iPhone Cruncher

EA’s Dead Space for iOS devices is a prequel to Dead Space 2, and it helps explain what happened before Isaac’s involvement in the Necromorph outbreak in that game. In a neat twist, the game follows a Unitologist called only “Vandal” who finds out the church may not have his best interests at heart.

The game is a technical marvel, looking and playing very close to its big brother on the current-generation consoles. The framerate may not be ideal, but it’s impressive how much of the look and the feel of the game EA was able to cram into these devices. I played the game on the iPad, complete with headphones for immersion, and the game drew me in very quickly. 

The $10 price tag gets you a few hours of action, and you’ll leave feeling satisfied by what you just played.

The game uses virtual controls, with your thumb on the left taking the place of the “WASD” keys and your thumb on right acting as a mouse. Tap the right side of the screen to bring your weapon up, tap again to fire, tap the ammo counter to reload, tap the circle on your character’s back to fire your stasis weapon to freeze enemies… it may seem like too much to remember, but the controls work very well, and they use the touchscreen in a way that makes sense and ultimately proves intuitive.

As a nice bonus, the game gives you a power node and a surprise in Dead Space 2 for registering your copy—all you have to do is log into your EA account via the game. You’ll also be given some iPad wallpapers, achievements to earn, and weapons to upgrade. It’s a full-featured release, and is easily one of the prettiest games on the platform. It doesn’t make any excuses for itself due to the platform, and it delivers another solid experience in the Dead Space world. If you have either of these devices, this is a game you need

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 By Florin on 30 Jan 11

Angry Birds, one of the most successful mobile games of 2010, will have a new version in March.

Rovio has recently announced (via Twitter) that the new game will be called Angry Birds Rio – it’s developed in collaboration with 20th Century Fox and will feature characters from the upcoming animated movie Rio (bound to hit the theaters in April).

Rovio says that Angry Birds Rio is “like the original with a few new twists” and will come to “app stores everywhere in March” – we’re not sure if this includes Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, but it surely includes Apple’s App Store, Android Market, and Nokia’s Ovi Store.

For the beginning, the game will have 45 levels. Future updates will bring “more levels and a surprise or two.”

According to this tweet, “Angry Birds Rio will have a lot more detailed graphics, so lower performance devices might not work great.”

Until you get to play the new Angry Birds Rio on your iPhone / Android / Nokia smartphone, here’s the game’s official trailer:

And here’s a Rio movie trailer:

So, anyone dying to try the new Angry Birds?

If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:

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The white version of the Apple iPhone 4 32GB has appeared online at Expansys for a whopping £919.14 including delivery.

You can only pre-order for now and there are no cancellation charges. Apple charges £612 for the black version of 32GB iPhone 4 so we’re not sure whether it is worth paying more than 50 per cent extra to get a white smartphone.

Furthermore, it is very unlikely that Expansys will have the white iPhone 4 well before Apple stores and other Apple retailers; paying over the odds is only worth it if you REALLY want to get the handset before everybody else.

For the rest of us, there are scores of white iPhone 4 conversion kits available with some shops even offering an onsite, convert-while-you-wait, service for a fee.

The latest rumours point to a release of the white iPhone 4 for the 27th of February 2011 based on a screenshot of an internal ATT listing obtained by BGR.

Apple delayed the release of this particular model because of manufacturing problems, more specifically, it is rumoured that pictures produced by the phone’s camera are affected by the white glass back.

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Every iOS gamer wants to experience arcade-style action on the iPad. But with certain games—including any that require a virtual joystick—the iPad’s shortcomings as a gaming device have been exposed. Without the ability to use a conventional joystick, gaming genres that require exact movement and tacticle responses don’t always fare well on Apple’s tablet. Without the physical feel of a joystick, it’s easy to let your thumbs wander and accidentally slip off the virtual buttons. Fighting games, first-person shooters, and even many adventure titles have often translated poorly to the iPad due to their reliance on joystick movement rather than touch and gesture controls.

Ten One Design has the novel idea of changing that. Its Fling Game Controller for iPad takes the “virtual” out of “virtual joystick.” Instead, the Fling is an external attachment to your tablet that fits over your corner virtual joystick. Two suction cups secure the device to the iPad’s touchscreen, granting players a “tactile response with haptic feedback.” What this means for iPad users in practical terms is more control in their gaming.

It’s an interesting concept, and at Ten One Design’s booth on the Macworld 2011 floor this week, the company offered an appealing hands-on demonstration. The company had two “Asteroids”-like shoot-‘em-up games that highlight the precision achieved by the Fling controller. Hairpin turns and other acrobatic maneuvers were rendered with ease.

The Ten One Design reps boast that the Fling controller is compatible with more than 100 games, including a publicly edited list on its Website.

That said, how “compatible” the Fling is depends on what game you’re playing and often how large the virtual joystick is. In my experience, the Fling Controller had difficulty overlaying properly on several Gameloft titles—most noticeably Dungeon Hunter HD. With Dungeon Hunter’s larger virtual joystock, I found the Fling to be sporadic in its responsiveness to my commands, particularly when I tried to move in certain directions. Still, the Fling is impressive enough to have won Best of Show honors from my fellow Macworld editors.

With a growing

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We all knew it was just a matter of time before someone sued over the iPhone 4 “Glassgate,” and now the time has arrived. California resident Donald LeBuhn filed a lawsuit this week accusing Apple of knowingly unloading flawed iPhone 4s onto customers, citing personal experience with his own iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

LeBuhn says that his iPhone 4′s glass broke three weeks after he bought the device thanks to his daughter, who allegedly dropped it three feet to the ground. His iPhone 3GS before it, however, was apparently able to survive a number of drops from similar heights. (For the record, I have dropped every generation of iPhone from many different heights, and the one that sustained the most damage was my old iPhone 3G. R.I.P.)

Because Apple advertises the fact that the iPhone 4′s glass is “20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic,” LeBuhn feels that Apple is knowingly misleading consumers when selling the iPhone 4. “Months after selling millions of iPhone 4s, Apple has failed to warn and continues to sell this product with no warning to customers that the glass housing is defective,” reads the complaint.

It’s not entirely clear whether “Glassgate” is considered a real problem in Apple’s eyes, but third-party warranty service SquareTrade released a report in October saying that the iPhone 4 is twice as prone to accidental screen damage as the iPhone 3GS. The analysis was drawn from accident reports submitted to SquareTrade by users—3.9 percent of iPhone 4 owners reported cracked glass after four months of ownership compared to 2.1 percent for the 3GS.

Though the numbers still aren’t particularly high, SquareTrade’s report was bolstered by a rumor that came out a month later saying that Apple was halting the sale of slider-style cases in order to avoid damage to the iPhone 4′s glass. The alleged problem was that dirt could get trapped between the rear cover and a slider case, and as the case is repeatedly put

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LeBuhn said that his main problem with Apple is that it markets the glass as being super-durable and scratch-resistant — a claim he says his personal experience disproves.

Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit; we’ll let you know if it does.

The lawsuit, reported by the LAWeekly, focuses on how the iPhone’s glass housing handles when the phone is dropped without a case. LeBuhn said his iPhone shattered when his daughter dropped it from a height of about three feet while sending a text message.

“Months after selling millions of iPhone 4s, Apple has failed to warn and continues to sell this product with no warning to customers that the glass housing is defective,” LeBuhn wrote in the lawsuit.

This is the second big stink raised about shattered glass on the iPhone 4. In October, complaints surfaced that small pieces of matter that got trapped in iPhone 4 sliding cases made the iPhone 4 more prone to cracking. Reports of the problem became so widespread that the tech press dubbed it “Glassgate,” and a research firm called SquareTech released figures that the latest model of the iPhone broke 82 percent more often than the iPhone 3GS.

Apple reporter Johnny Evans called those claims into question when they surfaced in October, saying that the numbers were reported in a way that made them seem more significant than they were.

“Described as ’82 percent’ of course this sounds like a big deal, but in reality it means 3.9 percent of 20,000 iPhone 4 owners reported a cracked screen rather than 2.1 percent of 20,000 iPhone 3GS owners,” he wrote.

Glassgate, unlike its predecessor Antennagate, never came to very much, as the problem was not nearly as widespread. With this lawsuit, however, more people may come forward with casing issues.

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Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ), an iPhone productivity app, was a Macworld 2010 Best of Show winner. More recently, Quickoffice released its much-awaited sequel, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad, which it’s now promoting on the Macworld 2011 show floor.

Like its predecessor on the iPhone, Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad offers the ability to create and edit Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. The app supports .doc(x), .xls(x), and .ppt files; .pptx support is in progress. Quickoffice also integrates with numerous cloud services, like MobileMe, Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, Huddle, and SugarSync.

On the iPhone, Quickoffice was limited in terms of how it could display documents, reflowing them to fit the smaller screen. With the iPad’s greater screen real estate, however, Quickoffice gives your documents more room to breathe, and shows you the true pages with their original layouts. You can use multitouch gestures to zoom in and out on individual pages. Drag and drop plays a key role in the app, too; you can drag text, drag documents onto ‘share’ and ‘delete’ action buttons, and more. And when working with longer documents, you can drag your finger along the side of the screen to scroll through an otherwise-invisible virtual “filmstrip” navigation tool. Since we first reviewed the app, Quickoffice added numerous refinements, including word counts and far more text manipulation controls.

Quickoffice now supports video output, so that you can present PowerPoint decks directly from your iPad. In that mode, you get slide navigation tools and notes on your iPad screen that aren’t mirrored on your video display–along with the current slide, of course. By pressing and holding on the iPad screen, you can control a virtual laser pointer, too.

Michael Hyland, product manager for Quickoffice, showed me a cool new feature for the iPad app coming later this year: integration with various real-time collaboration services. By dragging

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Every iOS gamer wants to experience arcade-style action on the iPad. But with certain games—including any that require a virtual joystick—the iPad’s shortcomings as a gaming device have been exposed. Without the ability to use a conventional joystick, gaming genres that require exact movement and tacticle responses don’t always fare well on Apple’s tablet. Without the physical feel of a joystick, it’s easy to let your thumbs wander and accidentally slip off the virtual buttons. Fighting games, first-person shooters, and even many adventure titles have often translated poorly to the iPad due to their reliance on joystick movement rather than touch and gesture controls.

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The Fling Game Controller

Ten One Design has the novel idea of changing that. Its Fling Game Controller for iPad takes the “virtual” out of “virtual joystick.” Instead, the Fling is an external attachment to your tablet that fits over your corner virtual joystick. Two suction cups secure the device to the iPad’s touchscreen, granting players a “tactile response with haptic feedback.” What this means for iPad users in practical terms is more control in their gaming.

It’s an interesting concept, and at Ten One Design’s booth on the Macworld 2011 floor this week, the company offered an appealing hands-on demonstration. The company had two “Asteroids”-like shoot-‘em-up games that highlight the precision achieved by the Fling controller. Hairpin turns and other acrobatic maneuvers were rendered with ease.

The Ten One Design reps boast that the Fling controller is compatible with more than 100 games, including a publicly edited list on its Website.

That said, how “compatible” the Fling is depends on what game you’re playing and often how large the virtual

Article source: Read More

New Delhi, Jan 30: Finally, the technology giant Apple Inc launched their prestigious gadget iPad in India after nine months of international launch. Apple iPad’s official launch in Indian market has given a boom to tablet market which was currently controlled by Samsumsung Galaxy Tab and other Android running Chinese tablets.

BSNL iPad 3G Data Plans:
* Rs 99 – Unlimited – 1 day (pre-paid)
* Rs 599 – 6 GB – 30 days (pre-paid)
* RS 999 – Unlimited – 30 days (pre-paid)
* Unlimited usage with Rs 999 fixed monthly charge + Rs 100 activation charge (post-paid)

India gets Apple iPad: Specs, Review Price

Apple iPad Price in India:
* Apple iPad 16GB WiFi – Rs 27,990
* Apple iPad 32GB WiFi – Rs 32,900
* Apple iPad 64GB WiFi – Rs 37,900
* Apple iPad 16GB WiFi + 3G – Rs 34,900
* Apple iPad 32GB WiFi + 3G – Rs 39,900
* Apple iPad 64GB WiFi + 3G – Rs 44,900

Private service providers, Airtel and Vodafone also announced the launch micro-SIM card for the iPad. But it’s not clear that how Indians accept Apple iPad when rest of the world waiting for iPad 2 with more exciting features and advanced specifications.

OneIndia News

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Pacific 75, UC Riverside 58

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STOCKTON, Calif. — Allen Huddleston set career highs with 23 points, six 3-pointers and four steals to lead Pacific to a 75-58 victory over UC Riverside on Saturday night.

The Tigers (12-9, 4-4 Big West) made their first nine shots from behind the arc to turn the game into a blowout by halftime. Pacific finished 14 of 22 on 3-pointers.

Sam Willard had 16 points and seven rebounds for the Tigers. Demetrece Young had 15 points, including four 3-pointers.

Phil Martin had 17 points and 10 rebounds to lead Riverside (7-12, 2-5), and Javon Borum added 10 points.

When Jose Rivera made Pacific’s ninth consecutive 3-pointer midway through the first half, the Tigers had a 29-10 lead.

Pacific was 11 of 14 on 3-point attempts in the first half and kept pouring it on as Huddleston made another 3-pointer early in the second half to begin a 13-2 run.

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