Balance is a challenging mouse-based physics game

balance
Years of computer use have taught us that the mouse cursor is "above" the windows. It doesn't push anything around; at least not without you clicking anything.

Balance takes that ingrained bit of knowledge and cancels it out. Suddenly your cursor (a blue dot) is solid - and if it touches the blue block, it pushes it around.

Your job is to use your cursor to nudge the blue block over to the orange block. You will have to push it, lift it and even flip it on its side, and then balance it. It's a very tricky game - one I wouldn't recommend tackling with a laptop trackpad.

Still, if you have a mouse and a hankering for a little physics gameplay, this is a cute little game. I like how the blue block never stops smiling, it makes me feel better about the world.

Balance is a challenging mouse-based physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/10/balance-is-a-challenging-mouse-based-physics-game/

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Live From Hulu Japan: It's Sunday Morning!

In an apparent effort to thwart TV show piracy, Hulu Japan, a subscription streaming site, will show episodes of Saturday Night Live mere hours after the show airs on U.S. television. Hulu, which is based in the U.S. but also operates in Japan, struck a deal not with NBC, the network that broadcasts SNL, but with Broadway Video, the company that produces the show. Hollywood's big boys -- of which Broadway Video is not one -- might be a little more hesitant to agree to such a deal.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/2399e07d/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C761930Bhtml/story01.htm

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Data never sleeps. What happens on the Internet every minute of the day?

image

I was just shown this interesting little graphic at a conference I’m attending and thought I’d share it with you good folk on the Gadgeteer.  Produced by Business Intelligence Specialists Domo, it shows what happens on the Internet every minute of the day. Makes for some interesting reading.  Enjoy! (If the image is too small to read even after you’ve clicked for an enlargement, you can see the original at the Domo blog.)

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous, News

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Data never sleeps. What happens on the Internet every minute of the day? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 20, 2012 at 8:00 am.

iPhone 5 photo gallery

iPhone 5 photo gallery

The iPhone 5 isn't just one of the most advanced pieces of consumer electronics ever made, Apple has taken the design and manufacturing itself well beyond the next level. Measured now in microns, the precision is as impressive as it is ephemeral -- easily seen in the fit and finish of every part up close, but disappearing instantly when you start using it, when it just becomes the phone, internet communicator, or widescreen iPod in your hand.

So lets take a moment to appreciate the iPhone 5 as object, as a piece of industrial design, as the craftsman of Apple and Jonathan Ive and Bob Mansfield and their teams, as a thing of beauty.

Equipment used: Nikon D800 with Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/QT7bG6eCiNM/story01.htm

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The Beauty Inside Episode 1: Hello My Name is Alex (Sponsored Video)

At the end of July, I told you about an interesting 6 part movie concept where regular folks like you and I were able to audition for small parts. The concept of the film is that 20-something year old Alex wakes up every morning in a brand new body that can be old, young, tall, short, fat, thin, ugly, beautiful, male or female. Topher Grace from That 70′s Show is Alex. He is the voice behind the main character as he narrates the episodes. Each episode is less than 10 minutes long and so far 5 of them have aired with just one left to air this week. The story is simple but draws you in as Alex discovers his love interest at an antique shop. How do you start a relationship with someone when you’re a totally different person each day? I am anxious to see the last episode to find out how things wrap up. I’m the type of person who wants a happy ending for every story, so I hope this one ends up that way. The interesting thing about this movie is that there’s a social media side to it on Facebook where “Alex” asks questions and people answer and leave comments.

This post is sponsored by Intel & Toshiba.

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous, News

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The Beauty Inside Episode 1: Hello My Name is Alex (Sponsored Video) originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 19, 2012 at 8:00 am.

Facebook’s New Plug-In Gives You Better Protection From Embarrassing Overshares

The new Social Activity plugin on AirBnB. Image: Facebook

Facebook has launched its Shared Activity plugin, a tool that will give users control over how much they want to share through Facebook-connected web apps.

If you sign into a website like Pinterest or AirBnB using your Facebook login credentials, developers can now offer a one-click control that lets you pick which activities are shared with Facebook. The plug-in presents the choices in a window directly on that website. You’ll be able to have control over who — friends, specific groups, or no one — sees the information. You can also share only certain kinds of activity from a site.

“For example, when an individual uses a music app, she could modify the privacy settings, through the plugin, for specific song listening activities, without needing to go back to Facebook to control what’s shown. Similarly, if a person, through a travel app, likes a restaurant or reviews a hotel, and decides that these activities should only be viewable to a select group on friends on Facebook, he can control this within the plugin as well,” Facebooker Andrew Chen explains in a blog post.

This is a useful addition for Facebook users who want better control over how much of their activity on the web is shared with their Facebook friends. It comes at a time when user privacy issues are at the fore, and proposals like Do Not Track, which hides you from tracking tools used by social sites and advertising networks, seek to give web users more power to control how and with whom their browsing activities are shared.

Facebook’s new plug-in doesn’t alter the experience as broadly as something like Do Not Track, but it is a big improvement to the site’s existing privacy controls. Currently, users need to navigate Facebook’s maze-like sharing settings to change which activities on which sites are shared, and which aren’t. Left unchecked, this can lead to some embarrassing automatic posts: “Robbie just listened to ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ on MySpace!”

With this new plug-in, you get a set of specific controls for each web app or website, and they’re available to you right there, within the same browser window.

It’s a minor plug-in release that has a notable impact on the amount of information that will come streaming through the Facebook Activity Log and prevent you from those accidental shares. (And keep your Taylor Swift obsession a secret.)

What is noticeably missing from the Shared Activity plugin description is any detail on whether you can control what behind-the-scenes behavior data is shared with Facebook. With Facebook Exchange, the social giant is able to track your activity across Facebook-connected sites, and then give those sites the ability to serve you a targeted ad.

So, even if you say you don’t want to share your activities with your Facebook friends, that doesn’t give you control over what you share with the social giant itself — it can still see every move you make when you log into a Facebook-connected site. As far as the Shared Activity plugin goes, it’s more of a friend-facing privacy control.

Facebook was also busy Thursday rolling out several mobile app updates. The Android Messenger app got a redesign, the main Android Facebook app now implements many new Messenger features, and the main iOS app also received some minor updates including performance improvements and iOS 6 support. The company detailed its mobile release plans in a blog post, promising that it will push updates to the main Facebook and standalone apps ever four to eight weeks to further stabilize and polish its mobile experiences.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/facebook-launches-shared-activity-plugin-for-more-privacy-control-on-web/

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Watch the Black Magic Cinema Camera Crush the Canon 5D Mark III's Video Quality [Video]

The Black Magic Cinema Camera, if you remember from its surprise announcement this spring, is a $3000 video camera that shoots 12-bit RAW 2.5k video files. No other camera on the market offers this capability at such a low price. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/VgxcJD6H7EI/watch-the-black-magic-cinema-camera-crush-the-canon-5d-mark-iiis-video-quality

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PSA: Don't leave negative reviews for non-widescreen apps -- developers are updating as fast as they can!

How long will it take iPhone 5 apps to become

At some point today, many of us will be tearing open our just-arrived Fedex or UPS packages, or rushing out of the Apple Store or other retailer, unboxing our brand new iPhones -- the iPhone 5 -- restoring them from iCloud, and launching our favorite App Store apps and games... only to see some with letter- and pillar-boxes.

Of course, a ton of really popular apps have already been updated and will be ready to go a launch. But other will take some time. So, before anyone jumps into comments or forums, or takes to Twitter, App.net, or Facebook -- or even thinks about leaving a bad App Store review -- to voice their frustrations over the lack of instant updates, there are a few realities to take into account, and some expectations that need to be properly set.

Why is this a thing?

With the iPhone 5 (and the iPod touch 5, shipping in October), Apple has changed the aspect ratio of the screen for the very first time. It's gone from the 2:3 that it's been since the original iPhone shipped in 2007 -- that persisted through the iPhone 4S in 2011 -- to 16:9. To do that, the iPhone 5 is adding 176 new pixels, taking the resolution from 960x640 to 1136x640. That means developers and designers need to figure out what to do with those extra pixels.

Can't it "just work"?

There's nothing automatic here for anyone here. No app will magically stretch to fill the new, longer iPhone 5 screen anymore than any app magically doubled in pixel density to look sharp on the iPhone 4 and iPad 3 Retina displays. The reason for that is simple -- Apple can't assume an app is built to support 16:9, so they'd rather letter- and pillar-box everything rather than risk having an app looking terrible or breaking if forced to fill a screen it was never designed to fill.

But that means it'll take some work to update apps. Depending on the app, maybe a little, and maybe a lot.

So how do apps become "widescreen ready"?

At a minimum, developers and designers will have to indicate their apps support 16:9, compile them against the iOS 6 SDK, include a special graphics file that tells iOS they're widescreen ready, and then submit them to Apple for (re-)approval.

For apps that use lists or grids, and/or implement a lot of standard controls and automatic layouts, flowing content into the longer (or wider) screen will likely be a lot easier than apps that use heavily customized interfaces.

For developers of apps and games alike who don't just want to show more of the same stuff, but take advantage of the extra screen space to provide different stuff the process will be even more involved.

Also keep in mind that developers will continue to have to support the 3:2 aspect ratio of the still-for-sale iPhone 4, iPod touch 4, and iPhone 4S. Interface elements can't simply be cropped off on older devices. Pixel-perfect designers and developers will want their interfaces pixel-perfect on every screen supported by iOS 6.

Add to that, very few developers and designers have actually been able to see, much less test on an actual iPhone 5 yet. Aside from the apps shown off by Apple at the iPhone 5 event, it's a safe bet next to no one has. A lot of developers and designers are smart and experienced enough to use the tools Apple has provided to prepare and update anyway, but no one likes to launch an app that they haven't been able to run, hold, and hammer away at on real hardware.

Lastly, given how many apps will no doubt be submitted to the App Store this week in anticipation of iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 launch, even if this work itself is quick, the approval process could well be a bottleneck.

Apple will want to showcase "widescreen ready" apps, the way they've showcased "Retina ready" apps previously, so they'll work as fast as they can, but there are limits to everything.

How do you know developers are actually working on it?

Gedeon Maheux of the Iconfactory

A number of iOS clients have already contacted us about updating their apps for the new, taller iPhone 5 screen. From the moment it was announced, the Iconfactory started including these new UI requirements into our workflow. I suspect it won't take long before we start to see many of your favorite apps updated and ready.

Davd Barnard of App Cubby:

Apple works incredibly hard to make sure that things work as expected for developers, and I’m hopeful that this will be an incredibly smooth transition. However, it’s still a risk for developers to just blindly support a new screen size and architecture without being able to fully test on actual hardware. We can test in the iOS simulator, but the simulator is — as the name would suggest — just a simulation of what the app will be like on an actual device. Over the years I’ve found quite a few bugs on a device that can’t be replicated in the simulator. Not to mention UI issues. The simulator just can’t replicate the feel of swiping, tapping, and other key aspects of touch-screen apps. It’s tough to know how an app is going to feel until it’s under your fingers.

Bottom line, it’s risky to support a device I haven’t tested on. But, given Apple’s track record of managing these transitions well, and the minimal amount of code we had to change, we decided the risk was worth taking. We’ve already submitted 3 App Cubby apps (Launch Center Pro, Timer, and Mirror) and will be working hard on Gas Cubby and Trip Cubby this week.

Marc Edwards of Bjango

We've completed the work required for Consume and iStat 2 to support the iPhone 5's taller display. We needed five images for Consume and one for iStat. All up, it was a few hours work each. Some apps will require more work, but this is far less painful than the non-Retina to Retina transition. The big caveat is that we haven't done any device testing yet, but that's the same as most developers.

So what can we expect when we get our Phone 5 ?

When you get your iPhone 5, and all your apps have downloaded, some of them will support 16:9, and some of them will do it well. If you see a letter- or pillar-box, however, before you complain -- and most especially before you leave a negative review -- take a moment. Take a moment to consider that the developers and designers love their apps and hate seeing them boxed even more than you do. Consider that they're probably working around the clock to get their updates done, working blindly do to it, and waiting patiently and powerlessly for Apple to approve them. They'll get them to you just as fast as they can.

Give developers or designers a few weeks or a month to get their basic updates done and approved by Apple, and then, if any apps look abandoned or look like they're going to go without an update, you can let 'em have it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/WcW4tgoZHJk/story01.htm

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