Yoku-Gami is a pretty simple, straightforward board game, adapted from the work of game designer Reiner Knizia .  Here is the premise.  You have a board of 36 space. arranged in a 6×6 square.  Each square contains a number.  Your job is to draw a line connecting adjacent numbers (it does not need to be a straight line as long as the next number is adjacent to the previous one).  Here is the catch, all of the numbers in your line must add up to total the highest number in your grouping.  Sounds pretty easy, but watch out.  The further you progress in the game, the higher the numbers will be, making it more difficult to find moves.  Once you have completely run out of moves, the game will end.

Sitting on top of the board is Yoki.  He is your friend, and a sort of mascot of the game.  If you get stuck, just tap Yoki and he will show you a group of numbers to select (though you will not earn points for this).

There are three game playing modes in the game.  In Endless Mode, your goal is simply to rack up as many points as possible.  Play will continue until you run out of moves.  In Arcade Mode, your goal is to remove entire columns at a time.  Once a column is cleared, the rest of the blocks on the screen will shift to fill the gap.  Finally, in Level Mode, the game will take place over a series of independent grids, or levels.  Depending upon the moves you make on each grid, you can lose one or more of your 24 lives, or even gain additional lives, as you progress from one level to the next.

I have to say I really enjoyed this game.  It is deceptively simple.  The three game modes really add a level of complexity to this.  I used Endless Mode to get a feel for the game, and then moved on to the more challenging Arcade and Level Modes.  While the concept behind the game may not have been the most original. Meritum software did a fantastic job, as they have in the past, of putting their own unique spin on it. 

Additionally, with its reliance upon addition, this is the perfect game for young children just learning their way in the world of math.  With that in mind, I would love to see them add negative numbers into the mix so that you can use the game to strengthen both addition and subtraction skills. 

Yoku-Gami is available for the iPad for $1.99.  It can be purchased for only $0.99 on the iPod Touch and iPhone.

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The WOWee One is a pocket sized speaker which uses an unusual technology where the top is a speaker and the bottom is a built-in subwoofer that uses different solid and flat surfaces to produce that thumping bass. This unit is rechargeable and can be powered using a mini-USB port including the cable (claimed to be good for up to 20 hours when fully charged – my unit lasted more than 23 hours on half volume – which is already quite loud, then it went out like a light) and comes with a cable to connect to any audio device that has a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. 

Press play and enjoy listening and feeling the rich clear sound.  I tried several surfaces like the Formica kitchen counter, the glass table, wooden surfaces, vinyl or plastic surfaces, and the sound was surprisingly rich for such a small unit.  You’ll notice different sounds based on different surface types that the WOWee One is attached to.  For example, our glass table increased the treble and gave the sound a more “crystal” type of sound.

The bottom “Gel” portion can be cleaned using a cloth and a bit of water.  Making good contact with the bottom to the surface is important to the quality of the sound.

I used it to amplify my iPod and iPad when I watched videos and listened to music.  It beats having to wear earphones and is great for watching and/or listening with friends.  My son and I have watched a few Netflix shows on my iPad while eating in our crowded little nook and this little gadget really adds another dimension to the sound.  Now that I’ve experienced the difference, I "suffer" when I watch a show on my iPad without it.  It is a solid unit without parts that may break off and that makes this unit easy to just throw into my handbag.   See how small it is when compared to an Apple Mighty Mouse?

All in all, I am very pleased with the performance of this WOWee One.

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Product: WOWee One Portable Speakers aka WOWee One Classic

Price: $79.99

Available from: WOWee One and Amazon

Posted by: kawc

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Mobile devices like laptops, iPhones and PDAs are highly susceptible to theft in public places like airport terminal, library and cafe. Moreover, the exposure of sensitive data stored in the mobile device could be more damaging than the loss of device itself. In this work, the authors propose and implement a pervasive mobile device protection system, named EagleVision, based on sensing and wireless networking technologies. Comparing with existing solutions, EagleVision is unique in providing an integrated protection to both device and data.

Manual generation of a book inventory is time-consuming and tedious, while deployment of barcode and radio-frequency identification (RFID) management systems is costly and affordable only to large institutions. In this paper, the authors design and implement a mobile book recognition system for conveniently generating an inventory of books by snapping photos of a bookshelf with a smartphone. Since smartphones are becoming ubiquitous and affordable, the inventory management solution is cost-effective and very easy to deploy. Automatic and robust book recognition is achieved in one system using a combination of spine segmentation and bag-of-features image matching. At the same time, the location of each book is inferred from the smartphone’s sensor readings, including accelerometer traces, digital compass measurements, and WiFi signatures.

The authors are in the middle of a mobile computing revolution, perhaps as significant as the revolution in the 1980s which defined the personal computer. Today, smart phones are providing them with an unprecedented opportunity to innovate in terms of the platform design, its use, and the applications they expect it to support. This paper examines smart phone design opportunities around sensing to support context aware operation; composability, enabling resource sharing to overcome platform limitations; and VM migration, to optimize processing performance while maintaining seamless operation.

Yes, you read that right.  Apple is discontinuing Mobile Me retail boxes.  No, Apple is not discontinuing the Mobile Me service.  Beginning today, Apple stopped manufacturing the physical edition of Mobile Me.  Once stores sell out of the physical product, the only way is to go to www.apple.com/mobileme.  What does that mean for Apple?  1) Greater profit for not having to have a physical product or the need to store it.  2) Yet evening more earnings as now, all of it goes to Apple.  None of it goes to the retailers.

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