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Foursquare tries the Dodgeball concept again on the iPhone
We're right in the middle of convention season and as I noted last night on the Talkcast, I'm here in Chicago (at least the weather's nice) instead of down in Austin with the rest of the gang. But there is a little consolation: I've had a chance to try out SXSW's newest software darling, Foursquare. It's an app (and a social networking site, and a service, and a game) from the guys who made Dodgeball, that social network that just recently got shut down by Google, who bought it out a while ago.The basic premise is very close to Dodgeball, in that the system basically revolves around "checking in" -- whenever you go out to a bar, you hit a button in the app that says something like "Hey, I'm at Tin Lizzie," and then everyone in your friends list (and your Twitter followers, if you have that option set) sees where you are. In addition, however, they've added some new features into the mix: you get "scored" on how many times you go out and when you go out to different places. And there are even "achievements" you can earn (eventually user created) for trying a hot dog at everyone's favorite stand, or drinking x number of beers at a popular bar. In fact, there's even awards for going to bars where less-than-fashionable people appear, so watch where you decide to spend your Saturday night, lest you pick up the d-bag award.
TUAW: On the ground @SXSW
Over the years, Texas has been associated with many things: big guns, big hair, big hats, big hearts and pretty much big everything else. In recent years, Texas, and in particular the city of Austin, has also been known for hosting one of the fastest growing film, music and interactive festivals in the country. That festival is, of course, South by Southwest. Or, as its more commonly known to those "in the know": SXSW.Along with our pals at Download Squad, TUAW will be bringing you some of the sites, sounds and Mac-related news from the Interactive and film parts of the fest starting today and running through next week. So, check back here at TUAW and at Download Squad for all the latest.Also, be sure to follow our team of intrepid bloggers on Twitter to get even more scoop on the fest. Here's the details: Nik Fletcher - @nikf, Christina Warren - @film_girl, Grant Robertson - @grobertson, Victor Agreda, Jr. - @vagredajr and me, Chris Ullrich - @chrisu.
LotRO Book 7: Leaves of Lorien arrives in North America Tuesday March 17
We've been writing quite a bit about Lord of the Rings Online and its upcoming Book 7 content patch of late. Turbine was kind enough to give us a developer tour through LotRO Volume II: Book 7, explaining the new content like Lothlórien's new areas as well as crafting and battle instances. The only thing we didn't know was the exact release date... until now, through the magic of Twitter. The folks at Turbine have just twittered the final piece to the puzzle: "Aren't you glad you're following us? You're the first to know that Book 7: Leaves of Lorien arrives in NA on Tuesday, March 17!"%Gallery-46767%%Gallery-47129%
Twitter integration for Adium in process
In a recent blog entry, Adium developer Zac West discusses the progress of integrating Twitter into the multi-service instant messaging client's already abundant offerings. "The current base of Twitter clients often leave something to be desired, behave in a weird way, or just add an additional application you need to keep open," West explains before detailing how Matt Gemmell's MGTwitterEngine is being used to provide Twitter for Adium.The concept is quite different from existing clients, but makes perfect sense for Adium. Twitter feeds can be followed or unfollowed by adding and removing them from your contact list. If you IM them, it'll send them a direct message. Your Twitter feed comes displayed in a group chat that you can keep open or closed as you need it. It's also very easy to reply to random Twitter links that you can find online. West hopes to build in additional features such as autouploading an image to TwitPic when it's dragged into an IM window. I would love for some of the additional features that are found in TweetDeck, such as TweetShrink and translation at the click of a button, to be added as well.Read the full details, complete with screenshots, on the official Adium blog.
Radar.net wants to be your iPhone's photo sharer
We're at a new juncture in the course of iPhone development, I believe. Twitter has basically monopolized the "text exporting" function of your iPhone -- if you want to broadcast text from a mobile device, most of us do it through Twitter. But now, we're seeing a whole host of sites and services aiming to be the distributors for your richer media: photos, audio, even video (as well as the iPhone can handle it, anyway). Radar is one such service, and they'd really like to handle any photos you want to send out into the world. But unlike a site such as Twitpic, they're not content with being just the repository. They want to host, share, and deliver. Whenever you want to mess around with pictures on your iPhone, whether that be taking them and sharing them, browsing your friends' pictures from Flickr, or looking at funny shots from CollegeHumor, Radar wants to be there.They gave TUAW an early look at their new software, just released to the App Store, and we were duly impressed -- they've got hooks into a surprising number of places, and it's clear they've worked hard to make themselves fit somewhere into your photosharing flow. But is it worth it to have yet another site acting as a go-between for you and your photo content? Read on to find out.%Gallery-47505%
Tweetie 1.3 approved -- what are we supposed to do with this wagon full of torches and pitchforks?
Apple can be slow to act on user outcry at times, but it looks like the curious, discouraging case of Tweetie 1.3's App Store denial has come to a quick and painless resolution. There's no telling if it was the shouting proles that moved Apple to act, or perhaps a spoonfull of common sense -- Tweetie was apparently rejected on the grounds that it let people read swear words on the internet --- but whatever might have happened behind closed doors in Cupertino, Tweetie 1.3 is at last free to roam on the App Store, according to a Tweet from Tweetie developer Loren Brichter. Now all we need for eternal happiness is a clearly defined set of guidelines for App Store approval, a consistent appeals process, and some Nutella.[Via The iPhone Blog]
Twitter finally useful: get RE4 for $10 right now
Amazon just posted an exclusive deal to its @amazongames Twitter account: Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition for $10 -- until 6PM PST. Just enter the super-secret coupon code TWEET005 at checkout, and your $20 RE4 becomes a $10 RE4. At that price, we can't even say you're paying too much for a game that you can already play on Wii via GameCube backward compatibility!We expect this deal to expire quickly as thousands of tweeters descend upon it at once, so we suggest haste. At $10, you won't regret it too much if you decide it was a bad idea!Oh, and Ultimate Band is the deal of the day for $30.%Gallery-12062%
Beta Beat: TweetDeck ripe with potential
Since it's turned into Twitter Thursday around here... In a moment of sheer frustration with Twitterrific, I sent out a call on my Twitter feed for recommendations of a desktop Twitter client. Several folks replied with a nod to TweetDeck, an Adobe AIR-based client currently in development for OS X, Linux, and Windows.TweetDeck is a pretty neat program. The selling point is the ability to split your main Twitter feed into subfeeds that you can then organize into different groups. You can have Twitter be as narrow as a single column while you scroll back and forth in it, or you can make it full-screen and have your monitor filled with nothing but tweeting goodness.There's a lot of features as well. If you go over the 140-character limit, you can hit a "TweetShrink" button that will turn some of the words to LOL-speak in order to fit the limit. You can upload pictures -- clicking on the TwitPic button will upload the image file to TwitPic and give you the URL for your feed -- and you can shorten URLs via your choice of service by clicking the "Shorten" button. Another very cool feature is the ability to translate your tweets into another language. The translation is pretty accurate -- even for more difficult languages such as the Japanese I tested with the application. The program itself is highly customizable, and you can tweak the colors and fonts to whatever you like. You can also set different update times for various feeds: for example, you can have your main friends update every minute, but your private messages every five minutes.TweetDeck is extremely polished for a beta client and I've yet to get the error messages that plagued me with Twitterrific. If you're searching for a free desktop client for Twitter, it's hard to beat this one.TweetDeck is in public beta and requires the Adobe AIR runtime, which is a Universal binary and needs OS X 10.4.11 or higher. AIR will be installed during the TweetDeck installation process if you do not already have it.
A tweet for a case
We're not sure what someone has been putting in the water lately, but two separate vendors pinged us with case giveaways within minutes of each other. They're both using Twitter as the entry mechanism for the giveaways.The first giveaway is from our buddies at Evernote, who want you to win one of ten Griffin Clarifi iPhone 3G cases every Friday in March. The Clarifi is pretty sweet, with a built-in closeup lens for taking snaps that are perfect for Evernote.To enter, all you need to do is send a Twitter message containing the #EvernoteClarifiGiveaway hash tag.Not to be out-cased, RadTech is doing a giveaway of 5 NeoCases. These are sweet form-fitting sleeve cases for MacBooks, iBooks, and PowerBooks. How do you enter? Tweet @radtech with a clever statement including the word "Neocase", and you're entered. The drawing will be held Monday, March 9, 2008, and you'll be able to choose the size of NeoCase for your favorite Mac notebook. What are you waiting for? Get tweeting and win a case!
Tweet-a-watt crowned winner of Greener Gadgets 2009 design competition
Hey New Yorkers, did you get a chance to check out last week's Greener Gadgets conference? If not, you missed out on some killer eco gadgetry and discussion, including a panel on electronics recycling from our own Editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky. As the dust settled on the main event, the design competition, Limor Fried and Phillip Torrone's Tweet-a-watt walked away with top honors. The service, which automatically updates Twitter with your power usage, beat out a coin-operated electrical piggy bank dubbed the Power Hog, a decidedly un-electronic indoor drying rack, and a hand-powered portable laundry machine, the Laundry Pod. Congratulations to all who won and participant; hit up the read link for a full list of the finalists.[Via MAKE]
WoW Insider Show Episode 79: Argently competing
We had a great time as usual last weekend on the podcast -- Dan O'Halloran and BigRedKitty joined me on the WoW Insider Show, and we chatted about the most popular stories in WoW from the last week. We answered your emails, including how to fill up your guild with quality raiders and what kinds of things you can do to make leveling an alt easier (including not leveling an alt at all).And of course we talked 3.1 -- a little bit of class changes, lots of information about the new dual spec system, what the equipment manager is like (and what it can do for you), Ulduar and the bosses we've seen so far, and finally, the Argent Tournament: what we know and what we don't know just yet. And of course we updated folks on Turpster's new song (almost done, but not quite mastered yet), and on our drive to get over 9000 Twitter followers. If you aren't following us yet, head over to Twitter and hit follow so we can hit our goal and do a video podcast.Was a fun show to make, and hopefully you'll have just as much fun listening to it. We'll see you next week.Update: As promised, here's BRK's intro in mp3 form. No idea what you all wanted it for, but there you go.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Infinity Ward Twitter page welcomes suggestions for 'Modern Warfare 2'
You'd think Infinity Ward, developer of various Call of Duty titles (including 2007's enormously popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) would just come out and say it already. Between the not-so-clandestine Tweets from IF Community Manager Robert "Fourzerotwo" Bowling and Activision big boss Bobby Kotick outright announcing the title to a group of potential advertisers, we're pretty sure Modern Warfare 2 exists ... somewhere. As if to add fuel to our already brightly burning fire, Infinity Ward recently created a Twitter page specifically for community contribution to their clearly in-progress game. Got something to tell Mr. Bowling and the rest of the folks hard at work on the next Modern Warfare game? Head over to your Twitter account and write in your under 140 character suggestion with a "#MW2" hashtag. And no, like you, we didn't know what a "hashtag" was until just now.
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon on Ustream
Our podcast returns yet again this afternoon -- we'll be live for your listening enjoyment over on the Ustream page at 3:30pm Eastern as always. This time around, we'll be joined by our illustrious Managing Editor Dan O'Halloran, and (assuming that he's not too busy launching shuttles into space) our good friend BRK will also be making an appearance. And of course Turpster and I will be on as well -- we'll be chatting about all of the news out of patch 3.1, including the undocumented changes and the new dual spec and gear management systems in the game. And I'm sure the Argent Tournament will make an appearance as well.Whew. If you guessed it would be a busy show, you're probably right. Plus, if all goes according to plan (I know Turpster is having some issues with some of the musicians he's hired), we will hopefully have the new song all ready to play for you, as the reward for hitting 4,000 fans on our Facebook page. And don't forget that our Twitter challenge is still ongoing -- if we can get "over 9000" followers on our Twitter account, we'll do a video version of the podcast. So join Twitter (if you haven't yet) and get all of your friends to follow us as well!Should be a good time. We'll see you tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, or 20:30 GMT, or whatever time that is in your neck of the woods, either over on the Ustream page or right here on the feed after the break. Talk to you then.
@Bell Canada backpedals, Twitter SMS now -- almost -- free
We had a quick chat with Bell Canada's Julie Smithers, and apparently the user gripes, moaning, and all around sadness seem to have helped Twitter and Bell strike up a new conversation about your beloved. Bell and Twitter have agreed that incoming Twitter SMSes will be free on Bell -- provided you have a Bell SMS bundle -- and that outgoing will be charged just like any other text would be. So if your plan includes 30 sent messages -- like the $3 SMS bundle -- and you go over, you'll get dinged just like you would sending normal text messages. So let the merriment begin Canada, go forth, sign up for unlimited texting, and tweet like we know you've been itching to since November last year.
Twitter returns to @Bell Canada for $0.15 a pop
While the fact that Twitter's SMS service is returning to Canada is grand news, Bell Canada's 15 cent price for admission is most definitely not. Twitter shut down the outbound SMS service in November last year due to rising costs with a note that it was working toward a solution to fix it. Well, it seems the solution's been found and that's to pass it down the line to the Twitter users as a premium service that they'll pay for, both sending and receiving. Our advice here is to hunt down a free client and use it or call Bell and fire up the waterworks, though, we suspect that'll get you about nowhere.Update: Just for the sake of clarity, this is in no way related to Bell's policy on 15 cent incoming SMS costs. Bell's Julie Smithers said "Because Twitter is a third-party service, the messages are considered premium and not covered by our plans...This aligns with industry standards regarding third-party premium messaging."[Thanks, @fruhlinger]
Prince of Persia 'Epilogue' DLC delayed to March 5, priced $10 [update]
If you're anything like us then you've been eagerly anticipating the release of the Prince of Persia "Epilogue" DLC, which was due to drop tomorrow. Unfortunately, you've got a little longer to wait, as Ubisoft's twitter feed has revealed a "new release date," otherwise known as a one week delay. The DLC will now be available on March 5, instead.Clearly there was some sort of last minute problem -- though the tweet gives no indication as to what -- for the DLC to have been delayed only a day before release. A disappointing misstep, especially with no Elika around to rescue it from its week-long drop to the floor.Update: IGN reveals that the Epilogue is priced at $10. [Thanks Daniel!]%Gallery-43418%
Ask TUAW: Recovering pictures, updating Facebook, iPhone battery life and more
Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW: the place where we try to answer all of your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're taking questions about recovering pictures from corrupted compact flash cards, Twitter for the iPhone, extending iPhone battery life and more.As always, we welcome your suggestions for this week and questions for next time. Please leave your contributions in the comments for this post. When asking questions, please include which Mac and which version of OS X you're running. If you don't specify, we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac. Okay, let's get to it!Nick F. asks:I've got some pictures I need to recover from a corrupted Compact Flash card. What's the best, preferably free, software to do it on my Mac?This is one of those questions that can get frustrating if you're a Mac user. On the Windows side, there are a few good (and free) pieces of software that can help you accomplish this task. For the Mac, you're choices are mostly limited to pay applications -- at least if you want good results. Fortunately, these pay applications are very good.For my money, the piece of software that works best when you want to recover pictures from a bad CF or SD card is Klix ($29.95) from Joesoft. I've used it quite a bit with clients, and on my own bad cards, and each time it performed flawlessly, recovering every lost picture from the card. Other alternatives for the Mac include CardRaider ($19.95), PhotoRescue ($29.00) and Data Rescue II ($99.00). I realize that $29.95 for a piece of software might seem like a lot to some people. But if the software is easy to use and works as advertised, I think it's a worthwhile investment in the long run. Besides, it would cost far more to go back and take those vacation pictures you lost on the card again when you could buy Klix and recover them from your bad card instead. Given that, a program like Klix is actually a bargain.If you've got Windows running on your Mac (either through Boot Camp or virtualization) and you've had good luck with one of the tools from the other side of the fence, let us know in the comments.
Get your 25 seconds of fame with Tweetube for Mac OS X
If you're a Twitter fan and a Mac user, you'll appreciate a new tool from RADSense Software -- Tweetube for Mac OS X. Tweetube is a free application that uses your iSight camera to record a 25 second video which is then uploaded automatically to Tweetube. A tweet with an embedded link to the video is sent out, and the world can then see your smiling face.It's also easy to share YouTube videos with your Twitterpals by logging onto the Tweetube site, and then either entering a YouTube URL or doing a quick search. After you add your tweet, a link is sent off to your Tweeples. Tweetube received a few seconds of fame earlier this week when comedian Dane Cook recorded a 25-second blast in his usual high-speed rant mode. If you use Twitter, give Tweetube a try!
WoW Insider Show Episode 77: The Lady Factor
We had a great time on the WoW Insider Show this past weekend -- Turpster and I welcomed back Michael Sacco (formerly known as Belfaire on the official forums and now a blogger here on WoW Insider) and manly man Matthew Rossi to talk about what's coming up in patch 3.0.9, what we thought of the dual spec news we heard last week, and our progress (or lack thereof, apparently) on the Love is in the Air event. We also answered lots of emails from listeners, and speculated on what Blizzard's future release schedule might look like.And a huge thanks to all of our listeners for hitting 4,000 fans on our Facebook page -- Turpster's song is coming soon (hopefully next week), and as a mini-reward this week, by request, here's a downloadable version of Sammy T's great "Meat of the Show" song (just right-click save as, and if you do anything with it, be sure to let us know).Our next goal has to do with our Twitter page -- as we announced on the show, if we can get "over 9000" Twitter followers there, we'll do a video version of our podcast, either with ingame video or Turpster and me on camera ourselves. So tell your friends and Twitter followers to check us out over there. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you as always next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
The WAR on Twitter
It seems that any game company that wants to get the word out about what they're doing, or simply to generate buzz, leverages social networking. Many companies are now using that diminutive yet potent power of Twitter and Mythic Entertainment is no different. The WAR Herald has announced that it's now twittering updates on Warhammer Online hot fixes, dev blogs, and topics of interest to the WAR community in general. The WAR Herald isn't Mythic's only Twitter presence though -- both Paul Barnett and Josh Drescher have feeds as well, followed by a growing legion of Warhammer Online fans. Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
