Samsung’s Bada 1.2 SDK goes gold
Just a little more than three months after the release of the final 1.0 SDK , Samsung has gone gold with version 1.2, proving that it can go tit-for-tat with Android in releasing new operating system versions at a ridiculous pace. Of course, in Bada's case, it's only Samsung developing devices -- so we imagine they have the situation under control. The big new feature in 1.2 would be support for the latest batch of Bada phones in the marketplace like the Wave 575 and Wave II , but you've also got improved Flash support and a full OpenGL ES implementation, both of which should bump up Bada's street cred in the gaming community
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: bada, gaming, mobile, operating, samsung, sdk, street, Versions
Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Gaming
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide ! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Sit back, relax, grab a controller, and enjoy some obsessive-compulsive button mashing while you work in that body-sized groove into the couch..
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: exertion, gaming, groove, guide, hgg, hgg 2010, holiday, seasonal, suggestions, trash, treasures
Sony Ericsson Z-System: the PlayStation Phone’s gaming platform?
A bumper crop of circumstantial evidence surrounding the Android-based PlayStation Phone is starting to come together today -- when it rains, it pours, as they say -- and one particularly interesting thread suggests that the ecosystem surrounding the device might be called "Z-System." An astute tipster notes that the term appears in the upper left of one of our shots, which maps to a domain -- z-system.com, naturally -- that's owned by Sony Ericsson. Turns out the company also holds trademarks for Z-System in the US and Benelux trademark offices (among others, presumably) that were filed (and approved) this year, and the filing category includes "software for interacting or playing with electronic or video games," not hardware, so that strongly suggests we're looking at a platform here. We suppose it's possible that this specific device will be called Z-System, but we're going to float the theory that its actually underlying gaming platform that'll bear that name -- possibly a premium game store and set of software libraries that together will earn a device the Z-System badge.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: circumstantial, ecosystem, filing-category, games, gaming, phone, playstationphone, rumor, sony, theory, video
RIM introduces PlayBook — the BlackBerry tablet
Today at Research In Motion's annual BlackBerry Developer Conference, CEO Mike Lazaridis announced the company's new tablet -- the PlayBook. The tablet will utilize an OS created by the recently acquired QNX (just as we'd heard previous to the announcement) called the BlackBerry Tablet OS which will offer full OpenGL and POSIX support alongside web standards such as HTML5 (which is all tied into RIM's new WebWorks SDK).
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: blackberry playbook, breakingnews, cortex, cortex-a9-based, entry, gaming, megapixel, rim
Sony Ericsson’s CEO promises ‘big surprises in the next few months’ (video)
The grand opening of Sony Ericsson's new Americas HQ in Atlanta isn't the sort of thing we spend sleepless nights thinking about, but a PSP Phone is . It's mighty encouraging, therefore, to hear the company's CEO Bert Nordberg tease "big surprises" coming from his team over the next few months
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: bertnordberg, Boss, cutting, entry, gaming, never-announce, Opening, phone, sony-ericsson, spend-sleepless
iControlPad heads into production, support for other phones promised
It's been promised for years and was said to have gone into production before , but it looks like this time it's for real -- that's the very first iControlPad fresh off the production line pictured above. No orders are being taken just yet, but that's promised to be announced soon on Craig Rothwell's Twitter feed (linked below), and the first run is said to be limited to 3,000 units, which are expected to sell out fast. It looks like that's just the beginning for the peripheral, though -- Rothwell is also promising to support additional phones in the future, which can be accommodated simply by swapping out the two side pieces.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: announced-soon, craig, engadget, gaming, head-on-past, history, iphone, phones, pieces, production, rothwell, Saga, sell-out-fast, the-peripheral, the-production
Exclusive: Sony Ericsson to introduce Android 3.0 gaming platform and PSP Go-like smartphone
There's no question that gaming on the Android platform has heretofore been relatively underwhelming, but that looks like it's all about to change. It seems that Sony Ericsson -- a company that has yet to even introduce an Android 2.0 device -- is at work on a project to redefine gaming on Google's mobile platform
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: ecosystem, ericsson, gamechanger, gaming, gaming-platform, mobile, psp, psp2, result, sony, sony-ericsson, sony-ericsson-xperia
Android versus iPhone live multiplayer gaming made possible in SGN’s Skies of Glory
Shocking as this might sound, there are no only a few games in which iPhone and Android users can go at each other in live multiplayer mode. Exploiting this vast void is Social Gaming Network, whose Skies of Glory aerial dogfighting title has been ported to Android (2.0 and above) while retaining the ability to communicate with iOS devices over WiFi, 3G or Bluetooth connections. Frankly, we can't think of a better game to get the cross-platform multiplayer movement going: fAndroids and iPhoneys gunning each other down while talking smack to themselves should prove therapeutic for both parties.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: done-the-cross, exception, game, games, gaming, homerun, network, raging-thunder
Gyroscope gunning on the iPhone 4 with Eliminate: Gun Range (video)
We'd heard earlier that ngmoco's new game Eliminate: Gun Range was one of the first apps to really take advantage of the iPhone 4 's gyroscope, and now that we've had a chance to play with it, we've got say there's a ton of potential here. E:GR is itself just a simple shooter, but the gyroscope adds what seems like nearly 1:1 motion control to the proceedings -- and since you're moving the display itself, it almost feels like augmented reality. It's hard to explain, since it's so unlike any mobile UI experience we've encountered before, but as soon as we tried it our brains pretty much exploded with possibilities -- we're thinking drastic improvements to actual augmented reality apps like Layar , all kinds of crazy flight simulator games, much more refined GPS apps, you name it.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: eliminate: gun range, entry, game, gaming, gunrange, gyroscope-adds, iphone, like-augmented, proceedings, shooter
Microsoft luring iPhone game devs to Windows Phone 7 with cold, hard cash?
A solid third-party app ecosystem is going to be absolutely critical to Windows Phone 7's commercial success -- and Microsoft clearly knows that, having spent nearly as much (if not more) energy talking to developers since the platform's announcement than it has directly to potential end users.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: cash, commercial, gaming, iphone, microsoft, money, nearly-as-much, party, success, windowsphone, windowsphone7