Gadgets Blog

Get your game on with the HORI Real Arcade Pro.EX for the Xbox 360 console. After all, there is nothing quite like a dedicated joystick when it comes to fighting games. Complete with eight oversized buttons to ensure you don’t miss a beat while punching your opponent into a bleeding pulp (on screen anyways), the rounded knob of a joystick works much better than your standard Xbox 360 controller. Hopefully when you are on the ropes, you won’t lose your temper and smash the HORI Real Arcade Pro.EX - after all, you paid good money for it, didn’t you? All the pre-ordered allocation is already out of stock at the moment, so do check back with Play-Asia from time to time if you’re desperately in need of one.

Product Page

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College football is a unique beast. People either love it or hate it. Growing up in the land of the ever-powerful SEC, I tend to reside on the “love it” side. For people like me, EA has introduced a fun, new feature in the Wii version of their NCAA Football ‘09. Haven’t you always wanted a team full of nothing but mascots? Good, because now you can have just that. The reason it’s on the Wii version of the game is the new All-Play line that EA has planned for all of their sports game. Essentially, it’s a version of the game that is to require a minimal amount of skill to play while utilizing a variety of simple-to-understand control schemes. According to EA:

EA SPORTS All-Play is a fun and exciting new line-up of EA SPORTS games designed especially for the Wii. With unique controls, a multitude of easy-to-learn mini games, Wii-exclusive modes and more, you can jump into the action with friends and family like never before.

Whether you’re an EA SPORTS veteran or rookie, EA SPORTS All-Play levels the playing field and delivers a gaming experience like no other.

See, just what I said. The game is coming out pretty soon, too–July 15th, to be exact. Of course, if you don’t own a Wii, you can still pick up your version of the game on any platform next week, as well.

Read more at Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The best part about the 3G iphone ain’t the high speed data access. And it’s not the smaller form factor. Or even the fact that there’s a SDK. Negative Ghost Rider, the best part about the iPhone 3G (at least the 16GB version) is the color choices. Alright so it’s just two so far, but that’s twice as many as we had before! So what shade do you prefer? Hit those comments and let the G-Lab know if you opted for your 3G iPhone to come in Stormtrooper white or Darth Vader glossy black.

While iPhone users might be a cut above the rest of the tech community due to their ability to fork out insane amounts of dough at the initial release (remember last June’s iPhone that went for $599?), they certainly are human as we are, requiring sustenance to keep on going. Being hungry is a universal feeling that everyone experiences at some point in time, but iPhone users have the advantage of sniffing down some of the best eats in town thanks to the TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has recently announced a version of its Local Picks restaurant finder at Apple’s recently opened App Store, and it will be available for free. The Local Picks application will take advantage of the iPhone’s location-based capabilities so that folks can track down the best restaurants rated by locals, enabling one to throw a so-called (biased) “guidebook” out of the window.

At the tap of a screen, users will be able to see the restaurants closest to them listed according to TripAdvisor’s popularity index, a way of dynamically ranking establishments based on customer satisfaction. Each restaurant listing will include information about the establishment’s distance from the iPhone user and its rating, based on TripAdvisor member feedback. Because epicurean adventurers may not just want to see the top rated local eateries, TripAdvisor is also incorporating filters into the application that will allow searches to be conducted by rating, radius and price. In order to learn more about a specific establishment, iPhone users can select a particular restaurant and a map will be provided that shows the location of the eatery. While viewing the map, users can not only see the restaurant’s cuisine type and address, but also tap on its phone number to be instantly connected to the establishment. People seeking even more insight can view TripAdvisor reviews of the restaurant to help them find their ideal dining experience.

Well, as long as you’re rocking on with an iphone and ipod touch, Local Picks can be downloaded here.

Press Release

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In this week’s Wired Gadget Lab Podcast, Dylan Tweney, Daniel Dumas, and Jose Fermoso talk about the iphone launch – what else? In particular, they focus on the global scale of the event, Apple fans that will be lining up all the way in New Zealand, and why the breakthrough features of the gadget somehow live up to the excessive hype.

In addition, they review the GammaTech Durabook D15RS Rugged Notebook, which rough-testing veteran Terrence Russell put through the wringer (Well, not literally. Not yet at least.)

Finally, they will talk about the best new gadget for the hungry app developer, the Openmoko Neo Freerunner. Despite the fact that it’s a very beta product (with crazy booting bugs), the phone’s potential seems fairly bright.

Thanks for listening to the weekly podcast. If you’d like to subscribe to the feed, point your feed reader or podcast downloader to the Gadget Lab podcast RSS feed. The audio player widget above requires Quicktime (you can download it at Apple’s page here).

If you prefer, you can also download the MP3 file for this episode with this link: Gadget Lab Podcast #37 MP3. Check out the previous thirty-six Gadget Lab podcasts after the jump.

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #36: Wired’s Summer Test, JVC Everio Camcorder, and Asus’ U2E Ultralight

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #35: 3D Holograms, The Image Fulgurator, and New Phone Reviews

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #34: Samsung Instinct, Toshiba’s Portege R500, and the Nikon D60 DSLR

Gadget Lab Podcast #33: iPhone 3G, POV Racing Toy Cars, and the Polaroid Pogo Printer

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #32: Mini-notebook Smackdown, Olympic Speedsuits, and the Eye-Fi Catches a Thief

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #31: Dell’s Mini Laptop, Nokia N96, and Fake GPS Art

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #30: The OLPC 2.0, iPhone 2.0, and Roku Netflix Player

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #29: The Lowdown on the iPhone 2.0, The Flip 2 Camera Gets Tested, and The Week’s Best Reviews

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #28: Maker Faire, Samsung Glyde and Olympus E-420

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #27: Psystar, T-Mobile 3-G, and AT&T TV

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #26: The Optimus Maximus Keyboard is Released, Asus Ships a Boosted Eee PC, and The Science of Walking Barefoot

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #25: The Latest on the Psystar Apple ‘Hackintosh’ Story, Hybrid Cameras, and Rumors of a 24-megapixel Nikon!

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #24: Bold Predictions for the 3G iPhone, the Week’s Top Reviews, and Crazy Paintball Tanks

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #23: The 2008 CTIA Conference, Product Naming Trends, and Beckham’s Tacky Gadget

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #22: Motorola’s Split, The Sony Crapware Saga, and More

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #21: The Wireless Spectrum Auction, HTC’s Googlephone, and Evil Keyboards

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #20: Exploding Batteries, Lost gadgets, and the Week’s Best Reviews

(For links to podcasts episodes #1-19, hit the link for #20, above.)

The iPhone 3G was released today, at 8 AM, and my plans to casually stroll into an Apple store at about 8 PM and buy a phone with no wait, as I did last year with the release of the original iPhone, may not work out. I’ve been calling around my city (Washington DC) and getting calls from people in other parts of the country and it’s all chaos. The mighty Apple machine, in all its soothing hospital tones, may be falling apart, at least for today.

The Apple stores I’ve called in my city all have plenty of stock, but estimate at least a 5-hour wait to get into the stores. All the New York City Apple stores are reportedly out of stock in every size and color. The online Apple store in completely out of stock too. Our own Brian, the master of procurement of new mobile phones at least a week before anyone else, has not yet managed to get an iPhone 3G, despite lining up before the AT&T store opened. This is much crazier than last year- we were both able to get our phones easily.

Another warning- there is such demand on the iTunes activation service that people aren’t able to activate their phones, in stores, or at home. Even if you get a phone, you may not be able to get it to work today.

Will Brian get an iphone 3G today? Will I? Stay tuned.

Rumors abound concerning the Sony Vaio Z series, but all of those were put to rest as photos of the notebooks’ were leaked via pamphlets. Depending on the model you pick, resolution will hit 1,600 x 900 for the high-end model compared to 1,366 x 768. Of course, the better the computer, the more memory it has - case in point 4GB of RAM in the top-of-the-line model and half the amount for the rest. All the laptops will feature full High Definition with HDMI connectors, WiFi connectivity, gigabit Ethernet, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, and an ExpressCard slot.

If you have an S60-based device then you will want to check out the free downloadable widgets being offered by Nokia. The widgets are enabled by Web Runtime Technology (WRT) featured on the latest S60-based devices. WRT supports common programming languages including HTML, Ajax, JavaScript and other web standards.

The new widgets for S60-based devices are being delivered using the same backend that Nokia uses to support their WidSets mobile widget community. Nokia has made it enticing for developers to create new widgets for Nokia devices. That’s because desktop widgets can easily be ported to WRT.

Giving developers the ability to create widgets for desktops and mobile applications with little effort is attractive considering it increases the use of any software designed. If you add the fact that many mobile phones offer location-based and social networking services the possibilities for solutions are endless. At this point, it will just be Nokia’s responsibility to attract developers to easily port their widgets to the S60-based mobile devices.

You can see what widgets are available by visiting the Widgets by Nokia website.

Microsoft’s latest move in introducing a price cut for its Xbox 360 console has not fazed Sony, as the Japanese electronics giant won’t budge from their current price structure, at least for the forseeable future. After all, with Metal Gear Solid 4 having been released recently, people who want to play that game and do not yet have that console will no doubt make a beeline to counters and fork out that extra bit of dough.

With manufacturers jumping on the solar bandwagon these days, it’s not too surprising to hear that General Motors will also be taking advantage of the good ole sunshine and using it to power one of their large auto plants. Of course anything GM does won’t be on a small scale and neither will this solar project.

The huge automaking company has announced it will be partnering with Clairvoyant Energy and Veolia Environmental to build the world’s largest rooftop solar array atop their Zaragoza Plant in Spain.

The 2 million square foot array will contain 85,000 solar panels and will harness enough solar energy to convert to 12 million watts of electrical power, which is enough juice to power 4,600 homes.

The GM Zaragoza Plant solar installation is expected to be completed by the end of September.

Read more at DVICE.