Posts in news

Firemint Acquires Puzzle Quest’s Infinite Interactive

Looks like iOS game company acquisitions are the new “Google has acquired”: in an unexpected turn of events, popular game studio Firemint (creators of award-winning iOS titles such as Flight Control or Real Racing) has acquired the company behind Puzzle Quest, the Infinite Interactive team. Both companies are based in Australia, and a press release went live last night to announce the deal and the fact that “Firemint is welcoming Steve Fawkner”, founder of Infinite Interactive in 1989. As you can see in the graphics above, the companies are already joking about the games that will come as a result of this acquisition, whether or not we’ll be able to put our hands on “Puzzle Control” or “Flight Quest”.

A curious detail is hidden in the press release (which we’ve embedded below): apparently, Firemint’s Rob Murray and Steve Fawkner are long-time friends, and Fawkner showed Murray an early prototype of Puzzle Quest in 2003, receiving feedback from him. Now, he will be able to get feedback on a daily basis and who knows – maybe we are really going to see a more RPG-oriented Real Racing or puzzles in Flight Control. The idea sounds awful, I know, but game designers can usually make awful ideas happen. Read more

Clickfree Unveils $249 Time Capsule Alternative

Looking for an unofficial, cheaper, black-er Time Capsule alternative? Perhaps you just don’t want your Time Capsule to die prematurely while you were just getting to love it? You’re in luck. Amongst CES fever, new gadgets and weird round-shaped televisions, Clickfree has announced a wanna-be Time Capsule competitor that’s basically a hard drive with a built-in 802.11n radio that automates backups from your Macs and PCs.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s Time Capsule, or like me you own an AirPort Extreme with an attached USB external drive, you know how it works: in your Mac’s System Preferences you set the external network drive as a Time Machine destination, and backups will happen wirelessly in the background all the time. It’s unobtrusive, smart and pretty damn awesome. Clickfree is showcasing the product at CES as we speak, and they say no software is needed to run the backup system after an initial setup. One of the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme advantages is the AirPort Utility app Apple gives you to configure almost anything in the device, so I don’t know about Clickfree’s approach. Maybe it’s one of those things that really just works without manual setup.

The Clickfree Wireless comes in two flavors: a 500 GB one that retails at $179, and a 1 TB one that can be yours at $249. [via Engadget]

Why Is Saudi Arabia Blocking MobileMe?

As noted by 9to5mac and Arabic website Apple-wd, it’s currently impossible to access MobileMe’s web interface available at www.me.com from the web browser in Saudi Arabia. Since a few hours, the webpage returns an error and a message asking if “you think the requested page should not be blocked”. No word yet from Apple on this, but apparently thousands of users in Saudi Arabia are experiencing the issue.

MobileMe’s web interface allows users to check on email accounts and calendars, contacts, iDisk and even the Find my iPhone feature, which is Apple’s tracking service for stolen or lost iOS devices. Some users are reporting that only the http:// version of Me.com is blocked, while the https:// is working just fine. Others claim both http:// and https:// are being blocked. Direct links to MobileMe’s services (me.com/mail, for example) are reportedly unavailable as well.

In October, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries that didn’t get the FaceTime functionality on the iPhone 4. As of today, it’s still unknown what the real cause of the block was.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary App Adds Dragon Voice Recognition

Merriam-Webster launched a free, ad-supported iPhone dictionary app in mid-December. The dictionary app can pronounce words by pressing the speaker icon in the red button but did you know that you can speak a word for it to search for too? A few weeks ago, they updated it with voice search, first for a free iPhone dictionary app. Just press the microphone in the blue button next to the search text box and it activates the new voice search.

The built-in voice search is powered by Nuance Communications’ very popular Dragon voice recognition technology and it’s very accurate but you would expect nothing less from Dragon. Simply look up a word by speaking it directly into your iPhone. You don’t need a connection to the internet, so it’s very iPod Touch friendly. The UI is polished and the ads don’t distract you too badly; Reader Mode is very cool - it shows you a definition in full screen, landscape or portrait, hiding both the header and the footer.

Voice search is an example of the kind of innovation that Merriam-Webster has been bringing to the dictionary business for more than 150 years,” says President and Publisher John M. Morse. “And with the mobile platform being the fastest growing part of our business, we’re pleased to bring our content to wherever our audience happens to be.

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HandBrake Updates To 0.9.5 In Time For Post-Holiday DVD Ripping

If you’ve been stuck in airport with a luggage case full of DVDs, you might be happy to be returning home to a brand-spankin’ new HandBrake. PowerPC users will no longer be supported from this version on, so don’t update if you’re still toting an old PowerBook. Intel users now have available some delicious new features like dragging and dropping videos onto the main window for scanning, mp3 audio support in mp4 files, improved DVD Main Feature detection, and BluRay disc structure support. Our friends at TUAW noted the latest update wasn’t accessible through the app’s built in updater, so you can check out the remaining release highlights along with a download-link by clicking right-here. You can also check our source below for more information (a commenter noted subtitle-support was still wonky).

[Handbrake 0.9.5 via TUAW]

Real Life Angry Birds: LEGO, Cake, Arcade Booth

In the past weeks, terrific App Store sales aside, we saw the Angry Birds franchise making its way to Apple Retail Stores with official cases for iPhones and iPod touches and custom MacBook Air skins realized by loyal fans of the birds and pigs. Today, we’ve got more real-life Angry Birds creations and mods to share.

First off, an Angry Birds arcade booth spotted by MIC Gadget in China which lets you defeat actual pig plush toys using a slingshot. Looks like fun, too bad I think we won’t see this become available in Europe or the US anytime soon.

Other fan-made creations found on the Internet today include a full-featured Angry Birds set made of LEGO bricks and a birthday cake for the real iOS aficionado. Great stuff, and I bet the cake was delicious.

The only downside? There’s no achievement to unlock for when you eat it. Read more

Geohot To Release Untethered iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak?

Last week we reported Internet celebrity hacker Geohot might call his next jailbreak tool / utility rubyra1n, basing on some speculation from the domain he registered and the fact that (PS3 hacking aside) he’s been quiet in regards to the iOS jailbreak scene since the release of iOS 4.1 and limera1n.

As noted by Covering Web, it looks like the Dev Team itself knows something about Geohot’s effort to bring a proper untethered jailbreak to iOS 4.2.1. Currently, owners of jailbroken devices running the latest OS from Apple are forced to boot through redsn0w, an app for Mac and Windows that loads the iOS firmware file and allows a device to boot in “tethered” mode. This is not really convenient, and an untethered tool might simplify things a lot by letting users install Cydia and boot their iPhones and iPads normally.

A recent tweet from Musclenerd says:

I hear geohot does have an untether actually! Though not for all devices.

Take this with the proverbial grain of salt, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see Geohot coming out from his silence and release a brand new jailbreak tool for the latest version of iOS. The guy plays his own game, as seen with limera1n before.

The 90 Megapixel Steve Jobs Portraits Made of Apple Products

Realized by the popular Tsevis visual design studio, this might be one of the most impressive portraits of Apple CEO Steve Jobs you’ve ever seen. The design was commissioned by Italian magazine Panorama and ended up on the front page of the Economy section. The portrait comes in two different versions – the original files are 90 megapixel images available here and here.

If you look closer, the portraits are made exclusive of Apple products: iPhones, iPads, iMacs and MacBooks make every single details of Jobs’ face – yes, even the glasses.

The creative director of the magazine requested a ‘white on white’ portrait where Steve Jobs was to be illustrated with all of Apple’s white products. I created the mosaic but then became curious with what a black version would look like.

These mosaics are made with custom developed scripts, hacks and lots of love, using my Mac, Studio Artist, the Adobe Creative Suite and good music.

More portraits be Tsevis are available here but if you ask me, these are the best ones to date.

With Airplay Speaker Still Missing, iHome Announces Bevvy Of New Products For iPhone, iPad

iHome is a favorite of mine when it comes to finding a good bedroom clock/radio & speaker for my iPod touch. Expanding the line to include Apple’s iPad, you can expect a whole slew of iHome gadgetry to arrive later this year to support your army of iDevices you likely received over the holidays. A couple products really stuck out to Federico and I, so instead of going through iHome’s entire catalogue of product-sauce which you can review at iLounge, we’ll share our favorites past the break.

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