Attention, classic JRPG fans! You can now grab both Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II from the iTunes App Store for $9 apiece, complete with touch-friendly controls and bonus dungeons.
The original Final Fantasy includes the five bonus dungeons, The Soul of Chaos pack and The Labyrinth of Time, added to later editions of the game. While Final Fantasy II contains the five bonus dungeons added with the Soul of Rebirth and Arcane Labyrinth pack.
[Kotaku]
If this leak is true (and it's boring enough to be true), then it means webOS 1.4 should be hitting soon (like we thought).
Nothing on here is stuff we didn't already know, including video capture, Flash 10 support for the Pre, improved speeds and a bunch of small fixes and upgrades. [Precentral via Everything Pre via Engadget]
Microsoft is going to withdraw their complain against Cryptome, after shutting them down yesterday. Cryptome published Microsoft's no-longer-secret guide to help governments to uncover your online secrets. Host Network Solutions says the site will be back online later today. [ReadWriteWeb]
I'm a klutz. I admit it. But if I had an Underfull table cloth, I'd never accidentally knock over a glass of wine again. No sir. With Underfull I'd purposefully knock over a glass of wine, to make ART.
Underfull comes from designer Kristine Bjaadal, who's presumably as uncoordinated as I am. It looks like a plain white table cloth with a simple damask pattern until someone (me) spills a colored liquid on it. That's when the magic happens:
See? I didn't upend my Merlot because of my naturally aggressive gesticulations and/or drunken wobblings. I did it because this dining table needed more butterflies.
It's still in concept mode for now, but it sounds as though Bjaadal is serious about getting it into production. If and when she does, expect to see more patterns than just butterflies, and me in the checkout line with ten or twelve Underfulls in my cart. [Kristine Bjaadal via Design Milk]
These concept headphones feature a build-in camera, projector and wireless device so you can live-stream your life to the internet. But I'm more interested in the sheepskin on the cans. Comfy!
On the one hand, it's cool to see a POV camera stuck onto something other than glasses. These actually look wearable! But I don't know why the hell there's a projector on there. I guess when you don't have to worry about actually making a device, just a concept, it doesn't hurt to throw the kitchen sink at it, no matter how impractical it may be. [Yanko Design]
73% of Android users are men, compared to the rest of smartphone platforms, which skew only slightly manward. But really, we should have expected this. (And not in a sexist way!)
The statistic comes from AdMob's January Mobile Metrics report, which is littered with fascinating little nuggets. Like, did you have any idea 65% of iPod Touch users are younger than 17? (For the iPhone, that's 13%, and for webOS, just 2%.) Or that free app downloads across all platforms outnumber paid downloads by nearly 10 to 1? Or that Android users are the stingiest, with only 21% of users purchasing apps on a monthly basis, as compared to the iPhone's 50%? Well now you do! So let's get back to the lady business.
The first impulse for a lot of people will be to make a dig against Android for being too nerdy to appeal to women—an implicit dig against women for not being nerdy or technical enough to appreciate Android, or something. Though there's something to be said for Android's geek-centric rep, that's not the main issue here.
The Droid, as far as Android phones go, is hugely popular—it's far and away the platform's breakaway hit, and represents a large proportion of its mobile web traffic. As such, it could skew any survey like this to the point that Android users stats are almost fully inline with Droid user stats. And the Doird was marketed like this: 
The iPhone is a toy, and this is lame. Also: The iPhone is a chick, and this is lame.
It's been obvious for a while that the DROID DUDE HELL YEAH DROID marketing strategy worked. Now we just know who it worked on. [ReadWriteWeb]
A bacterium on its own can't reach very far. And when stacked on the sea floor in a large colony, it may have access to either oxygen (top of the pile) or food (bottom of the pile).
So for the entire colony to thrive, the bottom and top layers must be choreographed in chemical reactions occurring across great expanses, allowing electrons from food consumption in the basement to react to oxygen from the rooftop.
A new study just published in Nature set to isolate the way bacteria pull of this stunt. The first guess, molecular diffusion, was found to be too slow for as dynamically as these colonies reacted in various testing. Now? It's believed the bacteria use interconnected nanowires, sharing electrons across expanses 20,000 times their individual size—though to be fair, there's no direct evidence proving the existence of said wires.
The implications for you, gadget lover? The possibility of one day using a really gross battery. [Nature via PopSci][Nanowire Image]
With all the intrigue around China hacking Google and Google hacking back, it's easy to overlook the real-world consequences of what further escalation might lead to. Specifically: Chinese researchers and scientists could see the plug pulled on their work process.
A full 84% of Chinese scientists said that blocked access to Google would "somewhat or significantly" hamper their research, in a recent survey by Nature News. While there are alternative search engines like Baidu, none are nearly as effective at searching English-language sites or research papers as Google. Google Scholar, in particular, is an invaluable resource for tracking down academic papers.
It's an apt analogy from the unnamed scientist quoted above: research without Google really is like life without electricity. You can go on without it, but you can't thrive. You can't even compete. [Wired]
When Palm issued a release announcing lowered guidance and sales expectations for this year, Jon Rubinstein didn't even try to cushion it, admitting, "driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than [he] anticipated." OK. Now what?
The implication of "longer than expected" is that success will come if everyone just waits long enough. But to say something like that in February of 2010, over seven months after the Pre launch, three after the Pixi launch, and weeks after a by all counts anemic launch for their barely differentiated Verizon counterparts is to tacitly admit that there's a serious problem. If Palm's current lineup doesn't have momentum now, it never will—and their investors know it.
For Palm, this leaves two options: either build a new product—something they may not be able or positioned to do—and hope it's a wild success; or sell out. So who's buying? BusinessInsider throws the regular suspects on the table—RIM, Nokia, Dell, HP—but they seem chosen because they'd be interesting buyers, not because they've shown any real interest. Hey, wouldn't it be neat if Nokia or BlackBerry absorbed webOS, so they could both have truly modern, user-friendly smartphone operating systems? Yeah it would! Someone should tell them.
This leaves Palm with nothing to do but wait: to die; or to be saved by a hero it hasn't even glimpsed yet, and that probably doesn't exist. [BusinessInsider]
An 2004 Apple patent app that was recently filed for continuation describes a touchscreen iMac that recognizes shapes, allowing you to interact with your computer as you might a toddler's geometric puzzle.
So, you could unlock your computer by holding up an appropriately shaped key. Or, well, Apple can explain it it full:
The pattern 122 may be any shape whether simple or complex. Some examples of patterns include circles, squares, triangles, dots, dashes, coat of arms, logos, symbols, text and the like. Other examples include binary patterns and Braille symbols. The pattern may be related to the action to be performed. For example, the pattern may be in the form of a conventional key for actions associated with gaining access to restricted areas, or in the form of a light bulb for actions associated with turning a light on and off. In some cases, the signet pattern may include an alignment mark for helping determine the orientation of the signet pattern relative to the touch screen, i.e., helps the pattern recognizer to determine orientation. The alignment mark may for example be a cross that helps distinguish the pattern relative to an x and y coordinate system. As should be appreciated, simple shapes are more easily counterfeited and thus complex shape may be desired. For example, a large circle may be relatively easy to counterfeit, whereas a complex series of dots may harder to counterfeit.
While at first the idea certainly sounds clever, the simple fact that car keys are a lot easier to lose than computer passwords is enough to temper any excitement over such a possibility.
But holding up a light bulb to turn on my computer? I'm all over that. [US Patent Office via MacRumors]
Lomography already makes an instant back for its more popular Diana F+ camera, so it was about time they did the same for their classic LC-A+ model too. It brings Polaroid-like instant photos to the highly-saturated, soft-focus photography format.
The instant back will set you back a rather steep $100, and if you think you can write that off against the saving you'll make on rolls of 35mm film, think again. You'll need to load it with Fujifilm Instax film which you can pick up on Amazon (which in my experience, is heaps cheaper for Lomo products and film than the actual Lomography store) for $20 for two packs—each pack can produce 10 photos. So you're looking at around a dollar a photo, plus the cost of the instant back. Better use that film wisely. [Lomography via CrunchGear]
Ten years ago, Quake III required a PC tower with some gaming cred. Today, all you need is a smartphone running Android 1.6 or later. And it's even a free download.
The hobby project of thunderbird2k, this video shows Quake III running pretty well on a the Motorola Droid—between 20 and 30fps—while allowing perks like multiplayer and customizable controls. (Also impressive: before the Quake was optimized for the platform, it still ran at about 22fps.) Given that the Droid doesn't have the fastest processor around, I'd be curious to see Quake III running on something like a Nexus One. In fact, maybe we should start using games to benchmark these phones, just as we do with beefy PC rigs.
Oh, and on a slightly related note...
Unreal 4EVER. [Android Quake III via Slashdot]
It took a little longer than we expected but it happened: 10,000,000,000 songs sold through iTunes. Crazy.
Futuristic ships that look more spaceship than boat fascinate me. However, I can't deny that, if I had to get a yacht over a sailboat, I would go for this amazing tug boat, completely remodeled inside and out.
The original tug boat went to sea in 1967. It got bought in 2004 and put through years of interior and exterior remodeling, which included a spa, a gym, sauna, whirlpool bath, and luxurious suites. Then it was reborn under the name Ariete Primo, a kick ass ship that you can use to go to lusty beaches in the Pacific or push oil tankers in the Indian Ocean. [James List]
If you're a Mac user, you may not know about Steam. By Valve (makers of Half-Life and L4D) it's the greatest game distribution service in existence—like an iTunes for PC games. Now, it could be coming to Macs.
In Steam's latest beta release, a search through its files revealed a number of OSX-specific assets, like a Steam dock icon (among loads of others). Since there's no reason for OSX resources—that I should add, are specifically labeled "OSX"—to make their way into a PC product, it seems pretty certain that, yes, Steam is coming to Mac. Hooray!
Now, with Steam imminent, all the Mac platform needs is the actual games! [Steam Forums via Kotaku, who crafted the excellent lead shot]
It's not the first peripheral that turns an iPhone into a universal remote control, but this Power A case means you don't have to slip it off when you've stopped using it at home—it's got two functions.
The app is free to download for both the iPhone and iPod Touch, and provides the interface for controlling any IR-equipped device in your house. The case meanwhile, has the IR transmitter and looks like a discreet offering from Griffin—not too big and bulky, in other words. It'll go for $60 when it goes on sale soon, and as with all iPhone apps, there's the very real possibility of OTA updates to add more functions.
It's also very similar to the Fastmac iV Plus we saw at Macworld, except slightly cheaper. [Power A via SlashGear via Geeky-Gadgets]
Hey magpie-eyes, instead of saving up for a 3D TV why don't you cash in your prized teaspoon collection and spunk $16,000 down on a square meter of Philips' Mirrorwall, which uses dozens of OLED panels to reflect motion.
Some may say it's just a fancy mirror, and while they're kinda right, does your mirror have hundreds of OLED screens and a camera glued to it to detect motion and reflect it right back at you? No?
Philips is offering up the custom installation at €10k - 12k per square meter (around $13.5k - $16k) or will rent out the full Mirrrorwall for €10,000 a week, but you've got to fork out extra for the delivery, installation and insurance of the glorified vanity screen.
Check out the video below for the Mirrorwall in action, and if you still want it (and don't own a club, bar, or reputable excuse for owning one), then please seek help. [OLED-Info via TechRadar]
Orb's first PC speakers come with a 15W Class T amplifier, so even if you've got them paired up to a crummy Dell your audio output won't be too compromised.
There's a couple of options for the speakers—choose the Mod1 which costs $299 for the two speakers and amp, or spend a bit more ($359 in total) if you'd rather an antique copper, bronze or polished steel to match your steampunk set-up. The next step up is the Mod2, which has two ball-shaped parts to each speaker for more bass. These cost $149 more if you want the standard black color, or $209 more if you want one of the fancy metallic shades.
My personal opinion is that the cheaper black option looks dead cheap and no better than your average Logitech pair, so it'd be worth springing $359 for the copper, bronze or steel models. [Orb via Slashgear]
If you haven't got nearly enough of the cameras coming out of the PMA show this week, you couldn't go wrong with the 26x optical zoomer X90 from Pentax, which takes last year's X70 and ups the zoom-factor.
It's still got a 12.1-megapixel sensor, but going back to that zoom lens it now spans a 26mm wide angle to 676mm super telephoto. The LCD measures 2.7-inches and it shoots HD video (no word on specifics, yet) and has face detection, triple shake reduction, anti-shake, an electronic viewfinder, Eye-Fi compatibility and a HDMI interface with USB 2.0 port. Battery life has also been improved by 50 per cent over the X70. You'd be pretty steaming if you splashed the cash on last year's model, though as the date of release hasn't been mentioned by Pentax just yet, it could still be some way off.
CrunchGear's found the pre-order page on Amazon, which puts it at $399.95, which seems like a very fair price to me. [Pentax via CrunchGear]
We all know Windows Phone 7 is due at the end of the year, but according to the Chinese version of Engadget, LG is preparing for a launch date as early as September, as late as November. It's still a wide gap, but certainly a lot more hopeful than "early 2011." [Engadget Chinese via Engadget]
