If you apply just a touch of robotics to the traditional art of puppetry, can you create an illusion of life that triggers the social nuances we use amongst ourselves to for complex emotional exchanges? This is the idea being explored by the Heart Robot project where members have used their background in expressive dance, puppetry, and robotics to create a new concept doll that they are taking out on the streets of Bristol and London, England. Their website offers a full exploration of the concept through videos, pictures, and detailed project log books. With funding from local univeristy and support from major robotics groups, the purpose isn't to produce a new toy or product, but rather to illicit thoughts and reactions from the public as part of their research. [More]

After pulling their popular word game from Facebook earlier this week to avoid further conflict with Scrabble owners Hasbro, Scrabulous creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla have slyly relaunched their game today as Wordscraper, a variant that I'm guessing has just the right changes to avoid further legal woes. There are two main versions of Wordscraper, a Blitz version that is fast-paced and challenges players to quickly build words in real-time, and a Regular edition based on the same concept as Scrabble, where online players can meet up and play on their own customized board, placing the special squares where they wish and then drawing tiles in an effort to spell complex words for high points values.The game ends when one player manages to use up all the tiles in their rack. The special tiles provide the strategy as the best players wisely use them to gain an advantage. There's a regular game mode and a challenge game mode where players can try to pass off phoney words and its up to the others to challenge such words and look up their validity. I never got into Scrabulous myself, if you're a fan please let me know what you think of the new Wordscraper in the comments section below. [More]

Once again a neon chalkboard universe gives birth to ever-growing swarms of glowing geometric creatures, hungry to blink you into oblivion. Survival is the key as you send out sprays of lasers in every paranoid direction, disrupting your pursuers into beautiful flowers of fireworks while electronica music pulsates and swoons in response. Being surrounded by all sides should be a harrowing situation, but the spectacle of light is so mesmerizing, you can’t help but be uplifted even as the end is closing in. This was the case with the first “Geometry Wars: Evolved”, launched in 2005 for the Xbox 360’s online arcade service, and is still the basic concept for this week’s sequel “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2”. The big change is the introduction of six different modes, each offering a captivating take on the basic survival theme. The result is some much-needed structure and variety over the original concept, creating a sequel that’s worth investing time in. [More]

Mr. Coo is a wonderfully animated, puzzle adventure. In his first, of what I hope will be many adventures, the unfortunate Mr. Coo suffers a horrible accident that sends him into a dream journey where he has to navigate a strange complex hiding secret objects and transformations that lead to mini-games. It's a short game, but there is a choice to be made early on and depending upon how you choose, you'll get a different ending, so it's worth trying Mr. Coo a few times. [More]

PlayCrafter lets you design and build your own arcade-styled video games using simple drag-and-drops tools. You can choose from a large library of backgrounds, game objects, characters, and music. For each game piece you can also use an editor to change its colour schemes as well as how it behaves within the game, how it uses physics to interact with its environment. You can also create your own personal elements by uploading your own graphics or even a digital photograph, an option that let's you put yourself or a friend in the game. You can even personalize the game as a greeting for a friend. Once done you're free to share it with friends or others PlayCrafter visitors. [More]

Okay, let's get down to it boppers. When I listen to Internet Radio, my station of choice is the Tokyo Ninja Radio Station. Broadcasting daily from Japan, you'll find a wild mix of rockabilly, cowpunk, psychobilly, and classic rock n' roll. Bands range from the familiar to sorely overlooked, from early tracks by Presley and Perkins to more modern hits by The Meteors, Mad Sin, and Brian Seltzer plus many acts you'll want to hunt down later on your own. Rocky Sharpe & The Razors, The Styngrites, Demented Are Go, it's crazy. [More]

From talk radio in New Zealand to hillbilly rock in Japan, there are thousands of radio stations that offer their broadcasts over the internet for free, so much so that it can be an overwhelming process to sort through them all. Today I will look at several companies that have done their best to tame the wilderness of online audio streams into virtual dials that make it easy to tune into the broadcast that suits your own personal tastes. [More]

GoAnimate is a new website that offers a powerful, yet extremely easy system for creating your own animations. Using drag-and-drop controls you can create choose from an extensive library of backgrounds, props, and characters. Each character comes with a wide range of movements and styles. You can even upload your own photos to include yourself in the cartoons. For dialogue you can add speech bubbles or even record your own audio files and upload them. You can then embed the finished product on your website or social networking profile. [More]