Blast
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Blast Box lets musicians stream performances that are only available for 24 hours
Blast Radio has launched a service where musicians can broadcast performances that disappear in 24 hours, and they can stream through an easy-to-use box.
Nearby nuclear sensors went silent after Russia's mystery explosion
Earlier this month, a rocket test explosion in Russia resulted in the deaths of five people and a radiation leak that affected nearby towns. Now, the operator of a global network of radioactive particle sensors says that sites closest to the explosion mysteriously went offline shortly afterwards.
Spotify voice control is coming to UE's Alexa-powered speakers
The Alexa-powered Blast and Megablast speakers Ultimate Ears launched late last year will soon give you a way to listen to your favorite tunes on Spotify without lifting a single finger. Ultimate Ears will roll out Spotify voice control through Amazon's voice assistant in the near future, so you can simply say "Alexa, play my Discover Weekly" or any of your music on the service. The speakers will also be the first Ultimate Ears products to support Spotify Connect, which allows you to stream music to audio devices via WiFi without having to pair through Bluetooth. It offers a much more reliable connection than Bluetooth, one that's less susceptible to dropouts and interruptions.
UE's Blast and Megablast join the Alexa smart speaker family
These days, the launch of yet more speakers with Alexa onboard isn't the most exciting announcement. However, these aren't stout smart home speakers or a mere software update, but an entirely new line for Ultimate Ears -- a long-standing favorite for its speakers' audio output and resilience. Today, the company introduces the Blast and Megablast, the network-capable and Alexa-enabled siblings of UE's Boom 2 and Megaboom. This new line was built explicitly for the Amazon Alexa ecosystem of apps and features, and along with the Power Up charging base, offers always-on functionality to cater to your verbal demands. Unlike many other options though, this one also includes an on-board battery for portability.
US soldiers to wear blast sensors in Afghanistan, collect shock data
Starting next month, around one thousand frontline personnel in Afghanistan will begin testing the Soldier Body Unit, a sensor kit for recording the effects of explosions on the human body. While that's not the most pleasant of subjects, the blast sensors have been rushed out to collect as much data as possible before soldiers head home in 2014. The US Army's Rapid Equipping Force and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which developed the sensors, hope to gather info on concussions and traumatic brain injuries to improve aftercare. This will also be used at source to stop super-soldiers heading back out after a concussion and increasing the probability of an even worse injury. Further sensors will be carried on military vehicles, to help measure the effects of IED blasts on passengers. Adding two pounds in extra equipment probably won't make the Soldier Body Unit too popular, but it's thought the kit could weigh in at half a pound once it's been refined.
Blast at Intel's Arizona plant injures seven, investigation under way
Yesterday afternoon, a blast occurred at Intel's Arizona plant just outside Phoenix, injuring seven people with one suffering from severe burns. According to Phoenix Business Journal, the incident took place in a solvent waste treatment room at Fab 22 -- not far from Fab 32 which will be manufacturing 22nm chips -- but Intel Vice President Josh Walden assured us that "there was no damage or release of chemicals to the community," and production has already resumed in both facilities. The company is currently looking into the possible causes of this accident -- you'll know it when we have an update, and we wish the victims a quick recovery. [Image courtesy of neepster]
Vulkano Blast and Flow due this month, streaming your media all over the place
You know what was missing form Vulkano's last release? More pun-ful names, that's what. Enter the Vulkano Blast and Flow do-it-all media boxes. For $99, the latter boasts watching live TV, browsing episode guides, and accessing recorded content via PC, Macs, smartphones, and various tablets -- iOS, BlackBerry, and Android for now, according to the press release, with Windows (Phone?) 7 and Symbian on the horizon. Meanwhile, the Blast adds HDMI out, UPnP support, and a 160GB hard drive for $199. Both have a 802.11n router and both are due out this month, if ya dig.
Blast is a great way to keep track of what you use and where it is on your Mac
Mac OS X has buckets of really neat features, many of which aren't always obvious. One of the things I use frequently in OS X is the "Recent Items" menu, which is invoked from the Apple menu. It shows recently used apps and documents. Blast (US$9.95 for a single user) is kind of Recent Items on steroids. It resides on the menu bar, and keeps track of every item that was recently used or changed. Take an incoming download, for example. Sure, I can go to my download folder, but I often have more than a hundred items in there. Yes, I can then search by date and come up with it, but with Blast, it's instantly found with a click. That's something the Apple Recent Items menu doesn't do. Even better, I can then drag the item somewhere else, like to an email, or to a program icon to launch it. Of course, I can double click on the item, too. All your recent saves are there, along with a list, for example, of what documents you read yesterday. If you have a favorite place you go, like a folder of images, that folder can be pinned to a sidebar so it is always there. %Gallery-109505%
Mac 101: Using iChat with AIM Blasts
More Mac 101, our ongoing series of tips and tricks for new and returning Mac users. If you're an iChat user with a need for immediate attention, AIM Blasts makes it easy to add social networking groups to iChat. When you want to have a conversation with a group of people, blasts let you IM everyone in your selected group at once, without having to invite them to a special chat room. For example, you might have friend groups, work groups, or, thinking of Scott McNulty, your special D&D buddies. MobileMe users can take advantage of AIM blasts, since all .Mac and MM users are automatically AIM users as well. Just log in to AIM.com as yourname@me.com (or mac.com) -- you'll be able to take advantage of all of AOL's instant-messaging hospitality. You don't set up your blast in iChat. Instead, point your browser at blast.aim.com. There, you'll be able to invite your friends and establish your new group. All joining and messaging is done from inside iChat itself. Blast groups appear in iChat as a separate group in your Buddies list -- scroll down in the buddy list if you have trouble finding your blast groups. It may help to give them names that are distinct from any buddy groups you already have, or perhaps prefix your blast groups with a "B-" to help them stand out. When setting up your blast group, you decide whether all members or only admins (i.e., you) can send messages and/or invitations. Blast recipients have to accept your invite to be part of a blast group, so you may want to give them a heads-up in advance (especially if your blast group's name is obscure or edgy). Just so you know: TUAW and Weblogs, Inc. are part of AOL.
Hands-on with the Samsung Blast
As US carriers lean harder and harder on messaging, offering a plethora of QWERTY and otherwise messaging-enhanced (case in point) phones, unlimited messaging plans, and tighter email integration, we're liking what we're seeing. Needless to say, we've come a long way from the early days when BlackBerry 850s and Nokia 9200s ruled a fairly niche market, and the Samsung Blast personifies that reality. Put simply -- and messaging capabilities aside -- this is a very attractive phone. In fact, we got a couple compliments and questions about it just walking down the street with the phone to our ear. Of course, a large part of that can likely be attributed to the Blast's screaming pink backside -- but that backside is real metal, something you don't typically see of a phone at this price point. Besides the metal, other high-end features include a fairly robust email client, an ultra thin package, and the trick SureType keypad. We've never personally been able to get used to SureType, but folks that can should have no trouble adapting to this one; we were initially worried about the size of the keys and tactility issues, but we found that we were able to feel 'em out with our fat fingers pretty easily and we had no mistypes whatsoever. The 220 x 176 display and 1.3 megapixel cam are disappointments, but only because they feel mismatched to the solidity, feature set, and attractive design of the phone -- and for T-Mobile and Samsung, that's a very good problem to have considering the reasonable price point. Check out our full gallery below!%Gallery-6653%
T-Mobile launches Samsung SGH-T729 "Blast"
As expected, Samsung and T-Mobile have launched the Blast slider today, a phone that puts a big emphasis on messaging capabilities. The 1.3 megapixel camera and EDGE data aren't going to get any jaws dropping, but the SureType keypad (something Samsung has pulled off in the past), integrated support for popular email services like Gmail and Yahoo, and crazy color scheme just might. What's better, T-Mobile is charging the same rate for email sent and received on the T729 for the same price as text messages -- no data plan necessary (why haven't other carriers thought of this?). Other features include stereo Bluetooth, microSD slot, and -- naturally -- myFaves support. Look for it on store shelves any day now for $99 on a two-year contract.
Deadly blast rocks Virgin Galactic rocket test
This week is quickly becoming a tough one for the aerospace industry, as just a day after NASA reported tampering on an ISS bound computer, an explosion at the Mojave Air and Space Port has claimed two lives and seriously injured four others. The blast reportedly occurred during a "test of a new rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo -- a spaceship being built for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's space tourism company." According to a spokeswoman for the spaceport, the blast was "on a remote pad" at an airport home to Scaled Composite (which is the builder of the first private manned rocket to reach space), but the firm's founder Burt Rutan wasn't in attendance when the "cold fire test" went awry.
OPPO Blast PMP is blowing up your FLVs
OPPO, a PMP maker we've come to expect some interesting designs from (see the guitar-shaped DAP and the pendant player), is bringing something a little more tame to market. The 6.9mm thick Blast sports a 2.4-inch TFT screen, takes microSD cards, and can play back all the standards, like MP3, WMA, MP4, AVI, XVID, and FLAC, which is all well and good, though we've seen a million of these and counting. What's different in this case -- at least a little -- is that the Blast can supposedly play back FLV files, which gives it a certain modern flavor, and suggests that even mass-produced China-ware is getting caught up in the YouTube game. Not available anywhere even close to the US, price unknown.[Via PMP Today]
Why not throw a bunch of freeware games in with Blast Works?
That's what Majesco and Budcat thought, anyway. They were already making a game based on a Kenta Cho freeware shooter, with no legal hoops to jump through. There's basically no reason for them not to throw a bunch more Cho games on there! It works out well for them, because it's bonus content, and it works out nicely for us, because we'll be able to play more great abstract shooters on our television, using our Wiimote!Siliconera played Blast Works at E3, and realized very quickly that they were just playing the original TUMIKI Fighters. The Budcat rep explained that it was an early build and that Blast Works would indeed be a new game. He also revealed that not only will TUMIKI Fighters be on the disc in its original form, but rRootage and possibly Gunroar and Torus Trooper will be bonus content as well.This means that you can go preview some Blast Works bonus content right now! It's like being at E3. Just like it. We recommend rRootage especially-- it's a parade of randomly-generated bosses.%Gallery-4821%
Majesco officially announces Tumiki Fighters as Blast Works
We had just about forgotten about the Gamefly-supplied rumor of a Wii port of Tumiki Fighters, and now we have confirmation from Majesco! They'll be releasing an upgraded port of Kenta Cho's freeware shooter, with the new title Blast Works, in the first quarter of next year-- in Europe. No US date has been announced.Not only will the game feature the same awesome mechanic the original had (grabbing parts from exploded enemies to upgrade your ship) but it'll include weapon, propulsion, armor, ship, enemy, and level editors. Grab the freeware version and give it a try, then join us in hoping for a US release-- it beats online petitions, at least.
Virtually Overlooked Week: Jason's picks
Virtually Overlooked has taken over Wii Fanboy! All this week, members of the staff will be outlining their personal picks for future Virtual Console releases. Growing up with gaming is an interesting thing these days. Many of you are part of the first generation that was quite literally born into a household with a gaming console, as I was. In my experience, if you start off in life gaming hard, you don't stop. Therefore, in the very near future, I will able to ask a random middle-aged man if he wants to go play Guitar Hero 4, and it won't be totally weird.Who am I kidding? This isn't Japan, and that guy will probably think I am, in fact, totally weird. But man, screw those non-gamers. The hardcore, like you and I, have tons of gaming memories, and thus we frequently long for the games of yore to be released on the Virtual Console. But they have not yet appeased my feral hunger, and thus do I lay these games out in a commanding fashion for Nintendo's minions to take note.You, of course, may gaze as well.
Mr. Bean game coming to PlayStation 2
UK-based publisher Blast! Entertainment recently announced a game of unusual sorts in their PS2 line-up: Mr. Bean. Yes, the Mr. Bean. In a video game. Precious few details accompanied the "huh?!"-inducing press release. The game will be aimed at children and involve Mr. Bean searching for Teddy with the help of his girlfriend Irma Gobb. Stages are 3D and contain lots of "tricky traps" that we're pretty sure we'll need to "avoid". Don't be surprised if there's an area where Mr. Bean runs around with a turkey on his head as well.[Via 1P Start]
Don't expect any Rare games on the Virtual Console...
...according to Matt over at IGN, who claims to have spoken with some key Rare folk about the possibility of some of Rare's past greats to be in Nintendo's Virtual Console's starting lineup during GDC. While it's pretty much a given that this would be the case, what with Rare being alligned under the cold, Borg-like, Microsoft Game Studios, no-shows will undoubtedly be Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark, Banjo & Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, and Blast Corps. That last one hits this Blogger especially hard. I know many people would say the N64's strongest game was Goldeneye 007 or Perfect Dark, some might claim its stellar first-party offerings in Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were superior, but for this Blogger no other experience on the console could top the sheer ecstasy of uppercutting buildings as a giant mech and bulldozing gas stations in Blast Corps. It was like a digital incarnation of my childhood with Tonka trucks and Transformers.
