sports

College basketball tournament bracket

When March Madness rolls around for college basketball fans, you can be the first person with a pool bracket ready to use thanks to this nicely designed app.

Turbo Tourney launches a colorful but functional window with a complete tournament ready to fill in. Adding schools to the pairings is a snap, although the method isn't initially intuitive--instead of entering names directly into the main display, you must first click an icon on the toolbar to pop up a box with all the pairings. The box includes drop-down lists with all the regions and school names, so entering is … Read more

Specs on the 2010 Honda Fit revealed

The 2010 Honda Fit promises to be compact on the outside yet spacious inside. The exclusive 60/40 split rear Magic Seat offers multiple seating and cargo-carrying configurations--tall object mode, long object mode, and utility mode--in addition to the standard five-passenger mode.

The 1.5-liter, i-VTEC four-cylinder engine is tuned to deliver a combination of power and fuel economy. A five-speed manual transmission is standard and a five-speed automatic transmission is available. Steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters on Fit Sport models equipped with the available automatic transmission allow for manual gear selection.

The engine produces 117 horsepower at 6,600rpm and 106 … Read more

Madden for iPhone: A first look

Madden may rule the roost of NFL games for the most part, but one pesky little company still has a license for mobile phone-based NFL games, too: Gameloft. We covered NFL 2010 recently, and mentioned that it could give Madden a run for its money in the mobile space.

While Madden for the iPhone and iPod Touch was rumored before, EA Sports has formally confirmed the release of the game with some screenshots and a promise that it will be available "in time for opening day," which is September 10. Promising expertise that 20 years in the business can provide, the news release for Madden on the iPhone and iPod Touch is clearly cognizant that there is a competitor out there already.

One observation, looking at these screens, is that there's more than a little similarity between the interfaces of this game and NFL 2010. A virtual joystick on the left combined with contextual action buttons on the right will try to accommodate for the missing control pad in much the same way as Gameloft's title--although to be fair to Madden, it looks as if it has more action-button options on the offensive snap plays shown. Receivers look like they're color-coded based on how open they are, and it seems like tap-to-throw may also be the mechanic here, as it is in NFL 2010.

… Read more

Clunky sports card database

Sports Card Organizer Deluxe is a database program that allows users to keep track of the contents of their sports card collections. Although the program works fine, there are likely more sophisticated options to accomplish this task.

The program's interface looks very dated and is reminiscent of Windows 95. Not surprisingly, it's not particularly intuitive, and in general its layout feels somewhat cluttered and clunky. To its credit, the program does open with a brief explanation of its features, allowing users to get started without too much trouble. The program offers three different database templates for users to … Read more

Madden 10: We have it, we've played it

The start of an NFL season begins with a few things: training camp, weeks of preseason games, and the launch of the yearly Madden. With Madden 10 now out in stores for nearly every system imaginable, we also are presented with the yearly question: is it worth it? After two weeks of playing the final boxed version for the Xbox 360, here's our final verdict on the only game in town. Or, almost the only game in town: Gameloft's NFL 2010 for the iPhone/iPod Touch uses full NFL license and rosters as well.

(Click to read our take on Gameloft's NFL 2010 for iPhone/iPod Touch).

Scott: I've played this game since 2001 pretty much obsessively, and almost always as the New York Jets. Take that with whatever grain of salt or other spice you like, but at least you now know that I've been playing with a handicap. Compared with Madden 09, my first impression a month ago was that the new Madden was slow. Apologies to EA, but it's better now. While Madden 10 still operates at a less arcade-like speed, the flow of gameplay doesn't feel as slow-mo as it did in early builds. Maybe I've gotten used to it, but the change actually makes passing and running more realistic. Here's why:… Read more

Golf calculator

Store, calculate, and take a closer look at your golf scores with Golf Handicapper. Though it may take time to learn, the results are simple enough that certain golfers will love tracking their history.

The program's basic interface isn't winning any awards for flashiness. Golf Handicapper's sparse simplicity leaves users without much direction as they manage through the black and white buttons and command screens. The dense, wordy Help file takes a lot of close reading to really digest. Users looking to track their scores must first enter the course's information into simple data boxes, including … Read more

Soccer stat keeper

LeaguePad helps users keep track of their football statistics and teams with a complex system of statistics. The program offers a lot of options, but ultimately fails to simply following teams online.

The program's interface looks as if it should be natural, but users will find themselves stuck in the mud more often than not. The simple graphics and layout will require a trip to the Help file and several experimental run-throughs to get a feeling for where information must be entered and how it can be extracted. Setting up leagues was the simplest part of this program. Users … Read more

130: Obama boosts the Guzzler's program, and we burn a bunch of gas in a Z4

Obama extends the Guzzler's program--how long will it last? Nissan prepares to get its first EV to market ahead of schedule. California makes new rules about car insurance company snooping. And we take a ride in the stunning BMW Z4.

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• CNET's BMW Z4 review

• CNET's Kia Soul Exclaim review

• Nissan Leaf electric car coming to market soon

• Take a look at a Smart car with three seats

• Replace your GM head unit but keep the DIC

Some tweets now out of bounds at ESPN

For ESPN, the social-networking revolution will not be televised--or tweeted, blogged, or Facebooked. Not for now, at least, and not without ESPN's approval.

The sports network has apparently banned its workforce from posting any sports-related content on social-networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook without its permission. The news first came to light Tuesday when Ric Bucher, an NBA analyst for ESPN, tweeted that he had just received an network memo regarding tweeting:

The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured with was coming. Not sure what this means but … Read more