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DoubleTwist's latest trick is NFC-based MP3 sharing between Androids
After adding AirPlay to AppleTV support to its Android media player app over the weekend, DoubleTwist's followup is a page out of Microsoft's Zune squirting (R.I.P.) handbook as it has implemented the ability to share MP3s between two devices. Play the video above to get more details on how DoubleTap works (or just keep an eye on Google's I/O event where it will be on display) but basically you'll need two Android phones with NFC, then tap them together and watch the file sharing magic happen automagically over WiFi or Bluetooth. The new update went live in the Android Market overnight, now all you need to do is find someone else with a Nexus S, Galaxy S II or any of the other NFC-packing Android devices expected to arrive shortly.
Weathering the economic storm: Start-ups speak out
It takes a special kind of crazy to open up a new game studio in an uncertain financial climate. Yet already in 2009 we've seen a handful of people do just that, many on the heels of having lost their previous jobs to downsizing or a studio closure. Recently we spoke with three individuals behind a trio of 2009's start-up efforts to ask them how they plan to weather the economic storm and, more importantly, if seeing the rest of the industry buckle around them makes them feel just a little bit demented for doing what they're doing. "We are crazy!" proclaimed Game Mechanic Studios president and former Electronic Arts senior designer Jason Alejandre, who noted that he saw layoffs four out of the five years he spent working at EA. "The one year that we didn't have layoffs at our studio there were still layoffs at the other EA studios," he recalled. "The leadership changed at the studio level three times and the executive management changed twice." Still, Alejandre doesn't necessarily believe that all of the closures and cutbacks are directly tied to the current downturn. "It's a combination of this is just how the business is, and the other part is due to the current economic crisis. This is our industry. I think [why] the media is currently focused in on this more so in games now than any of the previous years is because the topic is now under the 'Eye of Sauron.'"
