eyeballs

Contre Jour is an arcade puzzler that veteran gamers will see as a mashup of game mechanics and inspiration from several other popular titles. That said, Contre Jour is a well-executed melange, a fun and often challenging puzzle game with polished art and sound.

On each short level of Contre Jour, you're trying to get a charming little alien (essentially, a rolling eyeball) to the level's exit. The alien doesn't move on its own, so you need to use attached ropes (some elastic, some not, some with movable anchors), slingshots, malleable ground (which you can shape with … Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Dell announces the 7-inch Dell Streak, an Android-based tablet

Skype announces its acquisition of Qik

Lady Gaga announces her Grey Line of Polaroid products including a camera, a printer, and sunglasses with a built-in camera

Verizon shows off a home energy and security monitoring system

RealD announces standardized universal 3D glasses

Apple's Mac App Store launches with 1 million downloads in its first day

Waterloo Labs shows off eyeball controlled gaming

Dreambots is just what your sore muscles need: a motorized masseuse

Miruko is a camera robot in the shape of an eyeball capable of tracking objects and faces. According to its creators, it can be used for augmented-reality games. According to me, it sucks people's souls.

In this particular game captured in the video, Miruko--which has a wireless CMOS camera embedded in its iris--scans the real world for virtual monsters (ooook), fixing its aim when it finds one. Then the player can capture the monster using the iPhone camera, which is connected via Wi-Fi to the wearable robot.

We're still trying to track down more information on Miruko's … Read more

Webcams aren't the first product to spring to mind when you think of Blue Microphones. The company has a solid reputation in the pro audio world for making high-end boutique microphones, but they've been slowly dipping their toes into the waters of consumer audio products, such as the Snowball USB podcast mic, and its baby brother, the Snowflake.

Now we have the Eyeball, a $99 Webcam that borrows on the design of the Snowflake, but leaves behind the intolerably cute product name. We compared the Eyeball with the Logitech Pro 9000 and the MacBook's built-in iSight camera … Read more

On a recent trip to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., I got a quick peek at one of the test rooms Google uses to track user interactions with its products. Gmail's product manager Todd Jackson told me it was just one of the many other user testing facilities the company had, and that collectively the testing had given the team important feedback of how people were using Gmail. Enough to change where entire features like user chat took up residence on a user's screen.

This Friday Google unveiled results from using this technique on some of … Read more

We've seen many eyeball-shaped speakers lately, and Scandyna's curvy offerings are no exception to the trend. Now, however, the company is trying to appeal to us chic techies by painting their product pink.

Exciting? I think not. It seems every tech product comes in a pink version nowadays, like the Microsoft Zune, or the Nintendo DS.

If you love a pale, washed-out pink, and you have $300 to fork over, Scandyna is selling the Pink Dock Pack, a pack of two Micropod SE speakers, along with an iPod dock, at retailers including Saks Fifth Avenue. The iPod dock … Read more

I'm not a big fan of surveys, so I don't quote them often. But a recent Consumer Reports survey about PC manufacturers listed Apple as No. 1 in tech support, with Lenovo second, Dell third, and HP dead last. I should also say that Dell came in second in desktops.

I thought the headline should be "Survey says leading PC maker HP dead last in tech support." But that's not what happened. The media hailed Apple, trashed Dell, and gave HP a pass.

Horror stories about Dell's support are all over the blogosphere. Why is that? I mean, why does the media give Dell such a hard time?

Because perception is reality. But aside from being a pithy statement, what does that really mean?… Read more

Of all the products we've seen, nothing could prepare us for the latest 3LCD Epson PowerLite 400W projector and its hilarious gigantic eye. But appearances aside, this one-of-a-kind megazoom lens delivers an amazing ultra-short throw performance: a mighty 60-inch projection at just over 2 feet, perfect for small meeting rooms and classrooms. To deliver pixel-to-pixel perfect visuals with the new crop of laptops, this 8-pound projector has matching wide-aspect resolution of 1,280 x 800 for sharper text and smooth graphics. When coupled with its competent 1,800 ANSI lumens brightness, this ensures hassle-free presentations even amid mild ambient … Read more

The invasion of eyeball-shaped alien gadgets continues unabated. And the Webcam variety, in particular, is getting more brazen all the time.

They no longer bother with thinly veiled disguises; now they're coming out of their unholy closets in full ocular glory, as evidenced by Envision's "V-Cam." This orbital creature looks exactly like a giant eye staring you down with nary a blink as it transmits 1.3-megapixel video and 4-megapixel still shots with a five-glass lens and automatic face detection.

Although its specs aren't extraordinary, SlipperyBrick says its $50 price tag is reasonable if it … Read more