Hasta La Gadget!

Want more evidence of the patent degradation of modern society? Well, here’s Sony with its latest idea for selling games. The feature-eroding demo concept gives the user the full game to start off with, but then grows increasingly more limited the more you play it. In racing games, that means the number of tracks you can race on gradually dwindles, whereas in classically themed smack-em-ups like God of War your sword, erm… well, it also dwindles. We’re kind of on the fence about this — on the one hand, it’s hilariously insulting to the user as it perpetually nags him about what a cheapskate he is for not purchasing the entire game, and yet on the other it does at least let you taste the full breadth of the game, albeit for a limited time. However you may feel, this is still at the application stage, but given the patent office’s recent track record, there’s no reason why Sony should be denied the rights over this supposed innovation.

Sony wants to patent ‘feature erosion’ in game demos, illustrates the idea vividly originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mmm, digital magazines. They are the little bites of paid-for content that all the publishers believe we should be deeply enthralled with. Hoping to show us why exactly it is that we should all care (and pay) for prepackaged digital content is Wired‘s latest and most comprehensive demo of its tablet app on an unspecified 16:9 device. Setting aside hopefuls like the Joojoo and Adam for a moment, it is clear that this is ultimately intended for Apple’s iPad — the device that stands by far the biggest chance of making the digimag concept a commercial success. Interesting choice of development partner, then, as Condé Nast has opted to use Adobe’s AIR platform for the underlying mechanics. Adobe promises its Packager for iPhone, part of CS5, will allow devs to easily port AIR apps to run natively on the iPad, but until Apple gives its official assent to the final code, nothing is guaranteed — and Packager hasn’t even officially shipped yet. As far as the app goes, it’ll come with Twitter and Facebook integration, and navigation is geared toward the touching and swiping model so prevalent today. See it on video after the break.

Continue reading Wired’s tablet app goes on show: developed on AIR, heading to the iPad (video)

Wired’s tablet app goes on show: developed on AIR, heading to the iPad (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering what kind of apps are enabled by the “world’s first HDTV-based application store“? Check out this CES show floor demo of a cross platform game tying together a Samsung flat-screen TV and cellphone to experience the magic of virtual fishing. We’ll probably keep our dedicated systems for gaming, but for a slight hint of what a crossplatform app store has to offer, by all means take a look.

Continue reading Samsung Apps demo ties phone & TV together in Wiimote-like bliss

Samsung Apps demo ties phone & TV together in Wiimote-like bliss originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know that Condé Nast tablet / digital magazine demo we saw recently (non-ironically paging through a copy of Wired)? Well now Time Inc. has gotten in on the same game, showing off its version of a digimag running a touch-friendly issue of Sports Illustrated. The company not only buzzed everyone with the charming walkthough video — a floating hand paging through SI on a sleek, black tablet (embedded after the break) — but also had a live, functioning variation of the product up and running on a touchscreen HP laptop. The gist of the project seems to be that the publisher will be able to offer this digitized version of its magazines in some sort of agnostic format, one that would be accessible to PCs and phantom Apple tablets alike. Peter Kafka over at All Things D says that he had a chance to play with the demo and it was, “quite a bit of fun.” While it’s clear that both Time and Condé Nast are taking parallel routes to online publishing (the former is purely in concept mode, the latter is working with Adobe on digital versions of its titles as we speak), one thing is painfully clear: both companies have shockingly similar ideas about what the future of magazine publishing looks like. We hope Apple has been informed.

Continue reading Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split

Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you, like us, are tired of the so-called browser wars trying to woo us with barely identifiable, context-dependent speed differences, this might be of interest. Firefox is about to get a whole lot more sentient on us — at least those of us with accelerometers in our hardware — courtesy of a new device API that is capable of maintaining a webpage’s vertical orientation relative to the ground, no matter what sort of salto mortale the underlying machine (Mac or otherwise) might be doing. Think of it as the cherry atop your Windows 7 multitouch tablet cake. Originally intended for mobile platforms only, this software will make its way into version 3.6 of the full-fledged browser — and you can find an early demo of what it can do just past the break.

Continue reading Firefox 3.6 will support accelerometers, make the internet seasick (video)

Filed under: Software

Firefox 3.6 will support accelerometers, make the internet seasick (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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