wave

The defender becomes the attacker!

Anomaly Warzone Earth takes a different tack with the tower defense genre by having you play as the invading force, completing missions on a (somewhat) fixed path against a number of deadly turrets. Your heavily armored squad of vehicles and units has guns of its own, but as with every tower defense game, the more turrets you're up against, the harder it will be to stay healthy and reach your goal.

Fortunately, as you progress through the game, you'll gain abilities that will repair your vehicles and make it harder for enemies to hit you. You'll be … Read more

Defend your flock!

TowerMadness has been around for a while now, but the unique challenge and several updates over time make it a must-have for tower defense fans. Featuring 3D graphics that look great on the Retina Display, TowerMadness challenges you to defend a flock of sheep from an onslaught of attacking aliens. You can view the action from above or use a reverse-pinch gesture to zoom in on the action. You'll play on 49 included maps, but you can purchase 28 expansion maps from within the game. A recent update added 5 more maps, and two new weapon upgrades to add … Read more

Take it to their homeworld

Sentinel 3: Homeworld is the latest installment (released late in 2010) of the Sentinel tower defense franchise, offering more units to choose from, new maps, and new abilities that help you stave off wave after wave of alien enemies. The interface is like many in the fixed-path tower defense genre, letting you drag and drop units on the edges of a path to fortify your defenses against each wave of enemies. Sentinel 3 comes with a 20-level, 14-map campaign and an endless mode, and also offers in-app purchases if you want to add even more levels and maps.

Sentinel 3: … Read more

Handy weather apps for iOS

Across the United States, people are experiencing some of the hottest weather of the year. Many cities are topping out in the hundreds, and some are even getting close to 110. Even a quick glance at the current weather map tells the story: It is hot just about everywhere and if you don't have air conditioning or a body of water nearby, you're probably not feeling too happy about the sunny weather.

This week's collection of apps are all about checking the weather to see when you can get some relief. The first gives the most weather information on one screen so you can know everything at a glance. The second is a fairly simple weather app, but offers one very useful feature. The third is the most complex, with both viewable weather data and national radio updates for weather in your area. Hopefully, with these apps in hand, you'll be able to see some light at the end of a very hot tunnel.… Read more

Robotic cat ears for humans, an ears-on test

When you see a cat or dog, the wagging tail or arched back can immediately tip you off to the animal's mood. Can technology make it as easy to read people?

That's the idea behind the Necomimi, a pair of brain-wave sensing robotic cat ears made by Japanese company Neurowear. The fuzzy motorized ears are built atop headset technology created by San Jose, Calif.-based NeuroSky. It relies on electroencephalography from a single sensor placed on the forehead to read a person's brain waves and communicates with a nearby PC or Mac with a wireless USB plug-in to determine if a person is focused or relaxed. If the wearer is focused, the attached ears stay erect. When relaxed, the ears face down.

Earlier this year, Neurowear made a cutesey video of the ears that became a small hit on the Web, generating 1.6 million views (a lot of people could probably identify, as the girl in the video checks out an attractive guy, and her robotic ears move). Neurowear's original intent was to make only one pair, but after the gimmick attracted so much attention online, the company decided to produce a line of robotic ears.

Tansy Brook, a spokesperson for NeuroSky, visited CNET headquarters in San Francisco earlier this month to show off the third prototype of the ears and give me a chance to try them on. … Read more

Survey: iPhone leads Android among new buyers

The iPhone is the No. 1 choice among consumers planning to buy a new smartphone over the next 90 days, according to data released today by ChangeWave Research.

In a poll conducted in June surveying 4,163 smartphone consumers in North America, 46 percent of those planning to buy a new phone said they'll opt for an iOS device. That figure is two percentage points higher than the one seen in ChangeWave's latest survey, held in March. Trailing in second place is Android, with 32 percent saying they'll pick up a phone running Google's mobile OS, … Read more

This Day in Tech: Twitter adds link shortening; iOS 5 beta jailbroken in a day

Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Tuesday, June 7.

Twitter launches automatic link shortening New service will automatically abbreviate URLs of any length to 19 characters when users compose tweets in the Tweet box. More

Hands-on with Wii successor The new Wii U console, which will debut in 2012, combines motion control with a touch-screen game controller. Nintendo says "it will change the way we play games." Get all the details

iOS 5 beta jailbroken in less than 24 hours A group of hackers … Read more

EmWave2: Portable stress relief for harried geeks

It can be hard to get a techie to relax. We are often found toiling away at Internet start-ups, programming under pressure, or blasting away at Call of Duty as enemies swarm across the lines.

The new emWave2 stress management system from HeartMath features several components that geeks love: a gadget, a computer program, and lots of cool graphs. It also has 20 years worth of stress research behind its development, but the glowing lights are what first catch your eye.

According to HeartMath, emWave technology is already being used by more than 10,000 health professionals, including 65 Veteran Administration hospitals and clinics for post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. The second-generation emWave2 is designed for personal use and is portable enough to tuck in your pocket. It also adds a computer interface and desktop program that can track your results, and it has several additional applications including a slideshow and a garden game that adds colors and images as you relax.

I got my hands on the emWave2 and took it for a stress-test drive. The $229 kit includes both an ear and a thumb monitor for your heart rate. I used the thumb monitor. It also includes a line of blue lights that give you visual feedback for controlling your breathing.… Read more

Wave-powered robot funded for sea missions

It started monitoring humpback whales, but Liquid Robotics expects its self-powered marine drone to be deployed for many other missions, including defense and industrial applications.

Liquid Robotics yesterday said that it raised $22 million from VantagePoint Capital Partners and has hired Bill Vass, a former Sun Microsystems president and COO with experience selling to the federal government, as CEO.

It's the first institutional funding for the company, which developed an autonomous ocean robot called the Wave Glider for environmental research when it was a joint venture between Jupiter Research Foundation and Roger Hine. That project evolved into the Liquid … Read more

Survey: Young more eager to pay via mobile phone

The mobile and banking industries have been all abuzz lately about offering consumers the ability to pay for items through their cell phones. But how do consumers actually feel about this?

Survey results released yesterday by MasterCard tried to gauge how comfortable people would be using their cell phones to pay for items on the go at stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets. And like many surveys focused on new technologies, this one showed a fairly big gap in feelings between the young and the not-as-young.

Among those 18 to 34 years old, 63 percent said they would be at … Read more