Bowline -
Promising framework for making ruby apps with html5\javascript. Too bad it doesn’t currently supports windows so I can’t try it. Unless someone forked it already to make it really cross-platform.
How to Silence Vuvuzela Horns in World Cup Broadcasts
(via kemaljovic, peetypassion)
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Wait, is the 3DS more hardcore-friendly? look how many actual games have they announced (for the wii too). This means they are either going back to their roots or (more likely) finally understood no one gives a shit about cooking mamas and vitality sensors at E3.
Sounds like a great time to introduce Xbox Live in Greece
Metal Gear Rising it's all about the cutting of people -
I’m surprised no one did this before, considering body dismemberment was a killer feature many years ago. Still, I wonder if this will offer any interesting gameplay or will just let you feel the ultimate badass. As long as you can do the crazy shit Goemon Ishikawa does, probably cutting the environment is way more interesting than slicing people in half.
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Reeder for iPad just came out. Let’s be clear there: it is not good yet, but it is close, and seemingly on the good direction.
So here’s the problem: RSS readers for the iPad sucks. There’s no way around it. There seems to be two different paths currently followed by their developers: they either adapt the interface of a traditional reader or look for new, native, solutions.
The first batch of readers was the most traditional. Apps like NetnewsWire and Newsrack are clearly inspired by the Mail app on the iPad side, and by the mac version of NetNewsWire itself. They do the job, but they sure don’t give a good feel and are kinda slow too use. Be prepared to tap around a lot.
Then there’s the other club, the Pulses and The Early Editions (and also Google Reader Play). I don’t really get Pulse’s interface and I find it terrible for reading more than a couple of feeds. I haven’t tried The Early Edition, but I don’t understand the trend of replicating a different media including all the design limitations of that media.
I think Reeder sits kinda inbetween, using an user interface not unlike the ones used by other readers, but mixes it with a little bit of gesture-based navigation and a better system for browsing through folders.
By default you see the Google Reader folders and you can navigate through them. Most of the navigation buttons are on the left side of the screen, but you have also a couple of gestures you can use instead of the buttons. Pinching from inside a feed, for example, goes back to the list of feed or the list of folders. Gestures let you even enjoy news in Portrait Mode, which is something no other reader does well.
It takes a bit of the Photo and Mail App designs and merges them together and it kinda works. Not everything is perfect in this first version and, like in the iPhone version, any feed management option is left out, so you have to fire Google Reader on Safari if you want to add a new feed or move one into a different folder. I don’t mind on the phone, but now I’m gradually moving my feed reading from the pc to the Pad, so I miss the feature a bit.
Also, I still don’t understand the buttons on the top of any iPad interfaces: it makes sense on the iPhone, but on the iPad it is awkward in both landscape and portrait mode if you’re holding the device with both hands. It makes more sense to put those buttons on the side (like Reeder already does for the most part).
After the jump, I’ll finish with a couple comparison shots between Reeder and Newsrack (which is better and cheaper than NetNewsWire and it’s the one I think you should get in case you don’t like Reeder’s interface).
Real Time Video-to-ASCII Converter Written in JavaScript | Webmonkey | Wired.com
Cool little phone they’ve cobbled together this time.
The retina thing is certainly cool from a technical standpoint, but I don’t actually see the way it could be useful for reading text. The full page of a website look better, ok, but I don’t think people are actually gonna read it fullscreen. They are still gonna tap to zoom on articles, so this is not really a gamechanger. But I see the appeal of crisper photos and videos.
How FaceMate actually works? The keynote gave the impression that the actual call goes still through the cellphone carrier and voip just adds video. That means you still pay for it. Would have been cool for Apple to offer a full voip service. But I guess they don’t have yet the balls to anger AT&T and the other carriers.
The video is pretty nice. A better camera is still the only thing I miss of a 3GS over my 3G. And this goes just up to eleven. And that image quality might also make augmented reality apps easier to do.
I don’t really see the point of iBooks on iPhones, but hey, PDF support done properly is something I want on the iPad badly (Goodreader, which is the only decent PDF app right now, still lacks a good page-turning system)
I’m a bit concerned about iAds. Right now ads are only on free apps, and I hope they don’t pop-up into paid apps too. Also, I wonder how that will work: will the app download hd video content while I’m on the 3G network?
Creatures of the Mechazoic Era
Just wanted to say something nice about 100 Rogues, the best iPhone roguelike I could find on the app store. It’s pretty good as a condensed version of what a game like this should be about, and hard enough to assure good replayability. And they’ve got the balls to make hardcore mode the default game mode and they deserve kudos for that. Also, it works incredibly well on the iPad with just a bit of pixelated art that adds to the 16bit look of the game.
I think it’s the first time I say this: I’d buy a proper Pc game made by those guys.