InspectorGadget
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The original 'Inspector Gadget' is coming to Twitch December 17th
Inspector Gadget is back on duty. The first season of the 1983 animated series Inspector Gadget will be broadcast in its entirety on Twitch starting December 17th at 10:00 AM PST. The show will air in five-hour sessions on the Twitch Presents channel and will conclude December 24 at 9:00 AM PST. The stream will include all 65 episodes of the cartoon's inaugural season.
Netflix can help your kids ring in the New Year a bit early
While you're busy putting on a fancy dress or a shirt and tie for tonight's festivities, millions of parents around the world have to figure out how to trick their kids into going to bed at a decent hour on New Year's Eve so they can do the same. Netflix has a way to help. Available to watch right this instant, the streaming video juggernaut has a series of programming choices hosted by the likes of Inspector Gadget and the Care Bears to help the little ones ring in 2016 a few hours early. According to a survey Netflix administered earlier this month, some 97 percent of parents across the globe have at least one kid under 12 that they'll be celebrating with, MarketWatch says. And of those 9,000 parents polled, about half of them will have their kid-friendly celebrations domestically, in Australia and the United Kingdom over and done by 9 PM.
Netflix is bringing back 'Inspector Gadget' and 'Danger Mouse'
Netflix isn't slowing down its efforts to win your kids' attention... if anything, it's ramping things up. The streaming service just unveiled five child-friendly shows that will arrive over the course of the next year. The first is a big one -- Netflix will offer a 26-episode reboot of Inspector Gadget. You'll get to revisit the adventures of the half-machine cop starting in March in the US, with other countries coming later. You'll have to be more patient for the rest. The Playmobil-based animated series Super 4 shows up next, in April. The live action series Some Assembly Required is due this summer, while both Bottersnikes & Gumbles (a "community comedy") and a revival of the spy parody Danger Mouse are arriving in spring 2016. The odds are that the remakes won't quite live up to what you remember, but they may well keep your little ones entertained on that next big vacation.
TUAW's Daily App: Inspector Gadget's MAD Dash
I would say that this Canabalt-like game is good for kids (and it is), but I don't suppose there are too many kids around nowadays who remember the early days of Inspector Gadget like I did in my generation. We 80s babies can fondly look back on Gadget, Penny, Brain and the mysterious Dr. Claw with nostalgia, so while this one is more or less a licensed tie-in game, it's still good to see the old gang kicking around. Actually, just calling it a tie-in game isn't quite right -- there are some new elements here, in the form of coins to collect as you run and a few interesting new sequences (including some hook-jumping and a train for Gadget to dodge). But it basically plays like a running game; Gadget constantly skates forward, and a touch on the screen let's you jump up to safety. It's just as fun, too -- while it doesn't have Canabalt's cool flavor, it does have the Gadget theme, sounds from the series and everything else you'd expect from a licensed title. It also has a nice curve of replayability -- you're not only scored as you play, you're also granted Gadget Coins, which you can use to unlock extras both in-game and out (there's a digital comic and a sound board, both of which are nice meaty add-ons). Plus, the game is half price right now at just US 99 cents ($2.99 for the iPad version). If you've got kids who like Canabalt, or if you just remember being a kid that liked Inspector Gadget, give it a shot.
Inspector Gadget tackles 'The Case of the Experimental Space Tether'
One thing we love about scientist-types is their nerdy humor, so when researchers launch a trio of satellites next month to test the feasibility of space tether propulsion, the 'gadget' tasked with 'inspecting' the line will obviously be referred to as bumbling cartoon detective Inspector Gadget. The mission -- called MAST (for Multi-Application Survivable Tether) -- is scheduled to begin April 17th with a payload launch on a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, after which the Washington state-based Tethers Unlimited's two anchor sats (less-cleverly dubbed Ted and Ralph -- um, hello, Penny and Brain...) will gradually separate until they've pulled the kilometer-long line taut. That's when Inspector Gadget goes into action, traveling back and forth across the triple-braided tether at a snail-like .006 mph, all the while using its built-in camera to search for damage caused by radiation, micrometeoroids, and other nasty space stuff. Eventually the company is hoping to use its research to create orbiting systems that can fling other satellites into deep space, but seeing how the last Dnepr rocket crashed and burned on liftoff in 2006, Team Tether is probably best off taking this endeavor one step at a time.
Terrifying memory-expanding device
This diagram illustrates what could be one of the ugliest peripherals I have ever seen for the console. It's like a Transformer gone wrong. With this attachment, you can stick not one but two Memory Sticks into your system. Personally, I'd much rather buy a newer, larger Memory Stick, especially considering how they're not too expensive these days. On the plus side, you can have that obnoxious cord stick out of your PSP and pretend you're Inspector Gadget.[Via DCemu]
