Reality Bites
The iPhone 4S is here. One of new, not-so-visible features? A re-spiffed antenna, and stuffed inside the AT&T 4S, new guts that (should) mean faster data speeds. But theoretical max speeds are not real world experiences. So which iPhone is the fastest: AT&T, Sprint or Verizon? And how does the 4S stack up against the most jacked Android phones? More »
Whether you’re looking to relive the past or experience the origin of gaming you missed in your youth, your Android or iPhone can take you back to Mario’s salad days, the birth of the Final Fantasy series, and much more. Here’s how to get started with retro game emulation and turn your phone or tablet into an arcade in just a few minutes. More »
Google Buzz, the company’s much maligned foray into social networking that was about as popular as genital herpes, is dying. Oh, you thought it was already dead? Not yet. But that’s probably why Google is killing it. More »
Mobile developer Spacetime Studios has a hit on its hands with Star Legends, the sci-fi-based follow-up to its MMO Pocket Legends. That game has a community of better than 3 million fans, and Star Legends seems to be growing just as fast as its free-to-play mobile predecessor.
Now, players itching for a new (slightly smaller scale) MMO fix who aren’t really into the whole mobile gaming scene will get access to Star Legends for the first time. The game is coming as a native client to Google Chrome, the search company’s free web browser, where players will be able to team up with other players on PC, Mac, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. It’ll also be the first 3-D game on the Chrome platform. It’s not available yet, but when it is, you can get it from the Chrome Web App Store.
Star Legends isn’t as robust an MMO as some of the other free-to-play clients out there, but that might be to its credit. It’s totally pick-up-and-play-able, which is nice, and the casual nature makes it fun to spend some time with but not necessarily as insanely time-consuming as, say, World of Warcraft.
The marketing geniuses at General Motors launched this campaign this week. It’s aimed at convincing college kids already paying exorbitant tuition and living well beyond their means that they can go another $20k in debt and somehow pay the monthly insurance on a sweet new car. You’ll recognize the humiliated cyclist riding an uncool bike from the 80s and a similarly dull helmet because that’s you and me a few years back.
What I adore about this campaign is its boldness. GM makes garbage cars. And you know what? None of us bought them, and then they took our money anyway in the form of a bailout. Here are the fruits of that cash. Luckily the folks at Giant Bicycles have a limber ad department and a sense of humor. They dropped the below great ad the next day. Ahh, it’s nice to have a sense of humor, and it resulted in GM yanking the ads. Too bad about all that money wasted on cars.
Android: Samsung’s alternative texting, multimedia messaging, and chat app is now available in the Android Market. Similar to Apple’s iMessage and BlackBerry’s BBM service, ChatON could possibly help you save on messaging fees—once Samsung starts sending verification codes, that is. More »
Just a week after we received a tip that a mysterious big box retailer would be getting a kid-friendly flavor of Motorola’s Xoom tablet, Best Buy has come forth to make things official with the Xoom Family Edition. Everything seems to be in line with what we already knew, including the $40 software bundle — yes, yes Zoodles comes preloaded, as does Asphalt 6 and SIM City Deluxe. And after the kids are done playing, mom and dad can catch up on homework with Quickoffice Pro HD. The Android 3.1-powered tablet includes a rather modest 16GB of storage, and will run you $379 when it hits Best Buy stores on Sunday. Any questions? Jump past the break for the full Moto rundown.
Motorola Xoom Family Edition includes kid-friendly apps, will hit Best Buy Sunday for $379 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We present the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera which captures a full spherical panorama when thrown into the air. At the peak of its flight, which is determined using an accelerometer, a full panoramic image is captured by 36 mobile phone camera modules.
[Via @Johl; Images courtesy of Jonas Pfeil, CC]
(Credit: CERN)
The relativistic motion of clocks on board GPS satellites exactly accounts for the superluminal effect in the OPERA experiment, says physicist Ronald van Elburg at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, The Physics arXiv Blog reports.
“From the perspective of the clock, the detector is moving towards the source and consequently the distance travelled by the particles as observed from the clock is shorter,” says van Elburg. By this he means shorter than the distance measured in the reference frame on the ground. The OPERA team overlooks this because it assumes the clocks are on the ground not in orbit.
Van Elburg calculates that it should cause the neutrinos to arrive 32 nanoseconds early. But this must be doubled because the same error occurs at each end of the experiment. So the total correction is 64 nanoseconds, almost exactly what the OPERA team observed.
Ref.: Ronald A.J. van Elburg, Times Of Flight Between A Source And A Detector Observed From A GPS Satellite, arxiv.org/abs/1110.2685:
Rene Bourque scored twice and Miikka Kiprusoff got the Flames’ all-time wins record as Calgary spoiled the Montreal Canadiens’ home opener with a 4-1 victory on Thursday night.
Regina will host the 2013 Grey Cup the Saskatchewan Roughriders announced late Thursday afternoon just ahead of a media event in Regina where CFL commissioner Mark Cohon confirmed the news.
Google’s not content with being just an online digital locker for your music, it wants you buy MP3s from it, too. A New York Times report suggests Google is looking to open an online MP3 store and is negotiating with the record labels to secure the necessary licensing agreements. More »
An international team of researchers has used three-dimensional laser scans to determine that Tyrannosaurus rex were likely 30% more massive that we once thought — and a whole lot hungrier. Be honest, now…how many of you woke up this morning thinking you'd hear the words "three-dimensional laser" and "Tyrannosaurus rex” used in the same sentence? More »
Update: During the company’s earnings call, CEO Larry Page confirmed that there’s now 190 million Android phones activated around the world, and 200 million users of the Chrome web browser (although it’s not clear how many of those are active users). Page also took a moment to post his remarks to Google+ during the call.
Google announces Q3 earnings: $9.72 billion in revenue, $2.73 billion net income, 40 million Google+ users originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The event takes place 10:00am HKT, which is conveniently 10:00pm EST on October 18th. A primetime liveblog and gadget unveiling? Can’t wait.
Samsung confirms Ice Cream Sandwich event on October 19 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Go Flames Go!!!
Would you watch a Seth MacFarlane Star Trek series? Depends his latest Star Trek Family Guy specials have been both funny and horribly insulting. But MacFarlane wants to make it happen, and he just might make it work. More »
Android users with front-facing cameras looking to make video calls from their phones have a lot of great options, but we found that Skype is the most mature and feature-rich video chat application for the job.
Continue reading Duke Nukem 3D is coming to Android, old rope shares soar
Duke Nukem 3D is coming to Android, old rope shares soar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
