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Sony chose Android, should Nintendo take iOS?

For now, the dust has settled following Sony's back-to-back announcements, starting with the NGP and now this past weekend's Sony Ericsson Xperia Play unveiling. Regardless of how one might feel about the position Sony is attempting to secure in the portable gaming market, there are more ramifications that may not be present on the surface.

Portable gaming is no longer a two-console market. Five years ago it seemed Nintendo and Sony would battle to the death with the DS and PSP. Now, in a portable gaming market that has expanded to the world of "waiting room" casual games, the iOS and Android platforms have proven themselves worthy of bringing legitimate competition. Categorize these mobile OSes how you will, but they are directly affecting the sales of gaming-focused devices.

In an effort to bring some sort of familiar gaming experience to the core gamers who might be sick of sliding and tapping their way to victory, Sony felt the need to develop the first-ever PlayStation Certified mobile smartphone in the form of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play--a device running Android 2.3. Though it may seem like a trivial detail of just another OS on a mobile device, Sony has chosen Google and Android as an ally in what's becoming a serious portable gaming turf war.… Read more

International media test-laps McLaren MP4-12C

A few lucky members of the international automotive press in January got a chance to test-drive the MP4-12C supercar. The folks at McLaren Automotive just posted this video on YouTube.

The Surrey, U.K.-based automaker chose Algarve Motor Park in Portugal to give members of the media a chance to evaluate the car for themselves.

Formula One driver Jenson Button also gave journalists a thrill by lapping the track at speeds of more than 200 mph.

The MP4-12C sports a carbon fiber chassis and runs on a twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-8 generating 592 horsepower. McLaren plans a limited number … Read more

Rumor: No home button for iPad 2 and next iPhone?

Rumor has it that Steve Jobs didn't want any physical buttons on the original iPad. And, as we know, Steve Jobs tends to get what he wants--eventually anyway.

Which brings us to the latest Apple rumor. This one's courtesy of the Boy Genius Report, which got tipped off that the iPad 2, widely expected to be released in April, will lose its home button in favor of multitouch gestures that are already being incorporated into Apple's upcoming iOS 4.3 update.

The anonymous source told BGR that, "Apple, at some point in time, will remove the … Read more

The iPad gets joysticks

LAS VEGAS--Earlier today we heard about Fling, Ten One Design's latest attempt at giving the iPad a legitimate input device for gaming. Its tiny suction cups stick on to the surface of the iPad, giving you the closest thing to an actual button we've seen yet on an iPad.

A few hours later we're hearing about a much more traditional take on the situation, ThinkGeek's JoyStick-IT. The Joystick-IT accessory appears to work the same way as Fling, allowing users to center an actual chrome joystick wherever they see fit.

These two items are the first of … Read more

Troubleshooting: iPhone Home Button issues?

Some iPhone users have been reporting problems with their Home Button not registering their clicks properly. For example, a double-click only registers as a single-click and a single-click is not recognized at all.

I have actually been dealing with this very issue for the last couple weeks on my iPhone 4. I thought maybe I wasn't pressing the button firmly enough, but that had never been an issue before. I then thought it could be that the button had some debris or other gunk under it. Essentially, I figured it was something caused by my own doing.

After this report from TiPb, … Read more

It's all text to us

Personal Web sites, blogs, and wikis have dramatically increased even casual surfers' opportunities to edit text, but the site-based editors often fall short. If you've ever wanted to edit text in a Web site using your own text editor, you need Doctor What's It's All Text. We like this free Firefox add-on; once you set it up, It's All Text will open a selected page's text content in the text editor of your choice, in the format of your choice, and post your changes to the site.

We downloaded and installed It's All Text, … Read more

Firefox error page mods

ErrorZilla Mod is a free extension for Mozilla's Firefox Web browser that updates the domain access error page. It's basically the venerable ErrorZilla extension, only with the old logo replaced by the Firefox logo. It also sports a series of buttons accessing various DomainTools utilities for diagnosing what went wrong when Web sites don't load. It downloads and installs like any Firefox add-on; essentially automatically, with nothing to configure.

If a cop is never around when you need one, try finding a Web page that won't load. Fortunately, we hoard bookmarks, and we found one that … Read more

Sony unveils Google TV sets

  Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: Sony unveils Google TV products Macs get Windows Phone 7 sync School district pays up for webcams Digg gets bury button back

Digg bringing back the bury, changing its look

In a note introducing himself to users, Digg's latest CEO Matt Williams, who came on at the end of August, today penned an apology to the Digg community, saying that changes are on the way that should remedy some of the biggest complaints that have cropped up since the company completely retooled the site in late August.

"As many of you know, the launch of Digg v4 didn't go smoothly, and we're deeply sorry that we disappointed our Digg community in the process," Williams said. "Thank you for your patience and your extremely candid … Read more