Television, Interactive Platforms — which includes Mobile, Games, Maps, Interactive Publishing — and the Digital Media and Entertainment divisions. These units utilize multiple platforms and multiple media formats to advance the National Geographic mission

About Sporting News:

Founded in 1886, Sporting News is a multi-media company catering to avid sports fans. Its content is available through a bi-weekly publication, Sporting News Magazine; the world’s first and only daily digital sports publication, Sporting News Today; the online source for real-time, breaking sports news and information, SportingNews.com; the ultimate premium destination for fantasy content, tools and information, Sporting News Fantasy; a video and community-based website, Rowdy.com; and 11 annuals covering all major sports. Sporting News also serves as the national sales representative for CineSport, the leading video reach vehicle in the sports category. Sporting News is a division of American City Business Journals, Inc., publisher of 41 city business journals, Sports Business Journal, Sports Business Daily, NASCAR Illustrated and Inside Lacrosse.

Can I Get You a Soda … er … Pop … er … ?!?!

Michael Anderson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:15:02 +0000

Being from suburban Boston, I was surprised when I went to school in upstate NY and befriended some kids from outside of Pittsburgh PA and found that not everyone wanted a ’soda’ … some wanted a ‘pop’. Later on, when traveling to the deep south for my first job I was asked if I wanted a ‘coke’ (or sweet tea, of course), to which I asked if they had Diet Coke. I was told they had all sorts of coke, including Pepsi, Orange, Root Beer … you get the picture. Fact is, where you are from will determine what generic name you give to soft drinks … and conversely hearing someone refer to soft drinks can indicate where they are from.

A site called ‘Pop vs Soda’ is trying to generate a nationwide chart that maps out our term of choice based on where we grew up. Here are the basics of how they are collecting information:

The primary source of data for this study will be submissions from readers of this web page. Obviously, this may not be a completely random sampling, but since the primary objective of the study is to map the regional distribution and not the population distribution per response, this sample should suffice. Also, since a large percentage of internet users are college students who may use dialects not local to their current place of residence, this survey asks for the respondent’s “home town” and the beverage-term used by most of the population there. This data will be imperfect at best, but should be the most accurate possible without actually going into the field, and certainly the most comprehensive study of the field to date.

They have a nice interactive version of the map above and you can click state by state to see how your particular county answered the poll. For me, I grew up in Norfolk County in Massachusetts, which was almost monolithically a soda region. Now I live in New York in Chemung County and work in Steuben County … and each of those were pretty evenly split, with a slight leaning towards pop.

Head on over to PopvsSoda.com to contribute your information! And while you’re at it, have a soda for me!

Source: PopVsSoda.com via Twitter

Want to Make a Facetime Call From an iPod touch to an iPhone? Then You Had Better…

Dan Cohen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:45:22 +0000

Here’s a quick tip to all of you who are going to be getting a new iPod touch… if you want to make a Facetime call to someone using an iPhone they need to be running iOS 4.1. What that means right now is that Facetime from a touch to a jailbroken iPhone is… not going to happen.

Let’s hope a solution is found… or Larry decides to relock his iPhone and update it to 4.1!

PC/Mac Game Review: Plants vs. Zombies Game of the Year

Michael Anderson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:00:42 +0000

While I might be the main ‘gaming person’ here at Gear Diary, let’s be clear about one thing – Plants vs. Zombies is a shared addiction / love affair / necessity of life for MOST of the staff. Earlier this year I reviewed the iPhone version of the game, and while all of us with iPads also love THAT version there just wasn’t enough new stuff to merit a new look. But now the combined Mac & PC ‘Game of the Year’ version has been released on Steam, and therefore I couldn’t resist playing it some more … let’s see how it works!

The Hype:
Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense-style game available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Get ready to soil your plants in an all-new action-strategy game from PopCap. A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants. Use peashooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to mulchify 26 types of zombies before they can reach your front door. Each zombie has its own special skills, so you’ll need to think fast and plant faster to combat them all. But be careful how you use your limited supply of greens and seeds& as you battle the fun-dead, obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge. And with five game modes to dig into, the fun never ends.

* Conquer all 50 levels of Adventure mode -through day, night and fog, in a swimming pool and on the rooftop
* Battle 26 types of zombies including pole-vaulters, snorkelers and “Zomboni” drivers
* Earn 49 powerful perennials and collect coins to buy a pet snail, power-ups and more!
* Design your own Zombie with the Zombatar

The Reality:

I was totally amazed at the transformation of the TD (Tower Defense) genre over the last few years – we started with some basic browser-based Flash games and quickly evolved. I did a review of Defense Grid: The Awakening in 2008, and the DS gem Lock’s Quest in 2009. It seems like a genre that fits perfectly into the ‘casual game craze’ while also offering developers an opportunity to add plenty of depth and individualization. Of course, there are still too many Flash-type web-based TD games that are generic sci-fi fluff, and the popularity of teh genre has led a shift from Flash games to Apps, but every now and then a gem comes along. Like Plants vs. Zombies!

Once again I’m in a place where I feel like the old woman in the shoe – only I now have so many copies of Plants vs. Zombies I just don’t know what to do! I got the Mac version from Popcap when it launched, then the PC version on Steam, then the iPhone version, then the iPad version, and now that the Game of the Year version is out I have the Mac version on Steam!

Oh, by the way … Plants vs. Zombies comes out in January 2011 for the Nintendo DS. Sadly I can’t pre-order it yet. But I will …. oh, yes I will!

The majority of the game is the same as I had played elsewhere early in 2009, so let me step back through the review I did then: I remember explaining it to my wife – there is your house, there is your yard, and there are a bunch of zombies out in the road; all you have to do it stop the zombies from reaching your house. After the blank look remained on her face, I said ‘let me show you’. A few minutes later she was sold – she STILL hasn’t played yet, but loves when the four of us crown around my Macbook Pro yelling at the screen while one of us takes control.

Aside from thoroughly enjoying the adventure mode, there are also Mini-games, Puzzle, and Survival modes. These are unlocked gradually as you progress through the adventure and offer even more fun ways to assault or defend your house. Mini-games are unveiled one at a time and are singular events, such as Wall-Nut Bowling, where you get to roll Wall-Nuts (large stones that block the path of zombies until destroyed) into the onslaught of zombies. The Wall-Nut will strike a zombie, doing a certain amount of damage and then take off at an angle, allowing you to hit multiple zombies with a single Wall-Nut.

Puzzle Mode unlocks a specific type of challenge, and by completing that challenge you can unlock further levels of that challenge. Of course each level is harder than the last – but it isn’t just more difficult because of more or tougher zombies. Each level of a puzzle offers a different twist on the same core gameplay idea, forcing you to adapt to something new and use some alternate strategies in order to make it through. Survival mode is about, well surviving an onslaught of zombies for as long as possible. There are multiple waves, and you get to select different plants between levels, with the plants already in place remaining.

Then there is the Zen Garden. This is something you gain access to after completing Adventure Mode – there are no zombies, no battles, nothing but growing plants to gain more money to buy more upgrades and equipment for your further adventures. It is like a whole different world – the very feeling is completely different from the main game. Yet it is no less addictive – you will go there even when you no longer need the money.

One thing I will say is that there was no skimping on the extras – if you love the adventure mode there is loads of replayability there; the mini-games and puzzles get increasingly more challenging each time you replay them; Survival takes the core game and drops you into it with a no-holds-barred attitude; and the Zen Garden is the perfect complement to all the frantic zombie-mania. None of these modes feel tacked-on; each offers a unique style and approach within the context of the theme of ‘plants vs. zombies’. It would have been easy for the developers to cut back on any of these modes, but instead we get an amazingly full and rich experience.

I recall playing Survival Mode during last year’s basketball playoff games, and for a minute I just stopped and looked at the screen … I had a back row of three-shooters and a front row of Gatling guns with fire-barrels in front of those and during the final onslaught there was just an amazing amount of pea-fireballs screaming across the screen! It was completely insane and a total blast. Yet as you say, it started the same as every other wave – I establish my ‘resource builders’, create some early offensive and defensive units, continue to build my resource capacity alongside offense and defense until … victory.

I can understand how you would feel that might feel repetitive – whereas most strategy games have battles that last longer and most tower defense games have more interlude space, this one just dumps you from battle to battle to battle. For me it was interesting to see how I’d have to twist those strategies as the levels got harder and as the setting changed from day to night and from front yard to back yard to roof.

One more note on replayability – when you complete Adventure Mode and restart again, Crazy Dave starts making some of your plant choices! So instead of just rehashing the same levels at a higher difficulty, you get your whole inventory but three of your slots are already filled. This can drastically alter the approach you take.

It has been well over a year since I first planted a pea shooter to protect my yard, so it was interesting going back again. Since I already owned the game in Steam it simply changed from ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ to ‘Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition’ – but now I can install the game on my Mac version of Steam as well as the PC. So I did!

The promise of Steamworks integration for Mac & PC games means that games saved on one platform are playable from that save point on any other computer attached to that account. Of course, if you have multiple new games on different systems sometimes – even with Valve games like Portal – that gets messy. But for Plants vs. Zombies it has been simple – I started a new PC game, then picked up later on Mac, and then back to PC and so on. All of my mini-games, Zen Garden, and other settings were saved without complaint.

But I do have one complaint, the removal of the dancing zombie … okay, I’ll just call him the Michael Jackson zombie since that is how everyone knows him! From PopCap:

“The Estate of Michael Jackson objected to our use of the ‘dancing zombie’ in Plants vs. Zombies based on its view that the zombie too closely resembled Michael Jackson”

What resemblance? I don’t begin to … um, well, yeah, so it IS pretty obvious WHY they had to remove it – but it is sad nonetheless, as it was the single best enemy in the game. So what did they do?

“After receiving this objection, PopCap made a business decision to retire the original ‘dancing zombie’ and replace it with a different ‘dancing zombie’ character for future builds of Plants vs. Zombies on all platforms. The phase-out and replacement process is underway.”

Which works fine … but is a disappointment. And my only complaint about this game. Here is an image showing the new ‘dancing zombie’.

The final new addition is the Zombatar, a utility that allows you to construct your own Zombie heads. You can customize your zombie with several different styles for hair, beards, clothes, and other decorations. You can then take that avatar to web forums, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. The feature has been available on Popcap’s site for a while, but new to the Game of the Year edition you can customize your own zombie and it will be put in your game as a ‘Flag Zombie’. Flag Zombies are the ones who lead the massive waves of zombies

In an era of a constant stream of $60 games that last four hours and offer me-too multiplayer, Plants vs. Zombies offers an amazing value: hours of core gameplay, loads of added content, tons of reasons to keep coming back for more, and Crazy Dave! I liken this to Portal … but better! Not that the core game is necessarily better than Portal, but because it offers a wonderfully addictive experience that won’t be over in a few short hours.

Where to Buy: Steam

Price: $9.99

What I Like:
+ Loads of content and replayability
+ Lots of plant types to experiment with and hilarious zombie types to thwart
+ Effectively streamlines the standard tower defense formula
+ Extremely addictive gameplay
+ Extras are fully developed, not cheap add-ons
+ Bursting with charm and humor
+ Zen Garden

What Needs Improvement:
- Every wave tends to start the same way
- I miss the ‘Michael Jackson’ zombie!
- Eventually, if you don’t eat, you will die

Source: Personal Copy

Kobo Moves To the Desktop

Carly Z — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:15:15 +0000

Kobo has been all over smartphones for some time, but their “desktop” offerings have been browser-based. Kobo has finally released a dedicated desktop application for Macs and PCs, so you don’t have to worry about juggling Firefox tabs to read a book. This puts them on closer footing to Amazon and B&N, who both offer feature-rich desktop programs as companions to their smartphone offerings.

I also think this is a fairly major shift for Kobo. Their early offerings were very connection-dependent, and even the smartphone apps required an active connection to read a book. Now, their smartphone apps all download the books, they even offer a non-connected ebook reading device, and they’ve moved their last bastion of web-based interaction to the desktop. It shows how much Kobo has grown as a company, and the ways they are evolving from a simple ebook website to a serious competitor to B&N and Amazon.

The other big game changer here is how the Kobo Desktop app lets users interact with Sony Readers as well. This means users aren’t limited to Sony’s expensive and confusing ebookstore, and might be the one saving grace for Sony’s new ebook line. Very smart move by Kobo, especially if their desktop app is less finicky than Adobe and Sony’s own desktop offerings.

You can download the Kobo Desktop apphere, and check out their full release below!

Popular eReaders Now Easily Connect to Kobo Service

TORONTO, ON — September 8, 2010, 2010— Kobo, a global eReading service, today announced the Kobo Desktop Application, a free, downloadable application now available from www.kobobooks.com that enables users to read, build a digital library, and shop for eBooks directly from their computer or laptop. The new application also allows Kobo customers with 3rd party eReaders, such as the Sony Reader, to easily connect to Kobo to download or purchase content.

The new Kobo Desktop Application offers a personalized, secure and central destination where users can manage their entire Kobo reading experience. Through the Desktop Application customers can instantly access their library and download their purchases directly to their computer and read offline without an Internet connection. Additionally, the Kobo Desktop Application enables users to shop for eBooks through the integrated Kobo eBook Store and download content to their desktop to easily build and manage their library.

Kobo currently offers dedicated applications for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Android Tablets, as well as the Kobo eReader. Now with the Kobo Desktop users can sync their entire library between their mobile devices and the desktop. Customers with popular eReaders can now manage their digital library in one place, connect to the Kobo store to buy or download free content from over 2.2 million titles, and benefit from Kobo’s range of free applications for mobile devices. The free application also comes preloaded on every Kobo eReader making it easy for users to organize their library right out of the box.

Consistent with the overall Kobo reading experience, the Kobo Desktop Application allows users to customize font, style and size to suit their own reading preferences, and the company’s signature bookmarking feature makes it possible to pickup reading where you left off. Plus, bookmarks follow a user from the Kobo Desktop Application to their smartphone, tablet, or eReader allowing for continuous reading on any device.

“Kobo has long supported reading across platforms, and now we are the first to provide an experience that supports a wide range of eReaders and mobile devices, “said Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo. “As an avid reader and book lover, I understand the importance of knowing your books are safe, secure and always at your fingertips. The Kobo desktop is the first phase of a new Kobo initiative to give readers more control over their eBooks, and new tools to display and share their growing library.”

The Kobo desktop application supports both Windows and Macintosh operating systems and is currently available for free download from http://www.kobobooks.com/desktop. The application also comes preloaded on every Kobo eReader. The Kobo eReader is available for purchase at Borders in the US, Indigo Books & Music and Walmart in Canada, and Whitcoull’s, A&R, and Borders in Australia / New Zealand.

About Kobo, Inc.
Kobo is a global eReading service backed by majority shareholder Indigo Books & Music, Borders Group, REDgroup Retail, and Cheung Kong Holdings. Kobo believes consumers should be able to read any book on any device. With a catalog of over two million eBooks, and an open platform, Kobo enables retailers, device manufacturers and mobile operators to bring the joy of eReading to customers everywhere. For more information, visit www.kobobooks.com.

About “Powered by Kobo”: Kobo, Inc.“Powered by Kobo” is an eBook partner program from Kobo, a global eBook service backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders Group, REDgroup Retail, and Cheung Kong Holdings. The ‘Powered by Kobo’ program provides a flexible solution for hardware manufacturers and retailers worldwide to launch an eReader or eBook store. “Powered by Kobo” partners have access to Kobo’s catalogue of more than two million titles and applications for smartphones, netbooks, laptops, tablets and dedicated eReaders. Kobo’s vision is to deliver any book on any device and is a strong voice in the eBook industry supporting open standards for eBooks and eReaders. For more information, visit www.kobobooks.com.

THIS WEEK ONLY: Celebrate the new Kobo Desktop App by saving $2 on select eBooks by using promo code “kobodesktop”.

Nikon Launches New Online Store

Larry Greenberg — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Most of us know that when it comes to buying cameras and camera accessories there are plenty of good deals to be found on a variety of third party online stores (Amazon, B&H Photo, 42nd St. Photo etc.) But there are those who still prefer to go straight to the source for their photographic equipment needs and now Nikon fans can.

Nikon USA has launched an all-new online store where consumers can go to purchase just about anything in the Nikon portfolio.

You’ll find cameras (compact, film and DSLR), lenses, flashes, software, optics, accessories, manuals, logo items and even an outlet.

The outlet features refurbished products such as cameras, lenses and flashes all at a considerable discounted price.

And while it may be true that lower prices on most items can be found at other online retailers the Nikon online store does offer deals, via coupons, on many of their items. There’s also something to be said for the peace of mind that one receives when you buy right from the manufacturer. In a world that’s filled with counterfeiters and unlicensed sellers you’ll rest easy knowing that the items you picked up from the Nikon store and the real deal.

Take a visit to the new Nikon online store by clicking here.

World`s First “Intelligent Stamp” Created for Royal Mail

Douglas Moran — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:30:08 +0000

“Wade, do you still have Ron microchipped?”
“Kim, we’ve discussed the ethical implications of . . .”
“Waaaaaade.”
“Yeah, okay; here are the coordinates.”

Yup; you can microchip your pets, your kids, your cell phone, your car, various objects at Wal-Mart . . . for all I know, they’re working on a method to microchip individual water molecules to track flow rate, or some durn thing. But we’re not quite there yet.

Almost, though. It’s not on a per-molecule level, but m2end in Association with RBIT Limited and junaio have announced the first-ever “intelligent stamp”. The engineers have embedded readable information in the stamp that, when photographed by your smartphone (Android or iPhone) will launch an app that gives you info about the stamp (And you thought philataly was boring!)–kinda reminds me a bit of the episode of Leverage I saw on Sunday.

But I digress. Here’s the full low-down:

Royal Mail`s Great British Railway Special Stamp issue will use the Royal Mail channel in junaio to provide online content via a suitable iPhone or Android smart phone to users. By simply pointing the phone`s camera onto the stamp when in junaio, the application launches online content on the stamp`s theme, which for this particular issue sees a reciting of the “Night Mail” poem by Bernard Cribbins. RBIT Limited, working with m2end and the most world`s most advanced AR browser, junaio, has provided a whole new way of interacting with the world of stamps on mobile phones.

After recent cases like smart packaging or the talking magazine, the intelligent stamp is another groundbreaking implementation of junaio`s unique capability to “glue” digital (3D or multimedia) information onto objects. To access this additional information, users only have to download the application from the iTunes store or Android market, open the Royal Mail channel and place the camera over the stamp. Royal Mail`s Special Stamps mark key events and anniversaries in the UK`s heritage through a programme which aims to be both educational and informative. With junaio the access to this information becomes innovative and intuitive as well.

Philip Parker, Head of Stamp Strategy, Royal Mail, said: “This is the first time a national postal service has used this kind of technology on their stamps and we`re very excited to be bringing intelligent stamps to the nation`s post. He adds: “Through Intelligent Stamp technology, our stamps will open up to a whole new world of information, interest and fun to collectors and the millions of people who will receive them on letters in the coming months alike.” The technology will also be made available on selected future special stamps.

Caption: By “scanning” the stamp with your smartphone`s camera, it reveals digital content.

More information:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/stamps/home?campaignid=stamps_redirect

http://www.rbit.eu

http://www.m2end.co.uk

www.junaio.com

“Home Energy Performance” Now Available for iPhone and iPad

Douglas Moran — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:00:33 +0000

In this era of scary climate change films by Al Gore, efforts to make homes more energy-efficient, and attempts by thumb-fingered home-owners such as myself to monitor and regulate energy usage, it can be hard to get the data you need to Do the Right Thing (h/t Spike Lee).

In that vein, Qreative Medias has launched a new app for the iPad and iPhone that allows you to audit and generate the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) score for UK, the US home energy audit score and the A to G graph under 2002/91/EC European directive. Available for an MSRP of $3.99 via iTunes–cheap when you can possible save a lot of dollars, pounds, or euros with the information. Check it out.

Full information below.

Qreative Medias is launching the application “Home Energy Performance” on the iPhone and iPad in the Apple Stores today, bringing everyone the ability to audit and generate the report of the A to G rating of any home.

This first worldwide innovation allows Homeowners, Homebuyers, Estates agents, Builders… any property related individuals and organisations, to easily, quickly and intuitively get professional support for Energy Rating, with recommendations, advice and PDF reporting.

The report indicates the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) score for UK, the US home energy audit score and the A to G graph under 2002/91/EC European directive.

The usages are plenty, from help in reducing energy bills & CO2 footprint, to improving an asset, advising a client or buying a home wisely.

The application developed by Qreative Medias is available Worldwide and is adapted to the various relevant Government recommendations.

For US, the application has been developed from the recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Program.

For European countries and the United Kingdom, the application has been developed from the directive 2002/91/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of 16 December 2002 on the energy performance of buildings.

“Home Energy Performance” is available in English, Spanish and French.

Developed by Qreative Medias, “Home Energy Performance” brings an unrivalled, all public and intuitive Energy rating assessment of any home.

Gear Deal- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H 10MP “Exmor R” Digital Camera

Dan Cohen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:08:07 +0000

It may be small but the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H digital camera packs a punch. The 10.2-Megapixel camera features a 3″ Touch-Screen LCD, “Exmor R” CMOS for “stunning low-light performance”, a Carl Zeisss Vario Tessar Lens with 4 optical zoom, “SteadyShot” and a wide zoom display. It even doubles as a video camera that shoots 720P HD Movies.

The camera normally sells for $299.99 but our Gear Sponsor found a $70 coupon code that will bring the price all the way down to $229.99. It will even ship for free.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H 10MP “Exmor R” Digital Camera w/ 3-inch Touch-Screen (Grey) via LogicBUY.

Random Cool Video: Star Wars Prequels in 6 Minutes to the Tune of Bohemian Rhapsody

Michael Anderson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:00:54 +0000

For many, the Star Wars prequels are something to be treated like a knight you over-indulged and wish could just be forgotten. For others they are the realization of the awesomeness of Jedi powers and lightsaber battles. But for everyone with a sense of humor and some attachment to the franchise, this video is loads of fun. It walks you through the entire prequel trilogy in just over 6 minutes, showing the highlights in a light narration.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Personally, while I have been told that as someone who used my own money to see ‘Star Wars’ a dozen times in theaters back in 1977 I should be affronted by the prequels. Yet I am not. I find The Phantom Menace slow at times, some of the acting in Attack of the Clones wooden, and some of the writing in Revenge of the Sith unfortunate. Yet I watched them all again – along with the originals – on cable over the long weekend, and was reminded of my reply to others: the original movies weren’t all that great to begin with! They are a load of fun, but are largely B-movie popcorn flicks.

What do you think? Do you like the video? What are your thoughts on the prequels?

Source: Buzzfeed

iPad Accessory Review: ElementCase Joule iPad Stand

Dan Cohen — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:00:12 +0000

Let’s get this out of the way right up front… at $129 ($139 for Black and Anodized Silver) the ElementCase Joule is an expensive stand for your iPad. It has a simple design, consists of just two pieces, and it serves one and only one purpose… it holds your iPad in either landscape or portrait.

So is it worth the money? Read on to find out…

From ElementCase:

Introducing the new “Joule” work stand for your iPad. Its stable solid base has a simple, clean, and elegant design that enhances your iPad and makes it easier to use. Unlike most stands, the Joule won’t tip over when using the iPad’s touch screen. This allows you to better utilize your iPad on your desktop or kitchen counter top.

Features:

CNC machined in the USA from solid aluminum, the Joule comes in a brilliant polished finish or a black anodized coating.

Magnetically attached tilt foot at the rear allows for quick and easy view angle adjustments.

Rubber pads at the bottom assure a firm grip on any surface.

A velvet lined recess holds the iPad comfortably and securely.

Designed and made in California.

Limited quantities available.

Designed With Both Landscape and Portrait Modes in mind

My Thoughts:

As you can see in the first two pictures, the Joule is basically a carved aluminum bar that has a “leg” that can be attached so that the recess for the iPad holds the device at one of three angles. The recess is lined with velvet to protect the iPad and it does so quite well. The velvet not only offers scratch protection. It also keeps the iPad from sliding to one side or the other. I should note, however, that the velvet stops a tiny bit from the top. This results in some of the aluminum being exposed. It isn’t a lot of exposed metal but it does make me a bit careful when I place the iPad inside lest iPad meets Joule and scratches result.

The three holes in the back of the Joule are precision cut and offer three different angles for the iPad. The leg fits inside perfectly and is held there by a strong magnet. This is a great feature as it lets you change the angle of the Joule in seconds. The leg is wrapped in a rubber gasket at one end to protect whatever surface it is on.

The name “ElementCase” is subtly etched into the Joule. I’m not a fan of products advertising themselves after my purchase but this is done quite tastefully. [Disclosure: this was a review unit that was sent to us, not a personal purchase.]

In the above image you can see just how precise the machining is on the aluminum. Rounded edges are nicely rounded and angular points are sharp and clean. The finish on the metal is gorgeous; the Joule looks like a fine piece of jewelry when examined up close.

Obviously this cutout is intended to leave the Home button exposed when the iPad is sitting in the Joule in portrait.

The other place where the precise machining is obvious is in the cutout for the speaker. It lets sound through when the iPad is sitting in the Joule without any loss of volume or clarity.

Here is the iPad in the Joule in landscape. And yes, I know it is time to replace my Clear-Coat screen protection. It has served me well but its time has come.

One of the things I love about the Joule is that the cutout in it is wide enough to allow my iPad to sit inside even with the HoverCoat carbon fiber protection on the back.

As you can see in this side view the iPad is held at a perfect viewing angle when in the Joule, and thanks to the design the iPad is totally stable when inside. It is held tightly and there is no chance of it slipping out until you consciously remove it.

Here is a view from the top.

So what do I think of the Joule? I love it. It is beautifully made and remarkably useful. It is simple yet functional. When the iPad is not inside its low profile means it won’t take up much space AND it looks good. The three angles provided by the various cuts in the back let you have your iPad at the perfect angle for whatever use you are making of the iPad at that moment. The fact that the leg is held in place by a magnet means that changing the angle takes two seconds and in each position the iPad is totally stable. When in portrait the iPad’s Home button is still accessible and the speaker is unblocked. When in landscape the iPad can be synched and charged.

So is the Joule worth $129,or $139 for the other finishes? That depends… Obviously this is not the right stand for someone looking to hold their iPad in the least expensive way possible. If, however, you want an iPad stand that is not only functional but also has the look and feel of fine jewelry… this is a great choice. As Elana has taught me… most of the time you get what you pay for. Yes, you will pay a good deal for this iPad stand, but what you get is awesome.

Personally I love this stand. I like the look… I like the feel… I like the functionality… a lot!

(And if you think it looks quite similar to another stand we recently reviewed… you are right! Stay tuned for a “Gear vs Gear” comparison!)

The ElementCase Joule for the Apple iPad can be ordered directly from ElementCase.

MSRP: $129 ($139 for black and anodized silver)

What I Like: Beautifully made; machined perfectly; holds the iPad in either landscape or portrait; holds the iPad securely at one of three different angles; low profile when not being used; Made in the USA

What Needs Improvement: Velvet lining does not come to the very top of the carved recess and leaves some metal exposed; pricey

Google’s Cute BuckyBall Doodle: Bad News for the Earth!

Michael Anderson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:30:02 +0000

On Saturday Joel reported that the latest Google Doodle was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Buckyball. It was a great looking interactive element that focused attention on an area of scientific research that is critical to advances that even now impact all of our lives.

Since my wife has been teaching a full-day class on Nanotechnology to middle school kids funded by the NISE part of the NSF, this was definitely something I wanted to show her!

While for the most part the actual usefulness of the Buckyball is still theoretical, the recent discovery of Buckyballs in space helps point towards more fundamental uses for these molecules with unique strength and bonding properties.

However, aside from raising awareness the Google Doodle seemed to have two other functions: to look cool and to drain your computer’s resources! I noticed it myself, as we opened a Chrome browser while my wife was editing stuff for a scrapbook in Picasa. After looking at the Buckyball we went back to Picasa and the program was suddenly dragging and thrashing! I took a look at her system resources and the CPU was pegged at 100% utilization and the fan was blowing full speed! We had already needed to plug in the laptop because the battery was low,

Apparently I wasn’t the only one, as a note on the blog Gingerwarfare shows that it actually had a marked electrical increase:

But, on my Mac Mini, Google Chrome Renderer goes from 0.3 to 57% CPU utilisation. To put that in further context, my household electricity monitor goes up around 15-20 watts while the Google homepage is open, dropping by that amount when I go to another page.

Further complaints were noted at ZDNet:

Today’s Google Doodle on the search page is Buckyball, which runs through a javascript. Using Windows XP and IE7, Buckyball script is using 95% of CPU on 3 computers tested at business, and 1 at home.
Testing with Firefox on one computer at work, the Buckyball script utilizes 100% of CPU and freezes the system.
Testing at home with IE7, Buckyball script uses 95% of CPU….with Opera it uses 65% of CPU on the same system.

Personally, I just closed down Chrome, and within fifteen seconds or so life had returned to normal: CPU usage was down, fan had slowed, and Picasa – and therefore my wife was happy. As she noted – wow, what a complete waste to have something that looks cool but brings my computer to a crawl!

Did you notice any ill effects of the BuckyCrawl logo?

Update: Joel just noted that today’s Google Doodle was a mystery … so I wanted to check out the Doodle for performance. At first I just opened it and saw no ill effects. But a look Task Manager showed that the Doodle would definitely eat up some processor cycles when you mouse over it. Fortunately it works off the second core of my dual-core laptop, and even when I frantically moused around I never got beyond ~60%, and when I left it idle it dropped back to only a couple percent utilization. I suppose it is a reminder that good coding for such a widget should be as transparent in terms of performance as possible.

Source: Gingerwarfare via ZDNet

First Drive: 2011 HD trucks from General Motors

David Goodspeed — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:00:24 +0000

This past winter we got our first experience with the new Heavy Duty trucks from Ram. Spring brought a new Super Duty from Ford (along with more HD Rams) and finally, summer 2010 put us in the driver seat of the newest big rigs from General Motors, wearing Silverado and Sierra badging.

Along the way I noticed one thing different about the way marketing folks presented information from their colleagues pitching cars and SUVs – customer conquests. It seems truck buyers, especially heavy duty truck buyers, remain very brand loyal.

Three-quarter- and one-ton pickups account for about 30 percent of truck sales with the big three so keeping these loyalists happy is key to long-term success. Most of these sales are to buyers who will put the vehicles to work, whether towing, hauling or just overall general abuse.

The biggest news for all three heavy duty pickup manufacturers this year centered around new emissions and fuel economy regulations. What was interesting was the numbers war that raged during the powertrain rollouts. Ram, who still uses the Cummins inline six, never really was able to compete on paper but Ford and GM have been lobbing hand grenades back and forth since spring.

In the end, it appears the numbers don’t mean so much as the basics of business – provide a good product that gives consumers what they want and need. The big three are all doing that and doing it very well.

Diving a bit deeper into the GM heavy duty truck segment makeover we find the division celebrating a 10-year 60/40 partnership with Isuzu Motors in DMAX, the engine building company providing Duramax diesel engines to the Silverado and Sierra HD models and some fullsize vans.

About the time they were cutting the birthday cake they were receiving news that their engine was at the heart of two of the trucks selected as best-in-class in a shootout held by Pickuptrucks.com. The new Duramax 6.6-liter V-8 was under the hood of the Silverado 2500HD that won the three-quarter-ton diesel class and in the GMC Sierra 3500HD that took top one-ton honors.

The new engine not only has significantly more horsepower and torque (397 and 765 respectively) but improved fuel economy, cleaner emissions and runs much quieter than its predecessor. An all-new smart exhaust brake system was designed into the new motor to provide a greater feeling of control and reduced brake pad wear as well.

Upgrades for the 2011 model trucks from GM did not end with the powertrains (that also included a beefed-up Allison gearbox to handle the added torque loads of the new Duramax). The new trucks received an all-new fully-boxed frame underneath, but engineers did not just develop one frame to deal with all the various iterations of HD trucks offered – no, they developed 18.

Silverado HD and Sierra HD also ride on new independent front suspensions and new larger leaf spring setups under the rear. While ride and handling is greatly improved these trucks will also tow more and haul more than ever before.
Design departments were not given holidays during all these upgrades however. Interiors and exteriors received a bit of attention as well making the 2011 models some of the most attractive ever offered by the automaker.

To hammer home just how capable and competitive the new trucks are, marketing and media folks provided simple head-to-head matchups of their new rides against comparable Super Duty models from Ford.

We drag raced one-ton, single rear wheel trucks with a 9,000-lb. trailer in tow down a private airstrip and we zipped up and down Texas State Highway 16 in F-250 and 2500HD trucks laden down with about a half-ton of concrete bags in their beds.

Most amazing was how the GM with the Duramax engine beat the Ford not only off the line in the drag race but kept pulling away from it the entire length of the impromptu track.

Things were a bit closer in driving around with a load in the cargo boxes. Acceleration, ride, handling and braking were just too close to call. It is amazing though just how much more power the new Duramax has and how much quieter it is.

The new Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD both arrive in a host of variants and trim levels and the Sierra is even being offered in upscale Denali trim right from launch. The regular cab configuration is still available as is extended and crew variants, in two- and four-wheel drive and with standard and long box lengths.

As for pricing, the Silverado 2500HD base is $27,965 and the Duramax/Allison powertrain upgrade will run an additional $8,395. This is all the pricing information available from GM press sites and there are NO fuel economy figures offered for the Heavy Duty trucks.

Review: PocketAmp For iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Travis Ehrlich — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:00:23 +0000

An exciting new thing is happening in the world of IOS devices! App developers are beginning to utilize the power and UI of Apple products and turning them into electric guitar effects and outputs. I have never hid my love for playing the guitar, and the fact that we can now combine that love with my tech and gadget addiction makes me feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I recently reviewed two hardware adapters that allow the guitar to be played through an iPhone or iPad, and each come with application solutions for the guitar. You can read them here and here. I had a feeling these hardware devices could lead to a new breed of applications and I was right. One of the newest apps to the game is PocketAmp from PocketLabworks.

PocketAmp must be used with one of the available instrument adapters, so make sure you purchase one before buying this app. Once plugged in, the app turns the i device into a practice amp for the electric guitar. This application is a paid app, but provides a wide range of features for a low price and without the need for any in-app purchases. No need to buy separate apps since PocketAmp is a universal application and will work on all devices. I love this feature! As you will see in this review, the app is simple to use while providing great quality and features.

Features:
* Clean, Blues, Rock, Metal
* Gain, Volume, Noise Gate
* Treble, Middle, Bass
* Reverb, Echo, Tremolo
* Stereo Chorus, Flanger, and Rotary
* Four quick presets, unlimited named presets
* iTunes music play along

The PocketAmp UI is simple and very slick. Four tabs on the bottom of the screen provide all of the browsing needs, making setting up your sound quick leaving more time to shred. Each screen provides several options and settings. The options are chosen by tapping buttons on the top, and each of the settings are adjusted with sliders. Four Amp models are available: Clean, Blues, Rock, and Metal. Each of the amps have great tone and are ready to play with the default settings. You can adjust the Gain, Treble, Mid, Bass and Volume from the amp page just like you would find on the front of a real amplifier. Once the amps are set up, save and name them for future use.

The Echo Tab is where you begin to fine tune the guitar sound; you can adjust the Delay, Feedback, Echo Mix, Room Size and Reverb Mix with the sliders. I was able to fine tune the Clean amplifier to sound close to studio quality. This feature will separate the sound from a flat, plain amplifier to a great studio or live sound. To me, a small amount of echo effect can make a huge difference.

The FX tab is where original sounds can be created. The available effects are Chorus, Flanger, Rotary and Tremelo. Each of the effects contains a unique set of options to set the tone exactly how you want it. If an effect is turned on, you are able to then move to other areas of the app and work without turning it off. Only one effect can be used at a time, but with the amp model options, most any sound is attainable. I found each of the effects to be accurate depictions of actual pedals I have used. The Amp, Echo and FX tabs can all be saved as presets this has proven to be a great time saver.

My favorite feature of PocketAmp is the ability to play along with the iTunes music on your device. Use the amp, effect and sound options to dial in the exact sound of your favorite artist and play along. I fired up a few AC/DC songs right off the bat and the default Rock amp was perfect. Since the app has no lag, you are able to jam along in real-time with no problems. The preset volume was perfect and my guitar sounded like it was being mixed right into the music. The first use of the app ended up being an hour and a half practice session with all of my iTunes music. It is really fun! You have the option to choose any of your music yourself or let the app randomly choose for you. Either way, this proves to be a feature that could be a deciding factor in choosing a guitar application.

I was impressed with the sound and easy customizable features of PocketAmp. Dial in just about any electric guitar sound with precision and with no latency issues. The ability to play along with my music is a feature that keeps me coming back over and over to practice. Remember, the app is universal, so you can play on any of your IOS devices. All of these features come with a one time price of $2.99. That is a super cheap solution for a well developed application. Go check out the app and download it here in the app store.

What I Like: Simple interface and the guitar sounds are fantastic.

What Needs Improvement: I would like to see a tuner and the ability to record to make this a one stop application for guitarists.

Parenting App for iPhone/iPod Touch

Douglas Moran — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:30:30 +0000

If you have kids, you know how it goes. (Heck, if you’ve just been around friends who have kids, you know how it goes.)

“You need to turn that off now, Billy/Judie/Selena/Angie/Chebrolu/André/Günter/whoever.”
“But I’ve only been playing a few minutes!”
“You’ve been playing for an hour!”
“45 minutes! That’s not so long!”
“I told you only a few minutes!”
“45 is only a few minutes!”
“Get over here right now!” Etc. It can get ugly. Fast.

Well, you know there’s gotta be an app to help, right? (There’s probably an app for Mideast Peace negotiations, these days; if only Hillary had an iPhone . . .) And you’re in luck: there is! XVision has created a game time limit app for only two bucks, and you can download it off iTunes. So if you’re a parent, or a friend of a parent who is looking for a bit less arguing and a bit more peace and quiet, maybe you should give it a try.

Some more info about the app:

The app enables a parent to set a timer that limits the amount of game
playing (or screen) time the child gets. When the timer ends, an alarm
appears on the screen, stopping your child from playing anymore. The
only way to stop the alarm is for him to handover the iDevice to the
parent. Otherwise, the alarm keeps appearing.

This is the first and only app that does this. I am really excited
about this useful parenting tool. I tested it on my daughter

The app is now in AppStore.

Gear Games News: Duke Nukem Is BACK … Believe it, or Not!

Michael Anderson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:45:19 +0000

Last December there was an article on Wired called Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem that talked about the rise and fall of what some would call one of the most storied franchises in gaming history. Here is a snip:

To videogame fans, that logo is instantly recognizable. It’s the insignia of Duke Nukem 3D, a computer game that revolutionized shoot-’em-up virtual violence in 1996. Featuring a swaggering, steroidal, wisecracking hero, Duke Nukem 3D became one of the top-selling videogames ever, making its creators very wealthy and leaving fans absolutely delirious for a sequel. The team quickly began work on that sequel, Duke Nukem Forever, and it became one of the most hotly anticipated games of all time.

It was never completed.

Hilarious bit of history: back in 2000 my wife thought she was all set for my Christmas. I am a pain to shop for, so when I gave my wife two upcoming games that she could pre-order on Amazon.com she was thrilled! The games were Star Wars: Obi-Wan and Duke Nukem Forever. After a while she was notified that one, then the other wasn’t going to make Christmas delivery. Then she was notified that one pre-order, then the other was going to be canceled because neither publisher could give a realistic release date. Soon Obi-Wan for the PC was killed, though a new version was released for the brand new XBOX (though it never looked nearly as cool as that PC trailer!). Duke Nukem forever continued getting news – mostly as the butt of jokes and on year-end vaporware lists, most famously on the The “Duke Nukem Forever” List – but seemed for all practical purposes to be dead, and in 2009 that death was confirmed as 3D Realms was shuttered.

So it is with some hesitation that I report ANYTHING about Duke Nukem … but at PAX this year the biggest buzz was related to GearBox Studios, creators of Borderlands and Gears of War, having bought the Duke Nukem franchise rights … and showing some video and stills from the game as well as more concrete information!

GearBox CEO Randy Pitchford says that the basic development is complete, the game is being polished, and says there will PC, PS3, X360 release in 2011:

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford there are just confirmed that development on Duke Nukem Forever is completes. The title’s being “polished” and will sees released in 2011.

Speaking at PAX in Seattle tonight, Pitchford also confirmed that the title would be released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

“When Duke ran into trouble, we were glad to [help him out of] to spot,” said Pitchford. “You can’t let the Duke die, right”

2kGames was furiously tweeting about it all during PAX, including this one:

Duke Nukem Forever is a video game that you can play in 2011! #dnf #dukenukemforever http://twitpic.com/2kw2a2 http://twitpic.com/2kw1zg

Additionally, there is a press release, with a few interesting tidbits:

2K Games and Gearbox Software announced today that forever is nearly here, as Duke Nukem Forever® will officially make its long-awaited debut for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC in calendar 2011.

Duke Nukem, the interactive entertainment industry’s most irreverent and quoted character of all time, will bring his signature brand of babe-lovin’, cigar-smoking, beer-chugging and ass-kicking action as he once again saves the Earth and our babes from hordes of invading aliens. In other shocking news, Duke Nukem Forever will be playable right now for all attendees 17 and older of this year’s Penny Arcade Expo at the 2K Booth (booth #3417), giving the first hands-on experience with the game that was originally announced during the tail end of the Clinton Administration.

“Hail to the king, baby! It’s unbelievable, it kicks ass and it’s totally going to happen!” said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software, “Gearbox has enabled die-hard key Duke Nukem franchise builders and skilled veteran game makers to stand together and deliver. All gamers deserve a happy ending and after all of us gamers feeling the full range of emotions about Duke Nukem Forever, I am thrilled to be in a position with the trust, power and means to make it happen. Am I crazy? Balls of steel, baby, balls of steel!”

2K Games also opened up the floor to allow folks to get some hands-on time with the game. They had recorded and posted some live footage of folks playing, which of course is also on YouTube:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally, Kotaku has an article on how Duke Nukem was ‘brought back to life’ by GearBox. Some interesting stuff, such as:

The events of the spring of 2009 seemed, to outside observers, to destroy Duke Nukem Forever. The truth is that the game lingered on.

One of the co-creators of the well-known Duke Nukem character, Allen Blum, was among the 3D Realms developers fired in May of 2009. He was a veteran. “He couldn’t let it go,” Pitchford said. “I wouldn’t either. He decided to keep it going.” So, post 3D Realms, Duke Nukem Forever development continued in the apartments of some of the laid off staff. It became, essentially, a garage game. “I got wind of it,” Pitchford said. “I came around and checked things out.”

The ex-3D-Realms guys didn’t have much hope of getting Duke Nukem Forever released. They didn’t have the contractual, legal rights to release the game. But 3D Realms co-owner Scott Miller worked out an agreement with Blum so that they could continue creating Duke Nukem Forever, Pitchford said. They could work on the game. But with lawsuits flying, who was going to put this thing out? Miller contacted Pitchford to see if the latter could turn this project into a reality.

“I kind of got myself in the middle there,” Pitchford recalled. The Gearbox boss didn’t want to go into all the details at PAX of the business deal that would revive Duke. He offered the abbreviated version.

“The short story of it is: Because of my history with Duke, because of my relationship with Scott and George, because of the trust and respect that Gearbox and Take Two were able to build through our work together with Borderlands, and through the capabilities that I have built with my team to be able to ship games on these platforms — because of all of these things, I was in a spot that, if I took a bet and got in there and put myself in the line of fire in the middle of this thing, I knew that I could bring all these pieces together and that I could save Duke.

“I just knew it was going to work. I took the risk. I bet on Duke.”

By all accounts the demo at PAX was an astounding success. Melding a top-notch shooter with stunning graphics and Duke’s characteristic womanizing and irreverent humor and all-out macho violence, GearBox seems to have absolutely nailed this one. Folks noted that performance and controls and just about everything was perfectly executed … to the point that 2011 cannot come soon enough!

For me, let me just say that I am not going to have my wife pre-order Duke Nukem Forever … again! That said, I know that I *will* be playing it on the day of release. Duke Nukem 3D was my 2nd favorite game of the 1st generation of shooters (Dark Forces was my fave), and remains a game I go back to frequently because it is such a well designed and realized blast! From all I have seen and read, it looks like GearBox is ready to have one of the all-time coups of gaming: bringing back a legend from the dead, and doing it with a game that is actually going to make gamers forgive the lies, broken promises and trail of years!

Source: Wall Street Journal … and pretty much every gaming site on Earth!

The Prime Minister of Turkey Gets A Red iPod Nano Via Bono

Larry Greenberg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:00:59 +0000

I’ve always been a supporter of “Product Red.” The charity, which teams up with various designers and manufacturers, creates “red” versions of their products and part of the proceeds benefit the Global Fund to Fight Against AIDS. When the new iPod Nano was announced I ordered myself a Product Red version.

But it looks like this past weekend Bono. the lead singer of the Irish Rock band U2, committed a big gadget no-no. It seems during a visit to the Prime Minister of Turkey Bono offered up, as a gift, an older iPod Nano just two days before a new version is being released! How could he?!

In all seriousness, while visiting Turkey this past weekend for a concert U2, the Irish rock band, met with the Turkish Prime Minister. During the meeting the band’s lead singer, Bono presented the PM with a “Product Red” version of the iPod Nano. The Irish rock star also told Erdoğan he knew the prime minister was a great fan of Turkish classical music but asked that he also “reform” his tastes. The prime minister then posed with the band for the press to take photos although the rest of their meeting occurred behind closed doors.

You can watch a video of the presentation here.

Simplify Your Windows Mobile Calendaring with TrineSeries

Douglas Moran — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:30:28 +0000

Usually your humble Gear Diary news guy (i.e., me) posts our little news items based on info received from the game/software/hardware companies themselves, or from their press folks, or whatnot. But once in a while we get a satisfied user–often a GD person!– saying, “Yo, this is one sweet piece of work.”

In my time on GD, this is the first time I’ve personally seen a shout-out from a foreign reader for an app from a completely different country. That’s a satisfied customer, folks. So read a little bit below about the app, available for only a sawbuck (MSRP US$9.99), a “Windows Mobile app you can move all appointments and/or all tasks from one or more weeks to another OR from one or more days to another in one go.” Available from Gydar Industries.

The encomium from a satisfied user:

Several months ago I asked the Norwegian programmer Ronny if he can write a small app for me. I use Outlook heavily and face quite often the situation that I have to shift many appointments and/or tasks from one day to the other. In Outlook and (so far as I know) in all other PIMs (Exchange, Google Calendar etc.) you have to do that manually, which is a tedious task.

With this new Windows Mobile app you can move all appointments and/or all tasks from one or more weeks to another OR from one or more days to another in one go. And you do that in 10 seconds no matter how many days or weeks (or hours) you want to shift. When done, just sync your PDA with your PIM and you are done.

Thus, this app is – to my knowledge – the first and only one worldwide which can shift one contiguous block of PIM-data.

I love this app and I know your readers will do the same.

You can find a Step-by-step guide with 2 short videos (which prove that one can do it in 10 seconds) here:

http://forum.gydarindustries.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=83

Gear Deal- Pre-order: Halo Reach [Xbox 360]

Dan Cohen — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:55:46 +0000

If you have anxiously been awaiting the release of Halo Reach for the Xbox 360 here’s a chance to pre-order the game AND save a few bucks in the process.

Our Gear Sponsor has found that Dell Home & Home Office Store is now taking pre-orders on Halo Reach for Xbox 360 AND offering a cut in the price you’ll pay. The game has an MSRP of $59.99 but with this Gear Deal you can order it for just $44.99 and get FREE shipping.

Pre-order: Halo Reach [Xbox 360] via LogicBUY.

Google has a new Animated Doodle for its Logo and a Mystery

Joel McLaughlin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:30:38 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google has a brand new doodle on its page that is unlike any other doodle they’ve ever posted. It’s a series of balls that dance around if you move your mouse near them. When you stop moving the mouse, the balls all settle down to form the Google logo. This is only the third time I can remember the logos being animated; the first was the 30th anniversary of Pacman, the second the 25th anniversary of buckyball and now today’s. This article brings out that it is to celebrate Google’s 12th birthday!

I am not sure if this is a hint at their search announcement tomorrow or not. However, the doodle is completely done in HTML5. I searched through the source code and there is definitely not one image in the doodle. I think it is certainly an interesting and memorable doodle, and it brings focus that HTML5 will be the future of rich web content instead of Adobe’s Flash. I, quite frankly, cannot wait for that!

Incredible Ambidextrous Street Art Makes My Meager Art Skills Even More Embarassing

Larry Greenberg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:10:06 +0000

I’m admittedly one of the world’s worst drawers.

While I do have a good amount of creative ability in other areas drawing just isn’t my thing.

It’s for that reason that when I see a “real” artist I’m usually very impressed.

That being the case I was even more blown away by the ambidextrous artist seen in the video below. Watch as he creates temporary images on a dry-erase board, side by side, using both hands.

I guess the old cliché “two heads hands are better than one” just fits……

Via Yahoo.

MemoryMania iPhone App Giveaway

Douglas Moran — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:30:25 +0000

As the old phart of the Gear Diary team, I have memories that go back to when black and white TVs still existed, and “Jeopardy!” didn’t use little TV screens, but rather a big, tall ol’ cardboard and wood dealie with some guy standing behind it lifting up a cover to reveal the “questions” for the contestants. (And the host was a guy named Art Fleming.)

Another big game show was “Concentration,” a memory-card-matching game. You know how it goes: you lift one card, and try to match it. If you flub, they both get turned back over and the next person tries. If you get it right, they stay flipped and you try again.

As we know, there are iPhone apps for everything, and now there’s one that helps feed my nostalgia for late-60s TV game shows: in this case, MemoryMania. Like “Concentration,” MemoryMania is a card matching game, and now it’s available for giveaway for your iPhone. So don’t you think you should get some distant flavor of my childhood and give it a look? After all, it’s a giveaway!

More information below.

Vacation’s over for another year. So to cheer up all the kids who just started back at school, we’re now giving away MemoryMania completely free! This is a limited period giveaway offer.

MemoryMania is the biggest memory match game for kids in the AppStore. In MemoryMania users find 20 different sets of cards to choose from, and each set contains 15 different pictures. That’s 300 pictures – no other memory match game can compare with MemoryMania!

There are two game modes – a classic memory match, where you look for pairs of cards, or a hide-and-seek game, where you try to remember where the picture is and uncover it.

MemoryMania users love the 2 different game modes, the large choice of cards and the cute design that’s just perfect for kids.

You can see more at www.nextwell.com/mm/ or a gameplay video here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Review: Beat The Heat With The Arctic Breeze Pro And Arctic Breeze Mobile

Travis Ehrlich — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:55:37 +0000

I am not sure where you live, but here in South Texas the heat has been brutal lately! We began football season with 2-a-day workouts on August 2 so I have spent countless hours outside in the scorching sun and heat. In fact, last Tuesday the temperature was 104 degrees with high humidity at 4:00 when we hit the field for practice. At this rate, most of us Texans are looking for any way to cool off. Being a geek means gadgets are always a possibility to alleviate the miserable feeling of being too dang hot. I recently checked out two products from Arctic Cooling that are a perfect way to geek out and cool off. The Arctic Breeze Pro brings a fan and four port USB hub to a desktop and the Arctic Breeze Pro provides a USB powered fan to use when mobile. Lets see how they stacked up.

Arctic Breeze Pro

Features:

Illuminated knob for power and fan speed (800, to 1,800 RPM)
Energy-efficient motor, low noise impeller
4-port USB hub included
Flexible neck for easy positioning
USB-powered, suitable for PCs, laptops and USB chargers
External power adapter (optional) – for devices with high power requirements

I already talked about the heat here in Texas. My guitar room/office/man cave is located in a section of my house that was added on and does not have an air condition vent. Cool air from other rooms does filter in, but it is always a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house. When I saw the Arctic Breeze Pro, I was pretty sure it would be a nice addition to my desktop. Adding four USB ports made the device a must have.

The idea of a USB fan seems like a novelty item, but I was pleased and surprised at the quality of the Arctic Breeze Pro. The fan blades are made of heavy plastic and are super sturdy. This thing will not break if the blades are touched. The flexible, metal neck is strong and no matter what position the fan is, the neck holds tight. At eight inches, the fan is high enough to be quite useful, but not too tall that it is in the way. The base unit is also plastic, but is attractive and strong. The illuminated knob is used to control the fan and can adjust the speed from 800 to 1,800 rpm. At full blast, I do feel much cooler sitting using my Mac Mini on my desk.

As with any USB device, I have to plan for when and if I use them because my version of the Mac Mini is limited on USB ports. The added ports on the Arctic Breeze Pro makes the device usable on any desktop setup. The ports work fine, but some devices that require more power may not work. For example, it is not possible to sync and charge an iPhone or iPad. To fix this problem, it is possible to add an AC adapter to make the ports powered. I plan on buying an adapter for mine so I can use virtually any USB device with the ports.

Arctic Breeze Mobile

We are all increasingly on the go while computing as our devices get smaller and more portable. In fact, there are very few places I go without my MacBook either with me or nearby ready to work. Even without internet access, I can do some of my writing or work on football game plans. Once again, the hot South Texas summer seems to always come into play. In fact, almost every evening we sit on the deck in the backyard and let my boys run around a play before bath time. To us, it is fairly nice outside, but usually is still in the low 90s as the sun is setting. So what if the same fan I added to my Mac Mini could easily be carried and travel outside with me? The Arctic Breeze Mobile fixes this problem.

Features:

Energy-efficient motor and with low noise impeller
USB-powered – suitable for laptops and USB chargers
Lightweight, portable, slim design
Flexible neck for easy positioning
Perfect for frequent travelers

The Arctic Breeze Mobile sports the same build quality as the pro edition, just in a smaller package. I used the pro first and was expecting the mobile to not only be smaller, but also not made as well. This idea turned out to be completely false. The same care and build quality is included in the unit, from the heavy-duty fan to the sturdy adjustable neck. There is a certain heft to the product that makes it just feel well made in your hand.

Maybe you would like to be able to use the fan, but not use one of your USB ports. Maybe you are sitting on the deck with the iPad and not using a laptop at all. Luckily, the Arctic Breeze Mobile will work with just about any USB power device. I had great luck using it with the Arctic C1 mobile solar charger which is pictured above. I also have a large battery charger that has a USB port on the side and it worked to power the fan. The fan is truly mobile.

If you are looking for a fan solution or if you are tired of the summer heat, the Arctic Breeze Pro and Arctic Breeze Mobile are perfect. The Pro works great on a desktop and will expand the number of USB ports available. The mobile is light weight and easy to carry in any gear bag and can be used with other sources of USB power. The fans are made with attractive design features and are high quality heavy-duty items and are virtually silent.

MSRP: Arctic Breeze Pro = $19.95

Arctic Breeze Mobile = $9.95

What I like: Excellent build quality and silent fan.

What could be improved: I would love to see the AC adapter included with the Pro. I need the power.

Gear Deal- Xbox 360 250GB Halo Reach Slim Console (New Design) Limited Edition

Dan Cohen — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:15:09 +0000

Summer is over but that doesn’t mean the fun has to stop. Just in time for fall our Gear Sponsor has found some nice savings on the Xbox 360 Halo Reach Slim Console Limited Edition Xbox.

Since this is a pre-order item you can purchase it today but it won’t be shipping until the 14th. When it does ship you will get the Xbox 360 250GB slim console, 2 Xbox 360 wireless controllers with custom design, a black headset, a composite A/V cable, one month of Xbox LIVE Gold Membership and a 1 year warranty. Some of the things you should know about this Xbox are that it is newly redesigned to make it slimmer, it runs quieter than the last generation, it has built-in Wi-Fi 802.11n and… it is Kinnect-ready.

This package has an MSRP of $399.99 but with this Gear Deal you can save $30. That will bring the pre-order price down to $369.99 and it will even ship for free.

Xbox 360 Halo Reach Slim Console Limited Edition Xbox via LogicBUY.

Happy Labor Day!

Judie Lipsett Stanford — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:03:47 +0000

photo credit: chrismar

Whether you celebrate it because it signifies the end of the summer or because it also designates the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons, the first Monday of September is Labor Day in the United States. This is a holiday traditionally spent with friends, cooking out in the back yard while enjoying ice-cold adult beverages.

But obviously, there is a deeper history and meaning behind it …

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you are in the US and celebrating Labor Day today, we hope you have a fun, safe & enjoyable day off!

GearGames Weekly: September 5 – 11

Michael Anderson — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:00:48 +0000

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! By the middle of this week all of the kids should be back in schools from preschools to post-docs … which of course means it is a great time to roll out more and more high-profile games. There are several big releases, but my choice for the week is the PSP game Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, a game that caused me to lambaste Sony again about the lack of a PSN version.

Another solid-looking release is the new Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions franchise entry, as well as the highly anticipated strategy game R.U.S.E. and the sequel to the solid Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2.

There is also a DLC for Mass Effect 2 called Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker that serves as a bridging element between Mass Effect 2 and 3, though at $10 it is rather expensive for DLC!

Finally there is the release of the survival horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent which has gotten decent early press and will hopefully live up to expectations. And there are a few other releases this week – read on to find out!

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2
R.U.S.E.
NHL 11
Dragon Age: Origins – Witch Hunt

Sports Champions
Kung Fu Rider
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2
R.U.S.E.
NHL 11
Dragon Age: Origins – Witch Hunt
Start the Party

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
NHL Slapshot
Batman: The Brave and the Bold the Videogame

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
UFC 2010 Undisputed

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Batman: The Brave and the Bold the Videogame

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
R.U.S.E.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Dragon Age: Origins – Witch Hunt
Aion: Assault on Balaurea

Some notes from last week:

Valkyria Chronicles II

- Deep, fun and highly rewarding, this PSP follow-up to the PS3 game (which in itself gets many gamers steamed!) is a blast!

Metroid: Other M

- It has too much story and too little action in the early parts, but once it gets going it is quite a fun game.

Ace Combat: Joint Assault

- Ambitious, but limited by the controls and hardware of the PSP, and ultimately ends up feeling like playing the same thing over and again!

What games am I playing now? Here is a sampling:

PC: Elemental: War of Magic – only just got the latest update … but honestly there is still loads of polish needed and some pretty fundamental fixes needed. The more I play the more broken I find this game.
PSP: Valkyria Chronicles II – sequel to the PS3 game is deep and engaging and loads of fun!
DS: Again – from the Hotel Dusk developers, an interesting adventure that isn’t living up to my expectations.

So what are you playing? Chime in below!

Enjoy gaming!

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