Dazayna Drayton, Daughter of Flavor Flav, Arrested For Attack on Rapper


Flavor Flav says his daughter, Dazayna Drayton, is getting a bad rap after her arrest this weekend, claiming she didn’t lay a hand on him … which she is accused of.

The whole thing was just a family dispute that got out of hand, Flav says.

Flav claims he tried to stop the cops from arresting Dazayna, but Nevada’s zero tolerance law requires police to book anyone who allegedly strikes a family member.

“The whole thing was a big misunderstanding that shouldn’t have happened,” he says. “No one in my family called the cops on my daughter; she did not beat me up.”

Flavor Flav Time

Flav, whose word must be taken with a grain of salt, as he is insane, makes it clear, “I love my daughter and will never let anything happen that could come between us.”

Dazayna Drayton was booked for misdemeanor battery Sunday.

It’s unclear who called the cops, but someone did after Flav’s 19-year-old girl got into an argument with one his stepsons, which eventually became physical.

Flav tried to break it up and got hit by his daughter for his troubles – either on purpose or by accident (he’s clearly saying the latter) – and authorities found enough evidence of domestic violence to take her into custody afterward.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/dazayna-drayton-daughter-of-flavor-flav-arrested-for-attack-on-r/

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Can NATO force weather France’s faster exit? (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan ? France’s call for a speedier NATO exit from Afghanistan reflects the depth of war fatigue in the West and raises fears that other countries in the U.S.-led coalition will succumb to rising political pressure and pull their troops home early.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to fast-track its withdrawal ? just days after an Afghan soldier gunned down four French troops ? is the latest crack in a coalition already strained by economic troubles in Europe and the United States, the Afghan government’s sluggish battle against corruption, on-again off-again cooperation from neighboring Pakistan and a dogged Taliban bloodied but not beaten.

The international coalition is already rushing against the clock to meet President Hamid Karzai’s goal of having the Afghan police and army in charge of the nation’s security by the end of 2014. France’s break with that timetable, which was agreed to by NATO members, now raises the question: Can the coalition stay together until then?

Resetting the date to end the coalition’s combat mission could strengthen arguments for President Barack Obama to accelerate U.S. troop withdrawals beyond the 33,000 he’s sending home by the end of this year, and reopen a debate over whether setting a withdrawal deadline allows the Taliban to seize more territory once foreign forces are gone.

It’s unclear whether Sarkozy’s call for all foreign forces to hand security over to the Afghan forces in 2013 will have any traction when it is presented next week at a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels. If other nations see France’s move as a green light to speed up their withdrawals, it will complicate the current strategy for a coordinated pullout.

In a gentle rebuke to France, British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London on Saturday that withdrawals should be dependent on security conditions on the ground. Britain has said it’s keeping to plans to withdraw its 9,500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

“The rate at which we can reduce our troops will depend on the transition to Afghan control in the different parts of Afghanistan, and that should be the same for all of the members of NATO,” Cameron said after meeting with Karzai.

Other nations facing extreme economic problems, such as Italy and Spain, are not planning early withdrawals.

“We are a responsible country. We are a big country that honors its commitments that it agrees to make,” said Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, defense minister in Italy, which this week signed a pact aimed at supporting Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw in 2014.

Germany also said it agrees with the goal to hand over security responsibility by the end of 2014 and withdraw combat troops.

Sarkozy said France will speed up its withdrawal and pull 1,000 ? up from 600 ? out this year and bring all combat forces home at the end of 2013. Sarkozy also said France would hand over authority in the province of Kapisa, where the French troops were killed this month, by the end of March.

France, which now has about 3,600 soldiers in the coalition force, joins the U.S., Britain, Germany and Italy in the top five largest troop-contributing nations.

Talk of an accelerated exit alarmed many Afghans, especially those who have cast their lot with the U.S.-backed government but have little confidence in their country’s own security forces. Some said France was reneging on its promises.

Afghan lawmaker Tahira Mujadedi, who represents Kapisa, said Afghan forces there aren’t ready to go it alone in fighting the Taliban insurgency, which is especially strong in several of the province’s districts. She warned that if NATO forces do pull back from Kapisa, it could also destabilize nearby Kabul. Foreign forces should consider staying even longer than 2014, she said.

“When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen,” said Mujadedi, who expressed sadness about the French troops who were killed.

But she added: “They are not here for a holiday.”

Former Afghan interior minister and military analyst Abdul Hadi Khalid said Sarkozy’s decision was clearly political. Sarkozy’s rival in spring presidential elections in France, Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, has pledged to pull French troops out of the war if he is elected in May.

“Why is he raising this now?” Khalid asked. “He is trying to get political benefit out of it.”

So far, Karzai has reacted cautiously to the idea of a 2013 handover. He can ill afford to anger major coalition partners, yet he wants to be seen as the leader of a country capable of security itself.

“We hope to finish the transition … by the end of 2013 at the earliest ? or by the latest as has been agreed upon ? by the end of 2014,” Karzai said.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu underscored the coalition’s solidarity, saying that all nations agreed at a Lisbon summit in 2010 to complete the transition to Afghan-led security by the end of 2014.

“Transition is well on track to be completed by the end of 2014, as we all agreed,” she said. She said NATO nations would “take stock, shape the next stage of transition” at its summit in Chicago in May.

In Chicago, NATO members will discuss another contentious issue: Who will pay the salaries of the more than 300,000 Afghan policemen and soldiers after 2014. Estimates range from $5 billion to $6 billion a year.

Thomas Risse, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, said the problem of securing commitments to finance the Afghan security forces comes as a general fatigue with foreign interventions grips Europe and the United States.

“The public mood in most NATO countries is that they want their boys back as soon as possible and they don’t care much about Afghanistan either way,” Risse said. “The political elites have undertaken to keep up the military commitments, but I’m not sure they will be able to sustain those promises in the face of such a strong public mood.”

“As far as the money (for the post-2014 period) is concerned, I don’t think there is any mood in Germany to throw money after the Karzai regime,” he added.

Stories of Afghan security forces killing their foreign partners make it that much harder to sell the war in cash-strapped countries.

The deadly shooting of the four French soldiers on Jan. 20 was the second against French forces in a month; two members of the French Foreign Legion were killed by an Afghan soldier on Dec. 29. On Thursday, an Afghan man wielding a knife tried to attack foreign troops in southern Afghanistan before being arrested. The Taliban said the man was upset about a video that purportedly shows U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses.

The promise to pull out by 2014 has appeased immediate public demand, said Malcolm Chalmers, a professor of defense at Kings College in London.

“But as the (economic crisis) continues to deepen and these types of incidents continue to occur, it’s very possible that there will be renewed public pressure to accelerate the pace of withdrawal,” he said. “My expectation is that there will be a steady and substantial withdrawal starting this year.”

Asked if France’s break with the coalition could spark a wider split, Kate Clark, senior analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said it could be troublesome for countries deploying troops to Afghanistan. While the U.S. contributes the bulk of troops, any cracks in the coalition could dampen morale of all foreign forces on the battlefield, she said.

“The foreign troops have been here for 10 years. That’s a long time,” she said. “There’s a certain war-weariness among the voters of a great many of those countries.”

Then again, she pointed out that the Netherlands and Canada have drawn down their forces in recent years and the coalition has not crumbled.

___

Lekic reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez and Kay Johnson contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

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Researchers find cancer in ancient Egyptian mummy (AP)

CAIRO ? A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.

The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

“Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors,” she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_sc/ml_egypt_ancient_cancer

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Video: SEALs rescue American held captive

Mystery disease Morgellons: No clear cause

A strange disease in which sufferers say they find fibers, fuzz and other debris sprouting from sores on their skin is not contagious and has no clear cause, the largest-ever study of the condition called Morgellons has found.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46138690#46138690

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Subscription Billings Startup Recurly Raises $6 Million

recurlyRecurly, a startup that makes it easy for other companies to manage their subscription billing, has raised $6 million in a Series A financing round led by BV Capital, and including Polaris Venture Partners, Harrison Metal Capital and FreeStyle Capital. This brings Recurly’s total funding to $8 million. Recurly’s service allows businesses to quickly implement a subscription billing system, handling tasks like credit card number storage (it also supports integration with financial software like QuickBooks). Recurly automates many of the complexities involved with subscription billing management, such as customer upgrades and downgrades, credit card errors and declines, automated customer communications, and customer retention management.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QLH-HZGMIjE/

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Report: South Sudan sues Khartoum over oil

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) ? South Sudan is suing Sudan for “looting” its oil and will no longer export crude through its northern neighbor’s territory, a Sudanese daily reported Sunday, citing officials, in the latest spat between the two governments over the coveted resource in the newly independent southern nation.

South Sudan Information Minister Marial Benjamin said the lawsuit was filed in “specialized international tribunals against Sudan and some companies” that bought the crude, the Al-Sahafa daily said. Benjamin did not provide additional details on the venue or when the lawsuit was filed.

The case is the latest development in a long-simmering fight between the two governments over the oil they share. Most of it lies within the borders of South Sudan, which achieved independence last July.

On Jan. 17, South Sudan Minister of Petroleum and Mining Stephen Dhieu Dau said Sudan is diverting about 120,000 barrels of oil pumped from the south daily, a move the northern government said stemmed from the unpaid transit fees for the oil carried in pipelines from the south to export terminals in its territory. The two sides have been unable to resolve the dispute.

South Sudan’s Cabinet Affairs minister, Deng Alor, said that his country has halted pumping crude through Sudan and would begin building a pipeline across east Africa that would allow it to export its oil through Kenya. The project would take about a year, he told Al-Sahafa.

“Our economy will not be affected by this step,” he said, adding that South Sudan had enough in cash reserves to sustain it for five years. Even if the economy was affected, it would be preferable to the “looting” taking place by Sudan, he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The Khartoum government downplayed the potential impact of the move by the south. Sudanese State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Amin Hassan Omar said that the oil currently held in pipelines would cover a considerable portion of the debts owed by the south.

The suspension of oil production is a “tactical move that will not last long,” he told Al-Sahafa.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-22-ML-Sudan-South-Sudan-Oil/id-dcf5fa72aaff4de3a41d196f8b6bf882

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In bin Laden town, father mourns another militant

In this Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 photo, plainclothes Pakistani security men stand outside the family house of al-Qaida militant Aslam Awan, who was killed in an American drone attack at a house along the Afghan border. On Jan. 14 at 8:12 pm, Khushal Khan’s wife got a call on her cell phone. “Your son has been martyred,” the voice said at the other end of the line. The man then rang off. Four days earlier, an American drone fired a missile at a house along the Afghan border just before midnight, killing Khan’s youngest son, Aslam Awan, and three other suspected militants. American officials have since described Awan as an “external operations planner” for al-Qaida. British prosecutors in 2007 said he a member of a militant cell who had fought in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Aqeel Ahmed)

In this Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 photo, plainclothes Pakistani security men stand outside the family house of al-Qaida militant Aslam Awan, who was killed in an American drone attack at a house along the Afghan border. On Jan. 14 at 8:12 pm, Khushal Khan’s wife got a call on her cell phone. “Your son has been martyred,” the voice said at the other end of the line. The man then rang off. Four days earlier, an American drone fired a missile at a house along the Afghan border just before midnight, killing Khan’s youngest son, Aslam Awan, and three other suspected militants. American officials have since described Awan as an “external operations planner” for al-Qaida. British prosecutors in 2007 said he a member of a militant cell who had fought in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Aqeel Ahmed)

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AP) ? On Jan. 14 at 8:12 p.m., Khushal Khan’s wife got a call on her cell phone.

“Your son has been martyred,” the voice said at the other end of the line. The man then hung up.

The end for Khan’s youngest son, Aslam Awan, came when a drone piloted remotely from the United States fired a missile at a house along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Awan was among four people killed, U.S. officials said this week, describing Awan as an “external operations planner” for al-Qaida. British authorities say he was a member of a militant cell in northern England who had fought in Afghanistan.

The Jan. 10 strike in the militant stronghold of North Waziristan that killed Awan was a victory for the CIA-led drone program at time when relations between Washington and Islamabad are very strained, in part by the missile strikes. It was one of the first drone attacks after a hiatus of some six weeks following a friendly fire incident in which U.S. forces killed 24 Pakistani border troops, nearly leading to a severing of ties with Islamabad.

The drone attacks generate anti-American sentiment inside Pakistan, but have been credited with significantly weakening al-Qaida in one of its global hubs.

For his family, the call came as a final curt word about the fate of a son they had heard little from in over a year.

Awan grew up in the northwestern Pakistani town of Abbottabad, a few kilometers away from the house where Osama bin Laden was slain. His father worked in a bank in Britain in the 70s and then in Abbottabad until he retired a few years ago. His four other sons remain in Britain, where they have prospered ? one is a surgeon, another is a doctor, the third an engineer and the fourth is a banker.

It seems doubtful Awan had any contact with bin Laden in the town. But Awan’s background here reinforces a striking association between this well-ordered, wealthy Pakistani army town and al-Qaida militants, which began before bin Laden was killed here in May last year when a team of American commandos flew in from Afghanistan.

Now 75 and recovering from a heart operation, Khushal Khan answered questions Saturday from an Associated Press reporter in the garden of his house, making the most of some winter sun. He defended his son’s memory against charges of militancy.

“I don’t believe this is true, my son was not indulging in these things,” he said. “It can’t be correct.”

Khan said Awan followed his brothers’ footsteps and went to Britain in 2002 on a student visa.

Awan lived in Manchester for four years, during which time he joined a militant cell that aimed to bring Muslims to Pakistan for militant training, according to prosecutors at the time and a British media report. He told his father he was studying at Manchester University, but it’s unclear whether he ever graduated.

The cell was headed by a British al-Qaida commander called Rangzieb Ahmed who was captured in Pakistan in 2006 and sent for trial in Britain, where he was sentenced to life in prison for directing terrorism, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

A letter he wrote a to a longtime friend and fellow Pakistani, Abdul Rahman, rhapsodized over the “fragrance of blood” from the battlefield of jihad and his commitment to militancy, according to prosecutors in the trial of Rahman, who was sentenced to six years in jail in 2007 for spreading terrorist propaganda in Manchester. It apparently referred to a stint fighting jihad in Afghanistan, but when that occurred is not known.

The judge said then Awan was believed to have left England for Afghanistan.

“Awan was very well connected to known extremists in the UK. It highlights that the threat is still there,” said Valentina Soria, a terrorism researcher at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. “This group were not just wannabes, they were active and with links to al-Qaida central.”

There are thought to be about 900,000 Pakistani Muslims in England ? many of them living in London and in northern cities. British authorities have said nearly all the plots and attacks on British soil have some connection to Pakistan.

Awan returned to Abbottabad in 2007, around the time that bin Laden was settling in to his large house, though that doesn’t mean Awan was in touch with him or any of his couriers. U.S. officials have previously said the al-Qaida leader was cut off from the rest of his network and wasn’t meeting other militants for security reasons.

Awan began to associate with Sipah-e-Sahaba, an extremist group that has a political wing as well links to al-Qaida, according to a police officer in the town who knows the family. The officer didn’t give his name because he didn’t want to be seen as adding to Khan’s pain.

Khan said he last saw his son or heard his voice in 2010, when Awan asked for funds to build a house and they fought over the fact he wasn’t working.

“That was the point when I had to forcefully ask him to go out to earn some money,” he said. “But my words hurt him, and he left home with only the clothes he was wearing.”

Khan said he initially feared his son had been kidnapped when he didn’t return or contact him. But after a few months, Awan called his wife and told her he was in Miran Shah, the largest town in North Waziristan. He said he was running a general store and dealing in second-hand clothes.

Local intelligence officials said Awan was known by the nom de guerre Abdullah Khurasani, and was highly prized in al-Qaida circles because of his education, computer skills and foreign contacts.

Al-Qaida, Taliban and other militants from around the world congregate for training and networking in North Waziristan, and Miran Shah is a key logistical base. The town is too dangerous for reporters to visit, but locals who have traveled there say hundreds of Pakistan and foreign militants live there openly, unmolested other than by the U.S. missile attacks on its outskirts. The Pakistani army says it doesn’t have enough resources to launch an operation in the region.

The missile strike program began in earnest in 2009 and has been stepped up by the Obama administration.

Abbottabad is home to the Pakistan army’s top military academy and hundreds of officers and soldiers live in what is one of the country’s more secure towns. The fact that bin Laden hid there for so long in plain sight triggered intense international suspicions that the military was sheltering him.

Al-Qaida’s No. 3, Abu Faraj al-Libi, lived in Abbottabad before his arrest in 2005 elsewhere in northwest Pakistan, American and Pakistani officials have said. Five months prior to the bin Laden raid, Indonesian al-Qaida operative Umar Patek was arrested in the town following the arrest of an al-Qaida courier who worked at the post office.

U.S. officials have said Patek’s arrest in Abbottabad was a coincidence.

_____

Brummitt reported from Islamabad. Associated Press reporters Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-22-AS-Pakistan-Slain-Militant/id-08d84636a0c143a0b40dac7e2eeb3ae6

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Divers resume search of capsized ship (AP)

ROME ? Divers are resuming the search of the wreckage of the capsized Costa Concordia after data indicated the cruise ship had stabilized in the sea off Tuscany.

To make it easier to enter and leave, the divers blasted more holes Saturday into the carcass of the ship, which has been lying on its side near the port of Giglio island since shortly after it crashed into a reef Jan. 14

They are searching for bodies or survivors, although it is unlikely any of the 21 missing in the accident could still be alive. The search was suspended on Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the sea. There are also fears the Concordia’s fuel could leak, polluting pristine waters.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Canada looks at alternatives to nixed US pipeline (AP)

TORONTO ? Canada is looking at alternatives for exporting its oil since U.S. President Barack Obama announced he was blocking a pipeline from Alberta to Texas.

A pipeline executive said Thursday that the company was weighing whether to build a segment of the line ? from Oklahoma to Texas ? that wouldn’t require U.S. State Department approval. And government officials said Canada would push harder for a pipeline to the Pacific Coast, where oil could be shipped to China.

At the same time, Canadian officials said, they are hopeful the 1,700-mile (2,740-kilometer) Keystone XL pipeline will be built.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford, the leader of the Canadian province that has the world’s third-largest reserves of oil, said that while Canada is disappointed at Obama’s decision, the government believes Obama has made it clear the U.S. would consider a new Keystone XL pipeline application with a new routing.

Obama called Prime Minister Stephen Harper to explain that the decision on Wednesday was not on the merits of the pipeline but rather on the “arbitrary nature” of a Feb. 21 deadline set by Republican legislators as part of a tax measure he signed, Harper’s office said.

“The fact that the president has said that the decision was not based on the merits we take as a signal that there is an opportunity to make a decision that is in the national interest that allows the project to go ahead,” Redford told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., which proposed the pipeline, said Thursday it was considering building the pipeline in segments, with the first connecting an existing pipeline in Oklahoma to refineries in Texas.

The Obama administration had suggested development of an Oklahoma-to-Texas line to alleviate an oil glut at a Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub.

“If our shippers are interested in building that portion of the pipeline (first), we would look at that,” TransCanada President and CEO Russ Girling told The Associated Press in an interview.

Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL “clearly gives flexibility to do that,” Girling said. He emphasized that the company had made no decisions.

U.S. officials have said that building the pipeline in sections could speed up the process since the U.S. State Department would not be involved if the pipeline does not cross the U.S.-Canada border.

Girling’s remarks were in contrast to a statement TransCanada issued on Wednesday declaring it would reapply for a presidential permit to build the full pipeline. Girling said the company still expects to reapply, but “will take our time for how to refile it.”

He said a new route that avoids environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska should be made public in a matter of weeks

In Washington, the proposed $7 billion pipeline has become a political hot potato.

Republicans ? who earlier put the president in the awkward position of having to make a decision on it before Feb. 21 ? now hope to force Obama to deal with it yet again before next November’s presidential election. He wants to put it off beyond that.

Republicans are looking to drive a wedge between Obama and two key Democratic constituencies. Some labor unions support the pipeline as a job creator, while environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.

The Alberta-to-Texas pipeline proposed by TransCanada would carry 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta across six U.S. states to the Texas Gulf Coast, which has numerous refineries.

Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said it’s clear the process is not yet over and said Canada is hopeful the pipeline will be accepted on its merits.

Redford said Obama’s decision adds urgency to Enbridge’s proposed pipeline to the Pacific Coast of British Columbia that would allow Canadian oil to be shipped to Asia for the first time.

The project is undergoing a regulatory review in Canada.

“Asian markets are a very viable alternative. I say alternative, I probably shouldn’t. It’s not an either or situation. There’s an opportunity here for us to grow our markets in both directions and we’d like to be able to do that,” Redford said.

Canadian officials see the pipeline to the Pacific coast as critical as Canada seeks to diversify its energy customer base beyond the United States, which Canada relies on for 97 percent of its energy exports.

Alberta has more than 170 billion barrels of oil reserves. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more reserves.

Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in Enbridge’s proposed $5.5 billion Northern Gateway Pipeline. Chinese state-owned companies also have invested more than $16 billion in the oil sands in the last two years.

Tens of billions more are expected to be invested in Canada’s oil sands if the Pacific pipeline is built.

There is fierce environmental and aboriginal opposition to the Pacific pipeline, but Harper’s government has called it a nation-building project that is crucial to the country’s goal of becoming an energy super power.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_oil_pipeline

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Five tips to maximize your mobile gaming experience – iPhone app …

With thousands upon thousands of games in the iTunes App Store, there is no lack of great gameplay experiences. This is true whether you are a hardcore gamer or just looking to casually kill some time.

But the gaming experience on your iOS devices can be made a whole lot better with just a few simple tips. Maximizing battery life to keep your games going longer, providing yourself with the right hardware to make games more enjoyable, and taking advantage of all your iOS device has to offer is just a matter of knowing what?s available. Our five tips below will help you get the most out of gaming on your iPhone, iPad or iPad Touch.

1. Maximize your battery life

With a quick trip to your iPhone or iPad?s settings menu, you can make a few adjustments that will allow you to get maximum playtime out of your games in between phone recharges. Open the Settings app and find the option for brightness. There, you can adjust the brightness of your screen to a comfortable level; the lower the brightness, the more life you can get out of a single battery charge. Shutting down apps running in the background by double-clicking your device?s home button is also a good way to make sure you?re getting the most out of your battery. When you?re gaming on a battery budget, it?s best to keep your device from having to deal with any other functions or tasks so it can put all its power and battery life into playing.

2. Go for Wi-Fi

Another good way to save battery on your iPhone is to switch off your phone?s 3G data connectivity when you know you don?t need it. Games that support OpenFeint or Game Center will still function as normal in offline mode ? which means you can still snag achievements and store your scores locally ? without needing to waste battery or your data plan staying connected to the network. You?ll also get a much better experience in online and multiplayer games if you can find a Wi-Fi connection over a 3G one. Wi-Fi is ideal, but if you don?t have access to it and depending on the game, a 3G connection might be better than nothing.

3. Find some quality controls

Touchscreen controls can be a massive pain in some games. While plenty of App Store titles use the iPhone or iPad?s internal hardware like the accelerometer or gyroscope to make for some interesting motion-based controls, there are many more games that are much more traditional. They put virtual buttons on the screen, and those buttons control your characters? movements and abilities, just like any video game. Touchscreen controls are often fickle and tough to play with because of the lack of a tactile response that you would get from a physical button. But there are ways to add physical buttons to your play experience. We saw tons of interesting Bluetooth gamepads that can be added to iPhones at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas this month. As well, other alternatives like the iPad arcade cabinet iCade or the Fling Joystick line for the iPhone and iPadallow you to add real controls to your device. For many gamers, the right controls can mean becoming a better player.

4. Sound matters

Though the built-in speakers on the iPhone and iPad aren?t the greatest, sound design in iOS games can often be very, very good. Titles such as Dark Meadow, Dead Space and N.O.V.A. 2 use sound to make the experience more immersive, the game spookier, and the combat more intense. Some games have console video game-caliber audio design and create a stereo experience that will have you turning left and right in the game to look for the sources of sounds. Just understand that you lose that sense of depth and immersion when you don?t have the right equipment. The ear buds that come with your iPhone or iPad will do in a pinch, but it?s recommended you get ahold of a comfortable, better-quality pair of headphones to really allow games like Groove Coaster or the Tap Tap Revenge titles reach their full potential.

5. Make some friends

Game Center, OpenFeint and other services make it possible for iOS gamers to enjoy the kinds of online communities that make console games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 so popular. You can actually make friends online to game with, and the iOS gaming experience is a lot better for it. A good way to start: Pick your favorite Game Center titles and try to place on their leaderboards. Cruise the boards for players near your rank and shoot them a message and a challenge, because just about every game is a lot more fun when you have a little competition. There are also games that support online cooperative play, titles that let you team up with a buddy and take on other players, and plenty of games in which you can just go straight-up head-to-head with a Wi-Fi or 3G connection. Another handy way to build your friends list is to use games that integrate with Facebook. Words With Friends can get you playing against your Facebook friends on your iPhone, which is a good jumping-off point for other multiplayer games, be they casual or hardcore.

Source: http://www.appolicious.com/games/articles/10828-five-tips-to-maximize-your-mobile-gaming-experience

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