Gadgets: Get UK iPad early and a Plug in Porsche
By Jay GarrettSo, my gadgety friends what’s been happening?
Well, fans of the fantastic Assassin’s Creed that happen to own iPhones/iPod Touches were blessed with a free multiplayer version of the game and this was tweaked recently with an update and a further 48 hours of free downloadage.
Fancy a bit of bling at your interment? Well, there is a company that will outfit your last resting place with a touchscreen and mobile phone whilst you sleep the everlasting sleep in a gold casket. Apparently they’ve not received any complaints as yet ;)
Porsche and Ferrari have gone all green – my favourite has to be the Porsche 918 Spyder. It looks awesome and instead of going battery powered the Stuttgart company have gone hybrid and paired a glorious 500bhp V8 with three electric motors that can be called into play when you need that extra boost or, alternatively, you can pootle about on pure lightening for around 16 miles and then plug it in to any socket for the return commute.
Just in case you weren’t aware; Apple’s iPad has gone up for pre-order over in the States. We in the UK still have a while to wait til the end of April unless, that is, you nip over to Bundlebox. Order through the site and they’ll loop-hole you the USA only rules and deliver you a nice shiny iPad to Blighty.
If you’re looking for a different kind of tablet why not check out Microsoft’s Courier? To be honest, and I haven’t tried either hands-on yet, I rather prefer the Big M’s offering. A pair of cameras (one front facing for video calls), dual screens, stroke it with your digits or use a stylus operation, and it all purrs along using the Tegra 2 OS a la Zune HD – what’s not to like about Microsoft’s digital 21st Century Filofax?
Power Gig: Rise of the SixString – yeah, you’re all ready to rock out? This game will actually get you strumming a real stringed instrument and playing power chords whilst enjoying Rock Band/Guitar Hero beat matching! The beauty of this spin on its predecessors is the fact that you can unplug your guitar from the console and shove it into a real amp and show everyone what you’ve learned whilst “wasting time on that pointless game” – win/win for the gamer! :P
PlayStation’s motion controller (you know the one that everyone was convinced that it would be called Arc?) has been unveiled as Move. It looks pretty good to me and the motion capture apparently is top notch when it was shown off at GDA.
And finally (I’ve always wanted to read one of those ‘and finally’ articles on the news) I want to talk about televisions. You’re an informed bunch so will be aware that televisions generally please your peepers using three pixels: Red, Green and Blue – or RGB if you’re into that kinda thing.
Well, I was at an event organised by Sharp in order to introduce us to a fourth sub pixel. Say hello to Mr Yellow.
Instead of following the crowd into the world of 3D, Sharp have invested in making our large screen pics more life-like with regards to the pallet. They tried Mr White and even the elusive Mr Cyan but favoured Mr Yellow as the neurons within our retinas actually work by comparing levels of red versus levels of green light, versus levels of green against levels of yellow light. So this fourth pixel is, well, a natural choice.
The new Sharp Aquos Quattron televisions, as they’re called, will start to appear in stores by the end of April and will obviously be 1080p combined with UltraBrilliant Edge-lit panel tech and HD Freeview as standard.
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