Hive for the iPhone: brilliant fun
(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)Back when I used to work at Sony Online Entertainment many, many years ago, I became a board game geek. The game designers and producers gathered once a week to share their sizable collections and obscure finds up in Mira Mesa, Calif., and I got hooked. The fact that the Game Keeper chain of stores was simultaneously going out of business and liquidating their supplies encouraged me to start building my own game cabinet, and I profess without shame that I rapidly became a full-blown board game geek.
I still like hunting for new games, and a few years ago at the New York Toy Fair I came across the brilliant and simple tile-based game called Hive.
Like a cross between chess and dominos, Hive's hexagonal pieces are shaped like insects, each of which can move differently on their mission to surround the opponent's queen bee. I tried to order Hive online but it wasn't available, and no local game retailer would stock it. I finally found the game in a small town in Devon, England, while visiting my in-laws, and paid close to $35 for it.
This long story comes to a quick point: I found Hive on the iPhone App Store last week for $4.99, and instantly bought it. I hope this trend continues, and it should.
Hive joins my collection of Settlers of Catan, Go, Mancala, and what I'm sure will be many, many more board games shrunken to pocket-size on my iPhone. It's wonderful, and I feel like it's groundbreaking, too.
While game systems like the Nintendo DS and PSP have had a variety of fantastic titles, they'd certainly never proceed into European board games. The low overhead and microprices on Apple's ever-enormous App Store becomes, for both developers and consumers, a great live petri dish to grow a new legion of board game fans.
... Read MoreMolly's out of the office with the swine flu. In her honor, we cover the tech that allows you to keep yourself germ free. Don't worry. Even if you end up with the flu, we also cover the tech that will keep you entertained while you recover.
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EPISODE 160
Want to steer clear of N1H1? Stay off the couch
Self Sanitizing Keyboard (thanks David!)
Keep your arms dry while you wash dishes (or while you wash everything in your house.)
Ericsson’s Spider PC projects the keyboard, screen
Driverless car takes you to the doctor
Time-lapse photography on your iphone
Make your iphone photos look like miniatures with tiltshift
If you’re tooly, pass the time with sports:
Football
The last time we spoke with Shaun White on The 404, he was promoting his multiplatform video game Shaun White Snowboarding. We got to sit down with the Olympic gold medal winner again this week at an Ubisoft event in lower Manhattan where he explained what's new in Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage, an exclusive title for the Wii.
With the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver around the corner, World Stage focuses on taking snowboarding globally. The game will once again take advantage of the Wii Balance Board, allowing you to sway back and forth like you're actually carving down a mountain.
The title also improves on many fronts; you notice better board responsiveness in addition to more playable characters (including Shaun himself) and an overhauled graphical presentation. There are tons of new environments to ride through including one that blew us away: a surreal halfpipe stage smacked right in the center of Times Square.
Make sure to watch our full interview with Shaun where he tells us about lending his voice to the game, what we can expect from the soundtrack, and how he's preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver.
(Credit:
Aïssa Logerot)
I'm a bachelor. As such, I always look a bit off (I don't own a full-length mirror) and my clothes are wrinkled (I don't own an ironing board). So when my editor forwarded me a link from Boing Boing Gadgets about this combo ironing board/full-length mirror I figured she was giving me a hint. Thankfully she just wanted to share it with all of you.
And look how cool it is. In an urban apartment like mine, every square inch is valuable. That's why items with dual (or more!) uses are so great. And this one has a theme: making you look better. That's awesome.
I'm also a fan of things that transform, as this does, albeit simply. Right now it's just a concept by French designer Aïssa Logerot, but I wouldn't be surprised to see these showing up at IKEAs all over the world pretty soon.
I mean, who wouldn't want to disguise their vanity with function? As a guy who likes cute nerd girls, if I ever meet a girl with one of these in her apartment, I might go ring shopping.
The DeepX watch from Quiksilver might be your best asset in the water this summer. The sporty timepiece also includes an advanced database of 2,000 popular surf spots around the world with tide information calculated by a professional oceanographer to determine the precise latitude and longitude of the coastline.
Developed and tested by some of the hardest surf riders around, the DeepX tide can also beam information on your local coast through radio frequencies built right into the watch. Quiksilver also claims its calculations are more accurate than most tide charts because it calculates information specifically for every spot, instead of just using the data of the closest harbor.
In addition to these special features, the watch also features a polycarbonate case with a stainless steel top cover for maximum durability in the water, a 1/100 training chronograph with lap display and date memory, as well as a compass, a temperature gauge, and a heat timer.
The watch is available now on the Quiksilver Web site for 299 euros, or $418.
(Source: AcquireMag)
See the red dot? So far, it can be controlled via the balance board, but hopefully Linux users will think of more exciting uses for it.
(Credit: Matt Cutts)I'm not the world's biggest Linux fan and I don't own a Wii, but I can always appreciate ingenuity, even if the clear benefits of said ingenuity are not immediately recognizable.
Case in point, Matt Cutts has connected a Wii Fit balance board to a Linux box via Bluetooth. So far, all he can do is weigh himself in kilograms and move a red dot around by leaning in different directions on the balance board.
Not exactly exciting by any means, and seriously, it's difficult to see how this could be applied to do something actually cool or useful. One commenter on Cutts' site speculated that you could conceivably set up the board in such a way that you could scroll down a screen simply by leaning back in your chair.
Cutts wrote the program to interface with the balance board in Python, a popular and powerful scripting language, and claims users can get the same setup going in 10 to 15 minutes.
Will Linux users eventually be able to completely navigate their interface via the WiiFit balance board? Is that something they'd want to do? Is this the beginning of something that will lead to something incredibly cool and useful? Who knows. We'll have to wait and see where the community goes from here.
In making embedded devices, one of the biggest challenges has always been reducing the physical size of the device without compromising the functionality. And the main component that decides the size of a computer is the motherboard.
In this regard, VIA Technologies has some good news. The company announced Tuesday its latest board form factor for embedded systems, the Em-ITX. The new board boasts dual Input/Output coastlines while still establishing an off-the-shelf standard for ultraslim embedded devices.
The Em-ITX board's layout
(Credit: VIA)Measuring merely 4.7 inches by 6.7 inches, the Em-ITX form factor is 30 percent more compact than the existing Mini-ITX standard, yet offers 200 percent more I/O real estate.
The Em-ITX form factor's unique design with dual I/O coastlines and an Em-IO expansion helps bring flexibility and scalability. On top of that, it also supports the 64-bit VIA Nano processor, the same CPU used in Samsung's new NC20 netbook.
While you will unlikely find computers that use this new ultracompact form factor, the Em-ITX board is the ideal base for industrial automation, digital signage, kiosk and other applications.
The Em-ITX board includes a variety of connectors including COM (RS-232/422/485), RJ45, DVI, VGA, LVDS, USB 2.0, and DC power. Its modular expansion through Em-IO Bus also integrates the majority of popular bus signal technologies, including USB 2.0, GPIO, LPC, PCIe, IDE, IEEE 1394, S-ATA, PCI, DVI, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet and Card Bus.
General consumers might never have the need to get an Em-ITX board by itself, unless you want to build a highly customized device. However, according to VIA, products based on the Em-ITX form factor will be available early next month.
Jeff, Justin and Wilson start the show off right today with a SNL Christopher Walken reference. Always a great way to start the day. Getting into actual stories, we chat about ways to actually sleep. Tip #1: Sleep when you are tired. iTunes launches an indie music store. Gore Verbinski decides to make a video game based on Clue. And yes, people stalk their exes online.
EPISODE 287
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The idea is instead of the traditional paper boarding passes, passengers will use their mobile phones or PDAs to board an airplane.
American Airlines tried out this new method for the first time on Thursday with passengers leaving on domestic flights from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Mobile boarding pass.
(Credit: cellphonedigest.net)Starting Monday, mobile boarding passes will also be offered as an option for passengers departing on domestic flights from Los Angeles International and John Wayne Orange County airports.
This is how it works: when buying the ticket online, passengers must provide an active e-mail address to which their boarding pass will be sent, in the form of a 2D bar code.
Upon arriving at the airport, the passenger can open the e-mail on their Internet-enabled mobile device to have the bar code scanned at the Transportation Security Administration's checkpoints and at the airline's gates.
Passengers can also use the same method for check-in luggage at American Airlines' self-service machines, ticket counters, or curbside check-in facilities.
During the introduction of this new feature, there are a few minor restrictions. Passengers can list only one person in their reservation and must be traveling on American or American Eagle nonstop or a trip that doesn't involve changing planes, to a domestic destination.
The destination, however, can be anywhere within the 50 United States, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
This is just the beginning, if the tryout proves successful with the TSA, American Airlines will extend this new mobile boarding method to other U.S. airports.
Personally, I hope this will happen with all the airlines. It makes a lot of sense, especially when most cell phones are able to connect to the Internet these days.
"Ron" Tajima of Japan has figured out a clever hack for his Wii Fit balance board and Roomba.
He calls his latest creation the "Surfin' ba."
Instead of just showing off with fancy footwork, Tajima also demonstrates how he did it. As with his other Roomba hacks, Tajima attaches a serial Bluetooth adapter he developed himself to the Roomba.
This is Tajima's third Roomba hack. His others are a version of a Wiimote-controlled Roomba, and the Pacmba, a Roomba with LED lights.
(Via Electric Pig)
