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Sling TV just added even more kids programming
It seems like every other month, at least, Sling TV brings new content to its video-streaming service. That's great for those of you who pay $20 (or more) for the monthly subscription. The latest update, announced today, focuses on adding even more programming to the Kids Extra bundle. You'll now find over 200 on-demand TV shows and movies from Kabillion, Kaboom and Splash, in addition to what's been available from Disney Junior, TeenNick, NickToons and other similar channels.
Daily iPhone App: Fish Out of Water! makes a gorgeous splash in a shallow pool
Halfbrick Studios is one of the most popular developers on the App Store, so much so that I can guarantee you've played their work before: Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride are their two biggest titles. And now, the Australian developer has released a brand-new iOS game, called Fish Out of Water, available on the App Store now for US$0.99 cents. Jetpack Joyride is one of my favorite iOS games of all time, and one of the main reasons for that is just how polished it is. It just oozes quality, and Fish Out of Water has that same feeling. The game runs perfectly, looks great and just bubbles over with well-crafted art and design work. Unfortunately, Fish Out of Water's weakness is that it's simple, almost too simple to stay interesting for long. Here's the game's core: You throw fish. That's it, really -- the goal is to try and throw fish and earn both "skips" (where your fish tap across the water) and "distance", which you're then rated on by a panel of cartoony crabs. Your rating is placed up against a daily leaderboard for the world and your own league, and that's the game. There are six fish to toss in total, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the game boasts an excellent weather system that's set to the clock every single day. But even with those complications, this game doesn't change all that much: You just toss fish, as hard as you can, at the right angle. Once you've tossed a fish, you can hit a boost button to try and speed it up at certain times, but in my experience, it doesn't matter much. Even when you rate high or low, the game doesn't do a great job of telling you what you did wrong or right, leaving the whole contest to what basically seems like chance. The game's fun for a few throws, and it does do a solid job of keeping you interested -- you level up by performing various missions, and there are tons of social elements in there, so much so that you're notified as you play on how your friends are doing and whether you're beating them or vice versa. Halfbrick can't really make a bad game, as far as I'm concerned, and Fish Out of Water is good. It's just a little boring, is all -- the company opted for casual here, and they certainly hit that target. Hopefully we'll see something a little more involving, with the same amount of quality, from Halfbrick in the future.
ThinkPad X1's keyboard is spill-proof, not flood-proof (video)
The ThinkPad X1 thought it was safe. It foolishly believed that, having reviewed it in full, we would spare it from further scrutiny at Lenovo's UK launch event this evening. We quite naturally did no such thing, poking and prodding at the slimline laptop -- which still feels supremely well built -- but we also went that one step further, by putting it through a trial we didn't dare subject our review unit to: a spill test. Well, it was a less a spill and more of a steady stream of water that we doused the X1 in, which might explain why it eventually gave out and shut down on us. Lenovo says that the keyboard tray can only handle 25cl of water before throwing a self-protect switch and turning the computer off. Given enough time to fully dry out, our unfortunate test subject might even have been brought back to life, but our efforts at restoring it were met with failure. You can see the H2O-based carnage after the break, though we should note that Lenovo managed to perform this test three times without taking the X1 out of commission... before we came along and ruined its spotless record.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Zero-sum game
Ever since I started following RIFT, I've been entranced by the wide-open -- but not limitless -- class system. After all, the virtual world and everything populating it is only half the game; the other half resides in the avatar that sticks with you while you explore it all. Many MMOs have interesting ways of letting you build and grow your character, but sooner or later they come to a point where there's little more to be done other than incrementally increasing your stats by gaining better gear. Not so with RIFT, as even a level 50 can drop a few coins to shape a completely new build from scratch. No longer are we bound to a rigidly defined creation; we are free to experiment, tinker, and try out these roles to our hearts' content. With RIFT's soul system, there are a few ground rules that everyone learns early in the game. You can have up to three souls in your archetype active at any one time; you can only spend as many points in a build as you have in levels (such as 10 points at level 10); and you'll end up with 66 points at level 50, which means that you'll at least dabble in a second soul tree with every build. And while you can certainly spread soul points across all three trees, today I wanted to look at the benefits of a zero-point soul, the "third wheel," if you will, of builds.
BumpTop offers a 3D desktop on your Mac
I've never really gotten into the whole 3D file navigation thing (ever since "It's a Unix system! I know this!", it's seemed pretty corny), but BumpTop might be the exception I've been waiting for. It's a 3D overlay for your OS X desktop that turns files into 3D objects to move around, pin on the walls, pile up or break down as needed. It's not too shabby -- with all of these things, there's a fine line between adding in graphic splashes for the heck of it, and making sure everything has a real function, and it seems like BumpTop walks that line pretty well. Most of the graphical flair does actually help with a function also. The app also supports the multitouch trackpad on MacBooks, so there's a little bit of innovation to play with as well. Mashable says BumpTop is planning even more integration in the future, piping content from sites like Facebook and Twitter straight to one of the desktop's walls, and more involvement with the touch interface, even as we await the tablet's announcement. I don't know if it's quite enough for me to leave behind the 2D icons and filenames that have worked well so far, but BumpTop is an interesting experiment in adding that third dimension into your normal workspace. The app is a free trial download, with a Pro version available (multitouch support, unlimited stickies, instant search) for $29.
Blizzard's splash screen changes for June 27th: A "Lost" penguin and Death Knight imagery
Good Morning everyone! It is now June 27th, and as expected, Blizzard's splash screen has changed yet again to reveal more of the mystery behind what they may be announcing at the Worldwide Invitational, which begins tomorrow. What exactly they're announcing is still up in the air, but there have been some interesting revelations, especially concerning the mysterious purple monster everyone's been wondering about. The new graphic, named ice5.jpg, doesn't seem to have changed the cracking ice much, but what has changed is the "eyes." There's now very little doubt that they are glowing eyes instead of snow flecks, and to be frank, they do look remarkably like the eyes of Arthas the Lich King from underneath his helmet -- although the ethereal feel of them and the strange ridges being formed in the vapor are also very reminiscent of the Protoss. Whether these ridges indicate Arthas' helmet or the face ridges of a Protoss or a demon might still be up for debate, but this overlay of Arthas on today's splash screen by Zach is very convincing -- the eyes match up pretty much exactly. Hopefully, we'll know for sure who it is tomorrow. In addition, the new rune, located just above the breaking ice, is that of a snowflake, which brings to mind the Frost tree of the Death Knights (even if the frost rune shown on the official Death Knight page doesn't quite match up). Tipster Allen notes that the new rune looks a lot like a Norse Bind-Rune, specifically one known as a compass or the "Helm of awe," which is often used for invulnverability -- perhaps a Lost Vikings reference, or a nod to the Viking-like architecture seen in many screenshots of Northrend? All This new imagery would seem to be a killing blow of sorts for a Diablo 3 announcement, but it is also worth nothing that the new frost rune is in the correct area for the Pentagram theory to continue to apply. In addition, all 5 runes have lit up, so if you weren't able to get a good look at them before, you certainly can now. %Gallery-25975% What's really sort of interesting, though, is what our purple monster friend reveals, which I'll discuss after the break.
Blizzard's splash screen changes for June 26th
The saga of the icy splash screen continues, as the newest splash screen has just gone live on Blizzard's sites under the file name ice4.jpg. This time, the ice has cracked away even further, revealing more of the night sky, and what looks to be a face coalescing from the ice flecks and vapor in the middle of the picture. The identity of the face isn't clear, although Alex thinks it may be a Protoss Archon. We've also received this very intriguing picture from tipster Pact, which shows the face overlaid with a picture of Diablo from the Diablo 2 box. Of course, it's worth noting that it could simply be Arthas' eyes as well, peering out from his helmet. As expected, a new rune has appeared as well, bringing the tally to four. This rune, located to the lower right of the cracking ice, looks like nothing so much as a miniature solar system model -- perhaps related to this model seen during April Fool's? Diablofans.com has suggested it may be a top-down view of an Arcane Sanctum from Warcraft 3 and WoW (You can see one at the Scryer's base in Shadowmoon) as well. As also expected, a new piece of the strange purple monster has appeared as well. It appears to be the hindquarters of the beast. So far, I'm still sticking to my belief that it's some sort of purple penguin. This file was named 16.jpg, which, if we follow the alphabet conversion method we've been using for previous pieces, gives us the letter "P." "Powd" is the best I can get out of that. Does that mean this picture is that of a new mascot named "Powder the penguin"? As usual, you can see all of these graphics in our splash screen speculation gallery, which is constantly being updated with new speculation and analysis as the WWI draws nearer. %Gallery-25975% There's more analysis to come after the break.
MyGuide Splash S navigation system shows off at CeBIT
Joining the array of GPS systems showing off at this year's CeBIT is MyGuide's Splash S, which doesn't really strive to be different outside of its tethering abilities, but gives us all one more option in the saturated 3.5-inch GPS market if nothing else. Encased in a rugged enclosure that can purportedly resist shocks and extreme temperatures, this navigation system touts a 320 x 240 resolution screen, 300MHz Centrality Atlas II processor, handsfree Bluetooth capability, 64MB of built-in RAM, integrated RDS / TMS traffic information receiver, an SD / MMC card slot, rechargeable Li-ion battery, music / video playback, an image viewer, and a copy of Windows CE to run the show. Per usual, no details regarding price or availability were divulged, but feel free to click on through for a few more snapshots.[Via NaviGadget]
