By BEN POTTER

At some point during your grade
school years you may recall
a simple game that happily
consumed your time during
English classes. The teacher
would begin by writing a sentence on the
chalkboard and then pointing to a student
at random. This student, perhaps it was
you, would then recover from the shock
of being called upon in class and come
up with the next portion of the sentence to
compliment the preceding teaser of “One
day, I stumbled upon a green giraffe…”
Liners, a free new app developed by
ZOOTOWN INTERACTIVE has hit the
app store; hoping to return us all to our
childhood, one poorly structured nonsequitur
at a time.
The app is currently only available for
iOS devices via the iTunes app store but
ZOOTOWN INTERACTIVE plans to
develop the app for Android devices in the
near future. The app is very simple to use
and provides immediate enjoyment to its
users.
Once you have downloaded and installed
the app, you are ready to either start playing,
or to start reading. I began by reading a few
stories other users had concocted. One
story began like so: “It appears to me that
you can only extinguish fires with h2o…”,
then a friend chimed in with “…but the
jury is still out. In fact my grandpa’s Asian
friend…”, “…has a problem with coconut
flavored undergarments.”
Now I know by this point you’re already
digging out your iPhones and iPads to
download and play this amazing game -
however, if you’re not quite sure, read on
and let me attempt to persuade you with
some fantastic reasons to install this app
and give it a whirl.
REASON 1: IT’S FREE
How can you put a price tag on all the
enjoyment you will derive from this game?
Thankfully, you won’t have to! Versus
putting a price tag on this app, ZOOTOWN
INTERACTIVE has instead opted to release
the app for free. The only problem with this
is the banner ads that run along the bottom
of the app, but hey, they have to make
money somehow.
REASON 2: DO YOU NEED A REASON 2?
This app has a lot of amusement to offer,
as well as many enjoyable moments with
friends. At a price tag of $0.00 dollars, it’s
hard to resist the urge to give it a shot. I
hope you can derive as much enjoyment as
I did with this app, and I close with this: “…
the giraffe was wearing a purple…”
Ben Potter occasionally returns from
Azeroth long enough to be reached at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

by MIKE LAKE

If you are reading this, then it means we survived 12-21-12. Which also means there were some grotesque misinterpretations about the Mayan calendar. Having said that, bear with me while I attempt to conjure my own predictions about the world of technology for the coming year.
 
1. Mozilla Firefox will debut its first OS on a mobile device. Hey, if Chrome can do it, so can Firefox. As powerful a browser as Mozilla builds this one should be a no brainer. I give it until June of 2013, and we’ll see an orange fox rolling its way to smart phones and tablets.
 
2. Who wants 150 channels when you really only watch five? I predict that cable and satellite fed TV networks will lose significant market share to the likes of Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, and other assorted on demand type services. Incidentally, I also predict watching these services will become more or less identical to watching cable or satellite TV because of all the ads you’ll have to suffer through.
 
3. The Life and Death of 3D movies. This one might just be a wish list, but 3D makes me want to hurl. Not just because of the motion sickness, but because of the belligerent  misuse of the  technology. With every gratuitous action scene comes another excuse to wave a shiny lure. Not to say we’ll see the end of 3D movies this year, in fact, we’ll see a tidal wave of new tech revolving around it.  Such as glasses-free 3D. But by the end of 2013, I would wager the fad will begin to wane.
 
4. Mobile malware and mobile viruses will rain fire and brimstone upon the masses. Ok, that might be a bit dramatic, but nevertheless, identity theft will double this year. Why? If you own a smart phone, you’re probably keeping credit card information, personal data, bank information and a multitude of other tasty chops stored on your phone. Not to say that your phone is vulnerable, yet, but I am saying it’s a pretty big target. Just sayin’.
 
5. Books go binary. I would think that with the 230 million predicted sales of Kindles in 2013 that book retailers have cause for alarm. This will be the year the book goes digital. Meaning only that there will be more revenue (and more units) purchased towards digital books than actual printed copies.
 
These are obviously just my own predictions and have almost no basis in reality. However, if any of these come true you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be dancing a jig and taunting “I told you so” up and down Higgins.
Let me know what your thoughts are, or if you agree or disagree. Find this article on corridormag.com and comment.

Mike Lake is art director for the Corridor and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .