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Posts Tagged ‘Holes’

Transformers: War for Cybertron shows how it all began

Cybertron isn’t just the homeworld of the Transformers… it is a Transformer itself. It was the first Transformer. In War for Cybertron you get to explore the Civil War between the Autobots and the Decepticons as they blast their way across the planet. At GDC we were treated to a long demo of the game, and yes, it looks good.

The characters were given all-new designs, and some of them will in fact be made into toys. The game takes place before Optimus gains his “Prime” designation, and shows his early days of gaining the trust of the Autobots; we get to see just how he learned to be a leader on the battleground. On the flip side of things, the game explores how Megatron met Star Scream. “We also explore why Megatron keeps this guy, who is basically a back-stabber, around,” we were told. This game is taking the Transformers lore back to basics, and filling in some serious holes.

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Boomerang’s Offerwall crowdsources the best offers for social games

Offers have been a scandalous thing in the social game business. Critics have accused offer providers — which let you pay for a virtual good in a social game by filling out a special offer in lieu of a credit card payment — of running scams on consumers.

So the idea from Boomerang Networks is clever and simple: let the consumers decide which offers are best. Honor Gunday, chief executive of Boomerang, told me today that his company filters out the best offers from the best advertisers as a matter of policy. But on top of that, he lets consumers rate the best offers on an Offerwall. There, consumers can rate and review the best virtual currency offers. It’s like crowdsourcing, where the wisdom of the crowds reveals the best quality offers.

Good offers rise to the top. Bad offers are booted. Users can give offers a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, based on their experience. They can also explain their ratings with reviews and comments, which are then visible to everyone. When you accept an offer, you can see how many people accepted it in the last day or so. Gunday says that if a consumer turns down an offer, that offer isn’t shown again. That protects the consumer from being annoyed, and it also protects the advertiser from having people fill out multiple offers for the same thing just so they can get a lot of virtual currency.

Rivals include gWallet, Offerpal, Super Rewards (owned by Adknowledge), and TrialPay. Boomerang is trying to fill the holes in the market. One other way it does that is target international markets for in-game offers. It translates offers into 12 languages currently. The San Francisco company has 18 people here and in the Ukraine. It was founded in 2009 and has raised angel funding.

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Android may outsell iPhone in flyover states, thanks to AT&T

A report published Friday morning by ringtone vendor Myxer claims that among Myxer signups, “the number of registered users on the Android operating system has surpassed iPhone users in eight states, with seven of them coming from West and Midwest states including: Arizona, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.”

Myxer’s analysis is simple: Overlay the map of registered users with a map of AT&T’s wireless network coverage, to which the iPhone is tied, via AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple. The pro-Android states are clearly parked in the holes in AT&T’s footprint.

Myxer, a Deerfield Beach, Florida startup founded in 2007 and funded by $4 million from unnamed investors, competes with companies like Jamdat Mobile.

Companies: Apple, Google, Myxer

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Coffee-like stains inspire new type of touchscreen
The magical properties of coffee stains have already spurred on some researchers to develop a better coating for TV screens, and it looks like they’ve now inspired a few folks to create a new type of touchscreen as well. This latest instance apparently began when Hebrew University professor Shlomo Magdassi was working to develop a touchscreen using silver nanoparticles but ran into trouble making the screen conductive while still remaining transparent. As it happens, the coffee-like stains that he and his colleagues had been trying to remove with fast-drying solvents was actually the solution to his problem, since they remained in contact with each other as they dried and preserved conductivity, but left about 95 percent of the light through the holes in the center, thereby making the screen itself almost fully transparent. Of course, there’s still quite a bit more work to be done before the screens move beyond the lab, but Magdassi has apparently already found that copper nanorings can be used in similar manner, and says that the screens could even double as solar panels to give devices a bit of added juice.

Coffee-like stains inspire new type of touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shape-shifting ‘Breathing Chair’ looks to make the beanbag fashionable

Filed under: Household

Shape-shifting ‘Breathing Chair’ looks to make the beanbag fashionable originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile Social Network Wars: Loopt Acquires GraffitiGEO

Loopt, the New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia-backed mobile social network, has acquired a relative newcomer to the scene – Y Combinator startup GraffitiGEO. Multiple sources have confirmed the acquisition, although neither company is commenting.

GraffitiGEO, which launched just a couple of months ago, combines mobile social networking with reviews and games. It’s somewhat similar to the surging foursquare, which has stolen some of the oxygen from the first generation mobile social networks like Loopt.

GraffitiGEO is also preparing to launch an augmented reality application that we previewed in August and that we suspect will launch shortly. Both GraffitiGEO apps fill holes in Loopt’s product lineup, so the acquisition makes a lot of sense. Here’s the video of the application that we included in that post:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Would You Moonlight for Technorati?

Once considered the leading search engine for blog-related queries, Technorati has fallen by the wayside in recent years. With no known strategy around new forms of media, the company quickly began to lose ground as Twitter and other conversational tools grew in popularity. In early July when the company launched Twittorati, it already seemed too late. However, in a surprising move, Technorati is switching gears again with an invitation for writers to join the Technorati blogging network.

Sponsor

In an email to members, the company is encouraging users to become Technorati writers. While it may seem like a natural fit for members to write about their blogging experiences, the company appears to want to expand beyond that by offering members a chance to state their favorite topics and interest areas. While it seems like a strange and cannibalistic move, it will be an uphill battle to persuade regular bloggers to double up on their posts and contribute.

Earlier in the email Technorati addresses why member authority has fallen across the site. The company explains, “As our intent is to measure the influence and attention received on an ongoing basis, we stopped counting static blogroll links, and these links have now aged out of the authority calculations.”

If this tells us anything, it’s that in this new environment of conversational media, many have abandoned their blogs for less labor intensive forms of expression. We just hope the company has some form of compensation for contributors. It’ll be tough convincing bloggers to contribute posts and patch holes in what might already be a sinking ship. Nevertheless, if you’re the type of person who likes a challenge and you’ve got the energy to increase your posts, you can apply for the program on Technorati’s contact page.

Discuss

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First Look: iDisk app

Filed under: iPhone, MobileMe, First Look

Apple’s long-awaited free iDisk (iTunes link) program brings some great new features that makes MobileMe more appealing. But, there are a few holes and the program certainly doesn’t do everything.

Basic layout
When you launch the iDisk app, you’ll see most of folders that you normally have access to in your iDisk, plus any other folders that you might have created. What you won’t see are the Backup, Sites, Software and Web folders that are normally in your iDisk. You can access these folders by enabling them through the software settings. Pressing the edit button will allow you to delete any user-made folders you’ve added to iDisk, but you can’t create new folders.

Along the bottom are buttons for the iDisk itself, recent files viewed, files that you’ve chosen to share and public folders you’ve subscribed to. The settings screen is pretty basic, but leads to one of the gems of this piece of software — an extremely documented help section that goes over every aspect of the app.

Continue reading First Look: iDisk app

TUAWFirst Look: iDisk app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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