Author: Jon Edwards

Remember growing up when people used to want to be astronauts? Well tomorrow’s people walk this planet today, and while space exploration budgets are cut and we still don’t have jet packs, today’s the day the NASA-developed ‘Moonbase Alpha’ game hits the Valve Steam servers for some PC gaming goodness. Announcing the title last year, the space scientists spoke about the power of games as educational tools, saying their game functions as a persistent environment, calling it “a massive visualization tools and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging,…

Hurrah – HP’s recently-acquired Palm unit has updated its webOS software, unleashing a whole new world of handheld gaming. Well, not quite, but with HP already saying it intends using its newly-acquired webOS to spark a whole new period in connected device development, then we’ll be watching the Palm OS for some time to come. In future expect printers and all manner of other digital devices to speak to each other using webOS. Beyond this, HP has also confirmed plans to unleash a whole new wave of webOS-powered netbooks and slates. And in a sign that it isn’t all going to be Apple versus Google…

Sure, there might be some kind of problem with the signal bar — perhaps it is software, as Apple claim, perhaps not — one day we’ll know. Meanwhile the adoring iPhone loving or loathing public might as well get their gossip going on this O.T.T. rich person’s creation, the $20,000 diamond-encrusted iPhone 4 from designer, Stuart Hughes. Hughes likes to bling out his Apple devices — you’ll usually find at least one diamond and gold and dragon’s claw-encrusted Apple product emerge shortly after each Apple product introduction. (OK, I made up that bit about dragon’s claws). Take a look…

Once upon a time we’d take fast fairground rides to get a sense of it, nowadays we can actually, you know, just do it: head off into the wide blue yonder of zero gravity sensation. Sensation seekers these days have this new option on their itinerary, for when those picnics and beach holidays get a little tired, why not get a sense of life on Mars? Space.com talks up the holidays offered by Zero Gravity Corporation, who are taking people up and out in a G-Force One airplane to experience weightlessness. These are all part of the many ongoing 21st-Century experiments attempting to assess the scientific…

Just in case you missed it, here’s a couple of video clips which pretty much underline the kind of amazing things talented people can do with their iPad and the app of their choice. The first video is just one to watch, partially because its backing track isn’t deeply unbearable, and partly because, well, it is pretty cool to watch artist, Kyle Lambert and his video presentation of just how he painted his picture of Beyonce using an iPad and the super-amazing Brushes for iPad app. The video makes it look easy — in fact it took the talented finger-painting Brit a good six hours to make the picture….

He may have written some classic hits, but Prince has no ‘Kiss’ to give in his latest ‘Purple Rain’ of vitriol against ‘teh internets’, which the diminutive pop star says ‘is finished’. Is this a ‘Sign of the Times’, or simply an attempt by the artist to propel sales of his latest album, 20TEN, which isn’t going to be made available in shops, instead it is to be given away in the UK with copies of the Daily Mirror. Speaking to the Mirror, Prince slammed, like, this whole Internet thing, saying it is over, finished, dead, last year’s number. At the risk of being a rock ‘n’ roll…

Is this you? You updated your iPhone to iOS 4 and now you’re looking to multitask — and it isn’t working? What’s going on? Here’s what you need to know. With iOS 4, multitasking is already here, but in order to use it developers must update their apps to support this new feature. (We have a short list of multitasking-enabled apps at the end of this report). First of all, a quick explanation of what multitasking is on an iPhone. The news here is that it isn’t really multitasking per se, more enabling access to specific tasks from within enabled apps. Because these tasks are tasks you want to…

The great thing about Apple’s portable devices for fans of simulation games is that you can actually live more of a life while spending almost every waking moment tweaking some setting or researching new technology, or exploring a series of bad decisions as you go to war with your neighbor. This is a good thing. What follows are six of the most engaging simulation type games I’ve come across this week, with many of them available in the HD format for the iPad. Of course, these all work just as well with any of Apple’s smaller-screened iOS-powered devices. And they’re all great fun, enjoy. Civilization…

The question on lips across the techi-world this morning has to be “Who is horse-boy?” This image was captured by a Street View car driving through Aberdeen’s Hardgate area. In the absence of anybody claiming any crime reports featuring a horse-disguised miscreant, the identity of the horsey chap remains a mystery. Millions of Google Street View users have seen the image of the man, dressed in black trousers, a purple shirt and a brown and white horse’s head. Equally his existence could be a Google joke. The BBC reports horse-boy features in other parts of Google’s street view service….

If you’re a left-handed iPhone 4 owner then you’re potentially one of those infuriated by the problem in which gripping the device by its lower left corner can interrupt your network signal. This is because your clammy fingers sometimes have the effect of bridging the gap between the two separated aluminum sides, which has the effect of joining the WiFi and GSM antenna and cutting the call. Here’s the simplest fix we could find — it doesn’t even require that you invest in a protective case — a simple strip of sticky tape should do the job. Fast Company explains that all you need to do is take…