Thursday, April 23, 2009
For a girl who loves Super Mario, this is exciting. I mean Super Mario is one of the all-time classic games in my world. Granted I did grow up with Atari before Nintendo, but when Super Mario came out my brother and I were in awe and addicted. This Nintendo purse is the dream of every girl who grew up mashing buttons on a Nintendo system. This cute accessory has a screen and a fully-functioning Nintendo inside. It's also got two controllers connected to it that allow a game of Super Mario Bros. 3 to be played by two people anywhere and everywhere!
Thank you Jeri Ellsworth for designing this awesomeness!
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Western Digital has launched its My DVR Expander for the TiVo DVR, now with 1TB of hard drive storage capacity. Designed for storing HDTV shows beyond the stock storage, the upgraded DVR Expander uses a eSATA connection and can hold up to an additional 140 hours of HD television or a maximum of 600 hours standard definition, simply by attaching the device to any TiVo DVR, including those that normally restrict regular eSATA drives.
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MySpace boss and co-founder Chris DeWolfe is stepping down from his job, but will stay on as a "strategic adviser" on the board.
The social networking site's owner News Corp announced the move yesterday.
DeWolfe's contract will not be renewed by "mutual agreement" said News Corp, adding that the firm was talking to MySpace president Tom Anderson about taking on a "new role in the organisation".
Reports say the new CEO of News Corp (NWS) social network MySpace will be former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta. Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who's close with News Corp digital boss Jonathan Miller, probably knows whether this is true or not, but he says he can't confirm or deny it till Friday.
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LittleSnapper from Realmac Software has been available for OS X for quite some time (and was one of the apps available in this year's Macheist bundle), and a few days ago they released a trimmed-down version that runs on your iPhone. While it lacks the basic photo editing and annotation available on its desktop counterpart, LittleSnapper for iPhone is no slouch.
Labels: DVR, iphone app, myspace, nintendo, tivo, western digital
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The rumors were true. Canon has crammed the $1500 50D's sensor and 5D-Mark-II-like 1080p video capture into an $899 entry-level Rebel. We ran it through its paces for a few hours, and it's awesome.So what we have here is almost the exact sensor from the 50D-a 15.1 megapixel CMOS with sensitivities up to ISO 12,800 at its top-end H2 boost setting. And almost the exact same HD capture from the 5D Mark II-the only change is that 1080p video is captured at 20fps, down from the 5D Mark II's 30fps.
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On Tuesday night, a Los Angeles Times blog post pointed to an soundbite that Facebook "gaming guru" Gareth Davis produced at the GamesBeat conference in San Francisco: that the company is "looking at" offering a virtual currency to developers. The virtual goods industry, the article notes, is a $1.5 billion behemoth.
This would mean that games and other apps with a presence on Facebook could use a universal "Facebook currency" that would not only be interoperable between apps, it could also line Facebook's pockets with some extra cash. But Davis' language ("looking at") is about as ambiguous as it gets, so my advice to potentially-excited developers would be "don't hold your breath."
Late last year, Facebook switched the payment system for Facebook Gifts from U.S. dollars to "credits," making it easier for the site to charge more or less than its previous standard $1 for the virtual items.
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If you're planning on any outdoor parties, like camping out or just hanging around a bonfire, it's always nice to bring some music with you. This BoomCooler is easy to wheel around no matter where you go, although you might want to keep a tarp or something around to protect it just in case it rains. It has a built-in CD player or you can hook up your iPod to the cooler. They actually recommend for better sound using something plugged into the aux input or USB input as opposed to using the CD player.*~*~*
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote today has revealed that the Wii will not be on the receiving end of a new hard drive, but will instead support the SDHC memory card format. Owners of the Wii will be able to do so using the Wii Menu 4.0 by downloading content straight onto the SDHC card from the Wii Shop Channel, where up to 240 SD channels are supported. With the SDHC standard to hit 32GB in the near future anyways, it makes perfect sense to use this relatively diminutive card instead of a portable hard drive.
And a new Zelda in the works?
Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata took the keynote stage at GDC this morning to encourage the developer community, talk about the DSi handheld and unveil some new titles for the Wii and DS platforms including a new Zelda game called Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (working title).
Labels: boomcooler, camera, canon, digital, dsi, Facebook, nintendo, photography, video, wii, zelda
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The company that operates World of Warcraft in China, The9, has told the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) that it will go bankrupt unless the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is approved by the regulator.
Reports last week claimed that The9 was having trouble getting the game past the regulators. A substantial sum was paid the the game's developers, Blizzard Entertainment, in April last year to secure the license, and without the sale of the expansion The9 will not be able to recover the cost. An article on JLM Pacific Epoch reports GAPP has said that the issue lies with the game's unhealthy content, which was the same problem faced by WoW's first expansion, The Burning Crusade. This resulted in a delay while the game had to be redesigned to remove some of the scarier aspects, namely covering exposed bones on skeletons and replacing corpses with graves.
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There has been something of an outpouring of bile directed at NBC for its decision to change the name of the Sci-Fi channel to Syfy.
"Syf" is the Polish word for "total bloody mess." (It seems to have its roots in the lesions of syphilis.) And "Syfy" would be, well, the plural.
The Sci-Fi channel doesn't actually present all that much programming that might strictly be defined as science fiction.
However, I suspect that somewhere beyond the arguments for wanting a name the channel can trademark is an argument that the phrase "science fiction" has become a little old.
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With DS sales continuing their astronomical climb and people still snagging Wii consoles off of shelves faster than you can say: "Your princess is in another castle," Nintendo's doing pretty well for itself in these difficult economic times. It's doing even better today on news that the lawsuit filed against it two years ago by Fenner Investments has been dismissed. The suit alleged that Nintendo inappropriately infringed on a 1998 patent relating to the monitoring of the position of analog joysticks in the Wii and GameCube.
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After getting an earful from disgruntled testers of its revamped home page, Yahoo is working on a new incarnation that will dramatically speed up access to e-mail.
The new home page, code-named Metro and due to launch later this year, will let users customize what they see and install a range of applications. But upon beginning "bucket testing" last September, in which different subsets of Yahoo users are involuntarily presented with variations of the new home page, Yahoo found out it was making it too difficult for people to continue with their accustomed practice of dropping by the page to scan for changes, said Burke Calligan, senior director product management for Yahoo front doors, in an interview at Yahoo headquarters here.
In particular, people were incensed that it took too many mouse clicks to glance at their e-mail inbox. But changes are coming to fix that, Calligan said.
"We have moderately addressed it in this round and we're going to radically address it in upcoming testing," Calligan said. "We've rethought the flow and design based on feedback we've gotten from users. I think users will...feel much better about it."
Reports last week claimed that The9 was having trouble getting the game past the regulators. A substantial sum was paid the the game's developers, Blizzard Entertainment, in April last year to secure the license, and without the sale of the expansion The9 will not be able to recover the cost. An article on JLM Pacific Epoch reports GAPP has said that the issue lies with the game's unhealthy content, which was the same problem faced by WoW's first expansion, The Burning Crusade. This resulted in a delay while the game had to be redesigned to remove some of the scarier aspects, namely covering exposed bones on skeletons and replacing corpses with graves.
*~*~*
There has been something of an outpouring of bile directed at NBC for its decision to change the name of the Sci-Fi channel to Syfy."Syf" is the Polish word for "total bloody mess." (It seems to have its roots in the lesions of syphilis.) And "Syfy" would be, well, the plural.
The Sci-Fi channel doesn't actually present all that much programming that might strictly be defined as science fiction.
However, I suspect that somewhere beyond the arguments for wanting a name the channel can trademark is an argument that the phrase "science fiction" has become a little old.
*~*~*
With DS sales continuing their astronomical climb and people still snagging Wii consoles off of shelves faster than you can say: "Your princess is in another castle," Nintendo's doing pretty well for itself in these difficult economic times. It's doing even better today on news that the lawsuit filed against it two years ago by Fenner Investments has been dismissed. The suit alleged that Nintendo inappropriately infringed on a 1998 patent relating to the monitoring of the position of analog joysticks in the Wii and GameCube.
*~*~*
After getting an earful from disgruntled testers of its revamped home page, Yahoo is working on a new incarnation that will dramatically speed up access to e-mail.
The new home page, code-named Metro and due to launch later this year, will let users customize what they see and install a range of applications. But upon beginning "bucket testing" last September, in which different subsets of Yahoo users are involuntarily presented with variations of the new home page, Yahoo found out it was making it too difficult for people to continue with their accustomed practice of dropping by the page to scan for changes, said Burke Calligan, senior director product management for Yahoo front doors, in an interview at Yahoo headquarters here.
In particular, people were incensed that it took too many mouse clicks to glance at their e-mail inbox. But changes are coming to fix that, Calligan said.
"We have moderately addressed it in this round and we're going to radically address it in upcoming testing," Calligan said. "We've rethought the flow and design based on feedback we've gotten from users. I think users will...feel much better about it."
Labels: nintendo, sci fi, WoW, yahoo
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Nintendo DSi is scheduled to hit stores on April 5th. The system will launch for $169.99, will include all the goodies you've been reading about. The DSi has two cameras -- an outward-aiming camera for taking pictures of others, as well as an internal one for taking pictures of the person holding the system.An SD card slot allows for additional picture storage beyond the internal memory and for digital music files (iTunes' standard AAC format) that can be played back on the system. An audio player lets you tinker with speed and pitch of songs and of recorded sounds (using the built-in microphone). Songs can be broken down into vocals and instrumentation for use in karaoke games.
Downloadable games will be available through a DSi Ware shop, similar to the current Wii Ware game store.
DSi will not include a slot for inserting Game Boy Advance games.
When the DSi launched in Japan last November, it came in both a "matte black" and "matte white" color scheme. But we're hearing it will be available in blue as well.
SOURCE
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Samsung wasn't the only company showing a solar-powered cell phone at the GSMA World Congress. On Wednesday, Chinese manufacturer ZTE launched a green model of its own.
Created with Digicel and Intivation, the Coral-200-Solar is designed for emerging markets where electricity may not be readily available. And, of course, it's Earth-friendly.
It should be available in June.
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Pentagon boffinry chiefs have announced that they would like some self-aware computer systems capable of "meta-reasoning" and "introspection". The plan is to place these machine intelligences in command of heavily armed, well-nigh invulnerable robotic tanks.
This latest plan for humanity's subjugation comes, of course, from DARPA - the agency believed to harbour the largest known group of lifelike people-simulant robots piloted from within by tiny, malevolent space lizard infiltrators in the entire US federal government.
The plan is called Self-Explanation Learning Framework (SELF). It is being handled by Dr Mike Cox of DARPA's renowned Information Processing Technology Office.
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Amid user revolt Facebook backed away from a newly implemented terms of service that many considered a privacy violation. Last night Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company would reverted back to its previous version of its terms of service that "everybody can understand."
(I think I'm slightly insulted by that remark.)
Zuckerberg explained in a blog post: "Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised."
Labels: cell phone, dsi, Facebook, nintendo, robots, zte
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