Just moved to DC for work and I'm subletting a place in a not-so-great area in Maryland for a month and a half. Waiting it out until I move to a nice place with a friend.

@alexsea: No im kidding though, I saw two people do a facetime call the other day and it is ridiculously cool. Sorry to be a snarker blog commenter.

Yeah, it's almost like they are using the webcams on the laptops that they have been carrying on board for years!

@DennyCrane: If that initial forum post is true, it seems like stupid territorial MS divisions are the real culprit.

@Kaiser-Machead: What does the marketing, of all things, have to do with it? If it were an iDevice, or an HTC android phone in the exact same commercial ("Im on a quest to meet my social network" or whatever) it wouldn't have been groundbreaking.. however it wouldn't be blamed for the death of a product launch.

Are you guys going to keep talking about soccer now that we're out of the world cup? It was cute while it lasted, but come on.. (cue the banhammer?)

@Eulatos: Not to continue to beat a dead device, but the kin is (was?) obviously not a smartphone. It was only priced like one. Thus, the device was not successful.

@Eulatos: Really? Useless? A 50$ dumbphone with kin studio and baked in facebook / twitter / whatever other social apps kids use would sell to parents. Like the giz folks said, it comes down to the monthly cost of data. Removing the big feature that made it a faux-smartphone would have allowed VZW to lower data…

That was a very costly experiment. It was very surprising that Microsoft LET verizon charge that much for service. If MS would have cut the web browser and priced the data at a teen friendly budget ($5 or so over a voice plan) there would have been a lot more potential. How embarrassing

@bungadunga: no way - I have this live wallpaper on my nexus one. It's definitely realtime. The levels are randomly generated based off a 'difficulty' slider, and you can choose to render specific elements to improve performance and battery life.

"recent security issues being the catalyst for many to close down their accounts"

it's even cooler when you have it render the AI paths.

I live in Orlando. First thought: "Damn, they're getting good with targeted ads"

Legends of the Hidden Dracula

@hugesunglasses: always hilarious to listen to a blogger blog about another blogger. keep building those brands!

Look at you, too hip for innovation. Did you guys not just post an article earlier today crowing about how good the gameplay was with xbox's device?

Please keep this article on hand next time commenters accuse you guys of being ANTI (insert company here) FANBOYZ!!1

That's all well and good, but I quit playing GT after the PS1 version. Could never even turn the car at speed without spinning 180 degrees.

welll hellooooo 2009

For fucks sake, apple. Make a sleek, minimalist bluetooth game controller that looks like an apple remote knocked up an SNES gamepad. Sell it for 30$. It will be official enough that EVERYONE will buy one, and I can finally play games with some sort of tactile feedback.