Getting ready for an afternoon of football, but have nothing to do during halftime? The Smoke Labs Media Network has the cure, with the best news from our WinMo and BlackBerry blogs in the past week.
click through for great news from the past week
Monthly Archive for November, 2008
The Meizu M8 is yet another Apple ripoff. Why do I even report about these things? I’m just fueling the Chinese dragon to continue putting out these bastard phones. I’m destroying our economy one post at a time. Well if you want to contribute to the downfall of Western civilization by buying counterfeit products and undoing years of hard labor and innovation, you’ll be pleased to know the phone is launching December 8th. Is this phone even hitting stores? Maybe you can find it in your local dumpling shop.
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Touchgrind is finallly available on the App Store. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on this game because of its realistic skateboarding style and sounds. The guys have done a great job of recreating the clicks and clacks of landing a sick flip trick. I also like the way the finger movements replicate the necessary movements to get the board spinning. Did you ever skateboard? If so you remember the sensation you got from landing that first heel flip. I remember looking up hoping someone saw it but keeping a poker face so if anyone did it would look like it was on purpose and not a total fluke. Touchgrind is available on the App Store for $4.99. Oh and if you haven’t skateboarded before, an acid drop is one of the first tricks you learn skating.
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Features:
- True physics
- Innovative multi-touch controls
- 12 unlockable boards with different abilities
- Warm Up, Jam Session and Competition game modes
- Tutorial videos
- Stunning 3D graphics
- Realistic sound
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I love when new concept phones hit the Internet. I get to sit here and marvel at what OS they might be using and what cool apps we could develop for them. The latest is from a Taiwanese research institute that has revealed a smartphone that can double its screen size to 5 inches. But that’s not the best part. The mock-up uses a flexible screen so you can bend at the 3 inch mark to create various screen sizes. It seems like either a developers worst nightmare or dream come true. If I knew more about the dev process I might be able to tell which one.
Click through for amazing pics of this new concept phone
TouchArcade has done a great job of putting together a list of discounted iPhone apps and games. The list includes a ton of games that have become free as well as some significant price drops. I haven’t done a Black Friday post yet so this is it. Because I’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings in Asia and the Middle East, to be totally honest I just found out about Black Friday about a week ago and I still don’t really get it. Why do people want to shop after Thanksgiving? Are you drunk on turkey and need to spend cash? Anyways, great prices after the jump.t
Click through to read some awesome Black Friday deals
We’ve all seen the videos of the cell phone gun on YouTube. It’s a little demonstration of the gun and how powerful it is. It’s definitely strong enough to kill someone from a distance. After watching the video, thousands of people all went “Oh my god! That’s awful! But how can I get one?” Well Italian police discovered a .22 caliber cellphone gun during a raid on a Camorra (Naples Mafia) compound.
Fully loaded, the gun’s capable of firing four shots in quick succession through the antenna using buttons on the keypad as the trigger. Officers also seized bullet proof vests, drugs, ammunition and thousands of pounds in cash.
I doubt the drug dealers were ever going to use this. I’m sure they just saw the same YouTube video we all did and had the cash to pay for one.
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TELUS has a section of their website where you can input your favorite elements of a mobile device and it will tell you what the best device is for what you want. What’s really funny about it is that they took the “monkey and a typewriter” theme but changed it to “meerkat and change-o-tron.” So I wanted to see what phone they would give me if I just turned all the settings to full blast. After a long Rube Goldberg experience, you get a suggestion. TELUS recommended me the HTC Touch Pro. Woohoo!
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It turns out Nokia is abandoning ship and leaving Japan. The company is having problems keeping up with the turnaround and custom nature of devices in Japan and will therefore stop selling them entirely. The Nokia model of taking your time to perfect a device and slowly releasing devices just doesn’t cut it over there. In Japan, it seems you need to be constantly releasing new devices with new features and catering to each little trend that emerges. I suspect the time to market for a device in Japan is a matter of a month. Although the above video has nothing to do with the story, it’s a good video from a Japanese blogger I really like. He explains how to populate your RSS feeds with Japanese blogs. Something that, if you did, you’d already know about this story.
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Gimme the Bold! Gimme the Bold!
I am a definition gadget whore. I will sell out king and country for the latest in gizmos; I guess that makes me more of a gadget traitor.
Last summer around the iPhone craze I upgraded my high-end Sony Ericsson camera phone to the glorious Nokia N95 8GB. I wanted a device that was a real powerhouse feature-wise without making me look like an obvious iPhone turbo-nerd. Things have been going well for the device but I was starting to long for something with better text entry than the hardly-predictive T9. Who has ever used “shiv” in a text message, I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Continue reading this simple guide to getting your BlackBerry Bold carrier subsidized
RMIT Bachelor of Arts (Music Industry) students enrolled in a semester 1 course entitled ‘Concept Development’ use audio software such as Ableton Live, Protools, Logic and Audacity to make sweet ringtones that are available for free to download.
Try the following ringtones for yourself. If you like them, click here for more.
Emma (click here to download)
“I created this ringtone because I like ambient ringtones. It sounds good on my phone…so it should on yours.”
Kelly (click here to download)
“I’m a classical composer, short film composer and violinist, doing music business at RMIT - for something different.”
Rhythmnus Runneris (click here to download)
“… is a performer of beats, playing beats teaching beats and a lover of anything with deep groove and soul. Rhythmnus wants to improve all aspects of his musical groove and be the best Rhythmnus Runneris teacher of beats he can be.”
Alex (click here to download)
“I am in RMIT because of it’s name for Creative Media. The portfolios look stunning. I’ve found the courses very practical and the University has proved to me that they are helping students to develop skills for the real world.”
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