Category Archives: Gadget-Lust

What keeps the Manly Man sharp and precise

New Sony Xperia ION an AT&T Exclusive

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Had a little time with the phone and a few things jumped out at me.

First was the screen. It will have a 4.6 inch HD Reality Display (1280×720) which looks awesome. Everything looks crisp and bright. Second was it’s ability to dock with the Sony Smart Dock and display phone content via HD Cable to your High Def TV. If it’s a Sony TV you can even use the remote to control content which was pretty cool though I would have much rathered a wireless connection. Then was the Playstation Certification. This means genuine PlayStation titles can be played through the phone which is pretty cool. Was playing Modern Combat on the big screen and it rocked. Though I had a tough time enjoying the experience because I had to keep looking back to the phone to figure out what the heck I was doing. I think giving the phone the ability to simply become the controller once docked with the TV would be a much more elegant approach. The key Details are as follows:

  • Playstation Certification
  • 16GB internal memory with the option to expand up to 32GB via microSD.
  • 12MP Camera
  • 4.6″ 720p HD Reality Display
  • 1.5Ghz dual core processor

One serious downer was the fact that this phone will not ship with Ice Cream Sandwhich. It will get the upgrade eventually, but who knows when. If the ION is something that tickles your fancy it will be available on AT&T exclusively on the 24th for $100 bucks on a 2 year contract.

New Apple Refresh Worth It?

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Yesterday, Apple confirmed quite a few things that many people were speculating up to that point. However, not all the rumors were true. There was no iPhone 5 announcement – which I was disappointed to find out. However, there was definitely enough to chew on. Catch the entire thing here as the keynote is now online.

The Major Changes of interest are as follows:
-iOS 6

  • iOS 6 brings a ton of changes and perhaps most notably “Maps”. Maps really does look quite nice and it really needed to happen. Since Google was withholding the goods (i.e. turn by turn navigation) for so long Apple decided to move forward without that partnership. In “Flyover” mode, you see 3D models of all the buildings in a particular city as if you were really looking at the city from the sky. Google unveiled a similar product last Wednesday so there will definitely be company in the 3D mapping space.
  • Passbook was another goodie that came up – with the ability to have all of your passes at your fingertips digitally. This includes your Starbucks card, plane ticket, and even movie pass. What’s really neat is the fact that your iOS 6 enabled device will know where you are and pull up the correct pass as you near your destination so you won’t have to fumble through your apps to find it.
  • Guided Access is fairly intriguing though I doubt I would have much use for it – though many people with kids – especially those with special needs – may find it handy. It gives you the ability to restrict certain areas of the phone so that the user stays focused on the task at hand.

New Macbook Pro

  • The newest computer in the MacBook family is now the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. This puppy is on sale right now (though you’ll have to wait between 2-3 weeks for it to be shipped since demand is so high). The display has literally 5.1 million pixels.
  • It’s almost as thin as the Mac Air. I’ts .71 inches thin and weighs 4.45lbs. To achieve this they did get rid of the disc drive and flattened the Magsafe port.

Macbook Pro Refresh

  • Apple has also refreshed their entire MacBook lineup with a slew of new features like a new HD Facetime Camera and all new Thunderbolt ports. The processors of each line has been upgraded with i5 or i7 processors. You can check out comparisons here.
  • The 17 inch MacBook Pro has been axed. Apple always tries to keep it fresh so I suppose it was bound to happen.

For a cool $2,199 smackers the new retina display MacBook Pro can be yours. The regular MacBook Pro of similar size starts at $1799. Do you think the new Mac is worth the extra $400?

Batman’s Secrets Revealed!

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July 20th is the big day for Batman fans everywhere. The next and final installment of Christopher Nolan’s version of the Batman Universe will be unveiled in theaters all across North America. Somehow Nolan has managed to captivate audiences for three straight films with his breathtaking scenes, gritty story lines, and keen attention to realism. I think that fans of Batman, myself included, appreciate the gadgets and the fact that they play a larger role than normal in my opinion. In many other Batman movies, Batman’s gadgets just seem to work – but they rarely have any background story to them. Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, sort of provides an added dynamic on screen for Batman’s wonderful toys. They have a beginning, a functionality in Nolan’s Movies that I absolutely enjoy.

Now you can read up on all the secrets of Bruce Wayne’s gadgetry in the new book The Dark Knight Manual. In it you will find all of the Bat Suit upgrades, gadgets, weapons and the like with original concept art. All this for a cool $40 bucks doesn’t sound to bad for the true die-hard fan.

 

Victoria’s Secret Model Causes Quite the Stir

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Samsung is eager to show off their impressive line of Smart TVs and they’ve chosen a very catchy way to do it. Enlisting Victoria’s Secret model Angela Bellotte, the company comically demonstrates the TV’s voice and motion controls. Besides the human beauty, the TV is quite sexy as well with it’s thin profile as well as wireless controls. When I was thinking about making my TV purchase, voice and motion control weren’t available yet and though I’m happy with my purchase, I think I might have gone the other way with these new offerings! How about you guys – like what you see?

Awesome Watch! Pebble E-Paper Watch Makes You Cool…Founders Rich

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The Pebble E-ink Watch is kinda cool once you give it a chance. I was skeptical at first, but watching their video has changed my mind. Still need one to play around with to make my final decision of course, but that won’t happen too soon seeing as they’ve already sold out. Let’s just say their kick-starter bid went very, very, well – raising more than Ten Million smackers where they only sought one-hundred thousand.

Check the website here.

The long and short is this – you can view the watch in direct sunlight because it’s e-ink. This also means you can change it’s appearance as well. Anyone can program apps for it and it works with both your iOS devices as well as your Android devices. You can control your phone with the watch and it has Bluetooth. You can get text messages, Facebook updates, and caller ID info which, if your like me and checks the phone every other second, is quite useful. Has tons of other stuff as well. Can’t wait till I can buy one!

Now That’s Awesome! Pre-Ordering Amazing Spiderman Unlocks Playable Stan Lee

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Here’s one for the fan-boys out there. If you pre-order the upcoming Amazing Spiderman game you will get the Stan Lee Adventure pack.

Stan Lee will have all the powers of your favorite “Web-Head” and you can fight crime with Stan Lee’s character. Stan Lee actually voices the character entirely as well so it’s not just a cheap model-swap out. If you complete the Adventure Pack there will be some type of reward or something.

Personally, I think it’s worth it as the game looks like it’s shaping up to be something cool. You can check our initial opinions here.

You can also get the Rhino challenge as well which will allow you to play as the Rhino himself causing mayhem through the streets of Manhattan. That might be some fun…sign me up!

Streetfighter X Tekken on PSVita Coming Soon!

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Had the privilege to check out a few of the Vita’s upcoming games, and one that definitely caught my eye was the new Street Fighter X Tekken Game for the Vita. It’s currently out for the major consoles like PS3 and XBox360.

There are a few things that make this game worth the extra dough.

First, the developer I spoke with, Seth Killian, said that players of the Vita version would be able to play with anyone playing the console version which means both games are virtually the same! Not only that, but there will be added characters for the Vita Version that will come standard who won’t be on the console version unless you purchase them as DLC.

Playing the Vita version took a little getting used to with the smaller buttons and D-Pad, however, after a couple of warm-ups, I was throwing Hadoukens with the best of ’em. Graphics were amazing so I can see how you could play vs. any using the console version of the game. Animations were very smooth and contiguous. Look out for it in the coming months.

Amazing Spider-Man Sneak Preview!

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We got a chance to look at an advanced preview of the new Amazing Spiderman. Does it live up to the hype or is it destined to go the way of the awful movie video-game? Read on to find out!

One of the things that I was afraid of when previewing the game was that the game might be too rushed. This is generally what plagues video-games that are made from Movies, but I am happy to report that the game play did seem to be well thought out. I’ll tell you about my favorite bits before I get to what I thought could use improvement.

One of the things I love doing with the Spider-man Character in any Spidey Video game is webbing around the city free-form. This is what made Spider-man one of my favorite superheroes. I would imagine myself with those amazing powers to somersault and zip around the city via web. This is what makes playing Spider-man great and the developers nailed it. Spider-man really seems real and there is a sense of tension when falling all the way down to near ground levels before Spider-man suddenly shoots a new web, swinging upwards in the nick of time. It’s absolutely brilliant! So what’s so new about that? Well, they’ve added the ability to choose where you will web to next while in mid swing. The cool part is, based on your surroundings, Spider-man dynamically uses objects around him or in his path to get to the destination that you’ve selected. So he doesn’t just miraculously appear where you wanted him to or magically web through solid objects. He interacts with them by using them or somersaulting over them in unique and different ways to get to the destination you’ve chosen. Not only that, but you can chain these together for the ultimate Spidey-Experience! You can’t really destroy or damage buildings around you which was a bummer, but Spider-man isn’t exactly known for his destructiveness so it’s all good. You have all the normal stuff like collectible comics and figurines, or side quests and random thugs to take out. Other than the Iguana fella, we didn’t get to see any other characters that might be revealed in the movie or later on in the game.

A few items of note though are that there really isn’t a life bar for better or for worse, nor do you have to run around looking for web cartridges as they automatically replenish. Some fans may take issue with this. Also, I wasn’t too impressed with the character design of the baddies – but since it was an early build I expect the team to polish the characters up a bit.

Long story short, I am cautiously optimistic about the game and will be picking it up as the game-play was intriguing enough to give it a shot. Check the trailer below:

Nokia Lights up Times Square for New Lumia 900

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Nokia teamed up with Niki Minaj for a performance smack-dab in the middle of Times Square today. Taking over some of the biggest electronic screens in Times Square, Niki Minaj performed a few numbers from her new album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.

The performance was delivered to kick off the launch of Nokia’s new Windows Phone the Noki Lumia 900. The phone is now available state-side for a cool $100 bucks on AT&T. The phone is 4G LTE capable and has been hailed as one of the sexiest physical designed phones thus far.

You can check out the performance here.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown Refresh Looks Awesome!

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If your a fan of the original XCOM game “UFO: Enemy Unkown”, then you will no doubt be happy to hear that Developers have been hard at work with a refresh of the popular series.

We had the privilege of being able to take a quick look at a Demo and see the new trailer found here. As a fan of strategy games, this game really seems to really test the gamer’s skills. What I was most impressed with is the fact that it takes the best from RPGs, Shooters, and Strategy games and makes a hybrid of all those genres. You have complete control over your squad and can assign weapons and gear at your base which you also have complete control over designing. Another really intriguing aspect of the game is the fact that each squad member is unique and will not come back if killed in action! So all of your hard work – for better or worse dies with that member. This adds an added dynamic to the game that ups the ante a little bit every time you play a level.

We got a chance to speak with Garth DeAngeles and Greg Foertsch so check out the video below: