Author Archive for shigzeo
Ecoball sound system – portable solar-powered speakers
While probably not as sleek on the front of a Marinoni Fango cycloross bicycle as the Cy-Fi wireless sports speaker, Pedro Gomes’ Ecoball is a great idea for hikers, picnickers, beachers, and sportsters who love the outdoors. Sporting solar power strips, your speakers shouldn’t run out of juice (as long as you use them outside), and they fold up into a big, tight ball (TWSS), for easy toting. As with many enterprising designs out there, Ecoball doesn’t have a manufacturer yet, but I can promise that its design is sound. iPod accessory makers – let’s get running!
Wanna know more? Check out the Pedro Gomes’ Ecoball sound system at Behance
Thanks for the tip, Yanko!
Supermarket Management HD in Review – discounting your free time
I’m not sure if I should feel so weak in the knees every time I turn on Supermarket Management HD, but golly I do. Time management games can be fun, but when they are made with as perfect a rhythm and the cutest of graphics as SMHDis , they are the sweetest of high school romances. What follows is a true love story.
Jailbreak: FolderEnhancer – multiple icon moving, nested folders, and more
If this YouTube advert for FolderEnhancer isn’t enough to convince the most stodgy of official iOS supporters to Jailbreak, I don’t know what is. FolderEnhancer allows you to drag multiple icons at once, nested folder structures, multiple pages within folders, and more. Coming son to Cydia!
Thanks: Cult of Mac
Nostalgia: Napster debuts on iOS with poor sound quality
With yesterday’s iPad VLC release and now Napster, iOS devices are receiving a fair amount of big, multimedia press. Of course, this isn’t the Napster you grew up with as a shifty-eyed teenager at the end of the 90′s. Napster was bought by Best Buy back in 2008 in one of the better ironic moments in history. Anyway, it’s back, and evidently, it’s out to turn up the sleeves of rental P2P music sharing – if you’re in the US of A, that is. And if you can stomach the “awful” sound quality. Napster reckon they stream both new and old tracks in 128kbps (a number that still carries the stigma of poor sound), but its customers reckon that music sounds like the radio. If Nappy wants to get its mojo on, it’s gonna have to dish out at least 128kpbs sounding files in a music app! But then, what’s Napster without complaints from audiophiles?
For the uninitiated:
Some of the things you can do with Napster plus mobile access:
• Save songs, albums, and playlists to play even when you’re offline
• Kick back with playlists, recommendations, and Billboard® charts dating back to 1955
• Create your own playlists for a customized listening experience
• Save your last 100 songs played so you can easily replay favorites
• Automix your favorite song to create an instant playlist blending similar artists
Napster LLC, a Best Buy company, Napster®, 1.85MB – Free
Full details after the gap:
iPad Case: Marware Eco-Vue for iPad in Review – ain’t no flower girl
If the iPad was a perfect device, a lean-to would have been magically embedded into its smooth backside. Instead, it is almost perfect and we, the heavy-walleted consumers, have to shell out for lean-to’s and keyboards for typing, cases, and other accessories of all sorts to protect its polished posterior. Ever faithful case manufacturer, Marware, have adopted the ‘leather’ Kindle Eco-Vue case for the iPad to help typing, presenting, travelling iPad users part with their money in the confidence that their metal investment is safe and sound.
Reiner Knizia’s Samurai in Review – strategy gaming perfection
Splashing your name across a game’s title is a rarely defensible act of hubris. If the game rocks, you’ve got a plate full of whuffie to eat. But if it sucks rocks, you’ll be fed rotten tomatoes from angry critics. Sid Meier’s CIVILIZATION (and Civilization Revolution) is perhaps the best example of defensible hubris, and Reiner Knizia’s SAMURAI, while loads simpler in scope than Civilization, is another high flying strategy game worthy of pawn-pushing iDevice strategy fans. Of course, as one of Reiner Knizia’s genius games, Samurai’s biggest selling point is its point of hubris.
Feel free to discuss Reiner Knizia’s Samurai in our forums.
Touch ‘n Go: CataGugl – flickin’ fun!
Ladies and gents, it’s Touch ‘n Go time at good ol’ TMA! If the ever was a conspicuous touching game, it would be CataGugl, a … flinckingly fast-paced arcade game of Australian proportions that’ll have your burning circles in your iphone’s glass like a good Swedish craftsman to fling Gugl (hmmm?) as far as you can across your screen. It’s simple to play: just haze frantic ellipses into the glass until the counter hits GO!, then release, and pray. Actually, you will have to deflate the Gugl at certain points in order to send him faster and farther.
Tayasui.com, CataGugl, 10.13MB – $0.99
Best Buy: iPad cannibalising laptop sales
The face of mobile computing's new overlord
Getting advice about electronics purchases from Best Buy’s team of experts, who spend all day among rows and rows of the same three products, isn’t always a good idea. But then, every once in a while, a proper thought comes from the Big Box. In an interview, Best Buy CEO, Brian Dunn, said that the iPad is “cannibaliz[ing] sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50%” – no mean feat considering how ‘underpowered’ it seems in comparison to PC laptops that advertise everything from the OS (that every computer shares) to bundled malware and archaic Energy Star specification. But that may be the reason it is doing so well; take out the unnecessary stuff and you can Facebook and email as well as anyone. Generally, I write about 5-6 pages a day on my iPad. Yes, thanks to Apple’s Pages and Quickoffice Connect.
Yahoo! – iAd’s “going to fall apart”
iAds mobile advertising and Big Brother Steve
Yahoo!’s badmouthing big boss, Carol Bartz, may or may not be onto something. iAd, she says, “is going to fall apart for [Apple]“. Apple’s mobile advert platform, while locked into the de facto most popular mobile platform (it still is), is just that: locked in. Jobsian, draconian, whatever you want to call it, it’s got its fair share of detractors. At least it is out of the woods regarding antitrust. Google’s AdMob has shown great income potential for certain developers despite Android Marketplace’s rampant problems with porn and piracy. But back to iAd; we won’t know whether or not it is a success for a while. DaringFireball’s John Gruber tends to think we should wait a year.
R TYPE in Review – blowing a nostalgic hole in your apps
Talk a out a walk on the old school side. After toggling R TYPE’s icon, I was treated to the most embarrassing flashbacks of bad hairdo’s, rebellious clothes, and Kurt Cobain’s whiny trill. Yep, back when R TYPE was en rage on the SNES, I was a very dedicated teenager. I also happened to sneak my way into friends’ houses to blow things up on screen since I just didn’t have a SNES. Thanks to Electronic Arts, however, R TYPE, the virtual time machine, is hot in the hands of wanna-be teenagers the world over!
