Remember about a decade ago when everybody and their mother was using sound boards of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chris Walken to prank call their friends and show off to their friends without phones? Well, after the age of the smart phone hit, not many people got the chance to punctuate their funny moments with cool catchphrases from their favorite flick. Until now, that is.

MGM has recently gone deep into their vault with some great sound board Apps. For just a buck, you are able to call up some of your favorite quotes from Army of Darkness, Silence of the Lambs, Robocop, Fargo, or just about any of the Rocky films. It was hard to believe that it could get any cooler than your phone yelling out “This is my boomstick!” until now.

Just released last week, the Hot Tub Time Machine Sound Board has been making it’s way up the ranks of the iTunes App Store. Not only do you get over 6 full pages of sound bites from the film’s stars like John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke, but there’s also a direct link to the film’s trailer, as well as a synopsis, so you can explain to your friends exactly why you’re so stoked for this movie to come out.

Be sure to grab the Hot Tub Time Machine Sound Board App from the iTunes App Store (for free!), and catch Hot Tub Time Machine when it hits theaters on March 19th.

If you’re been waiting for an excuse to use that extra $499.00 you’ve got burning a hole in your wallet, Apple may have just given you one. Today, the company announced, via their website, that it will begin shipping its brand new tablet device, the iPad, on April 3rd and will begin taking pre-orders on March 12th.

This is great news for those of you who want to take your eBook reading to the next level and also for people who never jumped on the Kindle bandwagon. It’s also great news for those of you looking for a super-sized iPhone that will run all those cool apps without having to agree to a lengthy contract with AT&T. Although, if you do want to have such a contract (and 3G wireless), the iPad with 3G will be available later in April, complete with said AT&T contract.

Even though I’ve pointed out a few things I feel the iPad is missing (although some, like the camera, may actually be there after all) I still feel there’s some merit to the device. I would be even more excited if I didn’t already have a Kindle, which I feel, as a “single use” device, is actually better for reading books than the iPad will be.

Still, the iPad definitely has a lot of possibilities and I look forward to exploring those come April 3rd. Expect a full review of the iPad once I get my hands on one. Until then, if this device is truly for you, better start saving those pennies because April 3rd isn’t that far away.

The number one seller of DVDs in the country, Wal-Mart, has apparently seen the writing on the wall and is again getting into online distribution of movies and other video content by purchasing Vudu, the four-year-old-company that has deals with every major movie studio and 40 independents. According to the article, Wal-Mart is paying an undisclosed sum for Vudu, which abandoned its hardware business a few years ago and instead is focusing on software embedded in millions of televisions.

As you may know, Wal-Mart has tried this kind of thing before. In February 2007, it announced it was becoming the first major retailer to offer digital movie downloads. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well with the company shuttering the business in the first year. Wal-Mart also launched a by-mail DVD service to compete with Netflix, but gave up on that as well when it partnered with Netflix later.

Now, with Vudu, Wal-Mart competes not only with iTunes and Netflix but also with Blockbuster, TiVo, Amazon and others that allow consumers to rent or buy movies digitally. Vudu currently has 20,000 titles in its library, 3,000 of which are in HD or HDX, a proprietary format Vudu says is comparable in quality to Blu-ray.

Having only seen Vudu in stores and at trade events, I can’t really vouch for the quality of the video. It just seemed okay. Plus, this seems a little late to the game what with iTunes and Netflix already having a large foothold into the living room. Still, Wal-Mart is a giant retailer with years of experience growing a successful business so it will be interesting to see how they utilize this latest acquisition.

Even though Apple won’t be attending this year’s Macworld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, that isn’t stopping organizers IDG from having one. This year, in what they are calling ‘The Start of a new Era” the organizers have assembled a host of great speakers, panels and events for Apple and Mac enthusiasts everywhere.

Some of the highlights of the event include an evening with David Pogue, Q&A with writer/director Kevin Smith, the 20th anniversary of Photoshop event, Macworld Magizine’s “Best of Show” awards and a hands-on demo of Apple’s latest product, the iPad.

The Show Floor opens Thursday: 12:00pm to 6:00pm

Thursday’s Highlights:

Late Night with David Pogue – Join New York Times’ Columnis David Pogue for song parodies, surprise guests, jokes at Apple’s expense, and a lot of geeking out.
9:00am – 10:00am

See the Best New Products First

11:00am – 12:00pm
Q&A with Kevin Smith – filmmaker and director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. The conversation, sure to be lively, wry and irreverent, will give Macworld attendees a special opportunity to engage with Smith as he answers audience questions – nothing is off limits!
2:00pm – 3:00pm

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With the Academy Awards just around the corner, it’s always fun to make predictions as to who the winners might be. To help you in this, and promote its Oscar-related content, Vanity Fair magazine is launching a free iPhone app that will allow you to make your picks for all the awards and receive realtime results on the night of the show.

Of course, you can also invite friends to vote for the people you think have the best chance of winning, compare your selections to friends and the Vanity Fair editors, and chat via the app the app in Facebook. On Oscar night, the app will show you who is winning from your picks.

The app also offers access to Vanity Fair’s content including background information on nominees, stories, photos, profiles, trailers of nominated films, and slideshows. Hey, they gotta pay for the app somehow, right? With some much hype surrounding the Oscars, its nice to see an app that caters to the most important aspect of the night: who’s gonna take home the golden statue.

If you check out the app, tell us what you think in the comments. Also, after the break, we’ve included a little video that helps you understand Vanity Fair’s vision for this app and a little more on how to use it. So check that out too.

The Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 7 at 8/5P on ABC.

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Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, it’s time to connect them to iTunes to get the latest version of Apple’s operating system for these devices. This latest version, dubbed 3.1.3, addresses a number of issues including the following:

CoreAudio
Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

ImageIO
Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Recovery Mode
A person with physical access to a locked device may be able to access the user’s data

WebKit
Accessing a maliciously crafted FTP server could result in an unexpected application termination, information disclosure, or arbitrary code execution

WebKit
When WebKit encounters an HTML 5 Media Element pointing to an external resource, it does not issue a resource load callback to determine if the resource should be loaded. This may result in
undesired requests to remote servers. As an example, the sender of an HTML-formatted email message could use this to determine that the message was read.

The update also offers the requisite “stability and usability enhancements.” Confused? Don’t worry, just update and things will be fine. Although, if you’re worried, you could wait a couple days to see if this latest update breaks something else, which sometimes happens. For more on this update, visit Apple’s Security Update site.

Many people saw him on the last week of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien, but for those who are unaware, Pee-Wee Herman has returned to the world of entertainment. He’s currently performing live all over California, and doing lots of promotions and now his newest “endorsement” for Apple and Steve Jobs.

Funny or Die recently posted a video of Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens) discussing Apple’s newest product, the iPad, with his playhouse pals. Having revived the characters from the classic children’s program, Herman and classic characters Conky, Magic Screen and Mappy, discuss the new product, which they all confuse with sanitary napkins, tampons, and even a drink tray.

Plus Mappy shows us how even he can perform two applications at once. Funny stuff.

Check out the video after the jump.

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Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it and perhaps Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field” has worn off a bit, there are some things about the iPad I don’t like or wish had been, or hadn’t been, included in the new device. On the surface, the iPad seems like a great device and one that I will most likely get. But today’s announcement still left me wondering about a few things.

And here they are:

No camera – For a device like this it would make sense to have a video camera for video conferencing and to take pictures and video, much like the iPhone 3GS. If this device is supposed to be some sort of laptop replacement, it should have a camera. The deliberate omission of a camera smells like an obvious ploy by Apple to not cannibalize sales of the iPhone and iPod.

No Flash – Say what you will about Adobe’s Flash but for the full Internet browsing experience you still need to have Flash. Sure, the iPhone doesn’t have it but if this is supposed to be a larger, better device that can replace my 13″ MacBook, it should have Flash.

Navigating to web pages and seeing those black rectangles where video should be isn’t the fantastic experience Apple makes it out to be. It’s just bad and seriously undermines the credibility of Apple’s mobile web browser.

Storage – I realize that Apple probably isn’t positioning the iPad as a complete laptop replacement but it would still be nice to have more storage than the maximum of 64GB. Of course, having more storage would probably mean that battery life would suffer or the device would be more expensive but still, video files are usually pretty large and I’ve also got a lot of music and other files, plus applications and games, so larger storage options would be great.

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Today, in an event hosted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the company announced a shiny new touch screen tablet computing device which utilizes Apple iPhone OS and has a host of new features. The device, dubbed the iPad, will serve as another example Apple’s dominace in the mobile computing space.

According to the announcement, the iPad is “fully customizable,” “better than a smartphone or a laptop at browsing,” will alow you to read e-books, and has a “great maps application.”

Here are just some of the specs and features:

• 9.7″ IPS screen
• 1/2″ thick
• 10 hours of battery life
• “Shut the iPad down, come back in a month and it still has a charge”
• 16-64 Gigabytes of flash storage
• Accelerometer and compass
• 80s.11n Wifi and Bluetooth 2.0
• It can run all iPhone apps, unmodified, out of the box
• New Software called iBooks along with iBooks Store to purchase and read books
• iWork suite developed expressly for the new iPad
• Syncs with your Mac and iTunes via USB cable just like the iPhone
• In addition to Wi-Fi, also features 3G service from AT&T with unlimited plan @$ 29.99/Month and 250 MB plan @ $14.99/Month

• Prices start at $499.00 for 16 GB model, $599.00 for 32 GB model and $699.00 for 64 GB model. 3G will be $130.00 extra across the board.

• Shipping in 60 days for base model. 3G Model ships in 90 days.

More on this extraordinary device as we get it.

Seriously, who doesn’t like frees stuff? And when that stuff happens to be a game where you can blow the crap out of Nazi Zombies, the gift is all that much sweeter. If you love free stuff and killing Zombie Nazis then you’re in luck because starting now you can do that for free on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Interested? Of course you are. To find out more, take a look at this handly press release provided by our friends at Activision.

Zombies have overrun App Store as Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and developer Treyarch have launched a free version of Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES. The Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES Lite App allows iPhone and iPod touch players to experience three rounds of the “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the Undead) map in single player, explore the map and access a multitude of weapons from the Mystery Box. Multiplayer fans will be able to play for two rounds via Wi-Fi, locally or across the Internet with four players or two players over Bluetooth.

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