Month: September 2011

The popular microblogging platform Posterous has launched a new service, called Posterous Spaces. This is their new product name, the one that will replace Posterous sites and groups, though the company’s name will still be the same.

So, what’s the difference them? In short, it looks like Posterous is improving their service with social network features. Spaces – just like the Circles in Google+ – allow you to share stuff with the right people at any time, whether it’s a shared project with your classmates or pics from your honeymoon with your family.

Posterous will continue to be the same microblogging platform you know, only that it’ll now let you create separate areas (public or private) where you can control exactly what you share and who you share it with. Each Space can have its own theme and configuration settings. You also choose each Space’s members – that is, who can view its contents and contribute to it.

Together with the launch of Posterous Spaces, the microblogging service has also released a brand new version of their iPhone app, which lets you make the most of the new Spaces feature. Other highlights are a faster, more comfortable reader for the blogs you follow, five new themes and a general improvement in loading speed.

Some of the most promising start-up companies were present at yesterday’s Pitch San Francisco 2011. Hosted on the club level concourse of AT&T Park, the venue was just about as impressive as the start-ups.

There were some really great new mobile and web apps on display at Pitch. From a new way to listen to and share music with friends to a comprehensive photo editing and sharing app and everything in between, here are some of my top picks from the event.

Continue reading “Stand-out apps from Pitch San Francisco 2011”

Dead Island is the new action horror game from Deep Silver, that first hit the headlines with an iconic teaser trailer earlier this year, but does it live up to the hype?

My feelings after the first few minutes were pretty poor. It looked cheap, and the opening segment had annoying trigger points that meant you were forced to do things a certain way or you couldn’t continue. But as soon as my character had joined the survivors holed up in Dead Island, my feelings changes entirely. Sure, it might not look as polished as the new Deus Ex, but fighting the zombies is just endlessly fun.

Mixing dynamic zombie combat with RPG character development works beautifully. Dead Island has interesting weapons crafting, and you need to repair them too if you want to survive, while you can decide which survival and combat skills you want to develop. It’s mainly about up close melee combat, and it feels good. You can fight off zombies intelligently, for example hacking their legs to slow them down, and be creative by throwing a gas canister into a swarm, then blowing it up and much more.

Continue reading “Opinion: Dead Island”