retro?

Sonic 4 Episode II for Android looks and plays just like the old platform Sonic the Hedgehog games we're used to, minus the tangible game controllers, of course. Still, with a virtual directional pad and jump button flanking the sides of your touch screen, running around and snatching up rings is just as fun as before. The game settings also let you turn on haptic feedback or switch to tilt control if you prefer.

In this follow-up to Sonic 4 Episode I, Sonic teams up with his old buddy Tails, bringing an array of new partnered attacks into the … Read more

Holiday shopping season is coming. Oh yes, it is. And the new Furby is waiting. Hasbro has redesigned the Furby and is releasing it this fall, complete with complementary iOS apps and a re-engineered body.

I don't choose to believe that the Furby is officially a retro toy. That ages me too much. The original Furby came out in 1998, which somehow adds up to 14 years ago. I missed Furbymania completely (I was in grad school), but for both newcomers and the Furby-nostalgic Hasbro is readying its first new Furby product since the days of Y2K. The name? It's still just Furby. And one has arrived at our CNET offices.… Read more

Once upon a time, only the coolest (and wealthiest) people had mobile phones, and those phones were the size of a large guinea pig. This magical time was known as the 1980s.

If you pine for the days when acid wash jeans and Phil Collins ruled America, then ThinkGeek's Retro iPhone Case is for you.

Slip your iPhone into this case and lose all pretense to having a sleek, modern telecommunications device. All of a sudden, you have a brick-sized 1980s phone to go with your "Miami Vice" pop-collar jacket and gelled hair.

This honkin' huge case … Read more

Photofunia is a ridiculously simple photo effects app that lets you drop your photos into funny and interesting scenes, similar to those you might find at an amusement park photo booth. If, say, you want to see what your face might look like on a billboard in Times Square, Photofunia has an effect for that. How about on the cover of Esquire Magazine? Photofunia's got that covered too. With an incredible number of effects available, the possibilities seem endless.

To get started with Photofunia, just fire up the app and start looking for an effect you like. You can … Read more

Perhaps it's just a coincidence that VTech's $59.99 LS6195 cordless phone has hit stores as the fifth season of "Mad Men" has recently gotten under way, but the phone has a decidedly 1960s retro look with a tagline that Don Draper might approve of: "Back in style. Better styled."

Naturally, the electronics inside the LD6195 are new -- or at least relatively new -- as the VTech Retro Phone has a digital answering machine and uses DECT 6.0 digital technology, which is the standard in today's cordless phones. … Read more

These days it sometimes feels as if the physical world is being colonized by the digital one, what with augmented-reality spectacles and the like. And it's interesting to watch how these two realms are negotiating their coexistence.

A recent project by London-based design studio Us touches on this back-and-forth in a clever way. In it, a small army of vinyl records seems to be staging a rebellion of sorts to reclaim pop-culture territory lost long ago to MP3 files and other forms of digital music.… Read more

More than just a free photo-enhancement app for Android, Instagram connects its users to a photo-based social network that's more than 30 million users strong. With this powerful social functionality, the app makes it incredibly easy to not just polish and share photos, but also to keep tabs on friends through the built-in Instagram photo stream.

Start by signing up for Instagram with an e-mail address, username, and password. From there, you can link your account to your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and Tumblr accounts. But don't worry, whenever you snap a picture, Instagram will still ask you which … Read more

Google is funny. I have wanted to write that sentence for so long in a context where funny meant "intentionally humorous."

So here is an April Fools' work of art from the company that, to many minds, just might deserve righteous laughter. For here, purportedly, is the launch of Google Maps 8-bit for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

According to Google's Lat Long blog, this is something that the world desperately needs.

"Our engineering team in Japan understood the importance of maps on retro game systems. With the power of Google's immense data centers, and support … Read more

Have you ever tried buying an AC/DC album on iTunes? Don't bother. It's not there. Unlike those sellouts, The Beatles, AC/DC is too cool for that crap.

So what better way to honor the world's most tenaciously old-school rock gods than to give them their own pinball machine? I mean, it's about time someone showed The Who, that serious pinball geeks deserve a more rocking anthem than "Pinball Wizard."

The AC/DC Pro, currently in production by Stern Pinball, weighs in at a whopping 250 pounds, and can be yours for around $… Read more