This week at NAMM, legendary amplifier company introduced a bunch of great new stuff, including a surprise item – the Orange MusicBoard Interactive Whiteboard. Anyone with kids in school knows about electronic whiteboards, which allow you to project interactive content from a computer onto a screen. The MusicBoard seeks to revolutionize how music theory is taught to students!
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the upcoming launch of the action-puzzle game Satellina. Now it has arrived on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and it has continued to be a complete blast to play, adding new features for the color impaired. It arrives on Android soon, so check it out!
One truth in my world is that I am always up for a new pocket knife or flashlight. Maybe because I spend so much times in the woods, or maybe it is just a man thing. When I had the chance to review the Blackfire Clamplight Backpack, I jumped at the chance, and the $34.99 light spent hunting season with me.
When I wrote about the official announcement of Avernum 2: Crystal Souls last year I noted that I had missed the initial release of the first three games, and only played parts of them since. In 2012 I played and replayed Avernum: Escape from the Pit, and now I have played Avernum 2: Crystal Souls and completely loved it!
I remember getting the chance to play with an ARP Odyssey in junior high, back in the mid-1970s – it was an awesome piece of music-making hardware! Released in 1972 to compete with the MiniMoog, the Odyssey was responsible for many of the classic synth sounds of the 1970s, and now Korg has announced the Korg ARP Odyssey Analog Synthesizer!
I have mentioned this before, but my son is severely allergic to sesame seeds. We found this out the hard way, after one small bite of hummus landed us in the ER. Unfortunately, companies do not have to label if sesame is an ingredient or cross contaminant in the US, so it’s time to petition the FDA to change that and add sesame to allergy labels!
WhatsApp have just introduced the ability to connect your phone to a web browser and both receive and send WhatsApp messages via your browser. The first step is to update your WhatsApp messaging application on your phone. Then on the web use a Chrome Browser to navigate to https://web.whatsapp.com.
Although it may seem like the Ram (formerly Dodge) truck division of the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Corporation has been serious about competing against the likes of Chevy and Ford pickups in recent years, the brand’s off-roading heritage goes back to the waning days of WWII and a purpose-built ¾-ton military truck known as Power Wagon.
Over the last several years card-based role-playing games have matured and branched out beyond just a few archetypes. While doing so they have also wrapped fully immersive games around the card-battle mechanic, making it easy to forget that there is even a card battle there! Honorbound has been a successful genre game, and is now expanding! Check it out!
One of the problems for cord-cutters is just how many external services and network sites require a cable subscription to view. So it was great to see the announcement today from NBCUniversal that they are featuring a “Super Stream Sunday” promotion that will allow US viewers to watch a full 11 hours of NFL Super Bowl Sunday for Free!
While at CES, Dan and I had a chance to check out some of the latest LG Appliances. Do you have a stainless fridge that collects fingerprints and isn’t efficiently laid out (like I do)? Then you will love their new Mega Capacity Double-Door In-Door Refrigerator. It’s laid out intelligently, and it doesn’t collect gross fingerprints!
If you’ve been tempted but haven’t yet pulled the trigger on the BlackBerry Passport (good move, BTW) – BlackBerry is now offering a limited edition black and gold trimmed version. Apparently only 50 will be offered at the price of $999 Canadian or $899 US. A quick review of BlackBerry’s site shows “out of stock”.
One of the great things about being around the tech world is watching the way in which companies and product lines evolve. The TwelveSouth BookBook for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is a perfect example. The original BookBook was nice but flawed; a few product generations later, and the new BookBook is nothing short of a home run.
Club Nintendo gave gamers extra real-life items (with free shipping) for their purchases when entering/registering codes as members in this Nintendo customer loyalty program for about six years. Now, Nintendo has informed U.S.A. and Canadian members that they can earn more “coin” amounts before Tuesday, March 31, 2015 and spend their remaining amounts before Tuesday, June 30, 2015.
I remember when MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) launched in the late 1990s, allowing us to jump back to the joy of the games we loved in the early 1980s arcades. MAME has provided nostalgic fun for millions of gamers over the last two decades, but even better is games like Spirefall that recapture those feelings in a new experience!
Every year Steam and GoG.com and GamersGate and other services offer huge discounts on games during their holiday sales, and gamers on web forums lament their ever-growing backlog and the impossibility of ever finishing the games they just bought, let alone the rest. Now SteamLeft will quantify your backlog so you know just how dismal things really are!
While Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth launched just three months ago, the legendary strategy game create is already preparing his next bold adventure – Sid Meier’s Starships, which is coming later this year to Mac, PC and iPad. The game will offer some connectivity to Beyond Earth, but is its own grand adventure. Check out the announcement info!
As I wrote about during CES week, IK Multimedia is making major advancements on the Android platform for making music. They have been working on their ‘zero latency’ initiative, and the latest output of that is the availability of Groovemaker 2 for Android. Groove maker 2 brings the beat-making and remix app to nearly all capable Android devices.
I struggled to believe something I heard a couple of weeks before Christmas from a visiting technical group with a couple of runners. They were not used to being away from a city and indoor track, and were surprised about running in the dark mornings. But they said they wouldn’t wear reflectors or lamps because it ‘didn’t look cool’.
It’s not that uncommon for us to review laptop bags that retail for $150+ and to add our own extended battery packs to the mix, but the $199 Phorce Freedom is the first we’ve reviewed that came with its own built-in 15,000 mAh power source. Why should you get this bag instead of creating your own with available components?
Judie and I went straight from CES in Las Vegas to NAIAS in Detroit (Judie with GM and me with Ford) last week. By that point I was dog tired. I wanted to cover all of Ford’s news — and all the rest of course — but do so in the lightest way possible.