balls

Lotto Sorcerer claims to help you make better guesses at the nightly lottery picks. We were impressed with the program's tools and options, but ultimately weren't convinced that it was capable of picking winners.

We were not blown away by the program's interface. Even though it was simple to navigate and came with an instructional Help file, the layout felt a decade old. Regardless, we soon discovered its positives, like automatically pulling lotto results from any state and any specific drawing. We were shown several years of results and then the program provided us a guess about … Read more

SAN RAFAEL, California--You might not think of pinball as an educational tool, but to some devotees of the age-old arcade favorite, that's exactly what they can be.

That's because pinball machines have been around for decades, and often have themes representative of the era in which they were built. And this weekend, visitors to the Pacific Pinball Expo here, an event billed as the "world's largest" pinball show, can see history on display in bright lights and enhanced with familiar bells and whistles, things like the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the first man on the moon, contemporary music from the 1950s and much more.

At the expo, which opened Friday at the Marin County Civic Center here (admission is $25 for adults and $15 for kids 12 and under), visitors can see more than 350 machines from as early as the 1920s, and with names like "Wild West," "Quartette," "Dragonette, "4-Belles" and much more.

And the mission statement of the Pacific Pinball Museum, which is behind the expo, is as follows: "To inspire an interest in science, art and history through pinball and to preserve and promote this important part of American culture."

… Read more

Back in March I wrote about a skee-ball-type game called 10-balls 7 cups that was surprisingly fun. It had great sounds and graphics, and the gameplay consisted of a flick of your finger to send the ball down the alley and a tilt of your iPhone to redirect the ball into the cups. I said at the time that the only problem I had with this simple yet fun game was that the silly prizes you could buy at the end with your points didn't have pictures.

I just received word that longtime Mac gaming publisher Freeverse has gotten … Read more

From the man who invented the toilet car, the cigarette car, and the basketball car, comes the soccer ball car. It made its debut three years ago, but here it is driving around a mall.

Be prepared for some joy and a lot of frustration with 3D Maker. Getting the most out of this application will require you to understand 3D terminology, have sets of photos optimized for 3D, and own a pair of those red-green movie glasses.

3D Maker offers a floating palette with big, friendly buttons and a menu bar for additional tasks and filter. We selected a picture and clicked a button to convert. The application quickly rendered it in 3D (albeit with a large watermark in the trial version). Testing other 3D options quickly led to frustration. 3D Maker lacks certain … Read more

We missed this little item at E3, but apparently CTA Digital has a bowling ball accessory in the works.

The thing actually splits in half; you stick your Wiimote inside, slip the wrist strap on, and start knocking down virtual pins. We assume there are some finger holes on the other side of the ball, but we doubt the thing weighs even half as much as a real bowling ball (that would be scary).

Of course, you're not supposed let go of the ball, and CTA Digital has a rather ominous disclaimer in all caps on its site:

USE … Read more

Are your easily distracted kids having trouble getting motivated to write that term paper? Why not chain them to their desks until they've done what they're supposed to do? It might sound a bit extreme, but hey, if you want your kids to get into Harvard, sometimes extremes are what it takes!

The Study Ball is a prison-style ball and 16.5-inch chain with a built-in, programmable timer. Select the desired duration of the study session and chain the ball to the ankle in question, and the steel manacle won't come off until the scheduled time is … Read more

For a mere $39, the Body Check Ball sounds like a dodgy proposition in terms of claiming to calculate your body fat. More so when it states that it can measure your bone density and muscle ratio, all by holding this in your palms. No "Om" chant necessary.

Instead, true to its Japanese origins, the Body Check Ball employs good old technology. A pair of electrodes pass currents from your hand to the ball, which then churns out your health stats onto the LCD panel. Amazingly, this stores up to 10 user profiles and even sports a clock … Read more

If you're a fan of dystopian humor, like in the movie "Idiocracy," this may be the game for you.

Introduced Monday by Jetson Creative, Ow My Balls! is a funny game that brings some unusual humor to the iPhone (and iPod Touch).

The game incorporates gravity simulation, funny sound effects, and a very peculiar method of directional acceleration.

I was a little dispirited by the name and the nature of the joke but I tried it anyway. After all, the game made it through the parental vetting process for Apple's App Store.

In the game, you'… Read more