We here at SvenOnTech appreciate the finer things in life, hence the reason you haven’t found things that suck in our Review section. One finer thing we like is good, rich, quality sounding music. We like our bass deep and highs shattering just like those old Memorex commercials (which is kinda ironic since Memorex weren’t that good of tapes anyway.) So of course we really were excited when we reviewed the Axiom Audio M3 v2s last year. Now Axiom is bring those very same speakers to your garage. Or your game room or what ever other room dad “owns”.

In its gray cross hatch look, you’ll be able to mount these bad boys on the wall right next to that big elk head in your garage (’cause we know the wife won’t let us put it in the living room.) We warn you, though, be careful. With the great sound you’ll get out of these little speakers, that elk may start twitchin’ its head to the groove if it’s nice and smooth. Ya, lame joke, but great speakers.

Look for them in time for Father’s Day at a suggested price of $375 for the pair.

game system built especially for the Apple iPod; iNo™ brings music trivia to the next level with the ultimate iPod game that turns listening to music into an energized, social, interactive activity for friends and family.  The object of the game is to provide players the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of music by guessing the album, artist, or song that plays (or a combination of these) when an iPod is placed into the module (iPod not included). The iNo™ game system includes a high-quality music player with an excellent quality speaker, four electronic wireless remote controls that stop the music when activated and lock out the other players, and four color-coded scoreboards on the base of the device that keep track of players’ right and wrong guesses. 50 action cards keep the game fresh and exciting every time it’s played.

Available at Target.com, iNo™ requires 6AA batteries (included) with a suggested retail price of $99.99.

Astraware is excited to announce their Packs of Fun promotion, where you can save bagfuls on their most popular value packs of games. From Friday 18th May to Monday 28th May you can save on a selected range of game packs with up to 6 titles in each.

Packs of Fun is a fantastic opportunity to pick up a bargain on PopCap Games Pack 1, featuring Bejeweled, Alchemy and 3 other great titles, or the Family Games Pack including Insaniquarium, Bzzz! and 4 more fun, family-friendly games. There are 6 different packs to choose from and every one is discounted by $10, so get them now, this offer is only available for a limited time!

To bag yourself a bargain, head over to the Astraware website at http://www.astraware.com, but hurry, the sale ends on May 28th 2007!

DXG USA announced today the new DXG-Roadster all-in-one Personal Media Center that lets you take your entertainment on the road wherever you go. The DXG-Roadster (Model DXG-521) is the only device you’ll ever need to capture precious memories and keep you entertained while traveling. The Roadster is a combination 5 Megapixel digital and video camera, video game and music player with FM radio, voice recorder and storage device, with 32MB of internal storage and an SD slot for additional memory.

Instead of being bored on a plane, waiting at the doctor’s office, at your kid’s soccer practice, or at the Department of Motor Vehicles, why not entertain yourself while waiting? The DXG-Roadster lets you listen to your complete collection of MP3s and videos anywhere you go. You can record TV shows and movies ahead of time directly from any video source via the included AV cable and then watch your favorite “American Idol,” “Desperate Housewives” TV shows, or NBA basketball games on the 2.5” bright TFT LCD screen.

As featured in the March 12, 2007 issue of Life & Style Weekly, the Roadster is the ultimate in design and functionality. Geared towards kids, teens, and young parents, where style, price, and usability are most important, the DXG-Roadster is popular for its price-performance ratio and the multiple features available in one easy-to-tote compact package. Not only can you store and watch your entire media collection of music, videos, and photos wherever you go, you’ll also never miss another once-in-a-lifetime photo-op with the Roadster’s 5 Megapixel camera and camcorder. Also, if you remember something important while on the road, you can record a reminder on the spot with the included digital voice recorder.

“Are we there yet?” How many times do parents have to hear this on a family trip? With the DXG-Roadster, kids can now enjoy their OWN entertainment. The DXG-Roadster features 4 pre-stored popular video games, such as Tetris, Boxman, and Gobang, and is shaped like the familiar Sony PSP™. And since the device is lower cost than competing products, you won’t be as worried about sticky fingers playing with it.

“No other product offers the amount of features at such a low price,” said Paul Goldberg, Vice President – Sales and Marketing, DXG USA. “The DXG-Roadster is a one-of-its-kind mobile experience at a user-friendly price.” Read the rest of this entry »

One of the leading providers of music video game software, Allegro Rainbow, has announced the release of Piano Wizard for Power PC and Intel based Macs. Piano Wizard is an award winning video game that can teach pretty much anyone to play piano using a variety of steps.

The method used is quite simple. First, users follow vertically the moving objects, this tells them what notes to hit. As the student progresses, the screen will rotate and the objects will move in a horizontal fashion, copying the lines of the staff on a sheet of music. After those first two steps, the objects become color coded notes on the grand staff, and finally transform to the traditional black music notes. Consumers can use Piano Wizard with any digital keyboard since the Wizard uses MIDI song files. These are available to download at online sites such as cybermidi.com and wizardtunes.com. Players have access to all their favorite music so their Wizard experience never gets old. As Bach put it many years ago: “learn by doing, simply by hitting the right key at the right time.”

“We are delighted to make our fun and exciting Piano Wizard videogame accessible to Mac users,” says Chris Salter, Allegro Rainbow CEO. “For the millions of Mac and iPod users who already enjoy downloading songs and listening to music, there is now yet another reason to buy a Mac. Piano Wizard is a breakthrough application that lets people learn to play the songs they already love to listen to.”

Telcogames, a global publisher, developer and distributor of mobile games steps out into the US with the launch of award winning SiL on US carrier Verizon.

Verizon joins the long list of Telcogames distribution channels as the Smartphone publisher boldly moves into the BREW market with their award winning SiL title. Verizon is the first of many BREW carriers that Telecogames will sign up as it takes it’s own developed Smartphone titles into the US.

The first of these titles is SiL a 3D silhouette matching puzzle game available for Smart phone devices and for download on PC. The game was recently launched across carriers and non-carriers globally and has already generated buzz in the puzzle market having recently been awarded ‘Best Game’ at the Nokia Pro Awards.

Enda Carey, MD, Publishing, said,”the launch of Sil on Verizon networks is key to our US expansion and we in the process of signing other deals across the US networks’.
January 2007 will also see the launch of Super Drop Mania, which offers a novel twist on the Tetris puzzle with its addictive range of logic challenging reflex games.

Super Drop Mania will launch across operators globally and will be available to buy direct or on a monthly rental basis.

If you’re looking for a good time knocking OJ down with his own book, then enjoy this game from GSN where you throw OJ’s never released If I Did It at him. The book was written, supposedly, as if maybe OJ would have done that gruesome murder. We all know the truth, OJ knows the truth, heck, even his lawyers know who the truth! We didn’t need this insult of a book so now you can throw it back at him!

Astraware(R) and Sandlot Games are excited to announce the release of Glyph for Palm OS(R) and Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone.

Save the dying world of Kuros by reassembling ancient glyphs hidden beneath layers of rock and glistening stones. Using stylus or buttons, clear groups of like-colored gemstones to break through the layers of rock and reveal the glyphs. Several different types of powerup will aid you in your task. Progress through 5 elemental areas and 125 levels to complete Quest mode, or explore the simpler challenge of over 100 levels in Action mode.

“Glyph is, in a word, gorgeous!” said Howard Tomlinson, CEO of Astraware. “A fun game with a simple premise, but with an incredible depth of atmosphere that draws you in to keep on playing!”

Glyph for Palm OS(R) and Windows Mobile(R) is based upon the highly-acclaimed PC game from Sandlot Games. With its beautiful graphics, ethereal soundtrack and atmospheric sound effects, Glyph is the perfect game to enjoy through the Holiday Season and into the New Year.

“Glyph is a game which works extremely well in a handheld touch-screen environment,” said Daniel Bernstein, CEO of Sandlot Games. “We are once again excited to have Astraware as a partner to deliver this quality game to the handheld market.”

Glyph is available now for devices running Palm OS(R) 5.0 with high resolution screens, Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC 2003 and higher with QVGA, VGA and 240×240 square screens, and Windows Mobile(R) for Smartphone 2003 and higher with standard 176×220, and portrait or landscape QVGA screens. Glyph is priced at $19.95 with a special release discount for Club Astraware members.

A constant struggle for parents and educators is finding innovative ways to improve grammar skills among K-12 students. Now, with the release of Constructor, the first product in the Grammar Games series from Leading Step, Inc., students can have fun while learning all about nouns, verbs, objects, clauses and phrases while improving their ability to identify the parts of a sentence. With Constructor installed on a Palm OS® handheld device, they will learn to recognize and identify various parts of speech in standard English.

Constructor is being introduced today at the T+L Conference in Dallas.

“Constructor takes a vital element of Language Arts and makes it fun and engaging,” said Eric Johnson, general manager for education at Palm, Inc. “It’s a practical learning tool and a valuable addition to the growing number of curriculum solutions available for Palm® handhelds.”

Constructor, played on any Palm OS device, provides a fun and low-cost means of improving grammar skills. The game contains hundreds of sentence structures that, depending on the game controls, can generate millions of unique sentences on which students can practice their grammar knowledge. Since it is highly unlikely that a player will ever encounter the same sentence twice, students must answer the questions based on the grammar they have learned, not on their memory of having answered that question before.

Since understanding parts of a sentence is like putting together pieces of a puzzle, Constructor is based on a puzzle game format in which students answer grammar questions to identify the pieces of a sentence and, with each correct answer, they win a puzzle piece. Once they have won enough puzzle pieces, they earn the opportunity to use those pieces to solve a puzzle. The puzzle in each round gets a bit more challenging, and a student must be able to complete fifteen rounds to become a “Grammar Guru.”

“Our learning programs with low-cost PDAs provide educators and parents alike a great tool for both enhancing grammar, math, geometry and spelling skills and offering increased access to computers, which helps to meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act,” said Renee Revis, president of Leading Step, Inc. “Constructor offers an entertaining way for kids to improve their understanding of the English language while teachers can gauge their progress.”

Grammar Games: Constructor is available for $14.95 from www.leadingstep.com. Other Leading Step products include Shape Up: Geometry, Size it Up, MathChamp and SpellChamp.