Urban Ninja is exactly as what it says on the tin. You play as a ninja, who is both chubby and French (both distinctly un-ninja like traits), who is navigating urban landscapes to try to get to a helicopter that is waiting with a rope for him. But just trying to get to the helicopter would be too easy for this surprisingly skilled warrior. First, he has a limited amount of energy, expended with each jump he makes. Second, he has to finish each level with a certain number of points to successfully complete it. Players get points by collecting stars (which also replenish energy), by getting to the helicopter with as much energy as possible remaining, and by getting as close to the helicopter’s escape rope as possible. While you’ll primarily be fighting the level layouts, some enemies also lay in wait to keep you from getting to your goal.

In many ways, Urban Ninja is ingenious in the way that the levels serve as your primary adversary as much as the enemies do. This is almost like a puzzle game as you have to figure out what you need to do, and the proper way to navigate the levels. Some of the later levels get especially challenging as some are just difficult to complete, whereas others are difficult to complete with the prerequisite number of points required, which demands a more thorough level exploration. There are 40 levels in all, and the game definitely explores these concepts to their full potential. As well, the game features the great art style common to Donut Games: a colorful look with sprites that resemble the 16-bit era in all its complex simplicity.

Urban Ninja does not come without its flaws. First is the inability to do anything than a full power jump. A lot of sections would be easier if you had the ability to control the power as well as the angle of the jumps. As well, when you’re on walls and hanging from ropes and rafters, having the ability to move side to side or up and down would also make a lot of otherwise hard jumps easier. While the game was designed with these restrictions in mind, they feel like they’re unnecessary roadblocks in playing the game in a way that feels most comfortable. The game also doesn’t let you pan around to explore the level, so you’ll be venturing blindly through levels the first time through. As well, while the game supports online high scores, it is through a proprietary system that kicks you out to a web page in Safari when you want to view them.

While Urban Ninja may be a bit stiff at times with the control of the eponymous ninja, it can’t detract from the great concept and the way the game splendidly explores its puzzle platforming for all its worth. Urban Ninja is a fine way to spend $0.99 on the App Store.

[ Urban Ninja is a post from 148Apps ]

What if your iPhone or iPad touchscreen could recognize objects you put on them? Well, this is not too far from becoming a reality as some French engineers are currently working on it.

This technology works using printed tags that are applied to objects. These tags are detected by the multitouch screen that can recognize and differentiate them, depending on the tag. Watch this video to get a better understanding of how it works… Read More

Palm has been around for quite some time developing a whole slew of different portable devices. Way back when, they pushed out their popular lineup of Palm Pilot PDAs but things have come a long way since then. After giving up on their Palm Treo line up of devices, the company went on to release webOS their newest mobile operating system to compete with more popular platforms like Android and iOS.

However, while webOS generated some positive reviews installed on devices like the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, a poor marketing campaign led to a little success with the platform leading to Palm’s buyout by HP. Now that Palm is in the hands of HP, that means webOS is too which the company plans to install on a whole slew of new devices.

Today, it seems that a device named the Palm Pre 2 has appeared on a French wireless carrier’s website by the name of SFR. Unfortunately we’ve got no pictures to look at but according to the listing the device will feature a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM. Unfortunately it seems that the Palm Pre 2 will feature the same generation design scheme as the original Pre, but that’s not really a bad thing now is it?

Would you buy a Palm Pre 2?

via precentral

French media company Vivendi has sold its stake in NBC to G.E. for $2 billion. Vivendi had owned 20% of the broadcasting company. After Comcast completes its acquisition of NBC, Vivendi will sell the remaining 12.34% it owns to G.E. for $3.8 billion. Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said that the company can use the sale of NBC to buy 100% of telecommunications operator company SFR. Vivendi owns 56% of SFR. [NYT]

This isn’t the first time we have seen dual-screen ebook readers before. Most of them are still in development, like the Entourage Edge, or the Kno Tablet.

This Digital eBook is created by French designer Karim Zaouai, and it involves the user pushing the two screens slightly together, just like a real book.

Could this be the next standard for an e-book reader? The big-hitter Kindle only has one screen, as do most. Perhaps later versions will have double-screens.

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