Really now. I would have expected the Death Star to lay off people before EA would. I guess the Empire had a pretty solid economy, though. It seems that although EA is doing well in the long term, it’s cautious of incurring too much in costs during the downturn. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be having Maddens for years to come, but a 6 percent reduction in headcount at something like EA is a serious move. I hope they don’t have make any more like that. It feels a little weird rooting for the big guy, but let’s be honest: when they make cuts, they’re going to make it to the less profitable sections, i.e. original games with new ideas that don’t sell in the millions. As much as EA gets flak for being a sequel machine, at least they still put out genuinely good stuff every once in a while. → Read More
Do they just have an idea machine over there at Asus? This thing is great! Of course, it’s not very often that you have to take all the bits out of your PC case and travel with it separately, but if you did this would be indispensible. It’s mid-tower sized and has room for an ATX motherboard and everything. It’s even got front ports. And it folds flat! This is too much! I don’t know why this is so impressive to me; I just love it. [via HardOCP] → Read More
You’d think it would be easy. Make a grip that plugs into the iPhone’s port that simply has a D-pad and a few buttons on it — presto! But instead we get things like this. What in the hell were they thinking? I’d list the reasons this thing is an insult to the iPhone, to gamers, to ergonomic design in general, but it would be wasting both your time and mine. Do us both a favor and spend your $50 on scratch tickets or something instead. [via En] → Read More
We’ve received a couple of anonymous tips that DirectTV, a $24 billion satellite TV provider, may be entering the online TV wars with a new site called DirectTV Web On Demand. The site would compete with startups like Hulu, Joost, Fancast, Sling.com, etc.
We don’t know much about the service, or even if it’s real. One of the tipsters says they’ve worked on the project and supplied us with the mockup screen shot above, which could quite possibly be real. On the other hand, we’ve spoken with industry insiders and they say they’ve heard nothing about the project.
The screen shot shows Heroes, which is an NBC show. The only way for Fox and NBC shows to be syndicated on the web is via a deal with Hulu. For CBS shows, they have to go through the CBS Audience Network.
That means it’s either very, very early in the development process or it doesn’t exist at all. We have an email in to DirectTV for comment. → Read More
You know the HP TouchSmart? It’s a neat bit of work—that is, it has to potential to be. That potential is now one step closer to reality given that HP has just opened it up to third-party development. Would-be developers need to sashay over to the TouchSmart Community. There you’ll find the necessary software to develop your fancy application. I think it’s fairly obvious from the above few sentences that I don’t have a developer bone on my body. via Slashdot → Read More
In the distant future, I envision a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Cannibalism and harsh justice are present in equal amounts, and the only thing more prized than bullets… is batteries. In this blasted landscape, the only relief afforded the dwindling survivors — hungry, tired, and irradiated — is found in a small shack hidden between the painted cliffs of the former Dakotas. There, the weary travelers queue for hours as the lone masseuse attends to each of them in turn. No one cuts, no one complains of the wait. How can the massager the masseuse wields can continue to buzz this many years after the fall of mankind, no one knows. It must be a miracle. Sound like fun? Get your own! → Read More
Why do people who love Apple hate Microsoft? Conversely, why do people who love Microsoft hate Apple? Science, that wonderful abstraction, may have an answer. A professor at the University College London, Semir Zeki, has proposed the following: love is a blind emotion while hate takes conscious effort to produce. Think of it in romantic terms: Why do you find that girl or guy attractive? You just sorta do; it’s hard to explain. But, why do you hate that girl or guy? I’m sure you have a laundry list of reasons. We can apply the same logic to Apple/Microsoft. It’s a lot easier to explain why you hate Apple or Microsoft, but try explaining why you like Apple or Microsoft. “I don’t know, I just do.” Indeed. I don’t know, it gets pretty cerebral pretty quickly. Y’all would be better served (and certainly better entertained) playing Fable II. via CNET’s Technically Incorrect → Read More
We’re seeing more and more of what $300 million buys you—“you” being Microsoft and $300 million being its recently beefed up ad budget. So, to the point: what does it buy you? In addition to the unfairly panned—though we like them, for the record—Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld commercials, it also buys you a small kiosk outside English Apple retail stores. The kiosk, emblazoned with Microsoft logos and, strangely, Deepak Chopra (is Mr. Chopra hip?), sits outside the store, waiting for passersby to say, what, exactly? Yeah, down with Apple! Apparently Microsoft staffers are on hand to promote the company’s message. (Hopefully it’s not the same message as “Wait for Widows 7.”) You’re invited to upload photos and videos showing how you, too, are a PC. Spreadsheets and pie charts a-plenty, I suspect. → Read More
Halloween has come and gone as it tends to do every year and this year saw its fair share of Apple-inspired costumes. DVICE has compiled a list of what it’s judged to be the best iPhone costumes of Halloween 2008. There are some pretty good ones in there, like the MySpace guy up on the left there and the baby in an iPhone stroller on the right. The list also includes a dog wearing an iPhone, which looks kind of cool. Most of the rest kind of all look like cardboard boxes with tin foil around the sides. Two guys made costumes with working screens (there’s a video here), although they actually wore them last year. Still pretty cool, though. 10 Best iPhone costumes [DVICE] → Read More
1-up! While Apple says the new MacBook has a memory limit of 4GB, memory retailer Ramjet says that the limit is actually 6GB. You get to that magic number, six, by using a single 4GB module and a singe 2GB module. On Ramjet that costs a whopping $680 $580—$500 for the 4GB module and $80 for the 2GB module. Now, MacRumors says that the new MacBook Pro has a memory limit of 8GB. That’s all well and good, but OS X seems to run into issues when using anything more than 6GB of RAM. Meanwhile, I’m using this MacBook with 3GB of RAM. I’ve got WebKit (with 15 tabs open), iTunes, Adium, Photoshop CS3 (still haven’t, ahem, upgraded), NetNewsWire and TextEdit open (with less than 3GB left on the hard drive)—everything’s running fine here. → Read More
I have absolutely no problem with companies saying that a certain product will ship at a certain time and then shipping said product a couple weeks early. In fact, I wish they all did that. Panasonic appears to have done it with its new Lumix DMC-G1 Micro Four Thirds cameras. The company’s shopping site lists the cameras for sale now to be shipped out within 1-3 business days. It’d been reported earlier that the DMC-G1 line would be available in mid-November, so hooray for early shipment, eh? Lumix Digital Cameras [Panasonic via Engadget] → Read More
We still don’t know one very important thing about the BlackBerry Storm: how much is the thing gonna cost? Vodafone, which carries the Storm in the UK, may have just provided us a few hints. Pricing plans for the phone have leaked, and the phone itself goes as low as €49 ($62) with the most expensive monthly plan. That brings us to Verizon Wireless, which, you’ll remember, is a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone. If Vodafone is willing to to sell the first touchscreen BlackBerry for as low as $62, how low will VWZ go? Say, $0, maybe? Not likely, but don’t be surprised to see the Storm selling for a tantalizing low amount. Again, as if I need to remind you, take all of this with a grain of salt. Then, with the same grain of salt, enjoy your weekend. → Read More
We’ve been getting a lot of tips from people who have been having problems reaching the Revver website lately, getting videos uploaded or playing the ones already hosted on the platform. We haven’t paid much attention to them so far, because every time we check, the site seems up and we experience no trouble playing videos.
But something is definitely up. → Read More
Woot.com is selling the Acer Aspire One netbook for $289.99 plus $5 shipping. It’s the version with the Linpus Linux operating system, 512MB of RAM, 8GB SSD, and three-cell battery. It sells for around $330 elsewhere so if you’ve been waiting for this particular model, now might be the time to pull the trigger. This deal is only available today (Saturday). Acer Aspire One Ultra Portable Notebook [Woot.com] → Read More
It’s Elevator Pitch Friday Saturday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Scour.com, a meta social search engine.
Scour searches and displays results from Google, Yahoo and Live Search all at once and enables each of its members to vote each listing up or down based on its relevance to their keyword as well as comment on their experiences with the site. In addition to the combined results Scour offers a kind of get-paid-to-search scheme based on points in a way similar to Microsoft SearchPerks. Users earn a point for each search, vote or comment they make and can claim a $25 Visa card when they’ve reached 6,500 points.
(Watch the video after the jump): → Read More
If you have kids and Nickelodeon (or Nickelodeon.com) just doesn’t cut it for you all the time, tune into Totlol. It’s children’s Web video for the children of the YouTube generation. In fact, Totlol was built by one developer in Vancouver, B.C. (Ron Ilan, father of two) entirely on the YouTube platform. It is a collection of thousands of child-appropriate video clips from YouTube, chosen by parents, and rated by toddlers.
Totlol uses the YouTube API and reskins all the videos with its own player (much like we do with Elevator Pitches). Viewers can rate and collect videos. Collections act like playlists. Plop your child in front of the computer, and it plays all the way through (not that I would ever do that, of course). → Read More
WorldFriends, a social network with a focus on connecting internationally-minded people, was established as early as 2003 but has flown under the radar of the American blogosphere since. The Tokyo- and Shanghai-based site, which now has nearly 2 million users from all over the world, did a soft (re-)launch last week, mainly enhancing a number of networking features.
WorldFriends is walking a fine line between being a platform for dating, language exchange and making international friends. At first sight, WorldFriends actually looks much like a heavily internationalized version of your average dating site. The profile page, for example, features a member slide show (showing only female users if that is what you said you are interested in when signing up), a “New photos”-container (again girls only) and an “Your Ideal Match”-list. → Read More
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