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Thanko's Spy Button video camera, because you've already failed
So what if Thanko's ¥5,980 (about $62) Spy Button Camera doesn't look exactly like the other buttons on your shirt. Anyone inclined to wear such a device to covertly record VGA video at 15fps (or 1280x1024 stills) to 4GB of internal memory isn't likely to get noticed in a crowd anyway. At least the magnetic on/off switch gives renewed purpose to your wedding ring while offering evidence of your continued poor decision making skills. Just be sure to bring your inhaler to keep your breathless excitement in check.[Via Akihabara News]
Crafter offers Haggle Man buttons for Retro Game Challenge purchases
We've humbly requested that our readership purchase a certain title to ensure the development of a sequel many times before (picked up your required 15 copies of Gitaroo Man yet?), but rarely does our fervor for a video game series build to a level that inspires us to offer actual, tangible rewards for your compliance. We suppose we've never loved a game as much as craftwise classic gaming fan Benjamin loves Retro Game Challenge -- he's offering a cross-stitched Ninja Robot Haggle Man button to anyone who purchases a new copy of the game. Just send in your receipt, and he'll pay the shipping. As he sees it, its his only way to get XSEED to localize Retro Game Challenge 2 -- we usually just send developers large sacks of money to accomplish such a goal, but we realize that's not always possible for -- ahem -- blue collar types. Good luck, Ben![Thanks, Michael!]
Carbonite going free, continuing development
The guys behind Carbonite have finally responded to Blizzard's new addon policy, and probably not in the way you might have guessed: they're continuing development, and they're making the addon free. Carbonite was rumored to be the addon that started all of this trouble: they had a partial version up for free download, and were charging for the full version of the addon, which apparently Blizzard didn't appreciate. But rather than shutting down the addon completely, they've decided to go free for everyone, and they're continuing development -- version 3.00 is supposed to be out next week.It's worth noting that they still have a number of donate buttons on their download page, which Blizzard is supposedly fine with -- all Blizzard wanted was the donate buttons out of the game itself. And of course, if you find this addon (or any other) helpful, you should definitely support the people who make it.Reaction on the addon's forums is grateful as expected -- lots of people figured that this addon would be shutting down for good, so many are glad to see it will be continuing development. And one developer does say that Carbonite will be removing any obfuscation from their code, as per the new policy, so it's possible that other addon developers will be able to more easily hook into their code and use their techniques. Of course, whether the addon will still be financially worth it for the devs remains to be seen but for now, they're going along with the new policy and widening their audience at the same time.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
WoW paid character customization button discovered, Brack confirms
When curious World of Warcraft players investigated currently-unused images hidden in a build of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, they uncovered a button labeled "UI-PaidCharacterCustomization" which was associated with the character selection screen. Needless to say, that discovery raised some eyebrows. At Blizzcon, Lead Producer J. Allen Brack was asked to clarify.According to WarCry's write-up for the event, Brack first dodged the question, but eventually decided it was necessary to address it. He confirmed that a paid character customization service is in WoW's future, but said that the developers haven't decided what it will entail or how much it will cost yet.Perhaps players will pay to make changes not supported by the barbershop, or perhaps all-new premium customization options will be introduced. If it's the former, then WoW is not headed towards a more microtransaction based future, as that sort of option is similar to the already-existing service that allows players to pay for a name change. If unique premium options are being introduced though, that's a whole different ball game. [Via Rock, Paper Shotgun]
Mac 101: Where'd my send button go?
More Mac 101, TUAW's series for beginners. My mom called me up last week with this question about Mail: "Where did my send button go?" Turns out she had mistakenly clicked the white chiclet (pictured) in the upper-right hand corner of her message's compose window, hiding her toolbar. When she clicked it once, Mail remembered her settings and hid the toolbar for other message windows, too. So, just clicking that chiclet showed the toolbar again, and brought her send button back. Magic. Also, you can hold down command and click the same chiclet to show and hide icons and text labels in the toolbar. Repeatedly clicking with the command key held down cycles through all your options. Now that my mom is happily sending emails again, I can sleep well knowing all about the new Bob's Big Boy and the local woman who was on Survivor.
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iPhone 101: Triple click to go to a previous song
When Apple first introduced the iPhone, they also announced a new set of earbuds to go along with it. These headphones sport a nice clicky button that allows you to pause/play/skip a song. However, they forgot to include a function to go to a previous song.If you are running the new 2.1 firmware, you are now able to triple-click the friendly button on your headphones to go to a previous song. We here at TUAW understand that the feat of creating a single button that serves four purposes is not an easy one. Therefore, join us in giving Apple a quick, but much needed round of applause for finally adding this feature. Want more iPhone tips like this? Visit TUAW's iPhone 101 section.
Extending your iPhone's battery
IntoMobile has a few good tips on how to extend your iPhone's battery life, and most of them involve the most obvious thing you can do to keep your iPhone running: cut down on any and all extra functions. They actually recommend to turn off 3G, but you don't have to go that far -- just by holding down the Home button, you can close any background applications sucking up juice. And by resetting your phone, you can do the same thing -- clear out anything running that you're not using.Actually, while I was in Los Angeles last week, I heard the great Leo Laporte mention a great tip on his radio show: turn off the "Ask to join networks" feature in the WiFi settings. If you're like me, you almost always know when there's a WiFi network around that you can use on your iPhone, and so it's pointless (and a waste of battery life) for the iPhone to be constantly searching for one. You can always flip it back on if you do want to do a little poking around, but leaving it off will significantly help battery life.In fact, when in extreme trouble, you can go even farther and just switch the whole thing into Airplane Mode. It'll make your phone useless, but when you really need it -- out on a trip, or waiting to make an important call -- the extra battery time might make all the difference.[via Apple Enthusiast]
Emergency Party Button turns cribs to clubs in seconds flat
Not to be confused with the absolutely worthless (sorry, the truth hurts) Big Red Button of Doom, the Emergency Party Button has a very specific purpose. Designed to take a vanilla home from mundane to spectacular in just seconds, this connected trigger basically flips a boring crib into a bumpin' club whenever you see fit. Just to give you an idea of what goes down when you mash the button, you'll see hallway lights turn off, blinds close, a fog machine come alive, speakers crank up and loads of laser lights turn active. All told, the project cost the builder just north of $600, which seems like a real bargain given what you get. Jump on past the break to have a look on video.[Via Hack N Mod]
Playing with your mouse
Lots of us purchase these nifty mice from the local computer store. Be they a fancy new Logitech mouse with a dozen keys placed strategically around the unit, or a slick new beauty from Apple, the mouse is a strategic part of your game play.At least, it should be.All too often people don't utilize what they have in front of them. Today we're going to look at how you can increase your game play by using your mouse more effectively. In particular, the buttons.However before we look into buttoning strategies, lets just quickly cover moving with the mouse. It's pretty simple, right? Push both buttons down, move forward. Right click and hold to turn your character. Left click and hold to look around without moving. Mike Schramm covered this in a post about a month and a half back, and it's a pretty good read for those interested more in the topic of mouse moving.So now that that's out of the way, let's look at basic mouse buttoning techniques. I own two Logitech MX5000 cordless optical mice. They work very well and have a battery life of a couple days; but even then I recharge them both every night just so I don't have disaster strike me in the middle of a raid when the battery goes out.
Self-Destruction Button returns in miniaturized form
Who could forget the famed Big Red Button of Doom from 2005? Sure, nearly three years have passed since its inception, but there's nothing like a little (literally) impostor to conjure up memories of the not-too-distant past. Available now, the miniature Self-Destruction Button comes in black, white and green motifs, fits snugly in the palm of one's hand and even doubles as a keychain. This highly portable device ensures the instant vaporization of your person and most of your surroundings should you find yourself in some horrifically inescapable situation, or, something to that effect, anyway. Grab yours now for $26.94 -- Y3K is just around the bend![Via AkihabaraNews]
Mashing buttons can cause cooldown problems
Ever since patch 2.3, a number of players have been having a lot of trouble with their instant abilities, especially in PvP. They're finding they get constant "spell is not ready yet" and "target is out of range" errors whenever they mash their buttons. The main source of this problem has to do with a change to the way your computer communicates to the server what your character is doing. It's not very easy to explain, but I'll do my best here. First, I'll explain how the change affects longer spell casts, and then afterward look at how it affects instants.Here's how things worked in patch 2.2: I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability. My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!" The realm server says "Okay!" 300 milliseconds or so later (this round-trip communication time is your "latency"). My computer then starts a 1.5 second global cooldown, and shows me the Frostbolt casting bar. I cannot use any other abilities from the time I press the button to the time my Frostbalt casting finishes, unless I manually cancel the spell (as with a /stopcasting macro), or unless the server tells my computer, "Okay the spell is finished already!" or "Whoops! That spell got interrupted!" Either way, without a manual interruption on my part, I'm waiting on the server to tell me the outcome of the first spell before I can tell it to start casting the second. Here's how things work in patch 2.3: I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability. My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!" My computer goes ahead and starts the global cooldown for me, assuming the Frostbolt will succeed. The realm says "Okay!" 300ms later, and the casting bar shows up. Alternately, if there's a problem, then the realm says "No way, silly! David isn't finished casting Fireball yet! Wait a moment to try again, and cancel that global cooldown while you're at it!" Either way, I can send my commands to the server whenever I want, as long as my global cooldown isn't currently active -- and if it gets activated too early, I just have to wait for the server to tell my computer to cancel it before casting another ability. Sounds fine, right? Before, we had to wait for latency between our computers and the realms in order for any spell to go through, but now we just have to wait if we press a button too early.
Don't mash in 2.3!
Your character can be less effective if you mash buttons in 2.3, according to Altitis. You can also stop using the /stopcasting command in most macros. In the 2.3 PTR patch notes, "client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency." What this means in English is that outside of global cooldown, your computer will try to send a new cast command to the server when you press a button, no matter what.
Around Azeroth: The shiny red button
Reader Fruition sends in this shot taken in one of the Venture Co. camps in Stranglethorn Vale. Fruition notes that it's usually a bad idea to press buttons if you don't know what they do... but some of them are just so shiny and red, how can you possibly resist?Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world! %Gallery-1816%
iPhone GUI Inconsistencies: Take 1
The iPhone offers many ways to send mail. Unfortunately, consistency is not the strong point here. You'd imagine Apple would have designed a single universally recognized "compose email" button and placed it more-or-less in the same place for each application. You'd be wrong. Here's a quick run-down of several extremely different ways to create a new message across several programs: Compose Button. The compose button, which looks like a square with a pencil through it, appears at the bottom right of many Mail screens and in the SMS Text application at the top-right of the screen. The Reply/Forward button appears just to the left of the Compose icon in Mail. Tap this to reply to a message or forward it on to another party. Envelope Icon. In the Notes application, the envelope icon appears on the bottom of the page, to the left of the garbage can. Tap it to email the current note. Use-For Icon. The use-photo-for icon appears at the bottom left of the screen. It looks like a rectangle with an arrow jumping out of it-the arrow is basically a mirror of the Reply/Forward button. Tap this and select Email Photo from the pop-up menu. Share. You can share YouTube video and Safari URLs by email. Tap the Share button on the Information page in YouTube and in the navigate-to-URL screen in Safari. To find this in YouTube, tap the blue reveal button located to the right of the video name. In Safari, tap on the URL bar and then look up and to the left. So why so many ways to do what is essentially the same task? This inconsistent design speaks volumes to me about rushing the iPhone to market. It's as if the different groups simply didn't have time to communicate with each other and standardize the way they do what is truly a core task with consistent icons and naming. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.%Gallery-6413%
Trigger happy LED mod
Wii remote modders won't rest until they've installed fluorescent lighting on every button and pad, decorating the controller like some kind of rectangular christmas tree. Today's DIY project adds an LED to the usually unseen B button behind the remote. WiiCade forumer Loki has instructions and a photo tutorial on how to plant an LED under your own Wiimote's trigger. You can set the button to light up all the time or when the controller rumbles, whichever your fancy. Check past the post break for video of the glowing mod.[Via Digg]
Video game nerd cred now in convenient badge form
Sure, you could use this super-cool line of gaming-themed buttons from Prickie to spruce up a favorite knapsack or family pet. But there are enough oddball items on here that you may want to use them to show off your (literal) videogame ownage. Are you tired of having to tell people about your QuickShot II Turbo to earn street nerd cred? Just buy the button and pin it to your forehead. (Notably absent from the list: The Duke. There are apparently some things that just don't fit on buttons ... yet. How about it, science?) Now go, game nerds, buy like the wind -- or at least before Hot Topic snaps them all up.[Thanks, Axel]
My goodness, that's pretty
We've seen some Wiimote mods before, but certainly none were quite as aesthetically pleasing as this. Not only has the modder-in-question placed a bright LED behind the transparent A button, but he actually changes the color of both the button and the lower LED based on player position. This mod is apparently quite difficult to pull off, but if you've any electrical savvy in your body, we all think you owe it to your Wiimote to at least take a look at how it's done.It's so pretty.[via 4cr]
Hacking the Staples "Easy Button"
Further proving that nothing in life is truly easy, or at least venting some pent-up frustrations at that certain office supply store, Al Cohen has turned the once cute "Easy Button" to the dark side. Although it showcases a pessimistic demeanor at first glance, the evil button is blackest at heart; by replacing the innards with a recording circuit and a 1/8-inch line-in jack, you can channel your angst into the device and unleash your rage with a simple smack. If hard times catch up to you while away from your mic, you can record directly into the button for instant gratification. Al was kind enough to provide step-by-step instructions of how to create your own in hopes of dispelling the myth that business is easy, and if you can't decide if it's worthwhile, take a peek at his in action. [Via Hack A Day]
