To help support Freddie For A Day (FFAD) and to commemorate his birthday on September 5th, legendary Queen front man, the late Freddie Mercury will become an honorary member of the flock of Angry Birds. This is part of a unique partnership between FFAD, a charity and Rovio Entertainment, creators of the Angry Birds App.
Archive for the ‘The Web We Weave’ Category
When Zuckerberg grills everyone listens
With the price of Facebook shares dropping to about 50% of their issue price, Mark Zuckerberg and company is likely no longer the darling of Wall Street but regardless, people are certainly still willing not only to hear what he has to say, but also about what’s on his barbecue.
On Sunday, Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook account that he was updating his grilling app iGrill and that caused the servers at iDevices, makers of the gadget, to literally get smoked.
iGrill is a nifty little device with a probe attachment, compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, that allows you to monitor the temperature of what’s cooking on your barbecue. Its accompanying app allows you to monitor the iGrill thermometer from up to 200 feet away via long-range Bluetooth.
According to Chris Allen, CEO, iDevices, the company had quietly rolled out Facebook integration so that you could share with your friends and let them see what you’re grilling right now. They were not planning a major media blitz and figured that the new feature would slowly gain traction.
But of course, Zuckerberg changed all that. They had no idea what he had done nor did they realize that the impact would be so huge it would overload their servers and shut down their site for two hours.
“We were caught totally off guard by Mark Zuckerberg’s post and the immediate influx of traffic,” said Allen.
Allen realized that a quick add-on of servers and bandwidth was needed immediately. Interestingly enough, while excited about what had transpired, Allen quickly dispelled the rumor that iGrill or iDevices had received any actual investment from Zuckerberg, although he would of course welcome the opportunity to work with him. So there’s nothing cooking there yet.
Striking while the coals are still hot, for a limited time, iGrill is offering free domestic shipping (up to $12) when using the code ZUCK during the checkout from iGrillinc.com We still need to confirm this for Canada.
It’s also available online through the Apple Store in Canada for $79.95 CDN, with free shipping included, automatically. The free app can be downloaded from the iTunes Store.
photos courtesy: iDevices, Facebook
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Greg Gazin is the Real Canadian Gadget Guy.
Follow me on Twitter @gadgetgreg or Empire Avenue (e)GADGET1.
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Keep your Mac free from Flashback/Flashfake malware
In a movie or a book a flashback takes you from where you are, back to a moment in time. But if your Mac has one of a number of variants of Flashback or Flashfake, it likely means that your computer is infected with malware designed to allow cyber bad guys to install malicious code on your computer. It can do things ranging from generating fake search engine results, generating profits for cyber criminals via “click fraud”, to data theft and spam distribution and even use your computer as a bot for other purposes.
Google Wave Sunsets Soon
There have been all kinds of metaphors used to describe the demise of Google Wave and regardless to whether it’s waving goodbye, going out with the tide or hitting the rocks, Google Wave will be “sunsettting” for good at the end of next month.
Dragon Age: Redemption dissapoints, for now at least
I really wanted to post a raving review of the first episode of Dragon Age: Redemption, a new web series set in the same universe as Bioware’s fantasy RPG Dragon Age: II.
I wanted to boast that it’s a revolution in video game adaption and praise it for being competently written and beautifully acted. I wanted to do this because it was written by and stars Felicia Day. (Full disclosure: I’m a total total Felicia Day fangirl.)
Instead, my review can be summed up, underwhelmingly, as such: Neat looking, kind of confusing, enjoyably violent and at times cheesy.
The episode opens with epic music and Star Wars-esque flashes of text explaining the background of universe the show is set in and the social conflicts that define it. But these textplanations — and maybe this because I haven’t actually played the games — left me more confused than informed. The episode didn’t do much to clear things up, either. Not quite understanding what the stakes were, it was hard to be invested in the plot.
Rob Bricken of nerd-blog Topless Robot echoed these sentiments
I have absolutely no clue what’s going on. I thought having played Dragon Age: Origins three solid times would have left me at least partially able to follow along, but after the words “Chantry Prison” I lost it.
Day plays a quick-witted, ass-kicking killer elf named Tallis, who is more than a match for men twice her size, which I must admit, is right up my alley. I’m hoping to see her become more developed as the series progresses and prove a three-dimentional character, not just the predictable “strong female character” stereotype writers lazily use to fill the pop-culture gender gap. So far, she’s snarky and strong, but not much else.
Having so long associated Day with her self-based, spazzy gamer-geek character Cyd from The Guild, it’s hard to watch her run around with pointy ears and not think of it as cosplay. Mike Fahey of gaming blog Kotaku said much the same, noting the series “feels like a bunch of friends spending the weekend in the woods role-playing.”
Felicia can’t help it. It’s part of her charm that she comes across as the sort of geeky girl-next-door that you might find donning the cloak of convenient hood dropping for a weekend in the woods, ten miles north of the nearest Denny’s. When I see her in elf ears I’m thinking, “Oh look, it’s Felicia in fake elf ears.” I’m sure if I were to purchase and play Dragon Age II’s Mark of the Assassin downloadable content, also making its debut today, my reaction would be, “Oh look, it’s virtual Felicia Day in fake elf ears.”
These concerns aside, the show has promise. The first episode throws you into the thick of it, reminiscent the Game of Thrones pilot, making it hard to get immediately hooked. But GoT grew on its viewers over time, engulfing a legion of new fans into its vast and fascinating universe. Dragon Age: Redemption has this potential, too. It’s gorgeous, fun and bloody, and the world is definitely intriguing.
It also left me feeling a desire to play Dragon Age: II, which I suppose means it did exactly what it was designed to do as a spin-off of a recently released game.
Basically, it’s too soon to tell whether it will live up to the hype. But I want it to. Boy do I want it to.
