By Glenn Chapman
Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO — A “Tap Tap Dance” videogame built exclusively for Apple’s hip iPhones was launched Thursday, challenging users to stay in rhythm with songs by tapping the device’s screen in time to the music.

Offering an Internet-age stage for a new generation of musicians, the game is the brainchild of Tapulous, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California.

“We went from a game familiar to people that play ‘Guitar Hero’ or ‘Rock Band’ to something more similar to an interactive music video,” said Tapulous chief executive Bart Decrem. “We are really pushing forward and defining our own experience. We are really proud of that.”

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It’s way possible now.

The technology that will eventually allow you to play Warcraft on your new iPhone is called Interactive 3D Streaming, being developed by Comverse and Intel, which takes out the CPU burden from the mobile device and just streams the good stuff to it.

The hurdle is that MMORPGs like WoW and Second Life require lots of horsepower and number crunching from the CPU and the graphics chips to do what they do. The new technology does all the heavy lifting on their backend server, and then just streams it to the gamer via WiMax or 3G via a gateway designed by Comverse. (Aren’t you glad iPhones do 3G now?)

Can’t wait.

More on Comverse 3D Streaming here.

The Playstation emulator circulating in beta has officially been released at Version 0.1.0.

The emulator, psx4iPhone, of course needs PSX ROM files, like the other emulators out for Apple’s phone, and you’re on your own trying to find some. It looks a lot like the GameBoy Advanced emulator, and has roughly the same features, like game saves, etc. And like the others, it’s still a bit clunky, with poor audio and herky-jerky video, but it’s a great start.

You can download it from the Home of Homebrew ZodTTD and manually install it, but as of today, it’s been available via Installer. Load your ROMs in Media/ROMs/PSX.

For joy! Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Mac from Aspyr Media started shipping today, and marks the first time this particular franchise is available for, uh, playing on Macintoshes. And just in time for the holidays!

Long a runaway hit with nearly every platform except the Mac, it’s basically the Dance Dance Revolution model as interpreted for musicians, where you play lead guitar for a rock band and hit notes of famous rock songs in the right sequence, pretending you’re playing guitar. You play in concerts or head-to-head with legends of rock like Slash. It’s complicated to explain - you’d need to see it being played to appreciate it. Believe me, it’s more fun than jumping around on a vinyl mat, let me tell you. Even South Park devoted a whole episode to the phenomenon several weeks ago.

Already released for Windows earlier, the Mac version of GH3:LoR ships on a new hybrid Mac-PC disc (make sure you’re buying the right kind now), and comes with a scaled-down USB guitar-shaped controller called the X-Plorer. The song selections are even more fun than the previous two versions, and there are even boss battles now.

GH3:LoR for the Mac and the PC sells for US$79.99.

If you’re anything like me, you’d likely have a number of old portable/handheld game consoles molding in some drawer somewhere, along with stacks of game cartridges and cards. I have several Game&Watch antiques somewhere, along with a couple of Gameboys and a Nintendo DS and more.

Third-party app developers have been steadily churning out webapps and little emulators for all modern consoles and platforms so we can go back in time and play the stuff that used to get us in trouble with the folks because we’d spend hours playing and not doing the school/housework we were supposed to. The iPhone is no exception.

You jailbreakers have probably been playing the emulated NES games on your iPhones. I got a bunch of ROMs in mine: Contra, Galaga, Arkanoid, DigDug, Karateka, Lode Runner and more. They’re kinda herky-jerky and the controls are a bit erratic, but they still are as fun to play as they day they first came out.

Well, it’s time to rejoice - some folk have released a GBA emulator called gpSPhone for the iPhone/iPod Touch!

It used to be a pain to install, but as of yesterday it’s been included in Installer, which automates and simplifies the process. It’s just a matter of locating the ROMs and you’re good to go. Granted, it’s wonky and erratic too, and a lot of ROMs don’t work with it yet. I tried installing Tekken, GT Racing and Mortal Kombat and they all don’t work yet, but there are regular updates, and eventually they’ll get it up and humming soon.

The sound doesn’t work too well as of the moment, and it doesn’t go into landscape mode when you turn the iPhone on its side like the NES emulator does, but at least the control buttons are big and easy to hit, which is a failing of the NES emulator. Additionally, the GBA ROMs are big suckers; be prepared to be selective.

It’s a nice diversion when you’ve listened to everything in your limited music and video library, and a great conversation piece.

Find out more about the GBA Emulator gpSPhone here.