Hasta La Gadget!

It's retro right down to the box art.

(Credit:
Nintendo)

This holiday season, amid an economy that’s still in the tank, game companies are stingier with their first-party release schedule. In fact, each of the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) are only targeting one or two games for their systems before Christmas. Nintendo has one single title that’s prominent for the Nintendo Wii, and that’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

We got a chance to play one or two of the side-scrolling title’s multiplayer modes awhile back, but we didn’t know whether Mario’s home console return to 2D platforming would also feature a single-player mode that had as much going for it as old-school favorites like Super Mario World.

After last night’s playthrough and a discussion with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (translated via Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen), the answer to that question is undoubtedly yes.

Mr. Miyamoto answered questions regarding his new game, in particular why it’s a 2D game when Super Mario Galaxy achieved such great success both critically and financially as a 3D Wii title.

According to Miyamoto, who participated in a reporter’s roundtable Thursday night in New York City, what makes a Mario game is being “simple to control and easy to understand.” The multiplayer modes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii include both four-player competitive Smash Bros.-inspired modes such as Coin Battle, as well as hop-in four-player co-op throughout the entire single-player story mode of the game.

“We wanted the game to appeal to and be accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and because we wanted to make it multiplayer, we felt that the original concept for Mario Bros. was the one best suited to multiplayer gameplay,” Miyamoto added. “Multiplayer platforming is much better suited to a 2-D environment versus a 3-D one.” He was referring specifically to same-room gaming as opposed to online gaming, raising a point that we’ve often thought about with the Wii–namely, other than Wii Sports, that there just aren’t a great number of multiplayer games for the console.

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If you’ve thought about picking up an Android-powered phone but found yourself turned off by the hardware choices (ahem, G1), you may soon wish to reconsider.

“Android adoption is about to explode,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, in an earnings conference call Thursday. “You have all the necessary conditions.”

Schmidt’s forecast may prove accurate with 12 Android-powered devices available in 26 countries on 32 carriers. Recent Android rumors, announcements and releases further fuel the rumble in the mobile community.

By handing out Android as an open source platform, Google aims to help manufacturers focus more time, money and energy on their hardware and specific usability for each device. Using the Android OS, there is no need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to the mobile software. Developmental resources can instead be allocated to innovation and quicker adaptation of emerging technology. This direction in mobile development does seem to create the “necessary conditions” for Android to appeal to an extremely broad range of users.

When the first Android phone, the HTC G1, was released in September 2008, some developers questioned how Google would address making the Android OS and third-party apps work smoothly with various types of hardware. Screen resolution was a primary concern among developers polled by Wired.com: How could an app designed to work with the G1’s resolution, for example, work with another Android phone sporting a different resolution?

Fortunately, the Android team at Google is working to ensure their platform is compatible with every mobile phone, specifically when it comes to screen resolution. The Android 1.6 SDK, the developer’s kit, allows a manufacturer or developer to add code in their application to conform to different handset’s resolutions. (For example, “Do this when the phone has a resolution of 320×480; do that when the resolution is larger.”) They have created three categories of resolution sizes that any given device will fall into, ensuring a single third-party app will work across all phones. There is also a “compatibility mode” developers can incorporate into their applications built prior to 1.6, aka Donut.

Excited by the Android mobile-nova? We’ve created a list of the 12 Android-powered smartphones so you can begin researching and deciding which one is best for you:

• Motorola Cliq (T-Mobile / Available October 19)
• Motorola Sholes (Verizon / Available October 30)
• Samsung Behold II (T-Mobile / Holidays 2009)
• Samsung Moment (Sprint / November 1)
• Huawei Pulse (T-Mobile UK / Available)
• HTC Hero (Sprint / Available)
• HTC Tattoo (Vodafone UK / Available)
• HTC Magic /myTouch 3G (T-Mobile / Available)
• HTC Dream/G1 (T-Mobile / Available)
• Dell Mini i13 (China Mobile / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
• Acer Liquid (Unknown / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
• LG GW620 (Unknown / Confirmed, Q4 2009)

See Also:

• Google Muscles Android Developer, Offers Olive Branch
• Google, Openness Triumph as Verizon Adds Android Phones …
• Google’s Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Look at what we just got in the mail. It’s the just-announced newest version of the Flip Mino HD. I’ve only played around with it for a few minutes, but I think it’s safe to say that Pure Digital (now owned by Cisco) really got the pocket camcorder’s looks right this time out.

The first Flip looked fairly cheap–almost disposable. The first-generation Flip Mino and its aesthetically identical counterpart, the Flip Mino HD, was a marked improvement. But the device still looked a bit dated, like something that might be branded by Radio Shack back in the 90s.

This device, on the other hand, is quite slick, with its brushed metal finish. The HDMI port has made its way down to the bottom of the device–there are no additional video or audio out ports on the camera. The rear features a larger LCD and the same touch-sensitive buttons as the earlier version of the Mino.

The device also feels a lot more solid than its diminutive predecessor. You don’t get the feeling that this camcorder is going to fall apart in your pocket.

We’ll be bringing you a hands-on review of the device in the near future at PCMag.com. In the meantime, check out a slew of close-up shots, after the jump.

Everybody’s all smitten with smartphones, but what if you don’t want to be interrupted with a call while you’re listening to your music? What if you don’t want to …

Originally posted at CNET TV

A cheetah can run faster than any other animal. A gecko’s feet can stick to almost any surface without using liquids or surface tension. And some roaches scurry at nearly 50 times their body length in one second, which, scaled up to human levels, can be around 200 miles an hour.

The wonders of the animal kingdom are not just for fans of National Geographic. Robotic designer Sangbae Kim, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is trying to understand how he can take some of the mechanisms animals use and replicate them in robots.

The animal kingdom provides the best ideas for creating mobile robots, says Kim. Locomotion and movement are the core parts of an animal’s life. “Animals have to find food, shelter; move towards water or away from a predator,” he says.

“Moving is one of their biggest functions, and they do it very well. That’s why ideas from nature are very important for a robotic designer like me.”

Mechanical design derived from biological models is something Kim has been working on for years, first at Stanford University and now at MIT. The simplification and adaptation of the fundamental design principles seen in animals has led to the creation of his bio-inspired robots.

Among the robots Kim and his team have designed are the Stickybot, a robot that has foot pads based on a gecko’s feet, and iSprawl, a robot whose motion is inspired from cockroaches.

Kim’s latest project is a robot inspired by the cheetah. The idea is build a prototype robot from a lightweight carbon-fiber-foam composite that can run at the cheetah’s speed of 70 miles per hour.

It’s an ambitious project. Current wheeled robots are efficient, but can be slow in rough terrains. For instance, iRobot’s PackBot, which is used by the U.S. military, can only travel at speeds of up to 5.8 miles per hour.

“Most wheeled robots today can do very well on flat surfaces, but they are slow,” says Kim. That’s why he’s looking to the cheetah for ideas. The cheetah has an extremely flexible backbone that gives extra speed or force to its running motion.

Over the next 18 months, Kim and four MIT graduate students will start building and testing prototypes. The first step will be to create a computer model to calculate the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

The biggest challenge in this project won’t be the structure, but getting enough power from a motor to get to the desired speed quickly, says Kim.

Before the robotic cheetah came Stickybot, a mechanical lizard-like robot that takes its inspiration from the gecko. Geckos can climb walls at almost the same speed — of about 1 meter per second — at which they run on the ground. This remarkable ability makes it the perfect animal to draw upon to create a climbing robot, says Kim.

The secret to the gecko’s agility is that it uses a phenomenon called directional adhesion, or stickiness in just one direction, to adhere to walls.

“The gecko’s feet can detach very easily as it moves forward,” says Kim. “If you take normal sticky tape and press it to the wall, you will find it is tough to detach it quickly. Directional adhesion solves that problem.”

The pads of a gecko’s feet are covered with tiny hairs called setae and spatulae that can be up to one-thousandth the width of a human hair. The hairs cling to surfaces using molecular interactions known as the Van der Waals force. The force helps support the gecko’s weight as it scrambles up vertical surfaces.

Kim has tried to recreate that idea for the Stickybot. The Stickybot’s feet is covered with hairs made of rubber silicone. The rubber is thicker than those on a gecko’s paw, however, which limits the robot’s abilities. It can only climb extremely smooth surfaces such as glass, acrylic or a whiteboard.

Kim says his team is working on refining the Stickybot so that it can adapt to climbing on walls with uneven textures.

If the Stickybot can be improved, there are plenty of applications for it, such as repairing of underwater oil pipelines or even window washing.