demo

This week on preGAME we rewind time, use the power of the elements, and take a ride on the first dinosaur in space as we demo two very special games. Tune in as we take a look at Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

There's a lot of gameplay on today's show, but first we take a look at trailers for two games hitting this summer. First, we screen the latest video for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Will this new Spidey game stand on its own, or will it fall into the bargain bin … Read more

This week on preGAME we bring you the video game version of the world's greatest soccer tournament, the World Cup. On today's show, Mark and Jeff will play a half of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

But first, we'll try and unravel the mystery behind a recent Capcom trademark request for the name "Mega Man Universe." While dozens of ideas race through our heads, we can only assume that this next-gen iteration of Mega Man might bring us the first-ever massive multiplayer online game in the franchise.

If you've ever wondered what a … Read more

Time management games seem to be exploding in popularity, and we've seen renditions that take place on farms, in cafes, and other busy settings. Hospital emergency rooms are one of the busiest settings around, so it's no surprise that someone created a time management game featuring a harried nurse as the main character. In Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward, users race against the clock to get patients treated and make strategic decisions about spending the hospital's funds. It's obviously not a realistic portrayal of hospital, but it's definitely fun.

We liked that Hysteria Hospital allows users … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--The 2010 Demo Spring conference has come to an end, and in its wake we have a new crop of companies new and old with ideas that promise to make our cars, pockets, businesses, and living rooms better.

Prior to the start of the conference, we wrote up a few of the top companies to watch. And after seeing their presentations, we're naming our favorite pitches and products from the two-day conference.

Exaudios makes technology that can tell a person's mood by the tone in their voice. It's a potentially huge product for call … Read more

Why would anyone launch yet another e-book format? That's the obvious question we had at DemoSpring when watching the short pitch by Neverend Media's Chris Kubica. His new format is quite different from existing e-books, because it's designed to support subscribing to a book the way you can sign up for an RSS feed, and it has a return channel to the author built into the format. Plus it has a smart social component.

Years ago, Kubica wrote a book about Filemaker but got frustrated when, nearing the end of it, he realized that software updates had … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Companies have been trying to shoehorn the Web onto consumer TV sets for the past 15 years. However very few have been able to turn it into a profitable business, or, at the very least, something that finds a balance between being powerful and easy to use from the couch.

Still, some of those early missteps have led to hardware makers now putting Web services like Netflix, Twitter, and Facebook into their latest TV sets and Blu-ray players. There's also a growing group of companies that are trying to bring the entirety of the Web to the living room instead.

Three of these are launching new product iterations this week at the DemoSpring conference: GlideTV, Hillcrest Labs' Kylo Browser, and Viaclix. All three attempt to bring a full Web-browsing experience to TV sets.

Hillcrest Labs has actually been kicking around since 2001, and introduced its "Loop" remote control in early 2007. This is a special circular mouse that has had its buttons and ergonomics optimized for use on the couch. The tech inside it was also the source of a patent dispute with Nintendo over its Wii remote controller.

What the company introduced at Demo was a new browser called Kylo that works on both PCs and Macs, and makes use of the company's Loop hardware to make it easy to hop around the Web, and Web video sites. While users are able to download Kylo free of charge, and without buying a $99 Loop remote, the company is hoping it will spur sales of the remote.

Also offering special mouse hardware was GlideTV, which introduced a revamped version of its couch-friendly browser. Unlike Hillcrest's Loop, GlideTV makes use of a touch pad. Though it too is about finding Web video content to watch in a nontraditional Web browser. Its big new feature is that it scours the Web for new content, then separates it into channels. The new version also adds predictive text input so users aren't pecking out too many characters in a text search. … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Apple is leaving behind clever mobile-app developers--and it's evident at the DemoSpring conference. Three interesting and potentially useful mobile apps were introduced here Tuesday on other platforms--Windows Mobile and Android--because these platforms allow background processing, and the iPhone does not.

When the 3.0 version of the iPhone operating system came out, it added background notification, but through a server-based push mechanism that only gives developers a few capabilities for sending notifications to phones. It's not true background processing like you have on a computer or on other smartphones. An advantage to the Apple scheme, … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Here at DemoSpring 2010, one of the "Alpha pitches"--those from companies not yet developed enough to make it to the main stage--is Medl Technology, which is trying to bring its 13-inch battery-powered, USB-driven portable computer monitor to market.

It's a nice product, but very niche. Geeks who want more working real estate on the road, or pitchmen who want a secondary monitor when they're doing on-screen presentations might find it worthwhile to carry this secondary display. But I don't predict success for this product; the market's just too small.

On … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Gwabbit, the contact-slurping tool that launched at last year's Demo conference has made the much-needed shift to the cloud.

The new tool offering, which the company is calling the "gwab-o-sphere," takes the contact information gathered from incoming e-mails and syncs it with updated information from places like Twitter, Facebook, and Salesforce.com. If changes are made by these users in any of these locations, the updated information is ferried back over to Gwabbit, where it's synced back out to all the clients with the Gwabbit plug-in installed.

The need for services like … Read more