Software posts

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…

Alright, alright, calm down – no, Big Steve still gets all frowny when you mention Adobe. But assuming you have a jailbroken iPad (I would), Flash can finally be yours with Frash. From the folks that brought you the Spirit jailbreak, and running on a compatibility layer, Frash is… well, it’s Flash, with an R. Finally, that half of the internet you weren’t able to see while lazing on the couch doing that… iPad… thing… whatever people do with iPads. Tapping things? – is suddenly again rendered visible. Time to take back Robot Unicorn Attack. The release isn’t stable yet, so if you aren’t a developer,…

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…

As internet folk, we probably all have at least one friend who’s incurably addicted to Foursquare. I definitely do. Steve, this one’s for you. Y’know those people in your social networks, who you’re only kind of friends with, and you wouldn’t really hang out with those people, but it would be awkward to delete them, so you keep them around hoping they’ll go away, but they just so happen to be the ones who stalk you and comment on everything you say and do online? Y’know, those people? Don’t lie, you’ve got some of those people. Enter Avoidr. Assuming you use Foursquare (and are friends with those people…

If you are a web designer then Apple’s mobile devices can help you work better, smarter — and out of the office. Here’s six apps you really should take time to get to know. 1. Ego $1.99 This is a splendid app (image above) not just for a developer but for anyone who has ever run a Google search on their name, which is everybody (but me) obviously. Ego watches the social web: Ember, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Mint, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter and Vimeo. It lets you track the number of visits to your website (including daily, hourly and monthly numbers), feed subscription totals and changes,…

Barcodes, those tiny black and white stripes on stuff we buy have been around for ages, but they’re boring. And small. No longer. Blue Fountain Media is a company with a dream, a dream of turning those boring tiny codes into massive, not-so-boring codes, and to prove their commitment they’ve created the world’s largest Stickybit. Stickybits is their idea for making everything digital – everything has barcodes, and now cameras on cellphones are so ubiquitous, Blue Fountain Media has brought these two simple facts together to allow you to scan barcodes and ‘tag’ your stuff. Scan your CDs and DVDs….

Adobe has (at last) introduced a version of Flash it swears is suitable for mobile devices, Flash Player 10.1, and in an attempt to prove it isn’t sitting alone whistling its multimedia software’s song, claims HBO, Sony Pictures, Turner, USA Network, Viacom, Warner Brothers and others are already creating Flash Content for MObile. Adobe promises the software — which we all know has been heavily-criticized by Apple CEO Steve Jobs — offers performance and mobile specific features. If you’re on a Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm or Research In Motion smartphone, I’m afraid you’ll…

Got a world class newspaper you want to keep publishing as tastes go digital? The LA Times has, and so it has introduced its rather marvelous and all brand new Los Angeles Times News Reader iPhone app. A $1.99 app which delivers a nice and easy route into all the influential newspaper’s editorial content. There’s no half measures here, no attempt to give readers a tiny morsel of the content to hook them into expensive monthly subscription fees. Not from the LA Times — instead you get news, commentary and photography. Oh, and it has an offline mode so you can read it on the subway. Better yet, the…