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Kia's 'Pop' electric car concept makes our inner urbanite swoon
Kia has largely steered clear of the electric car battlegrounds, focusing instead on smaller, lower-cost options that get good enough gas mileage as-is. It ain't a bad tactic, but considering that even Rolls Royce is purportedly mulling an EV, the automaker was bound to cave to the peer pressure soon or later. During the upcoming Paris Motor Show, Kia is expected to formally introduce the oddity you see above, which is (for now) only known as the "Pop concept." The battery-powered whip will emit no emissions whatsoever, measures in at just three meters long and somehow finds enough room for three humans within. Details beyond that are scant (read: nonexistent), but you can head on over to Autoblog Green if you need a few more images to chew on.
PoP: The Forgotten Sands getting new mode with GameStop pre-orders
Let's face it, buying a game is just too simple. You don't want to just walk into any store and know that you'll get the same game you would get somewhere else. No, you crave complication. Sensing this innate need, Ubisoft has announced, via the Prince of Persia Facebook page, that those who pre-order Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands from GameStop will receive an exclusive new game mode. The offer, incidentally, applies only to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, so PC and Wii gamers are out of luck. The bonus mode is entitled Forgotten Arena and tasks players with defeating "waves of relentless enemies" in classic survival mode style. There is no time limit, killed enemies will regenerate health and the number of enemies increases over time. The description also notes that players who can defeat 100 enemies "may have what it takes to become a real Prince of Persia," though it's unclear if doing so will unlock any actual rewards or any actual royalty. [Via Destructoid]
Rogers gets LG Pop, Fido goes green with Sony Ericsson Naite
Let's circle back and take a look at a couple of big handset launches in the Great White North this month, shall we? Rogers nabbed the LG Pop -- sans solar back -- for a mere CAD $19.99 (about $19) on three-year contract or CAD $174.99 ($166) commitment-free, living up to the phone's philosophy of taking full-touch awesomeness downmarket with a 3 megapixel cam and 3-inch WQVGA display. Next up, Rogers' value brand Fido added the Naite from Sony Ericsson -- the first GreenHeart-branded handset to land anywhere in North America -- for $25 on a two-year deal. The eco-focused candybar (which might tug on the heartstrings of ex-T610 owners) keeps it simple with a 2 megapixel camera, but still manages triband 3G and an integrated FM radio. Both are available now.
Prince of Persia SNES included with The Forgotten Sands on Wii
Which Prince of Persia game features "superb graphic detail and incredibly fluid animation" and "more thrills than a saber duel with a thousand sultans"? If you answered, "Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands," you'd ... well, you'd probably be right. But that text first appeared on the SNES box of 1992's Prince of Persia, an enhanced port of Jordan Mechner's original vizier vanquish-'em-up. Nintendo announced at its San Francisco media event today that the SNES game will be included in the Wii version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, which is slated for release on May 18. Earlier this month, rumors suggested that Prince of Persia Classic -- a direct remake of the original game, initially released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network -- would be included in The Forgotten Sands. Instead, Wii owners get classic Prince of Persia exclusively. Don't fret too much about the platforms, though. You're probably in for more thrills than a saber duel with a thousand sultans no matter what. %Gallery-85713%
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands to continue 'Sands of Time' series
Ubisoft has just announced a new Prince of Persia -- but it's not a sequel to 2008's polarizing adventure (if desired, add unhappy emoticons to sentence). Instead, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands will continue the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy series, complete with "many of the fan-favorite elements" and "new gameplay innovations that gamers have come to expect from the Prince of Persia brand." Oh, and an accompanying film! You can catch the game's premiere trailer on Spike TV's Video Game Awards on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 8 p.m. EST. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is scheduled for release on "consoles and handhelds" in May 2010.
Video: LG GD510 touchscreen 'Pop' is heavy on hype, light on specs
Gotta hand it to LG, it pulled out the big hitting hyperbole with the launch of its otherwise simplistic GD510 touchscreen phone. LG begins with a reminder that it launched "the world's first full touchscreen phone" -- the Prada -- back in January 2007. A claim that Ericsson, Nokia, and others would rightfully dispute. LG then calls the brushed-aluminum GD510, or "Pop," the "most compact 3-inch full touchscreen phone ever made," while boasting of its simplicity. That latter claim is achieved by removing "unnecessary features" that apparently include burdensome WiFi and 3G radios since modern consumers want to browse the internet over GPRS/EDGE. Spec-wise, you get a WQVGA (note the "Q") display, 3 megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory, and a single home key that glows green to call or red to hang-up / cancel. They've also ditched the S-Class UI in favor of something that's presumably less convoluted. There's even an optional solar-panel battery cover which we hear is the number one requested feature on touchscreen phones... right. It does look pretty though, which is saying a lot for a phone packing a solar panel. Hitting Europe in mid October and the US at the end of October if the Bluetooth SIG entry is to be believed. Video promo after the break.%Gallery-74326%Read -- Bluetooth SIG Read -- LG press release
Eyes on LG's Color Pop monitors, just called Coke in the south
Hey princess, look over here -- daddy's got a pair of new LG W30 Color Pop monitors for you. These sticky-sweet parfaits of sugar-liquid crystal come all the way from South Korea. Do you know where that is? Sure you do, just below that little man with the bouffant hairdo and Elvis specs. These 37-mm slim monitors are available in your choice of Oreo Black, Jelly Pink, Blueberry Purple, Applemint Green, and Hawaiian Blue and ship with a glossy, two-tone frame to further unsettle your mother's sense of refinement. They come in medium (18.5-inch, 1366x768 pixels) and big (21.5-inch, 1920x1080) sizes and begin shipping in the US come September and worldwide later in the year. Just for you, 'cause you're worth it honey.
Clarification on the iPhone Spotlight email issue
Earlier today, I posted about the ability to find previously deleted emails using the Spotlight search on the iPhone, adding to the already intense swarm of news surrounding this issue. My findings were that, by ensuring your trash folder was emptied and refreshed, the problem appeared to be solved. However, many of you responded indicating that this did not work for you, and that you were still seeing cached messages. Then Cult of Mac posted an update to their original piece, suggesting that the problem was more specific to POP accounts. Although I had tested both POP and IMAP accounts with similar results, I decided to investigate further. First, to clarify: The problem here is *not* with Spotlight caching the contents of your email, as many have suggested. Spotlight simply indexes the available content on your phone, and logs a pointer to it. When you tap a search result, it opens the associated application and tells that app to view the content. In this case, it sees an email message and asks Mail.app to open it, which it does, because Mail.app still has the message content stored locally. Secondly, this appears to be specific to POP accounts. On IMAP or Exchange accounts, deleted email messages do appear in Spotlight results until the trash folder is emptied, as described in my earlier post. I created a fresh account and configured it for POP access, then downloaded the mail. Searching spotlight, I could see the message I was looking for. I then went back to the message and deleted it, and that's where the fun starts. I conducted this same test multiple times, and found that sometimes, the message would now show up in Spotlight twice, one result opened the message, intact, with the Inbox listed as the folder to return to; the other displaying a message in the trash folder, but with an error displaying the body of the message. Other times, I would only see one result, pointed directly to the trash.
Happy Father's Day from WoW.com!
This was so cute we had to share -- that future Alliance kid at right is Cara's son Riley, no doubt owning it up on Daddy's Death Knight in the battlegrounds. That's right -- the DK who rolled over you with Howling Blast in Wintergrasp yesterday was actually played by a 9.5 month old baby. How's that burn feel? Cara tells us, and the pic was part of a "WoW you're a great father" theme for Riley's first Father's Day.From all of us here at WoW.com, here's a shout out to all of the fathers out there, both Dads of players and Dads who are players themselves. Take a break from taking down Ulduar or grinding out those Argent Tournament quests and make sure to give your Dad a call (and/or the usual tie or socks) today. Or just send him an in-game email for those of you who play with your pops. Happy Father's Day!
Sapient's touchscreen Coke machine brings pop into the 21st century
Man, it just isn't fair -- we keep seeing all these kick-ass new vending machines, but when we want a can of Mr. Pibb or RC Cola we're stuck feeding quarters into something that looks like it was last serviced whenever Pac-Man Fever went storming up the charts. Then again, that's probably what we get for spending all our time in pool halls and bowling alleys. If you're lucky enough to head to one of the 190-plus (and growing!) malls owned by the Simon Property Group sometime in the not too distant future, you just might have the pleasure of getting your cold, satisfying beverage from one of the new-fashioned touch screen Coke machines from Sapient. The screen is pretty much the entire front of the machine, and the interface is simple (as you'd expect), but pretty cool nonetheless -- select your pop bottle, spin it around, take a look at the ingredients, and vend -- quasi-Minority Report-style. "Futuretistic," no? This thing takes cash and plastic, and it should be out in the US soon enough -- readers in Europe and the UK will have to wait until sometime in 2010 to get in on the action. Video after the break.%Gallery-42386%[Thanks, Trent]
Counterpoint on Warhammer Online's Fortress siege population caps
We reported earlier this week that Warhammer Online has been having some issues with Fortress sieges, and opted to implement a solution -- population thresholds. That solution has led to fewer Fortress-related crashes and overall improved performance, but not everyone is as enthusiastic about the changes Mythic has made to Warhammer Online. A good example of this type of dissent among the WAR ranks can be found at MMOCrunch in a criticism written by Paragus. He takes aim at the Tier 4 campaign changes to Fortresses and states that imposing population thresholds diminishes the very thing WAR bills itself as -- a massive realm-vs.-realm game. He doesn't pull any punches when he states, "The fact that they are trying to spin this by saying 'to allow even more players to participate' by capping population in a given area only makes me feel better about pulling my guild out of this game. I'll be waiting for the flames from Warhammer fans."
Tunes for toons while raiding
We've talked about listening to music while playing the game before. While the "actual" game music is pretty good (I've gone back and forth between having it on and off during the time I've played, and at this point I'm in an "on" phase, so I can hear all the new Northrend music). But Lazaragh on Jubei'thos wants to know about a specific situation: what do you listen to while raiding?Personally, while I'll often have a podcast or a movie on while playing solo or sometimes running five mans (if I'm feeling particularly awake), I tend to have to focus while raiding, so I usually turn the background noise off and listen to Vent or just the audio queues ingame. Any more than that an I get distracted. But there are all kinds of answers in the thread, from trance to pop to metal (Dragonforce FTW!), and pretty much across every genre that you can think of. What might be most interesting about all of this is that the music apparently has no effect on gameplay, though it'd be interesting to see the raiding performance of people who listen to music while playing against people who don't.Maybe an enterprising raiding group can do an experiment and figure that out. I'd guess it's just personal taste, but it does seem to me that even if you say your attention isn't divided, the music has to be a little distraction. Maybe it's just me. What kind of music do you raid with?
TUAW Exclusive: Nnooo's Pop for iPhone
Pop is a new game coming soon to the iPhone by a company called Nnooo, and TUAW got an exclusive look at the new app before the official announcement of the release later today. As you can see from the video preview above, it's a very simple, very casual game, but nevertheless offers some fun and quick touchscreen gameplay. Pop was originally released on WiiWare, the Nintendo Wii's downloadable content service, and I was wrong in the video -- there are no PC or Mac versions out currently, so the App Store is the second platform the game will appear on. I also show off a similar "game" called Bubbles, put together by Jesse Grosjean (maker of Taskpaper and Writeroom) for his three-year old daughter (I said six in the video, but she's younger than that). Pop runs with that idea of popping bubbles and turns it into a timed and scored game that turns out to be pretty fun. Click the link below to read more about Pop, including some features that aren't shown off in the video above. Update: Pop is now available on the App Store.
UK vending machines that sell PS3 games revealed
Stuff is reporting that Sony and Universal have teamed up to create PoP "entertainment vending machines" to be distributed across the UK "in cinemas, gyms, universities and travel stations" this holiday season. In addition to selling PS3 titles, these babies will sell DVDs, Blu-ray movies, and direct music/movie downloads to your MP3, MP4 player, or an SD card. Check it out in action in a video here.Similar machines have been spotted in the US for several years now, but they seem to have been limited to mostly airports. Do you think we'll ever see one of these vending machines in a local shopping center?[Via Engadget]
Sony and Universal launching POP "instant entertainment" vending machines in UK
Sure, downloading songs and movies is easy these days (even when done legally), but what if you don't have a computer or internet connection? "How would I be reading this post, then?" you might ask. Fair point, but there must be dozens of other people out there with portable media players yet no way to fill them, and for this market Sony and Universal have partnered to create POP, the "instant entertainment 24/7" vending machine hitting the UK this holiday season. Unlike other boxes that sell media players, this one sells content to fill them, downloaded straight to a memory card, flash drive, PMP, or other (USB-supporting) portable device. You can also purchase media-based content on DVD and Blu-ray if you like, games too, all of which "pop" out shrink wrapped and in full retail garb. Being able to buy a Blu-ray disc at midnight on a dark corner sounds mildly interesting, but with no mention of file formats or DRM or anything else, you won't find us sticking our memory cards into this thing's slots anytime soon.
Prince of Persia Classic assaultin' PSN on Oct. 23
Wow. A sultan? That's pretty dire.* What the headline so clumsily tries to convey is that Ubisoft's snazzy, non-rotoscoped remake of 1989's Prince of Persia will finally arrive on the PlayStation Network this Thursday, October 23rd. Sporting modernized 3D graphics, new traps and the same perfectly-postured-princess-in-peril plot we've grown to love, Prince of Persia Classic is sure to awaken nostalgia while preparing you for the royal acrobat's next adventure -- unimaginatively dubbed Prince of Persia. With any luck, we'll be appending "classic" to it as well when it releases on December 2nd.%Gallery-3853%* And Farah-fetched. Still, much better than the original headline that Vizier a second ago.
Prince of Persia Classic coming to PSN
An article on the PlayStation Games & Media News site reveals that a PSN version of Prince of Persia Classic is on its way. The PSN version appears to be the same as the XBLA release from last year, which saw a graphical and control upgrade to the original (and retro frustrating) Prince of Persia from 1989.There's currently no price announced for the title, but if we had to guess, it would be $10 like the XBLA version. We've contacted Ubisoft and asked about a release date.[Via GameBytes]%Gallery-3853%
Poll: Is iPhone firmware 2.1 breaking fetch for email accounts?
Just when you think you've escaped the darkened woods of firmware 2.0.2 and previous ilk, along comes 2.1, wrapped in faster-loading-contacts-finery to convince you all is well in the iPhone world. That isn't entirely the case, it seems, if you're user of POP or IMAP mail accounts which are set to fetch messages. Apparently, a maddening bug exists in the new software which -- in the interest of battery power conservation, we assume -- stops the device from pulling down new emails while sleeping... unless the phone happens to be plugged in and charging. An ever-growing thread on Apple's support forums has been barraged with reports of the problem, and editors here at Engadget have certainly felt the burn. So we're putting the question to you, dear readers (and hoping the folks in Cupertino are paying attention). Are you noticing email issues with firmware 2.1? Let us know in the poll below![Thanks to everyone who sent this in]%Poll-20616%
Prince of Persia dated for Dec. 2
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Prince_of_Persia_out_on_Dec_2'; Ubisoft has confirmed that its new, aesthetically alluring Prince of Persia adventure will be purifying that dubious stack of plastic cases you call a game collection on December 2nd, 2008. The absurdly agile protagonist and his lithe lady friend, Elika, will be putting Ahriman (you know, typically disgruntled god thing) in his place on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.If you'd prefer to get your hands on a slightly more adorable variant of the wall-running scrambler, you'll want to check out the DS' Prince of Persia: The Fallen King, which releases on the same day.%Gallery-23908%%Gallery-26241%
VC Friday: Bubbles and Pokemans
It's a double WiiWare update for Europe and Australia this week as the fresh-faced download service once again blots out new old games. There is a pattern emerging here -- WiiWare one week, Virtual Console the next, and so forth -- but we're not yet sure if it's a deliberate trend or just a coincidence. Either way, it's pretty plain now that Virtual Console stuff is going to become less regular. Up for grabs this week: My Pokémon Ranch -- WiiWare -- 1000 Wii Points Pop -- WiiWare -- 700 Wii Points Videos after the break!%Gallery-22676%
