Dacin Tigers and Taiwan Beer will meet in the opening game of the 2011-12 SBL season on Dec. 17 at Miaoli Dome in the central city of Miaoli, the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association announced.

For the first time, SBL games will be scheduled to play in the southern city of Greater Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city. The regular season games from Jan.6-8 will be played at Kaohsiung Dome with a capacity of over 10,000.

Each of the seven SBL teams will meet each other five times during the regular season with the top four teams advancing to the postseason.

No regular season games will be played in Taipei City however as there is no qualified arena in downtown Taipei to host the games. The four host cities are Miaoli, Greater Kaohsiung, Jhubei of Hsinchu County and Sinjhuang of New Taipei City.

According to the CTBA, the All-Star Game could be played at Jhubei and the playoffs could be played at the National Taiwan University Gymnasium and/or Sinjhuang Stadium.

Seven exhibition games will be played at Taipei Municipal Gymnasium between Dec. 6 and Dec. 8 with each team playing two games. The games will be free of charge.

Filed under: ctba, SBL
Taiwan Hoops

Focus on smash single ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, and it’s not all that difficult to dismiss Foster The People offhand. A seemingly inane track, it takes as many listens as the world’s radio station playlists seem determined to give it to see past the hooks and clock on to what it’s all about. The single takes a leaf from Bob Geldof’s book in depicting a high-school shooting, but does so in a curiously Sixties pop-meets-electro way that offers a peculiarly upbeat angle on the idea. It’s hooky and infectious, sure, but if ‘infectious’ hasn’t crossed the line into ‘irritating’ for you at this point, you’re a more patient soul than I am.

At Electric Picnic this summer, though, Foster The People were still walking that line, and strolled onto one of the smaller stages early in the festival before threatening to induce a love-riot. We must admit, we suspected it might be a case of musical zeitgeist; a one-off resulting largely from good timing. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Foster The People are indeed at the cheesier, more hook-laden end of that trend for an electro-rock blend, but live that matters not one jot. Tonight’s Olympia show reaches relentless, pulsating highs right off the bat.

Opening with a catchy ‘Houdini’, the band’s light show makes an instant impression, being as stark and beat-driven as the chorus lines themselves. While the early tracks fly past in a parade of bouncing enthusiasm, Mark Foster himself whips the front few rows into a frenzy, patrolling the stage front and contributing on a variety of different instruments. The sound is slick and almost blasé, a blend of modernised happy-go-lucky pop that has an intense likeability factor when delivered with such energetic enthusiasm. In a live setting, with the guitars more prominent in the mix and the mid-song beat sections extended to allow for Foster’s own take on moonwalking down the front, those occupying the Olympia’s boxes sum up the atmosphere: they dance so enthusiastically there are a few moments when we wonder if the box might come down, or their moves might take them over the edge and into the crowd below.

Clearly, it doesn’t take the bigger end-of-set hits to get the Olympia jumping, but when the likes of ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘Call It What You Want’ poke their heads above the parapet, the concept of Foster The People as a one or two track radio-play band is a thing of the distant past, and tonight’s move from the smaller Academy is  justified many times over. ‘Helena Beat’ is perhaps the feistiest highlight, delivering on full-on throbbing electro-pop heaven, the refrains of “don’t stop” still echoing through the audience in the quieter corners. The finale, of course, is inevitable, but accompanied by Foster crowdsurfing his way from the stage of the Olympia and delivering pitch-perfect lyrics from the heart of a crowd that is utterly enraptured. You might have all the ammo you need to dismiss Foster The People – not least in our photographer’s observation that they occasionally sound just a little bit like fellow Californians Maroon 5 – but if they keep reeling off live shows like this, the odd overplayed irritant isn’t going to prove at all hard to ignore. James Hendicott

Photo by Kieran Frost. More here.

AU Magazine

Every year I make crazy predictions that fail miserably.  A little less then a year after that I review them so you can see my humility as someone who can’t predict industry trends at all.

Here’s how I did last year.

[The Old Republic] will ship in 2011. It has to.

I was right! Barrrrrrreeeeeellllly.

The biggest event, and the one that will shape 2011 in terms of MMO development, will be, of course, the Old Republic.

I was wrong, unless you think 2011′s MMO development experience is shaped in its final week. 2012 is the year of the Old Republic (and for what it’s worth, from everything I hear it’s going to be a pretty monster hit barring last minute infrastructure/bug stupidity), not 2011.

By the way, this made pretty much my entire slate of predictions inoperative, since they (correctly, I think) noted that the MMO industry is basically waiting on the Old Republic to ship and, well, it hasn’t yet.

2011 is the year of WoW: Not WoW.

Pretty much. WoW did take a back seat, and shed a million customers – that in any other company would have been cause for bodies falling out of high windows, and for Blizzard is still essentially a bookkeeping error. Blizzard did announce a new expansion, and as expected it will be released in 2012, not 2011. But mostly it was time for a lot of other games to ship. How did they do?

DC ONLINE: went free to play in short order
RIFT: the most successful new release of 2011, and the most WoW Not WoW
WORLD OF TANKS: started free to play, made tons of money
PLANETSIDE NEXT: not yet released
TERA: not yet released
GUILD WARS 2: not yet released
NEVERWINTER: not yet released, being restructured
FAXION: released, then cancelled shortly thereafter
JUMPGATE EVOLUTION: most likely did not survive the collapse of NetDevil
THE AGENCY: cancelled
THE SECRET WORLD: not yet released
GODS AND HEROES: yes, it released, no, you probably didn’t notice

Unless you’re Scott Hartsman or some crazy Belarusian guy, that’s a whole lotta ouch. But how did other subscription MMOs do?

EVERQUEST 2: went free to play
CITY OF HEROES: went free to play
LINEAGE 2: went free to play
AGE OF CONAN: went free to play
STAR TREK ONLINE: went free to play
FINAL FANTASY 14: still involuntarily free to play
EVE: attempted suicide by CEO, layoffs, trying to come back
STAR WARS GALAXIES: cancelled
LEGO ONLINE: cancelled
WARHAMMER ONLINE: still exists, releasing a free-to-play arena MOBA version
AION: still here, kinda!
FINAL FANTASY 11: Quick! Look over there!
EVERQUEST: *whistling*
ULTIMA ONLINE: yep! don’t mind us!
DARK AGE OF CAMELOT: feelin’ spry! don’t look this direction plz

So, if your MMO of choice was a subscription game, it was either:
(a) World of Warcraft,
(b) Rift,
(c) free-to-play,
(d) cancelled,
(e) assaulted by crazy lutefisk-wielding Icelandic people, or
(f) so old no one remembered the server was on.

I’d say I get a bye on all predictions, because the market kinda went bloop. Yes, bloop. That’s the technical term.

Broken Toys

One time Magnetic Fields member L D Beghtol reveals a new collection of songs
DOA

In the video above, we review Sea Battle Live from Dragonplay. It’s a new battleship game for Android that allows you to play online against friends or strangers. The game features classic battleship style gameplay, seamless online multiplayer, a polished interface, the ability to chat with opponents mid-game, and leaderboards. Grab SeaBattle Live for free from the Android Market.

Sea Battle Live for Android on AppBrain

GAME DESCRIPTION:
SeaBattle Live is an online game based on the classic pencil and paper(Battleship). Play live against your friends or a random online opponent and win the battle by destroying your opponent ships before he discovers and sinks your fleet.

FEATURES:
– Challenge your friends over the Internet
– Find new opponents online in no time
– Post your scores to the global online leader board
– Live Chat with other players
– Cool avatars and in game virtual goods for a great social expiriance
– Intuitive and elegant user interface especially designed for Android tablets and phones
– Enjoy a user interface that was specifically designed for daily commuters
– SeaBattle Live supports Android devices running 1.5 or later
– Register with your Facebook connect or Guest account

Source: Android Market

SmartKeitai

Middle school students personalize their own pair of garden gloves to use when working in an outdoor classroom nutrition garden project.

Suite101 Articles

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Buenos Aires, Argentina – Portegno App today is pleased to introduce KidsMag issue 3 for iPad, its interactive magazine for kids age three and older. Issue Number Three includes 32 pages of interactive content: Listen & Learn, Play & Enjoy, Draw & Color, Counting & Writing, and Reading & Listening. Teo and Bianca, the main characters, guide the reader through more than 50 different activities. The writing, illustrations, and activities are comparable to those of the highest quality print books for children. And the music, sound effects, dialogue, and narration are the equal of the best juvenile ebooks.

KidsMag follows in this tradition of fun, educational, activity-oriented publications that children can enjoy alone or with their parents.

KidsMag Issue 3 Highlights:
* Learn about the Sea, educational pages and games
* Cool pirate Games!
* All about trains, educational pages and super cool games
* Teo & Bianca go to the beach story and game
* Numbers Flashcards
* Write the numbers, draw each number
* Super funny Birdy Birdy Chorus
* Play with shapes
* Learn Spanish with Teo & Bianca
* Cool Links

Device Requirements:
* Compatible with iPad
* iOS 3.2 or later
* Size: 115 MB

Pricing and Availability:
KidsMag issue 3 is priced .99 USD and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in Education category.

Portegno Apps
KidsMag issue 3
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Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Portegno Apps specializes in the creation of mobile apps for Apple iOS devices. The company, a team of illustrators, programmers, multimedia specialists, teachers, animators and music composers, was founded in 2007 and posted its first app to the App Store in 2008. Cartoonizeme was an instant success and an Apple Staff Pick for four weeks running. Focusing on educational apps for kids, Portegno Apps currently has more than 120 paid apps in the App Store and over 2,000,000 downloads. Copyright (C) 2011 Portegno Apps. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod, and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

MacMegasite

Las Vegas Nevada – Toon-FX announced a desktop version of their popular smart-painting application, ToonPAINT. ToonPHOTO allows you to easily create awesome looking cartoons with your own photos. Simply import a photo, it creates a sketch of the photo, click the color button and you’re done! There is no size limit on the images you can process. ToonPHOTO enables you to express your creativity and obtain compelling results without years of Art classes.

Features:
* Process High Resolution images.
* Import photos directly from iPhoto/Aperture or take a photo with your webcam
* Supports iSight and most 3rd party webcams
* Export images as TIFF, PNG, JPEG, PDF
* ToonPhoto documents allows you to automatically save a session so you can open it up on any Mac computer.
* Zoom in and out to reveal the fine details of your photo
* Undo/Redo: allows you to correct any image adjustments quickly and easily
* Process color and black and white images
* Upload images to your Facebook account
* Print directly in-app
* Full screen support

ToonPHOTO expands on the Toon-FX iPhone app ToonPAINT by allowing you to process full size images.

PCWorld, 5 Stars: “Creating cartoon-like portraits is easy with this well-designed app.”

MacWorld, 5 Mice: “I was really impressed with the quality of the results I got using ToonPaint. Not only did the images look awesome, but creating them was both easy and fun.”

BusinessWeek: “If you’ve ever wanted to create a cartoon-style image of yourself but don’t have the time or artistic skill to make it happen, you should check out ToonPaint. Developed by Toon-FX, ToonPaint makes it very easy to create those really cool cartoon images you’ve seen in places such as the movie A Scanner Darkly or those Charles Schwab television ads.”

AppShouter: “I love any app that really lets me be creative and fun and this app has to be one of the best. ToonPAINT takes your photos and turns them into sketches, which you then get to paint! This app is actually very good at what it does and that truly impressed me, because unlike other apps that give you a blurred randomized product of your picture, the result from ToonPaint was easily recognizable and looked great.”

Supported Languages:
* US English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish

System Requirements:
* Requires Mac OSX 10.6.8 or later
* 0.4 MB

Pricing and Availability:
ToonPhoto 1.0 is currently .99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Entertainment category.

Toon-FX
ToonPhoto 1.0
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Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, Toon-FX works by the motto imagine, create, and share. The company has found great success in their creativity enhancing products. Their personal curiosity and the urge to share their discoveries with the world result in technically superior, innovatively unique and artistically creative software. Copyright (C) 2011 Toon-FX. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

MacMegasite

Have you ever worried about buying the cell phone accessories? Most people have a phone in this information world. With the cell phones, they can solve more urgent problems in every area of  our life; with the cell phones, we can keep in touch with all the people wherever we live. And The cell phone … Continue reading →
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