M.A.G. - Miko Action Game for Smartphones

"巫女 Miko" is a Japanese word describe a woman who can communucate with the spirit world of Gods, but in modern days, this word almost always means a woman who work at Shinto shirine, for example those girls who wear stunningly clean and beautiful traditional clothes, sit at the counter of shirine's office as a receptionist, sometimes help visiters buy goods. Exactly the girls you see in the blow picture.

Girls work at a shrine's store selling religious goods on New Years Eve

Not to mention, Miko is a famous object for Otaku's craving, because overlapping of sacred elements and esthetics of Japanese traditional attire stirs up something in their minds. Yes, you can guess it's a kind of forbidden adore.

"M.A.G", the title of this exciting simple scroll action shooting game, is an abbreviation of Miko Action Game.

M.A.G. for iOS

M.A.G. for Android

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Toaru Majutsu no Index Alarm App for iPhone

Cute Amine Girls games, or Moege are all about (virtual) interaction with Anime girls. Whether it's a high school drama style sweet story or SF style or an ancient saga in which usually players embark on a mission to defeat an evil empire like Final Fantasy in it's early days, what we (or I..) expect is how well the game satisfy or provoke something sexual in us with whatever stories...

But, of course not all Anime fans have sexually quirks. Just like putting intricate figure dolls on your desk shelf, you just want having fun talking to, cooking with the girls, or maybe you want them to wake you up in a dull morning...

This is again an alarm-clock app of a character from a famous anime called 'Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Forbidden Tome of A Certain Magic or A Certain Magical Index)'.

As you don't wake up and keep the girl from having breakfast (because she has to wake you up, you know she is so loyal), she is getting hungry and angry. For some reason she describe how she is hungry in numbers, like "I'm 22.5 % hungry!!". This number indicates how long you took to wake up after the alarm. Somehow her reaction may tempt you to try to leave her until she gets 100% hungry...

This app is priced at 600yen(apprx $7.5), which is a bit expensive or a right price (it also has a voice library and stock wallpapers)? How do you think?

*I could't confirm this app is available in U.S. iTunes.

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If Moe girl were living in your iPhone... - DreamClub PureClock Amane

Usually when spin-offs of gamesofts for desktop gaming consoles are released for gaming portable devices, it may end up somewhat simplified or downgraded. But sometimes things are the opposite. Sometimes portable games would get more unique and diffuse more into your life.

DreamClub PureClock Amane

This is an iOS version of "Dream Club", a famous game for Xbox360. And this might go deeper in your life than Xbox360 version. Simply because you always carry around iPhone, means you're always with Moe girl  who are always sincerely looking forward you to launching the app, too.

This was originally released as a free app, but with the new update, now we can get the full version for $6.99.

When you unlock the full feature, you can change the girl's cloths, use an alarm function, gift her presents, have more voices and more opportunities to TOUCH her (you can shake her boob by touching..).

This basically is an alarm (or clock) app. When you touch the clock in the top-left, the girl's voice will read the present time. It's fine.

Alarm just works fine, too. When the set time has come, the special voice will announce you a time.

You also can present her gifts, though it cost actual money D:
When you treat her alcohol, she got drunk lol. Maybe you shouldn't think too much. Just enjoy her cute expression ;)

Why don't you buy her cloths if you want to make her like you, or just want to see her in your favorite costumes.
You can also take a photo with her, or select a photo from Cameraroll and add her image over it. You can drag the girl's image with two finger so that nicely fit her into the photo.

The girl in this app is a main character of Xbox version. This is a game which you can virtually experiences the Japanese style cabaret club, top-notch, very expensive club. So you can see so many gorgeous Moe girls are working for this club.

When you haven't use this app for a while, she would call you that she miss you... It's maybe Otaku Dream Come True for some people, but for me it's a bit scary, what if you uninstall this app? I just only could imagine a Ring like horrific scene :(

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Let's play Casino with Moe girls

Hello two dimension!! Oh you don't understand what I mean by two dimension? Basically it means cute girls in Anime or Game, which of course have two dimension body.
Anyway, whether you're a serious Otaku or just want to take a peek at Japanese modern culture or an early adopter who just want to try everything new in the market, this is my best recommendation of anime girls game which has a little eroge (Anime like porno game) flavor with high-quality graphic.

The maker of this app (Override Co.) is really famous for the quality of it's eroge games.

Anime Casino Beauty Dealers

In this game you play poker, blackjack and Indian poker with Moe characters, little cute girls. Not surprisingly the company's already released similar games as a series, and this is a second installment of this Anime Casino Dealers series.
So what the difference from the previous one?
Think about it. When you go to a strip club, though I'm quite unsure you've ever been, perhaps the most enjoyable moment there is when strippers are teasing you by taking off their cloths so too slowly, and you're watching it sipping a beer. Or... imagine there's a girl in revealing cloth in front of you, and you could make her take her cloth off, step by step, by beating her in poker..
This game or many other eroge are capturing those situations into the game screen. What matters is not you can enjoy poker itself but you can enjoy the process of girls getting naked.
The answer of the question is... no, there's no difference, except, tough this is a big exception, that girls are different.

all character has big tits in this game

This game has three characters. Madam Scarlet plays poker, Aoi, the girl in a nurse costume holding an injection needle, plays black jack, and Karen, the girl with bunny ears, plays Indian poker.

The system is just the classic way. As you win you get coins and with those coins you can take cards concealing girls' body off.

Can you see the left, second from the bottom card's price is only $1000, and the below that card is $16,000? These girls are really good at teasing you!!

$25,000!!!

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Have arrow keys with good tactile feel? try this: Hexagon

Did you remember when you're playing an old school game which is ridiculously hard but at the same time get your adrenaline going when you nail a blast. Basically those games are going beyond the capacity of human-being at their most difficult stages, and even go though the 1st stage the most easiest is a hard job.
Yes, this game is exactly in the same category with those diffused-in-a-sweet-memory old-school games.

Hexagon

I just found this browser game in the verge article(Play This: Hexagon).

Let's give it a try and tell me your score!!
But I'm not pretty sure that playing this with your big 27" display is in compliance with the health standard of your country. So plz be sure not to overly zoom in!!
Fortunately or not Terry haven't yet released iOS app of this game, so you don't have to worry if you would see someone who are knocked out by himself with holding iPhone, or I should say iPad, in his hand.

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Photography goes Magical, No need to wait until crowds gone away - Scalado

Smartphone, where magic happens.
Don't say I'm being totally facetious before knowing this photo retouching app.

There are already nice photo retouching apps for iOS such as this or this, which let you easily remove objects from your photos or naturally put extra objects into your photos.

But what you see is this was merely a beginning of the magical world of smartphone's photo editing after Scalado released this app.

With this app called "Scalnado Remove" you you don't need to move your finger all over to cover the area you want to erase. Because Remove captures several images in a row, analyses them and automatically creates a composite photo devoid of unwanted details. Better yet, it highlights potential objects and lets you eliminate them manually.

The actual process of editing is introduced in this video.

The Press Release from Scalado.

Scalado, a world-leading provider of high-performance imaging technologies, applications and services for the mobile industry, have today announced the release of a new revolutionizing product named Remove. Remove is a technology that automatically highlights and removes any unwanted object from a captured photo. It is the world’s first Object removal software to be released on a mobile device.
Remove solves common photographic problems with unwanted objects in captured images, such as people getting in the way of our camera shot. Remove detects and selects the unwanted objects which simply can be removed automatically or by touching the selections on the screen or after capturing the image.

"After Zero Shutter Lag, Burst, and Rewind Scalado continue leading and changing the capturing landscape by bringing in new unique and needed capturing innovations”, says Fadi Abbas, CMO/VP BizDev and Co-founder of Scalado, -"What differentiate us is the combination of customers who believe in our superiority, leading industry partners and continuous innovations”
Last year Scalado released several innovations, e.g. the Rewind technology which allows the users to capture perfect group shots by automatically selecting the best shots in a burst and merging them into one perfect image. Rewind is already shipping in millions of mobile phones.

"Our team has been working hard to maintain its leading innovation position in the camera capturing field”, says Sami Niemi, CTO and Co-founder of Scalado, -"Remove shows that our technologies are setting the guidelines for the whole market”.
Scalado will premiere showcase Remove, the first of many new innovations planned this year, at the 2012 Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, February 27th to March 1st.

 If you read above sentences carefully, you'll understand why I used the word smartphone instead of iPhone or iOS. It says this app'll be released on a MOBILE DEVICES, and of all the review I saw so far, there are no images of this app running on iOS devices but on Androids.

Maybe the reason is because of interval length of continuous shooting of iPhone?
Anyway the engadget's hands-on review was done on Sansong' crappy galaxy phones but why don't you try it on Xperia S, that would be the best smartphone photography experience.

But I just hope they don't tease iPhone users and will release the iOS version.

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Decorative Minimal - Xperia S

Although I enjoy my life with iPhone 4S (and it's unimaginable to live without it..), Sony's new Xperia design has drawn my attention.

Sony used to be a leader of cool gadget design. Their design had a futuristic geeky flavor but at the same time minimal, and well-organized. On top of that they had a leading technology.

But Sony in recent years seems to be loosing it's orientation, and their design once sophisticated has become boring and once geeky has become pointless.

The design of this phone is kind of reminiscent of old Sony design. Especially that transparent line reminds me the joy of decorative minimal design.

This transparent part called Floating Prism illuminates when you're operating the phone. It also glows to notify incoming calls, means you can recognize it even when you put your phone face side down.

The body of Xperia S has a nice matte finish coating, which make fingerprints less noticeable.

Back side of the phone is gently rounded.

Hardware side buttons are made of metal which is a kind like iPhone, but have slimmer shape.

Audio-wise Sony never fails. If you are not satisfied with iPod's limited audio function and quality, this one fills your heart.
You can create and edit your own equalizer setting on your phone, clear base sound, clear stereo, virtual surrounded technology, sound emphasizer xLOUD... these are what Sony says  I don't know what they exactly mean, but IT JUST SOUNDS NICER THAN iPHONE and iPOD.

In the lockscreen you can switch Clock to a music player by a single swipe.

12M pixels camera (and 30 fps HD 1080p video) is the highest resolution of all smartphones, but there are a lot more practical features in this camera.

Continuous auto-focus, face-recognition and
shake correction unleash the capacity of full HD

F2.4 lens and Back-illuminated CMOS sensor reduce the noise and make it possible to take a fine-grained photography in the dark.

All 5 lens are AR-coated on both sides to prevent the reflection of light. The lens filter also reduce the reflection as well as color unevenness.

1.3M pixels photos and HD 720p videos can be captured by front camera.

You can drag icons to make shortcuts on the side of the display, which is a nice feature if you use particular functions frequently.

"A single key press takes you from sleep to snap in just over a second." It take about 1.5 seconds according to Sony Japan website and shoot interval is about 0.5 second.

Display is significantly improved from Xperia arc, the previous series released a year before Xperia S.

Screen size is increased from 4.2 to 4.3, resolution is from wide VGA (854 x 480) to HD 720p (1280 x 720).

Sony just announced new models at mobile world congress which look almost identical to one another.  It looks like all Sony's next generation models will have single letter names and Floating Prisms.

Xperia P has an all aluminum body and U has exchangeable bottom caps. P has a white magic display, which add extra white stripe to RGB, but has only HD screen. U has a cute gimmick in Prism which illuminates to match the colour of photos viewed in the gallery or the album art of music tracks currently playing, but it has an only 5 pixel camera.

Meanwhile in Japna, waterproof Xperia, acro HD will be released for Docomo, which has almost same spec as Xperia S but looks more (or just) like Nokia Lumina 800.

Xperia acro HD (will be released in Mar, 2012)

looks exactly the same lol

I'm not here trying to say Sony had been a copy dog for the design of this phone. Both of these phones are designed in North Euro, so it is likey the same designers are involved in both products, isn't it.

Xperia S's transparent line reminds me the joy of decorative minimal design, and that has been long forgotten mainly because of Apple. Apple's design is simple and genuine, and never put what we can call decoration except "bitten Apple". It somehow has become dull and bland enough that can be dubbed as a safety choice, not something that buying the one send a message.

But what makes iPhone so successful is the integrated user experience from iOS5 to iTunes to the incredible app store that seaming-lessly work together.
It's good to have two different styles of smartphone design, but with that regard iPhone is one or two steps forward to Sony and a bunch of other Android phones that few people can differentiate.

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Google Street View Will Be Extended Into Ocean

These beautiful 360 degrees panorama pictures will be put together and be uploaded to Google Earth, becoming like Google Street View in underwater ocean.

"When it comes to climate change we know hundred times more about how life on lands gonna respond than life in the sea"

Google Plus Hangout makes it possible to live-streaming the survey to worldwide viewers.

Actually Google Map has already been extended to Ocean (and Ocean floor) since least 2009.

But we may be able to take a virtual tour in deep ocean in 2012.

Google partner launches 'Seaview' site for a Street View-like look at the Great Barrier Reef - The Verge

This project is a part of a scientific survey carried out by the University of Queensland with the help of Catlin Seaview Survey (sponsored by a Bermuda-based specialty insurance and reinsurance company, Catlin Group ), and Google partners with them.
Seaview is still a demo version which means the survey is in a preliminary stage now and the full-scale survey will start in September 2012.

Catlin group has sponsored Ocean survey exploring how rising sea temperatures and increased ocean acidity will affect the region over the long term, the phenomenon what they call the Ocean change.

This time the survey will carry out studies of the Australia's famous reef up to a depth of 100 metres, with letting the public being to able to watch the process and results via Youtube and other Google sites in order to rise public awareness of this issue.

A specifically developed camera attached to underwater vehicle will take thousands of 360-degree panoramic images from locations along the length of the 2,300-kilometre reef.

The survey will also use robotic cameras to survey depths between 30 metres and 100 metres, a region scientists know little about bu makes up makes up 93% of the reef - people have been suggesting those deeper areas may be protected from climate change and assist in the recovery of reef systems. But at the moment we don’t know.

Finally, a survey team led by cinematographer and shark researcher Richard Fitzpatrick will study the migratory behaviour of tiger sharks, green turtles and manta rays in response to increasing seawater temperatures. 50 animals will be tracked with satellite tags that continuously monitor their geographic position, temperature and depth.

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Writing a love letter to a geek girl - Google Map Envelope

Here are two designers Rahul and Yofred.

What is it like if Google map becomes an envelope, they imagined.

There would be a Send envelope button in Gmail. It'd be great to allow people mail physical letters trough the postal service for a small fee with this button. But their creative mind didn't end here.
When press the button, users were also able to print out templates which show the route from an address of a sender to an address of a recipient on Google map.

The printed templates can be folded to make envelopes. You put your letter in the envelope and post the mail.

If you are in long-distance relationship, the envelope tells a story itself. If you recently moved and want to tell people the new address, this is a convenient way.

If a girl you want so badly is a geek, this is how you can make a nice love-letter.

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Video Compressor - iPhone app

With regard to recording quality iPhone has now become a serious competitor of digital video cameras since the introduction of iPhone 4. But what still bother us is handling the huge video data gets iPhone very slow. Sometimes you can't send videos because their size is exceeding the limit, or even if you can, it takes time. In addition to that if you want to store a lot of video data you took in your iPhone, the storage space might not be enough.

Video Compressor (free) - iTunes

Here is the good app for you. This app simply reduce the size of full HD video contents you captured with Camera app by over 90%.

When you start the app, you'll see this screen where you select the level of compression from these three.
Of course HD 720p is higher quality and bigger size video format, so there's no way that compressing into HD reduce 90% while into VGA reduce 80% is correct description. (below image is taken from the app's preview page on iTunes, but the numbers are incorrect.)
After testing both, it turns out HD reduce about 80% and VGA is 90%, so the numbers are opposite.

?

Now you selected a compression type, then you select a video you want to compress from CameraRoll and click 'Choose'.

HD quality compression has the best result reducing almost 80% of the data size without significantly compromising the image quality - think about it, HD 720p is the recording format of iPhone4.
VGA is the quality of front camera. If you don't need to keep tiny details clear, VGA is a nice option, but you 'd better avoid Low Quality. It would hurt your eyes.

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