A fine farewell for a man who probably changed most of our lives.

xkcd

ShareThis

Here’s your chance to get a little bit of exposure and see what everyone else in the Indie Game community is up to. IndieCade 2008 is set to take place July 10-13 in sunny Seattle (it’ll actually be at Open Satellite in Bellevue) and they’re looking for submissions to be showcased at the show.

Call for Submissions:

Indiecade invites independent game artists and designers from around the world to submit interactive media of all types – from art to commercial, ARG to abstract, serious to shooter – for consideration. Work-in-progress is encouraged.
A diverse jury of industry leaders will select entries for top prizes at the IndieCade @ Open Satellite Festival. All entries for the Festival will also receive consideration for presentation at the other 2008 IndieCade international showcase exhibitions.

Submissions Deadline: April 11, 2008 at Midnight PST.

IndieCade

ShareThis

Mike points out a few glaring deficiencies — protections? — in the iPhone SDK, namely the non-permanence of applications — only one third-party app can run at a time and it will quit when you answer a call or generally leave the app — and you can’t access the cell networks with your apps. Instead, you have to depend on Wi-Fi. This is a big suck. As far as I can tell programmers for current third-party apps have been able to access either WiFi or cell networks, which means it’s possible. However, I suspect the SDK’s controls will keep that from happening for “official” apps created by “real programmers.” Obviously this all could change at any time, but it sounds kind of nasty, especially for folks who might want to process information and input in the background. While it’s obvious Apple doesn’t want their sexy phone to crash, you can’t lock down the farm forever.

iPhone SDK And Restrictions: Some Of The Details Aren’t Great. [TC]

ShareThis

I, too, wish I were a semi-professional go-kart racer sans restrictive unitards, though. Heh.

Previous episodes can be found here.

ShareThis

Peter and I are headed to Düsseldorf tomorrow afternoon in preparation for our flight out on Sunday. We would have flown in the animal cracker box back from Hanover but after the Hamburg flight we’d like to stick to big airplanes leaving the heart of hurricane Emma, not small planes flying into it.

That said, if you’re in Düsseldorf tomorrow, Saturday 08/03/08, and would like to meet, email me at john @ crunchgear.com or, better, SMS me at +16462515666. You can also Skype me for the next few hours on johnnybnyc. We’d love to sit down with some gadget/tech folks in charming Düsseldorf, the home of the Street of Bars.

Update - We will meet at 6pm at <A HREF="http://www.qype.com/place/3070-Friedrichskrone-Duesseldorf
">Friedrichskrone (Kirchfeldstr. 85, 40215 Düsseldorf)

ShareThis

So I convinced Bossman Biggs to let me go to south by southwest in Austin, Texas for CrunchGear. The show is split into music, film and interactive sections. I’ll be covering the interactive part over the next few days, armed with a digital camera and minimal knowledge of what I’m expected to do. I don’t think there’ll be much gear for me to write about, but I’ve been told that there’s more than a few things you guys will get a kick out of. General Internet culture, things we allude to in like every other post, that sort of thing. It should be good.

I’ll be traveling what looks to be all day long today—I think I have a connecting flight in Dar Es Salaam—but I’ll touch base when it makes sense.

Expect lots of fun, wacky utter nonsense.

1.

sxsw interactive [sxsw]

ShareThis

Haptic technology will change the way you think about pushing buttons
Power Gorilla: Power your laptop from the sun
Cellphone now most irreplaceable item for most most Americans
Veiro, a wind-up mp3 player - why not?
Maglev joystick developed at Carnegie Mellon

ShareThis

Comments are the greasy oil that keeps the blog machine running. Here are three great (and 100% unedited) comments recently posted by your fellow readers.

who cares on Beware: The Verizon Voyager will apparently kill the iPhone

I’m an English teacher, and now I know why all my kids can’t string a complete sentence together. I can’t even read some of the comments. I just want to know if there are any big issues with the Voyager. I would like to buy one next month when my plan is renewed.

Jeff on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue’s car list finalized; is yours on there?

damn, my ‘97 4runner isn’t on the list..

joblo on Brits Britproof Britain for Texters

Whoever came up with that idea needs to be put on a island alone for thirty days to reflect the events that lead them to point where they thought something like this is a good idea.

ShareThis

Surface-alike table

It’s a big freaking table.

ShareThis

We can expect the Jaybird to hit our shores this summer. I don’t really see a market for standalone stereo Bluetooth headsets because so few devices have stereo Bluetooth. Luckily, the Jaybird comes with a Bluetooth iPod adapter and mini-stereo adapter and offers the user some degree of wireless control, depending on the device, via the three buttons on the headset. It’s designed for sports and might make for a nice, tangle-free solution for running and biking.

Product Page

ShareThis