11-11-11 Now consigned to the backpage of history

So 11-11-11 has come and gone, we're not at the backpage of the history books yet (perhaps that' saved for 2012!) Prior to the end of the world day (what's the 11-11-11 significance anyway, it's an arbitrarily defined date in the calendar which is a human construct, surely metaphysical forces don't parlay with scientists and theologians who have randomly changed our calendar over the years-in fact the addition of a leap year itself only took place a few centuries ago-so that 11-11-11 wouldn't have even taken place on the day it did if the calendar had remained the same throughout the centuries!) Well even an 11-11-11 movie is in the pipeline (by the way whose end of the world date do we conform to anyway does the world start ending in Japan and then make its way to America? And what about if my watch is set slightly off, do I get my own personal Armageddon?

Such was the hysteria surrounding the fateful day that National Escort Agency Cityvibe reported a roaring trade ,the Greek God of love, Eros , certainly stalked the streets that night  albeit in a paid for form! Cityvibe will tell you more about that,being a family friendly website we shan't say any more! (Not to be confused with CityVibe on the appstore though which gives you nice, and interesting family information.)

As a little aside if you really do want to find free love than you could do no worse than looking at the Craigslist app : Craigslist Notification for Android which will notify you of any listings of interest to you, including any type of Eros related action!

So back to that fateful day then: How can your Smartphone prepare you for any other end of the world scenarios?
Well since the 11 November 2011 has been rude enough not to have brought about the end of the world you can look forward to the next predicted, end of the world as we know it date 21 December 2012 (they could at least wait until after Christmas!) End of the World Countdown for Android will help you to count down the days until 21/12/2012 (Ooh lot's of twos in there it's got to happen for sure then!)

The Geek shall inherit the Earth!

Of course when that end of the world date also comes and goes without anything happening you could always turn your hand to fortune telling yourself and come up with your own mystical world's end date with this handy Fortune Telling App for Android: Fortune Teller for Android


Keep on gaming until then!

Buy your iPad 3 from Craigslist

As Apple lovers everywhere still eagerly await for the release of the iPhone 5, the 4s simply being a slight step ahead of the iPhone 4 and by no means an adequate substitute for 5, increasingly tech hungry people are turning to even more obscure sources such as Craigslist backpage to find the iPad 3 and more!
What with Apple being the playful marketeers that they are and keeping products under wraps with just the occasional media staged rumour to keep the smartphone and table fans salivating until the next edition of items such as the iPad are released it only takes a slight stretch of the imagination to think that Apple would start selling the iPad 3 on Craigslist or Ebay before even a media circus launch.
Of course such a thing is virtually impossible, with the billions of dollars involved in an Apple product launch even though the company likes to pull marketing stunts, this would be a stunt too far.
This hasn't however stopped numerous people from being scammed out of their money and thinking that they've found an iPad 3 on Craigslist when in reality all they've purchased is an iPad 2 or even the original iPad that if you look beneath the ipad case would probably read " jailbreak ipad".
So Apple lovers be warned the 3 iteration of the magnificent tablet is not here yet! Don't be fooled and stick to buying from reputable retailers and not the backpage of the internet!

Find the weather on iPad 2

During these days of frost and chill the weather is a topic often on our cold blue lips, with this article I hope to expose you to some of the iPad 2 weather apps that will let you know whether you should stay inside playing games or venture out.

Before I was exposed to the Apple Ipad I had some pretty funky weather apps running on my Android phone

What I most liked about the GO-WEATHER APP was the easy to use interface and the weather pictures which really added to the atmosphere of the app. At the moment Go-Weather is only available for Android, but when it comes out for Ipad I'll certainly get it,










Google weather or to be more precise Google Maps Weather is a nice little weather applet for your mac or Pc but can also be used on your Ipad 

Weather Channel-gorgeous weather animation

The Weather Channel
has got to be the premier weather app for the Ipad. Search for NY weather or FL weather or any other area you want and backed up by an outstanding team of 200+ meteorologists this iPad weather app will give you the knowledge to plan your day, week or even next hour. Do you really need an iPad 2 case , yes! as it's going to be raining in the next five minutes! Even such up to date met is accessible from this app which features, amongst other things, 

• Latest weather news,tweets and photos
• Footage of actual storms and breaking news video(never miss a hurricane again!)
• Full screen weather maps that can be customised by you
• Lovely HD photos of Weather as backgrounds

I recommend the Weather Channel but many people swear by The Weather Bug. This video compares and contrasts the two apps.

Naming Apps WYSIWYG

Have you ever wondered where these app get their names from?The Android Market and rivals are inundated with apps so it's interesting to see some of the marketing strategies that are coming out from app developers in a very congested market. Of course major app developers always have a trick or two up their sleeve and Sony has come up with an Ace of Spades by quite simply naming one of their new apps with a foolproof name that does exactly what it says on the packaging Video Trimmer. What does the app do, trim videos of course! https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sonydna.videotrimmer. The Video Trimming app has many rave reviews and is well worth checking out.
Superb marketing by Sony, wysiwyg(what you see is what you get) is strangely enough a concept not properly explored in the App Development game as developers try more and more outlandish names to make their creations stand out. Leave it to an old grandmaster like Sony to make back to basics fashionable again. As for the app in question, its simple and trimmed and the high quality you could expect from Sony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6fUulEflgU&feature=player_embedded

Mobile Genres : Endless Running

Depending on a platforms capabilities there have always been certain genres associated with different platforms. The Nintendo Wii for example will always be associated with motion control games, normally of a childlike persuasion. Pc games will always be known predominantly for RTS and other mouse friendly games.
Touchscreen mobiles in the relatively short time they have been around have carved out a surprisingly large amount of genre niches. That is not to say that these types of games only exist on this platform but it would be hard to argue that touchscreens aren't the best suited for them.
This article is another one of our series articles in which Gametrender will discuss some of Smartphonings favourite genres. The one that is up on the podium this week is 'Endless Running'
A very reviewer friendly genre as it does exactly what it says. The character normally runs from left to right with inputs from the player normally limited to single finger jabs usually associated with an action like jumping. Scores are normally totted up by how far the character runs and the challenge is tempted up by adding obstacles along the way.
So far so simple, so you'll be asking what's good about it and why should you play it. I've chosen a brilliant endless runner called DIVERSION  https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ezone.Diversion&hl=en   as an example to show exactly how good a polished version of this genre can be.
Diversion is by far the best endless runner I've played. At first appearances it's apparent how much effort has gone into the game. The graphics are superbly rendered in 3d being easily on par with a mid generation Playstation One game. The music is all jingly and bouncy filled with adrenalin and hinting at the potential for manic kinetic energy.
The avatar you play with has a lot of personality. A female protagonist has been chosen perhaps in a cursory head nod to the legendary Mirrors Edge. The avatar its imbued with personality , and adding to the games sense of polish and fun is upgradeable. With lots of different outfits waiting to be bought or unlocked. Not only that but part of the fun is that each outfit bestows different skills which it is up to the player to find out.
On to the game itself, firstly it must be pointed out that it has lots and lots of levels, hence a lot of longevity.
Of course it wouldn't be up to much good if the levels lacked variety, but variety they do have in bucketloads-floating minse,slides,jumps,warps,ziplines to name a few. Timing is crucial on each of these as you attempt to get the highest score.

Diversion-Superb Endless Runner

And just when you thought that they couldn't possibly lavish any more love on this game then up they come with... Boss Battles! Very Impressive stuff and certainly a great poster child for app gamings beloved Endless Runner genre. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMO8g_52O2w&feature=player_embedded 
android games


If you like this then read our follow up post

Android Games on holiday

Mobilephones have in recent times joined the staples of a man's pocket, adding to the dynamic duo of keys and wallet most people wouldn't consider leaving the door without their mobile phones also.

These miniature computers,thanks to app access now have virtually unlimited uses: communication device,gps,alarm,camera,watch being among some of the most basic functions that we can enjoy. However there are some hard engineering facts that stop us using them to their full potential: they're just too damned easy to break!

Engineers have done a superb job in recent use in making mobile components faster,cheaper,more reliable and ever more powerful, however there is a pressing need to make them much stronger. Recently on holiday I was spending a lot of time poolside and down the beach. I'd unconveniently forgotten my camera at home, but whereas my mobile normally quite easily fills that gap I was reluctant to expose it to the sand and heat of the beach. Swimming laps in the pool I thought to myself that my experience would be enhanced if I was able to time my laps using the phone or listen to music. With its built in accelorometer it would have also been great to have an app that could analyse my swimming stroke and give me advice. That app sadly will not be invented for the forseeable future as phones are not pool friendly. Even sat relaxing around poolside I was reduced to reading a Kindle as in direct sunlight my xPeria Play's screen was just too hard to see.

Again on a bicycle tour down the Majorcan coast I was reluctant to bring the phone for fear of knocking it, on another note functions such as Google Goggles and Google Maps would have made the bike trip more enjoyable, but international internet access rates are far too steep to to be using the bandwidth for such activities.

Motorola Defy:A step in the right direction

So engineers you've created for us in the form of these great Modern Android Phones and other smartphones a new exciting generation of device, but it's akin to having a Ferrari supercar and only being able to drive it on sunny days on flat roads. There is a lot of potential being left untapped.<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/android" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://scm-l3.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=android" alt=" " />android</a>

From humble beginnings: Traditional gaming inspiring app gaming

Android gaming and smartphone gaming is arguably one of the most cutting edge fields in entertainment today, a developer has the ability to virtually create a game within a few hours, the tools and technology that developers and gamers have access evolve at a phenomenal rate. And more importantly unlike traditional gaming industries the Android market has a massive amount of freeware resource tools to draw on. But there is one issue that no amount of cutting edge tools can solve: that of creativity. The ideas of game designers must come from somewhere, recent games I've played give a very strong case for traditional non technological games being a very good source of inspiration.
  Pocket  Soccer by Rastergrid Entertainment http://rastergrid.com/blog/ especially got me thinking about this issue. The game it must be said is very good, with a slick presentation, three difficulty levels, lots of playability and polish. Of note was the way the game was played, on a simple playing field players take it in turn to push one of the players represented by a disc with the teams flag on it, to score goals. The influences are two fold with traditional football being a clear influence, flick football being another and interestingly enough the Rts staple of turn based games. Arguably without the developer drawing on these influences, whether consciously or not, the game of  Pocket Soccer would not exist.

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Crazy app downloads:Why did I do that?

Have you every looked on another persons phone? Not their messages or voicemail but actually what apps they have downloaded? It can be a very illuminating and sometimes downright scary experience. At a barbecue this past weekend it was getting to that time of night when most if not all conversations were exhausted and people were starting to deploy their smartphones enmasse. Another observation of the smartphone generation is that in one way they are very similar to baby boomers of a previous generation. It's never uncommon at parties of a certain age group for those with babies to trot them out and expect coos and aahs and suchlike from their captive audience. Well the smart phones who are infant less have found a way to retaliate! They bring out their phones, only of course if they are new and shiny enough not to be an embarrassment (the equivalent of a baby with a scary looking rash?) and like the other unlucky bloke across the room being regaled with baby stories the smartphoner feels obliged to show you what apps are on their phones. Well at this particular barbecue thankfully all the infants had been put to sleep leaving me at the mercy of a smartphoner. That is why at one in the morning I found myself being bored to death by a man smashing virtual bottles and being equally mystified as to why a thirty something year old would be deriving so much satisfaction from a talking, farting, drinking dog that you can beat up! On a positive note I was shown Sniper which is now on my to download list. It also made me realise how good the Gametrender concept actually is. Log onto gametrender.webs.com and you too could be having your own particular irritating app, drunk or sober, to bite or entertain with as you please. android games