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Fantasy Earth Zero celebrates the holidays with decoration and giveaways
The holiday season is such a wonderful time of year that even the supernatural creatures summoned into battle feel the urge to dress for the occasion. At least, that's the case in Fantasy Earth Zero, which is embracing the spirit of the season by giving its summons a uniquely festive appearance. Considering the importance of summons in the game's PvP maps, players can expect to see quite a bit of the festive models during the available timeframe. If that wasn't enough, however, the community team is also holding two promotions for players. Players are asked to design a holiday card for the game, with five winners being selected to win five gold coins each. The team is also taking the opportunity to play Santa, as three lucky players will be granted their item of choice from the cash shop absolutely free. If your holiday plans include claiming land for your nation in Fantasy Earth Zero, you'll have several chances to enjoy the festive spirit while doing so.
Apple Stores now selling iPad gift cards
Apple has begun selling their signature silver gift cards inside "iPad Gift Card" packaging just in time for the holiday rush. iLounge says that although the cards themselves aren't anything different than the ones I normally get from family as Christmas gifts, they can now be used to purchase an iPad. When I bought my current iPhone I tried to use gift cards and wasn't allowed to do so -- Apple mandated that customers had to use a debit or a credit card -- but I guess this is a change in company policy. I would much rather unwrap an actual iPad on Christmas morning rather than just a gift card, but beggars can't be choosers, can they? If you are traveling to see me for the holidays, I completely understand it would be a lot easier to pack a gift card than an iPad. So you're more than welcome to bring me one if you absolutely have to. I won't mind! [via MacStories]
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Taking to the great outdoors
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. When you live in a state of amazing natural beauty like Colorado, it's not just a given that you'll be spending lots of time outdoors using Apple products, it's the law. State troopers will regularly stop by and knock on your door to remind you that it's a beautiful day out there -- and don't you want to get away from your Mac and go enjoy it? Or maybe I meant your mom instead of state troopers. Whatever. If someone you love is an outdoor enthusiast, there are many ways that you can find just the right gift to enhance their enjoyment for getting out of the house, without having to leave their Apple products at home. Here is our TUAW holiday gift guide for the great outdoors. Phone Gloves. With capacitive screens, iPhone devices aren't particularly receptive to gloves. As the weather grows cold, users might find it harder and harder to keep taking off their gloves to manipulate their screens. That's where touchscreen-capable gloves come in. You can buy gloves that work with the iPhone anywhere, from Walmart to high-end fashion retailers. Prices start at around US$15 and go on up. These gloves work by providing a contact that allows the electrical charge from your body to transmit through to the iPhone. That means the gloves are going to have touch points that won't feel uniformly soft and flexible at their tips. So, caveat emptor. But anyone who has tried to make a phone call while waiting in the winter wind for their child's school to dismiss will appreciate the convenience.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Toys and Neat Stuff
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Technically, you can toy with just about anything, so the items that follow aren't necessarily the ones you'll find on the shelves of your average toy store, though there's certainly a few of those too -- mostly, they're items that we thought were simply too awesome to escape your notice this year, but didn't make it into our standard categories. Read on!
Grandma makes iPhone quilt for grandson
We've seen an edible iPhone birthday cake, a giant iPhone wedding cake and Apple icon cupcakes, but here is the ultimate gift to get your new baby interested in emptying your wallet as a teenager -- the iPhone blanket. Six day old baby Gabriel Augusto Stein is the proud recipient of this cool iPhone quilt sewn by his even cooler Grandma Harriet, and judging by the size of it in comparison to his body, he will be able to use it for years to come. "There's a nap for that!" says Dad. Congratulations to the new Mom and Dad -- that's one stylin' kid you've got there! [via The Daily What]
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: iPad for photographers
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. As we enter the first full-blown holiday season since the iPad's release, there are a good many people out there who are either getting one as a gift or toting one along to Grandma's to wow the family and, quite possibly, use it as a laptop replacement. If it's the latter, you're more than likely going to need to use the iPad as a means of clearing the card on your digital camera at some point. Here are a few things that will make the process easier.
Kids 6-12 want iPads and iPod touches, survey says
Go figure -- this holiday season, kids want the priciest, hottest consumer electronics going. That's according to a new Nielsen survey, which says that across the demographic of kids 6-12, the iPad is the hottest gift in town, with 31 percent angling for a future purchase of Apple's tablet. The iPod touch is another big gift want as well, topping both the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP this year. And the iPhone is also on the list, with 20 percent of those polled hoping to see a smartphone under the tree. I don't have kids, but it seems a little nuts to me that six to twelve year olds are hoping for devices like the iPad and the iPhone. Then again, when I was a kid, there was nothing we wanted more than a new SNES or a Sega Genesis, and we still wound up getting things like books and sweaters anyway. So just because these kids want a big ticket Apple device doesn't necessarily mean it'll be showing up under the tree later this year. But you never know -- those kids go to school for like eight hours a day, right? Maybe while they're away at school, Mom and Dad get to use the iPad for themselves.
SWG invites you back and offers gifts if you stay
Did you have a Star Wars Galaxies account and were just itching to try out the Galactic Civil War content? Maybe the interviews with Tony Tyson or Lydia Pope made you consider trying out the new Witches of Dathomir content? Now is your chance! If you had an active account between January 1st, 2008 and September 15th, 2010, then you are eligible to log in for the free week of SWG, which started yesterday November 23rd and goes to November 30th at 4 a.m PST. All week, those players will receive a whip decorative item and a fedora decorative item. These items are replicas of the items worn by Indiana Jones from another LucasFilm franchise: Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film starring Harrison Ford is coming up on its 30th anniversary, and the current LucasArts MMO is giving away the fedora and whip in-game items to celebrate. As an added bonus, if you choose to renew your subscription before midnight (PST) December 31st, you will be given the option to make the whip and fedora wearable items. Check the official website to find out how you can take advantage of this offer, and may the Force be with you, always.
Edible iPhone birthday cake
And you thought that store-bought $10 cake you got for your birthday was cool. Sure to be the envy of Apple fanboys everywhere, Chris Samuels -- an independent iPhone and iPad developer -- received this detailed iPhone cake for his birthday from his wife Cath. Everything on (and inside) the cake is edible, with the icons carefully made from frosting and food coloring. With all the work that must have gone into this cake it would almost be sad to eat it. Almost. This certainly isn't the first Apple device made in cake form. Check out this iPhone wedding cake, these icon cupcakes and this tasty chocolate Apple I cake. Happy Birthday, Mr. Samuels. We look forward to seeing what Cath makes for you next year. Maybe a chocolate-covered iPad? Some iChocolates? Be sure to let us know!
TUAW's Daily App: mGifts
It's Thanksgiving week, Black Friday is coming up quick, and that means that we're knee deep in gift-shopping season. If you don't quite know what you're getting or where to get it yet, mGifts can probably help. It can't actually recommend gifts for you (we here at TUAW can take care of that part), but it can help you track all of the gifts you need to buy, keeping separate listings by person, stores to shop at, and even prices of what you've purchased already. If you've got a lot of gifts to pick up, this could be just the thing to help you organize. Other features include the ability to share a list via email or attach photos for each gift or person. And while we're posting about the app for holiday gift giving, it actually works for any event, even customized birthdays or anniversaries. The app is a universal release and is only US 99 cents right now, on sale for the season.
Amazon introduces Kindle book gifting just in time for the holidays
It's not the Kindle lending feature that Amazon has in the works, but the company has just rolled out another fairly big Kindle feature for those feeling a bit generous this holiday season. That comes in the form of a new "give as a gift" option now present on Amazon.com, which will let you send an e-book to anyone with an email address, who can then read it on the Kindle-friendly device of their choice (or an actual Kindle, of course). As Amazon is all too happy to point out, it's the first major bookseller to offer such a service, but we've got to guess it won't be the last.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Toys for the Apple fan
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. In the 1989 Batman movie, Jack Nicholson wonders, as the Joker, "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" You can spawn the same kind of envy in your friends (and arch super villains) with some of these goodies. We found a little something for everyone, so grab your shopping list and credit card. For the young Apple fan MyPhones (US$39.99) My daughter has been begging for an iPod recently. I'm hesitant to give her one for a number of reasons (she's young and excels at losing/breaking things), chief among them is her hearing. Most kids imagine themselves to be invincible, and will crank the volume to bone-rattling levels if they can. Yes, you can set the maximum volume on and iPod, but you can also use these. MyPhones offer "A safer way to listen" by keeping the noise to a maximum of 85db. That's somewhere between a car's engine (around 70db) and a gas lawn mower (about 105db). Plus they come with several cute covers sure to please the most discerning tot.
It's the thought that counts, but just in case, Amazon patents gift conversion system
The holiday season is drawing close, and gifting soon to begin, which almost certainly means another pair of woolen socks (oh, joy) from dear Aunt Mildred. What could you possibly do to escape your sheep-shorn fate? The top brass at Amazon have a plan -- they've patented a system by which your gifts will magically be converted into things you actually want. It's like Gmail filters for products, really, in that you set up a series of rules, and if the gift you're sent falls under one of them, you're sent an item from your Amazon Wish List (or a gift certificate) instead. Apparently they've even thought up conversion rules for media formats, which should come in mighty handy for those relatives who can't tell PS3 from Xbox. Why can't Aunt Mildred just look at your wish list to begin with? Hey, she's your aunt. Why don't you be a dear, give her a good old-fashioned telephone call and ask?
TUAW's Daily App: Cartolina
Cartolina is an app that I noticed over on the great Drawn! illustration blog. While you might not want to get it yourself (it's the thought that counts with greeting cards, and I think that, with both cards and letters, the real thing is still better), you can't disagree that the art of this one is pretty incredible. Cartolina is originally a stationery company, printing cards and letterheads with elaborate and elegant designs on them, but they've also released an iPhone app. For US$2.99, you get access to nine different artistic templates, which can then be made into beautiful email or text messages. It's not a big deal (and it's no substitute for actually writing someone a letter -- something I already don't do enough of), but for classing up the standard congratulatory or simply nice email or text message, it'll work wonders. The app also has a built-in calendar with reminders of major events, and the app promises even more designs and features coming soon. Again, if you already have a schedule and a plan for sending greeting cards, the app probably won't interest you that much. But it's always nice to send someone a reminder that you're thinking of them, and having Cartolina around might help you do just that.
Champions Online unveils plans to celebrate one year since launch
While it was discussed in passing with the last State of the Game address, it's well worth reiterating that Champions Online is going to be a year old in September. With the uncomfortable number of games who've fallen on hard times over the past year, it's well worth celebrating an anniversary in style. And Cryptic Studios plans to do precisely that, with their recently-unveiled anniversary plans running from August 27th to September 6th for all of the game's players. During the duration of the celebration, the Renaissance Center area will be decked out in all the celebratory finery, complete with contact NPCs wandering about. These NPCs will offer characters one gift per day, with more gifts available from defeating enemies in certain areas. Each gift works as a useful consumable item, and on top of those gifts there are new perks to collect and special anniversary costume pieces to collect. Champions Online players should take a look at the full rundown of events and take part in the near future.
Droid X owners being showered with gifts?
You might recall that Verizon handed out "Droid Does" t-shirts to some early buyers of the original Motorola Droid -- but if you thought the Android-themed gratitude from Big Red ended there, you'd apparently be quite wrong. Droid Life is reporting that some Droid X owners are now receiving packages with seemingly badass new eye exam-themed shirts and coupons good for 25 percent off accessories, perfect for that silicone case you know you've had your eye on. Whether Droid 2 owners will receive the same royal treatment remains to be seen, but honestly, isn't an R2-D2-themed version enough of a thank you?
5 Apps & more for Father's Day
Here in the US, in the UK and in 53 other countries, we're celebrating Father's Day. It's a day for Dad to sleep in, revel in the love of his family, and (perhaps not as importantly, but still nice) receive presents. Lots and lots of presents. Before you purchase yet another soap on a rope, consider our list of potential last-minute gifts for the Mac-loving or iDevice-toting dad in your life. He'll thank you for sure. ( If Dad doesn't have an iPhone 4, iPad or iPod touch -- there's a suggestion right there.) Macworld posted a solid list of apps for dads; some of them are our picks as well, and we've got a few divergent suggestions.
Chocolate covered iPad looks tasty
Your wife loves chocolate, and you know she's been eying that 1.5+ lb. bar at the local Trader Joe's like a lion does a gazelle. She's also a massive Apple fan who's been dying for a shiny new iPad for months. Birthday time: the bar, or the iPad? If you're a cheap SOB, you get the bar and call it a day. If you're looking for an excuse to have an iPad in the house, you get the iPad. Or, you can do what this chap did and not only give her both, but fuse them together. Not only did this guy encase the iPad gift in chocolate (after having carefully wrapped it in plastic first, thankfully), he had to have it shipped from London, England because they're not sold yet in South Africa, where she lives. I don't know about you, but I was cringing as I watched her slice away the chocolate with a knife from the precious prize within. The sad part of this story, for me, is that my wife would be severely disappointed that she was shorted 1.5+ lbs. of chocolate for a piece of gadgetry goodness. [via Engadget]
TUAW's tips for gifting an iPad for Mother's Day
Still searching for that perfect Mother's Day gift for your mom or wife? Why not get her an iPad? Buy Mom a computer? You're kidding me, right? The iPad's versatility lends itself to some computer-like comparisons. And a natural response to this would be: "Who would want a computer for a Mother's Day gift? That's tacky." This would be similar to Al Bundy buying Peggy a bowling ball, only because he wanted it for himself. Except that it isn't just a computer. As a consumption device, the iPad can also be seen as an appliance. No matter where you put it, it doesn't seem too out of place, and blends in with its surroundings well. This versatility, coupled with its ease-of-use, could make it an ideal gift for mom. Now getting an iPad alone would be tacky. There's little thought behind it. Why not go the extra mile and customize an iPad for her? This will take some legwork, however. But who cares. This is for Mom, right?
Palm deploying crack team of kind strangers to give you stuff
If you're walking around with your Pre or Pixi prominently displayed and some dude comes up to you and tries to hand you a bag, don't freak out: odds are you've merely been selected for one of Palm's "random acts of wow." The company is playing coy about where these people are or for how long the promotion is going to last, but apparently they've got people all over the world on the prowl for Palm users that look like they could use an accessory or three, with gifts ranging from stickers all the way up to pricey Touchstones and everything in between. So keep that mace / pepper spray / stun gun holstered for a second until you figure out what's going on, alright?
