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John's Phone review: 'the world's simplest cellphone'
It's said to be "The world's simplest cellphone." That's a bold claim from anyone let alone a previously unknown (in gadget circles anyway) Dutch team of creatives over at John Doe Amsterdam who wanted to build a basic phone -- the most basic phone ever -- that wasn't as dull and boring as other affordable phones on the market. So is it? Well, it certainly is basic. In the age of smartphones and cheap featurephones, John's phone is more clearly defined by what it lacks than what it has: no fancy color touchscreen display; no camera; no 3G radio, WiFi, Bluetooth or even GPRS data; no FM radio; no user-accessible storage; and no music player or apps of any kind. It can't even send a text message. It's just a quad-band GSM phone with an ink pen and paper notepad tucked neatly into its capacious recesses. That's right, pen and paper. So, it's definitely basic, but is it simple to use? Read on to find out. %Gallery-109300%
TUAW's Daily App: Umbrella Today
Last fall, I moved out here to Southern California, and while I don't mean to brag, my concerns about the weather outside have fallen right off of my list of priorities; it's sunny and 70ºF here most of the time. However, back when I lived in Chicago, I had to check and see what the weather was like every day before I went out . While I was interested in the temperature, the conditions, and even the wind speed (it's a Windy City, in case you haven't heard), there was really just one question that I needed answered: Umbrella today? Umbrella Today is a site that answers that question for you. It's the brainchild of tech consultant firm thoughtbot. All you have to do is punch in your ZIP code, and you will get a yes or no answer as to whether you'll need to bring that umbrella or not. Of course, you're not always near a computer, so they've turned the site into an iPhone app. The app will not only answer the question, but it will even provide scheduled alerts or push notifications when you need to carry that umbrella. I love it -- it's simple, practical, and effective. The app is US$1.99, but even if you have an issue with that price, you can set up an email alert on the site for free. Still, a one-time payment of $2 is cheap for never being caught empty-handed in the rain again.
Two super simple DIY hacks for the iPhone
I've been reading the Unplggd blog from Apartment Therapy a lot lately, because I recently moved into a new place and am trying to fill it up with cool stuff. And someone over there must be an iPhone fan, because I've seen not one but two great and simple tricks for the iPhone there recently. The first is the most billiant thing I've ever seen -- if you happen to be listening to music or a conference call through the speaker on your iPhone and need it a little louder, you can just find a pint-size glass, put the iPhone in there, and voila, simple iPhone echo chamber. I'm surprised at both how easy this is and how well it works, but it does. Very impressive. Second is a little more obvious -- if you're using an iPhone to read off a recipe in the kitchen, with your hands messy and wet, you can put it in a baggie like I do, or you can CryoVac it, if you happen to have one of those sitting around. Either way, the capacitive touchscreen still works through a thin layer of plastic, and your iPhone will live to see another day. Ok, so the second tip is not quite as great as the first one. But a pint glass! Trying to listen to all of those boring conference calls with my iPhone's speaker will never be the same again!
Family-friendly Zombies on the iPhone
We have a lot of apps coming through our tipline, but this one caught my eye, not only because it is called Zombies (the stumbling undead always catch my eye), but because it offers up a bit of good old-fashioned fun in the form of a Daleks!-style remake. Gameplay is simple and straighforward -- you run, turn-by-turn in eight directions, from zombies, who pursue you at the same speed, and though the game runs at any pace you want (perfect for gameplay on the iPhone, in my opinion, since most of the time I'm just looking for a few seconds to a couple minutes of easy-to-pick-up action), the dread is real. Just like actual zombies, these guys shamble their way toward you with a hunger that only brains can satisfy. The game is on the App Store now [iTunes link]. I will say that it is a touch pricey at $2.99 (a simple arcade game like this seems made for the 99-cent price point, and it will probably end up there eventually), but who am I to begrudge the developers a couple of bucks? I don't need to drink that cup of Starbucks anyway. If you're in the mood for a simple, zombified twist on an old classic, this is it. While you're at it, check out the Zombies preview video we shot at WWDC last July.
BMW makes the awesome look SIMPLE with leaning three-wheeler (video)
BMW's latest concept isn't quite as far out as some of its earlier efforts, and the company has dubbed it SIMPLE, but don't let that fool you. Joining Nissan's Land Glider in a new trend toward leaning vehicles that have motorbike-like footprints, the "Sustainable and Innovative Mobility Product for Low Energy consumption" is said to have similar seating space to a BMW 3 Series coupe. Its space fighter appearance isn't just for show either -- with a drag coefficient of 0.18 and a weight of only 992 pounds, this bad boy is capable of harnessing a small internal combustion engine and electric motor to tear up the autobahn at up to 124mph. Zero to sixty in under ten seconds and 118 miles per gallon fuel efficiency fill out the sexy stat sheet, though sadly there are no productions plans as of yet. The concept is being exhibited in the BMW Museum in Munich, but if you can't make it over to Germany right now, there's a video for you after the break.
Japanese Nintendo Downloads: Escape from Various Locations
Marvelous's distinctively drab, enticingly bizarre adventure game Discipline launched today in Japan. We're eager to hear if the You Fluid weirdness overpowers the interesting puzzle-adventure concept. Also available on WiiWare: a couple of educational games, one of which is based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar; a haunted-house-themed minigame collection from Gameloft, and D3's room-escape adventure game.On Virtual Console, Activision's Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is now available, along with Finest Hour, a jetpack-enhanced run-and-gun from Namco. Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Mega Drive, 1 player, 600 Wii Points) Finest Hour (Arcade, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) @Simple Series Vol. 4 THE Locked Room Escape (WiiWare, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Ghost Mansion Party (WiiWare, 1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points) Kodomo Kyooiku Terebi Wii Aiue Oomuzu (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Discipline (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Harapeko Aomushi no ABC (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
TUAW at E3: The Sims 3 for iPhone
The Sims 3 pretty faithfully recreates the Sims experience on Apple's handhelds, albeit in a more streamlined version. While the handheld port avoids a lot of the new complexity of the latest PC release, the core Sims experience is still here -- you can create a Sim, give it a personality and a house, and then help your little avatar live its life, from going to work to following goals and dreams to completion.To a relatively new Sims player (I've never been a huge fan of the games), the variety of things to do here is pretty impressive. There's the usual tasks around your house -- eating, cleaning, sleeping, and so on -- but as you play, your Sim comes up with new goals to lust after, and it's your job to make sure those things happen, all while trying to preserve your Sim's health and sanity. For instance, just a minute into playing, my Sim suddenly got it in his head that he wanted to "use someone else's shower" (which seems like an exceedingly creepy goal to have, actually), but instantly I started thinking about all the things I had to do to complete it: go to town, meet someone, get invited to their house, and then somehow find an opportunity to jump in the shower.
Samsung's entry-level E2100, E1125, E1100 and E1070 go official in Russia
Samsung already outed these handsets a few days ago, but it's doing itself a solid by pumping out an official press release for 'em in Russia. The new E Series -- which includes the entry-level E2100, E1125, E1100 and E1070 -- supports GSM 900 / 1800, offers up a color display and plays nice with polyphonic ring tones. Also of note, these seem to all feature the Mobile Tracker and SOS features which we originally caught wind of on the SPH-W7100. There's no pricing or release details on any of 'em, but you can dig through the woefully short specification lists in the read link below.[Via UnwiredView]
LG introduces simple, utterly forgettable KM330 candybar
LG's got the low-end handset beat down pat, as evidenced by its nearly continuous flow of simplistic handsets aimed at overseas markets. The KM330 is actually fairly stylish for what it is, which is a tri-band GSM mobile with a three megapixel camera, FM radio module, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD card slot, a 2-inch 340 x 320 display, MP3 player and stereo speakers. If you've managed to stay awake this far, you may be interested in knowing that it'll ship next month in the Ukraine. Huzzah?[Via UnwiredView]
Wii's winners and losers in Japan
We can't exactly trust the validity of the numbers used to create this list of best-selling games across the three home platforms, since it's just some guy on Geocities doing it (and he claims that he might alter numbers to deter copying) but they're close enough to our expectations for most games. These numbers are purportedly derived from Enterbrain and Famitsu sales data. Kotaku reproduced the top and bottom-selling games on each platform, and we think that's a nice way to organize it.The top ten Wii games are not too surprising, including stuff like Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Brawl, and other big Nintendo franchises. The only third-party game on the list is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which, of course, is a Mario game!But the bottom ten is a lot more entertaining, revealing, for example, that poor Opoona sold only 5,000 copies, as did Dewy's Adventure. D3's motivation for putting their Simple games on WiiWare is made clear by the fact that their disc-based releases totally bombed. Though not as badly as Hudson's Puzzle Series Vol. 1 Sudoku, which apparently sold 482 copies total.It's hard to pick interesting tidbits out of the middle of the list (which we won't reproduce after the break in the interest of brevity) but apparently No More Heroes sold just 27,873 copies -- much less than the 84,224 copies of Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3 that went out!
Ask Engadget: Best simple camera for my mother?
Despite what your significant other may tell you, there's really one woman that's even more important. Yup, we're talking about ma bear. And with the holidays just around the corner, Kevin's looking to make sure his mum gets exactly what she wants / needs. "I'm looking for a digital camera for my mom, who probably would appreciate simplicity over features, and use it a few times a week at most. Ideally, it would have fewer buttons, settings, and dials, since she could easily change a setting and have no idea what she did and how to set it back. Alkaline batteries are preferred, since she often forgets to charge her cellphone. I need something with at least decent image quality, and the price tag needs to at or under $150 if possible. Help!" Don't worry Kev, we won't let you ruin the holidays for your mother. Surely these readers will dish out a few helpful recommendations out of the kindness of their hearts. And if you're really in the giving mood, give us a question of your own to ponder at ask at engadget dawt com.
Doro brings immensely simplistic phones to the US via Centennial Wireless
Now that the baby boomer generation is booming louder than ever and the geriatric set is quickly growing larger, Doro is hoping to grow its market share by coming to the States. A mainstay in the European market, the company focuses on producing overly simplistic mobiles that ditch cutting edge features in favor of easy-to-use interfaces. The GSM-compatible HandleEasy 330gsm and HandleEasy 326i gsm have arrived on US soil courtesy of Centennial Wireless, and both should be the easiest phone you've ever had the opportunity to use. Unfortunately, there's no mention of a price for either, but we can't imagine 'em being too pricey.
Beloved toy of our youths coming to WiiWare
Warning: you are now entering a Wii Fanboy nostalgia zone; if we get wrapped up in jabbering about our wholesome childhoods over the next 200 words, you've been warned. The cause of this trip down memory lane? The announcement that Tomy would be bringing a Pop-Up Pirate game to WiiWare. Yay!Pop-Up Pirate Wii will emulate the pop-ular children's board/party game, in which players would hold their breath (that bit is optional, but helps) while inserting plastic swords into a plastic barrel containing a pirate. If you chose the wrong slot, the pirate would spring out, startling everybody. As dull as it sounds now we've written it down, it was all the rage back in the '80s, before those damn computer videogame whatchoomacallits came along and ruined everything.Like other board games of our childhood that relied on a steady hand (such as Buckaroo and Operation), we're not yet certain that a videogame version will capture the same ridiculous levels of tension, but still, three cheers for Tomy for at least trying! The chunky, colorful visuals are a great start, in our opinion.Also on Nintendo of Japan's WiiWare page: Simple Series Vol. 2 The Number Puzzle Neo. If ever a series was designed especially for WiiWare, the cheap-but-cheerful Simple series would be it. Both of these will launch next Tuesday in Japan for 500 Wii Points each.%Gallery-37658%[Via Siliconera]
ClarityLife C900 caters to old people, pwns the Jitterbug
There are phones for the geriatric set, and then there's the ClarityLife C900. This mobile makes no bones about what it is -- a dead simple candybar that's meant to easily place / receive calls and give owners access to an impossible-to-miss red emergency button. It also boasts large buttons for easy dialing, a large backlit screen with humongous text, a fierce vibrating ringer, inbuilt flashlight and a speaker that's "twice as loud" as an ordinary cellphone. Ironically, there's two full paragraphs explaining how to actually get a SIM card from your preferred carrier, so there's still a learning curve to overcome. At least Clarity makes the process of handing over $269.99 as easy as possible.[Via UnwiredView]
VC Tuesday: Simon says 'Buy my game for 500 Wii Points'
It's a week of twos on the Virtual Console in Japan. SNK Playmore's Metal Slug 2, which Metal Slug fans generally like, and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which is fairly polarizing. Some Castlevanians enjoy its RPG elements and day-to-night cycle, while some hate its plodding gameplay and completely inscrutable puzzles. Everyone's right! We suspect that the release of Simon's Quest is timed to coincide with the latest DS Castlevania game, Order of Ecclesia, which came out last week. Or it's timed to coincide roughly with the one-year anniversary of the North American release of Simon's Quest!Sadly missing from this week's releases is the SuperGrafx Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, which has failed to make its announced October release. Unless Nintendo surprises everyone on Halloween!Virtual Console releases: Dracula II: Noroi no Fuuin (Famicom, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Metal Slug 2 (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points) Just one WiiWare game, but it's ... well, okay, it's a cheapo Breakout clone. @Simple Series Vol. 1: THE Block Kuzushi Neo (1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)
Poke around the Abandoned Building (website)
Yes, that's cooked puppy.This is just one of the rather gruesome sights that can be found over at the new site for D3's budget survival-horror Simple DS Series Vol. 42: THE Haioku Byoutou (Simple DS Series: Vol. 42 - The Abandoned Building). Even though our chances of seeing this game in the west are as good as Fido there ever fetching a frisbee again, we still spent an enjoyable fifteen minutes scouting around the site, taking in loads of screens and some genuinely eerie footage of the game.Hit up our gallery and see some of the sights for yourself, but keep your flashlight close.%Gallery-28066%[Via Go Nintendo]
D3's Simple series becomes even simpler on WiiWare
It may not shatter the earth as Dead Rising did, but the latest Famitsu has interesting news for fans of D3 Publisher's Simple series. Joining the Simple Wii and Simple 2000 Wii series is another new line, the @Simple games, a line of 500-point WiiWare games.The first two games in the lineup, @Simple Wii Vol. 1 THE Block Kuzushi Neo and Vol. 2 THE Number Puzzle Neo, are the usual early Simple stuff (Breakout and sudoku), but for five bucks! Download services are where this series belongs, in our estimation. The low budgets can be matched with even lower prices (and even less commitment from the customers).
More like Complicated 2000
D3 Publisher has its Simple Wii series, which consists of cheap, original Wii games designed on a low budget. The company also has its Simple 2000 Series Wii, which consists of cheap Wii games designed on a low budget. The difference, aside from the extra number? The new Simple 2000 Wii games are actually ports of old Simple 2000 series games for the PS2.The first two Simple 2000 Series Wii games have both been enhanced with new features: Simple 2000 Wii Vol. 1 THE Table Games, which includes Solitaire, Reversi, Go, Mahjong, and other games, now has online play; Vol. 2 THE Party Games, which includes Sasuke-like athletic challenges, plate spinning, and sports-based minigames, now has waggle.
No pressure: D3 brings bomb disposal to the DS
D3's latest addition to the budget range of Simple games is devoted to a heroic but very niche vocation: the disarming of bombs. As part of an elite bomb disposal unit, THE Bomb Squad takes players all over a world consisting of fictional countries.While preventing bombs from exploding is, naturally, a major component of the gameplay, you'll have to play detective and locate the threat first, before whipping your stylus out and choosing between the red and the blue wire. This means chatting to locals (and apparently camels -- see after the break) to gather information, and assembling your clues from there.Simple DS Series: Vol. 41 - THE Bomb Squad will hit Japan (alongside Vol. 42 - The Abandoned Building) on July 10th, and the west ... well, it's likely never. Sigh. At least we have our own bomb disposal adventure to (possibly) look forward to.%Gallery-23303%
DS Daily: Simple DS Vol. XX: THE Discussion
We follow D3's Simple series with a feeling somewhere between envy and derision -- we think they're often banal or silly, but we want to experience every single one nonetheless. We've tried a few Simple 2000 games on the PS2, and the experience is pretty much commensurate with our expectations: buggy, low-budget novelties that combine basic gameplay with extremely quirky setups.Do you import Simple games on any system? Are you tempted to do so? Or do you get enough entertainment from reading about them on the Internet?
