Top 5 Apple flops

Posted by Peter Butler on Jun 6 2007

Before you Apple fans start sending me nasty e-mail, remember the context. With the überpopularity of the iPod, the success of the Intel Macs, and the overwhelming hype surrounding the iPhone, Apple has been riding high for a while.

That hasn't always been the case, however, and Tom Merritt counts down the five biggest Apple flops to prove it.

If you disagree with any of Tom's picks or have an idea for a Top 5 of your own, be sure to let me know about it in the comments.

Topics: Mac Software

Tags: Apple, Mac, Top 5, worst

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Develop sustainably with Electrocity

Posted by Peter Butler on Jun 5 2007

Like a mini-version of SimCity, the Flash-based Web game Electrocity lets you develop your own metropolis from the ground up. Rather than existing solely as a entertaining Web diversion, however, Electrocity has a hidden agenda.

The sponsor of the game, Genesis Energy, is an energy provider and retailer in New Zealand. Electrocity was developed to increase public awareness about energy usage, its cost, and its effect on the environment.

Electrocity is a fairly simple, turn-based strategy game. You get 150 turns to create your masterpiece, but the challenge is to allocate resources wisely as you build. One-hundred and fifty turns may seem like an eternity, but many of these will be skipped in the process of gathering cash and natural resources, so it's essential to build infrastructure early. A full game at average speed takes about 30 minutes. It's also easy to save any game in the middle, then restart later using a personalized city code the game assigns you.

Played on a 5x5 grid, Electrocity starts you off with a small urban center, a population of 10,000, a 25 percent tax rate, and one wind farm that provides all the town's energy. Surrounding areas are randomly populated with forests, plains, mountains, rivers, or oceanfront property.

Each area may provide resources that can only be discovered by prospecting. Once you've discovered coal or gas, you can build plants and start selling energy on the open market. You can raise and lower ... (Read more)

Topics: Games

Tags: Electrocity, Genesis Energy, sustainable development, Flash, games

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Free and legal music downloads

Posted by Jasmine France on Jun 5 2007

There's no such thing as a free lunch. What there most definitely is is a lot of truth to that statement. If you're getting something like cable or music downloads for free, what you're doing is almost certainly illegal and it's probably taking away from the livelihood of someone who works just as hard as you do. OK, what it is mostly doing is reducing some ridiculously wealthy executive's bottom line, and I'm not one to guilt-trip people on that tip--especially if the company happens to be Comcast (don't even get me started). Still, you shouldn't steal if you can help it because you can never really be sure of who you might be hurting. Hmm, wait a minute...did I just imply that it's OK to hurt certain individuals of questionable character? No, don't hurt anybody--we're all above that. But I digress.

The point is that there are some companies that are trying to make your (digital) life a little easier--a little more hassle-free--and all while encouraging consumers to do the right thing. One such company is the recently launched music venture, We7. The service, which is set to get rolling sometime this month, will offer free music downloads that can be played on any MP3 player. And, yes, of course there's a catch; after all, a major goal of the site is to make sure that artists get paid for their work and that can'... (Read more)

Topics: Audio/MP3

Tags: Music services, free music

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An equal-opportunity player for Web 2.0

Posted by Seth Rosenblatt on Jun 5 2007

There's the temptation to start talking about the Democracy Player with a Lord of the Rings-esque, "One Player to Rule Them All" joke, but that wouldn't be very democratic, would it?

The latest version of the open-source Democracy Player contains some serious upgrades that make it worth a second look, if you haven't liked it in the past. The most important improvement is that the publisher, the Participatory Culture Foundation, seems to have worked through most of program's early stability issues. After tooling around with the player for hours on Windows Vista, it neither crushed my system's memory usage nor crashed. Memory usage and stability have been major issues for the plucky little player, and I suspect they will continue to be. But at least it wasn't gathering piles of RAM like a YouTube-obsessed squirrel fearing the approaching winter.

... (Read more)

Topics: Video, Windows Software

Tags: Video, Web 2.0, Democracy Player, feeds

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Colin McRae gets DiRTy

Posted by Peter Butler on Jun 4 2007

While the Colin McRae off-road racing series has been popular in Europe, the game hasn't gained much traction here in the U.S. In an attempt to dig up some excitement, Codemasters has decided to rename the latest game DiRT.

Fans of the previous games shouldn't be overly concerned, as Colin McRae is still around in DiRT. In fact, you can race against him on the German Avelsbachring course, as just one of the three events provided in the new game demo, which also offers one course in online multiplayer mode. ... (Read more)

Topics: Games, Windows Software

Tags: Colin McRae, DiRT, driving, racing, off-road

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