Sony Xperia Sola Brings Up Floating Touch Technology

Much awaited fascinating smart phone Xperia Sola finally unveiled by Sony this week. It seems like Sony has put all technological strength to make this phone distinguish among others. Xperia Sola is differentiated by its premium feature of floating touch technology. Now you can do all the stuff of touch phone without touching the screen. Navigating the web by hovering your finger over the screen so it acts like moving a cursor is a new exclusive feature that is going to catch the eyes of developers to evolve Android applications. Also equipped with innovative application of SmartTags, you can quickly change configuration & settings as per your lifestyle and time.

SmartTags can be personalized and supports up to 10 commands. Profiles are preconfigured and launch on a touch with SmartTags.

Xperia uses NFC ( Near Field Communication ) technology to interact with tags. We’ll soon share about NFC technology in detail in our Knowledge Share section that how it works. You can follow this blog to get updated.

Colin Williamson, Marketing Manager for Sony Mobile South Africa commented; “Xperia sola comes with the power of Sony and a sense of magic with floating touch, giving consumers a fun new way to browse the web and latest technology to show off. With Xperia SmartTags out of the box and access to the latest content through Sony Entertainment Network, Xperia sola is perfect for consumers looking for ease of use and the best in entertainment in a smart and innovative smartphone.”

Lets talk about more features of Xperia Sola.

Powered by popular Bravia of Sony, the Bravia mobile engine enables reality display with sharp clarity. Sony is always ahead of others in its audio magic and Sola delivers crisp and loud 3D surround sound using xLoud. Sola has 1 GHz processor which is fast enough to execute high performance applications.

Sony is prepared to launch this product in three colors Black, Red and White.

Samsung Cloud Service To Unveil Soon

Samsung plans to announce to launch its own cloud service on May 3rd press event in London. The serive has been named S-Cloud and will bring same feature which iCloud of Apple provides to its customers. Sources of Maeil Business and Washington post brought that story from a leaked plan of Samsung Electronics according to which this service brings more than iCloud.

iCloud of Apple automatically and securely stores content so it’s always available to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. It gives access to your music, movies, apps, latest photos, and more from whichever device you happen to be using. And it keeps your email, contacts, and calendars up to date across all your devices. No syncing required. No management required. In fact, no anything required. iCloud does it all.

S-Cloud will do the same for Samsung devices. Although there’s little detail on the features of S-Cloud, Maeil Business says it’s similar to iCloud but without any limitations on the type of content you can upload. It is also expected to ship with access to popular TV shows, movies, and music with free and paid content that will be available across a range of Samsung devices, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Storage is rumored to be “more than 5GB,” but it’s not clear whether that’s down to paid offerings. There were hints that Samsung delayed the service after problems finding a suitable cloud storage partner, but Maeil Business claims that Samsung has partnered with Microsoft to ensure S-Cloud is available globally.

Apple iPhone 5 - Latest in Rumours

Rumors of iPhone 5 are heated up on internet day by day and the latest news suggest that Apple is sticking to its new release schedule and making some major design enhancement to the new iPhone.

The case of iPhone 5 will be Liquidmetal as reported by Washington Post. Its a metal alloy that acts like a metal glass. Its a strong material having smooth surface and can be used to manufacture the phones in various ways. Thats an exciting speculated rumor.

As per reports the parts made with Liquidmetal is a same process to plastic injection molding rather than by die-casting.   There have been several rumors that Apple would be considering a unibody case for the iPhone, indicating that there is strong speculation that Apple will move away from the form factor it chose for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

There could be more than just the outer shell of new iPhone. Digitimes, a major supplier of Apple rumors suggest this week that the in-cell touch panels are manufactured by Sharp and Toshiba. However no official word came from both companies so far. If this rumor comes true then this change will turn the phone lighter and set a new standard in mobile industry. This technology would let Apple to make its touchpanels thinner because the sensors of the tocuh would be placed inside the color filters  on the screen rather than on top of them.

So when, theoretically, can you get your hands on what appears to be a super-light, metal-backed iPhone?

Few weeks ago some strong rumors circulated after a massive hiring spree at Foxconn, a manufacturer for Apple, that Apple will be released in this summer. But analyst advises consumers to plan their budget for purchasing new iPhone in the fall.

Bloomburg reported that Munster has changed his mind about Apple’s release after Qualcomm announced it was having trouble meeting demand for LTE chips that will likely be used in the next phone. Although the analyst had previously expected an August release for the iPhone, he now believes the big day will fall in October.

Nothing, of course, is set in stone — even the name of the next iPhone, which could just be the “iPhone” — so don’t take any of these as a given until Apple announces the features itself.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Realease

Samsung has announced to launch Galaxy S3 on May 3rd this year. Its another addition to the galaxy family. Rumors and speculations of Galaxy S3 are high on internet and we are trying to gather only right information. As per a reliable source of CNET UK, following are the specifications of galaxy S3.

Screen: 4.7-inch Super AMOLED
Storage: 16GB of storage
Camera: 12-megapixel camera
OS: Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Processor may be the same as of Galaxy SII. This product will may be just another upgrade of S2 series like iPhone 4S was released as an update of iPhone 4.

Samsung Galaxy SII was a huge success for the company last year and penetrated enough to beat HTC behind. The announcement to launch Galaxy SIII has come out just after HTC One X released which was introduced in 2nd week of April. The strategy has hold many customers to spend money on One X till the launch of Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Galaxy series is a new competition to Apple. The new product will make the difference in overall market share of smart phones. However, the release of iPhone 5 by Apple in the same year will most probably balance out the competition. But its all about innovations, services and quality which let the product to lead in the competition.

The Apex of Cuisine: When Too Far Isn’t Far Enough

Roughly every half century, humanity takes a giant leap forward.  The industrial revolution created the modern age of progress and spurred technological advancements.  Fifty years later, we detonated the atomic bomb and man left the safety of our planet for outer space.  Then, in 1995, Pizza Hut invented stuffed crust pizza and changed the world forever.  While the standard course of history should have caused Pizza Hut to yield the next great technological achievement to another, fate simply wouldn’t allow it.  If you’re not sitting down already, I strongly recommend that you take a seat or convince someone to catch you after you faint.  Seriously, do not read another sentence until you are fully prepared to have every emotion simultaneously and uncontrollably erupt out of your body.

Last week, Pizza Hut released a pizza that has hotdog stuffed right into the crust.  Already offering crusts stuffed with cheese or hotdog, it is only a matter of time before they release the crust with cheese stuffed hotdogs.  This all begs the question, “What else has Pizza Hut been keeping from us?”

My initial reaction to this hotdog stuffed crust news was exactly the same as my reaction to the cheese stuffed crust and several videos some of my less upstanding have emailed to me.

Then I found out that it was only available in the United Kingdom and became outraged.  First of all, even though I don’t have any proof of this, I’m fairly certain that America invented both the hotdog and the pizza.  If not, then we at least mastered the art of stuffing one food inside of another.  I also thought that the heartlands of America were the places that chain restaurants demoed ridiculous foods like this.  I remember once driving from Detroit to Chicago and happening across KFC’s Famous Bowl in Indiana well before they unleashed that terror across the rest of the globe.  The same was true of the Double Down, which is a bacon and cheese sandwich where they have replaced the bread with two hunks of fried chicken.  Sure, I’ve heard that they have a Chicken Nugget Burger in Germany, but that seems pretty tame compared to Domino’s pizza made entirely out of Oreo cookies and vanilla icing or Wendy’s Baconator Double.  You can also make a nugget burger on your own.  In the past I have habitually inserted nuggets and fries into my hamburgers because I live in America and that’s something we do.

I’m not saying America has a lock on unhealthy foods but we’ve certainly put the time in to at least make that claim.  Things are changing though and the healthy food craze is taking the nation by storm.  While this is definitely a positive thing, I hope that it doesn’t come at the cost of our chicken and waffles or fried frozen Cokes.  We need to understand that these are all dare foods.  You are not supposed to eat them all of the time, you’re supposed to get them once in a while and then regret it.  When you have a three day weekend and you’re drunk with a friend in the middle of the afternoon, that is the time to indulge in your most disgustingly decadent of food pleasures.  However, if you just happen to be on your way home from work, you don’t need to put frozen yogurt into your pastrami submarine sandwich.  Dare foods are a novelty and all about the experience, not about getting as much of them into your body as you can before it realizes that it doesn’t want anymore.

As I’ve gotten older I have started to understand the temptations of food a little more, but not to the extremes that some people take it.  I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to The Splendid Table, but that woman talks about food like a registered sex offender talks about sixteen year olds.  I once had a child in my car and they heard her talking about an egg she ate in France and I had to turn off the radio because I worried that it was doing psychological damage.  She once had a twenty minute conversation with someone about the impact different types of bread have had on her life.  While undoubtedly important, I rarely ever reflect back on the breads in my life when I’m not already eating a piece.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  The food television networks are better but I’ll still occasionally get the impression that the food is supposed to deliver some sort of higher pleasure to the person consuming it than it should.  It’s usually when they strategically light the food to look good and then shoot it with a soft filter like it’s in some sex scene on an vintage soap opera that I’ll start to feel like something is amiss.

I, admittedly, enjoy reading up about consumables but food culture sort of misses me.  I think a part of me wants to understand because I really do love a variety of foods but I always seem to fall short once it starts to sound like an erotic novel about rare ingredients.  Then again, I suppose the alternative isn’t much better:

“I cooked some beef today because it was on sale and I hadn’t had any in a while.  I was going to cook a nice chicken curry with rice but then realized that it was going to be just me and I needed to eat that beef because it was starting to stink.  It needed some salt, so I salted it.  I’d say it was pretty okay because I didn’t get all that sick.”

I Saw The Three Stooges

Note: Last week, Nick did a fantastic write-up on The Three Stooges right here on this very website! Check it out here.

I did not expect to go see The Three Stooges this weekend. I wasn’t really sure if I was going to go see it at all. But I had a coupon for a free popcorn and soda, and tickets were only $4, so I decided to pack up my gear and venture out to the theaters for a viewing. I’m glad I did, because the Farrelly brothers’ The Three Stooges was a ton of fun, and a pretty decent film-going experience over all. One of the most noticeable aspects of the new film is the level of respect and honor the Farrelly’s brought to this movie. There are plenty of homages to the past shorts for one. From the way the stooges snore in concert with one another, to the bang-zoom-pow sound effects, to the distinct mannerisms of the titular characters, the film is pretty clearly in many ways a love letter to the vaudevillian act of the original three.

The film begins at an orphanage, documenting the trials and tribulations of the children stooges. Moe is eventually adopted by a rich couple, but does not want to leave without his friends, so another boy is adopted in his stead. The trio grows up as a part of the orphanage, “working” odd jobs for the Sisters and “helping” with the younger children and such. When the orphanage is threatened with foreclosure, the stooges venture off into the world to raise enough money to keep their home open and running and save the children and the Sisters, who they see as friends, mother figures, and even primary caretakers.

The casting obviously helps out a ton here. Chris Diamontopolous, best known for his role on the action television program 24, and Will Sasso, best known for his work on Fox’s Mad TV, are perfectly cast as Moe and Curly respectively. I did not expect to like Diamontopolous’ Moe all that much because he’s such an unknown actor to me, but I ended up loving his work. He got Moe’s mannerisms and look down pat, from being the ostensible leader, to the fishbowl haircut, to the “C’mere you chowdahead!” sayings and accent. Sasso is just perfect as Curly; honestly casting here gets an A+. Sasso’s Curly is the film’s secret weapon. The original Curly, one of the most  beloved but also simultaneously overlooked and underrated comic geniuses in American cinema history, would no doubt approve of Sasso’s impressions. Everything from the “Woo! Woo!” to the dogbarking to the “Soitenly!” are present, and all are welcomed and lovable. Sean Hayes is the weak link here, but his Larry Fine is passable. He just doesn’t get the love that Moe and Curly do in the film.

The supporting cast ranges from ok to a mixed bag. I personally found Larry David’s Sister Mary to be hilarious (and having him in drag is another homage to the original shorts). Jane Lynch is also fine as the Mother Superior, but she gets little screen time (as does a perfectly fine Jennifer Hudson, who should really be getting more work as she is beautiful and talented as they come). Sofia Vergera is more of a liability, however; her acting is ok, but her character is severely under-developed. I’m sure there was a ton of internet bitching about the cast of Jersey Shore being involved, but honestly their presence does not distract from the film at all, and is even quite funny in the short bits they’re on-screen. It also helps that it makes good sense why they’re even in the film.

The film is not without its structural weaknesses however. I like how the film is divided up into chapters, but there’s really only a few of them and they seem to be somewhat randomly placed. I also didn’t particularly care for the parts in the beginning where the stooges were still children, and because of this I felt they dragged on just a bit. Really, any part of the film featuring primarily child actors had the potential to be a bit cringe-worthy, but because this is a movie primarily made for kids (see: the PG rating), I’m willing to be somewhat forgiving of that. The ending also comes off as a bit weird and disjointed for reasons I can’t really put my finger on.

The Three Stooges is a pretty light-and-breezy fun time, and I’d totally be up for a re-viewing at home. It’s something I’d like to sit down and watch side-by-side with some of the old shorts just to find more homages and similarities. I had a pretty fun time watching this film and I recommend it to any Stooge fan out there. It’s a respectful adaptation of a true American comedy classic series.

10 Best Games For Your iPhone 4S

Want some great games for your iPhone 4S? That A5 microprocessor of the iPhone 4S is the same chip that’s used to power the iPad 2. At twice the speed and with seven times the graphics power compared to the iPhone 4’s A4, there’s a lot of resource room. Developers can now make games - real games - to compete with the likes of the Nintendo 3DS and Sony’s upcoming PlayStation Vita.

The A5’s horsepower and the iOS’ increasingly always-in-your-pocket presence compared to these rival portable game devices is only going to give developers more incentive to create lifelike environments for you to get lost in. In time, expect to see more than Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja populating best-selling lists in the App Store Here's our list of the ten best games for your iPhone 4S.


Infinity Blade II: Optimized for the A5 Chip


You have to look no further than Infinity Blade II, the Epic Games-produced, Chair Entertainment-developed sequel to 2010’s groundbreaking iOS game. It was the first iOS title to use the Unreal 3 engine, and with stunning results. Just as stunning are its sales figures. “We delighted millions of players and booked almost $20 million in revenue,” said Epic Games President Mike Capps before joking, “which is a pretty good share of that $3 billion number [that Apple has paid out to app developers].”

The two companies hope to continue that trend on December 1 when Infinity Blade IIlaunches. You’re bound to forget that you’re playing this action RPG on a phone as your journey to find the creator of the Infinity Blade and team up to destroy the Deathless. That’s exactly how the first Infinity Blade felt and this sequel is optimizing the graphics using the A5 chip to improve that immersive level of detail, right down to the coy in the pond. That’s right - not only will the water look real, the fish that swim in it will too.

“Some graphics techniques aren’t even seen on high-end gaming consoles,” boasted Chair Entertainment creative director Donald Mustard. The Unreal 3 engine lighting effects technique called dynamic light rays, for example, has only recently shown up inGears of War 3. Appropriately, the nickname for this shimmering lighting effect is dubbed “God Rays.”

Infinity Blade II’s graphics are its main selling point, but the gameplay has been enhanced too. It allows you to forge customizable weapons this time around and whip out two swords to take on the giant enemies that await. This is combined with something else I liked about the first game: its touchscreen controls. Blocking, dodging and parrying takes its cues from quick time events, while sword slashing is akin to the screen-swiping of Fruit Ninja. The combination of intuitive combat controls and a richer-looking gameplay environment should make this inevitably just-as-high-priced seque


Real Racing 2: The Forza of iPhone

Switching gears, Real Racing 2 from developer Firemint gives you just as much detail sans the fantasy environment. Plain and simple, motion-controlled racing games tend not to work well. Cro-Mag Rally from the first-generation of apps proved that to millions of hungry mobile gamers - racing via an iPhone could be fun for in short bursts, but precision driving took a back seat. When too many wrong-way mistakes added up, you’d get frustrated, press the home button and move on to another app. Luckily, Firemint developed a better-handling, true-to-life racing sim and includes a half-dozen control options to let you tweak the handling to your heart’s content. The company even added a steering sensitivity slider. As a result, it’s playable for the long haul.

Dead Space: A Survival Horror Game That Isn’t a Horror

Console-to-iPhone conversions tend to end in horror. That’s why I figured survival horror game Dead Space would ironically be a double dose of horror on the iPhone. However, it turned out to be one of the best iOS games in EA’s 100-plus iTunes game collection. That’s because this third-person shooter’s graphics successfully capture the eerie nature of the 2008 console game, complete with dark corridors and a clean HUD. Makeshift weapons and creatively designed enemies do their part in playing into this nightmare scenario, the former being used to make the latter very, very bloody. In fact, this may be the goriest game for iPhone to date. Mature-rating achievement unlocked. 

The graphics may intimidate you into easing up on the controls, but so will the limited screen space. It’s always a 3.5-inch battle between the iPhone being a graphics display and controller. The larger touchscreen that was rumored to be a part of the dubiously predicted iPhone 5 never came to fruition, so iPhone 4S doesn’t help alleviate this ever-present problem. That’s why the expanded real estate of an iPad remains the most suitable option for a game like this. It’s manageable for the dozen levels on the iPhone, so you should experience this new engineer's original story on the iPhone and, one day, use the app’s cross-compatibility to play it on an iPad or iPhone 5. 

Archetype: The Halo Multiplayer of iPhone

Yes, online multiplayer FPS games are possible on the iPhone and Archetype is the Halo-like frag-fest among them. That’s because Munkyfun, the developer behind this $.99 alien-set shooter, focuses on online gameplay, eschewing a single-player mode altogether. So while Dead Space should be your single-player shooter of choice, this game rounds out the FPS package with classic modes like FFA, TDM and CTF for its nearly 20 futuristic-looking maps. 

The great thing about Archetype is how easy it is to get into a match. You load up the app, you click “Play” and immediately you’re thrown into a server lobby with other players. And while the game came out over 20 months ago, it’s still populated at all times day and night. What goes a long way is the developer’s commitment to eliminating cheaters from its lobbies. Yes, you probably didn’t know quality online FPS games existed on the iPhone and you’re likely even more astonished that people would waste their time cheating at a 91 MB pint-sized game like this. Game Center achievements, while just getting underway, apparently mean a lot to people. Luckily, while the genre and cheap tactics found their way to the iPhone, whinny and obnoxious players did not. This game contains no headset banter, which is okay as far as I’m concerned. It’s one less button to press - the mute button. 

Scribblenauts Remix - Solves the Derth of Family-Friendly iOS Games

Getting away from the bleakness of shooter games for a little bit, Scribblenauts' Maxwell solves your boredom with family-friendly iOS games with a five-letter word: Remix. This puzzle-solving game “challenges” you to input words to solve its 50 levels just like the acclaimed Nintendo DS titles. In fact, it’s so much like Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts that 40 of the levels are the same, hence the name Remix. Luckily, this version contains 10 iOS exclusive stages. That’s a little steep for the asking price of $5, but if you haven’t played a Scribblenauts game before, there’s only one three-letter word to solve that problem: “B-U-Y.” 

None of the 50 levels in Scribblenauts Remix are immensely difficult, but the imagination you can put into solving Maxwell’s puzzles are part of the game’s unique charm. The other part is its colorful graphics. They’re so bright and cheery on an iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S display that you may be forced to tone down the brightness in the settings menu. The cuteness of the game cannot be toned down, however. It’s kid-appropriate, adult-friendly and a little bit educational. Best of all, this version doesn’t contain any inappropriate words

Grand Theft Auto 3 - The Game that Redefined Open-World on the Phone that Redefined the Smartphone

Grand Theft Auto 3 - The Game that Redefined Open-World on the Phone that Redefined the Smartphone

There’s nothing family-friendly about Grand Theft Auto 3, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the ways that Rockstar Games is celebrating GTA 3’s 10th Anniversaryis by releasing a mobile version of the groundbreaking open-world game. iOS and Android have been tapped for this October 22-bound game. Remarkably, of the iOS devices, only the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 will be able to play the game - iPhone 4 owners must be having a big WTF moment right now. 

n a sense it's good news because it means that Rockstar isn’t sacrificing visuals for profits by supporting the more readily-carried older iPhones models. Our hands-on time with GTA 3 at New York Comic Con proves it. So, even though we’ve been playing this game for almost ten years now and know the gameplay down to the last pimp, being able to own this enhanced classic may warrant a second visit to Liberty City (or third visit if you played GTA: Liberty City Storeis). We’ll have to see how the game that redefined the sandbox subgenre a decade ago holds up on the phone that redfined the word smartphone. Considering the A5 chip exclusivity, the expectations are high. 

Captain America - You And the Cap'n Can Make It Happen


If there’s one superhero and one movie tie-in game I had to pick for iOS, they’d both beCaptain America: Sentinel of Liberty. Maybe the fact that it happens to be both cancels out what should be a $5 licensed cash-in. Maybe it’s the fact that this game does something different from the two other big Marvel superhero titles out there. That’s to say that it isn’t a 3D brawler like Spider-Man: Total Mayhem or Thor: Son of Asgard. Both of those are fun games and Spidey is only $.99, but it’s the First Avenger that delivers because the game is a bit of an on-rails action title. You can travel in one direction by swiping left and the other direction by, you guessed it, swiping right.

The semi-guided nature of this 2D Cap title means that the gameplay is fluid; your fingers can focus on the action that automatically comes your way on the touchscreen. That focus translates into shield throwing, enemy bashing, wall jumping and hopping over or ducking under obstacles that impede your running on the two-dimensional plane. There may be too many cheesy one-liners (one-liners meaning a short joke, not that it’s repeated once. Trust me.) and the gameplay can get repetitive. But as the console versions of Captain America



StarFront: Collision - Somehow Not a Collision In the Courts



StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in the App Store is about as likely as a resurrection ofStarCraft: Ghost. Boldly, developer Gameloft decided to make “its own RTS game,” one that’s so similar to the Blizzard franchise that the names are almost identical. StarFront: Collision is simply “Star” plus a capitalized first letter in the second word minus a space in-between. Somehow, the Paris-based mobile games company got away with it. Maybe it’s because this is a free game in the App Store, so they’re not making any money off the copycat title.

Whatever reason is for the legal leeway, gamers are the ones who benefit because Gameloft has translated StarFront: Collision into a solid RTS on the iPhone. The space age story that’s set on a planet with rare minerals and three warring races is skippable. What isn’t forgettable are the controls. The touchscreen interface and well-placed shortcuts on the HUD make everything manageable, from resource management to sending troops into combat. Like Dead Space, this game is easier to control when gaming on an iPad. However, having a pocket-sized version of StarCraft on a tiny 3.5-inch screen is priceless - and not just because it’s free.



Fight Night Champion - Bruised, Beaten, Beautiful

Fight Night Champion looks pretty on my iPhone, but my bruised and beaten boxer doesn’t look so hot anymore. This iOS game takes a stripped-down version of the console boxing game and adds touchscreen controls. Everything is second-nature for mobile gamers. Swipe up and down for uppercuts on the head and body, and left and right for executing hooks in those directions. Holding two fingers against the left and right sides of the screen performs a block, while shifting two fingers in any direction initiates a lean.

EA’s boxing simulators have always looked top-notch on consoles and this iOS version is no different, especially on a Retina Display like the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPad 2. Visually, there’s no crowd reaction (unless you count seeing the occasional silhouettes), so part of the atmosphere that makes watching boxing matches so electric is missing. But what’s happening in the ring looks great and the sounds, from the darkened crowd and the punch-by-punch announce

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 - Facebook Integration For Compeition, Making Tiger Woods Jokes

Putting from the crisp grass on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12’s green makes this the other good-looking EA Sports title to own for just $.99. That’s partly because the graphics found at all eight of the championship course are spot-on. This year, it’s to the point that the iPhone version contains birds majestically flying in the clear-blue sky while you are focusing on the touchscreen swinging mechanics. Hitting them isn’t possible, but I’d imagine if you could, it’d be an automatic birdie.

Besides this game’s Retina Display-enhanced visuals, it contains a Facebook-connected mini-game called Closest to the Pin. As the name suggests, it’s a competition to see which one of your friends can land closest to the flag. It’s well-integrated into the game, displaying their photo on the screen as you attempt to hack away at the ball, hoping to beat their measurement. Passive, not real-time, multiplayer options like this are what really makes gaming with friends on the iPhone a lot of fun.