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Official Grepolis client coming soon to iOS
I met with the German company Innogames a few years ago at GDC, where the company told me it was eventually planning to bring out some of its browser-based strategy titles to iOS. I haven't heard much from Innogames since, until today: The company has announced that its next mobile title will be a client for Grepolis, one of the most popular games in its lineup. Grepolis is enormously popular overseas, especially among European gamers (the title claims over 20 million registered users), and in addition to Innogames' other mobile-enabled title, Tribal Wars, it should significantly grow the company's audience on iOS. There's already an app from Innogames called the Grepolis Toolbox available on the App Store, but it's really just a companion app for the game, and this upcoming app will be a full client, allowing users to log in and play directly on the iPhone and the iPad. Innogames hasn't announced a release date for the app just yet, but it's scheduled to show the client off during E3, so we can probably expect it to be available on the App Store soon after that.
Sennheiser's HDVD 800 digital headphone amp now available in the US for $2,000
Analog may be king for audiophiles, but digital is the future, friends, and Sennheiser knows it. That's why it built the HDVD 800 digital headphone amplifier to improve the sound of your digital tunes, and now stateside listeners can finally get their mitts on the thing. That's right, folks, a year after it was revealed across the pond alongside its analog brother, Senn's digital offering's finally available in the US for just a nickel less than two grand. Folks looking to part with the necessary cash to improve their listening pleasure can do so at the company's online storefront linked below.
Jack Lumber now available on Steam
Jack Lumber is an excellent game that arrived on iOS last year. It's reminiscient of Fruit Ninja, in that you drag your finger around the screen to chop through wood, though I think it's an improvement on Halfbrick's formula -- it's got a more complex meta game, and the mechanic is a little deeper as well (the action slows down when your finger touches the screen, allowing for different types of cuts and slashes). Jack Lumber is still available on iOS, but just in case you'd rather use a mouse than your finger, the game has just arrived on Steam as well. The Steam version will work on your Mac, or on PC or Linux as well, and it's SteamPlay-enabled, so if you buy for one platform you own them all. Currently, the game is on sale for just $5.02, and while there's no new content, the game has been re-tweaked to work with a mouse (though it will also work with a stylus if you'd rather do that). Jack Lumber is a great title, so definitely grab it on Steam if you're interested in that, or just give it a look on iOS if you didn't before. Update: I was wrong -- the game does have a new "Infinitree" mode to play. So go enjoy that!
Two great board games headed to iOS: Talisman Prologue and Eclipse
There's some great news today about two different -- both excellent -- physical board games headed to digital versions on the App Store. First up, the game Eclipse has been submitted to the App Store as a digital app. This is a great galaxy-spanning civilization builder, and the physical component has dozens and dozens of little miniatures and pieces to play with, so it'll be nice to have an iPad-based version around. The price hasn't yet been revealed, and it's unclear just how soon the game will be out, but if Apple doesn't have any problems with the submission, we should see it later on this week. In other board-game-to-digital-app news, we'll see a version of Games Workshop's Talisman, called Talisman Prologue, on the App Store later on this week as well. Prologue will be single player only, but it will use the game card-drawing mechanics of the physical game, and the short preview trailer that developer Thumbstar Games has released makes it look like an excellent time. There's no word on price for this one either, but we'll know soon enough: The game is set to be out in the US this Thursday.
Waterstone's founder building a digital all-you-can-read short fiction service in the UK
Waterstone's founder Tim Waterstone has decided to go toe-to-toe with Amazon, but only in the short fiction space. He's launching Read Petite, a short-and-serialized fiction service that'll charge users a flat rate of between £5 and £12, no matter how much they read. Rather than accepting any old collection of words and punctuation, the service will cherry-pick unpublished or little-known works from names such as Stephen King, Aldous Huxley and Graham Greene. It'll be presented to the public later in the year, but we're not sure how well it'll do now that we've seen the real future of reading.
Infrared holography lets rescuers see people through walls, fire, walls of fire (video)
Firefighters already use infrared cameras to find people in burning buildings, but the technology can't distinguish between a person's heat and that of the surrounding fire. That's because a zoom lens is needed to concentrate the infrared rays in a way that enables the apparatus to form a human-readable image. Fortunately, a team of researchers from the Italian Institute of Optics has developed a system that ditches the lens in favor of digital holography that produces detailed 3D images in the darkness. The hardware isn't out of short trousers just yet, but the team is planning to develop a portable version for field work -- and chief Pietro Ferraro hopes that the idea will be co-opted by the aerospace and biomedical industries, too. Curious to see what all the fuss is about? Head on past the break for a video.
Yoshida: PS4 may have subscription levels, all games available digitally
The PlayStation 4 could employ a multiple-tier subscription service, offering different levels of access in a style similar to a cable television company, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida tells The Guardian."We could have gold, silver or platinum levels of membership, something like that," Yoshida says. "We can do subscription services when we have more content – especially now that we have the Gaikai technology available. With one subscription you have access to thousands of games – that's our dream."Yoshida says the PS4 will have more digital content than its predecessors, at least: Every game will be available as a download, while some will still be sold at retail. This makes it easier to host smaller games such as Jonathan Blow's The Witness, and it supports a broader range of payment models, such as free-to-play or subscription-based games."We're shifting our platform more and more to the digital side," he says. "PS4 will be similar to PS Vita in that every game will be available as a digital download, and some will also be available as a disc."Yoshida previously confirmed that current-gen PSN games won't run natively on PS4, though emulation or cloud service plans aren't out of the question.
TestFlight hits 300,000 iOS apps uploaded, going Android compatible
I've used the TestFlight digital testing and distribution system for mobile apps a few times, both as an end-user (when companies want to send me their apps to try out), and as a developer (when I've passed an app I'm working on to someone else for testing). Apple's app distribution and provisioning system can be tough to figure out, but TestFlight makes it all much easier, with a very snazzy web interface, and the ability to install a preview app on a non-jailbroken device with just a few taps on the screen. Now, TestFlight is becoming even more useful for developers on all platforms, as the service has announced compatibility with Android phones. You might argue that doesn't affect us here on the iOS side of the fence, but it does show just how big TestFlight has gotten. The company has announced that it's hosting more than 300,000 iOS apps already, with one-third of those uploaded in just the past 90 days. Its client base expands beyond independent developers. TestFlight tells TUAW it has hosted builds for big companies like Adobe, Disney, Spotify and Tumblr. We occasionally heard rumors that Apple might want to buy TestFlight, considering how great the company is at distributing mobile apps. I'm not sure if this Android announcement helps or hurts that line of thinking. On the one hand, Apple might want to pick up TestFlight just to keep the service iOS exclusive, but of course any experience on Android would become generally useless if an acquisition does happen. I think TestFlight will stay where it is. The service is very helpful and seems to be booming, so it seems unlikely that Apple will swoop in and acquire it for the official app ecosystem.
Apple's place in the next generation of gaming
Sony is holding an event this Wednesday in New York, where the company is expected to announce the next version of its popular PlayStation console, essentially kicking off the next generation of video gaming (Nintendo actually did this last year with the launch of its Wii U console, but sales of that device haven't done so well, and Mario's Japanese overlords tend to do their own thing, no matter what Microsoft and Sony do). So this TechCrunch editorial about Apple entering the gaming space for real comes at a very interesting time. Sony's about to announce a new console, and Microsoft will presumably do the same soon after. Where's Apple in all of this? A full five years ago, I wrote this post, talking about five things Apple could do to bring gamers back to the platform. And if I may say so myself, many of those directions were followed. Apple essentially has a huge game store in the App Store, and not only has it created (as I said back then) a solid revenue system as well as a promotion and distribution channel, but Apple's done so in a way that helps and grows developers as well. Apple did indeed focus on casual games in the App Store, to the point that the vast majority of the top-grossing and downloaded apps are casual games. Apple made its hardware faster, so that you can basically run any PC game on any Mac these days, either with native ports in the Mac App Store (another place where games generally rule), or with emulation and Boot Camp. And Apple has done its best to provide a fairly unified gaming experience with Game Center -- on either iOS or the Mac, Apple uses that service to both reward gamers and promote other titles. I think that service could be used even more effectively, but that's a topic for another post. However, the one thing that Apple hasn't done from that post I wrote five years ago is this: provide gaming hardware. Apple has created a huge platform with iOS, obviously, and game developers of all stripes have worked very hard to create titles that not only worked on a touchscreen or with an accelerometer, but excelled with them. But Apple has never once created hardware specifically for gaming. It's never released a game controller (as many third parties have done), and it's never added a hardware feature to its devices specifically for gamers. And even with the option of AirPlay (which has opened up a lot of possibilities for game devs and players), Apple still seems more focused on the fact that you can stream movies between devices rather than the more interesting option of using one device as a controller for another. In short, Apple still doesn't get gaming. Gaming is helping to pay the bills over there (the last figure I heard was that 80 percent of app sales were from games), but Apple still hasn't made a move to officially step into the gaming market. And now, we're on the eve of brand-new consoles, with new hardware specs and new marketplaces and new delivery methods, and Apple is still not getting involved. Now, perhaps it doesn't need to. Apple's certainly seen plenty of success even holding gaming at arm's length (and only briefly mentioning it during announcements or showing it off in commercials), and it's hard to see a company with so many billions failing just because it doesn't release new hardware. As the TechCrunch editorial notes, Apple doesn't step into the fray when it doesn't need to, and there's certainly an argument that it doesn't need to step any further into gaming than it has. But on the other hand, there is (or at least there was) so much opportunity for Apple in the gaming space. We already know that apps will someday come to the Apple TV, and that's the most likely place for Apple to gain a foothold, not just with gimmicks like AirPlay, but by combining the very powerful App Store model with a living room TV-based computer. If that happens, Apple could go the Nintendo route and just turn an iPad or an iPhone into a controller, but I don't think a touchscreen is ideal for a game where you're looking at a bigger screen -- I think Apple will need to finally admit that sometimes, buttons are better. And if they admit that for the Apple TV, then I don't think it will be long until we see an official Bluetooth controller for iPhone and iPad. Not for all games -- some games are better on a touchscreen than others. But for those gamers who need their buttons, why not bring a creation for the Apple TV back to the mobile devices? So five years after my first post, that's my next roadmap for Apple and gaming: Bring apps to the Apple TV, and bring buttons (optional, of course) to their mobile devices. As always, Apple does what it wants, but if the company wants to actually expand into the gaming space, just having EA shows off its latest titles at the next few product announcements won't do it. Why? Because over the last five years while Apple was following the strategy I laid out in that last post, Microsoft and Sony have been doing plenty of their own learning. Not only will the PS4 and the Xbox 720 (or whatever the two new consoles are called) use the lessons that Apple's devices have taught, they'll also be the first two big gaming consoles created post-App Store. I expect both of them to be more open than ever, and both to provide more ways for players to access digital and downloaded games than ever before. The Xbox Live Marketplace was a huge hit for Microsoft on the Xbox 360, and it was developed in a patchwork manner over the course of the console's life; the next iteration should be ready to go and full-featured right away at launch. Likewise, Sony's PlayStation Network (and the PlayStation Plus subscription program) has been developed piece by piece over time, but the next console should make full use of that infrastructure and groundwork. In other words, Apple's had a lot of time in this past console generation to really push and develop its App Store, and to really create a market for digital games on its mobile platforms that never existed before. But a new race is starting on Wednesday this week, one where both Microsoft and Sony (if they do things right, at least) will be much better equipped to compete in terms of both game pricing and digital distribution. In that sense, it may already be too late for Apple to really take over the gaming market. The company from Cupertino has never been really excited about gaming -- that's been obvious, from Steve Jobs' own opinions to the all-important marketing and branding. But there's always been the potential for Apple to do much more there, if indeed Sony and Microsoft don't jump in and do it first.
Disney announces Wreck-It Ralph will arrive for download before DVD, Blu-ray
Following the lead of other studios like Fox with its Digital HD push, Disney has announced its first movie that customers will be able to buy on download and streaming services weeks before the disc is released. Wreck-It Ralph is a worldwide hit, bringing in $277 million and counting at the box office, but the first time you'll be able to snag it (legally) for home viewing in the US is February 12th in HD and 3D on supported services. The four disc Blu-ray 3D combo set is priced at $39.99 and will ship nearly a month later on March 5th, along with the 2-disc Blu-ray ($31.99), DVD and standard def video on-demand versions. Disney hasn't tipped its hat about any digital efforts itself to replace the Online streaming site it shut down in November, but clearly it's preparing for a multi-format future -- we'll see if we hear any more interesting details during CES in the coming week.
3D printed record puts a new spin on digital music (video)
If you thought downloading music from the internet had nothing new to offer, think again. One of the tech editors over at Instructables -- Amanda Ghassaei -- has put a new twist on the digital delivery of music by 3D printing a record. Ghassaei developed a technique that converts digital audio files into 3D printable (33 rpm) grooved plastic discs, that actually play on regular turntables. Not only that, she printed some functioning prototypes as proof of concept. The printer used was relatively high-resolution, with 600 dpi on the x/y axes, and layers just 16 microns thick, but the audio quality is still somewhat low -- 11KHz, with a 5 - 6bit resolution. The important thing, however, is that it worked -- highlighting even more uses for the burgeoning technology. Want to know what it sounds like? Skip the needle past the break for a lo-fi (or is it "warmer") demo that includes Nirvana, New Order, Daft Punk and more. Want to make your own? Head to the source for the blow-by-blow instructions.
Nike+Fitness Training 360 bundle now shipping, game downloadable on Dec. 25
Winter holidays are, statistically speaking, the very best holidays, due to their general abundance of twice-baked potatoes and various pies. But when every serving at every meal contains at least three sticks of butter, those extra pounds can really pile up.Nike and Microsoft recommend solving your tummy troubles by doing crunches in your living room while a virtual man watches, or as the system is commercially known, Nike+Kinect Training. They've even got an Xbox 360 bundle for it and everything, which includes a 4GB console, Kinect, Nike+Kinect Training, Kinect Adventures and a month of Xbox Live Gold for $250, as seen above. That price tag is only valid through January 5, we should point out. After that, the bundle is kicked up to $300.Microsoft has also announced that the game itself will be digitally available through Xbox Live on December 25, at a smooth $50/4,000 MS points.%Gallery-172691%
HeroClix TabApp adds DC Comics figures
The HeroClix TabApp is an interesting, if not all that impressive, app for the iPad that uses HeroClix figurines in conjunction with iOS to make a game featuring the superheroes of the HeroClix series. When it first launched earlier this year, the app featured only Marvel heroes. But apparently the series is doing quite well, because HeroClix has now added some DC heroes to the mix. There are two packs available. One includes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, and the other is a "Dark Knight Rises" special featuring Batman, Bane and Catwoman. And the app, as you can see above, has been updated with new content for all of the heroes, so if you buy those packs, you can unlock and play the new games and settings. Unfortunately, this app isn't all that great, as I said in the review linked above. But it's good to see that this is getting more popular. Hopefully we'll see more and better interaction between the digital and physical worlds in terms of gameplay on iOS.
Box makes a deal to add more global servers
I find it a little hard to believe that until now, Box (formerly Box.net) didn't have any servers running outside the US. But apparently that was the case, as the company has just made a deal with Equinix to host six data centers around the world, including places such as Amsterdam, Sydney and Tokyo. Putting new servers up in those countries should help Box users. Equinix says it will boost performance up to 60 percent in some places. Given how big Box has become, the company just expanded free storage for its users again, I'm surprised there wasn't a plan in place. But the deal's been made, so if you're an international Box user, go ahead and benefit from it.
Gertboard extender for Raspberry Pi ships to advanced tinkerers
If a seemingly infinitely programmable mini computer like the Raspberry Pi is just too... limiting, we've got good news: the Gertboard extender has started shipping. The $48 companion board reaching customers' doorsteps converts analog to digital and back for Raspberry Pi fans developing home automation, robotics and just about anything else that needs a translation between the computing world and less intelligent objects. The one catch, as you'd sometimes expect from a homebrew project, is the need for some assembly -- you'll have to solder together Gert van Loo's Arduino-controlled invention on your own. We imagine the DIY crowd won't mind, though, as long as they can find the fast-selling Gertboard in the first place. [Image credit: Stuart Green, Flickr]
'Samsara' creators Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss the digital filmmaking divide (video)
We've set up shop in a conference room above Third Avenue in Manhattan, a Canon 5D trained on Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson. I find myself apologizing awkwardly for the setup, several times. There's a long boardroom table in the middle and a customary junket breakfast spread to the right. It's about as plain as meeting rooms come, save for a few movie posters lining the walls, advertising films distributed by the indie film company that owns the space. Hardly ideal for our purposes, but here were are, all clumped into a single corner, with the director and producer of Samsara flanking a cardboard poster for their movie, leaned atop a stand. It's not the welcome befitting the creators of a big, beautiful sweeping cinematic masterpiece. But they're tired -- too tired to care about such things, perhaps. They dismiss such apologies, clip their lavaliere microphones on over their shirts and sit down. Fricke motions to the single SLR seated atop a tripod, explaining that he used the same model on a recent commercial shoot. "We have a solid background grounded in shooting in film, and that just stays with you," he adds. "When I'm shooting like with a 5D, like what you're using now to shoot this interview, I'm working with it like it's a 65 camera. It's my frame of reference, my background. I'm just wired that way." The world of filmmaking has changed dramatically in the two decades since the duo first unleashed Baraka on the world, a non-narrative journey across 25 countries that became the high-water mark for the genre and a staple in critics' lists and film school syllabi.
Wizkids and Marvel's HeroClix TabApp spoils its chance to innovate
A few weeks ago, I posted about the HeroClix TabApp that was recently released on the App Store, an iPad app that has the ability to interact with a special set of figurines designed to be used with Marvel's very popular HeroClix collectible game. Wizkids kindly got in touch with me after that post and agreed to send along some figures to test out, and I was able to give both the figures and the app a go this week on my iPad 2. Unfortunately, while there is about one second of magic with this setup (which I'll talk about in just a bit), the strangely named "TabApp" wastes most of its potential. It's a free app, so it's basically just designed as a promotional tool (and you can still play through the tutorial and a short demo even if you don't have any of the figures to unlock content with), so if you're a huge fan of HeroClix, there's really no reason to not try it. But the fact is that the game included in the app is more or less a real-time tap-fest than anything else: Any hope of the deeper strategy game behind the little figurines has gone right out the window. The one bit of fun to be had with the app and the figurines is in getting to unlock each set of content by pressing the figure down on the screen. Each little figure has three pads on its base, and these pads are all set up in different places and patterns, so that when you actually press down the figure on the iPad app, it really will recognize which figure you pressed. Putting down Iceman, for example, will open up different levels than pressing down Captain America or Wolverine. That part is really fun -- it's awesome to see the iPad just "know" which figure you placed on it right away. The three levels of gameplay you unlock, however, are not really worth the price. The included game seems only barely similar to HeroClix -- various enemies slide around the screen (with terrible animations), and you just need to tap on them to attack them. There is a little bit of gameplay in terms of using certain powerups and abilities at the right times, but there's no turn-based strategy at all -- it's an arcade game that just not designed well. That's really too bad because it would be awesome to have an iPad app that really does simulate the core HeroClix game, where you could use multiple figures on the iPad's screen to coordinate a full HeroClix battle. Yes, these are meant for kids, so maybe Wizkids thought that a more arcade-style game would be more popular. But let's be honest, the kids playing with these figures and the game behind them clearly want something a little deeper than just smashing fingers on the screen. And especially since these special TabApp figures are completely separate from the main HeroClix line (standard figures don't have the capacitive pads on them, of course), you wouldn't be cannibalizing the core game at all. It would be great to use the power of the iPad to back up what's clearly a strong core strategy game already. But that's not what Wizkids did here, so they'll likely disappoint HeroClix fans and those looking to pick up the figures and play a deeper game. If the idea interests you as is, you can definitely download the TabApp for yourself and see what you think, but I can't really recommend shelling out for the figurines, only to be disappointed with the low-quality gameplay on the app itself. I think there is a lot of power in an app that crosses over between the two worlds of physical and digital gameplay, and we've seen a few other companies working on bridging that gap, including Nukotoys, and the upcoming mobile version of Activision's Skylanders toys. HeroClix had a real opportunity here to tie in the very established physical game with a strong digital version, but I'm sorry to say that most of that opportunity was wasted.
Apple's Newsstand generates big profits for publisher Future
Magazine publishing company Future has had some closures lately, as its traditional magazine business isn't doing so well. But it turns out the iPad publishing business is rocketing right up: The company reports that Apple's Newsstand app has earned it over $8 million in the last year since the service began in October of 2011. As of last March, the company had over 12 million of the "container" app downloads (which are the free trial apps you download before actually purchasing magazine issues), and had seen over a half million sales. At this point, those numbers are even higher, and with more and more iPads out there in the wild, they're likely still growing. Future's planning a lot more with this market as well, working on a brand new platform for putting these digital magazines together, announcing plans for new digital editions around the world, and new and better ways to monetize all of this digital content that it's creating. Hopefully Future can find a way for digital sales to help shore up its recent losses in print sales, and keep some of these much-beloved tech publications running.
Apple files patent application for 'intelligent automated assistant'
Engadget caught wind of the fact that Apple has filed a patent for an "intelligent automated assistant," which sounds like the nice lady (or man) in your iPhone (or, as of iOS 6, iPad 3) called Siri. The application talks at length about a digital assistant controlled using speech (it's Siri), which takes a user's speech input (again, it's Siri) and then fulfills the speaker's request using digitized speech. In other words, a patent for Siri. Unfortunately, because the patent is so general, there isn't a whole lot of nuts-and-bolts talk about how Siri actually works -- at least none that we didn't know already. But there is some reference to the term "anchor phrases," which are words and phrases that Siri looks for in your speech to actually figure out what you're saying. The patent also talks about providing alternate words to the user in case something can't be understood, and the use of databases (like, say, Wolfram Alpha) for figuring out which information is needed by the user. Apple's all covered, then, should it ever face the question of Siri's origin in court. This patent, plus any others that it may have picked up when Siri was acquired, should be more than enough to defend its case.
The Engadget Interview: Polaroid CEO Scott Hardy (video)
There's a big frame in Polaroid's Photokina booth -- a giant, blown up version of the iconic white border that graced the company's instant photos for so many decades, beckoning passersby to stand behind it and pose, like muscle man cutouts at a traveling carnival. Directly to its right, attendees stand around a row of product from the company aimed at recapturing some of the nostalgia inherent in the Polaroid name. It's nothing compared to the gathering at a booth 20-or-so feet across the room, where international guests stand fascinated by the Instant Lab, an accordion-style gizmo that transforms iPhone images into instant photos, utilizing film produced at the last remaining Polaroid factory, since purchased by a company fittingly named "Impossible." The early 21st century is a strange time to be the head of a company like Polaroid, standing at a bit of a crossroads between new and old technologies, attempting to harness the cache (and nostalgia) that comes with 75 years of history, while keeping up with the latest trends in digital imaging and slates. We sat down with the company's CEO Scott Hardy to discuss precisely what it means to be Polaroid in 2012, where the company goes from here and how much looking back is necessary to keep it moving ahead.
