Bunkspeed has announced that its upcoming SHOT software will integrate Iray rendering technology developed by Mental Images. The new system will allow the software to process renders using a combination of CPU and GPU resources, including NVIDIA’s CUDA-equipped graphics cards. Offloading the rendering tasks to various components is said to significantly reduce processing times….

ZoomMediaPlus has introduced the ZoomIt memory card reader for the iPhone and iPod touch. The new dock-connecting accessory works with the companyís ZoomIt application that provides access to content stored on SD cards. Support is offered for all file types recognized by iPhone OS 3.0, ranging from photos and videos to PowerPoint documents. The accessory allows users to upload all stored media for use at a later time, or share files with other users via e-mail, Facebook or Flickr….

Google tonight confirmed talk of a significant product update by sending an invitation to a special event on Tuesday at the company’s Mountain View, California campus. The company is short on details but promises “some new product innovations” at the gathering….

At this week’s Macworld Expo, iHound Software will hand out stickers aimed at aiding people who find lost iPhones to reunite them with their owners. And for the month of February, iHound has dropped the price on its iPhone app.

Filed under: Gaming, Multimedia, Apple, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch

Game Developer Research has published its 2009/10 survey of video game developers, and the results are pretty impressive for the still relatively fledgling iPhone platform: The number of developers who are working on mobile games increased by 12 percent, and there are actually twice as many developers working on iPhone games as are working on the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PSP handheld consoles.

That’s a pretty amazing number, though it’s not quite a surprise when you consider it. First of all, Nintendo DS and PSP publishing takes a much larger investment than Apple’s $100 developer fee and an SDK download. Second, while the DS and the PSP are certainly selling a lot of games, they’re not actually releasing nearly as many as the hundreds of thousands of apps on the App Store. Finally, new DS and PSP games sell for $30 or $40, while new App Store games sell much closer to 99 cents. So the fact that there are lots more people moving to the much more open and accessible platform isn’t really that surprising.

But a figure like that does show just how much Apple’s handheld platform has changed the mobile gaming environment. I would argue that there’s still a place for handhelds like the DS and PSP — devices essentially meant to play games rather than check email or browse the Internet. Even with the iPad coming, Apple still isn’t actually focusing on games, though the iPod touch is probably closest to that idea. Whether Apple focuses on gaming or not, there’s no question that there’s a huge new player in the mobile gaming space. Sooner rather than later, Nintendo and Sony may have to sweeten their deals to keep premium developers on their platform.

TUAWGame developers on iPhone outnumber DS and PSP two-to-one originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Updated with Netflix commentary) Netflix will try to claim an edge in its media service by offering streaming full HD, a rumor maintains this afternoon. The company will supposedly roll out 1080p streams with 5.1-channel surround sound at some point later this year. It currently offers 720p to just a handful of devices, most notably the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but also Roku’s Internet Player….

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

Yes, PopCap is at it again — this time, their crazy addictive (just like all of their games) take on the tower defense genre, Plants vs. Zombies, is headed off to the iPhone. They just tweeted confirmation a little while ago, and released this trailer showing all of the flower vs. undead action that we enjoyed so much in the other versions of the game, squeezed into the smaller screen of the iPhone.

They don’t mention a price point, but I’m guessing it’ll come out at $4.99, since that’s what most of their releases have debuted at (though if you’re patient, it’ll probably drop down in price after a while). I’ll tell you that yes, if you’ve never played it, the game is more than worth $5, but even if you don’t believe me, you can go play it online for free and see what you think. PopCap is the master of dropping colorful graphics, sparkling gameplay, and constant little rewards on your plate, so PvZ on the iPhone will probably be yet another meal you won’t want to stop eating.

TUAWPlants vs. Zombies coming to iPhone on February 15th originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google on Monday quietly dropped the cost of the controversial Equipment Recovery Fee for the Nexus One to $150. The company’s updated Terms of Sale now list a price less than half the $350 it had charged originally. The fee still takes effect within 120 days and stacks on top of T-Mobile’s own $200 early termination fee….

A $6 app that provides pieces of random fiction may not be for everyone. But McSweeney’s delivers great content in a simple, classy interface.

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store

If the iPhone has a leading app genre, aside from gaming, I’d say the current surge of “check-in” apps is probably it. Sure, back when the App Store first opened up, Twitter apps were everywhere (and they’re still being made daily, it seems), but in terms of a genre that can only exist on a location-aware device like the iPhone, “check-in” apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and so on, are making their mark right now. Here’s news on two such apps continuing to grow on the App Store skyline.

First up, Loopt [iTunes link] has announced a partnership with a company called Mobile Spinach to start trying to monetize this kind of app usage. Mobile Spinach delivers local ads, and Loopt says that it’ll be using their location-based social networking service to bring specials and deals to users from wherever they check-in from. Note that while Apple doesn’t necessarily want location-based advertising as the sole purpose of an app, it seems to be all right with location-based advertising as an extra feature like this. Loopt tells us at TUAW that it’s a great deal for the company, as it is “an easier and cost-effective way to do online/mobile advertising,” and that it means “Loopt users can get great free offers on everyday things they want in need just by walking around in the neighborhood.” It’ll be interesting to see just how useful this extra advertising can be.

After the link below, read about how MyTown finally got the success they’d been hoping for.

Elsewhere in check-in app news, PocketGamer has an interesting interview with Keith Lee of Booyah about their extremely popular MyTown check-in app. It’s been fascinating to follow these guys — they’re former Blizzard devs, and their first app called Booyah Society, had some good ideas but failed to impress. So they went back to the drawing board, and MyTown [iTunes link] (which I’ve been playing with lately) has definitely made a few steps forward. As Lee points out, they looked at how they could better validate what people were doing, and they also upped the “gaming” side of it — you can earn points and money and even buy the properties you check in from to create your own kind of social networking city. And then when other people check in from the properties that you “buy,” you earn “rent.”

Lee says they really pushed on iteration and what felt fun for the team — he says that they had a few different expectations for Booyah Society, but that the relative failure of that app helped them learn a lot about which directions to go with on MyTown. Lee also talks about monetization — the app currently has a partnership with Citysearch (so you can easily access news and information about the places you check-in from), but they’re just running in-app ads, not necessarily anything tied to location yet. The app also has some in-app purchases — Lee says that they wanted to design for both the occasionally “check-in” user as well as the social “spammer,” so there are a few ways that the game balances those two types of players out so everyone levels at a fair rate.

Very interesting stuff. With their pedigree, it’s not surprising that Booyah eventually hit gold with MyTown, but the way they did it is really fascinating. I think we’re only scratching the surface of these check-in apps, whether you like them or not. As they get more competitive and more popular, we’ll really start to see some major innovation happening.

TUAWLoopt teams with Mobile Spinach for check-in discounts, Booyah talks about MyTown originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe apologized over the weekend for letting a 16-month-old bug in Flash Player languish without a patch, even though it updated the popular plug-in four times since the flaw was reported.

The iPhone 3.1.3 firmware has introduced problems for some people even as it has fixed them for others, say complaints on Apple’s support forums. Most critical is an issue with battery life, which can suddenly become erratic. A phone’s battery meter may potentially swing wildly, for instance going from 25 to 7 to 10 percent, then jumping back up to 24 percent….

Apple has clawed back US smartphone market share from RIM’s BlackBerry this past holiday, comScore found in a new study. Between September and December, the iPhone’s share grew over a percent to 25.3 percent while the BlackBerry dropped by nearly an identical amount to 41.6 percent….

RealNetworks on Monday released a beta version of its RealPlayer SP software for Mac. The utility, which builds upon the features of RealPlayer 11, provides tools for downloading and converting videos into formats compatible with a variety of cellphones and other devices such as iPods and Apple TV. Users can download online videos, from sites such as YouTube, and convert the content or share links via Facebook, Twitter or MySpace….

The Winter Olympics are almost here. These apps can help you navigate your way around Vancouver. Or, if you’re staying home, you can stay up-to-date on Olympic happenings with nothing more than an iPhone.

A class action complaint against Nokia alleges the company committed securities fraud when describing its operations in 2008.

Filed under: Hardware, iTunes, Apple, iPhone, SDK, Jailbreak/pwnage

Jailbreakers ahoy! Yesterday brought the release of the Dev Team’s pwnage tool for jailbreaking and unlocking iPhones equipped with the new 3.1.3 firmware. As usual, though, there are a few catches: first, if you don’t need to update to 3.1.3, the dev team says you shouldn’t bother anyway — it doesn’t do much that the old versions of the firmware doesn’t, so if you don’t need to upgrade, just leave your jailbreak as is.

3G and 3GS users especially should be leery of this one, since if a mistake is made, there’s a chance you could upgrade your firmware and then not be able to unlock it again. They also have all sorts of other warnings and exceptions on their blog post. As they say, don’t download and run those files without seriously thinking about what you’re doing with your iPhone.

If, after all of that thinking, you decide it is time to crack open your iPhone with the 3.1.3 firmware, the jailbreak will put together a custom 3.1.3 IPSW for you to restore back on to your iPhone — here’s a quick how-to to start with. Good luck, and be careful out there!

[via Engadget]

TUAWDev team releases PwnageTool 3.1.5 to jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 firmware originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hardware, Retail

Looks like they might. That’s the opinion of a note out last night from Credit Suisse quoting meetings with Apple executives. The Wall Street Journal this morning quotes Senior Analyst Bill Shope as saying “While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated).”

This is a similar situation to the original iPhone launch in 2007, where the original price quickly dropped US $200 from the original $599 retail. Agitated early adopters got a $100 Apple store credit from Apple.

Apple will be watching sales of the device carefully in the early days, and the company appears to have enough margin built into the iPad to take some hits if it is slow moving.

On the other hand, if the iPad blows the doors off Apple stores in sales, don’t expect any discounts soon.

TUAWCould iPad prices drop the way the iPhone did after launch? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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