Hasta La Gadget!

You may or may not be old enough to remember Sierra On-Line, makers of such fine games as Leisure Suit Larry, the King’s Quest, and Police Quest, but none of that matters anymore. Thanks to the folks over at Sarien, you now have access to these glorious titles via your iPad‘s web browser. The entire catalog has been ported over, and the games which were previously available via the web only are now there on your Apple tablet! The whole shebang is now hosted on Amazon‘s content distribution network, and the games have been extensively tweaked for that multitouch interface. Sarien hasn’t apparently been issued a cease and desist from Activision — owners of the catalog — yet, so get these free gems of yesteryear while you can.

Sierra On-Line games hit iPad via web app, those old enough to remember them rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Who could have guessed, in January 2011, that we would publish 453 stories on Apple’s yet-to-be-announced iPad?

And yet that’s the number we did publish, and four people guessed exactly that number.

A little over a year ago, we challenged you to guess how many stories we’d publish in 2010 on the topic of Apple’s forthcoming tablet.

We knew it was a hot topic: Every story we’d written to that date on an “Apple tablet” got tons of attention, and lots of comments (both pro and con). We’d seen tantalizing rumors, and figured it would either be a hot product or a spectacular flop. We knew we’d be writing a lot of stories on the topic to meet the demand for information on it.

Little did we know that we’d average about 2 stories for every workday.

We received over 10,000 entries for the contest. Guesses ranged from 0 to 99999999999999999999 (followed by a lot more nines). There were some nerdy guesses too, like 3.14159 and 6.0221415 × 10²³. There were some snarky answers, like “365*x where x=# tablets sold” and “0 (i hope).” Someone even tried to inject a function in order to capitalize on the wisdom of the crowd, with an entry that read: =AVERAGE(A2:A1000)+1. Sorry, that formula did not compute.

Eliminating the truly absurd guesses (anything over 10,000), the average of all remaining guesses was 309. Not too far from the actual number, but not nearly close enough for the averaging function to have worked in any case.

To count the number of iPad stories, I used a Google search to find all stories published on Wired.com from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010 that included “iPad” in the title. I turned off any content filtering and told Google to show me all the duplicates.

Searching on the titles was the easiest objective way to determine if the iPad was a major focus for the story, and not just something mentioned in passing.

In addition, because the name “iPad” was only used after Apple’s iPad unveiling on Jan. 27, 2010, I also did a search for stories with “Apple tablet” in the name published from January 1 to January 30, 2010.

I put both search results into a spreadsheet, sorted by name, and eliminated duplicates as well as any automatically-generated category and tag pages.

The resulting total was 453. I found four entrants who had guessed that number, so used a random-number generator to pick between them. I did so blind: The columns showing any personally-identifying information were hidden from the moment the contest started. It was only after picking the winner that I revealed the columns containing his name.

And so our winner is Mike Gorman.

Mike, you’ll be getting an iPad from Wired. Congratulations.

Photo credit: Robert Occhialini/Flickr

Deep in the bowels of the Las Vegas Convention Center last week, we found Victorinox, makers of fine folding Swiss Army knives.

They’ve made the leap into the 21st century with USB drives that form part of their knives’ complement of tools. What we didn’t expect was just how much data they’ve managed to cram into a tiny, elegant, folding package.

The Victorinox Slim is available in capacities up to 64GB. A larger model, the Slim Duo, includes two side-by-side drives for a maximum total capacity of 128GB.

Both are about as big as three or four dimes laid end to end, and fit nicely into even very cramped USB slots.

Like the Sandisk microSD card we mentioned last year, the Victorinox drives manage to cram so much data into such a tiny space by layering memory chips on top of one another inside the skinny, 1mm thick chip package that forms the heart of the drive. It’s an impressive feat of electronic engineering.

The fact that the drives have an understated Swiss Army knife design is pretty nice, too.

We’ve been hearing a ton of rumors about what direction Apple’s next set of products will take and when they’ll be available — but now we’ve got some concrete information from reliable sources which should make the path a little clearer. And that includes info on the next iPad, the iPhone 5, the second iteration of the new Apple TV, and a big change coming for all of the company’s mobile products. Want to know the scoop? Read along after the break to get the goods.

Continue reading Exclusive: The future of the iPad 2, iPhone 5, and Apple TV, and why Apple is shifting its mobile line to Qualcomm chipsets

Exclusive: The future of the iPad 2, iPhone 5, and Apple TV, and why Apple is shifting its mobile line to Qualcomm chipsets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no official confirmation from Boxee’s blog or Twitter account yet, but owners of its Box are experiencing a fully activated Vudu app with the SD, HD, HDX and 3D streams the service is famous for. The only glitches reported so far seem to have been cleared up by just restarting the device so hopefully whatever delayed its launch past the planned 2010 window is entirely resolved. There’s no firmware update needed, so give it a shot if you haven’t already, especially since Vudu’s still offering a free flick for all new signups. With Netflix streaming still an unreachable dream for its Box (unless one also happens to own practically any other media streaming device on the market) we hope the company rewards its developers with a long, long break of at least five minutes before sending them back to work on our Watch Instantly access.

[Thanks, Parris]

Update: VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen has let us know that while the app was released to a few hundred testers “by mistake” it’s been taken down so they can finish testing before it is eventually released “with much fanfare.” Sorry Boxee devs, no five minute break for you today!

Vudu movie streaming app is (not) live on the Boxee Box – update originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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