Filed under: Breakfast, Farming

Last fall I went apple picking with a friend at Linvilla Orchards, a u-pick farm in Media, PA that also offers hay rides, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, strolling clowns and a cluster of year-round carnival-type food stands. In addition to the u-pick options, they also have a farm market in which they sell produce, jams, jellies, candies and other homey goods.

Last year I picked up a small jar of Buckwheat Honey there. I didn’t think much of it other than it was far darker than the other honey options and for some reason that appealed to me. When I got it home, I discovered that it had a deep flavor that was drastically different from your standard grocery store wildflower honey and I was totally hooked. I rationed that jar, making it last nearly nine months before I finally hit the bottom.

On Tuesday Scott and I went out to Linvilla once again, in order to pick apples and film the beginning to the next episode of Slashfood in the Kitchen. After two hours on the farm, we had picked a full bushel of apples and I had dragged him through the market so that I could get another jar of the Buckwheat Honey. I bought a larger jar this year and have already greatly enjoyed it drizzled on top of a bowl of yogurt and homemade apple sauce.

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Koreans will receive yet another high end handset in the form of the Sky IM-S240K. This cellphone will see a limited release in Korea only, so the rest of the world will just have to sit back and weep. This beauty of a slider handset comes with a 2 megapixel camera, HSDPA connectivity at a theoretical 7.2Mbps (good luck achieving a figure near that in real world usage), audio and video playback support, DMB capability for watching TV on-the-go, and an electronic dictionary among others. The IM-S240K will retail for approximatley 307 Euros after conversion.

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Filed under: Interviews

When you first see Uncharted’s beautiful scenery and gameplay, it’s hard not to immediately think of Eidos’ Tomb Raider series. While many gamers continue to make those comparisons, anyone who’s watched a few gameplay videos will realize the two games aren’t that similar after all.

Naughty Dog copresident Evan Wells told Gamespot that he understands the comparisons, but the gameplay focus and the lead characters are entirely different. “I think just by the very fact that both Nathan Drake and Lara Croft are treasure hunters, there will be comparisons. But beyond that, they diverge pretty rapidly. From a character standpoint, Nathan Drake is an everyman who struggles to get by, who you can see on his face that he’s stressed out as he’s flinching from bullets ricocheting off the cover he’s hiding behind, while Lara is the more stone-faced acrobat, perfect landing every time,” he said. “And then the gameplay, obviously we were very focused on third-person cover-based play, while theirs is more auto-aiming and a little more heavy on the puzzle-solving.”

Well said, Mr. Wells. Hopefully, this clears up any misunderstanding anyone has about the two games. While it’d be great if Uncharted reaches the same success as Tomb Raider, we just hope it doesn’t follow Lara’s downward spiral of mediocrity.

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Filed under: PlayStation Network, News

While Sony is planning a video distribution service through the PlayStation Network, it could have a partner waiting in the wings. In a Q3 earnings call, Netflix executive Reed Hastings alluded that the video rental giant would like to expand its services online through a variety of methods, one being “internet-connected game consoles.”

The Netflix president, CEO and board chairman said, “In terms of enabling the viewing of online content on the television screen, we are exploring a variety of options, including Internet connected, high definition DVD players, internet connected game consoles, and dedicated internet set tops, with a variety of partners, trying to understand the best ways to provide inexpensive viewing of online content on the television.”

This could be a perfect opportunity for Sony to offer a robust lineup of content right out of the gate with a proven company like Netflix. Who knows, though, if Sony will be willing to share its piece of the pie?

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Deals, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek

Although the Justice League of America film still doesn’t have a firm cast, it looks like we have a director for the first official JLA spin-off. MTV Movies Blog reports that they’ve spoken with David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers), and he’s confirmed to them that he’s taken over directing reigns on The Flash. Not only that, but he also says his version of The Flash will exist in the JLA universe, the same as the upcoming live-action film. The film has already gone through two different directors; first it was David Goyer, and then it was Shawn Levy (who was going to use elements of Goyer’s script). Now it’s Dobkin … who’s never directed a comic book film before. But neither had Christopher Nolan when he did Batman Begins, or Bryan Singer when he did X-Men, or George Miller, who’s directing Justice League — so, really, does it matter?

When asked which Flash would be The Flash (there have been four of them), Dobkin replied, “Wally West.” West took over for Barry Allen, his Uncle, when Allen died. As MTV pointed out, recent rumors over at AICN suggest the new live action JLA flick will open with Barry Allen’s funeral. Dobkin even threw out the following tagline when asked about his vision for the film: “You can’t outrun yourself.” Deep. No word yet on when this film will begin, but you bet whoever signs on to play The Flash in JLA will most likely do so under the condition that they star in the spin-off. What do you think about Dobkin? Is he better than Levy? Goyer?

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Samsung will be launching its Duo HD player (also known as the BD-UP5000) in the US this December in order to render the so-called format war irrelevant. This means you will be able to play nice with both HD DVD and Blu-ray titles in full HD quality. Word has it that Warner Brothers will be releasing a movie title that supports both formats sometime in the same month as well, broadening the appeal of high definition video to more people. No word on pricing though.

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Filed under: Cellphones

An under-the-radar class action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel is winding its way towards a settlement this week, and it contains a pretty huge concession by Sprint: the company will unlock phones for both current and former customers, and will begin training its customer service reps on how to connect non-Sprint phones to its network. The settlement was tentatively approved by a California judge on October 2, but hasn’t had a final approval hearing yet, according to Sprint — but it’s still a huge win for US consumers, who haven’t been able to buy mainstream unlocked phones from any of the major carriers. Of course, since Sprint’s network is CDMA, unlocked phones will only work on other CDMA carriers like Verizon — and there’s no guarantees those companies will be happy about it — but at this point we’ll take whatever we can get.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Computers

Remember when you were a kid, and the future’s promise of a photocopier that could translate from one language to another actually seemed like a remote possibility? Guess what.

The braintrust over at Fuji Xerox has developed a photocopier that scans articles in Japanese newspapers and magazines, and then spits them back out in English, Korean, or Chinese (or the other way around), all while actually retaining the layout and formatting of the original source material.

Of course, tools like Babelfish has been doing this sort of thing for years (with rather mixed results, we might add), but the paper-on-paper action over at Fuji has us pretty excited.

P.S .- Getting excited about a copy machine is a pretty weird feeling. Okay, it passed.

From PopGadget

Related Links:

• Chinese Couple Tries to Name Baby “@”
• Learn English on Your Phone

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Design your own USB blank cassette just like the old mix tapes.

If you are a little nostalgic of your past, companies are investing solutions. The tech from the past becomes the trend of now. A classic such as these kind-of-cool usb-devices-looking-tapes by Mixa that can be tailored with personal digital stickers, like a day at the beach or your dog with some 80’s hair style.

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Filed under: Television/Film

So often here on Slashfood we focus on tasty things to eat that we often forget about the places in the world where the people don’t have enough to eat. CNN’s Anderson Cooper has been in Africa recently, doing special reports for 60 Minutes and on Sunday night presented a story about Plumpynut. It’s a combination of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar and vitamins that is preventing children in famine-wracked countries from dying of malnutrition. It is cheap to make, doesn’t need refrigeration and is so easy to eat that many kids can feed themselves. For all the peanut allergies in this country, doctors who hand out the Plumpynut say that they don’t see much, if any incident of allergy in the countries where this product is being used.

With all the reports of dangerous food and agribusiness in this country these days, it’s nice to hear a story about how lives are being saved with the distribution of such a simple food.

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