Articles by Gear Diary Staff

Secret Agent Splat's Mission Review for iOS

Reviews

Secret Agent Splat’s Mission Review for iOS

Suppose you were an anthropomorphized Felis catus whose father specialized in making toy ducks. Suppose as a cat you had a pet mouse named Seymour. Suppose you discovered one day that someone has absconded with your ducks. Why then you’d transform into Secret Agent Splat and proceed to investigate with help from your pet! Based on the popular children’s book Splat the Cat, Secret Agent Splat’s Mission is a set of mini-games where children can help the eponymous feline (and his rodent sidekick Seymour) hunt down and retrieve Splat’s missing toy ducks and receive a special agent rating. All 48…

Nyko Speaker Stand for PlayStation Vita Review

Game Diary, Reviews

Nyko Speaker Stand for PlayStation Vita Review

The Nyko Speaker Stand makes handy peripheral for PlayStation Vita users for great gaming sound plus several other activities including listening music, watching movies, making Skype calls, or even using iPods and similar devices while they rest their hands from marathon gaming sessions.

The WhaleTail Tablet Vacuum Dock and Handle Review

Reviews

The WhaleTail Tablet Vacuum Dock and Handle Review

I do a lot of news items here at GD — just keeping you folks abreast of new offerings, deals, and the like.  Every once in a while an item pops up that makes me think, “Yeah, okay, I’ve gotta give that a try.”  Such an item was the Octa WhaleTail tablet stand/holder.  I mean, it just looked cool, and I have been in search of a decent “holder” for my iPad ever since I got it.  Not just to hold it up on a table, but also to hold it up, ya know, in front of my face.  This…

Making Siri Work for You; Some Gear Diary Suggestions

Gear Bits, How to Do It Yourself!

Making Siri Work for You; Some Gear Diary Suggestions

Image courtesy of headlondon.com Siri is an interesting innovation.  I remember back in my early days  in the tech biz, when I read about and heard plenty of people talking about a) how voice recognition was just around the corner, and b) how voice recognition was dang hard, and it was going to be a long ways out in the future.  Of course, in those days a 500 MB drive was considered “wow, that’s big!”, so you can guess how naive both sets of opinion were! Now we have Dragon Dictation and any number of other voice recognition software apps….

DiRT Showdown for PlayStation 3 Review

Game Diary, Reviews

DiRT Showdown for PlayStation 3 Review

The latest instalment in the award winning DiRT video game series features racing events, demolition derbies, and special stunt (a.ka. Hoonigan) events plus split-screen multiplayer and online options with competitive challenges in on and off-line modes.

A Response to GameSpot's MOH: Warfighter Article; Let's Remember why we Play Games

Editorials, News & Features

A Response to GameSpot’s MOH: Warfighter Article; Let’s Remember why we Play Games

    Image courtesy of EA, Medal of Honor The other day a friend showed me an article on GameSpot that made me perk up a bit; they published an article on Friday called “When did regenerating health become realistic”. As an avid fan of First Person Shooters, and a veteran of two Iraq tours myself, I have to say that Tom Mc Shea is quite off the mark on this one. In the article, Tom pretty much slams Medal of Honor’s latest title “Warfighter” as disrespectful to soldiers and for not being as “realistic” as claimed. I like Mc Shea’s…

Protect Your Gear with iSafeBags Urban Crew Backpacks

Gear Bits, News & Features

Protect Your Gear with iSafeBags Urban Crew Backpacks

Have you ever had something valuable stolen out of a laptop case or backpack? Most people have. Whether it was an ipod, cell phone, or wallet, this type of thing tends to happen to everyone – especially in urban environments and public areas. Fewer people, I’d imagine, would consider arming their backpack with a full-fledged alarm system. That’s exactly the motivation for tech retailer iSafeBags.com, which specializes in protecting your stuff through specialized bags and packs. The company’s newly launched Urban Crew Campus Laptop Backpack features two 125 decibel sirens and a high-intensity strobe light. An allegedly undetectable activation switch…

Did Google Pick Up Quickoffice for Integration with Google Docs/Drive?

Editorials, News & Features

Did Google Pick Up Quickoffice for Integration with Google Docs/Drive?

When I first migrated from Windows Mobile to Android, my Android phone had a lite version of Quickoffice pre-installed and as a result I became a frequent user of the software suite. Right now I have Quickoffice for Android, WebOS and iOS, to maintain a semblance of consistency across my multiple platforms, so I therefore took pause when I contemplated the news that Google acquired Quickoffice the other day. On the one hand, I had a brief bit of sorrow on seeing another independent company absorbed by a much larger entity, but at the same time considered the potential tangible…