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Amazon brings Alexa's Follow-Up Mode to Fire TV Cube
Last week, Amazon updated Fire TV Cube with the Alexa Announcements feature (which lets you dictate a message that the other Echo devices in your home will broadcast) and notifications from your smart doorbell and camera. Now, Amazon's giving the device even more parity with the Echo ecosystem by adding Follow-Up Mode and multiroom audio.
Compensation planned for WildStar's name reservation failures
WildStar players attempting to reserve their name yesterday ran into a bit of a problem -- namely, the fact that it didn't work. Maintenance took place, the page went up and down, and a lot of people trying to reserve important names ahead of time found themselves unable to do so. Needless to say, this kind of defeated the entire purpose of allowing people to reserve names ahead of time to ensure that they're available on launch. A recent forum post by Jeremy Gaffney apologizes for the issues and promises that compensation is planned for players affected by the issue: We'll compensate to the best of our ability in a fair fashion for folks who missed out on a name (or really folks affected in general) in as rational a fashion as tech and fairness allows. The details will need to be fleshed out before we communicate so we don't make a misstep on that; there are lots of moving parts. He went on to state that this was not a planned stress test as well as discussed the reasons behind gaps in communication. If you think your name got through but want to double-check, you can do so via the method outlined in this forum post.
New Hotline Miami content will more likely be 'like a sequel, kind of'
Hotline Miami's creators Jonatan "Cactus" Söderström and Dennis Wedin have shared some insight on where the game might be headed next in an interview with Eurogamer, and Söderström says it'll probably be "quite a big project." Instead of smaller pieces of downloadable content, it sounds like the team is aiming for a full followup release. "It will be like a sequel, kind of," says Söderström, "but building on the story."He adds that this possible new game "will probably have more playable characters than the first game did. And a couple of different stories and angles." And Wedin says it might have a map editor as well: "We're looking at if it's possible to do that. I think it would be really cool to let people do their own stages."The first game, says Söderström, took quite a while to develop. But with an engine already built, a new release would primarily focus on adding new content, he says, so the process should be shortened. "We hope it would take no longer than four or five months to make the sequel, but we're not sure at this point." That's fine, Cactus. We'll just don our finest creepy pig mask and wait here patiently for more news.
Sandvox adds iWeb migration assistant to scrape your iWeb/MobileMe site
The June 30 sunset date for MobileMe is only a few short weeks away. If your website is built with iWeb and hosted on MobileMe, there's no time like the present to get it shifted over to more permanent hosting. To better serve iWeb users looking to move their existing sites into Sandvox, Karelia has introduced a new migration assistant in its version 2.6 update. This tool allows you to enter the URL for an iWeb-based site, and then it scans for key text and image elements as well as links and page structure. It's a make-do solution that works around the need to parse and process iWeb's proprietary project files. Instead of reverse-engineering Apple's format, Sandvox scrapes your site to recover key website content. It then provides a rough outline that you can then customize inside the app. The transfer is not perfect. You will need to inspect and correct fine details like page names, on occasion. But by preserving your content and site structure, you won't have to copy and paste those years of blog posts, or re-create those photo albums that you worked so hard on. A company spokesperson explained to TUAW that while they couldn't offer a native import feature, they wanted to reach out to iWeb users and offer the simplest possible transfer solution -- imperfect as it is -- so users could quickly get up to speed with Sandvox sites. Of course, the iWeb application itself will still keep working past June 30; if your site isn't hosted on MobileMe, it's not at risk right now. The new assistant is due to go live in the Mac App Store today, and is a free upgrade for existing purchasers.
Fitbit Ultra: A six-month followup review
Back in October, I posted a review of the Fitbit Ultra. It's a tiny fitness tracker that clips to a belt or sleeve and transmits your daily steps and calorie burn to a recharging and sync dock that's attached to your Mac or PC. In late October, Fitbit released their iPhone app so I followed up with information about how the app and tracker work together. At the time, I also promised to follow up on my original review to tell you how things are working with the Fitbit, so I thought I'd give you an update after six months with this device. The good news is that I'm still wearing the Fitbit Ultra every day. It's my constant companion, always clipped to a belt loop. I don't check my current step count, calories burned or flights of stairs climbed as obsessively as I did when I first got the device, but I still find the fitness information it provides to be important to my well-being. During the time I've used the Fitbit Ultra, I've been able to get a good idea of the average baseline number of steps I take per day. Now that the weather is getting nice, I plan to up my count to the desired 10,000 steps per day, so I have a good idea of how far and long I need to walk. One complaint I heard from many early Fitbit Ultra users was that they didn't feel that the device accurately measured how far they walked. I resolved that problem early on by measuring how many steps the Fitbit counted on a known distance, and then using the online Fitbit website to calibrate my stride. The numbers are now fairly accurate when I compare them to Runkeeper on my iPhone. When using the Fitbit app, I don't enter my food calorie counts. I find that to be time-consuming and just plain boring, so I forget to do it. Don't worry, Fitbit fans -- I never entered my "points" when I was using the WeightWatchers iPhone app either. Another feature I've stopped using is the sleep tracker. It doesn't really track how well you sleep; instead, it's measuring how much you toss and turn. I tend to lay very still in bed even when I'm awake, so the Fitbit dashboard shows a high sleep efficiency number even when I've had a relatively sleepless night. It is a great way to see what time you get up to go to the bathroom, though. The device has held up well to the abuse I've put it through; in fact, it still looks as good as the day I first put it on my belt. One technical issue I've had on occasion is that the device sometimes seems to lose wireless contact with the charging/sync dock so that I may go a few days without my fitness info being passed along to the iPhone app or the online website. The usual fix is to reboot my Mac, so it must be a USB or driver issue. Fitbit includes a social aspect that I almost wish I hadn't gotten into, since ex-TUAW blogger Scott McNulty is absolutely trouncing me in terms of steps walked. I can see where that comparison could become a good impetus to exercise. Watch out, Scott! I will absolutely continue to wear my Fitbit Ultra tracker, and I can't wait to start giving it a real workout this summer.
Rovio is making a non-Angry Birds game
AllThingsD recently sat down to chat with Rovio CEO Mikael Hed, and while much of the news about Rovio from the past few years has been to do with its enormously popular Angry Birds franchise (the latest title of which will be Angry Birds Space -- stay tuned for more on that next month). But Hed suggests that the era of Angry Birds exclusivity at Rovio is almost over: The company is working on a brand-new, non-Angry Birds game. In the past, Rovio has made a big deal about its history on mobile games. Before Angry Birds got so big, Rovio did work on other mobile platforms, and actually made more than 30 other mobile games, of varying success. But Angry Birds is obviously its biggest property, and ever since the original bird-tossing game took off, Rovio has made just a few other titles, on iOS and other platforms, all of them somehow related to Angry Birds. Unfortunately, Hed didn't have any information on what this other game might be -- he says the company's been making lots of "fun" things, but obviously hasn't released anything but Angry Birds spinoffs yet. We wait with bated breath; Rovio seems like a great company, but another game from a different franchise will give the verdict on whether or not the Finnish game developer can follow up to its now enormous reputation.
Darkfall community Q&A follow-up offers more details
Aventurine's Tasos Flamboras has donned his flame-retardant gear and ventured into the eternally blazing forest that is the Darkfall forums in an attempt to douse the fires raging after the publication of a lengthy Q&A session earlier this week. Put together by noted Darkfall blogger Paragus, the community-generated question list was initially answered by a three-man team that included Flambouras as well as developers Claus Grovdal and Kjetil Helland. Controversy erupted when community members balked at the perceived evasiveness of the answers. "When we say that we're looking into something, or considering, or have plans for, it doesn't mean that we're being evasive or diplomatic in our answers. If that was our intention, we simply wouldn't answer. It means that we're trying to give you actual insight or confirmation on what we can't go into detail about," Flambouras says. He goes on to briefly outline Aventurine's information-revealing methodology before expounding on a few of the answers from the Q&A as well as new tidbits like armor dyes, significant improvements to crafting, a completely redesigned UI, and of course the prestige class system. "Prestige classes are the largest feature ever added to Darkfall and will definitely change the face of the game," Flambouras states.
Congrats to our Creative headset winners
A couple of weeks ago, we announced a huge contest with Creative to give away twenty-five of their new World of Warcraft wireless headsets, one for each person in one big lucky raid. That contest has been over for a little bit, and we've finally picked a winner: congrats to all of the winners in the guild Rusty Blades on Cenarion Circle! They, along with the nine random winners in each of our single headset giveaways, as well as the lucky winners in the five man contest (who've all been contacted and confirmed) will all get their very own units when the headsets are finally released later on this month. And if you didn't win, don't worry -- Creative will of course be selling the headsets, so you can make sure to put them on your Christmas list, and maybe a loved one will help you out. The latest that we've heard is that they're still due out for release sometime this month, so stay tuned and when we know more about the release, you will too. Since our 25-man contest was actually a bit of a trivia contest as well (guilds had to find five locations in-game and then take pictures at each place), we've put the Rusty Blades' excellent answers after the break. Hopefully you haven't been wondering desperately about the answers for the last month but in case you were, there you go.
iPhone Volume Tweak Followup
Nick "Drudge" Penree writes that he took my tip for boosting audio and made an Installer.app package that does all the work. It's called AudioAmp and is available in Tweaks 1.1.2. TUAW readers have reported various levels of success with the package. Some readers are delighted. Others feel it overboosts the volume. I finally had my chance to test this hack more impersonally. I grabbed my Radio Shack Sound Level meter, installed the tweak and tested levels during playback. I put the sound meter and the iPhone on a table and kept both units in the same positions through all the tests. I made no change to the volume bar (always set at the maximum), or the music (Beach Boy's, "Sloop John B", always starting playback at the beginning). I remotely rebooted the iPhone after each test via ssh so I wouldn't mess up the positioning on the table. And my results? Identical readings for sound levels, whether Default > Default was set to 0.99, 0.70, 0.45, or 0.30. Thanks, Tom
AOL refreshes Netscape as social news site with a twist
AOL yesterday relaunched the aging Netscape.com as a social news site (yea, like digg) but with a professional journalistic twist. Check it out. Anyone can sign up, submit and vote on interesting stories from across the web in a wide range of categories from politics, money, television, technology, health and even 'do no evil'. Going above and beyond the social news bookmarking concept, however, is a staff of journalists, including TUAW's own C.K. Sample III and Fabienne Serriere, who will follow up on some of the stories and dig deeper by nabbing interviews, posting related links and keeping users informed as the situation develops (on a side note, we finally figured out why C.K. and Fabs gave us that 'we'd tell you what we're working on, but then we'd have to kill you' bit a while ago).Why are we telling you about all this since it isn't specifically Apple-related, you ask? Well, we should probably tell you the project was headed up by Weblogs Inc.'s CEO, Jason Calacanis. Granted, Weblogs Inc., including TUAW, are owned by AOL, but we could still call it crummy if we wanted to - fortunately, that isn't the case. We think it's a great concept that you should go have some fun with. Still, if you're looking for some Apple-specific details before you fire off a flaming comment, how does 'full-Safari compatibility' work for you? In fact, I think the site actually looks surprisingly better in Safari than Firefox.
