I was trolling around my favorite blogs the other night, in a fit of insomnia, when I came across the beautiful ducky--Paris--on Gadgetcandy. I just love her boa and jeweled beak. Plus she's pink, which is Blogging Molly's favorite color.

She may look sweet, but she's not so innocent. After all, her name is Paris. She vibrates. Why anyone would want a vibrating duck is beyond me. Ducks should be sacred!

Have a good weekend Gearlog fans!

Related Links:

Put All Your Ducks in a Row

Ducks Redux

Hum Along to Your Favorite Song

Another awesome game that you'll want to check out is Crysis. The premise is a bit strange, but the graphics are truly amazing.

Crysis for the PC is a first-person shooter developed by CryTek. The game takes place in North Korea in the year 2019. Suddenly, a huge asteroid covered in ice lands in the jungle. When you shoot through the ice, it reveals a different world plagued by aliens.

You play as a Delta Force Operator to prevent the aliens (who look a lot like the aliens from War of the Worlds) from taking over Planet Earth.

It also features a 32-multiplayer gameplay, allowing others to help you win the alien war.

Look for it next year, just in time for Vista. Price TBD.

Launching on November 20 for the Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP, PS2, and Nintendo DS is Superman Returns The Videogame. I never had a chance to see the actual film in 3D, but at least I got a taste of the videogame. You play Superman and use your super powers such as flight, x-ray vision, super breath, and heat vision to fight the bad guys through 80 square miles of the city of Metropolis. Flying is the best part, although I kept crashing to the ground by hitting the wrong button on the controller! Blogging Molly scooped a woman up in Superman's arms, flew her to the top of a building, and left her there!

The game's representative said that he could see people doing crazy things with the game, such as loading a whole bunch of cars on the tops of buildings, videotaping it, and then uploading it to YouTube!

The point of the Superman Returns game is to make critical choices: "Will you pause your pursuit of super villains to stop a massive tornado sweeping through the city and save its civilians? Every decision made is critical to Metropolis' existence and can affect the collateral damage meter, which ultimately keeps the player in the game." And it's fast paced too, letting you finish levels in three minutes.

You can choose between both film-inspired missions and original content created just for the videogame.

Preorder Superman Returns The Videogame now at EA.com. Prices range from $29.95 to $59.95.

"Man, I wish these high beams were machine guns." Does that sound like you on your daily commute? Then boy, have we got a game for your fragile ego. Sega's Full Auto for the Xbox 360 is a racing game that not only makes you compete to cross the finish line first, but also to rack up the most kills.

Full Auto is a "combat racer," which means that it's a racing game with guns. You're limited to a couple of car models at the start of the game, with interesting modifications like twin machine guns and a landmine dropper. The first couple of cars are based on classic cars that resemble a sixties or seventies Lowrider and a fifties Coupe with tailfins, but in no time you're unlocking cars that look (and handle) like sixties Muscle cars, nineties monster SUVs, and recent imported street racers. You will need to unlock cars, tracks, and weapon systems by winning races, but at least the first few are easy enough for a novice to pick up.

The game ramps up in difficulty, but only to a level that avid gamers and casual gamers alike will be able to handle. Along with the usual lap-based races are point-to-point races and Rampage mode, the point of which is to do as much damage to other cars as possible.

This kind of mayhem should be familiar to fans of the eighties film "The Road Warrior," or the Car Wars board games from the same era. Unlike earlier combat car games such as Twisted Metal, Full Auto's world is made up of city streets, cargo docks, and freeways, not just demolition derby-style arenas. Full Auto has richly detailed environments that take damage, as do your opponents. The world isn't empty: Non-competing cars fill the city and freeway streets, just like they do in real life. Unlike in real life, however, you can plow through bystander cars. In fact, destroying a bunch of bystanders during your races is crucial to unlocking new cars, tracks, and paint jobs.

Innovations like Unwreck, a feature that lets you rewind gameplay, are cribbed from games such as Prince of Persia. You can rewind and replay a few seconds of game time, so you can actually brake before a curve instead of plowing into a trailer truck. The game includes the ubiquitous Nitro button to boost speed, but you should be able to win many of the races without abusing it. And thankfully, the blur effects are less annoying than on other racing games, so you can actually see the cars and track while in boost mode.

Physics are cartoony but totally appropriate for the game. You will fishtail a little when you get hit by a rocket or landmine, for example, but not enough to get frustrated. Collisions physics are spot-on for a game like this: forgiving when they need to be and momentum-stopping if you really screw up. Overall, the level of polish on Full Auto gleams like a four coats of Meguiars wax.

Blogging Molly had the opportunity to play The Godfather The Game for Xbox 360 just minutes after Abe Vigoda himself (who played Salvatore "Sally" Tessio in the Godfather films) sat in that very seat. She's usually into more benign games like Bejeweled and Tetris (which EA has available for mobile phones), but she really was into this game once she got used to the controls. Here's her experience:

You get to be one of the Godfather's employees rising through the ranks by extorting businesses, taking over neighborhoods, and keeping the cops away. With other gamers cheering me on as I strangled cops, threw punches and Molotov cocktails, and drove recklessly across  the Brooklyn Bridge with the cops right on my tail, it was quite a high for me.

I think she was a bit too fired up after playing though, especially when she started choking the baker! ("I didn't mean to kill him!" she exclaimed.) Sure Mol, we all know you were in it just for the cannolis!

What's also cool about the Xbox 360 version is that you can hire and work with your own crewmember. And as you attain higher ranks, you can hire a stronger crew for the real tough jobs, as long as you earn respect through personal favors. 

Obviously this game isn't for kids, but then again, neither are the movies.

We have the PS2 version in our labs now, but the Xbox 360 version, to be released on Sept 19, promises to be even more detailed and realistic-looking. You can preorder it now for $59.95. Use this code "GODSTOSFSC" to get free shipping!

Blogging Molly and I hopped on the 6 train last night to attend Electronic Arts' Fall Preview at the Branch club in Manhattan. Over 25 game titles were on display (and a fine array of cheeses and wine), including Battlefield 2142, Crysis, FIFA 07, The Godfather The Game, Madden 07, Lord of the Rings The Battle for Middle Earth II The Rise of the Witch-King, Pogo, and Superman Returns The Videogame.

My personal fave was The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack, which lets you use your existing Sims family to create your own pets! Choose from over 70 breeds--designer breeds too--of dogs and cats, even parrots and hamsters! We created a cat with orange fur, black stripes, and long ears. We called her MollyFer, and she's a Virgo (pictured, bottom right). As with Sims humans, you can give your pets personalities--Mollyfer is a genius, fiercely independent and rather finicky. 

The simulations of the cats are very real-like. In fact, the animator who created the game is a cats lover, and studied the behaviors of cats down to a tee. The cats roll around in the sun, play with yarn, and even wash themselves, just like a normal cat would. But if the cat is being bad, your Sims character will need to scold it. You can also adopt or sell your kitty if you run out of money (but really, who would sell their pet!).

So, if you're a Sims fan, then you'll definitely love this expansion pack! It's just so cute and fun to play.

Even some of the coolest songs from the hottest artists of today will be featured in the game,

including the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha", The Flaming Lips's "Free Radicals", and Cowboy

Troy's "I play Chicken with a Train" (I've never heard of that one!).

Sims 2 Pets Release Dates:
*Oct 17: PC, PS2, GameCube
*Nov 7: Nintendo DS
*Nov 14: PSP

Preorder The Sims 2 Pets now at Amazon, GameStop, and CompUSA. Prices range from ($17-$42). Stay tuned for more EA coverage later today.

Recently we told you about Carpool Crew, the social networking site for commuters; now all car enthusiasts have a networking site to show off their rides and share there passion with likeminded car lovers. Boompa.com is a community-driven site devoted to showcasing, tweaking, and cataloguing anything that drives, flies, floats, or pedals.

Boompa was launched by Ethan Lance and Dave Snider. the site was named for Lance's grandfather, who had a fascination with cars and taught Lance everything he knows. Boompa's "online-garage" lets users create profiles of their vehicles, share pictures and tuning tips, and challenge other members in head-to-head competitions..

"Over time, it's our goal to develop the Web's largest, most comprehensive dataset about vehicles and their parts," says Lance in a press release. "As users donate information about their mods, upgrades, and accessories, the database will start to take shape on its own. It will be a free database for drivers, by drivers."

Sell your house, dump your stocks, or steal money from grandma, because the Runco Signature Cinema SC-1 is coming to town. You'll get movie-theater quality in the comfort of your home, but you'll have to dish out $250,000 for this bad boy.

 

The SC-1 is a DLP-based projector that can throw your favorite flick onto a screen or wall at up to 40 feet in width. I know what you're thinking: Nobody can watch something that's 40 feet wide, the picture would look awful! Think again: The SC-1 offers three SuperOnyx DMD chips that ramp up the native resolution to a whopping 2048 by 1080. And just in case you have some placement issues with the projector (I.E., somebody's fat head is in the way), Runco threw in vertical and horizontal lens shift systems that can direct the picture through a crowd to get to the wall.

 

With a light output that could blind you twice (up to 25,000 ANSI Lumens), seven zoom options, and a 2800:1 contrast ratio, this 342-pound heavyweight might be the perfect choice for someone who loves high-quality video, has a very rich grandmother, and can bench 350.

 

Via Engadget.

 

Post by Don Reisinger

Okay, maybe I missed the LG VX-8600 leak earlier this week. But today, a mass email to journalists revealed that Sprint will be showing off the Samsung M500 next week. Sprint hasn't revealed any official details about this phone, but PhoneArena has some photos and specs. It looks like this will be an affordable phone with EV-DO, stereo Bluetooth and a memory card slot for MP3 playback - it's great to see stereo Bluetooth reaching its way up and down the Sprint lineup.

Do you consider yourself to be digitally creative? If so, then you'll want to be in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Sugar on October 21 for the Cut & Paste 2006 Digital Design Competition.

Each competitor will be provided with the following tools to create masterpieces:

-Apple G5 Macs
-Wacom 21-inch Cintiq Monitors
-Digital Camera
-Design software, including Photoshop and Illustrator
-Materials, such as scissors, gluesticks, sketch paper, poster board

Then, you will be asked to create your work on stage in front of a live audience, in which your work will be projected on a screen. All work must be completed within 15 minutes in each of the three rounds, and you have to follow that round's theme. The five judges are looking for originality & creativity, relevance to theme, and overall "dopeness".

Register to compete in the event by September 29th, or in the other locations (Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) by October.

Will your personal interests soon be traded for targeted advertisements, and is this an invasion of your privacy? That's the question I pose when I discovered a prototype of the BluScreen at the University of South Hampton in the U.K.

The BluScreen is a 23-inch high-resolution display equipped with a Bluetooth sensor that detects Bluetooth-enabled devices when a person walks by. Then, your Bluetooth ID is recorded and sent to a server that enables advertisers to bid on ad space to target ads to you.

Essentially, the display builds up a profile of each Bluetooth user, and knows if and when you've already seen an ad to make sure you see a different one each time. Although the BluScreen isn't meant for consumer advertising at this moment (only display campus events and research projects to passerbys) in the future this could change.

Each user is kept anonymous, and if you don't want the display to recognize you, you can shut off your Bluetooth capability. This sounds all too much like Orwell's 1984, with telescreens that can detect your thoughts.

If more than one person is in front of the display, then the system must choose which ad has been seen by the fewest people.

This method would be good for advertisers in order for them to expose ads and information to more people. But how far can technology go until it just becomes creepy?

You can download and read the entire BluScreen paper, entitled "Competing Markets for Ubiquitous Displays", written by Terry R. Payne.

[via NewScientist Tech]

Covering consumer electronics can bring you to some unusual places. This week it took me to Olympus Fashion Week in New York City, where I was handed an Olympus eVolt e330 and tried my hand at shooting Richard Chai's runway show.

 

This was my first time acting as a photographer at a fashion show, or for that matter, attending a fashion show. In case you haven't heard of Richard Chai, he worked with DKNY and Geoffrey Beene before starting his own label. That info was actually pretty hard to come by. Richard, love the clothes, but it's time to get a Wikipedia entry or MySpace page or something. As it is, everything I know about fashion, I learned from Project Runway: Animal prints are always great, finishing is important, and no matter how bad the design looks, you can always “make it work.” [shoutout to Tim Gunn!—CM] 

 

PC Mag’s camera analyst Terry Sullivan was at the show too. He has spent a lot more time than I have testing the e330, so he was able to help me out with the camera's controls and settings. The venue was lit well enough to shoot on Auto, but Terry would have none of that. Aperture priority, 1/260 of second, spot focusing—anyway, about half my shots came out. I need to work a few more shows to get the hang of the lighting conditions and the fact that those models really fly down the runway. How long until the fall lines come out?

 

Oddly enough, the e330's most remarkable feature was of little use on the runway. The E330 is the only D-SLR that offers a live picture on its LCD viewfinder. Nearly all point-and-shoots offer this, but all other D-SLRs make you use the glass viewfinder to frame your shots. In this environment, however, the glass viewfinder was fine. Besides, I didn’t want everyone in the crowd to see every shot I took.

 

That said, I'm glad to share these few photos here. I'm not sure who that guy is in that last shot, but he seems to have seen something he dislikes. Or maybe something he likes a lot? The fashion world is complicated; I think I should stick to simple things like digital music subscription services and global positioning systems.

 

Dan Costa is the Consumer Electronics Editor at PC Magazine and a host of Gearlog Radio; check back every Thursday for his take on the world of consumer electronics.