3D Technology In Casinos

There’s a theory that the entertainment industry tries to foist 3D technology on the public once every generation. It happened in the 1950’s, then again in the 1970’s, and it’s been happening again in the last few years. Not everyone’s a fan, and some complain of headaches and fatigue while watching modern 3D material, but recent movies like Gravity have shown how far it’s possible to push the format this time around.

3D Slots

Now casinos are getting in on the action. Slot manufacturer IGT developed a 3D machine recently that doesn’t require glasses. This is a sensible marketing move, as one of the issues with 3D technology generally is that if you’re not wearing the glasses, the material is unwatchable.

Therefore if someone’s unwilling to wear them to play a slot machine, they’re simply going to walk away. In the case of IGT’s machines, the effect is produced by a double layer of screens, so anyone playing will be experiencing a sort of forced 3D effect. Whether they enjoy it and stay, or dislike it and leave, is at least no longer dependent on whether they want to wear the glasses.

Online 3D

In fact IGT’s machines have proved a hit with punters, and it seems that while the gimmick of 3D draws them in initially, it’s the quality of the gaming experience that keeps them playing. With this in mind, the obvious next step is to take the 3D casino experience online.

In theory it should be easier than introducing 3D to real world gaming, as it would be quite straightforward for operators to offer both 3D and traditional sites side-by-side online. On a site where, for example, live casino roulette is available, incorporating a 3D element to gameplay could be a very attractive upgrade if carried out thoughtfully.

Poker V Roulette

Some games are likely to benefit more than others. Many poker players would find too much gimmicky 3D usage distracting, but the possibility of running two simultaneous sites should take care of that objection. In fact some operators advertise 3D online poker already, but the fact that not all do tells you something about how the technology’s been exploited so far.

If online casinos are to realise fully the potential of 3D technology, they’ll have to recognise that not all punters will embrace it, and also that not all casino games may be suitable. It’s the flexibility of the digital universe, however, that will allow the savvy operators to deliver some amazing experiences to customers in the next few years.

By Simon Fitzpatrick

(Images courtesy of amcnetworks.com, howinmoney.blogspot.com, telegraph.co.uk)

Smartphones – making our lives easier, every day

What is meant by a smartphone? 

A smartphone is a mobile phone that has multiple capabilities and possesses many of the same functions of a desktop computer. 

There are currently just under 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, with smartphone subscriptions sitting at over 1 billion. The most popular are Android and iPhone smartphones, which contributed to 90% of smartphone sales in 2013. 

What are the key developments in smartphone improvements?

Some of the key developments in smartphones over the years include faster processors, increased camera resolution, increased variety, bigger storage space and larger screens. 

Have they become smarter since they were first released?

Certainly. Smartphones have rapidly developed and improved since their inception in 1996, and continue to make people’s lives easier with each new development. The smartphone market is heavily competitive, with each operating system designed to support quicker and better features than the smartphones before. 

Let’s take a look at the history and development of the BlackBerry smartphone. The first BlackBerry smartphone was developed in 2003, and it has been a transformative presence in the world of communication, drastically improving the way people communicate and the technology capabilities of smartphones. 

When the BlackBerry smartphone was introduced, the possibility of sending and receiving emails on a smartphone was realised. It also enabled web browsing, thereby opening up a whole new platform of possibilities and options for users. People were no longer limited to accessing the internet on their desktops, and could now connect to the internet wherever they were, at whatever time they chose. 

These are some of the improvements BlackBerry has made over the years:

• The improvement of third party apps, which means that apps can run faster. For example, if you are a fan of mobile casinos, you can download Royal Vegas Casinos Online quicker and easier than ever before 
• The short battery life of smartphones is a thorn in the side of many smartphone users. However, the battery life of the BlackBerry has seen over 60 battery saving improvements since 2003 so that users can enjoy longer usage. 
• Increased camera resolution 
• A perfect example of the improvement of smartphone features is the Blackberry Z10. It has a 4.2 inch screen, USB and HDMI connectivity, a dual core processor of 1.5 GHz and an 8 megapixel camera as well as 2GB of RAM

Entertainment on the Move

When the iPad was originally launched, tablet devices were launched into the limelight. It goes without saying that Apple were not the first, but they made this category of device sexy and created an experience that many did not know they wanted, until they had handled one of these new wonders. Since the first generation iPad was so successful, many other manufacturers frantically played catchup.

To a certain degree they have, with many manufacturers backing the Google Android platform. Whilst the hardware may not be as sexy, the ecosystem is definitely developing. The selection of apps on the Google Play Store is now more than acceptable, making the myriad of devices from the likes of Samsung, Asus and Acer (to name just a few) very viable options. My personal opinion is that they are not quite as tied in service-wise, whereas the Apple iPad is very good at synchronising with the likes of an Apple desktop or laptop.

This new category, for a long time, has been thought of as an ideal way of consuming media, but not necessarily creating. Things are pretty good, with regard to photo manipulation, simple spreadsheets, text documents and the like, but anything more than that is often a compromise. I do take notes on my iPad, but anything more than that and I grab my laptop, or sit down at a desktop computer.

Whilst these two platforms battle it out, Microsoft is sitting in the wings. It dipped its toe into the water with the Surface RT and Surface Pro, which were a hard sell due to lack of apps. However, with their most recent offerings, the Surface 2 and Pro 2, things have improved. Apps that were missing first time around are now appearing with around half of the mainstream titles not available at original launch, now in the Windows App Store.

Whichever platform you choose, all of these devices have something in common. They are all great entertainment devices. Awesome for playing back videos, music, playing games etc. The internet browsers add yet another dimension and allow you to play online games. You might even be able to increase your riches too, by trying your luck at Blackjack, Slots or Roulette on Casino.com who, like many websites, have enriched their experience for mobile devices. So whether it's online shopping, emails, surfing the internet or staying in touch with friends & family, this new breed of tablet device is here to stay and I am certainly thankful that Apple made this category popular again.

The Da Vinci Diamonds Slot is a Game with a Difference

Play enough slots and sooner or later they all begin to look the same. Dedicated slots fans face the unique problem of finding slot machines that will entertain them even after they’ve played a hundred variations of what is essentially the same game, so it’s just as well that the Da Vinci Diamonds slot brings something a little different to the table.

On the surface, the Da Vinci Diamonds slot looks just like any other slot game such as Rainbow Riches, Cleopatra Slot, Monopoly Plus slot and Pixies of the Forest Slot – five reels adorned with symbols based on the Renaissance period and on Da Vinci’s work in particular; beautiful antique portraits combined with bright jewels including rubies, pearls, emeralds and of course diamonds. The slot has 20 paylines which is good news for beginners who may not want to bet too much per spin, but if you’re an experienced slot player then the option of increasing your bet per line is a good idea – there’s a maximum bet of £500 per line which can yield you a whopping jackpot of 250,000 coins.

Like most slots, it also has a wild symbol which can help you complete winning combinations, and a bonus symbol that triggers a free spins round. The free spins round consists of six free spins and is able to be retriggered again and again, up to a maximum of 300 free spins.

So if it’s similar to a lot of slots, why should you choose to play Da Vinci Diamonds slot?

The difference lies in a feature called ‘Tumbling Reels’, which is something that is so inventive that players often don’t want to go back to playing regular slots afterwards! How it works is that every time you form a winning combination, the symbols that make up that combination explode, leaving room for other symbols to ‘tumble down’ from above. With those symbols in place, the slot machine recalculates to see if you’ve formed any new winning combinations. That means that with a single spin you can win multiple times with no extra effort or coins on your behalf.

It’s an incredibly interesting and lucrative game, and with the Da Vinci Diamonds Dual Play version available you can easily double your fun!

Top 5 Techy Things to do Now the Winter Nights are Drawing in

We seem to have switched pretty swiftly from a long, hot summer to a cold, blowy autumn. And that means it’s not long until the clocks change and the nights get longer.

Even if you already have your autumn and winter TV viewing set up and have plenty of hobbies and pastimes to help the long winter nights fly by, it’s always good to get a few new ideas.

Check out our top five ways to use your smartphone, laptop or tablet to do something different, fun and, sometimes, even useful. Perfect ways to spend your long evenings in front of the fire. It almost makes us glad summer’s over!

Discover your artistic side
Even if you’ve never painted before, the chances are you will get hours of joy out of one of the many and varied art apps available for tablets. You can download something like Sketchbook Pro and then, just using your finger, learn to draw, paint in all sorts of different mediums, and unlock the artist inside. It’s a phenomenal use of technology and makes learning to draw and paint clean, easy and convenient.

Cook up a storm
Yep, cook. and yep, we do mean use your technology. You know there are so many websites, forums and apps out there for cooking, so why not spend some time really studying the ones that fit in with your taste in food and then spend some time in your kitchen. There’s a reason cooking shows have taken over the night time TV schedule - and that’s because cooking is creative, enjoyable, absorbing and skilfull. Find out whether it’s for you - and you get the amazing by-product of eating your experiments!

Visit a casino
Online casinos have become hugely popular over the last couple of years as technology and internet access has improved. You can now find some truly immersive and atmospheric sites offering casino games like roulette, poker, slots and bingo. And you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your sofa! Pour a glass of wine, sign up to freebets.org/casino and find out for yourself how much fun online casinos can be.

Get blogging
Many people enjoy writing and it’s a well known fact that everyone has one great novel inside them. But writing an actual book is not something most people have time for. Blogging is free, easy and a great way to stir up debates, get your opinion noticed or report on something that interests you specifically. Are you keen on movies? Blog about it? Like shopping? Write about it. In fact, there’s an audience for pretty much anything and everything and it’s as simple as signing up to a service like Blogger or Wordpress. We highly recommend it.

Watch what you want, when you want
Netflix or Lovefilm, or any other streaming app, is an amazing way to get access to the films and TV shows you enjoy, without worrying about timings or cost. For a very reasonable monthly fee you can have access to absolutely loads of US, UK and European shows - definitely worth it.

Microgaming could win you Millions

One of the latest games from the successful gambling company Microgaming comes in the form of Mermaid Millions, a soothing underwater adventure to find the Sea King and his beautiful Mermaid daughter. Five reels and fifteen pay lines, coin sizes ranging from $0.01 to $1 with 1-5 coins per pay reel, add up to a maximum bet of $75, meaning that this isn't a serious betting machine – more like entertainment with a gambling kick. However, payouts can get pretty big, with several ways to acquire multipliers and opportunities for bonus games.

As well as the standard ten, jack, queen, king and ace cards – which all have jewels, octopi and other sea memorabilia wrapped around them - the young mermaid is the scatter card, and king Neptune operates as a wild card which can be swapped out for any other card (except the mermaid, of course). Other cards are a magical pearl, treasure box, treasure chest and sea horse. Five Neptune symbols in one spin triggers a jackpot of a potential $37,5000, and from two to five mermaid cards gets you 4x, 50x and 400x your original bet.

The Treasure Bonus symbols sets another Bonus game in motion which plays as a “Pick Until Pop”, where the player keeps picking sunken containers with win values in each until they get the “pop”. The number of treasure chest symbols in your spin defines the number of selections you get, starting from three. As another bonus, three to five scatters in one spin gets you a reward of ten free spins with a 3x multiplayer – there's no limit to how many times you can get this reward.

The whole style of the game is really what sets it above over slot games. The www.MermaidMillions.net slots game has cute graphics in calming blue underwater tones and adorable pictures around the screen. All of the sounds are fully customisable, allowing you to listen to the soothing sounds of the ocean, or turn them on and listen to just the rolling machine while you keep your own lucky soundtrack going.

There are a lot of slot games out at the moment, with Microgaming being at the forefront of the technology. Mermaid Millions is a great low stress game, with small bets but potentially pretty big winnings, and can be played on smart phones and tablets as well as computers so you're never far away from an underwater opportunity to win a few grand!

Fun things to do on a sick day

Being optimistic is one of the essential things involved in recovering from illness, which is why it is imperative to try and have fun if you’re having a sick day off work. Being sick doesn’t mean you have to keep yourself confined to bed, unless of course your condition is particularly bad. 

If you’re worried about wasting time because you’re sick, look no further. This article seeks to help you think about ways you can spend your sick day that involve you making most of the time off work, as well as having fun!

Gamble!

Of course, if you’re taking the day off work because you’re sick, you definitely shouldn’t be seen near a casino. But thanks to the wide availability of gambling apps available now, you don’t have to even leave the house.

Playing online slots is a pretty fun way to do away with the time; who knows, you may even make some money by doing it! Log onto Grosvenor Casinos to check out some fun slot games you can get involved in.

Finish the unfinished

Having a day off work is a good way of completing all the bits and bobs that you haven’t been able to. It’s hard to finish reading that novel if you’ve been reading tax transcripts all day at work; now that you have the whole day off, you can curl up by the fire and finish it, finally.

Other things you can finish off while you’re at home also include the backlog of unfinished video games that’s been building up. This is especially appropriate if you’re one of those people who never really finish a game because it’s too hard, leave it for ages and then buying a new one.

Getting over that final enemy hurdle will give you a feeling of satisfaction, guaranteed to lift your spirits.

Do some chores

Not exactly everyone’s idea of fun, but it definitely paves the way for guilt-free fun over the weekend! If your house is messy and the reason is that you’re too busy to clean, use the day off work to do some casual, laid-back cleaning up.

Start with your room – get all that dirty laundry out of there, and clean everything else up thoroughly. There’s no rush if you start early, so you don’t have to stress yourself out.

If you’re feeling up to it, do a little vacuum cleaning as well. Maybe now you can actually bleach the dirty tiled floor in your kitchen.

The upside to all of this is that you won’t have to waste time over the weekend cleaning up. It feels good to get on top of things once in a while.

How good is the iPad for gaming?

The iPad Mini has been around for a while now and whether you love it or hate it there are some areas in which it excels - despite the late Steve Jobs’ aversion to creating such a tablet. Android lovers will claim that the iPad Mini is only popular because of Apple fan-boys but anyone who enjoys gaming on a tablet, whether for the casino games like Roulette at Ladbrokes or casual games like Bejewelled, will tell you that the iPad is excellent when it comes to gaming.

The iPad mini is Apple’s corner of the 7-inch tablet market, and although it hasn’t blown competitors out of the water, they have certainly matched expectations. The 1024 x 768p resolution is ideal for gaming, as the smaller screen means the graphics are more precise. Combined with the dual core A5 CPU chip, gaming on the iPad mini has slightly better specifications than its main rival, the Nexus 7.

For those who love a flutter at the online casinos, the iPad mini is the one to go for. Live casinos are now available on iPads thanks to companies like Ladbrokes.com, who have recently launched their exciting array of tablet games and slots. Roulette is currently one of the favoured games as it is ideal for playing on the train during the commute, or whilst waiting for friends. Because of the immersive viewing offered by the iPad mini, less time-consuming games like roulette become more enthralling and can bring the feel of live casinos and dealers direct to your tablet. The superfast dual core A5 chip (same as that of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4) combined with the fluidity of Apple’s iOS 6 makes the gaming experience of this tablet a joy to behold. Despite people suggesting that the larger iPads are better for graphics, the mini’s minimal weight – only 308g – means that when playing your favourite casino game, your wrists will not ache from the weight over time. Whether holding through the centre or by the corners you can sit for hours on end while travelling or simply sitting in your favourite chair, and not think the tablet cumbersome and awkward as happens with the full-sized iPads. Although the placement of the speakers means that, when held horizontally, the sound can be muffled, and the placement of the headphone jack means the cable can occasionally droop across the screen, the iPad mini is easy to handle and draws you seamlessly into your gaming experience regardless of its size.

For serious gamers we think this is the ideal tablet and starting at £269 it’s a reasonable price for the amount of technology you’re getting. The next thing we’re waiting for from Apple now are expandable memory options.