Monopoly Gets iFever

Photo Credit: Raymond Wong/DVICE

Monopoly is one of those games that was simply a classic, but they constantly felt the need to rejig. I suppose with the shortening attention span of children these days, and the fact that you see four-year-olds playing with their parent’s iPads, Hasbro must have felt like they needed to keep up with the times.

And keep up they have! I’m actually rather intrigued by this new “Monopoly zAPPed”. While “Monopoly Live” creates a kinda creepy robot fifth player that takes on the role of judge, ref, and banker, as well as adding some new “mini-games” features, it seems that Monopoly zAPPed does all that with your iOS device.

There’s a fake debit card coated in “conductive paint” technology created by Volumique that will be able to be tapped against your iPhone to make purchases. There will also be mini-games on the device to get out of jail (cool!).

Of course, I’ve always been a bit of traditionalist with my gaming experiences (I still own a PS1 for crying out loud!) and so the idea of there no longer being money for me to neatly tuck under the board as we play…well that sounds just slightly horrific.

All the same, if I can win a game on the iPhone to get out of jail…

The Game of Life is also meant to get zAPPed removing the awesome spinny thing in the centre (which makes me sad…but also happy because the spinny thing totally didn’t work on our board). There’s also meant to be awesome little Nintendo Mii-type characters and “family” snapshots at the end of the game  with your little adventures. Kinda funky.

Both games will be sold for $25 each later on this year.

[Via DVICE]



Temporal Distortion Time-Lapse [Video]

As usual, be sure to put the video in full screen mode after hitting the play button. Enjoy!

What you see is real, but you can’t see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of 20-30 second exposures, edited together over many hours to produce the timelapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenonmena, in a way you wouldn’t normally see them.

In the opening “Dakotalapse” title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several Astronomers, they are possible nonleticulent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. I never got a definite answer to what it is. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots.

[Randy Halverson]

Jabba the Hutt Birthday Cake [Picture]

There’s only one problem with this Jabba the Hutt birthday cake by Deviantart user KatesKakes: It looks a little too real… and let’s just say that something that looks like a slug isn’t the most appetizing thing in the world.

[KatesKates | Via]



The Cryoscope: A Haptic Weather Forecasting Device [Video]

The Cryoscope shows the user exactly what to expect outside by haptically exhibiting exactly how cold or warm it is to be outside. The user simply touches an aluminum cube that has been heated or cooled to the appropriate temperature. The unit fetches weather data from the internet, and translates it to the cube physically, pumping heat in or out of the cube.

[Robb Godshaw]

Mattel to release a Real Back to the Future Hoverboard

Back to the Future has offered us a peek into time to come, but most impressive is the technology that we are likely to encounter – according to the film.

The future was already predicted when Marty McFly tries his hands at a classic arcade game from the 80s in a retro-styled diner. The kids observing, instead of being in awe of his impressive quickdraw skills, ask incredulously, “You use your hands??” and walk away in disgust. And here we are playing with our Xbox Kinects. This is the future!

Flying cars were obvious, but we also get a peek at self-lacing shoes, size-adjusting jackets that dry you off, and of course, the hovering skateboard.

This year’s ToyFair has revealed that a limited edition, movie replica, WORKING HOVERBOARD will be available for pre-order this year.


Via
“Working” might be a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, it does hover. The board will glide across surfaces, but the company warns it will not work on water. It also cannot support the weight of a human. Any human.

Still, it is a neat collectable item that will make you the talk of any party. Well, any party of geeks in their 30s.

And of course, with Back to the Future being all prophetic with technology trends, we know the Mayans were wrong.

The Date Night Rube Goldberg Machine [Video]

The Date Night Rube Goldberg Machine: A perfect companion to an ideal Valentine’s Day date.

[2dphotography]

Sony’s PS Vita could be heading to tablets


Sony has confirmed it’s at least theoretically possible that the PS Vita system could come to smartphones and tablets. That note comes as the company admits it needs to establish Vita as a long-lasting brand rather than a one-off gadget.

Speaking in preparation for the US launch of the portable console, Sony’s chief executive Kazuo Hirai told AV Watch that “We’ve made it in a way that’s expandable, so that it’s possible to apply to smartphones and tablets on top of achieving the high responsiveness we need for gaming devices–it is possible.” However, he noted that this was simply a case of being prepared and that there’s no such transfer underway at the moment.

There is of course already a phone running Playstation games, namely the Sony Ericcson Xperia Play, which runs on the Android platform. That could leave Sony to decide whether to continue down the Android route, or to work on creating new devices that run the dedicated software that powers the Vita. As the console already includes a web browser and various social networking apps, the software could well be enough to produce a smartphone or tablet aimed at gamers.

If the company did go ahead with such a move, it would put to the test its argument that its recent buyout of Ericsson’s part in a joint smartphone project would remove unnecessary bureaucracy and make it easier to produce and market new devices.

Meanwhile Hirai has argued that the Vita may be more successful in the United States than in Japan, where it launched late last year (with a few serious teething troubles.) His logic is that the US market is more interested in the type of games that make best use of the Vita format (specifically high-quality graphics and dual-stick control), naming Call of Duty and NFL Madden as examples. He argued that Sony intentionally worked on getting games with worldwide popularity onto the Vita, even though many of these weren’t particularly appealing to the specific Japanese market.

Hirai also told Venturebeat that the company had intentionally allowed a much wider range of prices for games on the Vita, with physical releases (on a memory card) going from $30 to $50, and download-only titles dropping as low as $5.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Movie Trailer [Video]

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a 2012 American 3D supernatural horror film based on the 2010 mashup novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov and is produced by Bekmambetov and Tim Burton. The novel’s author, Seth Grahame-Smith, wrote the adapted screenplay. The real-life figure Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States (1861–1865), is fictionally portrayed in the novel and the film as having a secret identity as a vampire hunter. Benjamin Walker stars as Lincoln. Filming began in Louisiana in March 2011, and the film is being produced in 3D. It is scheduled to be released on June 22, 2012.

[TrailersAddicted]