Video in a window

I know it might sound funny, but the ability to keep a video playing in a little window while I do other things is actually something that has me seriously considering the Galaxy S III as my next phone. I might be very happy with my iPhone 4, but Apple now really need to do something amazing to keep me from switching. If their next phone is another 4s they've had it, even if there are fewer games on Android.

Scars opening up!?

I've got a large scar on my arm from when I broke it once. Does this mean my dream of one day being an astronaut is knackered then?

Did the window have an oleophobic coating and was it made from Gorilla glass?

While it is annoying that I get faster broadband over a Three HSPA+ dongle than I do via BT's rusty wires, I knew I what I was getting into when I moved out of a large-ish town for the countryside. Of course with Cameron's plans to concrete over the countryside I'm sure a major conurbation will be sprawling in my direction soon.

Opportunists

Looking at that graph the Android dip starts at exactly the same time that Windows Phone 7 started gaining. My guess is that these developers losing interest in Android are perhaps early opportunists looking to exploit an initially empty Android app store with clones of successful apps on iOS.

Now that the Android app store has matured and has plenty of decent apps, they're off to the fresh pastures of Windows Phone 7 where clones and simple apps once again have a chance of selling.

I never played this one thanks to not owning a PC with the horsepower to run it, but it does remind me of the old DOS classic Quarantine, which helpfully had windscreen wipers for when you ran pedestrians over: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/146/Quarantine.html

I stopped reading as soon as I read Harriet Harperson's name.

Almost exactly what I'm looking for...

This seems really close to what I want to replace my current Samsung TV/Monitor combo which is sub-HD and a little small at 21". The only real deal breakers are an absence of picture-in-picture, s-video/composite connectivity (for old games consoles) and a lack of (or only minimal) motion interpolation. The price is really good too, so I might still go for it as the passive 3D is quite tempting!

"Crittercism has funding from Google Ventures."

So, no conflict of interest there then.

I didn't bother with IB2 when it came out. The first had some novelty but the lack of exploration and limited gameplay eventually made it rather boring and I just didn't feel like bothering with its sequel.

I'd much rather Chair stop producing IAP cash-cows and get on with Shadow Complex 2...

YouTube Like/Dislike buttons

Has anyone noticed that the Like/Dislike buttons have vanished from YouTube? You used to be able to gives a thumbs up (or down) to videos but that seems to have been disappeared and all that's left is a Google+ button now. The thumbs are still there for the comments section at least.

I suppose we've all failed to want to join Google+ so now we're going to be made to join it. It's bad enough that every time I sign in to YouTube it tries to prize my mobile phone number off me under the pretence of it helping with security...

Google, et al are just getting way too intrusive now.

Been waiting for the iOS app for ages

I suspect Apple aren't going to approve the OnLive app. It's been stuck in approval hell for so long I think there must be a problem with it. It's probably down to OnLive wanting to sell games through the interface but not wanting to pay Apple 33% on every transaction. It will be interesting to see if OnLive re-work the app or if they just give up.

Android cases

I wonder if Apple would have objected were it not for the fact that this company also make "driPhone" cases for Android phones? I can think of a few iPhone accessories that use "i" in their name without any legal problems (e.g. iTrip), so I suspect the real issue here is the association of the "iPhone" name with Android.

Maybe Apple are concerned about iPhone becoming a generic catch-all name, like Hoover is to vacuum cleaners or Nintendo was to video-games?

The Last Guardian

Any bets on whether Sony will be able to get The Last Guardian out of the door next year? All the behind the scenes goings on suggest Sony management has had enough of waiting and are pushing for the game to be done and released even if it upsets the creators.

After Mass Effect 2, ME3 has an enormous mountain to climb to top it, but I think it's my most anticipated game next year, with Bioshock Infinite and the new Tomb Raider following closely behind.

No doubt, Ubisoft will trot out another tired Assassin's Creed game. I really, really enjoyed the first two installments but they've milked it too hard now. Annual sequels are too frequent for me, I much prefer every two years.

Next year has the potential to be one of the best years ever, but then so did this year, and I was quite underwhelmed by most of the big releases (Gears 3, Uncharted 3, Saint's Row 3, etc).

Thank god Moffat's in charge!

Arcade racers

Personally I can't live without some arcade racers, and I find Sega Rally 3 and Daytona USA HD both fill that gap nicely. Sure they're not Gran Turismo in terms of content, but the gameplay (particularly on Daytona) is still magnificent!

I'm playing this game at the moment, it's very good fun but I think I marginally preferred Saint's Row 2. SR3 has spread out each of the side missions, so instead of just finishing one level and continuing with the next, you have to drive to another location in the city to continue. In one sense it prevents repetitiveness but in another it just breaks up the gameplay mid-flow.

SR3 also seems to be missing some of the better side-missions from SR3, like the bodyguard missions where you had protect a celebrity from their rabid fans by throwing the fans in front of trains, into lumberjacks with chainsaws, into the blades of a helicopter, etc. Also missing so far are the sewage spraying truck and the police brutality side-missions.

Still, lots of the good stuff is still there. Cars can be very heavily customised, the custom character creator is fantastic, there's loads of silly costumes to wear and so far I've still not run out of things to do. Driving a tiger around in a car is a favourite new addition to the game.

My only really serious gripe is that it's crashed on me quite a few times now, to the point where I'm having to remember to manually save after every missions. I'm not sure if that's because my 360 is on its last legs or because the game was rushed onto the shelves. Halo Anniversary hasn't crashed on me so I'm more inclined to blame the game at the moment. Hopefully there will be a patch at some point.

I might be jumping the gun a bit, but if the hackers got in via the forums then I think it's a bit weak of Valve to have kept their forum server so close to the rest of their infrastructure. Their forums run vBulletin, which isn't open source but it's very common, so I would imagine getting hold of the source code to look for flaws would be no problem. Or worse still, it could turn out that Valve were running an old version of the forum with known security flaws.

Either way, for such an obvious vector, it's disappointing that it was possible for the hackers to use the forum as a springboard to get at the rest of their infrastructure, when really it should have been firewalled off on its own subnet and kept fully separate from servers hosting banking and personal information.

Odd features to focus on

I have to admit I've never seen the appeal of text reflow, all it seems to do is make text wobble and jitter about the screen while I'm trying to zoom in on it.

Also, I'm not sure I see the point of Smart Dial. Surely it's quicker to jump to a name in your contacts than trying to remember their number and typing several digits? Or am I missing something about it?

How many years now have bendable/foldable displays been imminent?

Companies have been promising these sorts of screens for years now, so it's hard not to be a but jaded about yet another claim they're nearly here. Still, very cool if it's true.

I think the problem is that Apple didn't announce the 4S earlier in the year like they did with all the previous iPhone announcements. This led to the expectation that something special or game changing could be in the offing, because Apple were taking longer than usual. IOS 4 and the iPhone 4 were announced to be made for each other, so it was fairly natural to assume iOS 5 would result in an iPhone 5. Let's not forget also that the iPad had a facelift after just one iteration.

I think the expectation was there for something that looked new, not just something that is apparently all-new on the inside, so the disappointment was understandable, especially since Apple made no move to try and quell expectations of new form factors and wider touch sensitive home buttons.

I recall being disappointed when the iPad 2 failed to have the rumoured retina display (and I'll be even more disappointed if the iPad 3 doesn't have it)!

Ridge Racer Accelerated

Personally, my favourite iPhone racer is Ridge Racer Accelerated. It was pretty crappy when Namco first released it (I had an iPhone 3G back then and the hardware just couldn't handle the game and the controls were terrible). Since then Namco have added much better control options and added retina support, making it great fun to play (assuming you have a 3GS or better with the grunt to run it).