companion

Poker is one of the most diverse card games in the world with hundreds of variations and rule sets. While most people play one of a handful of variations, there are countless options if you are eager to try something new or have too many people for one of the other forms of the game. With Poker Companion, you can quickly and easily look up and teach the rules of poker variations to everyone at your table, check scores for non-obvious hands, or simply look for new and fun alternatives to how you've played in the past.

Poker Companion … Read more

Every piano player or student knows how frustrating it can be to need a reference and not have it. Any one scale, chord, or a reference chart such as a circle of fifths is immensely useful, both when practicing and when composing. That's why an app like Piano Companion LITE is such a welcome surprise. Offering a comprehensive directory of chords and scales, along with a reverse lookup tool, it is easier and faster than ever to find the perfect note. While installation is relatively painless and the interface is bare-bones (12 large icons in a grid), the layout … Read more

The cancer ward at Seattle Children's Hospital will be overrun with cats tomorrow. Lots and lots of cats.

Normally, this would be extremely problematic in a sterile medical environment, but not in this case. Young cancer patients with immunities too low to participate in pet therapy will get to physically connect with the felines via an interactive online playroom. Rabbits, puppies, and goats too.

They'll do so via a live interface set up by Seattle Children's and Boise, Idaho-based Reach-in, which created the interactive technology that lets remote viewers control fluffy robotic cat toys in real time. It's not the same as holding a furry friend, but it might be the next best thing for these kids, some of whom must remain in total isolation while they battle cancer. … Read more

Microsoft's update to the My Xbox Live app 1.5 brought along support for controlling an Xbox 360 straight from an iPhone. (The update was rolled out across all iOS platforms, but for whatever reason, this feature only works with an iPhone.) Here's how to get it to work.… Read more

The Internet is for sharing knowledge, interacting with others, and expanding our mental and social horizons. Scrap that. The Internet is for cat videos--and Friskies knows it.

The Friskies Plus Playhouse is a social-media experiment that embeds live feeds of rescue cats into Friskies's Facebook page. Ten cats occupy a feline fantasy penthouse full of scratchers, videos of rodents and birds, an aquarium, wiggling toys, and stacks of cat food cans.

Facebook users can wait in line to activate remote-control toys to drive the felines wild. This is made possible by iPet Companion, a technology system that is already in use in several shelters around the country. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Good things can come in a small and cute package.

D-Link showed off today at CES 2012 a tiny mobile router that could appeal to frequent travelers with tablets and mobile devices, the All-in-One Mobile Companion (mobile DIR-505).

Featuring two prongs to snap in any power outlet, the DIR-505 is about the size of a small power adapter. It, however, offers more than just an instant wireless network. The router features a USB port that enables people to share videos, music, and photos from an external hard drive or thumbdrive to any iPad, iPhone, or Android device. … Read more

I'm writing this article with a large rescue cat draped across my keyboard (yes, it's hard to type). Not every feline is as fortunate to have a home.

Animal shelters have tried out kitty Webcams to boost adoption rates. AprioriControl is raising the bar with iPet Companion, interactive online kitten playrooms that put viewers in control of feathery, flighty, and fluffy cat toys.

The kitty playrooms are currently up and running at shelters in Idaho, Iowa, and Oregon. I stopped off at the site for the Clinton Humane Society in Iowa where kittens named Dori, Nemo, Marlin, and Bruce rolled, tumbled, and attacked the remote-control toys.

Each shelter determines certain play hours. You may end up in a short queue when you drop by to play with the furry critters. The toys are attached to motors. Push the button on your browser to make them dance and whirl.

When it's your turn, you also control the direction of the Webcam. A live chat box lets you join in all the ooing and cooing from other users. You'll see gems like: "they r sooo cute lookit the kittys look it look it." It's easy to turn into a pile of text-speak mush when you're watching kittens play.… Read more

Your iMac is running out of peripheral ports, and you still want to add an external hard drive and a few other devices to it? Iomega has something for you.

The company introduced today its first external hard drive, called Iomega Mac Companion Hard Drive, that also comes with two USB ports that you can plug your iOS-based devices into to charge and sync with the Mac. The ports can also be used with other USB devices, such as printers or other external storage devices.

Basically, the Iomega Mac Companion Hard Drive is an external desktop hard drive that also … Read more

Common Windows security wisdom says it's a bad idea to run multiple antivirus apps simultaneously. Generally that's true, but Immunet 2.0 intends to play nice with your existing protection and bolster it with help from the cloud and the crowd. Immunet's latest update introduces new scanning tools, detection engines, and support in a bid to persuade users that the program is the spackle they need to plug the holes in their security wall.

Installation and setup The installation of Immunet 2.0 asks for registration, which you can skip to avoid sending your data up to … Read more