News & Features | Gear Diary

Welcome to the Godwin Event Horizon

The other day I was stuck in the midst of what had become a very heated debate regarding video game DRM (digital rights management), DLC (downloadable content), disks, downloads, rights, and piracy … and was amazed that in spite of strong opinions and polarized stances that the heated discussion stayed pretty respectful and stayed away from foul language, personal attacks, and other things that typify a ‘flame war’. It was in stark contrast to a discussion I briefly entered late last week that began as a discussion of the merits of the new GTA: Chinatown Wars for the iPhone compared…

News & Features

A Quarter Century On … Billboard’s Top 100 of 1985!

My wife and I coach an Odyssey of the Mind team through our kids’ school. Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem solving program focused on teamwork and kid-only solutions of challenged they work on all through the school year. (I coached Destination Imagination back in Massachusetts for several years, and it is very similar). Our team this year has a problem they are solving, and their solution has led them to events that happened in 1985, and as such they have been looking at the popular culture ‘way back then’. We have plenty of music from the 80’s…

News & Features

Buffalo Dualie Fire Wire 800/USB500GB Hard Drive + iPhone Dock

Here’s another item for the “super-cool convergence item” file I’ve got going. The Buffalo Dualie lets you sync and charge your iPhone or iPod while simultaneously backing up or storing digital assets on the integral 500GB portable hard drive. As an added bonus, it offers a brushed-aluminum and black soft-touch two-tone finish. The Dualie works with both the iPhone & the iPod. In addition to allowing you to store files to its 500 GB hard drive it also offers two USB ports for your other USB powered accessories. So you get an iPhone/iPod dock, a hard drive and a two-port…

News & Features

PETA Proposes ‘Robotic Groundhog’ for Celebration

Image courtesy of Wikipedia You know the story – every February 2nd at 6AM the alarm goes off and … wait, wrong GroundHog Day! Anyway, each February 2nd in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the world watches as the groundhog called Punxsutawney Phil either sees or doesn’t see his shadow, which will tell us whether we’ll see an early spring … or six more weeks of winter.

News & Features

Changing the World Only Required … Taking a Seat

It is hard for me as someone who grew up in Massachusetts to believe that I was born into a time when segregation was widespread throughout the country and that there were actually places that legally and officially disallowed someone service based solely on the color of their skin. So it is amazing to me that it was a mere 50 years ago today that the so-called ‘sit in’ movement started at the counter of a Woolworth in Greensboro, N.C. I read an article about this in my local paper this weekend, and searched out more information, which was readily…

News & Features

ipad Early Adopters, Time To Ready Your Credit Cards?

Red alert, red alert. Now hear this, now hear this….. The Apple online store is down! Yes, Apple’s web store is currently down for maintenance. Now we’ve seen this happen on Sunday before and it has turned out to be nothing more than behind the scenes work. But with the recent announcement of the iPad perhaps this time it’s something more. Sunday maintenance, iPad pre-order prep. or something else entirely? Stay tuned….. UPDATE: 5:30 PM EST – it’s back up and so far nothing new noticed. Sigh…

News & Features

The Decline and Fall of the Hummel Figurine

Image courtesy of Hummels at a Discount I remember as a kid when my father bought my mom her first Hummel. At the time they were treasured and very expensive – and the type of expense my parents really couldn’t afford at the time. Through the years they added to the collection, eventually getting a nice little wall display case for them all. The one in the image – Sensitive Hunter – is how my mom always saw me, and therefore was the one she wanted to represent me in her little menagerie. But today an article at WalletPop talks…

News & Features

Nexus One Desktop Now Available For Order

The gold connectors on the bottom of the Google Nexus One are to be used for dock accessories, including a Desktop Dock and a Car Dock, but those accessories were nowhere to be found. Today, the Desktop dock is now available for order.

News & Features

Beware: Some Images Aren’t Proof of Anything

I was reading a story on Phandroid about the supposed HTC Supersonic which may be a future HTC made Android device, or may not. They had a image that was from the suspect device’s about screen e-mailed to them trying to catch them into posting about it. However, Phandroid was on the ball and they had someone create a image reporting a device as the HTC Phandroid running Android 3.1. It was created by editing a file in the /system directory on a rooted device, rebooting it and creating a regular screenshot. The point is, this screen isn’t valid as…

News & Features

Wii Game “New Super Mario Bros” Is Fastest ‘Single Game’ to Sell 10 Million Copies

We have read about how many copies the 2009 mega-hit game Modern Warfare 2 sold, but that was across three different gaming systems. Now a game that is a Wii-port of a super-popular DS game of the same titles that is essentially a new version of a classic Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) game has claimed the crown for being the fastest game to sell 10 million copies. The game has been out for eight weeks in North America and Europe and less than a month in Japan. Most folks anticipate that within a few months at most New Super…

News & Features

The Cool PS3 Mod Adds Portability

Our friends at PS3Maven have let us know about the latest cool PS3 mod – this one right up my alley as a big fan of handheld gaming! This was created by a modder called BronckartN, who has created a wireless interface that allows you to control and watch on a portable device while the console remains elsewhere. Quite cool – check the video to see it in action! Source: PS3Maven

News & Features

Missing Multitouch on Android’s Web Browser? There’s An App for That, Too

(video courtesy of brandonnscott) Got an Android device, but missing that sweet multitouch goodness while web browsing? Tired of double-tapping in front of your iPhone-toting friends? Well, if you’ve got an Android 2.0 or higher device — I’m looking at you Motorola DROID and Nexus One owners — you want to download the Dolphin Browser. Aw, heck, we’ve even put the barcode right here in the post so you can download the free app right from our site 😀

News & Features

Green Man Gaming Plans to Allow Sales of Used Digital Games

No clue how they’ll do it yet, but WOW am I interested! A new digital distribution portal called Green Man Gaming is claiming that they will add value to your digital purchases by allowing you to ‘trade them in’, at which time they will re-sell them as used games. They are supposedly working with publishers to make this happen in a way that benefits everyone involved.

News & Features

Grand Theft Auto On iTunes Warning – NOT for First Gen iPod Touch

So I was terribly excited the other day when the best DS & PSP game of 2009 – Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars – landed on the App Store. I said then that I was ‘just getting started’, which actually meant that I had bought it and it was downloaded but I hadn’t had time to install or start playing. Sadly, that night I discovered that I was not going to be able to play the game – because I own a first-generation iPod Touch.

News & Features

Apple Releases Mobile Me Gallery to App Store

I must have missed this in all the post-CES catch-up, but late last week Apple introduced a free app that allows Mobile Me subscribers to access and share their Gallery from their iPhone / iPod Touch. Apple released a new app today that allows MobileMe subscribers to view their uploaded photo galleries. The app also allows MobileMe users to share links to their galleries with others via email and view the galleries of other MobileMe members. Features — View your entire gallery including password protected and hidden albums — Flick through photos and pinch to zoom in for more detail…

News & Features

Haiti Relief ‘Bad Value’ Alert – Hilton’s Point-Shaving Deal

Many folks continue to look for ways to help the millions of already impoverished folks in Haiti deal with the awful impact of last week’s quake. We have posted about sending relief help by cell phone, efforts in the mobile community, Gear Diary’s three ways to help, and even scam warnings. Many, many places are trying to help consumers find a way to help out, and we applaud those efforts. However, when they start taking a significant overhead to make the donation, it stops being magnanimous and becomes self-serving – and a bad deal for consumers! Latest entry to this…

News & Features

Keep Those Games Safe With New Security Lockers

Do you have problems with your games and accessories getting borrowed because you live in a dorm or fraternity house and your ‘friends’ never seem to remember to return anything? Well, newPCgadgets has a great idea to help with that – the Security Locker for the XBOX360 and Wii! According to the Official Site: Adults can use the Security Locker as a parental control device by simply locking up controllers and games. Prevents friends and siblings from using your Xbox 360 without permission. By putting a padlock on the locker, you send a clear ‘hands off’ message, keeping your favorite…

News & Features

This is how you do a Nexus One unboxing!

This is for all of you who have already received your Google Nexus Ones, and also for those of us who haven’t … yet. Enjoy! Thanks Helena!

News & Features

Resolutions for the Gaming New Year

Are you feeling hung over from some bad gaming purchases in 2009? Let me share some thoughts on how to apply principles and resolutions to fill your 2010 full of smart gaming choices! Every New Years, many people make resolutions of things they will do that year to make themselves better people. I do this each year, typically with a single thing I want to work on in my personal life (and typically either better health or communications!). With the very busy Fall release season coming to a close, it is a good time to reflect on the decisions made…

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Green Ronin Brings Dragon Age: Origins to TableTop RPG Gaming

It was an interesting choice for Bioware to abandon the Dungeons and Dragons license and create their own rule system for Dragon Age, but now they are turning the tables and have licensed their gaming system to Green Ronin to develop a tabletop game. The game system follows typical standards by having a low level adventure coming first, followed later by further adventures eventually taking the player to level 20. DAGR was developed around Green Ronin’s in-house system, AGE (Adventure Gaming Engine). Yet, while DAGR fortunately holds true to the Dragon Age setting, it has avoided the obvious pit-trap of…

eBooks, News & Features

Txtr Brings ePUB to the iPhone

Earlier in the week, I ranted about my frustration with the lack of commercial ebookstores on Android. Chief among my frustrations was a lack of ePUB readers that could handle DRM, the one complaint that overlapped with the otherwise better stocked iPhone. Now the iPhone has gone and beaten Android on all ebook fronts, as txtr’s new app reads ePUBs with Adobe Digital Rights Management. Why does ePUB matter, specifically the kind linked to an AdobeID? Because it is fast becoming the dominant format for any non-Kindle ebooks. Barnes and Noble quietly switched to ePUB about a month ago (though…