Play This: "Mountain" -- a Mountain Simulator

I'm dead serious. If you watched Her, you'll be familiar with the creator of Mountain. In his first official game, David O'Reilly sets the bar for something different -- a Mountain Simulator! Not quite a game, but more like a screensaver that's somewhat interactive, it's quite awesome. Available on iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux, it's either $0.99 on iOS or $1.00 depending on how much you want to donate. And yes, it's running in the background as I type this post. Featuring: - no controls - automatic save - audio on/off switch - time movies forward - things grow and things die - nature expresses itself - ~50 hours of gameplay - once generated, you cannot be regenerated

Comixology Kills the Impulse Buy

Just barely one month after Amazon acquired Comixology, Jeff Bezos and team managed to screw the pooch. From Co-founder and CEO David Steinberger on the initial sale to Amazon:

ComiXology will retain its identity as an Amazon subsidiary and we’re not anywhere near done “taking comics further.” We are confident that – with Amazon by our side, who shares our desire for innovation and a relentless focus on customers – we’ve only just begun.

Flat out, he lied or didn't know what was coming. Taken from past buy outs, this isn't something new to Jeff Bezos and company.

Comicbook author and creator Gerry Conway posted a great article on comicbook.com on his views of the latest development.

You don’t make quick entertainment hard to access. You may it simple and easy — an impulse buy.

Comixology’s in-App storefront did that. It provided quick and easy access to comics from the majors to the indies, one-stop shopping at the point of sale, at the moment where the customer is most vulnerable to the casual pitch: while he or she is actually reading a comic, and is in the comic-reading frame of mind, and is mildly (or intensely) interested in another nibble of brain-candy.

I wholeheartedly agree that this change voids my impulse buys. This app was the medium that lead me to discover great comics and various new indies. Browsing a store front without the hassle of leaving the app, going onto the web, buying, then going back to the app, clicking on a "Cloud" tab then downloading it, was the way to go.

Impulse is still the best way to find the latest and greatest or even those that might pique your interest. Now, I'm heading back out to my local comic shop. It's not that I'm going to boycott Comixology, but who am I kidding… delete.

PSA: Change and Secure ALL Your Passwords NOW

With the recent security flaw in OpenSSL, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, every major website is alerting you the change your passwords. Just this morning alone, I'm sure that most of you will have to go about and I advise that you do so now, change your Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Tumblr, GoDaddy, Dropbox and Soundcloud passwords just to name a few. Do it now and make sure that no two are alike! Lucky for me, I use AgileBits's 1Password which, by the way, is now multiple platform, so generating that 8-16 or even 24 character password is automatic. If you haven't read the various sites that are listing the vulnerable web services, I suggest your head over to either here, here or the master list and start working!

3 things you can do to protect yourself Wait for an official announcement from any secure website or service that you normally use regarding a security update.

After you've confirmed that the site or service has installed a security update, change your passwords.

For at least the next week, keep an eye on any of your sensitive online accounts (banking, webmail) for suspicious activity.

In the meantime, while websites are installing the latest version of OpenSSL to fix the bug, it would be a good idea to wait for confirmed updates on your favorite websites and services and then change your password, just to be as safe as possible.

Sesame Street Anytime, Any Place!

Hundreds of episodes of Sesame Street and Pinky Dinky Doo that can be instantly accessed from your PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet.

Awesome timing now that my daughter is almost two! Pair it with Levar Burton's Reading Rainbow and she'll have access to my entire childhood! Wait, where's Today's Special?

via SesameGo

Wanna Save Your iPhone Battery?

This is not one of those "Turn off every useful feature of iOS" posts that grinds my gears. My goal is to deliver practical steps to truly solve your iOS battery woes.

One quick thing before we start — 99.9% of the time it is not actually iOS that is causing your battery to drain quickly. I guarantee you that if you erased your phone and there were no apps or email on it, it would last for ages. But, no one uses their device like that, nor should they. Hopefully with these steps you will be living in iOS battery bliss while still using all the apps and features you love.

I will be reformatting my iPhone 5 again and start fresh with iOS 7.1. A few weeks ago, I installed iOS 7 which did posses amazing battery life, but after I started installing a few of the hundreds of apps that I use, my battery would eventually only last half a day! I'm going to have to start deducing what's really going on.

via OverThought by Scotty Loveless

If You're a Dropbox User, Opt-Out NOW!

You have 30-days from February 24th to opt out of Dropbox's new Legal terms which will benefit you in the long run. Trust me, do it now!

If you’re like me, you probably glossed over this update because gah, legalese.

Allow me to summarize what it means when a company wants to handle all disputes in arbitration:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

via Quibbling.net

If you want to read in full the new terms of service that take Ito effect on March 24, click here.

Grand Turismo 6 for $39.99 for 1 Week Only!

If you're into racing games, the quintessential and ultimate racing game for Sony's Playstation 3 is on sale for $39.99! What makes this deal so special is that it also includes $1 million in in-game racing credits allowing you customize your car to your wildest dreams! That's $20 off the current going price plus $1M credit for the finest racing game ever made. Taking full advantage of the PS3's power and ability, this game came close to looking better or at least just as good as some of the next generation console titles. Buy it now at your favorite retailer or use my link below to help support this site via Amazon. You can get a code to download it right away via the Playstation Store or receive the physical disc, but whatever you do, you have one week! See you on the track!

via Playstation.com

Clear for iOS is FREE! *TODAY ONLY*

If you like free premium paid apps for iOS, then today and today only, it's your lucky day! Realmac has re-released its award winning task list / to-do app Clear making it free for the next 24 hours. Take advantage of this today! I paid for it when it was initially released and I'm telling you now, take advantage of this!

Xbox One Already Lowering Price

"We're doing this because it will generate sales, absolutely," Eagle told GameSpot. "I think it's a great deal for people in the UK to get a next-gen machine for £399 including Kinect, including Titanfall, in the box. Yeah, it's a great deal and hopefully lots of people will take up the offer."

So they're not having trouble outpacing Sony's still hard to find PS4? I'm thinking that although this deal is for the U.K. only, we'll see it soon here in the U.S. closer to Titanfall's release. Hell, I'm honestly contemplating it too but after seeing my 360 collect dust, I'm not holding my breath.

update: looks like its official that Microsoft is releasing a digital download version Titanfall bundle for $499.99 ultimately saving $59.99 for the game.

Do You Take #selfies?

Selfiecity analyzes Instagram data for visual cues like head position, emotional expression, gender and age, in order to get a clearer picture of how (and how often) people actually take selfies in different cultures. “The idea was to confront the generalizations about selfies, which are not based on data, with actual data,” says Manovich. “We wanted to look at what the actual patterns are.”

It's not surprising that people from São Paulo are the happiest.

Need New Tunes? Discover Some Every Monday at Noon Pacific

A great new music site that I just discovered released a new iOS app for only $1.99. If you're like me and love discovering new music and tunes to listen to, check it out! You can always subscribe via e-mail to Noon Pacific and have that awesome playlist sent to you every week. Either way, since I travel quite a bit, bringing them with me on my iPhone is the way to go. It's more of a chill vibe that's totally reinvigorating me in writing more!

Noon Pacific is a great way to find new music to listen to, and while the playlists are hosted on 8Tracks (and you can always use their app and follow them), the Noon Pacific app packages them up nicely, lets you play each weekly playlist one right after the other, shows you which songs are playing, and lets you scroll back through all of the past playlists easily. It's a universal app as well, and the iPad version looks good on its large screen.

Built and curated by Clark Dinnison every week for your listening enjoyment. Better than Beats Music in my mind.

via LifeHacker

I Think Everyone Should Try 'Threes'

I've been playing Threes for just under a week and it's addicting! Plain and simple, it's rather genius if you ask me. The object of the game is to combine similar numbers e.g. 3+3 = 6 then follow that new number block of 6 with another to make 12 and so forth. The game ends when the board fills up and there are no more pairs left next to each other to combine. For a game that took over a year to build, it's worth supporting these developers at a cheap $1.99. Do it and I guarantee you'll love it! If you don't, then the challenge must have been too hard for ya. My highest block so far is 192. What's yours?

Update it's actually Number 1 on the App Store as of this morning! Congratulations to Sirvo and the gang!

Box Throws in Free 50GBs!

I'm a paid, and happy, user of Dropbox but with the other company Box updating their iOS app to 3.0 and throwing in free 50GBs for life, I might just have to switch on over! That's a steal in my book. I also wouldn't be surprised if Dropbox threw something out there too in the next week or so so keep an eye out. If anything, there's nothing to lose with signing up!

We couldn’t be more excited to announce that today we are releasing our brand new, completely rebuilt Box for iPhone® and iPad® app. And to commemorate this, we are offering 50GB of free storage for life to users who download the app in the next 30 days.