Tag: Entertainment »

Art and math are two very distinct things - art being a typically right-brained activity, and math being very much a left-brained activity, and never the twain shall meet. However, developer John Miller has brought the two together, with his app Geom-e-Tree. A universal app for iPhone and iPad, you use the multitouch interface to change the angle and number of branches on the tree you're given to create increasingly complex trees and designs. Reading the in-game help screen or watching the tutorial video embedded below are a huge help for understanding how the app works beyond just creating crazy geometric designs. You could just randomly move fingers around and hope to get crazy designs, or you could follow the instructions, use the techniques provided to create something a bit less nonsensical than random pinching and dragging will get you. If you get a design that you like, you can save it to your arboretum to call it back up, email it to someone, or save it to your Photo Library. As well as the $1.99 Geom-e-Tree app, there's a simpler version for kids entitled Geom-e-Twee, that's currently available for free.

The problem with our vast amounts of media nowadays is that it's often in so many places - stored on our computer, on our phones, on our game consoles - and sometimes those files wind up on just one place instead of where we really want them. Twonky Media is here to help alleviate some of that content dislocation, by presenting a solution for streaming media to and from your iPhone and iPod touch.

Twonky Mobile serves two purposes: first, it lets you access media being played remotely, so you can access media being played by remote UPnP servers and other Twonky Mobile servers on your iOS device. This means that you can listen to music shared from a computer, or if you have an Android phone and an iPod touch and want to listen to music from your Android on your iPod, you can do so easily. Second, it works as a media server - this means you can easily share your photos from your device to an Xbox 360 hooked up to your TV, for example. You can also use this as a middleman to beam content from servers to a device like the Roku using your iPhone or iPod touch.

One of the drawbacks, due in part to iOS restrictions, is that your music and video libraries appear to be unavailable for streaming, so you can't use this app to play your iPod library on your Xbox 360. This is an unfortuante limitation of iOS, to prevent music and video content to be used outside of any Apple-sanctioned use. This limits some of Twonky Mobile's use on iOS, especially as Android's Twonky Mobile has no limits on what content can be streamed, and it even works for transmitting to AirPlay receivers. The app also doesn't support multitasking yet, so you can't use this to listen to audio from a remote server in the background. So while the app could definitely make use of some loosened restrictions and expanded features, but if you're big on streaming content across your house, this could be worth checking out.

While we cover plenty of games here at 148Apps, they're all on the iOS side of things. But especially during this time of year, there's definitely an interest in games from the traditional gaming systems, both handheld and portable. Whether we're just shopping for gifts for friends and family, or trying to kill time at GameStop while others shop in far less interesting stores, the 'traditional' game has yet to go away. The problem is that just looking at the boxes of these game doesn't exactly tell you everything; tiny screens and admittedly biased descriptions don't tell you much about games. Sometimes there's a need for more info. That's where Cedemo steps in.

Cedemo lets you look up a game and instantly get a chance to see it in action, as video starts playing when you look up a title, allowing you to get a feel for a game that boxart alone cannot provide. It certainly makes window shopping for games far more visual than static images provide. So how do you look up the info on these games? Well, you can check out the top 10, "Hot", and "Oldies" lists in the app, or you can manually search for titles. However, there's one other way to look up titles - you can scan the game's UPC on camera-enabled devices to instantly watch video of the game as soon as the barcode is recognized. If you have trouble scanning barcodes, whether you have a device without an auto-focus camera or just can't keep your arm from shaking your device to get a lock on the barcode, you can just manually key in the UPC.

The app is currently available for free on the App Store, and works on all iOS devices (with barcode scanning disabled on non-camera devices, and the app does not run in iPad native mode), and there is supposedly a version for Android available as well, but it is not currently available on the Android Marketplace. The only feature in the app besides video playback is the ability to post the games you find with Cedemo to Facebook; the ability to see reviews of games could be another huge help for game shoppers this holiday season. For now, this could be a useful app for those of us stuck looking through the game shelves while out shopping in the next month.

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If you’re looking to buy a new BMW or a Mini, take note. There’s an iOS 4 feature you’ve probably never heard of that you’re going to love.

Car manufacturer BMW has announced that it will be supporting iPod Out in iOS 4. What’s that? You say. Hidden among the many exciting features in Apple’s latest mobile operating system, the relatively obscure iPod Out is a way for iPhone and iPod models to show the iPod interface on a connected display, in this situation, the dashboard of a car.

While many docking stations and other accessories offer this facility already, this is an Apple-endorsed way of showing and controlling the classic iPod screen and album artwork on an external device and should translate very nicely to in-car entertainment. In the case of BMW, the in-built “infotainment” systems will allow control and playback of a connected device through the car’s existing controls and will even allow access to and creation of Genius and custom playlists.

BMW said of its iPod Out support “Future vehicles equipped with this technology will be able to adapt more quickly to the software lifecycles of iPod touch and iPhone”, basically taking the pressure off them to remain compatible with Apple’s mobile devices as they are updated.

BMW refers to “future” vehicles in its press release so existing owners may miss out on this upgrade, however iPod and iPhone owners in the market for a new car should certainly bear a BMW or Mini in mind when on the forecourt.