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Nokia N9 countdown page goes live, 49 days to launch?
Google's powers of awkward PR translation may have been right on the MeeGo-money, judging by this countdown page for the N9. The Swedish site, which just went live today, has begun its 49 days and counting creep to the Gorilla Glass-clad handset's eventual overseas debut. We'd previously heard whispers of an impending September 15th release pegged for the OEM's backyard, but we'll err on the side of Nokia's official launch clock. Head to the source to watch this tantalizing tease of time ticking by. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
TUAW's Daily iPad App: 22 Days HD
22 Days HD is an event countdown app that tells you the number of years, months or days until an event. It even counts down the hours, minutes and seconds, but the app calculates that value according to the day, not the exact time of the event. The app looks nice on the iPad, even if its navigation is a bit awkward. It opens to your event screen which lists all your saved events. Each event has an icon and is arranged in a grid pattern according to how far away the event is (days, months, or years). You tap once on an icon to view the event details and tap twice to edit an event. Be careful not to triple-tap an event, as that deletes it. While still in the event list view, you can get a quick look at all the events in each time category by tapping and holding on the "days", "months" or "year" labels. Pulling up information in this event list view is quick and easy, but you do have to get used to these single, double and triple taps, as well the tap and hold. You can also swipe left and right to navigate between your event list and the new event screen. This swiping is not completely intuitive as you have to swipe across the large 22 Days logo at the top to navigate. If you swipe on the bottom half of the screen, nothing happens. Once again it's easy, but not completely intuitive. The new event screen is where you enter all your events. You can set the name, date (month and day only), assign a notification date and time, and specify it as a recurring event, There is no option to set the frequency (weekly, monthly) or the recurrence; each event by default is yearly. You can also choose an image and must assign one before you can create an event. The image can be a stock image provided by the app, one in your photo roll or one taken with your iPad 2 camera. The 22 Days app is also chock full of value-added features. It lets you add an unlimited number of events as well as grab location data for each event. You can even pull in event information from your contacts (their birthdays!) and from an ICS file exported from your personal calendar. Events can be shared on Twitter by double tapping the event and on Facebook by triple tapping. Overall, 22 Days HD is a nice-looking app with many features. You just have to get used to its semi-complex method interaction that uses a combination of single, double and triple taps. 22 Days HD is available here in the App Store for $1.99.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Time
Do you ever watch Star Trek and think, I wish my computer just had a little bit of the LCARS theme to it? You need Time. OK, it's not going to turn your Mac into a futuristic Star Trek-style computer, but Time authentically replicates the visual style and feel of the LCARS interface displaying a clock complete with a stopwatch, count down timer and an alarm. You can choose from 27 different color themes to suit your decor, have the app full screen or windowed and adjust the brightness of the app by dimming the entire interface -- handy if you're using it as a display at night. On the clock front you have the option of 12 or 24 hour display, the option to display the seconds as well as the day and date, which can be displayed as a star date. All the settings are accessible via large buttons that make up the interface, with each button click emitting a satisfying LCARS sound. Speaking of sounds you have the option of 15 alarm sounds from beeps and chirps to warnings and hailing frequencies, which can be used for both the alarm clock and the count down timer. If all the sounds get a little much for you, there's a button to mute the whole lot too. Time does what it says on the tin. It gives you a clock in the style of LCARS, and is great for any 24th century Star Trek fans out there. It's free and available from the Mac App Store.
PlanetSide 2 info coming tomorrow
Look lively PlanetSide 2 fans. Your long, dark winter is almost over and spring is coming in the form of a major new announcement on July 7th. That's tomorrow if you're counting at home, and Sony Online Entertainment has even provided a helpful countdown timer on the new PlanetSide 2 website to assist in said counting. There's also a new Facebook page with a cryptic teaser for "classified information incoming," so mark your calendars and set your alarms for 7:00 p.m. PDT tomorrow. Is SOE getting ready to drop a release date in the laps of eager sci-fi MMOFPS fans? Are there gameplay feature reveals in our immediate future? We're not sure at this point, but we are sure that tomorrow can't come fast enough.
EVE's Incarna countdown kicks off
This has got to be a tough week for stick-in-the-mud EVE Online vets who are convinced that an expanding New Eden is a bad thing. First it was yesterday's official Dust 514 E3 reveal (consoles, platform exclusivity, and shooters, oh my!), and today we've got an official countdown clock to the EVE version of dress-up... er, Incarna. Yes, the long-awaited walking-in-stations/ambulation/EVE-with-legs update is less than two weeks away, and CCP has prepared a new section of its official EVE website devoted to all things Incarna. The new portal has a good bit of info on the expansion, including a new video dev blog featuring Team BFF and its commitment to improving and expanding EVE's minutia. If you're newly interested in EVE, Incarna, or really anything to do with New Eden, head to the new site and have a look at the video after the cut.
Carmageddon site registered to Square Enix updated with countdown
If you're compiling a mental list of franchises which will be summoned from their respective graves at E3 2011, it might be a safe bet to tack Stainless Games' Carmageddon onto the list. The website Carmageddon.com -- a domain registered to Square Enix Europe, owner of the original game's co-publisher SCi -- was recently updated with an ever-popular countdown timer, as well as three Jolly Rogers. The countdown is scheduled to terminate at 5 a.m. on June 1, which seems like a weird time to announce much of anything -- assuming there's something to announce. Now, if it were us, we'd wait the extra week and announce it at the gigantic, well-publicized annual trade show. Unless, of course, this is a countdown-countdown; a maneuver that's also rapidly increasing in popularity.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Shuttie
Ever wanted to leave your Mac running unattended at night, but don't want it running all night long? Today's Daily Mac App will help you do just that. Shuttie allows you to bind one of six actions to a countdown timer, allowing you to shutdown, restart, sleep or logout of your Mac, or fire off an AppleScript or an alert. You select the action you want, the countdown time and hit the activate button. Shuttie will provide periodic Growl notifications as it counts down to zero, as well as a timer on its dock icon, and then it will initiate whichever activity you've got selected. Loading an AppleScript is a drag-and-drop affair while your desired alert text is entered into a text box. Sure, there are other ways of doing this kind of thing, but Shuttie is a good way to set up these tasks to be performed remotely. It's US$1.99 in the Mac App Store.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Minutes
Timers are a dime-a-dozen these days. Whether you're using the built-in Timer app on the iPhone or one of the myriad of cloud-based timer apps or widgets, it doesn't take much to do the job. Minutes is a simple Mac App Store timer app that spawned from a Dashboard widget of the same name. The app exemplifies ease of use, presenting you with a cute little timer box complete with countdown clock at its center. Drag the little arrow around the clock to set the time and click the button to start it. The app can play a cute little default alarm tone, start playing a playlist in iTunes or stop iTunes playing once the countdown has finished. Each action has a fun little animation attached to it with each new timer dropping down from the top of your screen and the clock shaking once the countdown is complete. You can change the color of the timer among four colors, set it to use a 24-hour clock and have as many timers as you want on screen at a time. If you need the digital equivalent of an egg timer on your Mac, you can't go wrong with the cute little US$0.99 Minutes.
Capcom's 'DD' teased with dragon hearts, stone walls
Earlier this week, Capcom opened a countdown site at capcom.co.jp/DD, which displays a timer that will elapse on April 12, and the outline of a dragon. Today, mysteriously, the dragon has a visible heart, which would seem to confirm a new game adaptation of a certain Sean Connery movie. Maybe not. In addition, readers have found hidden images in the source of the site, which ... don't really help us identify anything. They're landscape pictures of a grassy field with medieval ruins nearby. Siliconera has suggested the countdown is for "Dragon's Dogma" -- a trademark for which the site discovered back in August. As with all countdown sites, we know precisely when we'll get the full story ... one day before the countdown runs out, when Famitsu leaks reveal it.
Countdown for iOS gives a highly customizable view of deadlines
I've used a countdown widget in OS X for ages, but recently, I wanted a program that could keep track of several events to count down to, and something specifically for my iPad, not just for my Mac. I found a universal app simply called Countdown, and I figured that for $1, I'd give it a try. It turned out to be exactly what I was looking for, plus a little more. Interface The concept is fairly simple and so is the interface. You are asked to name the event and provide a date (time is optional). That's all you have to tell it, but there's more available. You can also choose the "Units" of measurement. This was one of the crucial features for me; If I have a deadline for a project coming up on March 1, I want to see how many days I have to work on it. By default, Countdown will show you year, month, day, hour and minute, so that my March 1 deadline is shown as "2 months, 13 days." However, if I want to see just the number of days left, I can uncheck all of the "Units" except "Day," and it will show "75 days" remaining. If I wanted to show just weekdays (53 remaining) or just weekend days (22 remaining), I can do that as well. On the other hand, I am on a bicentennial committee, and that deadline isn't until March of 2015, so I don't need to see "days" for that. Instead of days, I have years and months listed until it gets closer. Finally, I'm going to Chicago in April, and I don't need to see how many days that is, but I would like to know how many weeks (16!). You can group events by folder if you want (if you do, however, there is no way to see all of your events at once), and you can set them to "auto-sort," where they will organize themselves chronologically.
5TH Cell counting down to XBLA announcement [update]
Scribblenauts developer 5TH Cell is about to reveal its next game, which it has been teasing for almost a year -- but there's a bit more teasing to do before that happens. The developer posted a seven-day countdown for the title on its site, revealing in a press release that the end of the countdown -- Thursday, October 28 at 10pm PDT Friday, October 29 at 1am EDT and 1am PDT -- will coincide with the reveal of the new title on Spike TV. A brief teaser will also be shown tonight. According to the press release, the game will be "a completely new experience for Xbox Live Arcade players." 5TH Cell's Jeremiah Slaczka has previously told Joystiq that the company's next original game would use the Source Engine. We'll find out more in ... seven days, and counting. Update: 5TH Cell informed us that it sent out the incorrect time yesterday. You'll be able to see the reveal on Friday, October 29 at 1am EDT/PDT.
Kojima's E3 2010 teaser site will whet your appetite
Kojima Productions can make some excellent games but its countdowns are transcendent. Continuing an annual tradition, Hideo and company have opened yet another mysterious E3 countdown, this time teasing images of various foods being chopped. Perhaps the imagery of foods is supposed to represent the hunger gamers have for exciting revelations from the trade show. Or maybe the use of knives is symbolic of the lighting bolt action waiting to be discovered in Metal Gear Solid Rising. Or maybe, just maybe, Kojima is set to unveil his next project: Cooking Mama 4: Mama's Revenge, the franchise's first M-rated entry. As usual, we welcome your conspiracy theories. However, let us warn you: you will be wrong.
Patapon-related beta test teased
As tends to happen around this time of year, another countdown site has popped up, this one on the Japanese PlayStation site. It's counting down to the start of a beta test for ... something, with the countdown against a black background, with some thunder noises for ambiance. Well, not just for ambience. The thunder accompanies a faint lightning effect, which illuminates a faint Patapon-esque scene in the background (above). But why would a new Patapon game need a beta test? What if it featured (gasp) online multiplayer? You'd be all pata pata and your friend would be like pon pon and it would be awesome. We'll find out in around five days!
New Planetside comic marks imminent countdown
The clock is still ticking. In less than a week, something happens in the world of Planetside. Something what? We honestly have no idea, although the quickly-ticking countdown clock on Planetside's website teases the mind. We've been watching this clock for a little while now, and the only hint that SOE will give about it is that it is "anniversary related." Planetside recently posted a new comic as part of this countdown, where a mysterious figure cackles over obtaining nanites in preparation for converting them. Into what? We still have no idea! It won't stop players from speculating, of course. Stay tuned, as we'll find out when the countdown hits zero in about a week.
BioWare countdown breeds speculation on Star Wars: The Old Republic
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Bioware_countdown_clock_may_signal_The_Old_Republic_s_beta'; It's a sure thing that if you put a countdown on your site, gamers will start speculating rampantly as to what it means. BioWare has apparently decided to get in on some of that action, with their pages for the company, Dragon Age: Origins, and the Mass Effect franchise all displaying the same cryptic countdown. At the time of the above screenshot, it's going to hit zero on March 29th at roughly noon EST. The question, of course, is only half-answered by doing the math -- because the real question isn't just "when," but also "what?" Fans of the hotly-anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic have been speculating up a storm that it ties to an announcement for the game, perhaps the start of beta or even more news on launch. Careful digging from forum members Ianril and Zechio have uncovered a potential launch site for the game, which is currently devoid of content but certainly looks legitimate enough. Short of the company coming out and saying what it's for, we won't know for sure until noon on Monday, but those who can't wait to test the game (possibly after our GDC impressions) might have good reason to hope for the best. [ Thanks to everyone who sent this in! ] Update: Attempting to log into the new "launch" page with a BioWare account will return the error, "No game servers are currently available for play." Could this be the actual game servers, or perhaps servers for some other type of promotional game? Speculation continues... Update 2: BioWare's PR has responded to Joystiq's Ben Gilbert with the following statement: "The announcement is more community focused and won't be a game announcement. Unfortunately we can't share the details with the press."
Hydrophobia site set for reveal this week
True to its name, news on Dark Energy Digital's episodic XBLA (puzzle? horror? action?) game, Hydrophobia, has been the very definition of a trickle. Every few months, the thing emerges Loch Ness-style to reassert its existence, then promptly dives below again. If the game's official site is to be believed, though, the peek-a-boo routine may be ending. Visitors to the page are now greeted with a timer counting down to 12 AM ET Friday, and the developer's Twitter feed promises, "All will be revealed very shortly," adding, "something big is coming." This whole countdown page thing is a little "mid-to-late 2008" for our tastes, but we'll be willing to forgive, if the reveal leads to some promising details about the game. [Via CVG]
Mysterious yellow and black cards lead to wild Nikon speculation
You know what's black and yellow all over, fits in the average mailbox and gets the imaginations of camera junkies running wild? These cards, that's what. Over the past few days, mysterious cards have begun to arrive in the hands of Nikon users, and while the company's name is nowhere to be found, the colors and hints are starting to build a case for something new. It seems a countdown from 8 has begun, with the first card stating "I am..." and the second "I am fun...." In case you weren't aware, Nikon has yet to dabble in the Micro Four Thirds world (or even hint at a competitor like Samsung's NX range), but whispers of a so-called EVIL lineup have been building steam. Nikon aficionados have pointed out that the countdown will end just prior to a UK press meeting on March 8th, which could very well mean that an all-new compact is just days away from being properly revealed. Or it could be nothing at all. Keep your expectations low -- it's better to be pleasantly surprised than deflated and alone, right?
Symbian's revealing something tomorrow, but what? (update: open source!)
Oh, Symbian, you tease! For an organization as committed to openness and sharing its roadmap (and its code) as the Symbian Foundation, it's pretty unusual that they'd be counting down to a big unveiling of anything -- but sure enough, they've been tweeting decreasing numbers with the hashtag "#symbiancountdown" starting back on January 26 with 108. Today we're down to 12 (it's hard to say what sort of jacked-up counting system they're using here) with a note of "what will tomorrow bring?" so it looks like we can expect this all to go down in just a few short hours. One thought is that they could announce that Symbian^3 has gone Functionally Complete, a key milestone in getting it pushed to devices -- but that's a shot in the dark. Don't disappoint, guys. Update: Looks like it may be the full source for Symbian^2, the Foundation's first open release. Update 2: They've gotten around to tossing up a blog post about it, and it's actually Symbian^3 that's going open here, which "will soon be feature complete." Good times.
Microsoft teases Capcom 'premiere' for Xbox 360
According to the front page of the Japanese Xbox site, Capcom and Microsoft are going to reveal a "title premiere" for the 360 on January 26. That "title premiere" could, of course, refer to a new game announcement, or it could refer to the release of new details about a known title, like the yet-to-be-dated Lost Planet 2, Dead Rising 2 or even Super Street Fighter IV. However, the "Capcom X Microsoft" wording suggests a project that is a bit more collaborative than, say, a release date for a multiplatform product, so it's possible we're waiting on a new Xbox-exclusive. In any case, it's easy enough to determine what this premiere is all about using the "just wait until January 26" method. That's next Tuesday, by the way. [Via Andriasang]
Love counts down to the launch of beta, account holders play free
While everyone's off enjoying the holidays, there's no rest for Eskil Steenberg. The one man of the one-man-MMO team is working hard though the holidays, putting together 26 major new features for the introduction of the Love beta test. While the features are secret, Eskil is updating his Twitter account with information on the new features as he completes them. Once all 26 items are done, Eskil will be updating Love and sending the game into beta. Currently the features look quite interesting -- such as new specialized settlements, sound pathing for the game, letting the game's AI use teleporter guns, a new building type (prisons), and something that is only referred to as "armageddon." Whatever the heck armageddeon is, it sounds awesome.
