City Story Game Centre Compatible

When game centre was released there was only one free game with game centre capabilities which was Farmville. Now there are multiple games including City Story. City story has the best game centre capabilities for a free game I found yet. City story allows you to play mini games against random players or you can choose friends from game centre.

To play a mini game you first have to find the mini game function. You can find the mini game function in the main menu

You are then directed to this screen where you can choose if you want to invite friends to play or play against random players in auto-match. In auto-match you can choose how many players you want to play against. It takes at least 30 seconds to connect to other players. The waiting time depends on how many players you invite (more takes longer),If you are playing against a friend or friends it takes longer depending how fast they respond to your request. If you are not inviting friends you can tap the play now button. You can choose how many random players you want to play against too. It does take longer to connect to three other players by then just one so if you want a quick game just connect to one other player in auto-match or just invite one friend to play.

The screen will then look like this while loading

 You will then see this message.

There will then be a final connect to the other player/players. There will then be a countdown once the other player is ready.

 Then you will receive a message telling you what job you get. For some reason I seem to always get a fire fighter. I've only got a doctor once when I played against a group of my game centre friends. If you are a fire fighter you put out the fires. If you are a doctor you click on the buildings with band-aids on them. If you are a police officer then you click on the buildings with police tape on them.

The game then starts. You have a one minute time limit for two players. The time limit does increase and there is a bigger reward when you play with more people. I have played the game a few times and haven't yet got the river and won the game. This seems to be very challenging to get the needed 75 points in tow player games and 150 in three player games

Note:
In game centre in the games you can go to city story and by tapping on the played recently section you can see who you recently played and add them to your game centre friends.

my city I just started so it's still pretty empty




Apple Releases New iPod Nano and Shuffle

Apple has released the new iPod nano and shuffle in the past week. The new iPod nano now was a touch screen. This wasn't a surprise to me considering the success of the iPod touch. The touch screen does make navigation easier on the iPod touch and it will probably make navigation easier on the new iPod nano too. The new iPod is also smaller this is partly to do with the absence of the navigational wheel which has been replaced by the touch screen. The nano does not however have Wi-Fi capabilities. This was a bit of a surprise to me but the new iPod nano does have a pretty small screen and surfing the internet would be considerable more difficult. If people do want devices that have internet capabilities than apple would want them to buy an iPod touch because it is considerably more expensive. Some other new features that the new iPod nano has is that it was a clip on the back which is beneficial to people who use it when they working out and also supports nike+ iPod Another new feature of the new iPod nano is it can play fm which is also a helpful feature. The iPod shuffle hasn't gone through any major hardware changes like the iPod nano. The only main update with the shuffle is the software. The shuffle now says the name and artist for the song you are listening to and now has the ability to have more than one playlist. There is only a minor hardware change and that is the buttons which are apparently bigger.

The First Cell Phone, Oh How Far We Have Come

Dyna-Tac



The first cell phone was invented by in 1973 by Dr. Martin Cooper. Dr. Martin Cooper worked for Motorola and worked on inventing portable products. Dr. Cooper and his team at Motorola made handheld radios for the Chicago police department. Then ten years later Dr. Cooper and his team made the first mobile phone, which was at the time called a portable phone which made more sense due to its enormous size compared to today's cell phones. There was also another company competing to make the first portable phone this other company was Bell labs. On April 3, 1973 Dr. Martin Cooper made the first cell phone call on a Motorola Dyna-Tac near the Manhattan Hilton Hotel in New York City. The phone call was rumored to be made to his rival Joel Engel who was the leader of the Bell Labs research team. The first cell phone was bulky  it was 2.5 pound, 5 inches wide, 9 inches long and 1.75 inches thick. The phone also had to be charged 10 hours for only talking 35 minutes. The first cell phone and many models after that could not send text messages and didn't even have screens. The cell phone was invented in 1973 but cell phone's didn't become popular until the late 1990 when they weren't bulky and had screens and better battery life.

 

Dr. Martin Cooper (inventor of first cell phone) with first cell phone (Dyna-Tac)



The Dyna-Tac dwarfs modern day cell phones



Anesthetic From Half Way Around the World

I first heard about this while watching Daily Planet on Friday where they talked to the doctors involved. On August 30, 2010 the first transcontinental Anesthetic took place. Dr. Thomas Hemmerling and his team at Mc Gill's department of Anesthetic in Montreal used a program called 'Teleseanesthesia' to administer anesthetic to a patient in Pisa Italy who was undergoing thyroid gland surgery. This program controls the drugs that are being administered intravenously remotely. Even if there is internet failure the automated system continues administering the drugs. The program displays video cameras of the patient and also shows breathing rate, heart rate and other vital signs. Before the surgery takes place there is also video conferencing discussing the patient's airways and medical history. This program is still in the works and much more testing needs to be done. Dr. Hemmerling's team from McGill University is working with Dr. Zaouter and his team from the Department of Anesthesia of Pisa University. On Daily Planet they discussed possible application of this new technology one of these was in Africa where anesthesia is performed by nurses who aren't qualified (of course these places would have to have internet connectivity). Many remote places would also benefit from this technology such as northern Canada or other places where there are not many medical personnel. I have heard about heart surgery being performed remotely, but this remote anesthesia is less risky and it wouldn't be as much of a problem if there was internet failure, because of the automated system taking over.

The Burj Dubai

This article isn't as much about computer and computer device related as my other posts but I still thought I'd write about it because it is technology related. The Burg Dubai is the tallest building in the world, standing at 828 meters (2,717 feet); it replaced the CN tower in the record books as the tallest free standing structure a few years ago during construction. It is more impressive than the CN tower too because unlike the CN tower it is a multi-purpose tower and not just used to transmit radio signals. The building of the Burj Dubai started on January 4, 2004 and was finished on January 4, 2010. It has an enormous number of floors, a total of 162 and many of the higher floors are residential, these people must have quite a view. The Burj Dubai is now named the Burj Khalifa to honor the president of the UAE Khalifa bin Zayea. The Burg Dubai has a total of 54 elevators; the elevators are one of the interesting things in this enormous sky scraper. The elevators are double-decker so more passengers can fit and they are very fast, travelling 10 meters per second. To cut time the computer controlling the elevators assigns people to elevators based on what floor they are going to. Passengers first enter what floor they are travelling on a key pad or a touch screen and then are assigned to a specific elevator according to floor number. In the Burg Dubai there is also extremely fast internet speeds up to 21mb/ps. This enormous tower is going to have a large population too there are 1,044 apartments in the Burj Dubai and many hotel rooms. In total 21,000 people are expected to live and work in the Burj Dubai. It is amazing something this big can be built and I'm sure there are amazing thing that contributed to building this monster too such as the advanced computer system that designed it. I'm sure too that there are computer systems too that control the air conditioning to keep this monster cool considering the enormous size and the desert heat.

IBooks also great PDF Viewer

 

White a while ago apple released the IBooks app. This was almost a month ago when apple released the 4.0 firmware upgrade. There are many free books that are available in the IBooks store. There are many classics such as "Little Women" and "Through the Looking Glass". On IBooks you also have the ability to view PDFs and they automatically save so you can view them anytime, anywhere even offline. This is great especially if you want to be able to view manuals. You can quite easily find a lot of electronic manuals on the internet by simply googling the product. Once you find the manual all you have to do once you have the PDF in view in safari is tap on the view in iBooks button on the top right. Once in iBooks you can see the PDF now you can view it anywhere anytime. Viewing the PDF in iBooks you can quickly and easily find information by searching the PDF by tapping on the magnify glass. The only thing I don't like about this application is the speed it isn't the fastest but it is still a great PDF viewer.

ITunes 10 and Ping

Apple has released has released ITunes 10 and with it Ping. Ping is a music based social network Ping resembles twitter in a way because you can follow artists and see their recent updates and also slightly resembles facebook in its layout. You can also follow not just celebrities but other users like you. You can also choose to have people not follow you and there are other privacy options like this. You can access Ping with the new iPod touch 4.1 firmware upgrade by enabling Ping on ITunes 10 and then syncing your iPod. You can add your favorite music and it will be displayed on your profile and music you recently bought will also be displayed on your profile. I don't believe though that it will display music that you just added to your library that hasn't been bought from ITunes. It is surprising how many musicians are already part of Ping and post regularly. It is beneficial for musicians to be part of this new music based social network so they can get their name out there and have their voice heard. The benefit of Ping is probably why so many musicians are already part of this recently released social network. Ping is fairly easy to sign up for if you already have an apple account it just takes about thirty seconds since a lot of information is already filled out. The only things you really have to do are choose the music you want to display on your profile (if any) and your privacy settings. When you add people as friends you can see the music they have bought and what music they like just like they can see the music you like and the music you bought. It will be interesting if and how much this social network increases music sales on ITunes and if new artists are discovered by using Ping.