What’s so appealing about 3-D, anyway?

A while back, I saw two landmark 3-D movies in the same six-month time span: Avatar and the revival of Captain EO at Disneyland. The latter, a 1986 Michael Jackson flick, used 3-D in the sort of ham-handed ridiculous way it had always been used: Asteroids flew into the seats. Evil monsters poked their claws and spears into your face. Cue screams and laughter from audience.

For a movie so closely identified with the current 3-D boom, James Cameron’s Avatar never tried any of these tricks. I quickly forgot I was watching a “3-D movie.” The depth, the added se...

The Amazon Appstore is the exclusive source (for now) for Angry Birds Rio, which is a free download on Tuesday only.

Amazon opened the doors Tuesday on its own marketplace for Android apps.

As reported by Wired.com last week, Amazon’s new store, the Amazon Appstore for Android, appears to be a more-carefully curated, selective virtual storefront than the Google’s default Android Market. It features the new Angry Birds Rio game, as well as many other popular Android apps, including Twitter, Fruit Ninja, Shazam, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and others. The Amazon Appstore has 3,800 apps, accordi...