There are a megacrapton load of really great retro games available for the iPad, but playing them on the tablet’s sophisticated touchscreen can feel a little, well, wrong.
To add an authentic dose of vintage goodness to your iPad game-playing, we’ve found six superb gaming accessories that will bring some arcade action to your Apple tablet.
Take a look through the options available to you in the image gallery above. Let us know in the comments below your favorite old-skool title for iOS.
Last summer Google announced that the “Explorer” edition of its Glass headset, meant for developers and early adopters. Pre-orders for Glass took place at Google I/O, where attendees were offered the opportunity to put down $1,500 for early access to headset. Now, Google is re-opening that pre-order program to “creative individuals” via its#ifihadglass page. The search giant says it’s looking for “creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass.”
LAS VEGAS — You may not have heard of Fitbug before, but the wearable fitness tracking device maker was one of the first companies in the now booming fit-tech space.
Launched in 2005, the UK company moved to the U.S. in 2010. Fitbug originally sold its product to companies and healthcare providers but now it’s reaching out to the consumer market.
At International CES 2013 Fitbug announced three new products — the Fitbug Orb (activity tracker), Fitbug Wow (scale), and Fitbug Luv (blood pressure monitor). All of the devices areBluetooth 4.0 enabled so you can receive all the data on one app.
Your personal data is also uploaded to the Fitbug cloud and accessible on your personal account on the website. As with all Fitbug products, users must buy a monthly service to access the cloud and have an account on the site. Pricing ranges from about $60 per year to $4 per month with a $30 up-front cost.
Paul Landau, CEO of Fitbug, tells Mashable Fitbug’s products offer users personalized health programs by tracking their progress in terms of weight, activity and blood pressure.
With the launch of the new Fitbug Orb, Landau said they’ve listened to user feedback and heard people complain about wearing the device. Like most pedometers, Fitbug attaches onto your waistband or pants pocket. When wearing a dress, women had no option but it to tuck it into their underwear, which was uncomfortable, he said.
The newest Fitbug Orb offers lots of wearable options. It comes with a lanyard and a safety clip, so you won’t lose it. Plus a sleep band (it tracks sleep, too) and a key fob. Consumers can chose the other new wearable accessories such as the wristband ($14.99), belt clip ($14.99), or thin magnetic underwear clip ($9.99).
The Fitbug Orb retails for $49.99.
Losing your wallet is the ultimate inconvenience — credit cards, I.D., money are all gone in an instant.
The Wallet TrackR and accompanying iPhone app aim to prevent this problem through the power of tech. Here’s how it works: Place the “TrackR card,” a rectangular Bluetooth device, into your wallet; when it gets separated from your iPhone or iPad, the app alerts you. In case you don’t hear the alert, the app also photographs your wallet’s location at the time it was lost.
For those prone to losing their phones, the technology works both ways: Your wallet can also alert you if you’re leaving your phone behind.
Wallet TrackR works with the iPad mini, the iPhone 4S and 5, as well as the latest iPad and iPod Touch.
Its official website looks similar to a Kickstarter page, with the company asking for $250,000 in funding with “27 days left.” So far, Wallet TrackR has raised just over $9,200.
Do you find this product useful? Tell us in the comments below.
Even with the somewhat muted (by Apple standards) demand for the iPad mini, Apple still had a fantastic weekend of iPad sales. It seems that even the company’s non-hits are hits. That’s not the case.
Apple’s breakthrough products are so massive that it seems everything the company does is destined to succeed. But it doesn’t take much digging to find a trail of failures and false starts. Even in recent years, there are examples of products that seemed great but never resonated with consumers, and some that seemed so destined for failure it’s hard to imagine why any company would have brought them to market.
Here are some examples of Apple veering a bit off course.
Life Span: 1994 – 1997
Back in 1994, Apple was actually at the forefront of digital photography. The QuickTake Camera’s photos (640 x 480 at 0.3 megapixels) were borderline unusable for anything other than your Geocities homepage. But technology has to start somewhere.
Still, Apple killed the line after just three years. And while the iPhone and other smartphones have replaced most people’s digital cameras, Apple could have reaped the benefits of the digital point-and-shoot salad years.
Why It Failed: Steve Jobs streamlined Apple’s product lines from 15 to four when he returned to the company. The QuickTake was a victim of that streamlining.
Chris Crowell is a veteran kindergarten teacher and contributing editor to Children’s Technology Review, a web-based archive of articles and reviews on apps, technology toys and video games. Download a free issue of CTR here.
We’ve got quite the variety for you this week: Apps to help settle your kids down for bed and introduce them to the basic steps of cartoon animation. Plus, one particularly fun app that lets them (digitally) smash their food.
More than 100,000 Android applications in Google Play are considered “suspicious” or “questionable,” according to new research.
Out of 412,000 apps in the store, this 25% pose a security risk to mobile users, according to Bit9, the security software firm that analyzed the apps’ security permissions.
Among its findings: 72% of apps use at least one high-risk permission; 42% access GPS location data (including wallpapers, games and utilities); 31% access phone numbers or calls; 26% access personal data such as contacts and email; and 9% use permissions that can cost users money. For more details, check out the infographic, below.
“A significant percentage of Google Play apps have access to potentially sensitive and confidential information,” Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 said in a statement. “When a seemingly basic app such as a wallpaper requests access to GPS data, this raises a red flag.”
“Likewise, more than a quarter of the apps can access email and contacts unbeknown to the phone user, which is of great concern when these devices are used in the workplace.”
Recently, Android phones have come under scrutiny after the FBI‘s Internet Crime Complaint Center found malware that targets Android operating systems. Wireless company T-Mobile is ramping up protection against malware and viruses by preloading select Android devices with a free security app.
Good audio makes a world of difference. Whether you’re shooting a video of a school concert, your kid’s baseball game or — ahem — your cat doing something mundanely adorable, the overall sound quality of your footage is really what makes it or breaks it.
California-based company Blue Microphones recently released Mikey Digital — a portable microphone for youriOS devices. The plug-and-play stereo mic promises to capture professional-sounding recordings for any videos you shoot.
“It enables you to capture anything with really good clarity,” Brian Biggott, chief technology officer at Blue Microphones, tells Mashable. “Most microphones have a sweet spot, and outside of that they sound really bad, but we’re able to do pretty much anything with this product. It works with any app or video function out there.”
The light-weight device clips directly into the dock port. It has three gain settings (high, medium and low), which are identified by lights on the front. The gain settings refer to the sensitivity of the microphone: the higher the sensitivity is set, the better it will pick up quiet sounds — conversely, the lower setting picks up louder sounds more clearly.
“The middle setting is what I think folks will use most of the time. That’s kind of for ‘normal’ sounds, a mix of quiet and loud,” Biggott says. “But if you know you’re going to be in a really loud environment, like a loud concert, the low gain setting will capture the sounds much better.”
Lacking a “green thumb?” Click and Grow is for the beginner gardener. You water it once and forget about it.
The Click and Grow flower pot and plant cartridge work like a printer and toner. The pot contains electronics, sensors, batteries, a pump and a water reservoir; the cartridge contains seeds, nutrients and software (in a microchip) for growing the plant. There are currently 13 varieties of flowers and plants, and the selection is continuously growing. Right now the available selection includes painted nettle, lamb’s ear, marigolds and more. You can also grow edible things such as basil, thyme, sage, tomatoes and chili peppers.
Founder Mattias Lepp tells Mashable all you have to do is add water and batteries (not in the same place) — everything else is done by the sensors and software. You’ll also have to find a sunny place for your plant to sit, or at least somewhere it can absorb the sun’s rays, sunshine or not.
Software designed to look like real-life textures, such as linen or felt, is expected to become a thing of the past at Apple now that designer Jony Ive has taken over the user interfaces of iOS and OS X.
Scott Forstall was previously in charge of iOS software, but his departure from the company was announced this week, while Ive will serve as head of Apple’s Human Interface decision making. Forstall, along with late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, was a strong advocate for skeuomorphism, which is a type of design that replicates real-world objects digitally.
But Ive is said to loathe skeuomorphist designs, which means Apple’s software is expected to have a significantly different look and feel in the future.
“You can be sure that the next generation of iOS and OS X will have Jony’s industrial design aesthetic all over them,” one unnamed Apple designer told The New York Times. “Clean edges, flat surfaces will likely replace the textures that are all over the place right now.”
