That Apple event rumoured for the 27th? It’s on. Apple is gathering the press to show off its “latest creation”. An Apple tablet, per chance? Read on for all the details.
January, 2010
The 
The Samsung Genio Slide is the South Korean giant’s latest budget feature phone for tweens with Facebook fever. But this is one cheapo phone we can’t wait to get our hands on: it’s got BBC iPlayer access shoved inside its QWERTY shell.
Nokia Beta Labs service Mobile Web Server is shutting down at the end of the month, after two years of offering free online access to your Symbian blower. Now, that wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Nokia’s mystery Ovi announcement later this week?
A touchscreen Apple iMac could be coming to join its 21.5 and 27 inch brothers, according to new rumours fresh out of the Far East.
Apple watchers are currently focused on dreams of the Apple Tablet but Apple’s patents reveal some other interesting developments. One of its latest shows Apple’s toying with a smart home energy system that will let you monitor your energy consumption and stream iTunes content through your power sockets.
Apple’s smart home energy system patent shows plans to use HomePlug Powerline Networking which uses power outlets to transfer audio, video and data through power outlets. Using that system would allow you to stream iTunes content around your home and see realtime energy use data.
The patent shows a touchscreen controller at the heart of the system. It could be an iPod Touch, an iPhone or, inevitably, the Apple Tablet. Another interesting element of the patent is a reference to “a projections system for providing a display of content on a surface remote from the electronic device”. That suggest sticking a pico-projector into the system.
Lots of companies are currently developing smart home energy systems including Intel which demonstrated its own ideas during its CES 2010 presentation. But with the Apple Tablet seemingly a certainty, using it as a central controller for all your entertainment systems and an energy monitor seems like a brilliant idea.
Apple watchers are currently focused on dreams of the Apple Tablet but Apple’s patents reveal some other interesting developments. One of its latest shows Apple’s toying with a smart home energy system that will let you monitor your energy consumption and stream iTunes content through your power sockets.
Heavy Rain’s “intense scenes” and explicit content have been revealed and detailed in a report from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Expect nudity, sex, drugs, violence and some spoilers ahead…
Quantic Dream’s noir drama Heavy Rain is set to hit the PS3 on February 24 and it’s explicit moments have come under the microscope in an ESRB ratings report.
The report reveals that Heavy Rain features a healthy dollop of sex with shower cut scenes revealing your character’s arse and breasts (when you’re playing a female character). There’s also a topless dancing scene where the female character is forced to strip at gunpoint and a sex scene where you’re prompted to control the characters.
Heavy Rain features four main characters affected by the Origami Killer, a serial killer who kidnaps children in public places. The ESRB reports reveals some of the games most visceral themes with talk of a dead woman in a bath, an autopsy on a dead child, a woman set on fire and a man impaled by a power drill.
The ESRB report says the “most intense instance of violence” occurs during a sequence in which a character is forced to cut off part of his own finger to save his sons life with the option to choose between several instruments (a saw, scissors, a knife). Though the camera apparently pans away from the action, the report claims the “psychological terror may be unnerving for some”.
While sex scenes in the game fade out with only glimpses of nudity, the ESRB says the camera focuses on drug use with characters taking Triptocaine, a white powder which causes them to stagger and turns the screen blurry. The good news for gamers is that the game’s graphics are reportedly “highly-evolved” and “sharpen the sense of realism”.
Out February 24 | £TBA | Heavy Rain (via ESRB)
Heavy Rain’s “intense scenes” and explicit content have been revealed by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Expect nudity, sex, drugs, violence and some spoilers ahead…