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Peugeot's E-Legend concept EV is a futuristic throwback
Whatever image you might have of French cars, Peugeot's E-Legend concept EV is here to destroy that. Unveiled at the Paris Auto Show, the throwback vehicle is inspired by Peugeot's 504 Coupe, but the bulging rear fender and particularly the front end nod to '60s American muscle cars. While the rear end taillights have a vintage French look, they've been updated with thin, sharp-looking looking LED lights. In other words, this is one of the tightest EVs we've seen yet.
Choose Your Own Adventure available for iPhone as U-Ventures
If you, like me, were a big scifi/fantasy reader at a young age, you probably remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. It was a series of books in which, every chapter or so, you could make a choice that affected the story, and you were then prompted to turn to a certain page to continue the story after that choice. Edward Packard was the original author of that series, and he's now teamed up with an iPhone app company to create U-Ventures, a throwback iPhone application that works as an interactive, e-book style Choose You Own Adventure. The first book is called "Return to the Cave of Time" (after the first book in the original series), and just like the old series, it offers up a set of second-person branching paths. Unfortunately, at US$3.99, the app is pretty expensive. Reviews say that there are only about 15 minutes of content to go through here, and while the old books were short, there are a lot of other interactive storytelling options on the App Store in the form of games and other e-books. But as a retro return to the old form, it's a nice taste of what's possible. I'm hoping that Packard will update the idea a little bit and make it a little more iPhone-friendly next time. Or, ... you could just roll your own. Our own Victor Agreda wrote about iPod-friendly CYOA books a long time ago. Download some of those onto your iPod, and you could be right back in those old pre-video game days of interactive storytelling. [via Slashdot]
Giroux Daguerreotype is world's first mass-produced camera, about to become the most expensive one too
If you thought that shooters like Olympus' E-P1 or Leica's M8 had old school aesthetics, think again. The real old school -- we're talking 1839 here -- was all about wooden boxes and brass lens protrusions, as you can see above. The double box design of the Daguerreotype lets you achieve focus by moving the smaller inner box away from the front-mounted 15-inch lens. Exposure times can take up to half an hour, though, so you might wanna budget for a sturdy tripod as well. Speaking of budget, if you know the meaning of the word you're not probably not the target audience here, as a May auction in Vienna is set to start at €200,000 ($280,000), with predictions placing the final sale price closer to €700,000 ($980,000).
Snood Redood coming to the iPhone
Fortunately, World of Warcraft didn't exist while I was in school, otherwise I might not have finished my venerable BS degree at the storied Ithaca College at all. But if there was one game that almost kept me from finishing all of those essays and homework... well, it was Civ. But if there were two games, the second was Snood. And now that game is due in iPhone form soon as well. It features the same creature-matching gameplay (with both new and old graphics, as you can see above), which means it probably has the same addictive quality that kept me playing long after I was supposed to have read those excerpts the professor gave to us in English class, and three gameplay modes, including Story, Classic, and even a Time Attack mode. "Coming soon" is the word on when it'll be out, though the main webpage actually says "play now," so it probably isn't that far off. It's not the only "Bust a Move" style game out on the App Store, but it is Snood, and that itself is enough to take me back to the days of pizza and beer in the dorm room.
Throwback signs new execs, still has nothing to show for it
Canadian publisher Throwback Entertainment has been eerily silent since it soaked up the rights to 158 video game properties from off the corpse of the then newly eviscerated Acclaim in mid-2006, including Extreme-G Racing, Vexx, and Re-Volt, not to mention the terribly poor Rise of the Robots. This morning the company made a new announcement, this time bringing on board animation production vets Ken Duer and Eric Radomski, who join the publisher from Warner Bros. where they worked on such properties as Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters, Animaniacs, and Batman: The Animated Series. Duer will serve as Throwback's new president of media while Radomski steps into the role of chief creative officer. Both are the latest names to join the company, following VIC and Commodore 64 designer Yash Terakura, former Capcom boss George Nakayama, and David Siller of Crash Bandicoot and Maximo fame. Of course, there's a big difference between owning all the toys and playing with them, and besides throwing a lot of fancy names around, Throwback hasn't done anything – wake us when something comes of all this name dropping.
Bally bringing Pong to casino floors
We know, you've got a zillion ways to get your Pong on whilst lounging around in your geeked-out crib, but how in the world will you deal with the withdrawals on this year's trip to Vegas? Thanks to Bally, you may not have to suffer at all, as Nevada gambling regulators recently approved the concept behind Bally Pong, a "slot machine that would for the first time allow hand-eye coordination to affect payout." Put simply, the machine would enter a 45-second round of Pong if three bonus icons line up on the five-reel video slot machine, and regardless of one's skill, a minimum award would be doled out simply for reaching the bonus. Oh, it gets better -- Bally also said that this was just "the first in a series of skill games (including Breakout!) it had planned," so those looking to see a hint of vintage when they hit the casino floor should be very pleased if everything goes as planned over the next few months.[Via The Raw Feed]
GRAW 2 gets 'Throwback Pack' for $10
We imagine it's not uncommon for soldiers to long for the battlefields of their youth, the place where they grew up and became part of a tightly-knit fighting force. Despite the adage, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 players feeling those pangs can actually go home again, thanks to the 800-point ($10) "Throwback Pack" which whisks them from their modern battleground of Mexico on a nostalgic trip to Kazakhstan, the Korean Peninsula and ... well, other parts of Mexico. There are seven "remastered" Ghost Recon maps in the pack, which is available now. That's all the information we get from the blade description but IGN says that they're drawn from Ghost Recon 2, GR 2: Summit Strike and GRAW 1. So, how about it GRAW fans? Is a trip down Memory Lane and a fresh hit of tactical action worth a ten spot?
