Wednesday, March 11, 2009

'American Idol' is on the iPhone

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This $1.99 app, which appeared on the iTunes store Monday night as an exclusive to the iPhone and iPod Touch, turns the iPhone into a portable "American Idol" tracker. It shows headshots of season eight's final 13 contestants. Every week, the rankings will change to reflect who is still in the competition. Better, though, is the fact that you can predict the final rankings, call out the winners and have your prediction marked with a date and time — just so you can prove you prognosticated perfectly. So, yes, you can show people that you picked Michael Sarver before anyone else to be the winner.

The "Idol" iPhone game will include live-action footage of 15 other contestants, all played by unknown actors, a rep for the project told MTV News. Players have to make that all-important decision about which songs to sing, as well as taking other strategic steps on the way to becoming the next American Idol. As for the singing, players won't be crooning at all. Instead, they'll need to tilt the iPhone in different directions to match the rhythm of the competition's music. It's a tilt version of the kind of pattern-matching that players of "Rock Band' or "Guitar Hero" use to rock out in those games.

Clips of the judges' commentary have been culled from the show and will be used to critique each performance. Get ready for Simon Cowell's harshest barbs to be directed right at you.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Should we reconsider legalizing marijuana?

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"What do President Barack Obama, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and musician John Lennon all have in common?

They’ve all smoked pot.

An anti-drug speaker once told a group of students that if we smoke pot, we won’t get anywhere. This speaker must not have been aware of these influential men. Any facts she had to show the evils of marijuana were made void by that statement."

FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Cydia Store Sells Jailbroken iPhone Apps

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iPhone and iPod Touch owners rejoiced when Jay Freeman released Cydia, a software installer for jailbroken iPhone OS. The Cydia store was launched on Saturday for developers to sell their apps for jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Independent developers will now have a platform to sell their applications outside Apple's 'Walled Garden' - the App Store.

Jailbreaking is a process to enable an iPhone OS-based device to bypass the digital rights management for privilege escalation. Users can install applications that are developed by independent developers whose applications aren't available in the official App Store.

Cydia application installer already includes applications like Cycoder that turns the iPhone into a camcorder, and PdaNet, which turns the iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, using the data connection.

Freeman's Cyntact is the first paid package in the Cydia Store. Cyntact shows the contact's profile picture in the contact list. However, this application faces some conflict with the IntelliScreen app.

Freeman in an interview with Wall Streen Journal said that Cydia Store "intends to charge developers no more than the commission Apple does for his site's billing services."

It has been reported that two more rival App Stores are underdevelopment of which one focuses on selling porn-themed games for the iPhone.

Watchmen Game for the iPhone

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The new movie Watchmen launched last Friday and it looks cool. The movie follows a group of super heroes and the product tie-ins include video games. The iPhone and iPod touch are getting a game based on the movie that is available now.

The game is called Watchmen: Justice is Coming and justice is cheap too at under a buck on the App store. The game offers 3D graphics and is a MMORPG title that lets players fight in a virtual New York City of the 1970’s.

The game is set before the movie events and the servers for the MMORPS game are from Amazon’s cloud platform. Players can create their own super hero avatars and take on enemies and adventure through the city.


MacBook Touch/iTablet/iPhone HD Panels

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Straight from rumorville...

MacRumors is reporting on a Digitimes story that says Taiwan-based supplier:

Wintek revealed that it is currently working with Apple to develop some new products, but it said it does not know what applications the new products are for.

Apple has denied interest in producing both a tablet and a netbook in the past, which is what they do both when they really have no interest, and also when they’re about the release something. What with all the new hardware Apple dropped last week, TiPb has speculated that the March 24th date for a rumored Apple Event could be used to debut the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, a higher resolution iPhone HD… or an iTablet form factor.

If Apple does release a new device, would it really be a netbook scale version of Mac OS X or a large-size iPod touch running the iPhone version of OS X? Either way, developers would need time to ramp up (or down) their apps. Either way, could this be more fuel for that fire, or simply more grist for the rumor-mill?


Thursday, March 5, 2009

Obama has Grey Hair? - Get a Real News Story!

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President Barack Obama, left, on January 20, 2009 and on Wednesday, June 11, 2008. (CBS)

Hey dipshits at Fox.com, CNN, CBS, and every other substantial News source. Why are you talking about his hair color so much?

Lack any brains to write about actual events? There's still a war going on....

Obama dyed his hair for the election you retarded bitches. Look at pictures of him back when he was a senator.

He just stopped giving a fuck what you people think - He has way more important shit on his mind than making sure he rinses with Just For Men at 530am when he wakes up while youre still sleeping, passed out from watching American Idol and Deal or No Deal re-runs.

Please ignore news stories with no resonance in the community.

Robots!

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Like Robots?
Check these fuckers out: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/robots.html

Zynga’s “Scramble Live” on iPhone & iPod Touch

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Zynga (www.zynga.com), the largest social gaming company, announced today the launch of “Scramble Live”– the mobile version of its wildly popular word game – exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch. “Scramble Live,” a fast-paced casual game that challenges players to quickly find words in a grid, marks the first word game on the iPhone that allows players to compete live with other users on Facebook, the iPhone, and iPod Touch in real time. Scramble is currently one of Facebook’s Top 25 games with more than 1 million monthly active users and its popularity continues to grow.

“Scramble Live” takes full advantage of multi-touch technology through gameplay and uses the iPhone and iPod Touch’s accelerometer and multi-touch to rotate the board. At the end of each round, players are shown how missed words are formed on the board. The game includes three modes of play:

  • Solo – Play in ladder mode to beat your friends’ scores
  • Live – Play against other users in real time
  • Play & Pass – Play with up to three other people sitting next to you on the same device

“Scramble Live” is available for all first and second-generation iPhones, as well as all first and second-generation iPod Touches. “Scramble Live” is available for $4.99, with a $2.99 limited-time launch special. The game is offered in the iTunes store at: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=305904527&mt=8.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=5909404&lang=en.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Kindle 2 vs. Kindle for iPhone Application

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I bought a Kindle 2 last week, after a year of waiting for the second iteration of Amazon's e-book reader. I was hesitant at first, as I still love reading hardcover and paperback books, but the free cellular Web access and the addition of magazine subscriptions from publications like the New Yorker had me convinced. I've had it for a week now, and I love it. It feels great in my hands, and the e-ink screen creates the illusion of a reading a real book. I can hold it in my hand and read from it for hours.

So when I first heard that Amazon released the Kindle application for the iPhone, I immediately second-guessed my purchase of the Kindle 2. Did I make a foolish purchase? Why wasn't I patient enough to wait for the iPhone application? A free iPhone app is definitely a lot cheaper than the $359 for the Kindle 2. So I downloaded the Kindle for iPhone application to find out if I should send my Kindle 2 packing with a return slip.

Also, the Kindle iPhone application does not resolve my earlier complaint about reading ebooks on the iPhone. Reading on the iPhone's screen for a long duration is just not very enjoyable. This is especially apparent if you encounter long paragraphs with no breaks in the text -- the entire screen of the iPhone becomes just one block of words and can be difficult to read. If you want it for reading in short bursts however, this is acceptable. But for longer reading while relaxing on the couch, the Kindle wins.

I downloaded those same comic samples to the Kindle application on the iPhone. I still couldn't zoom in, and it's still hard to read the word balloons. But I was awed and amazed that they arrived in full-blown color. Yes, I couldn't read any of them, but it gave me a small glimmer of hope that maybe some day there'll be a way. Until then, I guess I'll have to live with the individually-sold iVerse comic applications.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Apple's iPhone Controls Most of Mobile Web Use

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In its first detailed look at web market share for cellphones, a research firm has found that Apple's iPhone represents a staggering 66.61 percent of mobile traffic while its competitors have only just gained a foothold.

Other smartphone platforms haven't fared any better, according to the metrics. Google's Android and Symbian were both locked in a tie for 6.15 percent. Research in Motion's email-centric BlackBerry OS was used less often at just 2.24 percent and was even outmatched by PalmOS devices, which represented 2.37 percent of cellular web use last month.

The news may have to placate Apple fans given a fairly stale month in desktop-class operating systems. Windows has reclaimed a small portion of its steadily declining share and climbed a fifth of a point to 88.42 percent, while Mac OS X share has backed down from its all-time high in January to 9.61 percent.