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Netflix is swapping star ratings for thumbs up and thumbs down
When you finish watching something on Netflix, do you rate it? Maybe you'll sit (or stand) there, with all of that responsibility on your shoulders, for much longer than you need deciding whether that movie or TV show really deserves the coveted five stars. In the coming weeks, there will be a little less pressure on you to perform, because the streaming giant is scrapping the time-tested classification in favour or something a little more familiar: the thumbs up.
Spotify Radio gets thumbs up, thumbs down on desktop
Pretty much from day one, the mobile Spotify Radio feature outclassed its desktop counterpart, thanks to the presence of one feature -- thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. The ability to more finely tailor the music selection to your tastes is a pretty essential feature for any automatically generated playlist. Finally, Spotify is bringing the buttons to the Mac and Windows clients in an update rolling out today. Your likes and dislikes are synced across platforms and, best of all, the update finally lets you view radio stations you've created through the mobile app on your desktop.
Retro iPhone case adds Gordon Gekko style
Miss out on living in the 1980's with the big hair and the white-washed jeans? Don't fret -- now you can bring a little bit of 80's flash to 2011 with this Gordon Gekko-style iPhone case from Thumbs Up. Brought to our attention by Gizmodo, this "80's Phone" iPhone case is carefully designed to make your slim and sleek device a large, bulky conversation piece capable of making your acquaintances believe you are a time traveler from the past -- or simply the exact opposite of an early adopter. While many clever iPhone cases have been making the rounds lately, like this Apple Newton case or this Etch-a-Sketch one, the "80's Phone" case takes the cake for me as a specialty case because it's modeled after phones that people actually used 20-30 years ago. Priced at around US$20, it would be a rather funny gag gift for your favorite iPhone owner. However, after living through the 80's and still having nightmares about phones that big, I myself may have to stick to one of the new iPhone cases that our own Victor Agreda, Jr. saw at CES a few weeks ago. [via Gizmodo]
Stick It for iPad: Beautiful "To-Do" notes application
There's not a lot of apps that make me sit up, take notice and go "yes!" Stick It for iPad is one of those apps. Introduced to me by Mark Peterson, a developer who hangs out in the same #iphonedev channel that I do on freenode, his app ticks a lot of the boxes that I have been looking for for free form note making. Stick It combines sticky notes with a cork board metaphor. You can create new notes, edit their text (and adjust their color, fonts, and so forth), and paste them onto one of five separate boards. This allows you to work with an "immediate" to-do board, a "grocery shopping" board, and so forth. You organize and name these boards, however you wish. Peterson has provided a wide range of note choices. You can use standard Sticky shapes, paper attached by "tape", talk bubbles, Rolodex pages, and more. It's visually stunning, with a lot of creative options that should suit anyone's taste. There's even a datebook calendar option, as you can see in thescreen shot. One of the features I absolutely adored was the option to convert a layout into a lockscreen photo. That's simply brilliant, letting you update that screen to match your current to do list. You can even preview how the lockscreen will look, so you can adjust your notes for best visibility. Other options allow you to e-mail a picture of your to do's or save them to your camera roll. In the end, Stick It is smart, it's simple, and it's versatile. And for just $0.99, it's a bargain. This app rocks, and is well worth checking out. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.
TGS 06: Every PSP game previewed
There are way too many PSP games at this year's Tokyo Game Show. Because not all of us have time to read all the impressions and previews of all the games coming out, PSP Fanboy has created this nifty guide for all the games that were previewed. You'll get a thumbs up or a thumbs down from the major video game news sites. If a game looks like it might be a real winner, we'll award it "The Official PSP Fanboy Entranced Korean Award." These are the games that'll end up in Korea on giant PSPs, luring people to their eventual doom. And, that's pretty cool. Read on to see all the previews!
