This Game is the Perfect Storm. Just when I thought that it could not get any better, Capcom is bringing new options to Street Fighter IV in it’s upcoming free update. This game is keeping it real to it’s roots. Not only did it bring back the best of the original gameplay, it’s keeping the serious gamers on point with the Championship Mode:
Street Fighter IV’ s new Championship Mode update gives players the chance to keep their skills up and put all those hours of perfecting the combos to good use by competing in tournaments. Players can also watch replays of the best tournament matches to get their strategery on and learn new fight patterns and combos. I think this is amazing, and inspiring. They are bringing the old arcade feel back with this mode. I remember hanging out in the arcades with my buds and watching the players put up their quarters and fight, being in awe and hoping to absorb some of the tricks and combos from the best.

The Championship Mode update will be available for both PS3 and Xbox 360 owners on Friday, April 24 (times TBD), and it’s totes free.

The Deets on Champion Mode:
Championship Mode offers you the chance to compete in 5 different grades of tournaments, so that all skill levels are represented. No matter your experience with StreetFighting, there’ll be a bracket for you.

Grade Points (GP) are scored for tourney wins, and the more GPs you accumulate, you’ll become eligible for more exclusive tourneys.
Winning tournaments will also net you Championship Points (CP). Championship Points is like, the Prize Package.
The higher the GP skill of the players in a particular tournament, the bigger the CP prize!
Replay Mode allows you to select and watch the best Championship Mode tournament matches.

Points of Interest:
* On the PlayStation Network, you can rate matches while you watch according to characteristics such as “ awesome” or “ funny.” Replays are then ranked based on these vote ratings.
* On Xbox Live, instead of rating the matches, you can choose to download and save your favorite replays to study the players’ techniques. You’ ll also be able to turn on the input commands from both players to be able to review their button and joystick motions in precise detail.
ok, XboX360, how dope is this? There is no end to playing this game, as long as there are so many awesome players out there to learn from.

HaDuKen!
This update gets a bonus *Jazz Hands* from LizMoney.
info from: gamertagradio

Ok, we all know that I’m the biggest cheerleader for Google’s Android and I’m always in wait for news and updates about it. Well, the world’s cutest OS update build, Cupcake is almost done.

The Android Developers Blog announced today the availability of an “early look” Android 1.5 SDK. This release seems like a mostly complete version of the final release, though Google warns that some of the APIs are bound to change.

Beyond the features that v1.5 brings to the end user (see below), the new SDK carries a few key changes:

* The SDK now supports multiple versions of the platform, so developers can continue to work on applications for the current release (v1.1) while preparing their apps for the next one.
* Developers can now install SDK add-ons. This allows carriers, OEMs, and other third-parties to easily expand the SDK for their needs.

The Deets:
* On-screen keyboard support, with support for auto-correct, text prediction, user dictionaries, and third-party keyboard layouts
* Live folders (Auto-updating folder shortcuts for things such as YouTube favorites, Starred Contacts, and, with the API now available, whatever else developers conjure up)
* Video Recording
* MPEG4 and 3GP Video Playback
* Stereo Bluetooth
* Browser enhancements: New ultrafast “Squirrelfish” javascript engine, search within a page, copy and paste, UI changes
* New Linux Kernel
* Google Application enhancements: View Google Talk friend statuses in contacts, SMS, MMS, Gmail, and Email
* New frameworks for developers to build upon: Widget creation, Live Folder creation, Raw audio recording/playback, Video recording, Speech recognition
* Faster GPS, Faster camera startup, faster Gmail scrolling, and smoother browser scrolling

Peep the whole list here at mobilecrunch.

google, android, cupcake, G1, T-mobile, update

It may have been St. Patty’s day but in the tech world, it was iPhone OS 3.0 day. Coming on the last day of South By Southwest’s Interactive week, Apple announced what would be included in their next iPhone update. The hype machine was in full effect in the days preceding this announcement. We knew that there would be some good stuff coming – we talked about MMS and tethering in the latest Money Shot, my homie Chris Pirillo wanted a search function, and Kevin Rose of Diggnation predicted cut n paste.

When it was all said and done, Apple touted over 100 features to be included in the update.

Here’s the Deets:

• Cut Copy and Paste. W00t! Apple may have taken it’s time, but they definitely did it well – it works across all apps, and, in cute Apple fashion: you shake it to undo. Hee.
• MMS! W00t W00t! Finally, you can send peeps pics via SMS. I guess I owe a lot of peeps pictures now. No more teasing them about phone cam pics I’d send them if they could get them. Also you can send contacts, audio and locations.
• SMS services: now you can forward and delete your text messages.
• Push Technology – get alerted by text, a little badge or by voice.
• Spotlight: search. Just like on their computers, across all apps and even mail that’s still on the server.
• Typing in landscape – across apps. Very Nice.
• Bluetooth connectivity is beefed up. More functionality to connect to more hardware. Johnson and Johnson demoed LifeScan – a diabetes monitor and meal planner app. This is very interesting, and opens up the possibilities of the iPhone being utlized more in the medical field.
• iphones will also be able to communicate to each other via peer-to-peer Bluetooth technology.
• Maps and GPS – more support for turn-by-turn GPS when devs supply their own maps.
• CalDAV- subscribe and share your calendar. Let everyone know what you are up to.
• Stocks app – beefed up and can subscribe to news feeds.
• Stereo Bluetooth support.
• YouTube: login to your account. Subscribe to channels. Like…The Gadget411’s Money Shot.
• VPN on demand. Dope. Virtual Private Network.
• Voice Memo.
• Auto-fill for web forms. Awesome.
• Audio/Video tagging.
• Live video streaming from the web. ESPN did a dope demo streaming some March Madness games.
• Shake to shuffle your songs.
• Wi-Fi auto login.
• Proxy support.
• Parental Controls.
• LDAP support.

Whew. That’s a lot of stuff. In sum, it’s a lot of stuff that frankly, most phones already do. Only Apple can create such fervor of gratitude for stuff that their products should have had in the first place. My favorite tweet from the coverage: @engadget “Applause for a feature that every other device in the world has. Odd.” haha. I found that quite the amusing.

Some fun things were also demoed – LiveFire – a First Person shooter, and Smule, creators of the Ocarina app brings on Dr. Ge Wang up from Stanford — he directed the Stanford laptop orchestra, to demo the new Trombone Leaf app. Will the iPhone be the next new musical instrument? Will it make being in the high school band cool? Marching Bluetooth Band.

Now you want it. Yes you do. When can you get it? Summer. Yes, now you have to wait. It’s free for the iPhone, and $10 for the ipod Touch. But if you are a dev, SDK is out and available now. Go Play. Let us know what you think!!

For some live blogging action from the announcement, hit up gdgt.com