Author: Serkadis

Back in December, we had an interesting discussion on high frequency trading and whether or not it was just (as its supporters’ claim) “adding liquidity to the market to make it more efficient or whether it was a dangerous arbitrage bubble based on questionable practices that put the whole system at risk (or, of course, somewhere in between). The general consensus appeared to be that high frequency trading was pretty bad — and even if you believed that it had some useful applications, the fact that it has come to so dominate the market was not a good thing. The key point was that it wasn’t generating money by doing anything useful, but just from moving money around faster than someone else. Overall, there was definitely a concern about the practice.

It appears the SEC shares your concern, and has voted to do something about it. The real question, though, is what are they going to do — and will it help or will it actually make things worse? It looks like the suggested changes just involve trying to make the brokerages more liable for actions done by unregulated clients using the brokerage’s access to exchanges. The idea is that the brokerages would then force partners to crack down on really risky behavior. While I understand the logic, it worries me. It seems like the opposite of safe harbor type laws on the internet, and would, in fact, make “service providers” more liable for actions of third parties. That always seems like the wrong approach. It’s outsourcing policing and risk management and hoping that by adding liability the service provider will do a good job of it. But what if the service provider can’t do that well? And what if the third party screws up anyway? Does it make sense to put blame on someone who is effectively a middleman?

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While Facebook, Google and Twitter are pioneering the creation of personalized content streams, what they offer is usually text with either linked or embedded multimedia. But what if you could have a custom audio or video playlist sent to your phone, car or TV and generated on the fly?

That’s the premise of a new streaming startup backed by Karlheinz Brandenburg, who helped create the Mp3 file format. PerfectStream mixes all types of multimedia content and sends it any personal device, regardless of how “dumb” it is or whether it’s a phone or netbook. You could list a set of interests like “Cars”, “Gardening” and your closest Facebook friends and create a personalized stream of videos, photos and status updates read aloud using text-to-speech technology, for example.

It also raises the compelling prospect of inserting behaviorally-targeted video ads into a stream of video content. Another application could be in gaming where rendering could be done on the server-side and then sent out to people’s devices, regardless of whether that product is an X-Box, laptop or phone.

“Streaming has been a very simple one-way process using pre-produced content,” said Hardy Krause, the company’s CEO. “We can now send freshly mixed, personalized streams to everything from a legacy phone to laptops. This helps developers overcome all the special requirements to make streams work on the client-side.”

Munich-based PerfectStream is taking the business-to-business route and hopes to license its technology out to media and tech companies that already have professionally-produced or user-generated content. It came out of stealth this week and has raised funding solely from Brandenburg.

The video below comes from CES in Las Vegas last week. The company shows how to change a stream in real-time and send it to several different types of devices simultaneously.

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BYD is planning to bring Chinese-built electric cars to the U.S. market by the third quarter of this year, the company has announced. The one-time maker of batteries for mobile phones, now sells gas-powered cars in South Africa, South America and in China. While the plug-in model it plans to release in the U.S. will lack the polish of Toyota and Nissan’s impending offerings, BYD says its battery life will be double that of its competition.

Short for Build Your Dreams, BYD started out with just $300,000 and a goal: to compete with Japanese battery imports. Founder Wang Chuan-Fu began by taking apart Sanyo’s batteries to see how they were made. Just give years after it was founded, the Chinese company became the largest cell phone battery supplier in the world. Today, you’ll find its batteries in your iPhone. It also makes them for most of the Motorola Razrs produced today. So when it says its mission is to become a major auto vendor, it doesn’t seem like such a long-shot.

Currently, the company is working to get its e6 model vehicle into government and taxi fleets — a very similar strategy to that being pursued by Th!nk North America. It’s a popular way to introduce innovative auto technology into a market — one that Toyota also hopes to use to promote rapid adoption of its hydrogen fuel-cell models by 2013.

BYD plans to start small in the U.S. and gauge risk and market response before shipping more. A large part of the e6’s success in America will depend on the company’s proprietary lithium-ion ferrous phosphate batteries.

In China, BYD sells the F3DM plug-in hybrid. That vehicle travels 62 miles on a single charge before the regular generator is needed — 50 percent farther than the Chevy Volt is anticipated to go. The vehicle sells for $22,000 in its home country.

With the e6, BYD is producing a five-passenger crossover that it claims can travel more thsn 200 miles on a single charge. While it has yet to meet U.S. safety standards, Chuan-Fu is confident that he will get the e6 to market before the end of the year. If so, Toyota, General Motors and Nissan may have tougher competition in the EV space than they expected.

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At a time when there are few news organizations with the capital to put reporters on the ground in Haiti, social media is helping to fill the gap with information and financial relief for victims of the earthquake.

• More than $1,500,000 has been raised so far through the Red Cross’ mobile donation program, according to Jared Cohen, who is on the State Department’s policy planning staff. The Red Cross started a program today, allowing the public to donate $10 by texting “Haiti” to 90999. Music artist Wyclef Jean is also running a mobile donation campaign for his charity Yele. If you text ‘Yele’ to 501 501, $5 dollars will be donated. Both programs automatically add the charges to your cellphone bill.
• 1,500 status updates a minute mentioning “Haiti” are running through Facebook, according to Andrew Noyes, the company’s manager of public policy communications.
• Haiti URLs have seen a 1578% increase in traffic and a 5407% jump in bandwidth usage, according to Zscaler, a cloud-based security service for web traffic.

A number of citizen journalism projects are providing news and media from the ground. Global Voices, a non-profit blog aggregator for international news, has created Twitter lists of people on the ground in Haiti. So has The New York Times. The Boston Globe’s Big Picture also has a truly heart-wrenching collection of photos, which is where the top picture comes from.

Ushahidi, a non-profit project that uses mobile phones to crowdsource news and information in times of crisis, started up a Haiti site where hospitals can show what services they offer and people can post messages to search for family or friends.

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Bugs are to be expected in brand-new apps and platforms — particularly when they’re clearly marked with a “beta” sign — but it starts to get a little harrier when there’s money involved. One of the early crowd favorites in Nokia’s Ovi Store for Maemo appears to be the game Angry Birds, which is available with a €3 level pack — problem is, plenty of folks have discovered a way around actually paying the cash, which becomes a big problem for the developer very, very quickly. The level pack has since been removed, probably the best move until Nokia can figure out what’s going on here and issue a patch. In the meantime, looks like it’s back to the ol’ repositories.

Nokia’s Maemo Ovi Store looking rickety, ‘beta’ label well-deserved originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Send a $10 Donation by Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999

The American Red Cross is sending money, supplies and staff to Haiti to support relief efforts there after yesterday’s earthquake, which caused catastrophic damage and loss of life.

According to reports, as many as three million people may have been affected by the quake, which collapsed government buildings and caused major damage to hospitals in the area.

The Red Cross is contributing an initial $1 million from the International Response Fund to support the relief operation, and has opened its warehouse in Panama to provide tarps, mosquito nets and cooking sets for approximately 5,000 families.

In addition to Red Cross staff already in Haiti, six disaster management specialists are being deployed to the disaster zone to help coordinate relief efforts.

At this time, the American Red Cross is only deploying volunteers specially trained to manage international emergency operations.

There has been an outpouring of support from the public.

To help, people can make an unrestricted donation to the International Response Fund at www.redcross.org or by calling 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767).

The public can also help by texting “Haiti” to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross, through an effort backed by the U.S. State Department. Funds will go to support American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

Debris and collapsed bridges are making access to many areas extremely difficult. Telephone service and electricity are out in many places. Haitian Red Cross staff worked throughout the night to rescue people still trapped in their homes and provide first aid. The priority remains to provide food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support.

The American Red Cross already had fifteen staff in Haiti providing ongoing HIV/AIDS prevention and disaster preparedness programs.

All are reported to be safe and responding to the disaster.

To date, there have been no requests for blood products from the government of Haiti.

However, some patients at an affected facility in Haiti have been moved to a Guantanamo Bay hospital, and the Armed Services Blood Program has asked both the Red Cross and Florida Blood Services for support for those patients.

In addition, the American Red Cross will be sending a shipment of blood products to the United Nations Mission in Haiti.

While communication with those in Haiti is still difficult, people should contact the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888-407-4747 if trying to reach a U.S. citizen living or traveling in Haiti.

If trying to reach a Haitian citizen, callers should continue to call or contact other family members who live nearby.

While donations are coming in for Haiti relief, the initial American Red Cross response is made possible in part by contributions from members of the Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program (ADGP).

The following partners designate a portion of their ADGP commitment to the International Response Fund: American Express, John Deere Foundation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Morgan Stanley and State Street Foundation.

About the American Red Cross

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation’s blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families.

The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission.

For more information, please visit redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

 

   + 

Blueprint for Government Takeover of IRAs – Posted by Larry Doyle – guest post – has 5 step plan. – Sense on Cents

and

Retirement Accounts and Treasury Bonds – America’s Unprecedented Money and Power Grab –  Jacob Dreizen – Seeking Alpha 
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Bernanke: It’s Not Our Fault – by Peter Schiff – It seems that the primary qualification needed by any chairman of the Federal Reserve is the ability to never admit error, no matter how damning the evidence. During his tenure on the job, Alan Greenspan set the standard for implausible deniability. But in a speech last weekend in Atlanta, current chairman Ben Bernanke did the Maestro one better. In a tortured academic dissertation, Bernanke explicitly denied any Fed culpability for inflating the housing bubble and for the financial crisis that began when it burst. Despite his best efforts, no one seemed particularly convinced. By taking such an absurd stand, he has destroyed any credibility he may have had left. – Euro Pacific
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Voting away your debts – The Iceland saga is a harbinger of crises to come – THERE are many ways to decide whether to repay your debts but a national referendum is surely a first. That is what is going to happen in Iceland after its president refused to sign a bill paying €3.8 billion ($5.5 billion) to the British and Dutch governments over 15 years. – From The Economist print edition 
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Steve: The Fed Needs A Leash – Steve Forbes – Steve Forbes reins in the Federal Reserve for its creation of money out of thin air. – Forbes

 

Annaly Capital Management Announces Monthly Commentary for December 

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Mortgage delinquencies up at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac –  Delinquent home loans at government-controlled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac surged 20 percent from July through September, according to a new report by the companies’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  Almost 1.6 million borrowers had not made their mortgage payments for at least two months. That’s about 5.18 percent of all borrowers. Year over year, the number of delinquencies more than doubled. – Washington Post

good thoughtful piece: Pushing down mortgage principals – By Kevin Huffman –  About one-quarter of Americans who have mortgages are underwater, meaning 11 million to 15 million people owe more money than their homes are worth. Let me introduce you to one of them: me. … – Washington Post
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EXCLUSIVE: MAGAZINE PREVIEWS: Bill Dallas Back? – by AUSTIN KILGORE – In 1981, William “Bill” Dallas founded mortgage lender First Franklin, and for nearly 30 years, he led the company through multiple ownership changes before its final owner, Merrill Lynch, closed it in 2008.  Since then, Dallas was involved in a number of mortgage-related companies, and while he wasn’t in the business of writing loans, he kept himself busy with other projects.  Now he’s back.  If he’s successful in his newest venture, Skyline Financial, Dallas believes he can change how borrowers and the mortgage industry do business. – HousingWire 

Home > Servicing/Default > Redefault Rates ‘Tragic’, Says Amherst  – by DIANA GOLOBAY – … However, re-performance rates, where payments return to less than two months delinquent, were down and re-default rates “tragic” in November, according to market commentary provided by the firm.  The Amherst report, based on November payment data covering 98% of loans backing private-label MBS, said cash flow velocity continued to decline. … – HousingWire

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   + 

Walking Away – The next real-estate bust – Felix Salmon – Now that Roger Lowenstein has published an article in the NYT Magazine headlined “Walk Away From Your Mortgage!”, I think we can safely stay that what started as a controversial and minority stance has at this point become thoroughly mainstream. (The corollary is that arguments in favor of paying one’s debts are now contrarian.) It’s a credit to Mark Gimein that his blog entry from 14 months ago, entitled “Morally Conflicted About Walking Away? Don’t Be“, was not only one of the first places to make this point, but still stands out as one of the best expressions of the argument. – Reuters

and
David Paul – Demanding that Homeowners Make Good on Underwater Mortgages is the Height of Moral Hypocrisy – Huffington Post

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MORE ON THE FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE MAC FRAUD – by John – I wrote here about a very important story, which originated with Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae, and was broken by Peter Wallison in the Wall Street Journal, that deserves much wider coverage. Everyone knows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities that helped create a market for mortgage-backed securities, played a key role in last year’s financial crisis. But the truth is, apparently, worse than that. It seems that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the U.S. government, in effect–”routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A….” – Powerline Blog

On Wedneday, critically-acclaimed actor Johnny Depp unveiled a life-sized statue of himself during the official opening ceremony of the 3rd Annual Kustendorf Film and Music Festival in the southwestern Serbia mountain village of Mokra Gora.

The festival takes place in Drvengrad, an art village within a village founded and designed by Serbian film director Emir Kusturica. A three-member international jury will award a gold, silver, and bronze egg to the best of 28 films from 18 countries.

Johnny will also receive Kustendorf’s Award for Future Movies. The festival runs through Jan. 19.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” – Alighieri Dante

How exciting! Google has issued a statement saying it’s un-censoring its search results in China! And it’s threatening to pull out of the country completely, in retaliation for an alleged (and, we’re lead to infer, government-backed) attempt to hack the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents!

As a tech story, it has all the makings of a classic diplomacy thriller; a modern-day Cuban Missile Crisis with Google as Adlai Stevenson, waving photos of hacked emails at China’s Valerian Zorin. “Don’t wait for the translation! Just answer yes or no!” Meanwhile, Google slowly provocatively moves photos of Tiananmen tanks back onto it’s Chinese image search.

Unsurprisingly for such a bold move, Google’s statement – that it would no longer be bowing to Chinese censorship, having spent four years doing precisely that – has sparked debate amongst my esteemed friends and colleagues in the blogosphere.

On one side, Robert Scoble has congratulated Google, almost unconditionally. “Google has EVERY INCENTIVE to kiss Chinese ass,” he says, “that’s why this move today impressed me so much.” And to those who say that Google’s behavior to date has been overly sympathetic to the Chinese government? Um, he’s sorry…

“Um, I’m sorry, but when I visited China I heard from many people that of the American companies Google didn’t play the game as well as, say, Yahoo or Microsoft. Remember Yahoo? Remember what they turned over to the Chinese government? When I worked at Microsoft I saw them play footsie with the Chinese government too. Heck, the Chinese president visited Microsoft’s campus when I worked there and got a red-carpet welcome. Why? Because China is a HUGE market and a HUGE supplier of labor that builds Microsoft’s products. It doesn’t matter to me that Google played footsie up until today, either. They were the first to stop playing footsie and THAT deserves a HUGE round of applause.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the debate is TechCrunch’s own Sarah Lacy whose take is pretty well summed up by the title of her post “Google’s China Stance: More about Business than Thwarting Evil“. She asks…

“Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top market share in the country? For one thing, I’d guess that would open them up to shareholder lawsuits. Google is a for-profit, publicly-held company at the end of the day. When I met with Google’s former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.”

So who is right? The Economist seems to be siding with Sarah, quoting her in a piece bearing the punderfully British title ‘Google errs‘. Meantime Robert has support from search expert Danny Sullivan and a Google Spokesperson who writes “This is not about market share. While our revenues from China are really immaterial, we did just have our best ever quarter [in China].”

The truth is I don’t know who precisely why Google made its decision. I wasn’t in the room when it was discussed. But here’s one thing I do know: anyone who is applauding Google for taking a stand against censorship needs – ironically – to sit the hell down and shut the hell up.

For four years, Google complied with the Chinese government’s demands that they censor search results. It did this in the hope of becoming the number one search engine in China, a goal it failed to achieve. You can argue – reasonably – that there’s nothing wrong with Google operating under the laws of a country, much as eBay is banned from listing Nazi memorabilia in Germany. Self-censorship is the cost of doing business in China, and it’s a price that Google decided was worth paying. Or you can take completely the opposite view: calling Google evil for ever setting foot in Beijing.

But whatever your view, you have to accept that Google spent four years, and earned vast sums of money, operating under China’s censorship laws. And now only when they suffer an attack that threatens to damage their business worldwide – “What? The communists can hack my Gmail?” – have they suddenly found a conscience.

This may be a case of scorched-earth diplomacy on the part of Google, it may just be pure retaliation against a government which tried to hack their servers or it may be a shrewd business move dressed up as “taking a stand”. But what it’s absolutely not is a “moral position”, nor one that they should be particularly applauded for, any more than a man who has spend four years beating his wife should be applauded when he decides to stop. If anyone should be applauded it’s the man who didn’t beat his wife in the first place: companies like Twitter and Facebook whose refusal to work with the Chinese government lead to them being blocked last July.

Taking a moral position four years too late – whether you’re the first or the last to do so – is like suddenly declaring that you oppose the Iraq war now you’re no longer standing for the Senate or renouncing your own steroid abuse once you’ve retired from professional sports. Which is to say, it’s taking no moral position at all.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Well, this might be awkward: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel will appear on The Jay Leno Show, NBC’s fleeting primetime variety hour, this Thursday, Jan. 14, the network said Wednesday evening. The host of Jimmy Kimmel Live will get in the hot seat for Jay’s “Ten @ Ten” – a popular question and answer segment that has featured guests like Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian, and Kate Gosselin.

The announcement comes just one day after Jimmy seemed to align himself with Conan O’Brien in The Peacock’s brewing battle over the face of late night. Kimmel donned a prosthetic chin and grey wig and spoofed Leno for more than an hour on Tuesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live.

On Sunday, NBC announced that it will move The Jay Leno Show to 11:35 PM, forcing Conan’s Tonight Show into the 12:05 AM timeslot beginning next month. NBC is scrapping the cost-cutting experiment that put Leno on TV at 10 PM because the show earned poor ratings and backlash from local TV stations that said it hurt the local 11 PM newscasts that followed. Conan has since announced that he will no longer host the late night show if he is bumped for Leno.

If you’re a gamer who doesn’t own an Xbox 360 or PS3, then you’ve been left out in the cold as it pertains to Netflix streaming. All of that changes this Spring, though, as Netflix and Nintendo have announced a partnership that will allow you to stream Netflix instant content using your Wii console. Similar to the Playstation 3 scenario, you’ll have to insert a Netflix disc in order to view content, as opposed to the Xbox 360 method, which has Netflix built right in to the dashboard. No firm date has been announced just yet, but the Netflix streaming disc will be free with the cost of your Netflix subscription.

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This morning ReadWriteWeb accompanied The Great Wall Club (a group of Chinese mobile executives) to Google for a look at some of the company’s development tools. While Developer Relations Manager Patrick Chanezon was unable to comment on yesterday’s news of Google’s threat to cease operations in China he did show off some impressive demos utilizing HTML 5.

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In late December 2008, ReadWriteWeb ran a story entitled, 5 exciting Things to Look Forward to in HTML 5. At the time we were excited that HTML 5’s canvas element would allow for scripting on the fly. In addition to the canvas API, HTML 5’s audio/video tags and the O3D API (3D rendering) provide developers with powerful tools for rendering graphics and applications in the browser. Chanezon explained how real-time processing on the client side would dramatically increase the speed of cloud-based applications – a particularly important point for mobile developers. Additionally, unlike Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight, HTML 5 is plug-in free and non-proprietary. With little more than a few lines of javascript and the HTML 5 APIs Chanezon showed us the potential of the new specification.

1. O3D Beach Demo: The enclosed demo shows how fast it is to change whole portions of an application when editing in-browser.

2. Flash-like Demo: 9elements created a project that resembles a flash application but encompasses the use of a variety of HTML 5-related tools. For more information on the experiment, check out the company’s blog post.

3. Drum Kit Demo: Brian Arnold’s HTML 5 Drum Kit is an open source web-based sequencer that records your sample options and reflects your loop in the browser. (Works best in Firefox)

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If you’re an aspiring author who’s been wanting to publish a book, or if you’ve got a blog that you think would be fantastic as a printed work, pay attention. FastPencil has hooked us up with 10 giveaway packages that will let you take your work and put it into a physical, published form, for free. In case you aren’t aware, FastPencil is a super-simple way for anyone to write, organize, sell, and distribute physical books, as well as ebooks. Ten of you will win:

• A free printed book
• A free eBook
• Free shipping and handling

In order to redeem, you’d just put in your original work in the FastPencil system, or if you have a blog, it can be automatically imported. Seriously, it’s very cool, and we’re gonna hook up 10 of you with the prize package. How do you enter? Simple. Just leave a comment here on this post, or over on the Gear Live Facebook page. We will choose ten people randomly a week from today!

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Filed under: Detroit Auto Show, Coupe, Videos, Cadillac

When Cadillac unveiled the 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe at the Detroit Auto Show, we were so interested taking in the 556 horsepower Caddy to pay much attention to the introductory video. That was a mistake. The creative types at the the Wreath and Crest cut together an epic spot of nature’s might that would have made Maurice White proud.

After the jump you’ll find one of the cooler press conference videos we’ve seen on stage. Hurricanes, atom bombs, lightning bolts and the sun come together to show off the all-powerful Caddy. And if you’re not into nature, the CTS-V Coupe hooks you up with power slides and slo-mo athleticism. There was no hiding the fact that the CTS-V isn’t exactly in line with some of the greener wares at the show, so Cadillac had no choice but to embrace its baddest coupe’s scorched earth goodness. Mother Nature might need to change her pantsuit.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe is ele-MENTAL

Video: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe is ele-MENTAL originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scouring the App Store for the best games is a full time job. Luckily, it’s a job held by the guys over at Touch Arcade. Here are their picks for the best games—and only games—available on the iPhone.

While the App Store had clearly been a huge success in 2008, the continued growth and explosion of iPhone game releases in 2009 was beyond everyone’s expectations. The number of apps in the App Store soared past 100,000 with hundreds of new games being released every day.

We sat down trying to figure out the best iPhone games of 2009 and found the task of narrowing down the list to a select few to be near impossible. Instead, we’ve organized our year in review into categories with what we feel is an excellent cross section of games from 2009. If you just got an iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas, this list is an excellent starting place to catch you up.

2009 iPhone Game of the Year

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor – We choose Tiger Style Games’ Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor for our 2009 Game of the Year first and foremost because it’s a great game, but also because it perfectly represents the promise of iPhone gaming. Spider is an original concept built specifically for the iPhone by a small self funded team. It’s this low barrier to entry which provides customers with a huge selection of games including unique and polished gems like Spider. You really should experience this one. (Review, App Store)

Classics

Doodle Jump – While we have to give props to PapiJump as the clear inspiration for Doodle Jump, Lima Sky has managed to take the game to a whole new level and succeeded in creating a true iPhone classic. Doodle Jump has sold over a million copies to date and even been casually referenced on primetime TV sitcoms. Every day we hear from up and coming developers who claim they have come up with “the next Doodle Jump” but so far Lima Sky’s title hasn’t truly been dethroned. (Review, App Store)

Flight Control – Another iPhone game that will go down in history as one of the classics for the platform. Firemint’s CEO Rob Murray took some of his free time during last year’s Christmas break to whip up a prototype of a game that eventually became Flight Control. The game has single handedly defined a genre on the iPhone of “line drawing” games and has been endlessly imitated throughout the year. (Review, App Store)

iDracula – iDracula was one of the original dual-stick survival shooters. It wasn’t the first, but it’s the one that popularized the concept and opened the doors to a ton of play-alikes. (Article, App Store)

Only on iPhone

Zen Bound – Ok, technically this started life as a PC Game, but Zen Bound didn’t really come into its own until it became an iPhone game in 2009. The game just came to life on the iPhone with multi-touch and tilt controls along with mood and music to perfectly and completely engross you as a player. An experience as much as a game. (Review, App Store)

Eliss – A multi-touch masterpiece. Eliss delivers a unique, challenging and undeniably iPhone experience. Pinching and combining on-screen planets without letting them touch make for some frantic and riveting gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Sway – The unique multi-touch “swinging” controls of Sway may have ultimately been its downfall. If you can master the steep learning curve of the game’s controls, an amazing iPhone platforming experience awaits. (Review, App Store)

Space Ninja – A great use of the iPhone’s accelerometer that allows you to dodge enemy fire and invoke slow motion “bullet time”. Unfortunately, a recent 3GS update adds some strange and distracting visual effects, though the developer is said to be working on making those optional in a future release. (Review, App Store)

Arcade

Meteor Blitz – This is the best space shooter we’ve seen for the iPhone. It delivers 6 unlockable worlds with a good variety of enemies, perfect dual stick controls, and a lot of fun. The art and animation are top notch with all the flourishes you’d expect. (Review, App Store)

Space Invaders Infinity Gene – A really fresh and amazing modernization of the classic Space Invaders formula. Great controls, plenty of unlockables, as well as a unique music-based level generator. (Review, App Store)

Pac Man CE – Developed by the original Pac-Man designer, Tōru Iwatani, Pac-Man Championship Edition succeeds in breathing new life in to this arcade classic. With great controls, colorful graphics, and fast-paced game modes, Pac-Man Championship Edition is by far the best Pac-Man game on the platform. (Review, App Store)

I Dig It / I Dig It Expeditions – Take your tractor turned subterranean digger underground to search for valuable diggins to save the family farm. In the sequel, you take your digger on the road and search for lost treasure in several different environments including the antarctic and even underwater. Both games in the series are worth owning, although Expeditions does offer improvements over the original. (Review, I Dig It / I Dig It Expeditions)

Platformer

Rolando 2 – Sequel to one of the iPhone’s early original games, Rolando 2 did great justice to the series with 3D level effects, more great music and larger levels. (Review, App Store)

Soosiz – This game adopts the usual trappings of a traditional 2d platformer but perfectly mixes in a gravity defying mechanism that turns out to be a lot more than just a cute gimmick. Combine that with great controls and a ton of content, and you have one of our favorite iPhone games. (Review, App Store)

Hook Champ – Take the same swinging gameplay mechanics popularized by other games, add an RPG style equipment upgrade system, seamless online leaderboards, and fantastic pixelated retro graphics and you’ve got Hook Champ. (Review, App Store)

Retro Games

Saucelifter – A wonderful Choplifter-inspired action shooter with great controls that should appeal to both retro and modern gamers. (Review, App Store)

Rogue Touch – The definitive version of Rogue on the App Store. Consistently updated throughout the year based on community feedback, and enhanced for the iPhone. All the brutal difficulty of the original remains, and there’s even online leaderboards tracking the wealthiest saviors of the Amulet of Yendor. (Review, App Store)

Sword of Fargoal – By far the most approachable roguelike, Sword of Fargoal is a classic dungeon crawler with randomly generated levels which provide nearly infinite replay value. Aside from being a fantastic game, Sword of Fargoal also serves as an excellent example of how retro ports should be done. The iPhone version preserves the look and feel of the original while adding new OpenGL effects and other modern graphical flare. If you’ve never played a roguelike before, Sword of Fargoal is a great introduction to the genre. (Review, App Store)

Beneath a Steel Sky – An iPhone adaptation of the classic point and click adventure. While we loved the compete overhaul of Secret of Monkey Island which is absent from this release, Beneath a Steel Sky delivered something even better: great iPhone controls. A classic adventure game that is worthy for both fans and newcomers to the series. (Review, App Store)

Racing

Real Racing – Perhaps we should have categorized this as a “classic”, but Real Racing was the first iPhone racing game that really blew us away. The great graphics, perfect controls and AI all combined to make this one of the best iPhone racing games that still holds up today. (Review, App Store)

Need for Speed Shift – EA’s latest entry in to the genre can easily stand next to the best racing games on the platform in terms of the amount of included licensed materials, different game modes, and overall fun-factor. With control settings and driving assist options that range from the game practically playing itself to a competent racing simulation complete with a manual transmission mode, Need For Speed: Shift is a must-have for any fan of racing games. (Review, App Store)

2XL ATV Offroad – We described this as a “console quality” iPhone racer. The game is technically impressive with beautiful graphics and manages to combine it with varied tracks, a proper career mode and Wi-Fi multiplayer to deliver one of the best racers in the App Store. (Review, App Store)

Jet Car Stunts – A remarkably fun jet car racer/platformer that had us coming back again and again due to its great controls, fresh visual style and mind boggling levels. The only real complaint we’ve seen voiced has been the relative difficulty of the game, but, honestly, that’s what made it so addicting. (Review, App Store)

Puzzle

Toki Tori – A cute and challenging puzzle platformer that has been excellently adapted to the iPhone. Beautifully animated and ramps up nicely to provide plenty of gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Bobby Carrot Forever – Another excellent level-based puzzle game that requires you to navigate obstacles in order to collect all the carrots and reach the exit. 60 levels provide a refreshingly challenging puzzle game that offers well over 15 hours of gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Casual

Canabalt – This isn’t a particularly deep game. In fact, the average gaming session is probably measured in seconds rather than minutes. But with its simplicity and style, it managed to keep us coming back again and again. You can try out the identical Flash version for free at Canabalt.com. (Review, App Store)

Boost 3D – We might not have been too over the top about the game when we first reviewed it, but over time we realized that Boost 3D is a game that we love to play. There’s something hypnotic about this tunnel runner that had us coming back to play it again and again. (Review, App Store)

Harbor Master – Among the first of the avalanche of Flight Control inspired games, Harbor Master mixes things up by having the player dock cargo ships and send them back out to sea on a variety of different levels– Each with a different layout and some with additional gameplay elements such as pirate ships to shoot or sea monsters to fight off. (Review, App Store)

Labyrinth 2 – The sequel to the game that pioneered the marble rolling genre on the iPhone before the App Store even existed, Labyrinth 2 takes the standard wooden labyrinth game and adds even more obstacles, fantastic 3D graphics, and a full featured online level editor. The user created content community has already exploded and you can load up Labyrinth 2 every day and have a new batch of levels to play through, all of which download almost instantly inside of the game. (Review, App Store)

First Person Shooters

Eliminate Pro – We know some readers were unable to get past this game’s pay model, but we’ve logged more hours in this game than almost every other… and we never paid a single penny for it. Online FPS deathmatch with our friends and quick sessions throughout the day kept us playing this regularly. (Review, App Store)

N.O.V.A. – Drawing inspiration from Sci-Fi console classics, NOVA is a surprisingly complete and full featured iPhone first person shooter. With an epic single player campaign that will take you several hours to complete, graphics which are among the best currently available on the platform, and four player online deathmatch modes, NOVA has successfully lived up to the insane amount of pre-release hype. (Review, App Store)

Word

Bookworm – A game that should need no introduction, Popcap’s word searching classic fits great on the iPhone. The touch controls work effortlessly, and the gameplay is perfect for the casual play style of many iPhone gamers. (Review, App Store)

Words with Friends – Asynchronous online multiplayer not-quite-Scrabble that can either be played for free with in-game ads or without for a couple bucks. A recent update added push notifications to tell you when it’s your turn and according to Newtoy, the average player spends 1.5 hours each day playing. (Review, App Store)

Weird/Funny Games

Enviro-Bear 2010 – The best bear driving a car simulator available on any platform. Aside from just being a really crazy game, Enviro-Bear 2010 features some really clever interactions between items and if you survive long enough you’ll even earn yourself a slick coon skin cap. (Review, App Store)

Must Eat Birds – This simple slingshot-powered pastry defense game is delightfully Japanese, its ridiculous premise is rivaled only by “maximum bake” mode which must be experienced to truly appreciate. (Review, App Store)

Hi, How Are You – A wonderful tribute to the life, music, and art of Daniel Johnston– And a fun puzzle platformer game with great cell shaded graphics to boot. If you’ve never heard of Daniel Johnston, Hi, How Are You is a good place to start. (Review, App Store)

Battle Bears – The ridiculous premise of this survival shooter involving a bear commando mowing down swarms of pink bears that spew rainbows when they die is worth the price of admission alone. As if the game couldn’t get more silly, a recent update added a Colbear boss, zombie bears, and even a rap theme song. (Review, App Store)

Cult Classics

Minigore – This dual stick shooter isn’t necessarily any better than other dual stick shooters on the platform, but the extent that it has managed to captivate our community is rivaled by very few games. Stricken by problems with Apple’s approval process, MiniGore is only now beginning to see the features Mountain Sheep intended on implementing long ago. (Review, App Store)

Pocket God – It’s hard to even categorize or summarize Pocket God. Existing somewhere in between a entertainment app and a collection of mini games, Bolt Creative has managed to amass an army of millions of fans worldwide by consistently releasing free content updates and making players feel like they’re a part of the project by constantly interacting with and implementing ideas generated by the community. You KNOW you like Pocket God. (Review, App Store)

Strategy

geoDefense / geoDefense Swarm – Whether you prefer open field or fixed path tower defense games, the geoDefense series are among the best available on the platform. Featuring difficulty levels that range from difficult to really really difficult, geoDefense is balanced in a way which will always keep you on your toes. (Review, geoDefense / Swarm)

Defender Chronicles – This odd hybrid between a tower defense game and an RPG has seen an absolute ridiculous amount of content added to it since its initial release. 20 different types of units, hundreds of items, multiple difficulty levels and game modes along with online leaderboards and voiceovers make Defender Chronicles among the best in its genre. (Review, App Store)

Chess with Friends – The iPhone equivalent to snail mail correspondence chess– You can play the ad-based version for free, or upgrade to the premium version to play without ads. Recently added push notifications that alert you when its your turn and an endless supply of human opponents makes this the best chess game available on the platform. (Article, App Store)

Role Playing

Zenonia – While the amount of grinding to level up may have lessened the experience for some, Zenonia still seems to be the benchmark that most RPG’s are compared to amongst our community. The game will take you around 40 hours to complete, and the five included character classes will tempt you to play through it multiple times. (Review, App Store)

Underworlds – A great dungeon crawler with tons of monsters to slay and loot to pick up. Underworlds was the first of its kind on the platform, and a recent content update made it even better.
(Review, App Store)

Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone – The sequel of The Chronicles of Inotia sports considerable improvements to nearly all aspects of the game. Multiple character classes, a well designed battle system, mercenaries that can be added to your party, and a surprisingly full featured online component combine in to a game that will be hard for fans of roleplaying games to pass up. (Review, App Store)

Ravensword – While this RPG may lack some gameplay elements which have become standard in modern games, it marks an amazing accomplishment in iPhone development. Created by a team of two, RavenSword features an expansive and beautiful open world filled with quests to complete, hidden areas to find, and countless monsters to slay. (Review, App Store)

Physics

Peggle – If you don’t know what Peggle is by now, you must have spent the past few years on Mars with your eyes closed and fingers in your ears. Inspired by pachinko and loaded with style, gratuitous graphical effects, and the Ode To Joy, this may be the perfect casual game. (Review, App Store)

Ragdoll Blaster – Fire ragdolls out of a cannon to complete over 100 different levels. Frustrating at times, Ragdoll Blaster is fun enough to keep you coming back for more– Even after you’ve spent the last 15 minutes retrying the same level so many times that you lost count. (Review, App Store)

iBlast Moki – The goal is to get the Mokis from point A to point B through the use of bombs, ropes, balloons, wheels and more as you traverse through the 6 worlds and 70 levels. The overall quality of iBlast Moki as well as the inclusion of a level editor with sharable levels make this game really stand out. (Review, App Store)

Sports

Baseball Superstars 2010 – Not only a great baseball game, it is also packed with RPG elements that add an amazing amount of depth. Aside from playing standard games of baseball, both super batters and super pitchers can be leveled up in season modes. These characters can be customized in a number of ways, allowing for hours upon hours of gameplay with each character. (Review, App Store)

Homerun Battle 3D – This one will always be known as Baseball Slugger to us, but since changed its name to Homerun Battle 3D. If you’re not a sports game fan, don’t let the sports theme throw you off, Homerun Battle 3D is one of the best. It also represented the first massively successful online matchup system we’ve seen in the App Store allowing you to easily compete head-to-head against others around the world. (Review, App Store)

Backbreaker Football – While nowhere near as deep as the “full” football games on the platform, Backbreaker is probably more fun. The game is laid out in series of challenges where you guide your player to the end zone, hopefully scoring bonus points by “showboating”. (Review, App Store)

Let’s Golf – The closest thing available on the App Store to Hot Shots Golf. This arcade golf game features 63 holes, local multiplayer, and different control modes that appeal to both casual players and those looking for a slightly more technical game of golf. (Review, App Store)

Conclusion

We spent weeks sorting through the hundreds of games we’ve reviewed this year, and found excuse after excuse to keep adding to the list. Even so, there were still plenty of games we quite enjoyed that didn’t make it to this list. Feel free to add your suggestions to the comments if we missed one of your favorites.

This post originally appeared on Touch Arcade

TouchArcade obsessively covers the latest, greatest, and most noteworthy iPhone games on a daily basis. If you’re looking for a new timewaster for your iPhone, look no further.

Filed under: New York Auto Show, SUV, Infiniti, Nissan, Luxury

The panjandrums behind the New York Auto Show are happy to announce that Nissan and Infiniti will both be there this April. Not only that, Infiniti will be bringing a new, and very large, toy to unveil: the redesigned 2011 QX56 SUV. New York is Nissan’s premier designated market area, which could mean a lot for the fortunes of an SUV some thought would have already shuffle off this mortal coil.

Last year Nissan sounded a little bearish on the entire auto show enterprise, but that sentiment appears to have been forgotten entirely – it has eight new models on the way this year and will need to show them off. Now if we could just get them to add a ninth, that Essence coupe, we’d be as happy as the NYIAS folks. You can have a look at a couple angles of the QX56 in the gallery below.

[Source: NYIAS]

Nissan and Infiniti coming to New York Auto Show with 2011 QX56 in tow originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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President Obama believes scandal-scarred golf ace Tiger Woods can reclaim his life after that humiliating sex scandal that linked the sportsman to a bevy of shameless mistresses.

“I don’t want to comment on his personal relationship with his wife and family, but I’m a strong believer that anybody can look within themselves, find their flaws and fix them,” the Commander-In-Chief said in an interview with the Jan. 25 issue of PEOPLE Magazine, on newsstands Friday.

The President met the PGA champ when Woods was given a tour of The White House last summe. Obama believes the philandering Tiger can “absolutely” be rehabilitated if he’s a sex addict. The President is sure that Woods feels “terrible” about his indiscretions, and Obama “suspects that he will try to put his life back together again.”

Announced last month, D-Link is entering the mobile 3G router space with a suspiciously MiFi-esque product dubbed “myPocket” that pushes up to 7.2Mbps worth of HSPA over a portable WiFi cloud. The device — model number DIR-457 — has just been blessed with FCC approval today, which is a particularly good thing considering that it offers North American 3G compatibility on the 850 and 1900MHz bands. D-Link is no stranger to the 3G router market — it’s been making them for several years, actually, but this would be the first model that looks pocketable (hence the name, we suppose). It’s not shipping Stateside just yet, but between this and Novatel’s offerings, AT&T’s got to make a move at some point.

D-Link’s adorable myPocket 3G router gets FCC approval originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news, everybody! If you’re looking into one of Asus’s Eee Box 1501 nettops but weren’t exactly into the built-in DVD burner, well, better days may be ahead. It looks like a new version of the 1501 is on its way, this time packing Blu-ray. In case you’ve forgotten the specs, the Eee Box 1501 packs NVIDIA’s Ion chipset, an Intel Atom 330 dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and an HDMI port for good measure. There’s no official word on this yet, but the release of the Blu-ray boasting updated nettop looks likely for Switzerland in the near future, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more information.

Asus Eee Box 1501 with Blu-ray on its way to Switzerland originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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