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There are a lot of successful apps in the App Store. But with 800,000 of them available, there are also thousands of flops. What does it take to make a game app that can drive $20 million in sales? ~  Dean Kosage

Donald Mustard and his brother Geremy founded Chair Entertainment in 2005. They were busy building console games such as Shadow Complex when Epic, maker of blockbuster games Gears of War and Unreal Tournament snapped them up in 2008.

By 2010, Chair had launched Infinity Blade, its first iOS game. Built atop Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, it set a new benchmark for mobile gaming visuals, and has subsequently made more than $20 million in sales.

Clearly, the Mustard boys are onto something, as more than a few people share my addiction to the sword-wielding, armor-wearing, spell-casting heroes. (Epic’s Infinity Blade forum has thousands of posts. I chatted with the Mustard brothers about the game, their relationship with Apple, and what’s next.

Developing for the iPhone 4S and iOS 5

Apple invited the Mustard brothers to its Cupertino campus just two weeks before the iPhone 4S launch in October, though this didn’t seem to bother them. “We try and make good guesses as to where hardware is going. We had our fingers crossed that there would be something like the iPhone 4S where we can push things further. Luckily Apple delivered,” said Donald.

Jeremy said the company understands Apple product timelines pretty well, so they were already developing an app that would work with what they expected to be an iPhone 4 upgrade. Chair’s bet paid off.

The pair are excited about the potential of iOS 5, especially incremental updates. “[It’s] huge,” said Donald, “because we love being able to update our games.”

Chair is constantly refining their games — but with previous iOS versions, Infinity Blade players had to download a huge update for each tweak. With incremental updates, they can download a 50 MB (or smaller) file, as opposed to one hundreds of megabytes in size.

iPhone 5?

So the Mustards were prepared for iPhone 4S, but what about iPhone 5? Did they see it? Did they ask? Said Geremy: “We certainly asked. We get coy smiles and tight lips…they don’t tell us anything. I’m sure there will be an iPhone 5 at some point, but we don’t know anything about it.” He paused and laughed: “I bet it’s at least as fast as the iPhone 4s.”

What’s Inside

Infinity Blade 2 is a powerful game, but it’s also a scalable one. The Chair teams designed it to scale down so it could run on the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1. On those devices, players simply see less detail. But on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, Infinity Blade 2 will “use up all the power that is available on these higher-end systems.”

To build Infinity Blade 2, the Mustards eschewed more complex game geometry and focused on character shadows and light rays — effects typically found on console games. Epic added these capabilities to the engine and debuted them in Gears of War 3 on the Xbox 360. That was only a few months ago. “Now it’s on the iPhone 4S,” said Geremy. “We made the game, and I still can’t believe it’s running on a phone that I carry in my pocket.”

Where are the Android Apps?

As I was testing Infinity Blade 2, I kept wondering how it would run on an Android “super phone” such as the Motorola Photon 4G, which packs a graphics-friendly NVidia Tegra 2 chip. Unfortunately, Infinity Blade isn’t in the Android Market — and it doesn’t sound like it’s coming any time soon.

There is nothing technically preventing the brothers from bringing Infinity Blade to Android right now. Instead, they’re hesitating because of piracy concerns. According to a number of online reports, there’s enough of a piracy issue in Android marketplace that many developers find it necessary to build in antipiracy measures, which in turn dampens sales.

“We’re confident that will be worked out and it will become a viable place for game developers, but that hasn’t happened yet,” said Donald. “So it’s not the tech, it’s the business platform.”

What Steve Said

Donald Mustard met the late Steve Jobs when the Apple founder unveiled Chair and Epic’s game, then called “Project Blade,” at a September 2010 Apple event. Jobs was impressed with the game: “I can’t believe that’s running on an iPhone,” he reportedly said. Jobs also once joked about Donald’s last name, saying “Your name is really ‘Mustard’? I won’t forget that name.”

What’s Next

What comes after Infinity Blade 2? The brothers aren’t quite ready to go there yet. “We’ve been working 24 hours a day,” said Donald. “Working like crazy to get this game finished.” They are, however, excited about some of the features that should arrive after the December 1 launch, including “Clash Mob” — which Donald says should change the way we look at “asynchronous social collaboration.”

Building A Successful App

Donald offered this advice to would be app developers: “Create a game that is unique to iOS — something that utilizes the touch screen in a cool and innovative new way. Our iOS mantra at Chair is that ‘if the game would be fun with a controller, you are not making the right game.’ Gamers want a fun, original experience on their iOS devices — not a port of their favorite console game.”

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GODLEY (CBSDFW.COM) – It’s not easy to remain calm and dial 9-1-1 when you someone you love is in the midst of a medical emergency. But Taylor Martin of Godley Is being hailed as a hero for doing just that. Because she’s only six.

“I’m very proud of her. She’s very brave,” her mother said.

Little Taylor Martin of Godley knows a lot of things like the trampoline and how to count big numbers.

Her eight-year-old brother, Brayson, quizzed her while both of them were jumping on their trampoline out front.

“What’s a hundred plus a hundred?” Brayson asked.

“200!” Taylor shouted back.

Tuesday, she knew three little numbers that saved her mothers life: “9-1-1,” Taylor said.

She called 9-1-1 when her mother had a seizure. “I telled them my momma passed out,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s mother, Liz Miles, said, “Basically, I remember I was breaking up a banana feeding the baby. I blacked out after that. I don’t really know anything.”

“I pushed onto her head but she never did wake up,” Taylor said.

Taylor is only six. Her baby brother 15-months old. They were the only other people in the house at the time.

“It’s just emotional for me to know that happened and I left them alone, you know,” Liz Miles said.

Taylor just started kindergarten this year. 9-1-1 is a lesson she learned from her mom.

“She told us a long time ago and I still remember it,” Taylor said.

“You tell you your kids these things and you expect them to know it but you never really know they’re going to know it until it happens,” her mother said.

Because, after all, they are still children.

Taylor’s mother asks one more time, “What are you going to do if it happens again?”

Taylor responds, “Call 9-1-1.”

In recognition for her heroism, Taylor has been nominated for the National Youth Hero Award.




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Centenarian Fauja Singh crosses the finish line in a 100 meter race for centenarians in Toronto, Thursday Oct. 13, 2011. One-hundred-year-old Singh, originally from India now living in London, England, is competing in Toronto’s Waterfront Marathon on Sunday.

TORONTO (AP) — A 100-year-old runner became the oldest person to complete a full-distance marathon when he finished the race in Toronto on Sunday.

Fauja Singh earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for his accomplishment.

It took Singh more than eight hours to cross the finish line — more than six hours after Kenya’s Kenneth Mungara won the event for the fourth straight year — and he was the last competitor to complete the course.

But his time wasn’t nearly as remarkable as the accomplishment.

Event workers dismantled the barricades along the finish line and took down sponsor banners even as Singh made his way up the final few hundred yards of the race.

Family, friends and supporters greeted Singh when he finished the race.

“Beating his original prediction, he’s overjoyed,” his coach and translator Harmander Singh said. “Earlier, just before we came around the (final) corner, he said, ‘Achieving this will be like getting married again.’

“He’s absolutely overjoyed, he’s achieved his lifelong wish.”

Sunday’s run was Singh’s eighth marathon — he ran his first at age 89 — and wasn’t the first time he set a record.

In the 2003 Toronto event, he set the mark in the 90-plus category, finishing the race in 5 hours, 40 minutes and 1 second.

And on Thursday in Toronto, Singh broke world records for runners older than 100 in eight different distances ranging from 100 meters to 5,000 meters.

The 5-foot-8 Singh said he’s hopeful his next project will be participating in the torch relay for the 2012 London Games. He carried the torch during the relay for the 2004 Athens Games.

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Bill Gates, who during his long career at Microsoft was both a partner and rival Steve Jobs, called working with Job “an incredibly high honor,” and said he would miss the founder of Apple “incredible” .

Shortly after the announcement of the death of Jobs, Bill Gates issued a statement to AllThingsD, offering their condolences to the families and friends and praising the employment impact of Employment.

The couple appeared together in a joint interview at D5 memorable in 2007, in which each praised the achievements of others, and I remember very well about his long career.

Asked what the biggest misconception about their relationship was, Jobs joked that it was the fact that the two had kept their marriage a secret for so long. Then things got serious, with jobs to note how the two men – once the youngest men in the room – now they were old technology.

“And, you know, I think most things in life to be like Bob Dylan or a Beatles song, but only one line in the Beatles song” You and I have memories and the footpath ahead “,” Jobs said. “And it is certainly the case here.”

For its part, reflects Gates, Jobs on common sense for the consumer and his willingness to take big risks, including Apple’s bold gamble with Mac.

by: http://www.tribuneworld.com

Diana Nyad, the US long-distance swimmer, has ended an attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida after being stung overnight in the face and eyes by jellyfish, her team said.

Diana Nyad Photo: PA

She had spent the night in the shark-infested sea from Cuba to Florida earlier on Sunday, receiving treatment for jellyfish stings including one to the face.

Nyad was removed from the water for treatment, but because she was not out of the water to rest, an independent observer from the International Swim Federation said the endurance swimmer could continue her bid for a record.

Nyad failed on two previous bids, in 1978 and again last month, in her quest to swim across the treacherous Florida Straits from Havana to Key West, Florida.

Shoulder pain, asthma and ocean swells hobbled Nyad’s August attempt.

Cinephiles rejoice! Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Ridley Scott has just signed on to direct and produce a new version of his sci-fi cult classic Blade Runner. The rights to the movie were acquired earlier this year, but up until now itapos;s been unclear whether Scott would be involved with the project. Scott has said that he would never remake Blade Runner, so many are speculating whether this film will be a sequel, a prequel, or something else entirely. At the moment, Scott is collaborating with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof on Prometheus, which began as an Alien prequel but has morphed into its own story, using Alien as a jumping-off point.

Uploaded by: slatester on YouTube

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It’s highly unlikely that a human could live forever. Even though the average human life expectancy has increased dramatically since the beginning of the 20th century, it won’t continue to double and triple until we’re living for hundreds of years. Some scientists believe that there is a hard-coded maximum life expectancy for humans, and it’s probably somewhere around 125 years old. One theory, known as the Hayflick Limit Theory, suggests that the cells in the human body may only divide and copy themselves a fixed number of times, and this limit puts a restriction on how long a person can survive. Once cells cease reproducing, organs and tissues become ineffective and shut down.

On the other hand, biological immortality is not necessarily impossible. One species of jellyfish, for example, known as the Turritopsis nutricula, seems to have the ability live forever by reversing its own aging process after sexual maturity [source: The Telegraph]. This type of discovery may provide comfort to futurists who hold out hope that human immortality is right around the corner. Scientists are hard at work developing pills and treatments that might add a few years to our life, but their search is hindered by how long human beings already live. It’s difficult, after all, to construct a scientific experiment or clinical trial that may last for more than a hundred years.

There is also the possibility that human consciousness can achieve immortality in a non-physical form. Most religions include some form of the belief that humans were created as immortals in the first place. The Bible’s tale of the fall of Adam and Eve is a classic example. After they ate the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden, God punished them by making them mortal and able to experience physical death. However, most Christians believe that a conscious and immortal soul survives the death of the body.

In some religions, humans were created as mortals and then tried to achieve immortality. In Mesopotamian literature, Gilgamesh, the son of a human king and a goddess, was haunted by the thought of his own mortality after his best friend Enkidu died. A human named Utnapishtim, who had been made immortal by the gods, promised Gilgamesh immortality if he could stay awake for an entire week. Gilgamesh fell asleep, and Utnapishtim gave him a rejuvenating plant, but the plant was ultimately was eaten by a snake, ending Gilgamesh’s chance of immortality.

Answered by Science Channel and Jennifer Horton..

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Walgreens Worker Fired After Foiling Robbery

Pharmacist stops gunman, but how he did it cost him his job.

Courtesy of: ABC news

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