The iTunes 8.1 update includes a new feature that I think has gone unjustly unnoticed: The new iTunes DJ. Now, in addition to acting as the world’s cheapest Sonos, the iPhone and iTunes combo can help turn you into the world’s best DJ.
The iTunes DJ playlist builder, which is designed to keep the music flowing at any party, allows you to collaboratively build a playlist with any of your friends that have an iPhone and the Remote app installed. With the app, they can log into the iTunes DJ playlist builder, view your library, suggest songs that should be added to the playlist, vote on upcoming songs, and generally help match the music to the mood of a party.
It’s easy to set up, with just a few check boxes and a welcome screen to enable, and once you’re up and running, the music you play will always be what a majority of the party-goers want to hear. (Hopefully…)
How cool is that?
[Apple - iTunes]
The Team Fortress 2 “Gold Rush Update” has just been unleashed by Valve, and it includes a new Gold Rush Map, a new Gameplay Type, a unique Item System, and 36 new Medic Achievements.
Gold Rush is an entirely new level featuring a new gameplay style called Payload. The level is split into three separate areas with intermediate capture zones inside of each major chapter. The teams are split between offense (Blu) and defense (Red) similar to Dustbowl. The goal for the Blu team is to push the bomb payload through the level until it reaches the next capture point, eventually destroying all three of Red’s major bases. Blu pushes the cart through the level by standing near it, with the cart moving faster when more people are close by. If no one has pushed the cart forward after 30 seconds, the cart will begin to move backward until it is pushed forward again.
The new item system is going to be rolling out over the next year, and players will be able to earn three new and unique items for each character by earning some or all of that character’s new achievements.
The new medic achievements are quite varied, and range from Quadruple Bypass (Heal a teammate who’s taking fire from 4 enemies at once.) and Play Doctor (In a team with no Medics, be first to switch to Medic after a teammate calls “Medic!”, and then heal 500 health.) to Big Pharma (Assist a Heavy in killing 20 enemies, where neither of you die.) and Bedside Manner (Be healing a teammate as he achieves an achievement of his own.)
Lastly, if you haven’t yet played Team Fortress 2 (and you really should) then you can try it out this weekend from May 2-4, during which you can play the entire game for free through Steam.
Sweet.
[Team Fortress 2 - Gold Rush Update]
Socialthing! “is a digital life manager that puts what you do online into one place. See everything that’s going on with your friends in all the sites you use, post stuff to multiple places at once and more!”
Basically, it takes your online life and combines it into one easy to read, follow, and update page. Then, instead of checking each site individually to see new messages, updates, photos, etc., you can just check Socialthing! and see them all in one place. The goal is to make interacting across multiple sites as easy as interacting through just one.
Currently, Socialthing! supports del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, LiveJournal, Pownce, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube, with plans for more services as the company expands.
I’ve been beta testing the site for the past few days, and I think the service has some definite possibility. Unfortunately I ran into an issue with adding my Digg profile, but issues are to be expected with any beta release, and I’m sure they’ll have things running smoothly in no time. Everything else loaded without issue though, and I was impressed by the speed with which Socialthing! fetched my data.
Overall, I’d say it’s a useful tool that has the potential to become an indispensable one. Lifestreaming is quickly becoming more popular as everyone tries to manage their vast online world, and Socialthing! is one of the first sites out of the gate, which should give them a jump on adapting and changing to meet users needs with new features and functions.
They should be coming out of beta this weekend, so head on over and give it a try.
[Socialthing!]
…DYH fixed the comments issue?
Bad Behavior is a Wordpress plugin that I use to prevent link spam in the DYH comment area, though it recently ran into some issues, and prevented anyone from commenting on any post on this site.
I discovered this issue when I was blocked from uploading an image to my own site, so I’m assuming that [...]