Hasta La Gadget!

As far as competitive videogames go, you can’t get any simpler than Pong. But times have changed, and so have our tastes and need for mayhem. We can’t just have birds, they need to be angry birds. So if Pong is to be played by today’s gamers – bored adults and foul-mouthed adolescents alike – it can’t just have two paddles and a ball. There needs to be chaos.

Invented by Stacy Dudley and Brad Slattery, the RetroBall is a bat-and-ball game system – let’s just call a Pong a Pong and call it Pong. It has a 32×32 pixel LED screen, an acrylic enclosure and 1-bit sound effects. It’s clearly more powerful than the Wii U. The RetroBall has four paddle controllers so you can engage in four-player Pong deathmatches, and you can even increase the number of balls onscreen to five. It’s actually kind of reminiscent of Atari’s arcade classic Warlords.

But don’t let the cutting edge graphics and complicated gameplay fool you: you can’t just button mash your way to victory here like in your other modern games, primarily because there’s no button to mash, but also because skilled RetroBall players – probably named Stacy and Brad – are aware that you can change the spin and speed of a ball depending on how you hit it.

Pledge at least $149 (USD) on Kickstarter to reserve a RetroBall game system. Launch titles include 2-player Pong with 1 ball, 3-player Pong with 1 ball, 4-player Pong with 1 ball, 2-player Pong with 2 balls…

[via Ubergizmo]

Online hoaxes are a dime a dozen these days. A pretty cruel one recently made the news. It was in the form of a Facebook hoax that alarmed a mother and made her relatives think that her seven-year-old son had passed away.

However, the reality was that Javier Quintana was alive and kicking and standing right in front of her. Unfortunately, friends and family members didn’t know that and were devastated at the ‘news.’

Pictures, videos, and stories about Javier were posted online on a Facebook memorial page that was dedicated to Javier. His mother Patricia was beyond angry and has since filed a report with the local police.

Authorities looked into the matter and discovered that two teenagers were behind the whole thing. A 14-year-old girl was joking to a 13-year old boy about Javier’s death (which doesn’t sound like much of a joke), when the boy took things too far and created the memorial page. The girl asked him to take it down but by then, messages of grief were already pouring on the page.

No charges have been filed, and Javier, who was confused about the whole fiasco, was quick to assure friends and family: “I am alive and I’m fine… I don’t know why they put it, but I just feel bad for that.”

So guys, just avoid the whole mess and don’t make jokes about death because they really aren’t funny at all.

[Daily Mail via Softpedia]

Finally. I think the mobile controller that I’ve been waiting for has arrived. And it’s not from Apple, Samsung or any of the major mobile device manufacturers. It’s from a small company, the same one who made the iControlPad. As one might expect from a group who named its product the iControlPad 2.

Like its predecessor, the iControlPad 2 can connect to any device that supports Bluetooth. But as you can see, the iControl Pad 2 has a lot more to offer. It packs a 55-key keyboard, a d-pad, four face buttons, two analog nubs, two shoulder buttons and more into a case that’s about as wide as the iPhone 4 is tall. It also has a new swiveling clamp, so you can tuck it behind your phone while still keeping it attached, and a 1360mAh battery that lasts up to 14 hours per charge.

The iControlPad 2 can also connect via USB and is open source, meaning it can be made to control all sorts of devices. Imagine using just one remote to game on your phone and tablet, control your HTPC and order your robot butler to attack the neighbors. I am vividly imagining that last bit.

Best of all, the iControlPad 2 can be made to work with a lot of games with virtual buttons thanks to BluTrol, the same app used by the iCade 8-Bit. Skip to about 3:30 in the video below to see how easy it is to map the buttons. What isn’t clear is if the app is built-in to the iControlPad 2 or if we have to jailbreak the device to install and use the app.

Pledge at least $69 (USD) to its Kickstarter fundraiser to reserve your own iControlPad 2, and check out its official website for more information. Of all the controllers I’ve seen, I think this has the best potential of becoming a standard controller for mobile devices.

[via Hack A Day]

I think we can all agree that technology is a great thing. The right application of technology can make just about anything you want to do easier and more effective. If you’re a gadget fiend looking to get into shape, Fitbit has a new device up for pre-order called the One.

It’s sort of like a high-tech pedometer that you wear day and night. During the day, the device records all sorts of information about your activity such as the number of steps you take, the amount of calories you burn, the distance you travel, and the number of stairs you climb. At night, it records the number of hours you sleep, and the quality of your sleep.

It will tell you how many times a night you wake up and how long and how well you snoozed. In the mornings, it can also wake you with a vibrating silent alarm. The device captures all this data and can automatically sync data with your computer or smartphone via Bluetooth, and you can earn badges and place yourself on leader boards online.

You can pre-order the Fitbit One right now for $99.95(USD).

Some walk lights have buttons you can press to let the system know that there are pedestrians waiting to cross, while some others have a Pong game unit instead.

Too bad you can only find the latter in Germany.

Apparently someone thought that pedestrians needed some entertainment while they wait for the lights to turn red. That entertainment came in the form of Street Pong. These basically allow pedestrians on opposite sides of the street to play pong while the cars go zooming past.

The cool thing is that there’s actually a timer which counts down just how much playing time you have left before it’s time to cross the street.

Awesome stuff. Now if we can only get these everywhere.

[via Geekologie]