It’s been a quieter week review wise over the last seven days over on our sister site Pocket Gamer.
The fantastically titled Crazy Penguin Catapult brightened Monday morning, proving to be as much fun as it sounds earning 7 out of 10 for its mix of strategy and quirky casual sections.
Questing into the fold, Rise of Lost Empires helped open the week with a chunky dose of rewarding RGP action. Feature packed and long enough to justify being described as epic, Rise of Lost Empires set the bar high with 8 out of 10.
Unfortunately it was followed by the build-em-up, The Settlers which despite its promising presentation suffered from squint worthy menus and mission structure issues leaving it with 5 out of 10.
Continue reading ‘Urban Attack blasts the competition while E.T. lives up to his past in this week’s mobile games round-up’
T-Mobile has unveiled the first of its new range of own-brand multimedia smartphones, the T-Mobile Shadow.
In an attempt to steal some thunder from the iPhone and Nokia’s N95 8GB with its own range of smartphones targeted at multimedia-loving consumers. So far, T-Mobile’s seen no little success with its other own-brand smartphones like the Vaio and MDA devices (Also by HTC).
The Shadow Windows Mobile 6 smartphone is actually an HTC Juno and boasts a huge 2.6-inch screen, two-megapixel camera, wifi and EDGE, a slide-out QWERTY keypad, stereo Bluetooth and a microSD card slot for up to 4GB cards. It’s also the first T-Mobile smartphone to feature the new MyFaves feature for quick-contacting your best mates.
T-Mobile is releasing the Shadow in two colours (copper and sage) and will be launched tomorrow. Unfortunately it was only doing so in the US at time of going to press, although with MyFaves being launched in the UK at the start of November, don’t be surprised to see this being sold here very soon.
Motorola has announced its first in-car speakerphone and music system, letting ROKR handset users connect their phones to their car’s speakers.
The MOTOROKR T505 is a Bluetooth in-car speakerphone and digitial FM transmitter, described as its first music-orientated ROKR accessory for cars. It enables consumers to connect a compatible Bluetooth phone to their car’s stereo sound system, for hands-free calling and listening to music.
It’s about time a manufacturer released an in-car product with the purpose of letting you listen to the tunes on your music phone while driving, like you would with your iPod. Of course, being able to make calls is also a nice feature.
The T5050 doesn’t need to be installed into the car, simply clipping onto a car’s sunvisor and paired using Motorola’s own EasyPair technology.
As a bonus, if you don’t want to listen to your phone’s music, the T505 also features a FM digital radio.
The T505 will be released in 2008, so we’ll have to wait until after Christmas to get out hands on one.
Nokia NSeries users can broadcast their media content from their smartphones to their digital TV or audio system – and even use their handsets as a remote control, following the release of EZfetch.
It’s described as a ‘wireless, high definition digital media player’, letting you show pictures and play music, movies and podcasts on your TV or Hi-Fi.
It works by connecting to a wifi-enabled NSeries handset (And other USB Flash drives) and ‘fetching’ the content from it.
It’s maker, EZ4Media, claims the EZfetch can play more picture, music and movie formats than any other existing digital media player, and we’re not about to argue. According to its website, the EZfetch supports dozens of formats covering pretty much all handled by modern mobile phones.
Admittedly, the EZfetch isn’t cheap at €199.99, but for the sheer breadth of formats supported it’s a very tempted gadget.
[EZ4 Media]
In-game advertising on mobiles has begun with trials by entertainment providers Jamster and innerActive Smart Media.
Getting adverts in front of gamers is the Holy Grail for advertisers as they figure out how to get their brands in front of games players on PCs, consoles and phones, without disrupting their fun and alienating them.
Now Jamster and innerActive reckon they’ve found a way for non-intrusive mobile ads in mobile games. In the trail, mobile gamers can download free mobile games, in which they’ll see adverts embedded in games.
The adverts will change, depending on the gamer’s behaviour and responses to incentives like wallpapers, videos and real-world prizes.
The ads will be from international brands including Calvin Klein, Domino’s Pizza, Fox, Spider Man 3, Paramount Pictures, What’s on TV, Pick Me Up, NME.com, and eBay.
For more information or to sign up, go to innerActive’s web site here.
From November 1, T-Mobile claims it will put ‘friendship first’ with a new social-community price plan aimed at getting people to keep in touch with their best mates.
The MyFaves tariff gives subscribers unlimited calls, texts and pictures messages to up to five of their ‘fave’ people – even if their mates are on other networks. Yes, you heard that right, T-Mobile is offering unlimited calls to users on other networks.
T-Mobile claims that its research has shown that most of the average Brit’s mobile phone contact (60%) revolves around an ‘inner circle’ of five people.
To help people keep track of their best mates, the new price plan comes with a UI that displays the hallowed few on your phone’s screen as icons or photos, so you can contact them with one click. If you fall out, don’t worry – you can replace any of your ‘faves’ with someone else at any time.
MyFaves has a selection of tariffs to choose from; MyFaves 25, 35 and 40 for £25, £35 or £45 per month respectively for different amounts of calls and texts to those who aren’t your best mates.
[T-Mobile]
We couldn’t resist another picture of some attractive Korean models. And the women aren’t bad either. Remember the LG Shine – the hottest handset last Christmas? Well, a year on, LG’s released a new one with a stylish wooden veneer.
The LG Shine Wood (or the LG LB-2500H in Korea), is pretty similar in terms of specs to the original. It has a two-megapixel camera, multimedia player and other expected phone features, as well as a DMB TV receiver.
It’s not actually made of wood (now that would be silly), but instead it has a wood-like design pattern on the casing.
Nonetheless, if you’re already getting excited, then don’t be. For the time being the LG Shine Wood is a Korea-only release (costing about €362). Mind you, after the huge success of the original Shine, don’t bet against LG being tempted to release it in Europe.
[Via Akihabara News]
Last week we brought you news of flexting, the text flirting phenomenon. Always at the cutting edge of counter culture techie nomenclature, this week we are going to tell you about smexting.
Smexting is the practice of smoking and texting at the same time (do you see what they did there?), which apparently has boomed as a result of the introduction of the smoking ban.
Orange reported a huge surge in texting shortly after the ban, probably caused by people idly texting their friends when they nip outside for a puff. According to Orange the smexters were probably getting in touch with friends for help to quit the filthy habit. Erm, sure they were…
(Via textually)
Even before the iPhone was launched, there was speculation of the iPhone Nano and mock-up pics are not had to come by with a simple Google search (though it should be noted that they are all fan made creations).
Apple has remained mum on the subject but the general consensus has been that it is not a matter of if but when. The plot has now officially thickened as images that are claimed to be spy shots of the iPhone Nano have emerged on the Dutch tech site gadgetzone.
Continue reading ‘iPhone Nano spy shots - real or fake?’
It’s common knowledge that text messages sent with a phone on a typical contract are extortionate data wise, with justifications for such daylight robbery getting thinner all the time. One of the big threats to SMS is the advent of online instant messenger services that can be used via a phone’s internet browser. The other biggie is mobile VoIP programs and falling predictably in line with its competitors, Yeigo is set to offer aggressive pricing for sending text messages.
The company promises you could save up to 80 percent on your messaging as the messages are priced per data sent as opposed to a standard charge for a specific limit. Messages are charged the same locally and internationally too meaning that you are not billed for the distance that the data is travelling.
Yeigo has been ramping up its presence lately, with the announcement of its availability throughout Europe. Considering some other mobile VoIP services offer free messaging however, Yeigo may need to do more to maintain its momentum.
(Via Yeigo Blog)
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