Remember those fun little “keychain” LCD games that you probably played as a kid? Maybe one was even your first taste of the “gaming” experience. Squibs Arcade, from Chillingo, for the iPhone and iPod Touch lets you relive the games you remember all over again. The application features seven games that each takes you back to a time when games were simple, addictive and most of all fun.
Remember those old point and shoot cameras that had the selector on the back allowing you to snap panoramic images whenever you wanted? With the newly released application Auto Stitch from Cloudburst Research, taking quality panoramic images on your iPhone is just as easy. photo courtesy of Auto Stitch
4J Studios wants to know, do you Wuggle? Wuggle is a new tactile word game from 4J Studios. The goal of the game is to make words by piecing together floating tiles. When you’ve got a word you want you smash the tiles together to submit then for score. You earn points based on the word’s length and each individual tile’s value. The game features two different game modes, colorful screens and funky background tunes.
It is not every day that you come across a truly creative and unique game. Especially one that can be found deep within the recesses of the iTunes App Store. Let’s be honest, a lot of the games here, regardless of how good or bad they may be, are derivative or even direct ports and copies of previously developed games. So. I was pretty excited when I got an email from the folks behind the new game Hexistentialism.
Good news Pleo fans, it looks like the news of the adorable baby dinosaur robot’s demise may have been a bit premature. Robert Oschler has confirmed that Jetta Company Limited, who manufactured the baby robot for Ugobe, bought the intellectual property rights and other assets from Ugobe on May 21st. Jetta Company Limited is planning to re-launch the Pleo line as well as producing accessories such as the vital battery and charger component. Here’s hoping there will be many more years of consumer love for the Baby Dino Robot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2vrZzU1F__Y
A few weeks ago I wrote a Diary Entry about a new company selling cases for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. Unltd. Case has added another case line to their online catalogue. The Snaztech Epic case, named after Unltd Case’s founder, YouTube reviewer thatsnazzyiphoneguy, is a simplistic back cover for the iPhone 3G but it has unique feature. No matter the color, and the Epic comes in 13 different color varieties, the back of the case looks exactly like the back of the iPhone 3G, including the Apple logo.
Firemint’s first offering, Flight Control, quickly became one of the hottest applications in the iTunes App Store. Now the developer has released their second game for the iPhone and iPod Touch and it’s sure to rise to the top just as fast. Real Racing puts you behind the wheel, literally, of a race car and pits you against other drivers in a track style race that’s both realistic and downright fun.
Judie: When HTC first sent news of their upcoming Touch Pro2 back in February, the personal note from my HTC contact said “PS: Know you have been waiting for the next Universal for awhile now…” Heck yeah I have, and that was a bit of a tease if there ever was one! Sure the radios, memory, processors, screen types – almost everything imaginable have been updated in newer HTC models, but as feature rich and highly spec’d as PDA phones may have been since 2005, I haven’t been able to keep myself from comparing all of them to the form…
If there’s one thing PDair is not short on it’s cases for the iPhone. Their catalogue of cases is huge! From metal to leather to silicone to everything in between they are sure to have a case that fits each individual’s own sense of style. I was recently sent the PDair Luxury Silicone case for the iPhone 3G to review.
The developers at Astraware are at it again. Their newest release for the iPhone or iPod Touch, Phaze, places you in the pilot’s seat of a futuristic speedster spacecraft and allows you to race against opponents along an intergalactic race track. Along the way you steer your ship for the boost pads to achieve warp speed, pick up weapons to blast your opponents and collect power boosts and defensive shields. Phaze game is a fun break from traditional racing games.
Vlingo provides voice-control for BlackBerry devices, iPhones, and is currently beta-testing a version for Nokia smartphones (N95, N95 8GB, E51 and E71). I have been using free versions of Vlingo on both a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and have been very impressed. When Vlingo released version 3.0 for the BlackBerry, I immediately wanted to put the update through it’s paces.
It’s amazing that in these troubling times filled with economic uncertainty and unbridled social woe, the petty-minded governments of various countries still manage to find the time and resources to censor media outlets in order to protect their citizenry from the corrupting influence of free speech. Iran briefly blocked access to Facebook, ahead of its June presidential elections. China has upped the ante by blocking, amongst others, Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail. Even Microsoft’s newly unveiled bing search engine hasn’t been spared. The ongoing media blackout occurs ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre this Thursday (June 4).
As we reported last night, the iTunes App Store was set to release one of its most anticipated titles since its launch. EA has just released the iPhone/iPod Touch version of the most popular PC game of all time, The Sims3. If you’re not familiar with the game, The Sims focuses entirely on the lives of virtual people called Sims, placing the player in control of their virtual “world” and their daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, reading, and bathingPriced at $9.99 the game is on the pricer end of titles in the App Store. I’ve had some time with the game…
Still looking to bring your parents or grand parents into the wonderful world of wireless communication, without needing to spend a month conducting a technical seminar covering how to use the phone’s features? GreatCall, Inc. has just come out with the Jitterbug J cell phone, manufactured by Samsung, which offers a loud speaker, large buttons, and easy-to-use interface. The Jitterbug J is primarily geared towards the elderly and technophobic; but can be an alternative for anyone needing basic wireless service without paying for unneeded or unwanted features never used. Additional features and Rate Plan information available after the jump.
Cut from the same style of games as Chicktionary, Sextuple Word Challenge and Wurdle comes Wordulous from 99Games Online. Wordulous challenges you to make as many words as you can from a jumbled group of letters. With “old-school” graphics, three different types of game play and a .99 cent price tag, there’s a lot to like about this game.
One of the best technology purchases I made was the Nintendo Wii, which was a family present two Chanukahs ago. It is a fantastic gaming platform, especially for younger children, and the motion sensitive controls are nothing short of amazing. The only problem I found, though, was that the Wii remote can get in the way of the illusion of some games. I initially found this when I was playing Star Wars on the Wii. The Wii remote just did not approximate a sword or light saber very well. Fortunately, at that time, DreamGear contacted me with a Wii lightsaber,…
I’m a Apple fanboy through and through. This I admit freely. But I’m also man enough to admit that not everything Apple does is perfect. Time Machine, Apple’s default back up program, is one of those not so perfect things. My biggest problem with Time Machine is the inability to customize just when Time Machine backs up. The only time management setting offered by Time Machine is on or off. When it’s on it backs up everything on your Mac, every hour. I find this to be a major nuisance as it seems my iMac is always backing itself up and it’s…
Life, Sorry, Monopoly, and Clue were just some of the board games I grew up playing. Times change and with new technology comes new, updated versions of some of our favorite classics. Sometimes the updates are improvements, while other times the original seems better. Electronic Arts has become one of the premier iPhone and iPod Touch application developers. With hits like Spore, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Need For Speed Undercover and more, they are setting the bar for gaming in the iTunes App Store. One of EA’s newest releases is a remake of one of those games I grew up…
If your drive goes south, without backup storage and some type of backup strategy, you could be in a world of hurt. Everyone here at Gear Diary knows what that means… We’ve had a couple of server issues over the past few years that have caused all of us some major pain. Enter the Elite-AL Pro Qz2. It’s a RAID drive system and backup device that will accommodate up to 8TB (yes… that’s 8 TERABYTES) of data in a single drive array. Let’s take a look and see how it does with both Windows and Mac systems. The Elite-AL Pro…
A while ago, I ranted on a Symbian forum about what a piece of cr disappointment the Nokia N96 was, and how it’d put me off Nokia smartphones forever. Until a recent firmware update, the N96 was slow, buggy and practically unusable. It creaks so much, I’ve actually come to think of the squishy casing as a feature – use it as an expensive stress ball, and it’s entertaining; the built-in DVB-H TV tuner is essentially useless anyway. Given the vitriol, you can imagine that it’d take a lot to get me interested in using the N96 again. Spb TV…
Are you a fan of magic tricks? I’ve always been fascinated by card tricks and while in the back of my mind I know there’s often a reasonable explanation for how most tricks are done there’s still a part of me that’s happier not knowing. Card Mystery from Sunphonia is a recently released application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that will leave you wondering, “hey how’d they do that? ”