Scan barcodes to build your own kingdom in this original game

I know what you are thinking. A game that requires you to scan products… Why would I go down to the grocery store to take pictures of cereal boxes with my iPhone just to play a game? Well, for one thing, it will get your lazy butt out of the house for a few minutes. Plus, if you are clever, you can find ways to scan barcodes without having to leave the house. Lazy.

Barcode Kingdom is a role-playing game that mixes a bit of real world technology with a fantasy world of fighting. Scan items from around the house to get more soldiers, weapons, armor and potions. Hopefully, you have plenty of boxes lying around the house…

Facebook is buying Rift headset maker Oculus VR for $2 billion

Facebook on Tuesday issued a press release announcing it is buying Kickstarter-funded startup Oculus VR for approximately $2 billion in cash and stock.

For those who have been sleeping under the rock lately, Oculus VR is the maker of the Rift virtual-reality headset. This major move reveals Facebook's intent to make use of virtual-reality technologies, not long ago the stuff of science fiction.

The announcement comes just days after the Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony announced Project Morpheus, its own head-mounted five-inch full HD display with a 90-degree field of view that could mainstream virtual reality gaming by connecting to the PlayStation console...

Apple updates iTunes Movie Trailers with notifications, AirDrop support and more

Apple has posted an update for its iTunes Movie Trailers iOS client this afternoon, bringing the app to version 1.4. The app is universal, supporting both the iPhone and iPad, and provides mobile access to trailers reviews and more for new and upcoming films.

Today's update brings about a handful of useful features including the option to be notified when a movie you have marked as a favorite debuts in theaters or pops up in the iTunes Store. You can also now read critic reviews in-app, and share links via AirDrop...

Instagram reportedly testing location integration with Facebook Places

Facebook-owned Instagram has traditionally relied on Foursquare for its vast database of points of interest.

For example, upon uploading a photograph Instagram gives you an option of choosing a location where the image was taken using its Foursquare integration, simply by tapping a 'Name This Location' button.

Post acquisition, however, things have become a little weird.

Facebook has long been maintaining its own location database, Facebook Places. Two years into the acquisition, Instagram has now started using Facebook Places as its mapping service, at least for a subset of its users.

Despite this (expected) change, more than the 150 million Instagram fans can continue to share their check-ins to Foursquare from Instagram...

Apple surpasses the 500 million iPhone mark

We're now less than a week away from the end of Apple's current quarter (January-March), and the company is expected to have sold around 38 million iPhones during the three month period. If true, the Cupertino firm has ventured into elite territory.

According to a Forbes report, Apple had sold around 472 million iPhones heading into its Q2 2014. And if its iPhone sales for the quarter come anywhere close to projections, it will mean that the company has [quietly] passed the 500 million iPhone mark...

Flexibits teases Fantastical for iPad coming

My daily productivity depends on a powerful and flexible personal information management system and Flexibits' Fantastical for iPhone has quickly become an indispensable part of that workflow.

I use this versatile app to save reminders for upcoming stories and industry events, create calendar entries for meetings and daily schedules, organize my weekly/monthly planning and lots more.

It's fast, has powerful search, looks business and lets me safely paste passages of text knowing its intelligent natural-language processing will automatically parse entries like 'conference call with Seb next Monday at 1PM PT' to create related events.

My only gripe with Fantastical stems not from the app itself, but from the iPhone's four-inch screen as I often find myself squinting rows and columns of small text.

I guess you could say that until Apple delivers a rumored large-screened iPhone, I'll be left yearning for the Fantastical experience on the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. But not for long, it seems. Tuesday, developers posted a new page teasing the upcoming edition of Fantastical for iPad...

Apple now refunding unwanted in-app purchases

Following numerous probes by government agencies and looming class action lawsuits the company is now facing around the world, Apple is finally reaching out to customers to inform them they may be entitled to refunds concerning unwanted in-app purchases made by minors due to weak iOS Restrictions at the time.

Last year, the iPhone maker reluctantly settled with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding in-app purchases, agreeing to compensate consumers and modify its in-app billing system by March 31 to make things a little clearer for its customers...

How to add a color keyboard to iOS 7

Sometimes you just want to switch up the look and feel of things, and that is what Color Keyboard for iOS 7 allows you to do. As you might have imagined, Color Keyboard is not new to the jailbreak scene. It's a tweak that's been available for lesser firmware, but was just recently updated to cooperate with iOS 7.

Update: with the release of iOS 8, Apple now allows third-party keyboards in the App Store. If you're looking for a different keyboard for your iPhone or iPad, make sure to check out our list of iOS 8 keyboards.

If you've used Color Keyboard in the past, then you'll be intimately familiar with the contents of the iOS 7 version of the tweak. If you want to change up the look of your keyboard, then Color Keyboard for iOS 7 is one of the best tweaks that you can use. Have a look inside as we delve into Color Keyboard for iOS 7's feature-set on video.

How to enable swipe-to-delete in the stock Clock app

I don't know about you guys, but I find it really annoying when there's not a swipe-to-delete option available in an application. One good example of this is found in the stock Clock app. On its world clock tab, you are forced to use the edit button in the upper left-hand corner in order to delete a clock.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could add swipe-to-delete functionality and cut the amount of gestures necessary to delete a clock down from three to two? That's the premise behind Edit Clocks—it makes deleting clocks found in the stock Clock app uber-intuitive and easy. Have a look at our video demonstration of the tweak in action after the break.

How to change the color of the Calendar icon’s text

Colendar is a brand new jailbreak tweak from developer Julian Weiss that allows you to change up the color of the text present on the stock Calendar app. The tweak, which is geared towards themers, also works with Ryan Petrich's Gregorian calendar app.

Included in Colendar's preferences are options to adjust the color of the day and date text and offset parameters for adjusting the location of the text assets as well. Have a look at our video walkthrough inside for more insight...

Twitterrific 5 takes the freemium route, demands in-app purchases for advanced features

Iconfactory has just issued a new version of Twitterrific in the App Store. Previously a $2.99 download, the new Twitterrific version 5.7 has changed the business model from paid to free. Sort of.

The iPhone and iPad application, now supported by revenue from Deck Network ads displayed at the top of the timeline, is available free of charge for new customers, but some of the more advanced features like push notifications, Today view, ad removal and tweet translation are hidden behind a one-time in-app purchase.

That's an interesting change for Iconfactory, but what about Twitter-imposed token limits? Developer Sean Heber ensures customers that Iconfactory has grandfathered a whole lot of tokens so going free should not be a concern. Besides, they can always switch from the freemium model back to the paid one...

Report: upcoming Apple TV refresh to serve as full-on cable box replacement

Two months ago, the reliable blogger Mark Gurman was first out of the gate with a report painting a pretty rosy picture of an upcoming Apple TV hardware refresh, said to include full-blown downloadable games via an Apple TV App Store of sorts.

He also learned from sources that the box could sport a built-in TV tuner to effectively control your existing cable boxes and TV stations, helping put the real TV into Apple's $99 set-top box.

A new report yesterday by former WSJ writer Jessia Lessin's new outlet, The Information, provides additional tidbits regarding the gaming and cable box functionality...