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Joy of Tech are geniuses. Read their cartoons. Laugh. Or just smile knowingly. 'Nuff said!

(Lightning Reviews are back! Back again! And with one of our fav forum members -- cjvitek giving us a look at Brain Challenge ($9.99 at the iTunes Store). Want your Lightning Review elevated to our front page -- with a tasty 25% iMore Store discount prize to top it off? Get the details, choose and App, and make with the reviewing! And if you're looking for a good example for what kind of reviews we like, this is a great one!)

Take it away, cjvitek:

My wife and I just bought a Wii a few months ago. Recently, we just purchased the game Big Brain Academy for it, and we love it. I bought the game Brain Challenge hoping it would be similar to the Big Brain Academy game. And I wasn't disappointed.

Read on for more!

I've become a big fan of snap-together hard cases for my iPhone. I'm sporting a form-fitting hard case with "soft-touch" on my iPhone 3G right now, and my original iPhone is protected by the Griffin Reflect Case available in iMore Store for $24.95. If you still have the iPhone 2G and want an attractive yet functional case, read on for the full review!

Here and TiPb we like to protect our readers from all that is evil. Well today we have a little warning from the Dev Team regarding the fake QuickPwn sites on the internet.

When Steve Jobs uttered the statement that “Now you can make a pretty good argument that the [iPod Touch/iPhone] is the best portable device for playing games on”, did you nod your head in unison? I have my money on you saying no—the iPhone is a great device, to be sure, but a gaming device? Leave that to Nintendo you probably thought.

Why? Because the Nintendo DS has sold close to 80 million units since its inception. The numbers speak for themselves, the Nintendo DS is the king of portable gaming. So what would it take for the iPhone to knock the DS off of its throne? Well, that’s what we are here to tell you.

Read on to see how the iPhone can take on the Nintendo DS!

iTunes 8 is here and 95% of y'all are definitely going to want to get your upgrade on. A few of you might not until the pwnage situation clears up. A few more might want to avoid that Blue Screen of Death thing on Vista, although the good news there is we now have a decent fix (check that link).

Ok, so now what are we getting with iTunes 8? Follow us after the break!

We greeted the arrival of HD TV shows for iTunes with as much joy as we greeted the return of the previously nixed NBC content: with great joy.

Part of our joy was a secret hope that since the iPhone can (technically) handle HD content natively, it meant we might someday be able to play HD video direct from the iPhone -- albeit through a dreamy-future-video-out capability since playing HD on the iPhone's screen seems a little pointless. Sure, HD takes up radically more space, but hey, we like options.

In the wake of new Apple stuff and the 2.1 update, it's time to return our focus to what's REALLY important -- Apps at the App Store! If you're at work, put the "back in 10 minutes" sticky note on your door (if you're at home, you have no excuse) and have a look at this week's App Avalanche 9!

iPhone 2.1 (build 5F136) is an incremental point update to the much larger and more encompassing iPhone 2.0 software release we reviewed back in early July. Light on new functionality, it focuses instead on bug fixes, which given the many problems that accompanied the massive 2.0 rollout, is a Very Good Thing.

Like 2.0, this update is also available for the iPod Touch, but unlike its predecessor, the 2.1 update is FREE (if you already have 2.0 -- if you have 1.x, you'll still have to pony up the $10 premium.)

So, 4 betas, dropped features, somethings new, somethings fixed -- is iPhone 2.x Apple's Vista? Or is it finally the next generation firmware we've all been waiting for? Find out, after the break!

UPDATE: Our ace commenters point out this is something Google has been pushing for a while now, pre-2.1, although it may be slowly moving across the US and hasn't been getting tons of attention everywhere yet. As the effect is likely part of the image downloads, Google can probably push new images any time they like, and not have it bound to any specific point release, so that makes the kind of sense that does. Still, pretty awesome feature!

Original post:

Eagle-eyed reader Gregory just sent this in and as Neo would surely say -- WHOA!