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Sticks is another one of those rare games where the intro is actually worth watching. It introduces you to office worker Bob, who is basically a wage slave fantasizing about a better existence. Then, on his way back home from another grueling day at the office, he passes a huge sign which says "Sticks." This is where the game starts. Each level has a number of coins hovering in mid-air, and your goal is to place sticks that lead those coins to Bob -- but you only have a limited amount of wood to play with. As soon as you're done placing your sticks strategically, hit the big Play button and let nature, or rather gravity, run its course. The coins will drop down, and if you place your sticks correctly, they will roll all the way to Bob. The soundtrack is soothing and playful, and didn't get on my nerves even after playing for quite a while. All in all, a very cute game, especially for a day at the office. Help Bob make money in Sticks, a fun physics game originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/18/help-bob-make-money-in-sticks-a-fun-physics-game/ DIRECTV GROUP ELPIDA MEMORY EMC FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS FISERV How much is that tablet in the window? The one with the 7-inch screen and Android 3.2? Hard to say, but it might be the Sharp Galapagos A01SH you're looking at. The slate, announced in earnest today, should fit comfortably betwixt the 5.5- and 10.8-inch variants of the lineup that are also expected to arrive sometime before the end of the year. The A01SH is accompanied by an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core CPU with 1GB of RAM, a WSVGA display with 1,024 x 600 resolution, 8GB of internal memory alongside microSD support, 5MP / 2MP cameras along the back and front, and 7.5 hours of battery life. At a thickness of 12.9mm, it's not as thin as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it's no Toshiba Thrive, either. The tablet should reach stores in Japan by the end of the month, but the only timeframe given for a US release is before the ball drops in Times Square -- perfect timing for anyone who wants to ring in 2012 snuggled up to a new gadget. 7-inch Sharp Galapagos A01SH tablet sees formal introduction, hitting the US 'this year' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  Engadget Japan , PhoneArena |  eAccess (translated) | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/04/7-inch-sharp-galapagos-a01sh-tablet-sees-formal-introduction-hi/ MOTOROLA MOODYS MISCROSOFT OFFICE MICROSOFT MICROSEMI  When it comes to smartphones in the U.S., Android and Apple keep growing at the expense of other mobile platforms like RIM, Windows Phone, and Nokia's Symbian. The latest mobile subscriber numbers are out from comScore. Android leads the pack with 40 percent market share of U.S. smartphone subscribers as of June, 2011, up 5.4 percent from March, 2011. Android is also widening the gap compared to Apple, which ended the period with 26.6 percent share. But Apple did grow 1.1 percent from March, whereas RIM (23.4 percent), Microsoft (5.8 percent), and Symbian (2.0 percent) all lost share. Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/qUCNJUkVEFE/ AUTODESK AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING AVNET BHARTI AIRTEL BT GROUP Cloud Girlfriend, despite what it sounds like, doesn't really have anything to do with cloud computing. Rather, it uses a cloud of women to pose as your girlfriend on Facebook, or your favorite social network of choice. The service is scheduled to launch 'soon,' and there's no indication of how much it will cost. With the tagline 'The easiest way to get a girlfriend is to already have one,' Cloud Girlfriend promises to be a very interesting startup indeed. The brains of the operation, David Fuhriman, speaking to CNET, says it's all about fulfilling Maslow's hierarchy of needs. "CloudGirlfriend.com can fulfill Maslow's higher needs, even though the users know that the interaction is virtual. They will interact with a real person and see real profile images of the girl with whom they interact. This interaction can build confidence and esteem as well as provide real training experiences in navigating a friendship and a relationship." Our concern, of course, is that it's very nearly April 1. We're also worried by the fact that Fuhriman has a name that sounds ominously like a social subculture that we've grown strangely attracted to here in the Download Squad bunker. Finally, just stop and think about it for a second. Because your cloud girlfriend will be entirely virtual, she could be based anywhere. She could be underage -- or overage -- or she might be someone who you know in real life. She could even be a relative of yours, and you'd never know. Let's not forget this is the Internet we're talking about, folks. Worst case scenario, she could turn out to be a hairy, male truck driver from Texas. Such as... your dad, perhaps? Cloud Girlfriend will use a swarm of females to satisfy men originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/cloud-girlfriend-will-use-an-army-of-females-to-please-lonely-me/ EMC FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS FISERV GOOGLE GRUPO IUSACELL Back when we introduced you to the MeeGo-packing ASUS Eee PC X101, we noted that its brother, the X101H, would also be available, albeit with Windows 7 onboard. Well, the X101H has just made its way through the FCC and it looks like ASUS has decided to ditch the brother-from-another-mother scheme, and offer the X101's chubbier -- it's 22mm thick compared to 17.6mm -- sibling with MeeGo, as well. Like it's svelte little bro, the X101H is expected to pack a single-core Intel Atom N435 processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, and a 10.1-inch WSVGA screen. If you like your netbooks with a little extra cushion, check out our gallery of teardown photos below, or hit the source link for a slew of FCC paperwork. ASUS' MeeGo-flavored Eee PC X101H goes under the FCC's knife originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | FCC | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/03/asus-meego-flavored-eee-pc-x101h-goes-under-the-fccs-knife/ IBASIS HYPERCOM HEWLETT PACKARD CO HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS GOOGLE Have you ever wondered what the Web was like before the Mosaic Web browser? If you were born in the last 20-odd years, or you only discovered your inner geek recently, did you miss out on monochrome monitors and the dial-up BBS era? Well, here's your chance to get a sneak peek at history: grab the ChromeLite extension and marvel as the entire Web is transformed into ASCII characters. Now, ChromeLite isn't really all that functional. For the most part, it simply strips images and converts text into a monospaced terminal font. There are a few Easter eggs inserted -- such as a fun message at the bottom of YouTube (image after the break) -- and some fun ASCII art, but that's about it. Rather oddly, most JavaScript continues to work -- so you can still enjoy Google Instant Search! ChromeLite was actually made by Google as an April Fools' joke -- and indeed, an annoying 'you can uninstall this!' message appears at the top of every page -- but we're kind of hoping that Google, or another developer, takes ChromeLite and turns it into a real ASCII browsing extension with configurable settings. If anything, it will provide an easy way to save bandwidth and CPU time. Continue reading ChromeLite: experience the ASCII Web of yesteryear ChromeLite: experience the ASCII Web of yesteryear originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 07:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/chromelite-experience-the-ascii-web-of-yesteryear/ OSI SYSTEMS ORACLE OPENWAVE SYSTEMS ON SEMICONDUCTOR NVIDIA Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery. A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.
But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test... IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/ie9-and-firefox-4-post-top-marks-in-pc-power-use-comparison/ SALESFORCE COM SAIC ROCKWELL AUTOMATION RF MICRO DEVICES RED HAT Remember that Qosmio F750 glasses-free 3D laptop we got our greasy paws all over back in early July? Well, it seems like it's gotten minor moniker makeover for its US debut, and is now the F75 5. Thankfully, the news doesn't end with a new name -- we've got a price and release date for this parallax-packing lappie too! On August 16th you'll be able to pick up Toshiba's latest 15.6-inch media machine starting at $1,699. The notebook will hit Fry's, Best Buy, and Newegg all on the same day, sporting the same Core i7 processor, 6GB of RAM, 750GB hard disk, Blu-ray drive, and GeForce GT 540M GPU. Sadly, it won't be able to convert 2D games to 3D out of the box, but Toshiba is working with Nvidia to deliver that feature by November. Now you'll just have to bide your time till this 8-pound, "portable" 3D rig starts shipping in about two weeks. Toshiba's Qosmio F755 delivers glasses-free 3D August 16th, for $1,699 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Electronista | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/03/toshibas-qosmio-f755-delivers-glasses-free-3d-august-16th-for/ SES SHAW COMMUNICATIONS SIEMENS CDW CHINA MOBILE |
Yesterday someone asked me whether the reason most of my avatar photos are silly is because otherwise I would have to deal with people constantly bringing up the fact that I don't "look" like I should work in technology, meaning that I'm a (relatively not nerdy) woman. While I had never consciously thought about it about it, the answer is yes ("silly" at least is off-putting, while "woman" just means "has no idea about tech").
