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Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 6:12PM 
Pinball Machines Were Sneakier Than You Think [Pinball]
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 12:18AM 
There's a great read over at Cheap Talk about how digital pinball machines changed the industry, back when there still was an industry. They were big tables where you flick a ball around, but they were smarter than you think.
In the olden days of pinball, there wasn't much to adjust. Free game scores were hard wired into the machine and couldn't be changed. But with the introduction of Williams High Speed in 1986, things got more complicated.
The new machines would dynamically adjust the free play score based on an algorithm. It also introduced a method where if you had already scored a free game, it was impossible to win a random free game.
The post goes into much more detail over at Cheap Talk, but ultimately, these algorithms, exploits, and the layouts of the tables themselves got so complicated that new players couldn't figure out how to master them. And, as we all know, pinball faded into the night. If you're at all a fan of pinball, it's an interesting read. Head over to check it out. [Cheap Talk via Retro Thing]
Image via ktpupp
Droid Does: A Price Drop
Friday, November 20, 2009 at 7:41PM Specifically, Amazon and Dell have both cut prices on the smartphone to $150 and $120, respectively. The news comes just one day after news broke of price cuts by online retailers on other devices not named iPhone: the Palm Pre and Pixi.
