Our first thought when we saw Boy Genius Report’s alleged shots of Moto phones that’ll find a home on Verizon in 2009 was, “holy cow, these look fake.” And yes, granted, they’re all renders — but what really set off the alarms for us was the fact that they look… well, nothing like Motorolas. At all. But then we thought about it for a second and realized that hey, you know, when you’re a once-great cellphone manufacturer losing market share hand over first and you’re looking for the Next Big Thing, you probably want to try something a little new, a little fresh, and a little crazy. So on that note, Verizon can apparently expect a “Rush 2″ early in the year that continues Moto’s contribution to the low-cost messaging phone trend; the “Calgary” (pictured), looking like a high-end Sidekick Slide minus the Sidekick; the “Inferno,” presumably succeeding the ZN4 (which was coincidentally codenamed “Blaze”); and finally the gorgeous “Flash,” which — as far as we’re concerned — should just take the A3000’s place. So yeah, these could be an elaborate hoax, but for Motorola’s sake, we hope they’re not.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Motorola apparently planning another year of existence with claimed 2009 lineup for Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Arcade, Culture

We wrote about the fantabulous arcade documentary Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade when it premiered at Sundance in 2007, and we featured interviews with director Lincoln Ruchti and producer Mark Verrachia. It’s been a long road for the film — which was playing in Park City against The King of Kong at Slamdance — but now you can finally see it.

Chasing Ghosts is on Showtime this month — in HD, no less — and has three more showings through the end of December. Set your DVRs for “capture” and have yourself a little screening party. It’s well worth seeing and features everyone’s favorite/most hated gamer, Billy Mitchell. With any luck, we’ll see this on Netflix or DVD soon, because playing this on your Xbox 360 or PS3 will surely make the space-time continuum fold in on itself.

Arcade documentary Chasing Ghosts now showing on Showtime originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We got a good look at the M98xNU a few days ago, and now it seems that one of those crazy kids over at the Notebook Review forums has dropped the dime on some other new Clevo notebook models we might be seeing at CeBIT 2009. Most notably, he names the predecessor to the company’s D901C laptop: the D90xF will offer a 17-inch screen (up to 1920 x 1200), and it may be Core i7, though this is not certain (sometimes desktop chips end up in high-end laptops, so it wouldn’t be unheard of). Also in this batch are several touchscreen tablets, including the 7-inch TN70xM with an Atom Z series processor and passive cooling, the 8.9-inch T89xM with “rugged” design, and the TN12xT, a 12.1-inch based on the Montevina platform with Intel’s GM45 chipset. Additionally, we can look forward to the second quarter of 2009 for the launch of the 10.2-inch M71xL, the 10.1-inch M81xL and the 13.3-inch R13xT. And if that weren’t enough, early next year should see the release of the company’s widescreen W76x series of laptops with 15.6-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio displays. Not that you’ll necessarily see the Clevo name on many of these — the company is known primarily as an OEM. Still, this is an interesting peek into next year’s possible Alienware, Voodoo and Sager machines. And you know what? There’s plenty more where that came from — hit the read link for all the glorious details.

Filed under: Laptops

Clevo laptop shocker! Scores of new, cryptic model names originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Multimedia, Reviews, App Store

If you’re looking for a quick way to add that “miniature” effect to photos from your iPhone, TiltShift is for you.

While not as powerful as using desktop image editing software, it can quickly doctor your images to give them that tilt-shifty look, or just apply a dreamy vignette around the edges.

TiltShift comes with a library of photos to try, but you can also use photos from your iPhone or iPod touch’s camera roll. If you have an iPhone, you can take a picture directly from the app.

The app works in both portrait and landscape modes, which makes it easier to transform wider photos. Rotating the screen was a little strange — it sometimes didn’t recognize when my iPod touch was rotated, and I had to sort of jiggle it to make it rotate properly.

The results are pretty good: It takes a fair bit of fiddling to get it just right, and a small screen size (and no zoom support) makes very detailed manipulation difficult. On the scale of “do you want it good, or do you want it fast,” TiltShift definitely leans toward “fast.” Nifty, nevertheless.

TiltShift is $1.99, and is available in the App Store.

TUAWTiltShift brings miniature faking to the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Culture, Online, Polls

Although they totally forgot about Quincy, the dyanmic duo at Penny Arcade managed to capture the spirit of PlayStation’s Home quite aptly in just three strips. Thus it’s with (we presume) bittersweet agreement that A Penetrating Look was voted best gaming comic this week.

Second and third place go to newcomer Town Folks by newcomer Brawl in the Family and Ball and Stick by personal favorite Digital Unrest, respectively. This is it for me and webcomic wrapup, Griffin takes over this Saturday (just to clarify: I’m not leaving Joystiq, you’re still stuck with my crappy other posts). Thanks to everyone who voted, at any point in the last 3 years, and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomics you stumble upon this week!

Readers pick best webcomic: A penetrating look originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pentax’s K2000’s already gotten itself some… shall we say “glowing” reviews, but news that the DSLR will now come in a Limited Edition white is like icing on a super delicious cake. The camera will be exactly the same as its old-fangled black predecessor, and will come with custom white-and-black 18-55mm and 50-200mm lenses. Considering the real lack of color in the DSLR category, some people should be pretty stoked when it goes on sale in February. An exact price wasn’t released, but the black K2000 runs about $800.

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Pentax K2000 to come in Limited Edition black-and-white cookie style originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Humor, Apple, Holidays

In a stunning revelation, in addition to Steve Jobs declining to give the keynote speech and announcing Apple will pull out of Macworld after this year, a joint statement released by Apple and Santa Claus states that Christmas will end after this year.

“Apple has been steadily scaling back on holidays in recent years, including Valentine’s Day, Columbus Day, President’s Day and Grandparents Day in Japan,” the press release states.

The joint press conference was sponsored by an unknown lover of parody and a good bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

And, don’t worry. We can always import the Japanese Health and Sports holiday (second Monday in October) and use it to fill the gift-wrapped Apple-shaped holes in our hearts.

Many thanks goes to the unknown site creator for creating a smile in the middle of a lot of confusion!

TUAWStop the presses: Apple cancels Christmas originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Downloads, Patches, FPS, Multiplayer

If you have been playing the stand alone Crysis Wars multiplayer game that comes with Crysis Warhead, get ready to get happy on Wednesday. Developer Crytek has announced that tomorrow they will release patch 1.3 for the game that will include two new multiplayer maps.

One is a PowerStruggle map named Frost that as the name implies has a lot of snow and ice in the jungle (courtesy of Crysis’ aliens who apparently like things a bit chilly). The other is a Team Instant Action map called Savanna. It’s notable for both being large and for taking place in a setting that’s meant to look like an African wilderness. Of course the patch will be made available here at Big Download tomorrow.

Crysis Wars map pack coming Wednesday originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Business

Without requiring any edits, the previously “banned” F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin has received an MA15+ rating in Australia. The title was refused classification by the OFLC last month, but the decision has now been reversed, following an appeal by publisher Warner Bros.

Upon review, the classification board deemed that the violence in the game could be “accommodated within the MA15+ classification.” Of course, none of these semi-regular banning stories would be happening if games in Australia had the option of an R18+ rating.

F.E.A.R. 2 ‘unbanned’ in Australia originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News

Freshly sewn for inclusion in the Avatar customizer closet is brand new clothing for your Avatar that’s mostly made up of formal wear. Male and female Avatars now have the option of wearing two new hats, a new shirt and a few new tuxedo suits including the blue gem you see to the right. Spiffy, right?

All new threads are accessible via the Xbox 360 dashboard’s Avatar customizer and are marked with a gold star for your convenience. Have fun playing dress up.

Dress your Avatar in new formal apparel originally appeared on Xbox 360 Fanboy on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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