pop

Pop Letters Word Game for Kids 2.3 Review

Learning is a lot more fun with the range of apps now available for the iPad. Using what they know of learning habits and the natural desire of almost every child to play with an iPad or iPhone, developers are creating ever more interesting and engaging educational apps. Pop Letters is an interesting take on the act of learning letters that many young children will find entertaining, even if it is ultimately lacking in features.

The idea behind Pop Letters is for children to quickly tap the onscreen letters, right after the game announces them. At any given time, there … Read more

Icon Pop Quiz 1.2.1 Review

Users who know a lot about pop culture may look for a game to test their knowledge. Icon Pop Quiz is well thought out, but its bugs and gameplay are problematic.

Even though it's available for free, Icon Pop Quiz requires coins for certain features, which can be purchased in batches. Despite being available through the Google Play store, the application took a long time to download. While the graphics in the menus were well designed, they were not intuitive. As a result, the lack of any user instructions was a problem. The constant presence of pop-up ads made … Read more

EA 'retires' SimCity Social, Sims Social, and more from Facebook

The Sims Social was once heralded as Electronic Arts' "most successful Facebook game," but now it's being laid to rest along with SimCity Social and Pet Society. These three social games will be extinct from Facebook as of June 14.

The game maker made the announcement today, saying that it was a hard decision but had to be done in order to "reallocate servers and resources to more popular titles," according to the FAQ section of its Web site.

"Today we are informing players of the difficult decision to retire some of our Facebook games: The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society," EA wrote in a blog post today. "After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off."… Read more

Bad ads are ruining our (sex) lives, say Americans

Have you ever thought how pop-up ads really work on you?

I'm not looking for a rational answer. I am, as usual, trying to explore your feelings.

You see, things can affect us in insidious ways, so much so that we don't realize what we are becoming, until we have irrevocably become it.

Analytics company (1-1 consumer lifestyle predictive analytics company, to be precise) InsightsOne decided they had to know how ads were affecting Americans. In a deeper sense, you understand. So it commissioned Harris Interactive to probe, delve, and elicit.

The results are not an advertisement for … Read more

PopSearch for Mac Review

Users who want to easily search for information may not want a separate browser window open to a search engine. PopSearch for Mac allows access to a favorite search engine using a keystroke.

Available as a free application, PopSearch for Mac installs easily as an extension to a web browser, such as Safari. There do not appear to be any user instructions or technical support available. Users unfamiliar with installing and setting up extensions may have some difficultly figuring out how to configure the program, but this is easy with some trial and error. There is no menu for the … Read more

The 404 1,238: Where we open up for Bayside (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Listen to the music of Bayside and check them out at one of their upcoming shows.

- Nick's clothing label is called Born and Bred, and 404 listeners can save 20 percent off all merchandise with code BB404.

- Follow Nick Ghanbarian and Born and Bred on Twitter

Episode 1,238

Subscribe:

iTunes (HD) iTunes (SD) iTunes (HQ) iTunes (MP3)

RSS (HD) RSS (SD) RSS (HQ) RSS (MP3)

 

Get PopCap's Peggle (PC/Mac) for free!

How much do you value your productivity? If you're smack in the middle of an important work or school project, or you've got important life events to deal with -- eating, drinking, and so on -- you might want to steer clear of this deal.

Because I warn you: once you start playing Peggle, you won't want to stop.

Don't believe me? Peggle comes from PopCap Games, makers of such addictive pastimes as Bejeweled, Bookworm, and Plants vs. Zombies. And I'd say it ranks just as high as those classics on the time-suck scale.

It'… Read more

'Trek' visions unite at Beam Me Up art expo

When "Star Trek" hit television screens nearly 47 years ago, little could series creator Gene Roddenberry have imagined he'd created a science fiction phenomenon still celebrated to this day. A recent exhibit of "Trek" art called Beam Me Up in downtown L.A.'s Q Pop gallery brought together 80 artists who shared their unique interpretation of Roddenberry's vision (and its various spinoffs). You can even buy some of the artwork if it's still available.

Our gallery below highlights a handful of art from the exposition, which concluded earlier this month after a multiweek run. With works ranging from a bright neon Spock to larger-than-life Picard playing a flute on top of the Enterprise, there's probably a little bit of something for everyone. … Read more

Pop Hearty HD offers mindless fun

We tend to gravitate toward simple games that require a bit of strategy. Pop Hearty HD falls along those lines, but it suffers for not having any kind of instructions or tips for playing.

Pop Hearty HD opens with the main menu, where you can start a new game, continue an old one, or check your ranking. We started a new game, hoping that it would offer some kind of instruction once we got started, but we got nothing. Thankfully, it didn't take long for us to figure out the game's premise, which is to eliminate hearts and … Read more

Don't let phone calls stop your game

Imagine you're surfing the Web or playing Temple Run 2 for the umpteenth time. Sometimes in life there are things that deserve full concentration without the needless distractions of phone calls and text messages or anything of that sort. Unfortunately for Android users, a disruptive phone call can mean the difference between life and death (in a game).

Small Call by Apps Falyf thinks it has the solution. The app displays incoming phone calls and texts in a small pop-up widget on your phone instead of interrupting your current activity.

Having a feature like this while using GPS, for … Read more