Gadgets, Games and Stuff

iPhone App Review: Jigsaw Wild

2009-01-21T23:40:00.004Z

This instalment of the iPhone App Review features another 99Games offering going by the name of Jigsaw Wild. Available from everyone's favourite App Store for the princely sum of £1.19, Jigsaw Wild is as the name suggests a jigsaw game for your iPhone or iPod Touch. By using your delicate touch you can arrange the many pieces together locking them into the designated pattern and producing a familiar and pre-chosen picture.

Hit the read link for a run down of the features and options available in Jigsaw Wild.

The interface is simple and well put together. Moving the pieces around on your screen is as simple as touching to highlight a piece and then dragging it around. When you get two matching pieces adjoining each other they snap in place and form an large chunk that can be moved around all together. Once you've got all your pieces together they build the image and show you the full thing without the piece divisions. The piece size and number can be varied with the difficulty option slider from 4 to 24 pieces. The pieces can also be made irregular or rectangular to increase the challenge. It is however pretty easy to solve the jigsaw due to the fact that the pieces do not rotate. This means that they can only fit one way therefore it's unlikely that you'll need the hint or ghost features but they're on hand should you get stuck.

Other options include sound effects suitable for each type of picture and of course the pictures themselves. One can select either from your own photo library, directly from the camera or from a built in library of pictures including animals, birds, insects and reptiles. With more than 90 wildlife photos to choose from there's plenty of puzzles to do even if you don't have anything suitable in your own photo roll. Once you've selected your photo it's as simple as shaking your iPhone to break up the pieces and begin the timer for the puzzle. Should you get an annoying interruption, your boss calling for instance, you can rest assured that your progress in the puzzle is saved and can be resumed at any point.

Overall Jigsaw Wild is a well presented jigsaw application. How much you'll enjoy making the jigsaws will probably revolve around whether you like real jigsaw puzzles, but if jigsaws are your thing you could do much worse than check out Jigsaw Wild.

Boston Big Picture of Obama

2009-01-21T21:30:00.000Z

This is clearly in the realms of stuff but if you haven't seen the Big Picture yet from President Obama's inaurgeration yet go check it out now, you won't be dissapointed, it truly is an amazing set of photos from all over the world regardless of who or what you are.

Boston Big Picture

Thanks to Ryan Block for Tweeting that.

iPhone App Review: Chess Pro

2009-01-18T18:41:00.005Z

For this installement of the iPhone App Review we will be concentrating on a recent edition to the 99Games App Store line up.

99Games are one of the many app developers that have produced mobile Chess games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In an attempt to cater for all, they've got two versions on offer: Chess Lite , a more basic version, plus the fully featured Chess Pro, aimed at both the more capable chess player, and those of us that like lots of fancy options. The two versions are currently available in the App Store with Chess Lite coming in at a credit crunch busting £0.59, were as Chess Pro is currently £2.39. Both are around 4.5 MB's and are rated 4+, meaning those who have kids can start their sons/daughters chess career at a young age.

Just what you had in mind?...read on!

A quick look at Chess Lite revealed a clean, fast and easy to use interface, with the abilty to play as White, Black or in a two player mode on a medium difficultly setting. Chess lite is not necessarily aimed at beginners or those who have never played before. So what has Chess Pro got to offer and is it worth the money?

As with the lite version Chess Pro gives the options to play in a two player mode that flips the screen 180 between turns. However with Chess Pro, there is now the option to play two extra variants of the regular chess game. Suicide changes the goal to one where you have to lose all your pieces! Crazy I know but its actually good fun, if a little confusing at first. In Suicide the king is treated as a regular piece, although castling is still an option. The second variant is loser which is similar to suicide except the king works like normal and therefore you can win via checkmate.

The chess board is a simple 2D layout with options to save, undo, hint and obviously a back option. Save is useful for those short tube journeys were you actually don't get delayed and run out of time to checkmate your iPhone. Undo allows you to step back as many turns as you want (unless you have been beaten).

Chess Pro also has two extra 3D theme options; Metalic and Wood. When using either 3D theme the method of moving your pieces across the board changes from a simple yet effective drag, to a tap to select and move the piece to its desired square. The 2D theme is therefore slightly easier to use and a little more pratical.
Also in the pro version is the option to show what moves are avaible everytime a piece is select. Listed in the menu as ‘Legal Moves’ this is helpful for those who are either less familiar with the rules or cannot count. Along the same lines as ‘Legal Moves’ is the option to display a new hint on every turn. It should be noted that this feature is also available in the lite version and again is helpful for the less advanced players and seems to be very intelligent.

The game engine is probably the best part of Chess Pro. Both versions use the very intelligent opensource GNU engine, which inturn uses the ‘Opening Book’ method of learning from the worlds best players. Chess Pro is different in that it allows the user to select from three difficulty levels; easy, medium and hard. Easy requires little effort and a game can easily be finished in a couple of minutes. Medium on the other had provides an intelligent opponent which requires a greater amount of skill and time. Hard is not for beginners, infact it will likely challenge even the most serious players. The GNU engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Chess) is said to achieve an ELO rating (chess rating system) of 2750, however on iPhone hardware this is likely to be far less. It would be very difficult to rate the actual score but given that only 4 players have ever exceed 2800, even with a score of 2000+ (guessetimate) on hard, few would complain about the lack of a decent challenge; especially as this is a £2.39 mobile chess game!

Overall Chess Pro is a wise choice for players of any ability looking for a iPhone/iPod Touch chess game. 99Games have done a great job with adding only the best and most useful features, whilst still keeping the interface clean and intuative.

Best feature? Has to be the way you can view the last move your opponent made, just incase you blinked and missed it!

Anything missing? Not really but some work on the quality and quantity of the themes in future updates would be nice.

Worth the dosh? If you like chess and have either an iPhone or iPod Touch then definantly yes.

Palm ups their game with the Pre

2009-01-09T13:00:00.001Z

For those of you who don't know, I started my gadget obsession with the Palm IIIe. I had an m505, a TT and a TT3 on the way which I loved, but when Palm refused to move on from Palm OS Garnet (5.x) I couldn't stomach the much maligned OS and moved first to Windows Mobile then on to Symbian and finally on to Mobile OSX. The problem was that I, like many other original gadget freaks, hold a soft spot in my heart for Palm. I was upset to see their decline and the failure of their innovative thinking over the past couple of years, sure the Centro is pretty popular and the original Treo was revolutionary but recently they've just slipped by the wayside. The good news however is that yesterday Palm announced that they've still got that core innovation and are back in a big way. Hit the read link for the full run down.

The Palm Keynote at CES was for all intents and purposes a make or break moment for the once king of the mobile sector. If the product/OS they announced was more of the same drab, non-exciting, limited experience that they've had recently then I'm pretty sure that would have been the end of Palm. Thankfully for all true gadget hounds out there, Palm pulled a 180. They announced not only a very slick looking and fully connected platform the Palm Web OS but also an absolutely fantastic looking device to run it, the Palm Pre.

Here's what we currently know about Palm WebOS. It's a linux based OS that is a derivative of what they've been working on for some time and it uses standard web languages JS, CSS, HTML and XML meaning that app developers won't need to learn any specific new languages reducing the learning curve. It has a new system of cloud information management called Synergy, a sync system that provides automatic syncing and consolidation your contacts, calendars and other PIM information into one place without the creation or display of duplicates. There is also consolidated messaging that brings IM, SMS and MMS together in one conversation. Exchange support is there also as well as the usual IMAP and POP email integration. A search feature along the lines of Spotlight is built into the OS making finding applications, documents and web stuff a doddle. The UI itself has a smooth flick/multi-touch based system very similar to the iPhone, with the best bits from the current implementations from Android and Mobile OSX including a dockable control area and a pop-up notification system. The system also supports gestures with a new 'gesture area' that is not screen but still touchable. The application navigation and switching is based on a 'deck of cards' analogy similar in form to that used by Mobile Safari when switching tabs. The OS also allows true multitasking and borrows quite a lot of ideas and mechanics from the desktop world. All in all the Web OS looks pretty impressive and could be exceeding competitive with the current crop of mobile OS options.

Palm didn't only release details of a new platform; thankfully they also showed a pre-production Palm Pre the new device to feature this new operating system. The device itself looks really really nice, something that looks like it might have had HTCs hand in it. It features a 3.1inch screen with the good old Palm resolution of 320x480 and a portrait sliding keyboard with a curve similar to that of the SE Xperia X1 just portrait (the keyboard looks a lot like their Treo keyboards which should be good). Onboard the Pre also features a 'gesture area' (read touch sensitive non-screen area) and a trackball for good measure. A GPS chipset is in there along with a 3MP Camera with LED flash plus the usual connectivity options including EVDO rev.A (Sprint; HSPDA to come soon to non-US markets), WiFi (802.11b/g), bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with AD2P and microUSB2 including mass storage for the 8Gb flash onboard. Both proximity sensor and light sensors are there similar to the iPhone along with a riger mute switch and a removable battery (that Palm were very keen to emphasise). Thankfully the Pre also features a 3.5mm jack for your favourite 'phones and integrates an optional but very cool, wireless (induction) charging system using what they're calling the Touchstone. Closed the phone is a pocket friendly 59.57 x 100.53 x 16.95mm and only 135g.

The combination of the new slick looking WebOS powered through by the new TI CPU (read powerful) on the Pre make a pretty convincing solution. Of course all this needs to be thoroughly played with before passing final judgement but from what people have said so far on pre-production units and software things are looking up for Palm (at least the stock market seems to think so, up 35%). Those of you who know me, know that I love my iPhone 3G even with the faults it has but this could be the phone to bring me back to my childhood days and back into the fold of Palm. I don't know about you (apart from some well known tech journalists, here's looking at you Ryan, Peter and Josh!) but I'm very excited by the prospect of a rejuvenated Palm that is competitive and brings quality, innovative products to the table. At the very least it provides some real competition from Apple and Google.

For some good hands on (sorry based in the UK it's a little far for us to travel at the moment) check out the Palm Pre coverage from Engadget and Gizmodo.

iPhone App Review: Wordsworth

2008-12-28T23:37:00.000Z

Well now, Christmas has been and gone, the New Year is fast approaching and work is beckoning again. For those of you who still have time to play our latest App review might be right up your street.

Wordsworth is the latest App Store game from the fine folks at 99 Games. A word game similar to the better word games available online like Bookworm and is available for $1.99 (£1.19) in the App Store. Tasked with making words out of a hexagonal grid (that reminds me of Blockbuster) it's your job to score points and level up. A simple premise for a game but one that will keep you playing for hours on end and draw you back when you put it down. Words can be selected by either single tapping each letter and tapping the submit button or simply dragging your finger over the letter tiles then lifting off to submit. The also game includes Buzzwords, suggested words that when made boost your score, green tiles that increase individual word scores and gold tiles that can be earned by making words 2 or more letters longer than the minimum set word length. Wild card tiles can also appear which can intelligently substitute for any letter. Should you get stuck a quick shake will shuffle the letters, you can also tap on the governor of the game should shaking not be your thing. Shuffling the letters however gives you a timed tile which has to be used before the clock runs out otherwise it's game over. Thankfully the timer ticks quite slowly giving you plenty of time to get rid of it before time runs out. Each level you reach gains three more shuffles by default allowing you to find those high scoring long words with the remaining shuffles available marked by the number of hats at the top right of your screen.

As you continue through the game you upgrade your rank each time gaining a new title and a new target to get to. On default settings the game is quite easy allowing you to progress quite easy, however this can all be changed with the games options. The minimum word length can be changed from the default 3 words, through 4 and 5 to 6 words increasing the difficulty at each stage. The grid size can also be changed from 4x4 through to 7x7 letters enabling bigger and bigger words. Wordsworth also comes pack with the TWL, SOWPODS and the ENABLE words lists covering all the official Scrabble words and more. The game also comes with some decent non-obtrusive game music which is a good touch, but can be turned off should you want to listen to your iPod library. The sound effects for tile elimination, unrecognised words and levelling up are all well designed adding to the game should you want sounds on. Another nice, logical touch is that the game obeys the mute switch setting on the iPhone (something that many games seem to annoyingly disregard).

Overall Wordsworth is a nice addition to the current stock of word games on the App Store. A somewhat more relaxing and vocabulary stretching game than alternatives already available and for less than a pint it's a steal.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

2008-12-25T00:51:00.001Z

Just a quick post to say Merry Christmas to our readers. For those of you not celebrating Christmas we hope you have a good break and can revel in at least some festive giving spirit.

Happy holidays everyone, hope you all get some great gadgets and see you in the new year.

All the best

- The Team at GGS

SkyFire Beta in the UK

2008-12-12T13:04:00.000Z

Mobile browsers although not as many as desktop browsers are numerous these days. Once you've got your smartphone platform you often have a choice of at least two mobile browers to choose from be it the built-in browser (S60 Web, Pocket IE (shudder) or Mobile Safari), Opera Mobile or Mini to name a few. Those in the US have also enjoyed the benefit of a recent addition to the proxy based browsers called SkyFire. The difference between SkyFire and say Opera Mini, is that SkyFire allows you to watch almost any type of web video (including YouTube and iPlayer) and access almost all the sites that you would with a browser on your PC. SkyFire provides support for Java, Silverlight, AJAX and Flash which is a pretty comprehensive set for a mobile browser. Now UK users have been allowed into the public beta program that has been running for some time. The browser and service is free and if you have a data plan built into your contract this is certainly one of the best and fastest ways to view the web on your small screen.

Currently SkyFire supports most Windows Mobile and Symbian phones with greater support coming in the future. So if you're still trying to use S60 web or Pocket IE then this might be the browser to ease your troubles. Free to download here.

Woolworths Store Closure Sale

2008-12-11T13:07:00.004Z

Bargain hunters at the ready, Woolworths have announced that they will be having a store closing sale in every one of their 815 stores starting today. The fire sale is amid fears that the stores will be forced to close with stock remaining should a buyer for the chain of stores not be found. Deloitte told the BBC that some stores may be forced to close before the end of December if something didn't happen soon.

Interested parties in the sinking business include Tesco, Sainsbury, Poundland, Co-op and Asda, however whether they're interested in picking up the entire chain or just certain stores remains to be seen.

Still like they say, every cloud has a silver lining and this one is that we all get the opportunity at some bargain basement offers. So what are you waiting for, get on over to your local Woolworths and help them out of their troubles.

[Via BBC]

Robotic Dog breaks lose from the London City Pound

2008-12-11T12:50:00.003Z

A Robotic Dog has been seen pounding the streets of London, fuelled by gasoline and built from the dead carcasses of many common day things. The RoboDog has been brought to life by Mutoid Waste Company, the crew responsible for quite a few scrap art and party pieces. This one was built from parts of a motorbike, a Citroen 2CV engine, coffee filters for eyes and a good bit of Fiat thrown in for good measure. Created in just 4 weeks, this is certainly an impressive recycling effort and shows just what can be created with a bit of ingenuity and just the rubbish that is thrown out.

[Via Gizmodo UK]

LittleBigPlanet Advert

2008-12-11T12:25:00.003Z

On the TV last night I saw a really good advert (above) for LittleBigPlanet that showed just how fun LBP could be and what is possible with the level creator. I haven't had a chance to check out the level but I thought I'd share it with you for those who haven't seen it. Who knows, if you don't have LBP by now, maybe this kind of ridiculous, easy fun will persuade you to get out your wallet.

Hit the read link for more LBP video goodness

Pastebud - Copy/Paste on the iPhone

2008-12-11T12:05:00.002Z

Pastebud has come up with a bookmark script and webservice system that allows iPhone users to copy text and paste it between browser windows or into mail. A simple to use system that until Apple comes up with a way for universal copy and paste will solve many of the problems introduced by the lack of copy and paste. The beauty of the system is that it doesn't require installation of any programs and therefore circumvents the need for the App Store. All that is required are two bookmarks, one for preparing the page for copy and the other to paste into another browser window.

The service and website aren't available yet but will soon be launched after final testing is complete on the 12th December (tomorrow). In the meantime check out the video below of Pastebud in action.

[Via Gizmodo]

PSP digital distribution and Atari

2008-12-09T12:30:00.000Z

The UMD, another one of Sony's proprietory media formats, has had a steady decline in popularity since it's inception with the launch of the PSP. Sony had grand ideas with movie distribution on the format along with games and music videos. The problem with the UMD is that it's another format that's not helpful to the consumer unless you happen to want to run it in a PSP. To my knowledge the only thing that currently uses the UMD is the PSP meaning that any movies you may have bought are limited to only one play device. A bad idea if you want to sell things to consumers at a price which rivaled or was more expensive than a fully fledged DVD.

The UMD has been the bain of the PSP ever since, due to it's lack luster support and death as anything but a games distribution format. Recently Sony has been investigating and investing in digital distribution. It's Playstation Network and accompanying Playstation Store on the PS3 has been a big success with many many downloads happening all the time. It's a success because it brings the content into the home straight from the machine itself and doesn't require anything but the PS3 and an internet connection. Sony recently launched a Playstation store on the PSP, which again has brought the content straight into the device without the need for anything else. PSP games are quite easily accessible as a download the largest clocking in around 1.7Gb (the UMD capacity is 1.8Gb). Most games are much smaller than this meaning that game download times aren't that long for today's modern connections. It's the digital distribution that I think is the future for the PSP. Phil Harrison, President of Atari seems to agree with me having been quoted by Eurogamer as saying:

"There is no doubt that PSP is a very vibrant platform from a hardware perspective and I think Sony has recently made some good moves into opening up online distribution for software on PSP, so I'm looking to explore that."

Other devices have shown that having a good, easy to use and on-device digital distribution service have made the device. A quick look at iPhone's App Store shows how easy it can be to purchase and download new apps and games, and is one of the factors that has made the iPhone so popular. I really hope that Sony really gets behind it's digital distribution service and makes the PSP what it should have been on launch, a connected, easy to use portable gaming and media device that doesn't rely on you having your collection of discs to carry around.

Killzone 2 takes over Vue Leicester Square, London, UK

2008-12-05T15:14:00.004Z

Following the competition for 35 tickets for entry into a very hush hush sneak preview of the latest code Killzone 2 campaign, GGS in partnership with Pixelated Geek went along to cover the event to bring you the news and views for those unlucky not to get a ticket. The lucky 35 fans (plus their +1s) got time to play with the latest pre-view code for Killzone 2's single player campaign and the resounding impression was in one word awesome!

Hit the Read More link for more, plus a load of photos from the event.

The Vue in Leicester Square was an apt venue for the preview hands on. Some 20 odd screens were setup up in a private bar within the cinema with a champagne reception and two hours of hands on time with the game for all the attendies. We got some quality time with the game ourselves and can safely say roll on the hype machine. Unlike the original Killzone on the PS2, Killzone 2 definitely warrants the attention and build up. Not only is this the best looking shooter on the PS3 bar none, we could postumously go as far as to say, the best looking shooter on any console with PC games hard pressed to beat it. The textures, the incredibly well detailed animations and a look that combines the best of a modern warfare setting with a little bit of sci-fi makes Killzone 2 one of the most immersive experiences we've had the pleasure of experiencing on a console. To give you an example of the amount of detail and thought Guerilla have put into Killzone 2, the shell casings eject when you fire your gun as one would expect, but instead of being a canned animation that is just replayed over and over, each casing is an interactive object that obeys the physics of the game. For instance when you fire one shot off the shell ejects normally falling to the ground. When you fire off a burst each shell casing hits the next spewing the ejected brass all over the shop in a totally unscripted realistic way. Everything in the game that we experienced had that level of detail. The most amazing thing was that with all that detail, texture quality and in HD, the game ran smoothly and fast (there was no appreciable drop in frame rate even when there were about 15 Helgast and one npc alley on screen). It is true that the game is not as arcade like as COD however, with things taking time and no snap reactions. It's more realistic in that sense and really makes you feel like you're actually doing the things. When you go for cover you move into cover not just snapping there, when you fire over the top of cover he moves his gun over the top to fire. These things all take time, but really gives you a feeling of effort. It's a different game, probably a good thing, to the quick fire lightning reactions of COD4, but it really is a cut above the rest.

As the gameplay session wound up we were treated to something that no-one outside of Playstation had seen, a total surprise for us, the cinematic introduction to the release version of the game. We were specifically asked not to video the sequence (which means unfortunately you'll have to do with my description for the time being) but rest assured what was shown was truly epic. After being thoroughly impressed with the hands on time with the game, we were totally blown away by the video. It was a speech about taking it to the Helgast intermixed with scenes of massive troop ship launches and landing ships blasting their way onto the Helgast home world. The speech was rousing truly making you want to blast the crap out of the fiends who ravaged Earth, it made you truly feel like you were a troop about to embark on a mission to kick some ass and take the fight to your mortal enemy. The characters in the scenes were again incredibly well animated and the soundscape was incredible with deep resonance in the voice acting, fantastic sound effects with big, realistic sounding gunfire and drop ships. It reminded me of the initial landing scenes in Saving Private Ryan, with the ISA troops being gunned down as they poured out of the drop ships. It was on of the best intro videos I've seen for any game and will truly get you in the mood for the fight.

The evening was rounded out with a private screening of an original copy of the classic Aliens. It was truly a priveladge to be able to see it at the cinema considering the original release was way before I was able to go to the cinema. Everyone there had a good time and left with a feeling that we had witnessed something quite special. Needless to say, if you we're interested in Killzone 2 you really should be. If Guerilla manage to hold it together coming into the February release (which looking at the pre-view code seems likely) then Killzone 2 could be THE game of 2009. Roll on February is all we can say.

Check below for some photos of the event, you'll have to excuse the poor camera work, this surprise event was even a surprise for us and the only thing we could lay our hands on was an iPhone for pictures.

Killzone 2 at Vue Cinema, Leicester Square London tonight!

2008-12-04T13:58:00.002Z

Heads up PS3 gamers in London, UK: SCEE is holding a competition for tickets to go see Aliens in a private screening in Vue Leicester Square with Killzone 2 campaign ciosks available to play and actors dressed up as Helgast for photo opertunities. The private screening if at 6pm tonight. For your chance to win a ticket here's what you've got to do:

Be a member of Killzone.com
Be over 18 and a UK resident

Email: competitionsuk AT scee DOT net
Include your full name and age in the message body.

If you're lucky SCEE will contact you with further details.
Good luck and if you manage to get yourself a ticket and attend the event let us know, send us a picture and we'll put it up for the whole world to see.

Hit the read link for screen shots and a video of what you could be doing tonight!

[Via Three Speech]

O2: Choose a green phone charger

2008-12-03T17:25:00.000Z

O2 has recently launched an eco-friendly phone charger that is meant to reduce the electricity consumption of charging your phone by some 70% compared to your average supplied phone charger. Featuring a more aggressive power control system that turns down the juice going to your phone when the battery is charged. That coupled with elimination of heat loss brings the green charger up to scratch for those worried about wasting electricity.

The CEO of Telefónica O2 UK, Ronan Dunne said:

"The O2 Universal Charger offers customers a simple yet effective way of reducing the environmental impact of their phones and reduces the waste associated with charger disposal."

O2 estimates that £30 million worth of electricity is wasted each year from phones left on charge in Britain.

Available in O2 stores now for £15 the universal charger comes with many different connectors to make it compatible with a wide range of phones. A small price to pay for saving both you and the planet electricity.

[Via Gizmodo UK]

Black Mesa teaser now available

2008-12-03T17:20:00.000Z

The Source retelling of the original Half-Life story called Black Mesa has released a very impressive teaser trailer for their release in 2009. Fans of the series will be especially impressed with both the maintained and new dialogue.

For those who are hearing about Black Mesa for the first time the aim of the modification is to provide fans and newbies of the original the fantastic story telling that was included in Half-Life with new technologies and resources available in the Source engine. It will re-introduce players to the character of Dr. Gordon Freeman and flesh out some of the more minor characters that have since in Half-Life 2 been upgraded to full characters. Of note is the inclusion of the now fleshed out Barney and Dr. Kleiner replacing the generic security guard and scientist.

Features of the game will include:

Detailed and interactive environments based on the original Half-Life game, including reconstructed multiplayer maps
Single-player, co-operative and deathmatch modes
Original music score by Joel Nielsen
Artificial intelligence that will dynamically think, react and interact with and about their environment
Normal, specular and parallax mapping utilized on world surfaces and models where applicable
A priority on gameplay and immersion factors such as ambience, logical functionality and interactivity

The finished modification will require one game to be installed that contains the Source engine from Steam or otherwise.

Check out the trailer below, just make sure you’ve got your speakers turned up.

NewSight unveils the World’s 1st 180 inch 3D LED display

2008-12-03T17:00:00.001Z

NewSight Corp. have unveiled what they're terming the '3D video wall', 180 inches of 3D LED display goodness. With a width of 3.84m and a default (yet adjustable) optimum viewing distance of 5m it’s unlikely to fit in your living room but it is the world’s first LED 3D display and is also one of the largest displays curently available. Developed in the US by NewSight Corp. the display can be combined with 3 others creating a matrix of 4 displays totalling a display size of 360 inchs!

The 3D LED display technology mirrors that used in NewSight's 3D LCDs and uses a parallax barrier method. This means that it is possible to re-use media made for the 3D LCD technology (bring on the IMAX!) for display on your monster LED display. The warranty period of the LEDs used in the display is 20000 hours giving you plenty of time to watch Shrek in 3D, although the major application for this technology is likely to be commercial. Just think, 3D dynamic scoreboards and instant replays that actually look like the plays that have just gone. Stadiums will never be the same again.

[Via Tech On]

Brothers In Arms reaches the iPhone

2008-12-03T16:44:00.003Z

Many people have been quoted saying that the iPhone/iPod Touch platform could rival the established portable consoles on the market at the moment. For it to be a real contender the games that are being released on the App Store need to be quality, well worked and well thought out games designed with the unique control available on the iPhone/iTouch in mind.

‘Console quality games’ however take a good deal of time and monetary investment to make them a success. The current crop of App Store games show some real potential however very few of them can be looked at as rivalling what can be got on the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP.

One of the potentials has to be the console franchise Brothers in Arms which has now landed on the App Store (Link) courtesy of Gameloft who specialise in mobile versions of big name games. It’s controlled using the accelerometer to throw grenades, touch to shoot the bad guys as well as other control schemes. The graphics certainly look impressive and reports boast a good soundscape. Does this and games like Real Football (Real Soccer for those in the US) and Cro-mag Rally herald the beginning of ‘real’ games for the iPhone?

Hit the read link for more some screen shots and a video of the game play.

Apple ships new in-ear headphones

2008-12-03T15:14:00.001Z

Apple has finally gotten round to shipping it’s improved twin driver in-ear headphones that it originally scheduled for October 2008 (better late than never). The headphones include separate drivers, one for bass and mid-range (woofer) and one for high frequency sound (tweeter) for richer, more detailed and accurate sound (in theory). They’re also sound isolators similar to the likes of Shure, Etymotic and Sony as well as many other brands on the market today. All that is very well, but there are likely better headphones available from other manufacturers; the one feather in the hat for Apple with these headphones is the built in remote. The ‘control capsule’ is inline on the right earpiece and includes a microphone, pause/play/skip button and volume control. The kicker is that although all the buttons work with the majority of modern iPods, the volume buttons don’t in fact work with the iPhone (but do with the iPod Touch). Now at least for me, that would make me purchase these headphones over others (as long as they turn out to be acoustically good) just for volume control of the iPhone. Why Apple? Why exclude a very logical function for your No. 1 selling phone?

[Via MacBlogz]

Nolan North (Drake) is the voice of Prince of Persia

2008-12-03T12:38:00.005Z

Nolan North, the voice actor behind the infamous Nathan Drake, has been busy. His new role as the voice behind Ubisoft’s upcoming Prince of Persia game was apparently inspired by North’s portrayal of Uncharted’s hero Drake. When asked why the Prince sounded like the American Drake, Ben Mattes stated:

“When we were designing the character of The Prince and trying to identify his personality, the two characters we returned to most often were Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Both, of course, played by Harrison Ford. Nolan North showed in his characterization of Nathan Drake an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones both in terms of tone and delivery.”

A quick look at Nolan North’s IMDB profile shows quite an impressive voice acting career in video games so it’s no wonder Ubisoft was eager to have him on board for Prince of Persia. We’ll be looking forward to hearing more of North in the future what with his role in Uncharted 2, which if anything like the first will be an must play game.

[Via Playstation.Blog]

BBC iPlayer on the PS3

2008-12-02T19:21:00.000Z

Just to let you all know if you didn't already the PS3 is now fully supported by the BBC iPlayer so there's no need to use the work arounds anymore. Just head on over to iPlayer and you'll be presented with a specially designed site.

So to all those in the UK that have a PS3, do you watch iPlayer on your TV?

PS3 Update firmware 2.53

2008-12-02T14:36:00.001Z

Sony have just released the latest update to the now formidable PS3.

Firmware 2.53 brings with it mainly bug fixes but what is of note are the modifications to the flash support in the PS3 Web browser. Improvements in it's compatibility mean that more sites heavy in flash should work better and as an added bonus the Web Browser now supports full screen flash viewing.

This is great news for anyone who watches YouTube videos on their PS3 as well as those like me that watch the BBC's iPlayer on your TV.

Change Log:

Full-screen mode playability
Live movie (using RTMP format) playability

[Via Playstation.Blog]

Nokia releases new flagship N97

2008-12-02T13:23:00.005Z

Nokia has just released a new flagship phone to top the line of it’s current generation. The N97 (pdf) makes a break away from the traditional Nokia form factor for it’s latest top end phones and switches to a sliding communicator form factor with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5inch resistive touchscreen with tactile feedback (including a virtual keyboard to complement the physical one, it’s just a shame it’s not capacitive). The screen has an unusual resolution of 640x360, a 16:9 aka ‘widescreen’ ratio which will make watching movies and TV a blast. The home screen of the N97 also includes customisable widgets that include your favourite web services, social networking sites or any type of media you need fast access to.

More details, product videos and product shots after the break.

Nokia is touting it as the ‘world’s most advanced mobile computer’ which isn’t a surprise considering it’s marketing for the previous flagship the N95 as ‘what computers have become’. To back this claim up however they have HSDPA, WiFi (b/g) and Bluetooth (including AD2P) on board as well as the now standard A-GPS. The N97 also packs a massive 32Gb of onboard memory and microSD expansion (so that’s a possible total of 48Gb for those of you who are counting). Nokia sticks with the trend from the N9x series and gives you a 3.5mm jack for your headphones yet breaks the mould with 1.5 days worth of music playback or 4.5 hours of video playback from the onboard battery. Talk time is rated at 320mins for 3G (400mins GSM) and standby at 400hrs for 3G (430hrs GSM). The camera also boasts that fantastic 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics that adorned it’s predecessors with ‘DVD quality’ video capture at 30fps (it’s a pity they couldn’t squeeze in 720p but you can’t have everything now can you?). Media playback includes codec support for MPEG-4/SP and MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (30fps, VGA), RealVideo (QCIF, 30fps), Windows Media (WMV9) (CIF, 30fps) and Flash Lite 3.0/Flash Video. On the audio side the built in player includes support for MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+ and WMA.

On paper the specs look amazing and with a shipment date of the first half of 2009 for ~£468 (€550 or ~$693) (off network) it’ll be a very hotly anticipated handset to be sure. It will be interesting to see which network carriers pick this beomoth up both in the UK and the US and to see whether that S60 5th Edition operating system can still cut the mustard. Will this be the next iPhone killer? Would it be better with Android running on it? All these questions and more will have to wait till next year but for now the speculation continues. In the mean time check out the videos and gallery below for more of the N97.

[Press Release]

Play.com Mega Monday Deals

2008-12-01T14:16:00.001Z

Jem Alexander from PS3Fanboy/Joystiq has posted about Play.com’s Mega Monday Deals. Available for today only in the UK to today only Play.com has slashed the price of many premium titles for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. So just incase you missed it go check it out!

Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, BioShock, Shaun White Snowboarding, Grand Theft Auto IV and Condemned 2 for £17.99

[Via PS3fanboy]

iPhone App Review: Project Polaroid

2008-12-01T12:13:00.002Z

A little while ago we covered an application for Mac (and soon to be Windows) called Poladroid which made quick and easy Polaroid style photos out of you own image files/photos.

Project Polaroid brings this nostalgia injection to the iPhone with the ability to quickly and easily convert photos from your Camera Roll or take fresh instant Polaroid snaps. It’s incredibly easy to use with literally two taps creating your Polaroid snap that can be saved straight to your Camera roll. The app lacks any sort of image adjustment but the snaps produced are excellent.

At the very agreeable price of free, Project Polaroid is a must have iPhone app for quick and fun snaps that are a bit out of the ordinary.