iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea

The tower offense pioneers over at 11 Bit Studios finally released the sequel to their smash hit, Anomaly Warzone Earth. They branched out a bit, releasing the amusing Funky Smugglers and the dreamlike puzzler, Sleepwalker’s Journey, but now they’re back, and as this game will remind you a few times, Baghdad was just the beginning. The battle against a mysterious alien tower menace continues with new visuals, units, modes, and an awesome but sometimes hilarious Korean undertone.

The core game here is still the same, with you planning convoy routes through enemy infested streets, able to change your route on the fly. You technically continue to play as the invisible but ever-present commando unit, with your various power-ups, such as smoke screen, repair field, and others, activating and placing them with a simple tap or two. New units like the Horangi tank join your ranks, with unique unit abilities, like the aforementioned tank’s area of effect blast. As you make your way through the world, you’ll collect resources and upgrade units as well.

It’s not just new unit and enemy types mixing things up. For example, there are now artillery zones that will automatically be targeted and be fired upon as you pass through them, but only after a short countdown. Subtle additions like this are quite elegant, adding more dimensions of strategy without changing anything from previous games. Another great new addition is the Art of War trials. As you play and do well, you’ll unlock these brief but brutal challenges, and they are very satisfying to complete.

The visuals have received an upgrade, as has the voice acting. Still, there’s something kind of funny about all the Korean accented English speaking, along with the still excellent Asian-styled soundtrack. It’s not bad at all, but can feel out of place at first. All in all, Anomaly Korea offers more of the same, but improved, building upon the last game in all the right ways. You don’t even need to have played the first game to enjoy this one, so go ahead and download it for the current price of three dollars. I can’t wait to see where in the world this anomaly pops up next.

Download the Appolicious Android app

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Title Post: iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea
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NYC counts record 52 million visitors in 2012

The Big Apple is a bigger-than-ever tourist draw, welcoming a record 52 million visitors this year, Mayor Bloomberg announced Monday.

The estimate, up more than 1 million from last year, caps several years of effort to make the tourist trade into an economic development engine for the nation's largest city. After reaching a goal of attracting 50 million annual visitors in 2011, Bloomberg has now set sights on 55 million by 2015.

The 2012 statistic "keeps us on course to meet our goal," the mayor said in announcing the number at a news conference animated by some New York razzle-dazzle: It was held at the popular American Museum of Natural History, and Bloomberg was flanked by a half-dozen of Radio City Music Hall's Rockettes.

An estimated 41 million of this year's visitors came from elsewhere in the United States, but the city says its international tourist base is growing notably. The numbers of Brazilian and Chinese visitors have nearly quintupled since 2006, the city says.

The tourism numbers are based on a model that includes surveys, hotel data, airport traffic and other information and includes business travelers and vacationers.

Hotels, for instance, hit a new high of 29 million bookings for some 91,500 rooms citywide this year, up nearly 7 percent from 2011, Bloomberg said.

While New York has always been a magnet for visitors, the city has amped up efforts to market itself to tourists during Bloomberg's 11 years in office. The city's tourism arm, NYC & Co., has opened 18 offices in countries ranging from Australia to China to Sweden in roughly the past decade.

City officials say the efforts have paid off for both businesses and residents here.

This year's visitors generated an estimate of nearly $37 billion in direct spending, and more than $55 billion when such indirect benefits as orders to hospitality-industry suppliers are counted, the city says. Meanwhile, hotel room taxes alone topped $500 million this year; about $15 million went to NYC & Co. and the rest to fund general city operations, NYC & CO. CEO George Fertitta said.

New York's tourism claims have sometimes raised eyebrows in its chief domestic rival for visitors — Orlando, Fla. Orlando officials last year forecast they'd hit more than 53 million visitors from 50 miles away or farther this year. New York officials have rebuffed the comparison, saying Orlando includes surrounding areas in its count.

But, Bloomberg said Monday, there are plenty of tourists to go around.

"Go to Orlando. It's a wonderful place," he said, but "I think New York has a very different experience than Orlando."

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Florida recovery picks up the pace

A Federal Reserve index shows a big improvement for Florida’s economy.

Each month, the Fed’s Philadelphia bank issues state-by-state indices that combine wage, employment and manufacturing data. And while most states have been improving since 2009, Florida’s index for October saw the biggest jump in seven years.

The so-called coincident index by the Philadelphia Fed tracks overall job growth, unemployment, average hours worked in the manufacturing industry and wage levels. The four indicators are combined into a single index, which the Fed says should roughly match growth in each state’s economic output.

For October, the most recent index available, Florida’s coincident score grew by three-tenths of a percent. That would amount to an economy growing at 3.5 percent per year. It was the largest monthly increase since September 2005, when the Florida index grew by slightly more than three-tenths of a percentage point. The biggest dip came in January 2009, when Florida’s “Philly Fed” index dropped by almost two percentage points in a single month.

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Manhunt continues for Miami man suspected of killing ex-girlfriend

Miami police detectives on Sunday were still looking for the man suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend outside a Little Havana drugstore Friday afternoon.

Investigators said Ifrain Quintana is armed and extremely dangerous. Quintana is believed to be driving a 2001 Blue Ford Explorer with a Florida tag.

Quintana is wanted for questioning in the daylight shooting of Ariadna Gonzalez Campa, 42.

Police said Quintana confronted Gonzalez on Friday afternoon along Southwest Fifth Street and Eighth Avenue, taunted her then shot her multiple times in front of La Milagrosa drugstore.

Among those urging him to turn himself in is his mother, Katileydi Quintana, who on Saturday made an emotional plea on Miami Herald’s newspaper CBS4 for him to come forward.

“Turn yourself in,” she told him over the phone. “Call me.”

He said Quintana acted out of jealousy and Quintana’s mother agreed.

“You did it out for love. For love...” Katileydi Quintana said.

Quintana said her son needs psychiatric help.

Gonzalez’s 19-year-old son waited for word about his mother shortly after she was rushed to the Jackson Memorial Hospital. The young man broke down on the sidewalk when police told him his mom didn’t make it.

“I want justice for the man who did this,” he told CBS 4

Anyone who sees the suspect or has information about the shooting should call Crime Stoppers at 305- 471-8477.

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Hidden Powers of Your Mouse

You use your mouse for just about everything: you drag, you drop, you highlight, you scroll. But even if you click your mouse a thousand times a day, I bet I’ve got a few secret mouse tricks you’ve never heard of.

Click Tricks
You surely know that double clicking highlights a word, and you might even know that triple clicking highlights a paragraph. But have you ever wanted to select a column of text in a Word document, without getting all the text to the left and right of it? Here’s how you can: Hold down the alt and left mouse button (on a Mac, option-left mouse), and drag the cursor over the section you want to select. The coolest thing about this trick is that the text you are selecting does not even need to be formatted as a column for this to work.

[Related: 8 Microsoft Word Shortcuts You Probably Don't Know]

Scroll Tricks
Most mice have a scroll wheel. Sure, it takes you up and down on a page, but in combination with other keys, it can do much more:

• Scroll sideways: In many versions of Excel, holding down the shift key while scrolling will take you sideways. That’s super helpful in a big spreadsheet.


• Scroll wheel as back button: In most web browsers, if you hold the shift key while using the scroll wheel, it works like the back button: You can fly through all the sites you’ve recently visited. (Some mice have side buttons that work like back and forward buttons in your browser, too.)


• Scroll to zoom: Holding ctrl and scrolling lets you zoom in or out of the page you’re viewing. Ctrl-scroll up zooms you in; ctrl-scroll down zooms you back out. On a Mac, this trick will zoom in and out your whole screen, not just the document you’re in.

Windows-Specific Tricks
While most of the tricks I’ve listed so far work in either Windows or Mac OS, here are a few that are specific to Windows machines:

• To maximize a window: drag the title bar to the top.


• To minimize all windows except the active window: “Shake” the title bar. Then if you want to restore all the windows you just minimized with this shortcut, just click again on the title bar of the window in view.


• To view two windows in a 50-50 split: Drag the title bar of one document to the left edge of your screen, then drag a second document to the right edge; they will snap into position in a nifty side-by-side view.

Bonus Sneaky Trick
Suppose you want to walk away from your hyper-secure work computer for a few minutes and not have to re-log in when you get back. Sure, you could change the sleep settings, but this idea is much more clever: Set your mouse on top of your analog watch or a clock. The mouse tracks the second hand’s movement and it tricks your computer into thinking you’re still busy working. Of course, there are valid security reasons for NOT using this trick, but I still think it’s cool that it works.

Did we miss your favorite mouse trick? Like us on Facebook, and share your secret there.

[Related: How to Speed Up Your Internet Browsing]

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Title Post: Hidden Powers of Your Mouse
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ET Flashback: Eddie Murphy Talks '48 HRS.'

"Roxaaaaanne!" After getting raves for his hilarious sketch comedy on Saturday Night Live in the early '80s, Eddie Murphy turned the spotlight on a movie career in 1982 with his first big-screen effort: 48 HRS. ET's Mary Hart sat down with the funnyman in the days before the movie broke big with a revealing interview in which he got candid about stepping out of his comfort zone and getting serious onscreen.

Video: Eddie Murphy's Funny Friends Honor Actor

"I'm looking forward to the movie coming out, and if my acting looks bad in the movie, which I don't think it will, I'm covered: It's like, 'Well, his forte is in comedy,'" he said with a laugh, adding faithfully, "If you're in a catatonic state, [director Walter Hill] can go in the editing room and make you win awards."

Released 30 years ago this month, the sidesplitting action-comedy finds Eddie in fine form as Reggie Hammond, a man doing time for a robbery who is plucked from behind bars to help hard-edged cop Jack Cates (played by Nick Nolte) nab a pair of vicious cop killers. The pair have 48 hours to get the bad guys -- if they don't kill each other first!

Comparing Nolte to a "big brother," Eddie complimented, "Nick's a great guy to work with and a real good actor, real intense actor -- he makes you act."

Video: Emmy Flashback: Eddie Murphy '83

Of course, Eddie's outdoor interview had its share of sidetracked comedic moments, not to mention his trademark laugh, and a few moments in which he poked fun at Mary. Distracted at one point, he observed, "You see those two butterflies just now, trying to get with it?" Watch and enjoy a slice of the veteran comedy star in his prime: humble and hilarious.

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MetroNorth train hits car, halting Connecticut service

REDDING, Conn. — Metro North train service has been suspended on the Danbury line following a train accident involving a car.

A Metro North spokesman said the train struck a car in Redding on Sunday afternoon. The train had no passengers and there was no information about whether there were injuries involving the car.

Bus service will ferry passengers between Danbury and South Norwalk.

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Week brings startup launches, social media advice for 2013

Jared Kleinert, a South Florida entrepreneur, plans to soon launch Synergist, a platform that allow social entrepreneurs to meet potential co-founders online, collaborate and crowdfund their new projects. He also just launched AliveNDead, a blog about risk-taking, and he interns for a Silicon Valley startup.

And when he’s not doing all that, he’s going to class — he’s a junior at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton.

Lester Mapp is CEO and founder of the new Miami-based startup called designed by m. His team has just designed a sleek, ultra-thin aluminum iPhone bumper and launched the project on Kickstarter. After just a few days, Mapp is already more than a third of the way to his $20,000 fund-raising goal.

Read about both these entrepreneurs on The Starting Gate blog, where there’s also a post on the most pressing issues facing small businesses in the coming year — taxes, healthcare, lending and a skilled worker shortage, for starters.

And as you are ringing in the New Year, you may be resolving to beef up your business’ social media strategy. Susan Linning's guest post offers five top tips for boosting your social media effectiveness. Among them: Go beyond retweets and make your posts original, fun and personal (but not too personal.) Use visuals, too. Find this and other news, views and tools for entrepreneurs on the blog, which is at the bottom of MiamiHerald.com /business.

Follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg and Happy New Year to all.

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Port strike for east and gulf coasts averted for 30 days, talks continue

A looming longshoremen’s strike set for midnight Saturday, which threatened havoc at 15 ports along the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, has been averted for at least a month.

The two sides, the International Longshoreman’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, announced Friday morning they would continue to negotiate after a couple of days of tense mediation.

After eight months of talks the sides went their separate ways Dec. 18. But talks picked up again this week in response to pressure from port directors, retail federations, even the White House.

The longshoremen, a group of 14,650 workers, some who operate the giant gantry cranes at the nation’s ports, threatened to walk out on contract talks early Sunday morning if the U.S. Maritime Alliance didn’t back off its demand that the union stop receiving royalties, or bonuses, for each container leaving or loaded onto a ship. In many cases those bonuses allow longshoremen to double their salaries to more than $100,000 a year.

Port directors throughout the nation have expressed concern that a strike would virtually halt economic activity throughout the country. It would affect mostly non-perishable goods like clothing and televisions. PortMiami does close to $20 billion a year in container business.

The longshoremen’s contract actually expired at the end of September, but the sides agreed to continue talks for 90 days.

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The Boy Genius Report: The Wii U is the Nintendo’s last console

I remember it still — people flipped out about the Nintendo (NTDOY) Wii. Yes, its name was mocked for a while, but there was genuine excitement around what Nintendo was doing with motion and the entire gameplay experience. While the original Nintendo Wii was almost an Apple (AAPL)-like product — Nintendo focused on the gameplay and not on specs; the company didn’t even have HD graphics when every other console did — the Nintendo Wii U clearly demonstrates how far Nintendo has fallen and how out of touch the company is.

[More from BGR: Samsung could face $ 15 billion fine for trying to ban iPhone, other Apple devices]

I bought a Nintendo Wii U for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to play and beat “Super Mario Bros. U.” I’ll probably end up returning the console after I’m done, because that’s how horrible the Wii U actually is.

[More from BGR: Five-year-old finds porn on refurbished Nintendo 3DS from GameStop]

First of all, the fact that Nintendo actually decided to ship this joke of a controller called the GamePad with a 6.2-inch touchscreen in the middle says it all. It only lasted for around two hours per charge over the week I’ve used it, and it’s big, clunky and made of glossy Nintendo plastic. The problem it, it has no charm. It feels thrown together to try to make a statement, one that says that Nintendo isn’t afraid of the iPads or Android tablets or iPhones or iPod touches, and that it too can take on touch just as it took on motion.

It fails miserably. And that’s just the controller.

The actual console is one that finally for the first time ever supports HDMI and HD graphics, yet Nintendo’s flagship game doesn’t look good in high-definition. The console’s UI is a mess, and let’s be honest, we are living in a time where we are so connected, where so much is shared across continents instantly, that real design transcends what country it was designed in.

When you see a beautiful iPhone app’s interface, there’s a good chance you couldn’t tell if it was designed by a company in San Francisco or Paris or Hong Kong. But Nintendo’s interface is blatantly Japanese, and it lacks any and all sophistication. It’s like all of Nintendo’s designers just gave up and are living in a time when Apple’s iOS devices and Google’s (GOOG) Android devices don’t exist, blissfully ignoring the threat that their company is facing from all angles.

The Wii U experience is so terrible that it took over an hour to update the software on the console recently, and apparently that wasn’t that bad. People have told me their updates took over 4 hours when performed closer to Christmas. Do you know what that 7-year-old is doing during those 4 hours you’re making him wait? Playing Temple Run or Angry Birds on his iPad mini. Way to go Nintendo.

I’ll go on record and say that I think this is the last video game console Nintendo will make for the home. I just don’t see the future here with hardware. Not by a mile.

Nintendo needs to realize that hardware is hardware and that Nintendo’s hardware isn’t special, it isn’t elegant and it isn’t thoughtful. It’s merely a delivery mechanism in a time where design has never been more important.

Nintendo is a great company, one that has invented so many great products, but sooner or later it will be forced to offer its titles on iOS devices and Android devices. It’s going to get to that point. There’s way too much revenue to be made — Nintendo isn’t Sega, and Sega is crushing it as a software-only company.

I just hope Nintendo follows suit sooner or later, because I have $ 9.99 ready to go for the Super Mario app on iOS.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Title Post: The Boy Genius Report: The Wii U is the Nintendo’s last console
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