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I’m old, so I remember playing the original Double Dragon on a decrepit arcade cabinet at Showbiz Pizza while the Rock-afire Explosion played and lurched in its creeepy, mechanical way in the next room and I just paid attention to the game because I knew that if I thought about the musical robots coming to life and murdering everyone, they would. And that’s how I predicted The Secret.

Anyway, I was never good at Double Dragon. The enemies punched too fast or too hard, or I couldn’t line up my hits correctly, and I swear that stupid machine was broken because it was impossible. Now, we have Double Dragon Trilogy, an iOS port of the brawler series that includes remixed music and some new modes.

And I know this is a good port because I’m still really bad at it.

Google has today announced that an additional ten applications for Android and iOS now support Chromecast streaming. VEVO, Red Bull.TV, Songza, and more have been updated to allow users to enjoy news, sports, and music on their $35 dongle.

Be honest…the first time you saw a cassette or Nintendo-style retro case, you wanted it. But quality-wise, these style of cases just hasn’t been up to snuff. Until now. Rocketcases did the right thing, and made the cases we all wanted the way they should have been made the first time.

Now you can choose two cases from a variety of options. Whether you pick the classic black or white GameBoy, multi-colored cassette tapes, or the black or grey “Ghetto Blaster” boombox, you’ll get them for an incredible deal – just $25 – during this limited time Cult of Mac Deals offer.

To get to my Mac’s System Report, the one with all the info on my RAM, Hard Drive, CPU specs, and the like, I’ve usually gone up to click the Apple menu, clicked on About This Mac, then clicked on the More Info button. Once there, I’ve clicked on the System Report… button. That’s what, four separate clicks?

In the interest of saving time, there’s a much faster way to get to the System Report.

Viber, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, now offers low-cost calls to mobile phones and landlines worldwide as part of a new service called Viber Out. It’s available on Android, iOS, and though the Viber desktop client, and it boasts call fees substantially cheaper than Skype’s.

Whether you’re mourning the decline of BlackBerry, or feel a burning desire to carry around condoms in your phone (you should probably get that last one checked out by a doctor), there’s most likely a custom iPhone case to suit you.

Well, now Christmas enthusiasts can get in on the act too — courtesy of the new VanD flashing case.

There’s no shortage of cloud storage providers, but Amazon’s one of the best around. If you make use of the e-retailer’s Cloud Drive app, then, good news: it just got a little better, with the addition of video uploads and iPad support.

Whether you’re a chaotic good wild mage or a neutral evil Drow, there’s good news coming out of the Underdark this morning. Following its launch on Mac last month, Beamdog Entertainment’s updated version of Baldur’s Gate II and its expansion — only the finest CRPG ever made — are coming to iPad, possibly even in time for Christmas!

Developers are making some pretty awesome apps for the Pebble smartwatch, but Chrono could be one of the most significant to date — at least for its creator, Rick Ucker.

Ucker built the simple app to propose to his now fiancée, who bought him the $150 smartwatch for his birthday.

Initial responses to Apple’s iBeacon technology have been decidedly mixed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, exactly the same was true of the iPod, iPhone and iPad in certain quarters upon their release.

Regardless, with Apple keen to push the tech and a number of venues enthusiastic about embracing it, it was only ever going to be a short amount of time before the marketplace rivals started popping up.

If you’re a Dane, a Swede, a Fin, or a Norse who likes having all his or her music in the clouds of Valhalla, or just wants to legitimize your pirated Lordi collection, good news: iTunes Match has come to Scandinavia.

Back in September in the aftermath of the iPhone 5s’s debut boasting the world’s first 64-bit smartphone chip, Qualcomm representative Anand Chandrasekher called a 64-bit ARM chip a “gimmick.” Just three months later, Qualcomm’s announcing one, the Snapdragon 410, opening the door for 64-bit Android devices.

‘Tis the season for speculative fiction, fa la la la la, la la la la.

In an interview with with Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, Money Map Press analyst Keith Fitz-Gerald predicted that not only might Apple and Microsoft want to work together in the near future, but that a merger in the next 5-10 years is entirely possible.

Apple has been doing its “12 Days of Christmas” promotion for a few years now — offering iOS users a bit of Yuletide cheer in the form of free videos, songs, games, books and apps.

Strangely, while this promotion has spread Cupertino Christmas wishes to those as far away as those in Europe, Canada and Japan, it has never before been available to U.S. customers.

All’s quiet on the Scott Forstall front — and pretty much has been since the former SVP of iOS was unceremoniously fired from Apple back in October 2012 for refusing to sign an apology for the Apple Maps fiasco.

Well, there’s an update on the horizon for Forstall watchers: and it involves the former Apple exec spending much of the last year traveling to Italy and South Africa, advising a handful of startups, and getting more involved in philanthropy work — mainly focused on education, poverty, and human rights.

With holiday shopping season well underway, Apple has chosen a good (and likely not coincidental) time to finally catch up with U.S. demand for the iPhone 5s.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said on Monday that his bi-weekly checks of 60 U.S. Apple retail stores found that the iPhone 5S hit 100% in-stock as of last Wednesday.

As Black Friday approaches, Cult of Mac Deals continues to deliver the goods at a fraction of the regular price. This offer is, once again, no excpetion.

This hand-picked Mac bundle includes 8 top apps valued at $401 – and for a very limited time, you can get all of them for only $39!

When I saw Tunnel Escape in the App Store my first thought was that it looked a lot like the magic carpet sequence in the Super Nintendo version of Disney’s Aladdin (which is the best version, do not bring your Genesis fanboyism into this). What I wasn’t prepared for was it bringing back all the tension I felt as a kid trying to avoid swells of lava while soaring through increasingly narrow passages.

Tunnel Escape is decidedly much more relaxed than Aladdin as the only thing you’re fighting against is how long you tap the screen. Each tap raises the little cube higher in the world, and if you don’t tap, it’ll sink down on the bottom of the tunnel. Touching the walls, or top of the screen, means instant death, so you have to feather your taps to succeed.

It has become somewhat of an old joke, but Microsoft’s retail stores are essentially ghost towns. Every once in awhile you’ll see a side by side comparison of an Apple Store filled with busy shoppers sitting right next to a completely vacant Microsoft store.

Slate visited both stores yesterday in Arlington, Virginia. The above image shows Microsoft’s store, and here’s a shot from inside Apple’s:

Today Square unveiled its new card reader with a design that’s nearly half the size of the original. By ditching clunky stock components in the first Square Reader, the mobile payments pioneer has created a smoother card swiping experience and sleeker, tapered design the second time around.

How did Square achieve such drastically improved hardware in only one revision? Apple’s former head of accessories, who led the development of the Lightning connector, was in charge.

The latest game in the Adventure Time series of mobile games will go live on Google Play, the Amazon App Store, and in Apple’s own iTunes App Store this Thursday, according to Cartoon Network.

You’ll get to play as main characters Finn and Jake, along with several other supporting cast members, evading the crazy Ice King while skiing down an epic mountain. Mathematical!

Of course, you won’t use skis, but rather slide down the slope on your butt, true to the wacky television show on which the game is based.

The clock app in iOS 7 is pretty straightforward. There’s an alarm, stopwatch, timer, and a world clock. The latter allows you to add any number of cities to your list and your iOS device will tell you the time in each city. You can rearrange them into any order you like with a quick tap on the Edit button in the upper left. To add new cities, simply tap the plus button in the upper right.

The world clock defaults to an analog representation of the time to the right of each city. We can fix that.

Reminders are delightful thing. Apple’s implementation syncs across the Mac to iPhones and iPads, and if you log in to iCloud.com, you can share Reminders with friends, family, co-workers, and the like. They’re super useful.

Sometimes, though, you might want to single out a specific Reminder for special attention. There’s really no starring system or tagging available within Reminders itself, so you’ll have to get creative.

Emergency Exit — Utilities — $0.99

If you’re like me, you never go into a new building without knowing how to leave as quickly and safely as possible. I usually apply this skill at parties, which is why I don’t get invited to very many of them. But Emergency Exit wants to use that same thinking to get people out of airports, casinos, and other public buildings in case the worst happens. It uses Indoor Google Maps and your own location to show you all the ways you can get out, including those on other floors. The app already includes 100+ sites in 12 countries, and the developer plans to keep adding more.

Emergency Exit

We all aspire to be more than we are, to mold ourselves into our own perfect forms and escape the limits thrust upon us by circumstance or luck. But we can’t always do it on our own. Sometimes, we need someone to come along and nudge us in the right direction and help us achieve our full potential.

Division Cell is a metaphor for that. I think. I mean, it could be, I guess. It’s a minimalist puzzle game about helping unhappy shapes to become what they wish to be. See that rectangle? It really just wants to be a square. That irregular polygon over there? It looks at triangles with tears in its eyes and whispers “Why not me?” into the night.

Why wouldn’t you help them out? Jerk.