Farmville raises almost $1m for Haiti with its White Corn campaign
Facebook game Farmville has raised almost $1 million dollars for the relief fund in Haiti. Farmville players have been buying special White Corn through micro-payments of real money in the game, and 100% of the profits on this particular purchase go to the World Food Program. Farmville has been supporting relief work in Haiti since…
Pygmy-flicking game Pocket God is 1st paid-for app to hit 2million
Got an iPhone? Feeling a little bit sadistic? Well, maybe you should download Pocket God - 2 million people already have. The app game by a two man team from California, claims to be the only paid-for app to have topped 2 million downloads. What are the reasons for its success? It kind of is…
Possible results of the UK's new open data site
The UK government has opened up a vast hoard of data to the public online, on a website called data.gov.uk. The data, containing goverment records on everything from NHS dentists to planning applications to suicides, was all previously available under the Freedom of Information Act, but the process for getting it out was slow and…
Let Youtube be the DJ – music discovery service launched
Youtube gets into music recommendation with a Last.fm style project called the Youtube Music Discovery Project. They launched it quietly - it's still a Test Tube project rather than something you can access on the main site. Go to www.youtube.com/disco to try it out. Type a band name or genre into the search box and…
Amazon bring apps to the Kindle
Amazon is planning to bring apps onto its Kindle e-reader. The retail site and Kindle-makers have just opened an app-making developer kit for its device, and apps should be arriving on the e-reader sometime later this year. Kindle apps, I'm gonna call them Kapps would we imagine do a range of things based around the…
Sony Ericsson's smooth new camera phone: the Vivaz
Sony Ericsson's new Kurara phone will have a whopping 8 mega-pixel camera. This trendy new Sony Ericsson Symbian phone is all about the photos and the video and follows the Satio in SE's communications and media portfolio. Called the Vivaz, the camera has continuous autofocus video shooting with image stabilization, face detection, and captures the…
milBook – the Army's version of Facebook..
The American Army have recently created a social networking site that they describe as a military version of Facebook. Called milBook, I doubt the site means you can "machete" your friends instead of "poking" them, but it does mean that security is higher (these results will definitely not be coming up in google) and it…
Apps on earphones? where can't they go?
Smartphones are the obvious location for apps, they've got loads between them but, they're not the only places. Obviously laptops and desktop computers have had apps or widgets for ages, whether they're calculators or a Spotify launcher. Apps are creeping into TVs - new sets from places like Samsung and LG come with Facebook and…
How gadget helps deaf people to hear with their skin
A gadget could help deaf people to "hear" sounds with their skin. The device called the Monitor works by converting sound into vibrations. It is aimed at individuals who are deaf and blind or severely hearing impaired and should help them to perceive and recognise sounds. The Monitor was developed by an engineering researcher in…
Micro hair straightners from Cloud Nine
Do you get caught out by fly-a-way hairs or weird curly bits midway through the day? At a time when your bedroom and the implements need to sort it out are far away? Catering to this disastrous scenario, manufacturers Cloud Nine have brought out minature hair straighteners that fit in your handbag. At 6 inches…
