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AutoPilot should be with you on your next trip
USA Today has released AutoPilot for the iPhone and iPod touch, and it looks like a winner. This free app [iTunes link] lets you plan your trip, informs you of flight delays, gives you quick links to hotel, rental car and airline phone numbers, gets you the weather for your destination, and pulls up Flickr photos of where you are going. Whew! There are lots of other travel apps, but I think AutoPilot has hit all the highlights of useful information that people will want in one place. The app even reminds you to check in for your flight, and allows you to email your itinerary to others. If you need to quickly call your hotel or your airline, all that information is there. You can tap on a phone number and the call gets made, or you can save the info to contacts. You can also click on a URL and go to a hotel, airline or rental car website I put in some suggested trips, and everything worked very well except for flights with connections. Each flight had to be entered one at a time. I'd have preferred to be able to enter all the flights at once by typing in flight numbers separated, for example, by a comma. The app integrates with Tripit, so if you have an account there it can pick up your flight information. Tripit, by the way, has an excellent iPhone app [iTunes link] as well. Everything else about this app worked very well. There are ads at the bottom of the screen, but I did not find them distracting or obtrusive. Having the flight tracker is very nice when you are meeting friends at the airport, and the information appeared up to date. The app was developed by Mercury Intermedia, the same firm that did the excellent USA Today [iTunes link] app. It's very slick and reliable for a version 1.0. I can't think of any reason why a traveler wouldn't want to try this app out. I'm thinking about making a trip I don't even need to go on, just for the experience. One other suggestion I'd make. The app shouldn't be limited to just air travel. If I'm driving somewhere, I'd still like the ability to define a trip, have the hotel and weather information and the destination galleries available for me, and maybe add some points of interest whether I'm driving or flying. Check out the gallery for screen shots of AutoPilot in action: %Gallery-74972%
First Look: TIME Mobile, a slick magazine for your iPhone / iPod touch
Instead of sifting through the piles of TIME magazines at your doctor's office, where you don't know who's healthy or unhealthy hands have touched the pages, you now have another option to browse through TIME content on your iPhone. The recently launched TIME Mobile [iTunes link] app provides a better browsing experience and more content than the mobile version of magazine's website. In addition, the app brings with it support for video, which is lacking on the mobile version of TIME's site and not supported for the iPhone on the full version of the site because the videos are encoded in Flash. TIME Mobile also brings a new approach for browsing articles. Like Cover Flow view in the iPhone and iTunes, TIME Mobile's "Image Flow" provides some eye candy in front of the meat and potatoes of the article content. One thing absent in the app is support for offline reading, a useful feature for situations where data connectivity is lacking, such as on an airplane. The USA Today app [iTunes link], which is in the same app genre as TIME Mobile, supports offline reading by tapping on the update button on each section. Perhaps such a feature could be added to TIME Mobile as a paid-for feature, or as for free to those who subscribe to the paper version of the magazine. Update: TIME's app team tells us that offline reading is built-in as part of the app, but for some reason I could not get it to work consistently; we're following up with them to figure out why it's wonky. Powered by Polar, a mobile publishing provider that also powers BusinessWeek [iTunes link] and CNNMoney [iTunes link] iPhone apps as well as a host of other apps on a variety of mobile platforms, TIME Mobile is available as a free download in the App Store.
Report: Only 35 songs from Guitar Hero World Tour work with GH5 [update]
Update: It appears as though Activision itself has answered the question of what songs specifically are importable into Guitar Hero 5 from World Tour (35 songs) as well as Smash Hits (21 songs), via the Activision Customer Support Center. The full list of songs available from each game has been dropped after the break -- thanks to everyone for sending this in! We can't lie to you, friends -- when Activision claimed songs from last year's Guitar Hero World Tour would be playable in this year's Guitar Hero 5, we were skeptical. It seems that skepticism proved right, as USA Today reveals that a hair over one third of GHWT's tracks can be downloaded into the new game. Specifically, just 35 of World Tour's 86 tracks are playable in GH5, with an unspecified amount of Guitar Hero Smash Hits tracks available "later this Fall." The licensing fee for those 35 tracks is 280/$3.50 for Xbox 360 and PS3, though it remains unclear whether or not that fee would include Smash Hits' tracks when those are released. We've asked Activision for clarification of which tracks specifically are available in GH5 and when Smash Hits will be ready for download, but unfortunately were told that we'd get a release tomorrow with "tons of details." So this is where we crowdsource things -- Guitar Hero 5 owners in the Joystiq Biomass™, please let us know which 35 of Guitar Hero World Tour's 86 tracks are playable! Our inbox is always open!
Regator provides news aggregation for the more blog-minded
Catching up on the happenings around the blogosphere is a difficult task. Luckily, I happened to stumble upon John Burke's Download Squad piece on the release of Regator [iTunes link]. So, if you'd like to get caught up on the latest news, insights and commentary on Rod Blagojevich around the blogosphere (now that's a tongue twister), Regator could be of assistance. Regator's user-interface is similar to USA Today's iPhone app [iTunes link]. A horizontal menu displays a number of categories -- such as sports, lifestyle, and entertainment -- that are touch-scrollable. Tapping on a category displays its subcategories. For instance, NBA news would fall under the basketball branch of the sports tree. While a breadcrumb trail displays your viewing hierarchy, the browsing menu disappears as you scroll down; this was my only annoyance with the app, although it's a relatively minor one. Regator's stand-out feature is what it calls "trends." Like a tag cloud on a blog, in which bigger clouds are usually associated with more hot topics or issues, trends provides a listing of the latest hot topics around the blogosphere. For instance, a look at sports trends shows Tiger Woods at the top of the list -- which is no surprise given Y.E. Yang's surprising victory over him this past weekend. And Brett Favre's retiring-unretiring-retiring-unretiring-retiring-unretiring puts him near the top of the trends list as well. Regator is available as a free download at the iTunes app store. Domo arigato, Regator!
Drawing you in, one freemium at a time
It seems the general media has gotten a whiff of the freemium cocktails that developers have been cooking up, as USA Today reports on some of the new freemium MMO games to hit the streets. The article also offers some insight into how these games support themselves -- namely through the use of item shops and microtransactions.While their reporting offers nothing huge and shocking to well-read gamers, the whole fact that this article has appeared in the lifestyle section of USA Today shows that our genre is beginning to reach out past the average gamer and draw in the new initiates to gaming. As much as we like to think its our masterpieces that truly shape our genre, it's games like this that get the majority of our population interested in the things we do.
Buying Activision Blizzard stock may be too extreme for you
Where does USA Today analyst Matt Krantz turn when he needs to hear blood rushing past his ears at 1,000 heartbeats per minute as he takes life to the edge? Why, investing in video games, naturally. "Just as Activision's games are for thrill seekers, the stock is, too," he wrote in a recent analysis of the company. "Investing in Activision shares will be filled with excitement, fear and suspense." Slow down, Matt, our adrenal glands just melted!If you're up to it, you can read Krantz's full analysis of the stock right here. Or you can really push the thrill envelope and guzzle that cup of Starbucks that was super hot when you purchased it 30 minutes ago without sipping to see if it cooled. WOOOAAHHHH![Image credit: Tyla'75]
News apps! Get your News apps!
MSNBC recently added an iPhone app to the store, so we thought it was a good time to take a look at a few news apps.The gold standard for news on the iPhone is the USA Today app. Love them or hate them, the USA Today punchy writing style feels right at home on the iPhone. News can be received from a wide range of mobile sources, and it's the design of this app that makes it stand out. I would love to have the authors pack my suitcase the next time I travel, since they have found a way to cram an incredible amount of information into a very small package. Using persistent buttons on the bottom of each screen, you can get to Headlines, Sports Scores, Weather, Photo Galleries, and Snapshots (which are a set of insta-polls), from anywhere. What makes it special is that, along with the local weather, at the top of most category screens there is a sliding set of sub-categories allowing you to get to just what you want in no time. For example, if you wanted to get the score of the Yankees' game, just tap Scores, and the sub-categories of NFL, MBL, NBA, NCAAF and NCAAB appear at the top of the screen. Tap MLB and there it is. Two taps total. Similarly, tapping Headlines brings up sub-categories of: Top News, News, Money, Sports, Life Tech and Travel. When in any category, tap Top Stories and you can set a default for the type of story you would like to see first. For example, under the sub-category of Money, you can choose to set the default to: Top Stories, Markets, Economy, Cars, Personal Finance or Industry. Set it up once and you'll be able to drill down to specific results in a universe of information with just a few taps.Tap on Share Article and you can Email, Text, Twitter (your Twitter client can be chosen in the setup pane), or log into Facebook. in all the apps covered here, you can share, but this has the most robust feature set of the lot. The fit, finish and depth of the app is, okay I'll say it -- awesome. Weather is location enabled, the Picture Galleries are extensive and under Snapshots there are nine running polls in each of the four sub-categories of News, Sports, Money and Life. USA Today is not just for hotel rooms anymore.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii, future titles will play themselves
Are games too hard for you, Johnny? Don't worry -- Shiggy's got your back. Starting with upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii, future Nintendo Wii titles will be shipping with the ability to, well, play themselves. In an interview with USA Today, the man who birthed Mario confirmed the existence of "demo play" for the next Mario game and "future games, too" -- essentially an option to allow the game to play itself when the player encounters an area too difficult for them to handle.Savvy Joystiq loyalists will remember the patent filed by Nintendo earlier this year, roughly outlining the feature. The idea behind this, Miyamoto explains, is to reduce the barrier to entry for younger players and casual alike. Last we checked, the whole point of games was the challenge but, ya know, who needs that? "Demo play" remains the tentative title for now, but we expect some Wii-ification by New Super Mario Bros. Wii's release later this year.
SOE storms the internet with Free Realms beta promotions
Hopefully you were able to take part in our Free Realms beta key giveaway this weekend. If not, there's probably a good chance you can still pick up a key sometime soon. Our giveaway saw 100 lucky winners walk away with a key code to gain access to the game's current closed beta. The contest was held Friday, and winners received their keys either Saturday or Sunday. But we were far from the only ones.In fact, this weekend saw one of the largest beta key giveaways in MMO history with tens of thousands of special codes being handed out at once by several different outlets. Aside from the normal MMO news and fan sites, the Free Realms Twitter account has been giving away a thousand keys at a time. To top it all off, USA Today is giving away 20,000 beta keys for a special promotion of theirs. If you're looking to get your hands on one of these beta keys, but haven't managed to snag one yet, hopefully one of these listed giveaways will get you on your way.
Rush to USA Today and get a Fat Princess beta code
Update: Looks like they're out of codes now. Hope you got in!Didn't have cake yesterday? Don't worry, here's another chance to enter the Fat Princess beta. If you're one of the first 1600 people to register at USA Today, you'll be delivered a poppin' fresh code right to your e-mail. Yum! You'll want to hurry up because if you're reading this right now, that means thousands of other people are as well. GO![Thanks, Hugo!]
USA Today for iPhone helps you keep up
I've spent most of my life in the news business, and like many people, I can't get enough of the latest political, sports, tech or business news. There are plenty of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that help you keep on top of what is going on, but USA Today [app store link] has done a good job of translating the paper to the iPhone. Like many of the competing apps like the New York Times [app store link] or AP Mobile News [app store link], USA Today is free, although some unobtrusive ads do appear at the bottom of stories.When you install, you can customize the app for weather in your favorite cities, and your top ranked city temperature helpfully appears on every page you navigate to. There is a good sports section, but no way to customize favorite teams. In addition to sports news, there are up-to-date scores for all the major contests.Stories you like can be emailed to friends, sent as a text message, or to Twitter. The setup section also allows you to submit bug and feature requests. USA Today appears to download everything it can when you are connected via Edge, 3G or Wi-Fi, so if you get on a plane and have no Internet access you can still read all the content. I noticed that all the pictures were not available though.The app also gives you access to USA Today snapshots, and allows you to vote in various polls. Some of the polls were out of date, however, like asking what people are going to wear on New Year's Eve. When you do vote, you're asked if you want to share your location. I think this allows the polls to be parsed by section of the country. Keep in mind that USA Today is an American newspaper. This is not the app to use to search for much news outside the U.S. of A., and users report you can't even start the app if you are outside the country. The developers say that is a bug, not a feature and will be fixed soon.Having said all this, the USA Today app for the iPhone/touch is very fast, nicely laid out, follows iPhone GUI conventions very well, and despite some of the little glitches I saw, was a pleasure to use. Just the thing for getting the latest news while strolling around the Macworld Expo, or anywhere really.
USA Today's 15,000 LittleBigPlanet keys
It's great to see LittleBigPlanet getting such positive press, especially from a mainstream national newspaper like USA Today. This is exactly the kind of buzz the PS3 needs right now before the all-important holiday shopping season. If you've been following the news on LittleBigPlanet here on PS3Fanboy, none of the information in the article will be new to you. However, they are giving away 15,000 LBP beta keys, which we are sure at least some of you are still interested in. The giveaway is simple: just drop an e-mail over to littlebigplanet@usatoday.com with "LittleBigPlanet Beta" in the subject line, and they'll send you a code while supplies last. Easy peasey![Via PS.Blog -- thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
USA Today: Wii's Rock Band 2 to feature DLC, online play
USA Today reports that the Wii version of Rock Band 2 will feature downloadable songs and online multiplayer. Up until this point, the available features for the game on the best-selling console have been nebulous. USA Today's original article stated that there would be no online functions, but has since been updated with new wording.We've contacted both MTV and Harmonix PR to confirm the information. Harmonix previously stated it would be difficult to have DLC on the Wii due to storage size and/or SD card retrieval issues.Update: A Harmonix rep has confirmed Rock Band 2 for Wii will have song DLC functionality like PS3 and Xbox 360from the online music store.
Fanswag: USA Today Crossword Challenge goes to ...
Our latest giveaway has come to a close. We've selected 5 different winners, all of whom should be solving crosswords in record time now. Our winners are: Lord Humongous Kearns ethan42404 Gid Kelvis Congrats to the winners and better luck next time to the rest of you. Thanks for reading DS Fanboy!
Reminder: USA Today Crosswords is up for grabs
Our latest giveaway has us unloading several copies of USA Today Crossword Challenge. Would you like a free copy? Heck, who doesn't want a free game? Well, if you do, then head on over to the original contest post and read up on how you can enter our latest giveaway. Good luck!
Jim Lee gives more information about DC Universe Online
While it's not a long piece, there are some interesting nuggets of information in the latest interview Jim Lee gave to USA Today. He talks about the interaction between DC Universe Online and the print adventures, which MMOs he's played, and how DCUO will differ from other MMOs.It's in this last bit that Lee says something that might be a hint, or it might just be idle talk: "To me, that is kind of how superheroes fight. It's not like they stand there and trade blows. The cities are their playgrounds, and they demolish them." Can we expect destructible environments in DCUO?
MOJO's A Shot at Glory profiles US Olympic athletes
If you haven't seen enough behind-the-scenes footage in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (or you just don't subscribe to AT&T's U-verse TV for whatever reason), MOJO is hoping to give you even more just prior to the start of the Games in August. Reportedly, the network will begin airing a 10-part weekday series on July 28th at 9:00PM ET / PT in which US Olympic athletes are profiled and interviewed in order to give the general public a look at what it takes to compete at the highest level. For a full list of who all will be showcased, check out the read link.[Via Multichannel News]
Mossberg, Pogue, Baig review the iPhone 3G
While most people are waiting in line for their soon-to-be new friend, pal and everyday communications device, the world's top tech reviewers have already been playing with the long awaited device. Below is a summary of their findings along with links to their full reviews of the iPhone 3G. Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal) Pros: Faster cell network data speeds, GPS Cons: Weaker battery life due to 3G/GPS Bottom Line: If you don't already have an iPhone and can live with the weaker battery life, then you should go ahead and buy; otherwise wait out for the 2.0 firmware update (hmm... I think I've heard this advice somewhere else) David Pogue (New York Times) Pros: You can talk and access 3G data network simultaneously, cheaper, improved audio quality Cons: 3G isn't wide-spread, AT&T pricing, Bottom Line: "iPhone 3G is a nice upgrade," 2.0 firmware update will make your original iPhone in most ways similar to the iPhone 3G Edward Baig (USA Today) Pros: Faster data network, cheaper, GPS, Visual Voicemail Cons: Slow EDGE speeds when not in 3G area, no video, no memory expansion Bottom Line: "The Sequel, is worth the wait," he also shows a side-by-side comparison between EDGE and 3G speeds As an interesting note: David Pogue says that the iPhone's GPS antenna is too small to provide you with turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps -- this is something that Apple has failed to note until now.
DS Fanboy Review: USA Today Crossword Challenge
Despite the fact that Nintendo's own Crosswords DS will no doubt outsell USA Today Crossword Challenge, due to the "Nintendo" on the front (and the Gamestop-exclusive release of USA Today), Destineer, developer Mercury Games and original engine developer Sanuk Games should feel very lucky that Nintendo released their own crossword game when they did. It means that, in the DS crossword genre at least, Destineer can claim superiority over Nintendo. It may not have the extra modes that Crosswords DS does, but it is a much more pleasant crossword experience.
Is WoW a hotbed of political activity?
Earlier this week, USA Today published a lifestyle article that made the claim that the population of World of Warcraft has gotten swept up in the political fervor of the day. According to one frequent WoW-player quoted prominently in the article, the buzz over the race between Hillary and Obama has reached such an ever-present crescendo that it's bled into our most prominent avenue for fantasy and escapism.While it is particularly interesting the way that the political dialog has overcome more tradition fare in /general and guild chats (and by traditional fare we mean Chuck Norris jokes), we'd hesitate to call this phenomenon an exclusive product of this election cycle. The fact of the matter is, this is really the first presidential election cycle that has taken place during World of Warcraft's life, so there's no way to tell whether this amount of election buzz is peculiar in any way. Are marches through the streets of Iron Forge in support of marginal Republican candidates par for the course? We honestly haven't a clue. Ask us in four years![Via GamePolitics]
