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.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
'American Idol' is on the iPhone
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Should we reconsider legalizing marijuana?
"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
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
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
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?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Obama has Grey Hair? - Get a Real News Story!
President Barack Obama, left, on January 20, 2009 and on Wednesday, June 11, 2008. (CBS)
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.
Zynga’s “Scramble Live” on iPhone & iPod Touch
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
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.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
More Sales with E-Commerce iPhone Apps
Monday, March 2, 2009
Apple's iPhone Controls Most of Mobile Web Use
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.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
iPhone Fart App 'Pull My Finger' Still In Dispute
The producer of a farting iPhone app is making a legal stink over another flatulence app in a looming trademark battle over the phrase, "pull my finger."The brouhaha concerns Air-O-Matic of Florida, the maker of the popular "Pull My Finger" app, which claims the maker of rival "iFart Mobile" is misappropriating the phrase "pull my finger" in its advertisements. Such an assertion, according to iFart Mobile maker InfoMedia of Colorado, reeks of an misunderstanding of American fart culture.
Kevin Houchin, InfoMedia's lawyer, explains:
"InfoMedia's efforts have been directed at merging 'Pull My Finger' and 'iFart' in the consumers' minds, so that searches for 'Pull My Finger' pull up the iFart application," AOM attorney Karen Koster Burr wrote (.pdf) InfoMedia in a letter demanding $50,000 payment.The phrase "pull my finger," and derivations thereof, are generally known and widely understood in American society to be a joke or prank regarding flatulence. The prank begins when the prankster senses the deep stirrings of flatulence. The prankster then requests that an unsuspecting person pull [his or her] finger. The prankster extends his index finger to the victim. As the victim pulls the prankster's finger, his flatulence erupts so as to suggest a causal relationship between the pulling of the finger and the subsequent expulsion of gas. In other words, the phrase "pull my finger" is understood to be a description of the act of passing gas.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Adult Industry Has SomeTech Ideas
If the desperation at the XBIZ Conference this week is any indication, the adult industry is now in a frantic struggle to adapt to the digital era and find a profitable business model that will work on the web.
That is leading to all kinds of innovation. A device called RealTouch relies on ‘haptic’ technology to allow viewers to literally ‘feel’ what is going on on-screen. Here’s how it works: the user plugs an egg-shaped device into a computer, inserts his penis, and then can simulates the sex acts occurring in a porno film, aided by heat or lubricants.At the end of the conference on Wednesday evening, one new idea was attracting notice: a gyrating, woman on an iPhone who stripped progressively.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Why is Apple such a douche sometimes?
Top 10 iPhone Games - MORE!
10. JellyCar (Free)
You said: "You guide your car through various courses trying to complete in the best time. The game uses 'Jelly Physics,' where your car bends, stretches and even breaks. It seems silly at first but after a few minutes, you're hooked!"
Our take: Based on the Xbox Community Game of the same name, JellyCar has clever crayonlike graphics and a unique gameplay gimmick where your gelatin-based vehicle rolls and smooshes its way toward the goal. Figuring out the physics can be challenging, and playing with the iPhone can be a bit of a pain. You have to press the left and right areas of the screen to get the car accelerating, then tilt the iPhone to add rotation to the vehicle. A few minutes of this and it's carpal tunnel time.
9. WordWarp ($1)
You said: "Take six given letters and make as many words as possible in the time limit."
Our take: Do you enjoy playing Jumble in the daily paper? Just like the well-known pen-and-paper puzzle, WordWarp gives you a scrambled six-letter word. You're tasked with unscrambling it, but also with coming up with as many smaller words as can be made from its letters in a two-minute time window. The "warp" feature lets you randomize the letters, which helps when forming words. Unfortunately (and aggravatingly), the word list isn't complete -- we found a lot of words it didn't accept.
8. Cube Runner (Free)
You said: "Free and highly addictive."
Our take: Looking very much like an early prototype of Star Fox, Cube Runner is a very simple exercise in not screwing up. Pilot your ship by tilting the iPhone left and right. Don't hit any of the cubes. For each second you stay alive, you get points; crash and it's game over. No checkpoints, no goal other than a high score. Cube Runner makes great use of subtle and responsive tilt controls, but it's less a test of your gamer aptitude than an exercise in seeing how long you can be exposed to the same repeating stimulus until you inevitably get distracted and crash.
7. Tap Defense (Free)
You said: "Set up turrets, then let the demons attack. It's great for playing in short bursts."
Our take: You're lucky we even let this one on the list, considering we covered its genre to death with Crystal Defenders and Field Runners in our previous Top 10. Tap Defense is nearly identical to those games -- waves of enemies approach your position, and you have to set up increasingly powerful sets of weaponized defense towers to hold them off. Once you buy and place your towers and the enemies flood in, there's nothing you can do except wait to see if your automatic defense system works.
6. Topple (Free)
You said: "Fun, casual stacking game from the folks that made Rolando. Bought Rolando but seem to end up playing this free game more. It's fast and fun and makes great use of the iPhone interface."
Our take: Blocks fall from the sky. But instead of just rotating them by 90-degree increments and placing them in neat piles, you have to drag and rotate them with your fingers, then gently build a stack that doesn't fall over. At first it's easy, but then you get more-challenging oddly shaped platforms (above) and things like eggs that don't stack perfectly. It's charming, addictive, works very well with the iPhone -- and you can't beat the price.
5. iShoot ($3)
You said: "Seriously? How could this not be at the top?"
Our take: Hey, it's Scorched Earth! We used to play this in high school on the computers in the library. This classic DOS game pitted four tanks against each other in turn-based, 2-D battle. Each tank takes its turn firing off a round of ammo, which destroys other tanks as well as the environment. Last tank standing wins, and you can buy more weapons between rounds. In iShoot, you can aim with the touch screen. Otherwise, it's pretty much identical to the classic, down to the taunting battle cries from your opponents.
4. Trism ($3)
You said: "Bejeweled-like but better, with tilt controls and more complex movement/combo possibilities. Very addictive. You can save games too (they can last quite a while). I would pick Trism over Bejeweled every time."
Our take: I'll agree with this -- Trism is much more complex than Bejeweled. So much so that it seems to be out of my league. Matching three like-colored gems by sliding the diagonal rows of pieces is one thing. But going beyond that initial match to set up combos isn't something my brain can process. Especially since you can alter the way the blocks fall by reorienting the iPhone so "down" is a different direction. Clever. But I just started sliding the rows in all different directions and racked up crazy combos by tilting the iPhone around randomly. Trism might be great for puzzle nuts, but I wouldn't call it casual.
3. Wurdle ($2)
You said: "Wurdle is similar to the board game Boggle, but even more addictive. Wurdle is the only game which has the privilege of living on my home screen."
Our take: One of many Boggle clones in the App Store, Wurdle's gameplay will be immediately apparent to you if you've ever played the famous word-creation game. Join up contiguous letters from the randomly generated 5x5 grid to make as many words as you can in 12 minutes. The word lists are far more complete than WordWrap's, so it'll recognize just about anything. But you won't even make a dent in the list of possibilities. If a 5x5 grid is too much for you, competing game Quordy ($3) is almost identical to Wurdle, but with a 4x4 grid instead.
2. Galcon ($5)
You said: "So easy, yet so challenging."
Our take: This is my favorite of the iPhone games recommended by Wired.com readers. It's a lightning-fast game where you and your opponent start out with a planet, and quickly start dragging your ships to nearby planets to take them over. The number on each planet is the number of your ships it'll take to conquer it. Each time you take over a planet, it starts generating more ships depending on how large it is. So the optimal strategy is to drag your ships to large planets with small numbers. Games take a minute or two at most -- you don't have time to plan a huge strategy, just to think on your feet.
1. Lux Touch (Free, deluxe version is $8)
You said: "A casual, Risk-like game that is thoroughly addictive. Can't save, but hey, it's free. And you can finish most games in 10 to 15 minutes."
Our take: Similar to Galcon, Lux World is about taking over territory and building your armies in a short span of time. But this game is turn-based instead of real-time, and hard instead of easy. In each turn, you can attack neighboring territories, place more armies on the map and shuffle their positions around. But it takes a careful balance of offense and defense to secure more land without leaving yourself vulnerable.
No More Ananymous Calls - Unblock blocked calls.
The service, called TrapCall, is offered by New Jersey's TelTech systems, the company behind the controversial SpoofCard Caller ID spoofing service. The new service is likely to be even more controversial — and popular."What’s really interesting is that they’ve totally taken the privacy out of Caller ID," says former hacker Kevin Mitnick, who alpha-tested the service.
TrapCall instructs new customers to reprogram their cellphones to send all rejected, missed and unanswered calls to TrapCall’s own toll-free number. If the user sees an incoming call with Caller ID blocked, he just presses the button on the phone that would normally send it to voicemail. The call invisibly loops through TelTech’s system, then back to the user’s phone, this time with the caller’s number displayed as the Caller ID.TelTech is no stranger to controversy. Its Spoofcard product lets customers send any phone number they want as their Caller ID. Among other things, the spoofing service has been used by thieves to activate stolen credit cards, by hackers to access celebrities’ voicemail boxes, and by telephone hoaxsters to stage a dangerous prank called "swatting," in which they spoof an enemy’s phone number while calling the police with a fake hostage situation. The goal of swatting — realized in hundreds of cases around the country — is to send armed cops bursting into the victim's home.
“The only way to block your number after this is released is to use Spoofcard,” he says with a laugh.
FULL ARTICLE HERE
Casinos FREAK over iPhone Card Counting App
An iPhonecard-counting system recently turned up in a California Indian casino. This new application is causing a lot of fuss, and Nevada gaming regulators have issued a general alert about it, warning Las Vegas casinos about its potential use in gameplay.
That's not the case across the country. In New Jersey, the case of Uston v. Resorts Internation Hotel Inc was decided in the gambler's favor, as the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Atlantic City casinos could not bar skilled players. It's different in Las Vegas—they can bully, harass, and back off customers so long as they stay within certain legal boundaries.
So when it comes to Las Vegas, while thinking isn't technically illegal, casinos can and will choose to kick you out when you think too much or too well. But using assistive devices? That is definitely illegal pretty much everywhere, whether you're gaming in NJ, Nevada, or California. In Nevada, you can count in your head all you want, but the second you start using technological assistance, you've crossed a line and are committing a felony.
In Nevada, each casino makes its own rules regarding the policing of electronic devices at gaming tables. Obviously not all devices are used to give players advantages. I'm sure it's nice when you can call the wife on your cell phone and say you'll be a little late returning to the hotel room, for example.
Casinos are well aware of the hazards though. Harrah's Entertainment banned the iPhone at the World Series of Poker shortly after the iPhone debuted. With this latest system exposed and the flexibility and programability of smart-phones on the rise, you can expect more crackdowns on electronic device use near the gaming tables.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Games for Jailbroken iPhones
Steve Jobs’ worst-case scenario is about to come true.Comes now Variah, with a brand new mobile “gaming” app exclusively for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touch that lets users interactively touch, strip and stroke beautiful models to climax.
Apple’s mobile devices are soon enough going to be definitely NSFW, and we’re not talking anything near as tame as iBoobs, either, let me tell ya.
A brave new world is coming for iPhone and iPod Touch users and some of it will be clothing optional.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Does Clive Owen have Beta Carotene Poisoning?
The Dude is ORANGE man, ORANGE! Eat less carrots bro, serious.
