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ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity Series hits the FCC
Remember that high-resolution variant of the Transformer Prime ASUS trotted out at CES? The federal government just finished putting it through its paces. The WiFi version of the firm's upcoming Transformer Pad Infinity (formally numbered TF700T) sauntered its way through the FCC, revealing itself as the slate's Tegra 3 option, if only for its lack of having a cellular radio. The tablet's LTE equipped sibling, however, was nowhere to be found -- though we're sure the feds will put it through the official gauntlet soon enough. Hit the source link below to dive into the official report.
Microsoft crowns 20 winners in Mango app contest, losers go home fruitless
We thought Mango's nectar was already pretty damn sweet, but a group of young developers recently took up the challenge to make the next generation Windows Phone 7 experience even more delicious. Following up on last year's 'Rockstar' competition, Microsoft asked students to submit Mango app prototypes via Twitter, with the promise of developers phones for the top entries. Among the top 20 #WPAppItUp submissions are a program that helps the colorblind figure out what shade of puce they're peeping, and a sadistic alarm clock that requires users to solve puzzles before hitting the snooze button. Apparently, Microsoft still has 30 Windows Phones to give away, and is looking for young devs to offer up America's next top Mango app. Submission guidelines can be found at the source link below. [Thanks, E-Dan]
Sony's ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand
Turns out those leaked shots we saw of Sony's new VAIO Z laptop were right on the money as the company showed it off officially today for the European press. The specs reveal a 13.1-inch "ultramobile" notebook that comes in at under 1.2kg with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, 1600x900 screen and sheet battery borrowed from the earlier VAIO S for up to 7 hours of computing. Onboard it features only Intel's HD Graphics 3000 solution but the VAIO Z beats other ultralights with its Power Media Dock, which contributes the power of an AMD Radeon 6650M GPU with 1GB of dedicated memory connected via "the architecture codenamed Light Peak" -- Sony can't call it Thunderbolt -- when more polygons have to be pushed. The dock sports one USB 3.0 hookup plus additional USB, VGA and HDMI ports, and a slot for either a DVD or Blu-ray drive. There's no word on a price yet, but it is promised to ship by the end of July in Europe so if the full specs (included after the break) are appealing then you don't have much time to save up. Update: Head over to the Sony UK site to configure one yourself -- pricing starts at £1,434 ($2,294) with a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and no PMD. The dock is a £400 ($640) option with no optical drive included, while upgrading to a 1080p 13.1-inch LCD is a mere £40 extra. %Gallery-127266%
TUAW's Daily App: The Ultimate Alphabet
Today's app is going to blow your mind. Back in 1986, artist Mike Wilks published a book called The Ultimate Alphabet, which featured 26 different paintings, each filled with items that corresponded to the letters of the alphabet; the letter A painting contains airplanes, ants, an apple tree, and so on. There are more than 7,777 words represented in the book, with lots more little secrets hidden in the paintings; there are letters encoded in Morse code or semaphore, obscure symbolism, and visual gags. The book was part of a competition with a big cash prize, which was solved in 1988, when Wilks published The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet; it included descriptions and clues for each of the items hidden in the extremely detailed paintings. Now, a company named Toytek has begun to bring the book to the iPad, and it allows you to interactively explore some of Wilks' paintings and their extremely deep complexity. As you can see above, it's wild; you tap on an item, enter the actual name, and then the book will tell you whether it's right or provide clues for the word you're looking for. The app is free to try, though it's prohibitively expensive if you want to purchase everything. You can buy the letters in bundles, and the full purchase price eventually comes out to around US $45 in total. That's pricey, although it's the same cost as the printed book, and you get the interactivity for free. Still, it's a great idea, and there is a free trial if you want to check it out. Update: We're told that due to user input, the free version has been changed from a timed trial to simply having the entire letter A be completely free to play all the way through. Enjoy!
Blizzard gets an F at the Better Business Bureau
Looks like quite a few of those players who threatened to complain about Blizzard ended up doing so: over on the local Better Business Bureau website for Blizzard's region, our favorite game developer has earned an F. The BBB says that they've been given this rating "for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law's licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company's industry is known for its fraudulent business practices." Ouch. We don't really know that any of those things are true about Blizzard's way of doing business, but there are certainly many people on the forums every day who claim that the first two especially are major issues.Personally, I'm as big a critic of Blizzard as anyone when I think that there's something to complain about, but this rating hardly seems justified -- even if the BBB has received tens of thousands of complaints, that's still just a small portion of the playerbase. And despite the occasional downtime and various class nerfs, they hardly deserve an F rating, especially when a company that many people really do have issues with is riding along with an A rating. The BBB page also says that Blizzard's mass bannings have been a factor in many complaints -- there is probably no distinction made (or that can be made) in terms of complaints between people who have broken the ToS and people who have not.At any rate, even if the F rating is there, it obviously has very little effect on Blizzard's business -- how many of you ran to check the rating before you decided to subscribe to World of Warcraft? It seems like a few customers (who may or may not have broken the rules to begin with) have ruined Blizzard's reputation with the BBB, but it's fairly apparent that the BBB doesn't hold much sway among Blizzard's customers anyway.[Thanks ThisURLNotFound!]
1UP's letter grade conversion explained, analyzed
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/1UP_s_letter_grade_conversion_explained_analyzed'; Update 2: 1UP Vice President Simon Cox has contacted Joystiq to let us know there are some bugs associated with the current roll out of the conversion formula. Specifically, Cox said the full range of grades (including those marked with a dash in the chart) should have been used in the conversion, and will be when the bug is fixed by the end of the week We'll update the chart and this post when that happens.Update: Since there appears to be some confusion in the comments, a dash in the "Number" column on the chart means that there's no number score that corresponds to that letter grade.As part of a planned reorganization, 1UP today switched from its well-known 0-10 review scale to a school-style letter grading scheme. The changeover included a conversion of all existing review scores on the site from numbers to letters, but, as Editorial Director Dan Hsu told N'gai Croal, the site will not be publishing a simple conversion scale to figure out which old number ratings apply to which new letter grades, Hsu says they're keeping the scale close to their chest "because we want our readers to go with our new scoring system and not be constantly translating the new letters back to our old scores."Where's the fun in that? We compared some old numerical ratings to the new letter grades for ourselves and created the handy (if a bit ugly) conversion chart on the right. Read on for way too much analysis of the score conversion and what it means for evaluating 1UP review scores going forward.
TGS 2006: It's a Wonderful World preview
During the Tokyo Game Show, 1up managed to get their hands on the demo build of It's a Wonderful World, the game coming from those Kingdom Hearts guys. Their impressions of the whole affair (or, at least, the whole affair available) is somewhat positive, although they comment that the language barrier is huge. Considering that the game is incredibly complex (we imagine in a good way), being able to speak and/or read Japanese goes a long way when attempting to play the TGS build of It's a Wonderful Life. We wonder why 1up would not have a person in their starting lineup at the show to fill this much-needed role. Thinking about it, there probably should be one of us there to play the build as well, since we are so not fluent in Japanese. Of course, this would require our staff not die off from starvation, which would in turn require that Joystiq actually open the dungeon door and toss us some grub. Seriously, can we get something to eat that is not made of plastic and USB 2.0 compatible? Guys? Hello?
It's a Wonderful World revealed
We had yet to report on this new game coming from the team at Square-Enix responsible for Kingdom Hearts as there was nothing visual to go on. Well, thanks to the Tokyo Game Show, we now have something to actually show you. It's a Wonderful World takes place in Japan's Shibuya district, featuring such famous locales as the 109 shopping mall and Scramble Crossing.The game stars Neku, a boy with the unique gift of reading the hearts of others (not to be confused with Ma-Ti). Upon meeting a young girl by the name of Tsuki, the two stumble upon Japan's Shibuya district and are forced to play a mysterious game.The Japanese website for the game can be found here.
