It has been stated by the apple developers that the i-phone is truly a gaming device and it will overtake the portable gaming device Nintendo DS. Well, i-phone is not only a gaming device — it’s a mini computer with internet access. You can buy the games online and play them in minutes from the online stores. But will it become a serious gaming device?

I-phone is fairly expensive than the DS at the moment and also DS has a lot of cool games. DS has a bigger user base than the i-phone. Most of the games that the i-phone offers are for the casual gamer and this is perfect considering the kind of owners the i-phone has.

To challenge the other portable gaming devices a much wider spectrum of game types is needed. The i-phone has an advantage over other handhelds having a bigger storage memory, but after your music,applications, docs etc. you are not really left with much space.

I think Apple has many things going against the i-phone to call it a gaming machine. Maybe in future when new gen. devices hit the market Apple might have a upper hand.

Tell us what you think about i-phone, is it really a gaming device or not?

1. Apple Updates

Apple created a lot of buzz this week by releasing iPod Nano, new iPod touch, iTunes 8 and today they released updated iPhone firmware version 2.1.

i) New iPod Nano

This week Apple released the fourth generation iPod Nano which boasts of being the thinnest and colorful iPod ever.

The new iPod includes an accelerometer which lets you shuffle songs by shaking the iPod Nano. The new Genius feature finds the songs based on your listening habits and makes a Genius playlist for you. The 8 GB version ships for USD 149 while 16 GB for USD 199.

ii) New iPod Touch

The second generation iPod Touch was also rolled out this week by Apple. With its sleek design and built in speakers and new volume controls it feels good to have it in your hand. It also includes the genius playlist creation feature

iii) iPhone Firmware 2.1

The iPhone firmware 2.1 was released today. You can get updated firmware by connecting iPhone to PC and then checking for updates via iTunes. The major updates of new firmware are:

1. Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
2. Significantly better battery life for most users
3. Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
4. Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
5. Faster installation of 3rd party applications
6. Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
7. Improved performance in text messaging
8. Faster loading and searching of contacts
9. Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
10. Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
11. Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
12. Genius playlist creation

2. WordPress 2.6.2 Released

WordPress released version 2.6.2 which is a must have upgrade in case you allow open registrations on your blog.  Here’s what wordpress developers say to upgrade to latest version

With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password.  The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit.  However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.

Download WordPress 2.6.2

3. FriendFeed Redesigned

Friendfeed released its new design to everyone which was earlier available as a preview. The new design features improved navigation, easier to use friend lists, improved posting interface with simple and clean looks.

4. Access Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail on AOL

In an effort to improve user experience, AOL will now add content from other service providers. Now you’ll be able to preview your e-mails from gmail, yahoo or hotmail on AOL pages. And if you don’t like previewing e-mail on AOl, you can add other content like Music, Radio, eBay etc.

AOL also plans to integrate social networks like Facebook on its homepage with a new refreshing look of AOL homepage to be released in October this year.

5. FIFA 2009 Demo Released

All you Football Fans out there, get ready for some FIFA fun. FIFA 09 demo is out now for PC , PS3 and XBOX 360. The demo includes an exhibition match with 2 minutes of each half and a Be a Pro mode with which you control a single player for whole match.

FIFA 2009 is set to be released this October, till then you can try out demo and view some trailer videos.

Can You Run It is a handy online tool that’ll let you know whether your PC configuration is enough to run your favorite games or not.

It uses a Java Applet/ ActiveX control(in IE) to check your computer’s configuration and then compares it with minimum and recommended requirements of the selected game.

Though, it didn’t work out for me in Firefox but it worked well in IE using ActiveX Control. After testing your computer configuration with those required, it’ll provide you with proper information to upgrade your computer’s old components. Also, it doesn’t require any sort of registration to use.

The results obtained after testing are correct for most of the games, but it might not be true for every game. For example, i tried to check my configuration for NFS Carbon, it showed Fail though NFS Carbon runs smoothly on my PC.

[Via: TechnoBuzz]

I was just surfing the internet when I stumbled upon this cool feature of Google : Google image labeler. Though this feature might be already known to millions of users, I won’t keep away from making a post on it. This is a cool way to beat the boredom when u find internet a real crap.

Google Image Labeler is a nice feature of Google’s Image Search which helps you to label different images and hence help Google to improve its image search results.

This is the way it works :

When you first go to the main Google Image Labeler page, you can start labeling as a guest. Thats it. You can just click on start labeling and get started immediately.

OR

You sign in to Google Image Labeler with your gmail account credentials, choose a different nickname , after which you are randomly paired with a partner who’s online and using the feature. You and your partner are provided 120 seconds during which you both :

• View the same set of images at your respective systems.
• Provide as many labels as you both can to describe each image you see.
• Receive points when your label matches your partner’s label. The number of points will depend on how specific your label is.
• See more images until time runs out.

After time expires, you can explore the images you’ve seen and the websites where those images were found. And we’ll show you the points you’ve earned throughout the session.

Overall its a nice time pass and also you are helping Google in the process, so that it provides you more relevant images when you search using specific keywords.

You can feel the Google Image Labeler experience in other online gaming websites like gwap.com

But MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has launched a protest against gta 4 demanding it to be rated as an adult game because there is a part in the game in which the players have to drive drunk which is a violent crime and not a game as stated by them.