Blizzard continues to roll out upgrades across the board ever since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out. In fact, the World of Warcraft Armory page was updated today, and it now features stats and information previously unavailable prior to the 3.02 patch.
The character profile site now features all sorts of stats including tabs that make it easier to keep track of your Achievements. In-game calendars are also included. Pretty much any detail you want to know about your characters or your friend’s characters can be found out here.
Apparently, you can even figure out how many times your character has hugged or waved at other characters, too. Who knows why you’d want to know that, but hey some people are stat happy, and if this appeases them, good for them!
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Written by Brenda Stokes on November 28th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Blizzard and World Of Warcraft and WowWee and archive.
It’s been all about the smartphones this week, with the long-awaited HTC Touch HD finally reaching our hands for one of the first full English-language reviews online. If our initial video demos last week whetted your appetite, head over to part one and part two of our full review to really gorge yourself. Meanwhile, to cheer up those in the US who are still smarting over HTC’s decision not to offer the Touch HD there, we reviewed AT&T’s newly released BlackBerry Bold.
Elsewhere, movement in the netbook and ultraportable segments showed once again that niche has the edge over mainstream notebooks, at least when it comes to interest. ASUS announced their N20a 12-inch ultraportable amid rumors of a ZX-series of 12-inch “grown up Eee PC” notebooks, while WiBrain’s I1 UMPC put a less-than-pretty face on some serious battery life. Meanwhile, we reviewed the Sony VAIO TT, more than four grands’ worth of Blu-ray and SSD-toting beauty.
In gaming, Nintendo’s DSi made a huge splash in Japan with just about every one of the 200,000 consoles the company had prepared for launch-weekend selling. Since everyone else will have to wait until Summer next year to get their hands on the DSi, we attempted to distract ourselves with a preview of the soon-to-released Microsoft New Xbox Experience for the 360, followed by a review of Gateway’s FX6800-01e gaming PC, one of the first machines to use the Intel Core i7 “Nehalem” processor.
Apple was no stranger in the headlines this week, for better and for worse. In the former category comes confirmation from AT&T’s CEO that an official iPhone tethering solution will be offered soon, together with word from Apple themselves that customers hoping for a new Mac mini should “be patient”. It won’t be this year, though, as the company is insisting their holiday line-up is complete. In the more worrying category is news that some new MacBook owners are experiencing issues with their trackpad missing clicks; it’s hoped a software update will address the problem.
Still, Apple are sitting pretty in the financial stakes, which is more than you can say about NVIDIA and Sprint. Both companies released their Q3 2008 financial reports this week, and both had little to crow about.
In other reviews, we took a quick look at the AT&T QuickFire, unboxed the Microsoft Zune 120GB Gears of War 2 Special Edition, and enjoyed some serious playtime with WowWee’s Rovio WiFi-enabled webcam. In fact, we had just enough time left over to make some holiday gift suggestions to TopTechGifts: if you’re stumped for some present ideas, make sure to check out their list.
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Written by Chris Davies on November 9th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on AT&T and Apple and BlackBerry and BlackBerry Bold and DSi and Feature and Gateway and HTC and HTC Touch HD and Microsoft and Sony and Sprint and Week in Review and Wibrain and WowWee and archive and asus and carriers and iPhone and mac and nintendo and nvidia.
WowWee ROVIO should be at the top of everyone’s list this holiday. ROVIO is a WiFi-enabled mobile web cam that lets you see, speak and hear from anywhere in the world as if you were right there in the room. I’m on the road a lot so my dogs are often home alone with friends and family. With ROVIO, I’ll be able to speak to them and visually check up on how they’re doing from any web-enabled devices such as a laptop or even your iPhone 3G’s mobile Safari browser.
Onboard, ROVIO has a single USB-connector, self-navigation capabilities, microphone, head-mounted moveable camera, speaker and best of all he’s capable of moving in any direction. Unfortunately, he’s not able to climb stairs. He comes with a charging dock to keep him powered up and on track. The charging dock is ROVIO’s power source, home base and point of reference. When his juice is running low, the web-based interface will let you know and with a simple click ROVIO returns to his charging dock to recharge.
I received three additional TrueTrack Room Beacons from WowWee to help expand ROVIO’s perimeters. Unfortunately, the True Tack Room Beacons accessory is sold separately. ROVIO cost under $300, depending on where you buy him. Make sure to check out ROVIO on TopTechGifts as a must have tech toy this holiday season!
Full demonstration and review coming shortly, so check back in a few days!
Click here to view the embedded video.
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Written by Vincent Nguyen on November 7th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Feature and Robotics and SlashGear Reviews and WowWee and unboxing and unboxing ceremony.
It’s always interesting to see the various iterations of a gadget’s design, before it reaches the shelves in all its shiny splendor, and today it’s the family album of WowWee’s Rovio mobile WiFi webcam robot. Released at the beginning of October, the Rovio hasn’t always had its Stealth Bomber-style, as these balsa prototypes from RoboCommunity prove.
The first prototype, shown above, was simply a WiFi-enabled pan & tilt webcam mounted on top of a hacked together WowWee tri-wheeled base. Later versions of the design begin to look more similar to the end-product; the first image, above, has the familiar casing shape, but lacks the WiFi.
That was added to the prototype below. Future versions introduced the NorthStar “internal GPS” navigation system and then explored different casing finishes. What’s particularly great about Rovio is that WowWee have left plenty of space - and scope - for DIY modders to add their own tweaks.
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Written by Chris Davies on November 6th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Robotics and Robots and WowWee and archive and prototypes and webcam and wifi.
We kicked off the week with some high-profile reviews here at SlashGear, putting the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops through their paces. If you’re considering one of these slick new machines - or are wondering what style features other manufacturers will be copying over the next six months - make sure to check them out! We also played with a more budget computing option in the shape of the ASUS Eee PC 1000HA.
Meanwhile cellphones have been on the test bench, with Sprint’s pair of new Samsungs - the messaging Rant and the musical HighNote - squaring up against Velocity Mobile’s 103 smartphone. We had to leave our desks to try out Blackline’s GPS Snitch, however, but were back in before curfew to play with some toys: WowWee’s Bladestar remote control helicopter, for one, and a rather more unusual review of the WowWee Femisapien.
Elsewhere, Apple took a starring roll among the rumors with shipments of the ageing Mac Mini halted; that sparked talk of a refresh, bringing such goodies as Mini DisplayPort, SATA and a new chunk of RAM. However undisclosed search records suggest that they might be too busy working on a netbook or UMPC, though as ever take this rumor with the biggest pinch of salt you can, well, pinch.
Speaking of netbooks, ASUS confirmed (again) that they would be bringing touchscreen models in their Eee PC range to market, together with versions running the Windows 7 OS in 2009. More imminent, the company announced a November 1st release of the coveted Eee PC S101, which will cost a not-insignificant $699. The specs scream netbook but the price says otherwise; still, ASUS must be doing something right as even MSI’s healthy Wind netbook sales figures trail far behind that of the Eee. MSI will be hoping that their Wind U120 - complete with 3.5G WWAN - will lend them some extra momentum when it hits shelves for around $550 in November.
Elsewhere, Google released the open-source code for their Android mobile platform, and a device that would do very nicely running such an OS, the super-skinny USI MID-160 slipped out to grab headlines and prompt drooling. Meanwhile, in France, carrier SFR proved the rest of the carriers to be all mouth and no pantalons by putting 3.5G versions of the Archos 5g PMP, Eee PC 901 and M! MID on sale.
Finally, the week can’t go by without us mentioning your friend and mine, the lovely Oprah Winfrey, who has happily declared her love for the Amazon Kindle. The product placement isn’t anything new; what I’m more interested in seeing is how sales of the ebook reader change after the First Lady of daytime television lends her name to it. Care to make a prediction?
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Written by Chris Davies on October 26th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Amazon and Android and Apple and Eee and Feature and GPS and Google and MID and Samsung and Sprint and Velocity Mobile and Week in Review and WowWee and archive and archos and asus and carriers and msi and netbook.
With the holiday season fast approaching, we’ve been featuring quite a number of toys here on SlashGear that, in our geeky opinion at least, are likely to be must-have items if you’re under the age of twelve. However, as self-confessed jaded cynics we turned to SlashGear’s latest reviewer, 8-year-old Tanner McBee (and his capable assistant and scribe, David McBee aka “Dad”). WowWee’s Femisapien has sashayed her way into many an adult reviewers heart over the past few months, but can she keep Tanner entertained?
David McBee writes:
Right out of the box, Femisapien got the “big eyes” from my eight-year-old. What else should I have expected? This was a robot, and a very cool looking robot at that.
Rushing to get her out of the box, the instruction manual was tossed aside and the experimenting began. He learnt right away that she would make sounds and movements of her own accord, and that a push on the head would get her moving and grooving in a way one doesn’t usually see from the robot persuasion. All very cool and exciting to an eight-year-old.
But after a few minutes of dancing and experimenting, it became very clear that we were going to need the instruction book in order to see what else this female robot was capable of. (BTW, my son did comment that he felt that Femisapien’s rounded chest was “inappropriate”. You be the judge.) So, back to the instructions.
Thank goodness my wife was around, because one look at the extensive manual and my head started spinning. But thanks to my wife’s tenacity, we learnt that Femisapien has a learning mode, an attentive mode, and a responsive mode. She speaks her own language and even detects objects in front of her. She has a sensor that tells her when she has fallen over and she even “cries” for help or just gives up and goes to sleep.
Each of her hands are joysticks and with a combination of movements of these joysticks, she’ll do a ton of cool stuff. (I would have liked a remote control better, but unfortunately it’s sold separately). After about thirty minutes with the directions, we had Femisapien walking, dancing, kissing, handing out a business card, following directions, singing and making pirate noises (AAARGH!).
My son even discovered a few tricks that weren’t in the instruction manual, which had the effect of finding an Easter egg. Okay, so spending some time with the directions opened up several opportunities for Femisapien to impress me and keep my son excited and busy. I certainly can’t claim that this robot doesn’t live up to expectations.
Cut to a few hours later. The neighbor boys come over and my son is eager to show off his new toy. Problem is, he can’t remember all the ways to get Femisapien to do all the cool things she does. So we go back to the demo dance – again, very fun and impressive. Then what? Does he take the time to get the directions out again to show his friends what he’s learnt?
Nope. Maybe it’s because he’s eight, maybe it’s a short attention span, but even after having the toy in the house for several days, he can’t seem to get her to follow more than one or two commands. The box says ages eight and up. Since I don’t have any “and ups” in the house, I can’t say. Perhaps an older child might remember the different joystick combinations, but heck, even I don’t.
My guess is, despite all the cool things this toy is capable of, she’ll ultimately become a $99 collectible that occasionally shows off her dancing for two minutes at a time every now and then when someone gets the urge to tap on her head. My son would disagree, saying that she’s totally cool and fun to play with, but he’s too busy playing video games to prove me wrong.
The WowWee Femisapien is available now, priced at $99.99; she’s compatible with both the programmable USB WowWee RoboRemote, priced at $19.99, and the original WowWee Robosapien remote, priced at $20. Our thanks to Tanner and David for their time!
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Written by Chris Davies on October 21st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Feature and Review and Robotics and Robots and SlashGear Reviews and WowWee and archive.
Back when the WowWee Rovio was first announced we knew it would prove to be a popular platform for modders and robotics fanatics to adapt. The three-wheeled remote WiFi camera-bot has only been available for a few weeks, and already we’re seeing the first hacks come in. Today, it’s the turn of Rudolph at RoboCommunity; a straightforward tweak, perhaps, but a sensible one - adding LED lights to the remote-controlled webcam “head”.
While Rovio does have headlights (which you can remotely switch on and off to save power) they’re mounted in the front bumper. No problem if what you want to look at is at floor-level, but if you’re peering upward into the darkness then they’re less effective. Rudolph’s hack basically fits two bright white LEDs either side of the camera lens, wired in with the original lights so they can be switched on and off at command.
As an aside, in one of the photos below you can see just how much spare space there appears to be inside of Rovio. Plenty of room for lots more mobile equipment, and since Rovio can find its own way back to the recharging station extra power draw isn’t as much a concern as if you were footing the bill for standard AA’s.
[thanks Peter!]
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Written by Chris Davies on October 20th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mods and Robotics and WowWee and archive and hacks and led and webcam and wifi.
You’ve seen him in The Shining and in Rocky as well as various videos and pictures around the web, but is this bot just as awesome in person?
He’s a wise-cracking and highly energetic bot, that’s for sure, but did his personality win us over as soon as we took him out of the box? Hit the link for the full review. Here’s a spoiler: Tri-Bot melted my cold geek heart and has my wife wondering why I can’t stop playing with a wise-cracking robot.
[Botropolis]
Written by Conner Flynn on October 13th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Hands On and Review and Robots and WowWee and robot.
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