Electricpig.co.uk - tech news fast! |
- New iPod touch tops our Best MP3 player list
- The Times paywall is broken: content set free, for now
- Sims 3 Late Night: gallery and first play, now with vampires
- Apple set to allow Google Voice iPhone apps?
- Toshiba AC100 unboxed: hands on photos
- Sims 3 for console: first play plus gallery
- New iPod nano: not true multitouch but hiding pinch to zoom smarts?
- GTA trilogy for Mac arriving this year!
- Check out our new Top 5 Best iPod list!
- New iPod nano review
| New iPod touch tops our Best MP3 player list Posted: 10 Sep 2010 08:35 AM PDT 
 Cast your eyes over to the right and you’ll see our new look Top 5 Best MP3 player shortlist, with the new iPod touch sitting atop it. Despite its price and lack of file format support, the gadget experts at Electricpig think that for most consumers, there isn’t a slicker, more powerful and just downright fun PMP to be had right now. We’ve also dropped the new iPod shuffle in along with the new iPod touch, for the convenience the buttons bring to the micro form factor. Disagree with our Best MP3 player countdown? Have we nailed it? Whatever you think, jot it down in the comments below, and have a browse through our full 2010 iPod coverage here: Read the rest of our iPod 2010 coverage:
New iPod touch unboxed: photos Related posts:
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| The Times paywall is broken: content set free, for now Posted: 10 Sep 2010 08:08 AM PDT 
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| Sims 3 Late Night: gallery and first play, now with vampires Posted: 10 Sep 2010 08:03 AM PDT  We’ve had a first play of the latest Sims expansion pack, Sims 3 Late Night, and we’re telling you, it’s not pretty. This Sims game is all about dive bars, rock bands, and vampires…
 If you’re a Sims 3 Late Night Vampire, you might look like an ordinary Sim, but you can sleep in a coffin if you want, although it’ll set you back quite a lot of Simoleans though. Your thirst bar is exchanged for a blood thirst bar, and you no longer have to eat. When you're turned into a vampire in Sims 3 Late Night, it'll take a few days for you to change. In that time your skin will become paler, you'll grow fangs, and your eyes will start glowing, in slightly creep way. In hunt mode, you'll growl, and prowl around choosing which unsuspecting Sim to feed from. In Sims 3 Late Night, when you're after a draft of Sim blood though, you can’t just go around sucking on necks. Your Sim will have to make friends with, and build a relationship with another Sim before being allowed to chow down – i.e., you can only feed on the blood of a friend. If you're in a romantic way with another Sim, then you'll feed affectionately from one another's neck. Cute… Not as cute as Sims vampire babies, which you'll have if one of you is a vamp. Any offspring of Sims 3 Late Night will not exhibit their vampiric tendencies, except when biting their teddy bears. Another new feature for Sims 3 Late Night is the option to be self employed. Essentially, this means you can be in a band. You can invite people to be in your band, invite your band over for a jam, and eventually get to play gigs and earn some cash. So that your band has something to play on, there are added instruments: drums, double bass, keyboards and piano, on top of the guitar. Playing your instrument also counts as a skill, so can help you build points. Added to the city are also subway stations, where you can busk, (or get mugged) to earn some extra pennies. The Sims 3 Late Night expansion pack adds some elements that may or may not be inspired by recent obsessions over vampires caused by a certain popular franchise. But, it doesn't matter, because the additions are characterful and well thought out with typical attention to detail and extra quirks, giving an extra edge to the game. Out 29 Oct | TBC | TBC Related posts:
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| Apple set to allow Google Voice iPhone apps? Posted: 10 Sep 2010 08:01 AM PDT 
Sean Kovacs, who created a Google Voice app called GV Mobile, read the new Apple developer rules and couldn't find any reason for his app being blocked from the store. While he'd previously received no reply from Apple about getting his app reinstated, an email yesterday said he's welcome to resubmit his app and hinted that it's likely to be approved. It may be a false dwan but having previously stonewalled developers of Google Voice apps, the sudden communication from Apple looks like a good sign. There's still the issue of point 8.3 in the Apple developer guidelines which states "apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected". That could easily trip up Google Voice apps. We're still waiting for a UK Google Voice service. Across the pond iPhone users can already get an Google Voice web app while Android and Blackberry owners get the full fat version. What do you think? Will Apple relent and let Google Voice into the iTunes App Store? Or is its newly softened stance on iPhone app development tools as lenient as it gets? Out now | £free | Google (via Cult of Mac) Related posts:
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| Toshiba AC100 unboxed: hands on photos Posted: 10 Sep 2010 06:50 AM PDT  The Toshiba AC100 caused quite a stir on launch earlier in the Summer, simply through having the nerve to be an Android smart-book with a keyboard in an age of tablets. We’ve just nabbed one for a review, but before we put it through the gadget grinder, we thought you might like to see it in action quickly. Anything you’d like to know?
The Toshiba AC100 is a slimline, netbook-esque laptop with a twist: the 10.1-inch machine uses a 1GHz mobile CPU, and Android 2.1, in place of the familiar Wintel combination we’re used to. Not much has changed with the build of the Toshiba AC100 since we last went hands on (the keyboard is still sadly spongey), but it still makes Eee PC Seashell numbers look tubby. More noticeably, Android 2.1 has been sped up drastically: Toshiba’s clearly ironed out a lot of bugs, and performance seems snappy. That puts the Toshiba AC100 streaks ahead of previous Android liliputers like the Acer Aspire One D250 and abandoned HP Compaq Airlife 100, but we have a feeling that a lack of core Google apps is going to put a dampener on the whole affair. We’ll be testing the Toshiba AC100 over the weekend, but in the meantime check out the photos of its coming out of the suitcase Toshiba’s chosen to provide (Er, overkill?), and standby for a review! Is there anything you’d like to know from our Toshiba AC100 review? Ask and you shall receive: just put your queries in the comments below. Out TBC | £299 | Toshiba Related posts:
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| Sims 3 for console: first play plus gallery Posted: 10 Sep 2010 06:41 AM PDT  Sims 3 is headed to console for the first time, and will be available on PS3, Xbox 360 and the DS from 29 October. Sims 3 is also winging its way to Wii, but there'll be a bit of a wait on that, and it's likely to be arriving around mid November.
But, aside from the Wii hold up, what else did we learn about Sims 3 for console yesterday? By far our favourite addition to Sims 3 on the console is the karma powers, which give more control over your game play. If you haven’t seen karma powers before, they're a set of positive or negative spells and curses, to put your love rival in a funk or speed yourself to success. You buy the karma power, and it costs you karma points, which you can rack up in challenge mode. The most expensive is divine intervention, which brings any dead Sim back to life. Others include get lucky, which lasts for four Sim hours, and makes everything go well for you, whether you're fishing, seducing, or learning to play the double bass. The negative karma powers for Sims 3 on console are what are really fun though. These include poltergeists, whereby you can inflict a horde of roving ghosts on noisy neighbours, and watch them go all Yvette Fielding in Most Haunted (unless the Sim is an evil Sim, in which case they don't care about ghosts). We watched a poltergeist steal a laptop from a teenage Sim, and sit down at the kitchen table playing peek a boo with it, while teenage Sim completely freaked out. Another negative karma power for Sims 3 on console is the epic fail, which puts a hex on whomever you so choose, meaning they say the wrong thing, annoy everyone, romances fall apart, and they'll also lose control of their bowels. This new edition of Sims 3 for console brings extra controls over game play, which the PC game has, to the console for the first time, and adds creative features like the karma and challenges. It's also going connected for the first time, and you'll be able to hook Sims 3 on your console to the online exchange, Xbox Live or other console equivalent. Will you be getting Sims 3 next month? What’s the most exciting new feature? Drop us a line in the comments! Related posts:
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| New iPod nano: not true multitouch but hiding pinch to zoom smarts? Posted: 10 Sep 2010 06:32 AM PDT 
Wiens criticises Apple claims that the new iPod touch is truly a multitouch device. He days: "3M defines multi-touch as the 'ability to simultaneously detect and resolve a minimum of 3+ touch points." The new iPod nano has one gesture that uses two touch points – rotation. But Wiens says sources close to Apple have told him that the new iPod nano could include support for pinch to zoom. He says internal documentation listed the feature and wonders: "Was this feature cut at the last minute? Could it be added back in with a software update?" Apple added new multitouch gestures to Macbooks and Macbook Pros when the Magic Trackpad was launched, so there's definitely precedent. However, as the iFixit new iPod touch teardown wisely notes, the device has a 1.54in LCD screen so trying to cram multiple fingers into that space for gestures would be tricky anyway. It also highlights that the new iPod nano has the highest pixel density of an Apple device besides the iPhone 4/new iPod touch. At 220 PPI, that's double the density packed by the iPad. Have you nabbed a new iPod nano yet? Let us know what you make of it. Out now | From £129 | Apple (via iFixit) Related posts:
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| GTA trilogy for Mac arriving this year! Posted: 10 Sep 2010 06:02 AM PDT 
Rockstar doesn't give a definite release date for the GTA trilogy for Mac but said we're likely to get our hands on it this year. Its full answer reads: "Look for the long-awaited release of the classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy for Mac – most likely later this year. We'll have much more info and a proper announcement soon. But, yes, in case you were wondering, that is a world exclusive from Asked and Answered." That suggests we could see word on GTA on Mac at the Tokyo Games Show next week and with any luck, Rockstar will start bringing games to Apple fans as a matter of routine. Valve's already showing the way with Steam for Mac and it'd be nice for Mac users to get their hands on GTA V at the same time as their PC-packing pals. Another interesting tidbit in the Asked and Answered bulletin from Rockstar, besides the GTA news, was a hint that we'll see a teaser for LA Noire pretty soon. We'll be keeping our piggy eyes peeled for more on that. Let us know: will you be snapping up the GTA trilogy for Mac? Or will you be holding out for new Rockstar titles on your Apple machine? Out 2010 | £TBC | Rockstar Related posts:
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| Check out our new Top 5 Best iPod list! Posted: 10 Sep 2010 05:45 AM PDT 
Cast your eyes over to the right and you’ll see our Top 5 Best iPod shortlist, looking a little different. We’ve updated it to factor in all the new iPods we’ve checked out this week, and you can see where they all fit in, read full reviews for them, or simply jump straight through to Amazon to buy them with a click of a button. The new iPod touch makes the top of the list (in 32 and 8GB capacities: the £329 price of the 64GB model makes us queasy), while the new iPod shuffle has displaced the nano through its combination of buttons, in line remote controls and sheer value. Disagree with our revised Top 5 Best iPod list? Tell us what you think we’ve got wrong in the comments below. We’d love to hear your thoughts, and in the meantime, you can check out all our new iPod coverage below: Read the rest of our iPod 2010 coverage:
New iPod touch unboxed: photos Related posts:
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| Posted: 10 Sep 2010 04:38 AM PDT 
New iPod touch unboxed: photos The new iPod nano 6G is a wonderful, capable little pico player, make no mistake. The trouble is, more than ever, it feels sandwiched between the utterly excellent new iPod shuffle and new iPod touch. Actually, sandwiched isn’t the right word: crunched might be more apt. When it comes to build, the new iPod nano improves on the older generations of oblong nanos in just about every way. It really is a scorchingly beautiful device, like the illegitimate lovechild of an iPod shuffle and an iPhone, and from the back, it’s almost identical to the former gadget, from the cool chrome colour to the clip (A very welcome move for anyone who’s used an iPod in a gym band before). The differences are very visible however on the front. The 1.54-inch screen, while not as pixel dense as a Retina Display, looks lovely, and the controls are responsive, and feel intuitive to use. We think the unit we tested back at Apple’s launch was dodgy, as we struggled to navigate it, but our review sample responded to swipes and long presses for moving through the menus just fine. Check out our Top 5 Best iPod list here! While we could see people struggling with sweaty fingers at the gym, the small touchscreen is otherwise a proficient replacement for the old combo of screen and over sensitive trackwheel. And unless you have a squint, you won’t find pulling up the music you want any more difficult on the new iPod nano. There’s also a standard 30 pin connector on the bottom, so the new iPod nano 6G will still play nice with all your iPod docks and accessories you’ve acquired over the years, and in a really welcome move, there are now physical volume buttons on the top. As for the software itself: it doesn’t feel revelatory, but it does feel like a welcome bump for the older clickwheel iPod software into a new decade. Though it’s not iOS, anyone who’s ever used an iOS device will be right at home with the basics: two by two homescreens of app-style tiles, which you can re-arrange (but not remove) by holding down on the screen. Playlists, and music sorted by artists, genres, composers, songs and albums are all present as options, along with a Genius Mixes icon and support for podcasts, and the FM radio with song tagging introduced last year. The radio on the new iPod nano is a little hard to get around if you listen to a lot of stations, but it doesn’t hinder locally stored music or music selection in anyway otherwise. You’ll also find a basic pedometer onboard, but the video options of previous iterations is now gone. Frankly, that’s fine with us: the old screen was far too small for video anyway (this one certainly is), and we’ve not used the video recording option on the iPod nano 5G once this year. We don’t see ourselves using the photo viewing option on the new iPod nano very much either, but the square screen does lend itself to showing cover art well. Playback on the new iPod nano 6G doesn’t seem like a great leap forward: it’s just noticeably richer than on the new iPod shuffle, but if it’s audibly different to older nanos, it’s not worth the upgrade for it alone. Apple’s keen to tout the multitouch capabilities of the new iPod nano, but for most people, these extend to two finger twisting to rotate the screen, which is pointless, so don’t buy into the hype. Multitouch support will prove useful for blind people however: turning on the VoiceOver mode read outs all the menu options, while two finger swipes move forward and backward – very welcome. Unfortunately, you have to have the screen on while performing these, so it’s not really an easy way to control the new iPod nano while it’s in your pocket, and you won’t want to use it unless you have to: we turned the mode on, got stuck, and couldn’t get out of the radio function until we found a solution buried on page 62 of the online manual. The problem is, there’s little to be found in the new iPod nano that really makes it stand out, rather than simply feel like a smaller, streamlined version of the famous line. Despite the touchscreen, it’s just not any more functional: compared to the competition, that’s not a problem, but next to the new iPod shuffle and sensational new iPod touch, it is. Now don’t get us wrong. If you get a new iPod nano as an unexpected Christmas pressie, you’ll likely adore it. It’s lovely to have around. But ultimately, you’re paying at least £90 more for a bit more capacity than the new iPod shuffle (but still not much, mind), an FM radio, and the option to pick specific albums rather than playlists. That doesn’t scream value to us, especially when the glorious new iPod touch can be had for a bit more again. And that too, is stupendously small. Honestly, we would have preferred a new iPod nano the same size as before, with a wider touchscreen, and iOS onboard. Oh well. Maybe next year, eh? The new iPod nano 6G has made our Top 5 Best iPod shortlist, which is why we've given it our Recommended rosette. Check out more Top 5s here and find out more about how they work with our Top 5 guarantee. Read the rest of our iPod 2010 coverage:
New iPod touch unboxed: photos Related posts:
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