pets

Game developer and publisher Ngmoco has acquired game house Stumptown Game Machine, the co-creator of the Touch Pets series. The two companies had worked together on the burgeoning virtual-pet franchise for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 2009.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Stumptown Games, a creation of Andrew Stern, is Ngmoco's third developer acquisition in the past year. Previous pickups include Miraphonic, which Ngmoco acquired in November of 2009, and Freeverse, which Ngmoco bought shortly after its $25 million round of venture capital funding in February. Both of those development houses continue to run under … Read more

Roomba just tried to suck up my sneaker. Fortunately, it didn't get past the laces.

I found it hunched over a threshold with the laces coiled around its brushes, looking like a slightly guilty puppy.

The shoe was easy to dislodge. With the push of a button, Roomba was on its way again, vacuuming my hardwood floors, rugs and tiles.

iRobot marked its 20th anniversary the other day (see our photo gallery of its robots), notching more than 5 million home robots sold, and I celebrated by sicking one of the latest, the 562 Pet Series, on the dust … Read more

Just when you thought Twitter had broken the limits of stupidity with products like Twoddler, which lets tots send short messages, Mattel is making sure it really does go to the dogs.

The toy giant's Puppy Tweets turns your pooch's woofs into tweets so you can keep up with its busy daily schedule of eating, sleeping, and destroying your slippers.

Available soon from Amazon for about $30, Puppy Tweets consists of a collar tag with integrated motion and sound sensors that's linked to your home computer via Wi-Fi. A USB receiver is included.

The tag will send … Read more

What's that sound you hear you ask? It's a gazillion tween-age girls squealing with delight. Littlest Pet Shop, one of my 10-year-old daughter's favorite toys for the last several years, just got the iPhone-iPod Touch treatment (iTunes link).

For those unfamiliar with the toys, they are cute little plastic pets--dogs, cats, turtles, parrots, and the like.

As for the game, it's a decidedly "littler" version of the popular Littlest Pet Shop title for Nintendo DS and Wii. Players can collect three pets (not enough, so my daughter says), dress them with various accessories, engage … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Last year we reviewed a few new portable DTV units from no-name manufacturers that did OK in our tests, but fell short in terms of battery life and resolution. That's why we're intrigued with Philips' upcoming PET749, which combines a portable DVD player and DTV in a $179.99 (list) unit with a higher resolution 800x480 display.

While that's not HDTV resolution, it is a notch up from the 480x234-pixel resolution you see on many of the generic portable DTVs cropping up on Amazon and other sites (we reviewed the Envizen Digital Duo Box Pro ED8850A). … Read more

The days of cats amusing themselves with bits of string and dogs spending hours playing with their own, er, equipment are long gone. Sophisticated modern pets demand the latest high-tech gadgets to keep them stimulated, satisfied, and in 24-hour digital contact with their owners. We reveal what today's plugged-in pets are barking for.

Read more of "The best pet gadgets ever made" at Crave UK.

It's a dog. It's a porcupine. It's a dog dressed as a porcupine (Martha Stewart's dog Francesca, no less). Yes, it looks like Francesca will be dressing up as another animal species this Halloween, and she no doubt will suffer a serious identity crisis in the process.

The very creative Alison Lewis, editor of the technology life and style blog Switch, went on Martha's show Monday to demonstrate how to make the illuminated porcupine dog costume.

Required materials include fiber optic strands, electrical tape, a 5-millimeter LED light, AAA batteries, silver reflective paper, a craft … Read more

They tell us not to drive Hummers.

They tell us to disconnect our cell phone chargers, once our cell phones are juiced. They tell us to switch off our laptops, burn candles rather than electric light, and sail boats rather than fly planes.

But do they ever tell us to wean ourselves off the animals that we cynically use as substitutes for our failed relationships with other humans?

I only ask because an article from the New Scientist has wafted in front of my breakfast bowl and slapped me about my flappy jowls.

Quoting such luminous organizations as the Stockholm Environment Institute at York, UK, … Read more