The thing is, Onxy was created more out of a sense of self-preservation amongst developers than it was keeping it real for people who game on the iPhone. As the App Store becomes cluttered with hundreds upon hundreds of throwaway games, Demeter told Wired the indie developer is in danger of being muscled out by big boys like Sega, who have the marketing budget to get their titles (for better or worse) to the top of the heap.

So by making games talk to one another, or by encouraging some competition among the players, a pack mentality begins to take shape with the smaller games. A rising tide raises all boats, or the saying goes.

“Right now games don’t introduce the social aspect at all on the iPhone,” Demeter told Wired. “If there is a social aspect it’s an island. If these users are playing Trism, they’re playing Trism; it’s an island. How does that tie into other puzzle games? If players are still connected to a larger whole then they’re more likely to keep playing other games.”

Demter then claimed Onyx will “save” the App Store. For now, we’ll agree that it could save something—Demeter’s business—but we’ll be watching this one nevertheless. [Wired]

Cucku calls it “social backup”, but it’s just a program that transfers your data onto your friend’s computer for safe keeping, and vice versa. Peer to peer backup would be as appropriate. Your backup is encrypted, so your partner can’t go poking around your stuff, but still offers the reliability and safety of offsite storage.

We can see a few problems with this setup. Their estimate is that 500MB takes 4 hours to back up on a normal ADSL connection. This is fine if you only have 500MB, but if you want to image your entire drive—500GB or so—that’ll take 4000 hours. That’s 166 DAYS, or about five and a half MONTHS. This is why online backup solutions need an initial sneakernet transfer of hard drives loaded up with your data (which Cucku does not offer in its current implementation). Everything is fine when you’re just doing incremental backups after the fact. Also, you’re limited to how much storage space your friend has, so you’ll probably need to buy him a new hard drive as well.

Is it a good idea? Sure, but only for your most valuable files, and only if they’re not more than a few gigabytes in size. [Cucku]

UPDATE: Autoplaying video tossed after the jump. Sorry about that.

[cracked]

The conceptual system starts with a simple one-touch router which gives free ADSL by having targeted 50+ advertising. Then the “Betty” unit is the comms core, with slots which you pop specialised keys into: a “friend key” means you could easily send a message to that person, for example. Those “friend” keys are given by individuals to their friends, providing a one-stop digital life database and controllable access via a registration website.

While it seems like a great design idea to allow tech-wary people to get online, Jive’s got one major flaw that I can spot: not much can beat a real letter or a phone call to your older relatives. [Yanko design]

Other cool social stuff:

• Xbox Live-ish icons on your Zune Card that are like achievements, awarding people who listen to an artist the most or passing a total number of song plays.
• Dynamic friends’ list that shows what everyone’s listening to. Find out about the band Tokyo Police Club from your buddies.
• Windows Live Messenger “now playing” integration
• Album reviews! Tell everyone what you think about so-and-so’s latest album, because the world needs to know.

But the big thing is the video store, which comes now with 4,800 music videos and downloadable TV episodes for US$2. Their current partners are NBC, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network. There’s going to be future Zune Social integration for video, but nothing yet. Microsoft’s also leaving the door open for original content and programming as well, but there’s no video sharing/squirting as of yet on the hardware devices.

Other changes to the player include:
• Auto Playlists (smart playlists) are back! They’re not as powerful as they were before—or as iTunes is—but they’re automatically updating playlists that you can have based on your criteria.
• Gapless playback. Finally.
• Easy drag-and-drop song metadata editing.

The update should go live somewhere between 10PM PDT and 4AM PDT tomorrow.

There’s the “Klippit” module, which has a single button you press when you find a radio program you like: it gets added as a favourite on your Facebook profile, has an audio snippet recorded, and extra info gets emailed to you. There’s the “Volume Voting” module that rates popularity with how much you turn up the sound when your favourite tune comes on. A push-to-talk module lets you have a quick VOIP chat with a friend, perhaps about the program you’re listening to, and there’s an MP3 recorder-player, and a phone-charging module too.

Designers Schulze and Webb really envisage their device being a physical social hub for your home too: they suggest a key-storage module that sets up the radio to your user profile, and handily stores your keys; and a kids “tear-off” fluffy portable module that stores most-listened to stuff, and glows brightly when the program is due on.

Despite all these extra modules being hypothetical, there’s some clever design here exploring social networking, radio-listening habits and the like. But we can’t help but think it’s based around the wrong sort of technology: isn’t radio a bit passé now? Make it internet-radio based, and we’d be very interested indeed. [Schulze and Webb via Like Cool]

TOKYO, April 22 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI)
announced today that it will expand the Closed Beta testing for
PLAYSTATION(R)Home in Summer 2008, inviting a further number of registrants
from the PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(R)) users. Following completion of the Expanded
Closed Beta test, the PLAYSTATION Home Open Beta service will commence in Fall
2008.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020701/SFM066LOGO)
“We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a
bit longer, but we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to
refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience
than what it is today,” said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony
Computer Entertainment Inc. “Our overarching objective is to provide users
with new gaming experiences that are available only on PLAYSTATION Home.
Spending more time on the development and on the Closed Beta testing reaffirms
our commitment to bringing a quality service, maintaining the PlayStation(R)
tradition.”
The PLAYSTATION Home Open Beta service that will become available in Fall
2008 will be built around providing new and fun community gaming experiences.
Details of the Closed Beta testing features, registration for the test and the
opening of the service will be announced as they become available.

The networked interface shows songs playing at different locations, who is picking the music, who is at the bar, user generated content, and information pulled from users’ pages on social networks. You can even gift songs to people. But the thing I like here is the mobile phone control. Because when Sublime or The Offspring or something equally lame comes on at a bar for the millionth time and I’m ready to go hang myself in the bathroom, I’ve been known to put a few dollars in the jukebox. And now I don’t even have to get up. Awesome. [Yahoo via The Web Outside via Newlaunches]

After doing tests with Bluetooth, Postmachina’s director, Renato Valdes Olmos, decided to make their own set of wireless protocols in order to swap information—which can then be synced with a computer and imported into various social networking sites like LinkedIn or Twitter. If this Project E can be made robust and foolproof that it will work without even thinking about it, we could see a huge market for it everywhere. But if Postmachina can take this tech and insert it into mobile phones, something people already carry on them, that would be a revolution. [Winning By Sharing]