A new iPhone app that lets you "impregnate your friends" with the touch of a button is causing controversy just a day after its release.

There are already plenty of smartphone apps available that let you see what you or a friend look like bald, or with pink hair, or even how you might look in 50 years’ time.

The latest one to be added to the genre, however, is creating quite a stir just a day after its release.

Knocked App, created by Sydney-based start-up Appy Dude, allows users to ‘knock up’ their friends with a single tap, showing what they’d look like just prior to giving birth.

But according to a report in Melbourne’s The Age, family planning groups in the country have criticized the app as irresponsible.

The tongue-in-cheek blurb on the creator’s website says the app features “‘evolutionary’ technology that delivers pregnancy into the digital age.”

Users can impregnate anyone they meet “simply by taking a photo of them, marking up the image and pressing a button.” It adds that thanks to the ability to share the resulting image on social networking sites, “you can meet someone and conceive with them with just the press of a button.”

Appy Dude’s Angus Mullane told The Age that the 99-cent iPhone app is intended as a bit of harmless fun. “We really just wanted to give people a laugh. It’s had an amazing response. It’s all over Facebook with teenage girls scaring their mums and stuff like that,” he said.

‘Absolutely dreadful’

The app has already upset some people, however, with Joanne Ramadge of Australia’s Sexual Health and Family Planning group calling it “absolutely dreadful.”

She told The Age, “Teenage pregnancy is an extremely serious issue and to treat it in such a trivial way is not a considered or helpful approach….Teenage pregnancy causes quite a lot of distress and problems for young people and their families and it should not be treated in such a light-hearted way.”

Ramadge added that in a worst case scenario it could even be used to bully. “This could be very easily used to make someone look as if they’re pregnant and dispersed in a way that could be quite horrifying and devastating for some people,” she explained.

Mullane, who admitted Knocked App might not be to everyone’s taste, said that Apple seemed to take plenty of time to approve the app – it was submitted two months ago before going live on Thursday – suggesting evaluators took a long, hard look at it before allowing it through.

“Impregnating girls and guys of all ages has never been this easy,” it says on Knocked App’s website, adding “Not even the Octomom will be able to keep up with you!”

A bit of a laugh? Absolutely dreadful? Let us know what you think of Knocked App in the comments below.

Ideal for the upcoming holiday shopping season, friends and family will soon be able to purchase Google Play gift cards for Android users.

Noted by the enthusiast blog Android Police yesterday, a new version of the Google Play store application for Android phones contains options that will allow users to purchase gift cards for the store as well as place apps on a wish list. The gift card function could be particular helpful for Google assuming it launches prior to the holiday shopping season. Friends and family will be able to purchase and send gift cards electronically to be used on new Android smartphones or tablets like the Nexus 7. This feature could also be helpful for Android-themed sites that like to run giveaways to generate a larger readership. Apple has offered this feature within the App Store for several years and physical iTunes gift cards can be found at many large retailers around the United States.

Google did offer $25 Google Play gift cards with the purchase of a new Nexus 7 tablet, but the physical gift cards aren’t as widely available as an iTunes card. Similar to iTunes, the amount of the Google Play credit is tied to a user’s account and the credit can be redeemed by purchasing applications on the Google Play store.

According to the blog post, an Android user will eventually be able to go to play.google.com/redeem in order to enter a gift card code and add a specific credit to their account. However, Google hasn’t officially announced this new feature and hasn’t indicated a timeline when gift cards will be active.

Beyond gift cards, the wish list feature allows the user to add applications in addition to media like books, magazines, music, movies and television shows to a specific list. While this feature could allow users to bookmark items on the Google Play store to purchase at a later time, it could also be tied into a publishing function that publicly displays a wish list.

A link to that list could be sent to friends or family members prior to the holidays, however Google would also need to include a function that allows people to gift specific applications. Apple added that feature to the App Store during 2010, but never created a wish list function for users.

In addition to these two new features, Android Police also noted that Google has enabled a new technical feature called Smart App updates. Prior to this change, Android users had to re-download an entire app each time that they wanted to upgrade to the latest version. This process consumes a significant amount of battery power when the app is extremely large or the download speed is slow.

However, Smart App updates allow the user to only download the difference between the two versions. For example, the blog post noted that a recent update to the popular photo sharing application Instagram required a 3MB download rather than 13MB for the entire application. This feature was originally announced at the Google I/O conference during June 2012 and the development team in charge of the new feature estimated that download times would be cut down to a third for all app updates.

Dust: An Elysian Tail ends Microsoft's Summer of Arcade 2012 right, delivering a beautiful, well-written, and entirely fun action-RPG.

The 2012 edition of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Summer of Arcade is officially over with this week’s release of Dust: An Elysian Tail, a game that was headed to the Xbox Live Indie Games channel all the way back in 2009. The one-man development team at Humble Hearts, Dean Dodrill, scored a win that year in Microsoft’s Dream.Build.Play Challenge, landing the game an upgrade to Xbox Live Arcade release. It was originally planned for 2011 launch,  but delays eventually pushed it to the anchor role in Summer of Arcade 2012.

How lucky we are for that.

Dust: An Elysian Tail can be quickly encapsulated as “Metroidvania with RPG elements,” but that kind of terse description really fails to capture how the game delivers. Dodrill’s 2D art design is simply beautiful to behold in motion, especially when that motion incorporates the title character Dust’s signature spinning blade attack. Screenshots can only give you a sense of how lovely this game looks; you really need to see it in motion to fully appreciate the quality of the presentation.

The story opens with that classic video game chestnut hook in which the main character wakes up with no memory of who he is or what he’s done. A playable intro that also serves as a basic controls tutorial lets you, the player, know a little bit about the pre-amnesia Dust — and it turns out that he was a pretty lousy fellow — but even more truths are revealed as the story unfolds.

The writing turns out to be an unexpected standout feature. The main story thread involving Dust’s quest to learn his true identity is filled with a surprising amount of heartbreak and heavy emotional moments. Complex themes involving self-identity and the nature of fate are explored in unexpected ways and there’s a level of maturity to the overall script that starkly contrasts the cutesy art design. It’s not just the heavy themes either. Dust is sad and moving when it needs to be, but it’s also sharply funny, particularly in the way that Dust’s relationship with his traveling companion, a winged, cat-like Nimbat named Fidget.

Fidget also turns out to be more than just a fountain of one-liners. She’s able to spit out relatively weak projectile attacks with the press of a button. While this isn’t terribly useful on its own, you can use those projectiles in combination with Dust’s own spinning blade attack to create a whirlwind of damaging special effects on the screen. There are meters to prevent the overuse of this ability of course, but they refill quickly enough that you can realistically expect to see swirling colors painted across the screen at least once in every combat encounter.

The challenge is pretty forgiving at the start of the game, but there’s a sharp difficulty spike roughly halfway into the game. You can offset this by running off on the range of sidequests — many of which fall into the tedious realm of “fetch it,” though the sharp writing helps here as well — for added XP and better gear. You can also revisit any location you’ve been to previously, using the tools you’ve unlocked since then to find new paths to fortune and glory. That’s where the Metroidvania elements come into play.

Like the recently released Darksiders 2, Dust adds new tools to your box sparingly and at key story moments, instead relying on its RPG framework to keep you reaching for new dangling carrots. You can equip improved armor, rings, pendants, and weapon augments to boost your stats in one way or another. There’s also an elaborate crafting system built around finding blueprints and collecting ingredients from downed enemies, which explode in a satisfying shower of gold, ingredients, and other pick-ups when defeated.

Conclusion

There’s really very little to complain about. The controls can be a bit too twitchy at times, which becomes especially problematic during some of the tougher platforming sections. You’ll also run into more than a few cheap deaths as Dust’s excessively long knockback recovery time too frequently leaves him open to follow-up attacks. It’s a fine line to walk between challenging and cheap, and while Dust toes it pretty well, it too often steps over into the latter space.

These are minor complaints when all is said and done. Dust: An Elysian Tail is an exceptional game. The fact that it’s the work of a one-man team makes it even more impressive, but even if you put aside that technical feat, this is still an experience that is well worth the time investment. Expect to spend 5-10 hours exploring and savoring the game’s beautiful world. Summer of Arcade 2012 is officially over now, and Dust: An Elysian Tail gives it the best send-off imaginable.

Score: 9 out of 10

High-end specs usually come at a high-end price, but it looks like you can circumvent that problem by going with a less recognized brand. Case in point is the newly announced Xiaomi Phone 2, an Android Jelly Bean smartphone boasting a 4.3-inch 720p IPS display and Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core processor. The thing is that it sells for just $310 outright. That’s about half the price as a Galaxy S III or new iPhone.

Even though Xiaomi may not be a household name, the Xiaomi Phone 2 comes packed with some respectable names inside. As mentioned, the processor is courtesy of Qualcomm. And you know that IPS display? It’s a Sharp panel. You also get an impressive 2GB of RAM to go along with the fairly standard 16GB of storage capacity. The rear camera is a bright and wide 27mm F/2.0 8MP shooter, whereas the front-facing camera is a 28mm 2MP unit.

Android Jelly Bean has been overlaid with Xiaomi’s MIUI ROM, which adds such features as enhanced security, phone finder, a Chinese voice assistant (Siri’s Android-flavored Chinese cousin?), 5GB of cloud storage and interactive themes. It looks like one of these themes, based on the images provided, is “inspired” by Angry Birds.

The Xiaomi Phone 2 is set to launch with China Unicom and China Telecom in October for an outright price of about $310, though they’ll likely offer subsidized pricing on contract too. The interesting thing is that while this won’t be made officially available in North America, the Xiaomi Phone 2 does support WCDMA 850/1900/2100, so it should work with AT&T if you unlock it. If you’re willing to go through the import process and chance it with an unrecognized Chinese brand, this phone looks like it’s quite the beast for a pretty amazing price.

Should you invest one-time in the Pogoplug Series 4 which turns your external hard drive into cloud? We address your queries in our review.

Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, Windows Live… to many people, these cloud services spell nothing more than additional expense for quick access to your files. If you have larger amounts of photos, videos, music, and documents to share, you’ve probably already found that the free couple of gigabytes that come included with an account runs out pretty quickly. PogoPlug‘s solution to this is to convert an external hard drive you might already own into a cloud computer. This way, you can get around paying the monthly fees other cloud services charge by just investing once in the external plug-in.

But how well does it work? Is it safe? Is it pleasant to use? We address all your possible questions in this hands-on review.

Setting up

The PogoPlug Series 4 kit, its top of the line model, works with any USB-based external hard drive, and is designed to be set up right next to your router. The three important ports you need to know about are the power supply, ethernet, and USB. One juices the device, one provides it Internet access, and one syncs with your files. These will work with all three major operating systems; Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Upon setting up the hardware, you are prompt to visit my.pogoplug.com/activate for the Web client to scan for your nearest PogoPlug device. From here, you simply set up an account log-in and the files on your external hard drive are officially accessible via the Internet. The PogoPlug also offers connections for SATA/USM drives or SD cards as well, if you want to access those via cloud.

While three may not be that many cords, we were hoping for a much more wireless lifestyle at this day and age. It would have been nice if the PogoPlug was able to connect via Wi-Fi to eliminate the ethernet wire. If you have an efficient cord organization system, this might not be an issue, but at our desk office, cramming the wires into our already set up computing system proved to make a bit of a mess.

Accessing the cloud

Once your PogoPlug is set up, there are several ways to store your files on the cloud. You can download the PogoPlug software so you can drag and drop files directly from your computer onto the cloud, or continue to plug and unplug the external hard drive to store items. The good thing about PogoPlug is clearly its unlimited storage capabilities, which becomes a competitive option since the PogoPlug kit costs $100 while other cloud services are charging anywhere between $3 to $20 a month, to start.

The PogoPlug app is also available on iOS and Android so you can view your files on the go. On our Samsung Galaxy S3, the app has a simple interface that orders your files chronologically. Unfortunately, if you don’t like list-type organization, you’re sort of stuck; there are no options to sort the files in thumbnail view.

Music and videos are also streamable through the app, though we find this feature to be a bit buggy. It seems like PogoPlug often experience issues converting video files to mobile format, thus making random types of files randomly hard to view. For example, AVI files are not supported, which is annoying since it’s nice to use cross-platform. But when it works, however, it works a charm. The video quality isn’t as great compared to viewing on your computer, naturally, but the stream is smooth and relatively bug-free for MOV files. Stream quality will also depend on your phone’s network and the size of the video being accessed.

Directly from either the PogoPlug web client, mobile app, or the computer software, you can optionally share your online files to friends and family. You can do this via direct links, Bluetooth, SMS, or social media shares on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the likes. 

What bugs us a bit about the PogoPlug is while it’s great to convert your external hard drive into a cloud computer, remembering to plug the USB wire from your laptop back to the PogoPlug seems to be a remedial task. The PogoPlug also requires to be on and connected all the time, otherwise your files are inaccessible. Another issue is the amount of users who can use the PogoPlug. The kit allots for one free member, but to add others, you’ll have to pay $20 a year for five accounts. This isn’t a giant fee per se, but an additional expense to an otherwise decent hardware.

Bottom Line

Overall, the PogoPlug is a good piece of tool for those who don’t want to be stuck with subscription services. It’s a one time fee (assuming you don’t plan to add other users) and all your files are now accessible online. If you’re afraid of your files being accessed from hackers, you can always turn the power off your PogoPlug and everything should be offline. That sort of security that you know lies in your hands feels like an added comfort blanket that other cloud services cannot provide.

Is it a bit expensive? Yes. But if you plan on investing in cloud storage, which seems to be nowhere near disappearing from our technological future, it’s a pretty shabby toy. If PogoPlug can begin adding more file capabilities to its mobile app, that would make the device that much more worth the value.

NBA 2K13 focuses on new players rather than vintage, but that isn't stopping the 1992 Olympic Dream Team from putting in an appearance.

The London Olympics closed on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop living the Olympic dream. Don’t stop rocking that happy hour for Olympic basketball games if you don’t want to! 2K Sports is actually going to lend you a helping hand come October when NBA 2K13 comes out, as the game will sport USA’s basketball teams both new and old.

The 2012 USA Basketball Men’s National Team—their official, unwieldy title—will be featured in the latest version of 2K’s annual NBA series. Since classic NBA players have become such an important part of the series, it’s not too surprising that the 1992 Olympic Dream Team that included Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and other superstars of the era will also make it into the game.

Turns out 2K13’s guest producer Jay Z insisted. “As executive producer, letting fans go head to head with these legendary USA teams was extremely important to Jay Z,” reads 2K’s press release.

There you have it. Not just Olympic basketball action but vintage Olympic basketball action, so adjust your Olympics Drinking Game rules appropriately.

Cool that the ’92 Dream Team is in there but 2K Sports and Jay Z should consider a more significant basketball match up from 1992 for inclusion: Godzilla versus Barkley.

The first Galaxy Note is described as some as a phablet, finding an odd middle ground between phones and tablets. Then, you have devices like the Sony Tablet P, which folds up into a phone-sized device when not in use, but can fold open to reveal a full tablet experience. The thing is neither of this is particularly ideal for people who want both a true smartphone and a true tablet experience.

Turning to designer Patrik Eriksson, we find what he calls the Pocket Tablet Concept. It’s meant to be “a happy marriage between a smartphone and… a tablet.” The key here is the utilization of flexible OLED technology. In closed form, the Pocket Tablet concept will look like most other Android smartphones these days, except the display is virtually edge-to-edge. However, you can unravel the device to reveal about double the screen real estate for a tablet experience.

Based on these conceptual drawings, it looks like the second “half” of the display is constantly exposed as the back of the device, since it looks like the Pocket Tablet Concept folds onto itself like how you would fold back a paperback book. This initially left me wondering about the rear camera, but you’ll notice that the front plate seems to be slightly taller than the back plate. Presumably, the camera could fit in that spot.

Of course, the bigger challenge is figuring out how to get flexible OLED displays to this level where they are able to be completely folded over and still remain fully operational. It’s only a matter of time, I suppose, as we move toward more 7-inch tablets and more 5-inch phones, finding that “happy marriage” will hopefully come sooner rather than later.

The Madden Curse: Of the 15 players to be featured on the cover of the Madden video games, all 15 have suffered disappointing seasons and most have been seriously injured.

Update:  With Madden 13 on the way, we have revisted this article and updated it with the most recent victims.  We will update this article with a link to our review of the game when available.

It started as a joke. A player makes the cover of the Madden franchise and is subsequently seriously hurt the next year, or they take a dramatic downward turn in their performance. Everyone began to joke and say there was a curse, which all but the most superstitious dismissed with a laugh.  Then it started to get weird.

The “Madden Curse” is a superstition that claims that anyone to grace the cover of EA Sports’ Madden NFL football video games will subsequently be injured, or have an epically bad year. Since 1999, the games have featured a player on the cover that is considered to be at the pinnacle of their careers. To receive the chance to be on the cover is considered and honor to some, and a curse to others.  There is also a fairly inciting financial aspect to making the cover as well.  But here is the eerie part.  Here is where the joke of the curse starts to get weird.  Of all 14 players featured, not one of them has had even a “good” year while on the cover, and most have received serious injuries.  Really terrible injuries.  It even ended the careers of a few of them.

The most recent player to grace the cover is Super Bowl winning quarterback Drew Brees. He is currently featured on Madden 11, which was released on August 10th. Feel free to sweat, Saints fans.

There could be several reasons for the “curse”. The players chosen all tend to be coming off of exceptional years, and in the football world an exceptional year also means a physically taxing one, and injuries could be the inevitable result of such a year. It could also be that players on the cover are targeted more than others simply because they are already considered superstars, and the opposing players want to limit their productivity- in other words, beat the crap out of them. Or it really could be a curse.

No one at EA, the publishers of the game, will ever admit to a curse (let alone one that is associated with one of its most popular and lucrative game franchises) but the results are disconcerting. Every player that has been on the cover of the video game has been injured or not played the subsequent season. Every single player. There are dozens of websites dedicated to the curse, and even the website Snopes, whose entire point is to debunk myths, rumors and urban legends, sees a pattern (although they claim it is just an inevitable result of the players being selected.  All 14 of them.). Whether it is a curse, or simply an inevitable result of the game, it is certainly an odd string of coincidences.

And now a look at why it is called the “Madden Curse”:

1999- Garrison Heart

Until ‘99, John Madden himself was featured on the cover of each game. Short of exponential weight gain and powerful punishment to his arteries, Madden seemed to fair well after being featured. For the PAL release of the game, EA decided to feature a player rather than Madden himself, and San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst was chosen. Hearst was breaking records with ease and seemed to be destined for the Hall of Fame. After receiving the cover honors, he then helped lead the 49ers to a divisional playoff game, where he broke his ankle.  Badly broke his ankle.  The break was so severe that Hearst missed two full seasons and was never the same again. The curse had begun.

Madden Curse 1, Players 0

2000- Barry Sanders and Dorsey Levens

In 2000 EA decided to stick with the idea of featuring top players on all covers of the Madden series in every region, and Barry Sanders was selected to share the cover with Madden. Perhaps sensing that something horrible was about to happen to him, Sanders shocked the NFL world and broke the hearts of Lions fans by announcing his sudden retirement just before training camp was scheduled to begin. Sanders would never play again. Although many copies had already shipped with Sanders on the cover, EA released later versions of the game with Green Bay Packers running back Dorsey Levens replacing Sanders. Midway through the season, Levens injured his knee. The Packers missed the playoffs after appearing in back-to-back Super Bowls. Levens was relegated to reserve status and never started again.

Madden Curse 3, Players 0

2001- Eddie George

The 2001 cover featured Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George, fresh off a narrow loss to the Rams in the Super Bowl. After being honored with the Madden 2001 cover,  George went on to have a career year that season, shattering his personal bests, and seemingly ending the Madden Curse before it began. George helped lead his team to a return to the playoffs, and right into the divisional finals against the Baltimore Ravens – where he bobbled an easy pass that was intercepted and returned for what would be a game winning touchdown, stunning Titan fans and costing Tennessee a trip to the Super Bowl. The next season, George spent most of the year injured and would never come near his 2000 numbers again.

Madden Curse 4, Players 0

2002- Dante Culpepper

Coming off of a championship game loss in his debut season, Vikings quarterback Dante Culpepper was looking like a potential MVP, and the Vikings were favorites to make the playoffs. Despite their potential, the Vikings went 4-7 before Culpepper received a season ending injury. Minnesota finished 5-11, and talk of a Madden curse began to circulate as a joke.

Madden Curse 5, Players 0

2003-Marshall Faulk

After helping the Rams to two Super Bowls in three years, the running back looked like a solid choice for the Madden 2003 cover. He was still in his prime, surrounded by talent at every position, and had run for four straight season with more than 1,300 yards. After being featured on the Madden cover, Faulk was plagued with a nagging ankle injury and rushed for under 1,000 yards. The Rams finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs. Compared to what happened next, Faulk got off lucky.

Madden Curse 6, Players 0

2004- Michael Vick

At this point, the Madden curse was more than a running joke, and it had began to gain urban legend status in some areas. Six players had been featured, and all six had failed to produce the following year. But athletes at the professional level need to be confident, so when Madden approached Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, he jumped at the honor. After helping turn around the disappointing Falcons and leading them to their first playoffs in years the season before, things looked good for the pro bowler- right up until the preseason when he broke his leg and played only five games all year. It is tempting to pin Vick’s subsequent prison sentence for dog fighting on the Madden Curse, but that is more likely do to Vick being an idiot.

Madden Curse 7, Players 0

2005- Ray Lewis

After a career high six interceptions in the previous season, Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis seemed like an easy choice. The guy was a rock in the NFL – rarely missing a game, constantly producing exceptional numbers and an all-around star. The guy even skated on murder charges in 2000. He was untouchable, a future hall of famer, and a legend in the making. Then he was on the cover of Madden 2005. The perennial pro bowler failed to catch a single interception for the first time in his career, the Ravens went 9-7 and failed to make the playoffs for the first time in four years, and Lewis ended the season on the bench with a torn hamstring.

Madden Curse 8, Players 0

2006- Donovan McNabb

By the 2004 season, Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was making his case as being one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. Under his leadership, the Eagles had gone 59-21 and made the playoffs for five straight years, including an NFC championship loss, and a trip to the Super Bowl. McNabb not only did not believe in the curse, he essentially poked it in the eye and dared it to try something, saying that it “might be a trend, but I don’t believe in the curse at all.” In the first game of the season, McNabb received a sports hernia – a painful and lingering groin injury that can take months to heal, sometimes requiring surgery. Surgery in the groin. McNabb played eight more games, then further injured it and opted for the surgery that kept him out for the rest of the season.

Madden Curse 9, Players 0

2007- Shaun Alexander

At this point, the whispers of a curse had become front page news. No one wanted to believe it though, and besides, EA was offering a generous financial package to go along with the honor of the cover. Seattle Seahawks running back was the next poor sucker to be featured. Coming off of a record setting season, Alexander had led the Seahawks to their best season ever and their first Super Bowl appearance. In week 3 of his Madden-gracing season, Alexander broke his foot and missed six games. He returned, but was never the same.

Madden Curse 10, Players 0

2008- Vince Young

Although Vince Young eventually took the Madden-bullet, LaDanian Tomlinson was the first player approached to be on the cover.  Terrified fans immediately began to start websites and petitions begging Tomlinson not to be on the packaging. Although he claims his refusal had more to do with EA’s financial offer than the curse, Tomlinson refused and went on to a record-setting year while Tennessee Titans rookie quarterback Young played just five games before hurting his quadriceps. It was the first time in Young’s career (including middle school) that Young had missed a game due to injury. The next year, Young received a knee injury that put him out for most of the season. He then lost the starting job to Kerry Collins.

Madden Curse 11, Players 0

2009- Brett Favre

Although no one at EA will likely ever admit to a Madden curse, the 2009 cover was given to quarterback Brett Favre, who had just retired. After all, what could happen to someone that was retired? The curse seemed to have been finally broken via a loophole that would make any lawyer proud. Then Favre came back. After breaking the hearts of Packers fans everywhere by joining the Jets, Favre started out well, until he tore a bicep and finished the season with just two touchdowns and nine interceptions, costing the Jets a shot at the playoffs.

Madden Curse 12, Players 0

2010- Larry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu

For the first time since Madden and Barry Sanders appeared together, the franchise featured two players on the cover: Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. Would the curse be confused?  Might its intensity be halved by double the players?  In short, no. In the season opener Polamalu sprained his MCL and missed four games. He returned for three games before tearing his posterior cruciate ligament and sat out most of the season. Fitzgerald on the other hand had a great year, with over 1,000 yards receiving. Right up until the playoffs when a rib injury forced him out of the post-season and the Pro Bowl.

Madden Curse 14, Players 0

2011- Drew Brees

This one is a bit more subjective, but you can make a good case that Brees was a victim as well. After throwing for a career high 4,620 yards, Brees led the defending champion Saints back into the playoffs as a wildcard team. They were not favored to repeat, but they were expected to do well and potentially make a run to at least the NFC Championship.  Then in the first round, the Saints went up against the Seattle Seahawks and despite the game being played in Seattle, the Saints were 11+ point favorites according to Vegas oddsmakers. And they lost. That might not sound like that big of a deal, and definitely not curse-worthy, but then you have to consider that the Seahawks entered the playoffs as the first team ever to make the playoffs with a losing record. So basically, the Saints–defending Super Bowl champs–were victims of one of the biggest upsets in NFL playoff history by losing to the worst playoff team in history.

Madden Curse 15, Players 0

2012- Peyton Hillis

After an outstanding 2010 campaign with the Cleveland Browns, fans from around the world got together and decided that they hated Hillis. They hated him so much that they rewarded his 1100+ yard breakout season by voting for him as the cover athlete for Madden 12. Hillis beat out all others, and then went on to have the most disastrous season of his career. Following failed contract negotiations with the Browns’ management that turned ugly and bitter, Hillis endured several injuries throughout the season as both his health and attitude deteriorated. He ended up playing in just 10 games all season, and many of those were at diminished capacity. It got so bad that one unnamed Brown player told reporters, “I’ve never seen anything like it. Last year, Peyton was such a positive, inspirational force on our team — but now he’s like a different guy. It’s like he’s in a funk that he can’t get out of.” Perhaps Hillis was cursed…

Madden Curse 16, Players 0

2013- Calvin Johnson

…?

Not content canceling games that people wanted like Mega Man Legends 3, Capcom kills its iconic series with iOS social game Mega Man Xover.

Capcom is celebrating some big birthdays this year. Street Fighter turned 25 and the pub’s throwing an appropriate birthday party. The Street Fighter 25^th Anniversary Collection is bananas. It has  Street Fighter X Tekken, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Street Fighter II HD Remix, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition, all the DLC, documentaries, animated movies, a statue of Ryu, soundtracks, a cool box—The only thing it doesn’t come with is a Chinese lady with big thighs who will beat the crap out of you.

Mega Man, Capcom’s only other series as iconic as Street Fighter, also turns 25 this year. So what’s the plan? A massive box compiling the Blue Bomber’s zany cartoon adventures? Maybe include of his more existential outings from the Mega Man X series?

Nope. Just a “social RPG” for iOS called Mega Man Xover.

That’s what we call in the industry a “swift kick to the fans’ junk.”

Series villains like Dr. Wily have teamed up in “Xover World” and locked up all the Mega Men—the original, X, Zero, and the rest—and are finally getting on with this world domination business. The player gets to design their own Mega Man and team up with their friends to win the day. For anyone with a keen understanding of Japanese, you can read up on the game at the game’s official website . It’ll be out in Japan this fall and in the US soon.

It has an “AutoPlay” button. One of video game’s foundational action games, with nerve-destroying platforming challenges and patterned boss fights, has an AutoPlay button. In a social mobile game. Made for the series 25^th anniversary.

That is just about the most depressing thing to happen in video games this year, and I’m counting all the horrific violence at E3 and the rampant sexism in Tomb Raider and Hitman: Absolution.

Mega Man Xover could be good, but it seems first and foremost like Capcom’s final insult to its former head of R&D, Keiji Inafune. Inafune created Mega Man in 1987 and was still intimately involved in the series until he suddenly resigned in 2010. After his departure, Capcom systematically axed every major Mega Man project in production, including Nintendo 3DS action RPG Mega Man Legends 3 and the MMO Mega Man Universe. Universe was actually similar in subject matter to Xover, but far more ambitious. It was a platformer like the old games, but it let players create and share their own Mega Men and levels. There was no AutoPlay button.

Mega Man Xover is the very definition of a quarter-life crisis. For shame, Capcom.

Instagram gets geo-friendly with a new map-plotting photo feature, creating new discovery options.

Facebook acquisition or no, Instagram keeps building. Today, everyone’s favorite photo-sharing app pushed a significant update, the most notable feature being Photo Maps.  “We’ve introduced a new and unique way to browse your photos and others’ photos on a map, which means you’re no longer constrained to browsing through page after page of photos,” the company announced via its blog, saying browsing was a focus for this latest update.

There have been a handful of popular Web alternatives for this function, like Gramfeed and Mapstagram, which create a feed you can view by location. But including it in the native mobile apps for Android and iOS is a big change that gives Instagram some much-needed variety to its photo discovery experience.

Now when you view a user’s profile, there’s an option to browse photos via a Photo Map, which plots thumbnails along Google Maps. In order to use Photo Map, you have to give Instagram permission to go through your geo-plotted images and you select those that you’re okay sharing with via the function. Those that you don’t select will lose their location information permanently. The understanding is that, from now on, when you geo-tag a photo and upload it to Instagram, it will be sent to Photo Map, but the app is giving you the choice to go back and strip this data from pictures you don’t want plotted.

Pro tip: Knowledge is power, people, so don’t include those photos taken inside your apartment.

The update also includes some UI changes, many of which relate back to Photo Map. Now when you post a photo, there’s an on/off toggle to include the image on your Photo Map, and the option to share to outside social networks appears on this page as well. User profiles will also get a makeover, with different viewing options – by tiles or the traditional full-screen scroll – as well as the new geo-focused display.

A few other comparably minor tweaks include the addition of infinite scrolling, speed improvements, and the ability to report individual comments as abuse or spam.

Instagram has become a go-to for location-specific events (I’d like to once again take this opportunity to point out Kevin Love’s account and his unparalleled documentation of the U.S. Olympic basketball team; pure gold… pun intended), and aiding that sort of discovery will only keep up this momentum. Not to mention the fact that this gives us a whole new way to approach discovery other than the endless scrolling we’ve become all too familiar with.

The update puts Instagram in a very good position to lay claims on social photo mapping — something that many, many apps have tried in vain to do. Pairing photos and location is tricky stuff, but if any platform is primed to do it, it’s Instagram. 

Sony Worldwide Studios boss says engineers are working are to bring down costs but it's still too early for a PS Vita price drop.

Sony ain’t messing around at Gamescom 2012. You want games for PlayStation Vita? Sony’s got new games from Little Big Planet studio Media Molecule, it’s got new Killzone, it’s got PSone Classics—Who cares if Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified looks shoddy? There are originals on there. Need more? All those PlayStation 3 games like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time come free for Vita through Cross Buy.

Great. Good for you, Sony. People like games, so games will convince them to buy your shiny machine. There’s a problem though: It’s expensive. Way too expensive for something that only plays video games. If people are going to buy that fingerprint magnet, you’re going to have to bring the price down. How about a Christmas price drop?

“No,” Sony Worldwide Studios chief Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer, “It’s too early.”

“People like cheap or free,” the executive explained in an interview at Gamescom, “Of course, cost reduction is one area our engineering team is working on. But we just launched the platform earlier this year. It takes time to do so. At a certain point in the future we would like to address the pricing issue for some of the people who are waiting. But this year we are trying to add value by creating different types of bundles. We announced we will provide Little Big Planet PS Vita bundle pack. That’s affordable for people who are looking for a good deal.”

Vita’s got even more attractive bundles coming. Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation will come packed in with a new white PS Vita in October. It won’t be enough to turn around Vita’s anemic sales though. Bundles are a good incentive it’s true. Many credit the Wii’s runaway success to its being bundled with Wii Sports. Nintendo learned the hard way in 2011 though that price is king in the modern age. The Nintendo 3DS only turned itself around once there were some decent games available and it cost significantly less than the Vita’s entry price of $250.

“The reaction to the hardware platform itself has been very strong,” said Yoshida, “But the actual sales of PS Vita, obviously we would like to see more uptake. We lots of feedback from consumers saying they would like to see more content, they would like to see their favorite franchises coming to the PS Vita.”

“So that’s our biggest focus now. The best way to realize the potential of the PS Vita platform is to provide the content. That’s absolutely number one.”

Games are priority number one, Mr. Yoshida. The best games in the world aren’t going to get people buying your machine though. Just look at the 2009 PS3 redesign and price drop announced at Gamescom for all the evidence you need.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is an excellent phone with great specs, there is no denying that. One frustration with the phone for Verizon users though, has nothing to do with the phone itself- it’s that pesky encrypted bootloader. One of the great things about Android is the flexibility and freedom that comes with it. You can easily unlock devices and add custom ROMs, but this isn’t the case with the Verizon version of the Galaxy S3.

The good news is that the XDA developer, Adam Outler, has managed to created a new method that will open up your bootloader. Doing this will allow you to have the open environment for custom ROMs that you normally would. Before considering this though, remember that there is a possibility that you could brick your device in the future if you aren’t careful. You can check out the XDA forum for detailed instructions on how to make the process work, and what to avoid if you don’t want to brick you phone.

This is great news for those on the Verizon network, just remember to install responsibly.

From the better to the best, we take a look at some of the greatest racing car games of all time.

We here and Digital Trends love cars, but we also love games. Thankfully the two go together hand in hand (wheel in wheel?). While it’s not always easy compiling a list of our favorite things — be it smartphones, TVs, laptops or even iPhone cases — we do enjoy it. Sometimes our lists cause frustration, other times they evoke anger (like when we rank our favorite co-workers and post the list in the breakroom for everyone to see). Whatever the case may be, check out our list of top racing games of all time and be sure to let us know what games you think deserved to make the cut.

Each game was chosen based on a combination of how innovative, influential, and – above all else – fun they were. Also note that we tried to populate this list with more “realistic” (sorry Mario Kart) games where possible, although a few more “arcadey” titles snuck in.  

San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing (N64, PSone)

San Francisco Rush asked a very poignant question on its box-art: “Is it real? Or is it RUSH?” to which we clearly don’t know. Do you? And despite the fact that this question has haunted our dreams for the better part of a decade, we happily include Atari Games/ Midway Games San Franciso Rush: Extreme Racing to our list. This game was fun personified, and despite its less than realistic physics and more arcade-focused gameplay, we credit it with establishing our deep-rooted love of all things on four wheels. Throw in a vortex-like time wasting game mode, such as the skate park where the goal was to perform insane stunts, and you have a simple recipe for awesome.

Midnight Club II (PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC)

While it was certainly not a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch, the first Fast and Furious film debuted back in 2001 and can be credited for helping take the racing genre from the track to the “streetz “(yes, with a “Z”). Although the first Midnight Club from Rockstar Games preceded that film, the second entry in the series embraced its cinematic inspiration, even going so far as to sport its own Vin Diesel doppelganger on the box art. Still, Midnight Club II was both a critical and commercial success. Races took place in massive cities where drivers were presented with numerous shortcuts and paths to accomplish each race. Sadly, Midnight Club did not offer licensed cars (We can’t imagine why automakers wouldn’t want their vehicles to be seen taking part in illegal street races), but did allow players to race on supped-up street bikes. But perhaps the greatest thing about Midnight Club II was its sheer depiction of speed. Each cityscape morphed into a blur as you maneuvered through neon-glittering avenues, and whizzed past tight alleyways at breakneck speeds. That — and it was just so darn fun. The series may be gone (at least for now), but the driving mechanics can still be experienced in Rockstar’s flagship franchise, Grand Theft Auto.

Project Gotham Racing 2 (Xbox)

Born from the slightly obscure, but beloved, Dreamcast game Metropolis Street Racer, this series went on to gain a modicum of fame with Project Gotham Racing, an undeniable hit on the original Xbox second only to a little game you may have heard of called Halo: Combat Evolved. Building on its success, developers Bizarre Creations set forth in making Project Gotham Racing 2 an even better experience than the predecessor — and they succeeded. While technically more arcade-like than a true racing simulator, Project Gotham Racing 2 drove in a different lane as far as racing mechanics are concerned. Players were tasked with not only driving with speed and skill, but more importantly with style and flair, which was then scored and ranked based on how many Kudos points you earned during each race. Project Gotham Racing 2 also introduced online racing to the series, which for console-only gamers back in 2003 was akin to the invention of the wheel and the printing press.

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (PlayStation 2)

While there were a lot of great racing games that came before Gran Turismo, none came close to capturing the painstaking realism or authenticity the GT series provided. If we had to credit a single series for making the racing sim genre what it is today, it would be Gran Turismo. And while the first two GT’s were spectacular in their own right, it wasn’t until the franchise debuted on the PlayStation 2 in the form of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec that the series truly reached its stride. Developers Polyphony have tried to build on its success in the form of Gran Turismo 4 and 5 (which spent over five years in dedicated development) on the PlayStation 3, but have yet to raise the bar higher than it did with Gran Turismo 3.

Need for Speed: Underground and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, PC)

There have been A LOT of Need for Speed games over the years; some have been great, while others have just been. Amazingly, the series is about to churn out its 20th installment, so it should come as no surprise that the franchise has dipped in quality over the years. The series has struggled so much that publisher EA turned to Criterion Games, makers of the rival Burnout series, to take the reins of the upcoming Need for Speed: Most Wanted. But with so many great titles in the NFS library to choose from, it’s difficult to pin-point which one is our favorite. That being said, we’re going to cheat a little and give that honor to both the ridiculously fun Need for Speed: Underground and the more recent Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The first game marked a major departure for the franchise and looked to capitalize on the purveying tuner-culture at the turn of the century, while the second is credited for bringing the series back to its roots by including the much-loved (and missed) pursuit aspect that tasked gamers with chasing down speeders in exotic cop cars.

Forza Motorsport (Xbox)

Before the first Forza Motorsport released on the original Xbox back in 2005, it was hard not to think of Microsoft’s first true racing sim as a feeble attempt to cash in on Gran Turismo’s success and popularity. Had we not suffered through the (at times good but mostly terrible) XSN sports games series we might have had more faith. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and Forza Motorsport debuted with some impressive features, namely its realistic damage to cars that affected your ride not just cosmetically, but its performance as well. Throw in excellent online racing modes and Forza was already a force to be reckoned with. Not surprisingly, things have only gotten better three iterations on, with the current racing sim king Forza laps ahead of the competition.

Burnout (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)

While other racing games were looking to streets and the import-tuner scene in 2001 to revitalize the genre, Criterion Games was pioneering a new path with an entirely new racing style. Up until Burnout’s release, the mechanics of a racing game were pretty standard: Race from point A to point B (occasionally point C) in the fastest time or before your opponents; Burnout changed that. Sure you still had the requisite checkpoints and position battle, but Burnout encouraged you to inflict diabolic destruction and damage to everything and everyone around you, and needless to say it was pretty awesome.

Honorable mentions:

Road Rash (Sega Genesis, N64)

Because taking part in illegal motorcycle races is only made more responsible while wielding a crowbars and nunchakus and emphatically introducing them to your opponents face.

DiRT 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC)

If paved roads are not your thing, then the DiRT (formerly Colin McRae Rally) series is the best scratch for your racing itch. The series has long delivered the technical intricacies and  subtle nuances of the rallying world while at the same time offering up accessible and fun gameplay.