We’ve seen plenty of juicy news stories this morning, ranging from smartphones and apps to seriously awesome hacks. Read on for them all right here in our lunchtime lowdown news roundup. Let’s do this thing.
December, 2010
Lunchtime Lowdown: Ultimate Apple TV hack, Foursquare overhaul and the best Android apps of the week
Don’t go out in the snow and ice today. Stay in, and open the Electricpig Advent Calendar instead! We’ve got Advent laptops, Android tablets, gaming PCs, digital photo frames and PC accessories to be won!
Today we’re asking for Christmas characters. It might be a character from a folk tale, a religious icon (can you tell we’re trying not to hint?) or even a celebrity, famed for their once-yearly appearances. All you have to do is log in using your Facebook ID (that’s really important, without it we can’t reliably contact you, or check you’re based in the UK) and tell us one in the comments section will win! Once we have a winner, we’ll reveal the prize they’ve scooped.
With just days to go before the year calls it a day, the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam DLC has slipped on sale. While Call of Duty: Black Ops has been snatching the limelight in the past month it’s worth remembering that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sits alongside it as one of the very best shooters of 2010. With the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam add-on delivering a true Vietnam style multiplayer experience, new weapons and brand new levels, it’s even better. Is the DLC worth shelling out for? Read our Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam review to find out.
The Google Instant Blacklist is good for something other than frustrating filthmongers. The clever folk at design studio Nation have created the Google Blacklist Christmas tool to help you create Christmas greetings from the mildly salacious search terms that won’t throw up results in Google Instant. It’s a great little app and reallly simply to use. Head over there now to make your own Google Instant Blacklist Christmas card and email to friends and family.Out now | £free | Google Blacklist Christmas
Standard Apple TV streaming from a Mac is limited using AirPlay but the ever-creative Erica Sadun at TUAW has created a tool to stream info outside of iTunes. The software called AirFlick is in alpha but it’s pretty cool and follows on from Sardun’s previous creation AirPlayer which allows you to stream video from iPad or iPhone…
Google Body Browser is Google’s search smarts translared to the human body. The simulator lets you explore a virtual human body and is now in Google Labs. You’ll need a browser with WebGL so that’s Firefox 4 and Chrome 9 betas or Chrome 8 if you enable WebGL in the “about:flags” menu. The Google Body Browser visualisaton options are great and there’s lots of search tools to play with. You can see them in the Google Body Browser video after the break…
We’ve got time for one more best Android apps weekly roundup before the 25th. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is only around the corner, but even more mindblowing is that we Android fans haven’t been offered the ridiculous wealth of cheapie games as our iPhone cousins have this week. Where are our 59p games, Gameloft and EA? Hmm? Before we sink too deeply into a pit of iResentment though, let’s check out this week’s best apps that Android comrades can consume.
A Kinect update is on the way to seriously power up the accuracy of Microsoft’s motion controller. The Kinect update will increase the accuracy of motion sensing and will send more data from the device to the Xbox 360. The Kinect software patch will also increase the camera resolution from 320 x 480 at 30fps to 640 x 480.