Weekend Reading: Bill Watterson, Nicolas Cage and Wallace & Gromit

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Reviews,

Greetings, children of the internet. If you're down in Anaheim for the Southern California version of WonderCon, I  hope you had a great time! Here's some stuff you might've missed.

Sad news out of England about comics artist Brett Ewins. Fortunately, blogger Daniel Best has posted information about how you can help.

There’s some concern that Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit) is being hurt by comparisons to an English Labour Party leader.

The weirdly funny tale of Nicolas Cage’s stolen copy of Action Comics #1 could become a movie. At least it’s the “possible movie” everyone’s talking about in the current 15 minutes.

Becky Jewell interviews J. Torres about his work on Archie’s reboot of Li’l Jinx.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Bill Watterson, Nicolas Cage and Wallace & Gromit

New iPad gets untethered jailbreak on day of release

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Mods / Hacks, Software,

We've gotta hand it to i0n1c for the video above that features the new iPad sporting an untethered jailbreak on the day of its release. Typically, Apple devices get jailbroken fairly quickly, but those are tethered jailbreaks that require that the device be plugged in to a computer during the boot sequence. An untethered jailbreak is much more difficult to achieve, and yet, here we are on iPad launch day. Check the proof in the video above.

Bleeding Edge TV 442: Swingline Stack and Shred shredders

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: CES, CES 2012, Features, Household, Podcasts, Videocasts, Videos,

We bring you a look at the Swingline Stack and Shred, a shredder that can shred up to 100 pages at a time in one fell swoop. With the Swingline Stack and Shred, you just load the paper in that needs to be shredded, similar to the way that you load a stack of blank paper into your printer. Close the lid, and the Stack and Shred goes to work with no need for you to stand there going page by page, no overheating, no paper jamming, etc. It will also shred through documents with paper clips and staples in them, and also does credit cards. At CES 2012, I took at look at the Stack and Shred and walked away very impressed by what I saw. You can find the Stack and Shred on Amazon.

Big thank you to GoToMeeting for sponsoring Bleeding Edge TV. GoToMeeting provides rich, super-simple collaborative virtual meetings - be sure to check them out!

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to provide deeper privacy options for contacts

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,

With all the recent uproar over the fact that many app developers have been accessing and uploading users contacts without their explicit permission, we know that Apple is set to being a feature to iOS that asks the user if it's okay that the app does that. What we didn't realize, however, is that the feature will be coming to the Mac as well with the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. One new feature in today's release of Developer Preview 2 sees the operating system notifying the user that an app "Would Like to Access You Contacts" and then offering the user the opportunity to say OK, or to not allow the action. It's a small gesture, but it will go a long way towards keeping your data private.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 now available

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,

Aside from unleashing the new iPad to the masses today, Apple also just released a new OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Developer Preview. Dubbed Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2, build 12A154q is the second beta release of the company's next major desktop operating system. Developers can grab a download redemption code in the Apple Developer portal, which will be used to grab the update from the Mac App Store. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be publicly released this summer.

Mass Effect 3 sells 890,000 copies on day one

Posted by John Ball Categories: Action, Adventure, Corporate News, Kinect, Microsoft, Release Dates, Role Playing Games, Third Person Shooters, Xbox 360,

As any in-the-know gamer should be aware of, Mass Effect 3 was released last Tuesday, and, man, is it flying off the store shelves. Opening day sales for the game hit 890,000 units, which is most definitely a lot of cheddar. 1.5 million units of the title have been shipped to retailers worldwide, however take note that the number of units shipped does not correlate with the number of units sold.

To learn more about the game check out our Mass Effect 3 Kinect feature.

Deadly Premonition: Revamped for the PS3

Posted by John Ball Categories: E3, Features, PlayStation 3, Release Dates, Survival Horror,

Deadly Premonition, the popular PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title, is getting a re-release for the PS3. This new release of the game promises to include better graphics and PlayStation Move support, alongside new scenarios to play through. This information was revealed when Toybox Games founder Yasuhiro Wada let the news slip at GDC. We can expect to hear a lot more about the game at this years E3 event.

Here are the apps that are optimized for the new iPad Retina display

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Software,

The new iPad is upon us, being delivered to, and purchased by, hundreds of thousands (if not more) of people today. The biggest feature that Apple's touting is the Retina display, which is seriously gorgeous. That said, to really get the most out of the experience, you'll want to have Retina display-ready apps, otherwise you're just using apps that the iPad is upscaling. Here's a list of a bunch of apps that you can download, right now, that are ready to showcase the beauty of the new iPad Retina display:

• ABC Player
• AIM for iPad
• Another Monster at the End of This Book
• Art Authority
• Barefoot World Atlas
• Calcbot
• The Daily
• Day One
• Diamond Dash
• The Early Edition 2
• Evernote
• Facebook
• Flight Control Rocket
• FlipBoard
• Foosball HD
• Incredibooth
• Infinity Blade II
• iStopMotion for iPad
• Joining Hands
• Kindle
• Labyrinth 2 HD
• Martha Stewart Cookies
• Mass Effect Infiltrator
• Mint
• MLS MatchDay 2012
• Modern Combat 3
• Mr. Oops
• NYTimes for iPad
• Order & Chaos Online
• Quotes Folder
• Readability
• Real Racing 2 HD
• Redfin
• Reeder for iPad
• Roambi Analytics
• Roambi Flow
• SketchBook Pro for iPad
• Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy
• Solar Walk
• Soundcloud
• Star Walk for iPad
• StockTouch
• TouchGrind BMX
• Tweetbot for iPad
• Twitter
• Twitterrific
• Waze
• Wired

Spotify Apps are a success, change the way we enjoy music

Posted by Andrey Malskiy Categories: Corporate News, Music, Software,

When Spotify launched in Europe, social music sharing officially arrived, and many services soon folllowed. However, the company soon realized that releasing an API that allowed third-parties to tap into the spotify catalog would mean new features and new ways for its users to interact and enjoy music, and with that came the release of Spotify Apps.

Spotify has shared info on the success of four of these apps. Truth be told, some of them are a runaway success. Each app is unique in its own way in changing the way we do music.

Soundrop, “let’s you discover, listen to, and share music with friends in ‘rooms’ created by genre or theme,” Spotify says. According to the company, Soundrop users in Feburary listened to 15 million songs or the equivalent of 100 years’ of music.

The second app, Tunewiki, lets you sing along to the lyrics of the song you’re listening too. Though we can’t guarantee this will make you a better singer, it's certainly cool to be able to see the lyrics in real-time while playing a track.

Moodagent, plays music according to how you're feeling, which is fantastic time saver. No longer are you a slave to searching your library for the music you wanna listen too when you're 'Angry' or 'Happy', as you can now have Moodagent handle that for you.  

The final app, SpotOn Radio, which was built into the mobile version of the app, hit number six on the Swedish iPhone app store.

The success of Spotify and the widespread use and development of its apps should continue to result in new, refreshing ways to both listen to and share music, with Spotify living on the back end. All Spotify apps are free to use, but require a Spotify account (also free!)

Read More | Spotify

Prince Valiant Meets Tom Yeates

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews,

Tom Yeates has been selected to take over the art chores on the classic Prince Valiant comic strip. He posted the brief announcement at his blog, that included this quote: "Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz have been doing fantastic work on the strip, and Yeates hopes to maintain that high quality in the tradition of Hal Foster."

Writer-artist Hal Foster created Prince Valiant in 1937.

I worked briefly with Tom on a Tarzan mini-series back in the 1990s and got to see his original art up close. It’s beautiful stuff and he’s an excellent choice to replace Gianni on the strip.

Click to continue reading Prince Valiant Meets Tom Yeates