Every Friday we find the best new movie and TV shows new released on the Zune Marketplace and Netflix Instant. This week's Pin Worthy videos are:

The Adjustment Bureau

Genre: Action/Adventure
Director: George Nolfi
Cast: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Terence Stamp, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Michael Kelly, Anthony Ruivivar
Rating: PG-13
Available On: Zune Marketplace for Purchase or Rental

Academy Award® nominee Matt Damon (The Bourne trilogy) stars in this action thriller about a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him – and chooses to fight for his own destiny. Battling the powerful Adjustment Bureau across, under and through the streets of New York, he risks his destined greatness to be with the only woman he's ever loved (Emily Blunt: The Young Victoria, The Devil Wears Prada). Based on a story by the legendary Philip K. Dick (Total Recall, Minority Report and Blade Runner), The Adjustment Bureau is “entertaining and thought-provoking”. — Katey Rich, CINEMABLEND.COM

Image Source: Wikipedia

Cedar Rapids

Genre: Comedy
Director: Miguel Arteta
Cast: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver
Rating: R
Available On: Zune Marketplace for Purchase or Rental

Ed Helms (The Hangover 1 & 2) and John C. Reilly (Step Brothers) lead an all-star cast in the comedy that shows what can happen...when insurance agents go wild! Shy and naive Tim Lippe (Helms) ventures to the “big city” of Cedar Rapids for a convention and ends up crossing paths with the ultimate party animal (Reilly). Before long, Tim is crashing parties, skinny-dipping in the hotel pool and being seduced by a sexy soccer mom. And if Tim can survive the weekend, he might just change his life forever!

Image Source: Wikipedia

Falling Skies

Genre: Sci-Fi
Network: TNT
Rating: TV-14
Available On: Zune Marketplace for Purchase

FALLING SKIES opens in the aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. The few remaining survivors have banded together. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people while engaging in a campaign against the occupying alien force, whose purpose remains a mystery.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Wilfred

Genre: Comedy
Network: FX
Rating: TV-MA
Available On: Zune Marketplace for Purchase

Wilfred is a live-action comedy about Ryan, a young man struggling unsuccessfully to make his way in the world until he forms a unique friendship with Wilfred, his neighbor’s canine pet.

Image Source: Wikipedia

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Every Thursday we find and play some of the more noteworthy games in the Zune Marketplace. This week's Pin Worthy games are:

Orientile

Publisher: Arkady Elterman
Category: Strategy
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

In response to popular demand, Beautiful Mind Games are introducing Orientile — another fun, yet challenging variation of the classic game of Squares.

• Connect dots with lines and make two-square rectangles (tiles), trying to claim more squares than your opponent.
• Test your skills against the computer or challenge a friend.
• Track your performance over time and submit your grades to online leaderboards.
• Start with an empty play field or let the computer make your first moves for you.
• Leave the game unfinished and come back later to complete it.
• Computer cheats? Use the playback feature to see what actually happened.
• Express yourself — choose your players character.

Great simple game — easy to learn and fun to play, but hard to master. Brought to you by the developers of the popular Triangula and Quadrata.

Plants vs Zombies

Publisher: PopCap Games
Category: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: $4.99
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Winner of over 30 Game of the Year awards!

Get ready to soil your plants - Plant vs. Zombies is coming to Windows Phone 7! A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and the only defense is your arsenal of plants. Use peashooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to mulchify 26 types of zombies before they reach your front door. The fun never dies!

Game Features

50 FUN-DEAD LEVELS
Conquer 50 Adventure levels – through day, night and fig, in a swimming pool and on the rooftop.

THINK FAST, PLANT FASTER
Defend your home with 49 powerful perennials as you battle 26 types of fun-loving zombies including pole-vaulters, snorklers and bucket-heads.

4 GAME MODES
Dig into Adventure, 20 Mini-Games, Puzzle mode and the relaxing Zen Garden.

COLLECT IN-GAME ACHIEVEMENTS
Earn 15 in-game achievements to prove your zombie-zapping prowess.

PERUSE THE ALMANAC
Open the Almanac to learn about all the plants and zombies, including amusing “facts” and quotes.

MORE COOL FEATURES
Collect coins to buy a pet snail, special power-ups and more.

Flee

Publisher: Atabow
Category: Board & Classic
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Flee is a dual-player strategy board game in which you must safely bring your pins home. First player to bring all pins home wins the game.
Beware of obstacles i.e. mines and opponent’s pins in path to home. When captured, your pin is sent back to starting point.
Take advantage of chance cells. Landing on them gets you another turn.
The game can be played either with the computer or online with others. Check out the in-game help for instructions and the leaderboards for global ratings.

Update 1.1
Fixed the minor scroll issue in leaderboards
Added in-app rating “Love-It” button
Added invite button to send invitations to friends

Spectrum Sprint

Publisher: Ludibrium
Category: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Spectrum Sprint is an arcade-style game where you try to get the high score by running and jumping as far as you can. Buttons on the left can be used to change the color of the sprinter. The sprinter must be the same color as the platform he is landing to or he will fall trough! Gray platforms are always solid no matter the color of the sprinter.

The game has a global leaderboard where you can compete with others all over the world. Good luck and have fun!

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Every Wednesday we sample new music releases in the Zune Marketplace to feed our ears. This week’s Pin Worthy music is:

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

Genre: Rock
Available On: Zune Marketplace

Album Review

Part of the beauty of Bon Iver’s debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, was the intimate, backwoods feel of the recording and the simplicity of Justin Vernon's soaring, open wound of a voice with only minimal musical backing to distract from its impact. Even though Vernon had a few other people playing on the album, it was easy to imagine a solitary broken soul spilling his guts onto tape for hours at a time while the world went on without him. It’s was a truly aching, somewhat claustrophobic sound that was beautiful and unique. After a couple years in which his life was basically turned upside down thanks to the success of For Emma, Vernon’s second album is quite different. Where For Emma was stripped down and intimate, Bon Iver is packed with guest musicians, horn sections, strings, and extra vocalists. Within the expanded arrangements, there are still moments of tender beauty and restraint to remind you why Bon Iver is worth caring about. The relatively restrained "Wash.," which pits Vernon’s aching vocal orchestra against a jagged, repeating piano line (and only minimal strings and pedal steel), the first two-thirds of "Holocene," the simple and affecting "Michicant" -- these have hints of the grace and understated emotion that made For Emma what it was. ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi

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Every Tuesday we review the Kindle Store to find you the best bets in eBooks. This week’s Pin Worthy eBooks are:

Fallen

Author: Karin Slaughter
Category: Mystery
Price: $12.99
Available On: Amazon Kindle

Product Description

There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother. . . .
 
“You know what we’re here for. Hand it over, and we’ll let her go.”
 
When the hostage situation turns deadly, Faith is left with too many questions, not enough answers. To find her mother, she’ll need the help of her partner, Will Trent, and they’ll both need the help of trauma doctor Sara Linton. But Faith isn’t just a cop anymore—she’s a witness. She’s also a suspect.
 
The thin blue line hides police corruption, bribery, even murder. Faith will have to go up against the people she respects the most in order to find her mother and bring the truth to light—or bury it forever.

Karin Slaughter’s most exhilarating novel yet is a thrilling journey through the heart and soul, where the personal and the criminal collide, and conflicted loyalties threaten to destroy reputations and ruin lives. It is the work of a master of the thriller at the top of her game, and a whirlwind of unrelenting suspense.

The Hypnotist

Author: Lars Kepler
Category: Mystery
Price: $12.99
Available On: Amazon Kindle

Product Description

In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there’s only one surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes.
 
It’s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.
 
An international sensation, The Hypnotist is set to appear in thirty-seven countries, and it has landed at the top of bestseller lists wherever it’s been published—in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark. Now it’s America’s turn. Combining the addictive power of the Stieg Larsson trilogy with the storytelling drive of The Silence of the Lambs, this adrenaline-drenched thriller is spellbinding from its very first page.

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Every Monday we scour the Marketplace to find you our favorite new applications. This week’s Pin Worthy applications are:

Evernote

Publisher: Evernote
Category: Productivity
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Evernote turns your phone into an extension of your brain.

This award-winning app lets you remember and recall anything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put everything into Evernote and watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your phone to the Web to your PC.

OverDrive Media Console eBooks and Audiobooks

Publisher: Evernote
Category: eReader
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Download eBooks and audiobooks from your library directly to your Windows Phone! OverDrive Media Console gives you on-the-go access to eBooks and audiobooks from your public, school, or college library. More than 15,000 libraries worldwide offer best-selling and classic titles via OverDrive, so use the ‘Get Books’ feature in the app to find a library near you.

How do library eBooks and audiobooks work? Digital titles from your library are borrowed just like print material. Once you find your library using ‘Get Books,’ you can browse your library’s digital collection on the web, check out a title with a valid library card, and download the title directly to your Windows Phone. While borrowing the digital title, you can enjoy it using the app’s eBook reader or audiobook player. Each EPUB eBook and MP3 audiobook that you check out has a lending period. The title automatically expires in the app at the end of the lending period, so there’s never a late fee. There’s even a handy countdown clock built into the app so you know how long you have to read or listen before the title expires.

What happens if a digital title is already checked out? Just like with physical material from the library, you can join a waiting list. All you need to do is enter your email address and you’ll receive an alert when the title is available for check out.

Don’t want to wait? Many libraries offer thousands of EPUB eBook downloads that are always available. Just check for the ‘Additional eBooks’ link at the bottom of the digital collection homepage and you can get a free eBook from your library that’s yours to keep—without a lending period.

Want more books? Each library builds a custom digital collection of eBooks and audiobooks specifically for their local community. Contact your library and let them know that you are using OverDrive on your Windows Phone and would like to see additional titles in the digital collection.

Travelnapp

Publisher: Mendzapp
Category: Travel
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Want to enjoy a book, have a nap or immerse yourself in music without the need to worry about missing your stop on the train or bus? Travelnapp lets you relax and enjoy the journey, automatically stopping your music and waking you with an alarm when you are approaching your destination.

Utilising your phone’s GPS capabilities, this application is able to accurately track your journey almost anywhere in the world. The gathered location data is also used to plot your route on an easily accessible map and calculate your estimated time of arrival and average speed. Travelnapp also features a set of failsafes whose aim is to wake you should GPS signal be lost for an extended period of time (for example: in a tunnel) as you near your destination.

- Highly customisable in regards to map styles, distance units and alert distance.
- Eye catching yet simple design and layout.
- Relies on GPS signal so will still track you even in areas with no cell coverage.
- Optimised to avoid draining your battery.
- Works under locked screen.
- Will work at any destination worldwide where access to GPS satellites is available.
- Journey statistics and route plotted.
- Has the ability to automatically stop your music and notify you of destination arrival.

Regular updates coming with exciting new features.

Version 1.1 & 1.2

- Silent mode added with ability to vibrate.
- Bug that appeared when searching for some destinations is now fixed.

Digg7

Publisher: vitormoreira.com
Category: News & Weather
Price: Free
Available On: Windows Phone Marketplace

Digg social news windows phone client.

With digg7 you can browse and vote on the latest news in social news website digg.com.

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Every Friday we find the best new movie and TV shows new released on the Zune Marketplace and Netflix Instant. This week's Pin Worthy videos are:

Hall Pass

Genre: Comedy
Director: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
Cast: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Richard Jenkins, Christina Applegate
Rating: R
Available On: Zune Marketplace for Purchase or Rental

Best buddies Rick and Fred (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) have both been married for a long time. They love their wives, but, like some guys, just can't help checking out every other woman who crosses their paths. Fed up with this habitual rubber-necking, their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) take a bold approach to revitalize their marriages by granting their husbands a "hall pass": one week of freedom to do whatever they want, no questions asked. Seven days to see exactly what it is out there they think they're missing...or stop looking once and for all. At first, it sounds like a dream come true for Rick and Fred. But they quickly discover that their expectations of the single life—and themselves—are completely and hilariously out of sync with reality.

Desert Son

Genre: Thriller
Director: James Mann, Brandon Nicholas
Cast: John Bain, Erica Hoag, Nathan Halliday, Bill Oberst Jr., Chauna Wertlow, Elvis Winterbottom
Rating: NR
Available On: Netflix Instant

In this atmospheric thriller, naive teenager Phillip is rescued by volatile runaways Jack and Lucy after being abandoned in the desert, but a tragic crime and desperate paranoia overwhelm their attempts to create an insular family unit.

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Every Thursday we find and play some of the more noteworthy games in the Zune Marketplace. This week's Pin Worthy games are:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4
Episode I

Publisher: SEGA
Category: Action & Adventure
Price: $6.99
Available On: Zune Marketplace

The sequel fans have waited 16 years for is finally here – SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode I! Featuring enhanced gameplay elements, including the classic Sonic Spin Dash, and the versatile Homing Attack, Sonic 4 picks up right where Sonic and Knuckles left off. Dr. Eggman's back, and in an effort to finally rid himself of Sonic, he revisits and improves the very best of his creations. Get ready for the next chapter in an all new epic 2D saga built for old and new fans alike.

Sketchy Blocks

Publisher: Plunge Interactive
Category: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: $0.99
Available On: Zune Marketplace

Enjoy a game mode that completely resembles the classic, but this time you control the pieces using the touch screen, and with a different concept art.

The music is incredible, it is a tribute to Russia, where this great game was born. The songs are real pieces of Russian folkore, composed and performed by Mikhail Smirnov and Barynya, plus special bonus music you can listen to after finishing the 35 levels of this game.

You can also compete in a global ranking where you can upload your score versus other players.

Sketchy evidence and Blocks! With this game you have insured for hours of fun and entertainment.

Available in 6 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Catalan.

InterSceptre

Publisher: Leda Entertainment
Category: Board & Classic
Price: $1.29
Available On: Zune Marketplace

Relive the heyday of the video arcade with InterSceptre’s combination of Breakout and Pong!

InterSceptre takes two classic arcade games and combines them with a new twist: you must defend the wall of blocks behind you while attempting to break through that of your computerised opponent in a multi-round match. Each time you win, your wall loses a line of bricks – can you overcome the odds and win with only a one-line wall?

- Fully configurable options allow you to tailor how difficult your matches are
- Use black and white holes to shoot round corners and wrong-foot your opponent

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Every Tuesday we review the Kindle Store to find you the best bets in eBooks. This week’s Pin Worthy eBooks are:

Go the F**k to Sleep

Author: Adam Mansbach, Ricardo Cortes
Category: Humor
Price: $4.79
Available On: Amazon Kindle

Product Description

Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, it captures the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the F**k to Sleep is a book for parents new, old, and expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.

Before I Go To Sleep

Author: S. J. Watson
Category: Thriller
Price: $12.99
Available On: Amazon Kindle

Review

Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves? Suspenseful from start to finish, the strength of Watson's writing allows Before I Go to Sleep to transcend the basic premise and present profound questions about memory and identity. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years, Before I Go to Sleep deserves to be one of the major blockbusters of the summer. --Miriam Landis

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Every Monday we scour the Marketplace to find you our favorite new applications. This week’s Pin Worthy applications are:

Pigeon

Publisher: MollyMollyMolly ware
Category: Out & About
Price: Free
Available On: Zune Marketplace

You're never more than 1-click from the website of the business you are in. no more searching – Pigeon magically knows where you are.

Sitting in a restaurant and wondering what the reviews are like or if any of your friends have been here?

At a club and want to see the concert lineup there for the next week?

Shopping and want to see if they have your size online?

Just walked past a cool and mysterious looking pub and curious to know who hangs there?

Turn to Pigeon in all of these cases and in 1 click you'll be on the businesses' Website, Bing Page or Facebook page.

Your friend Penelope Pigeon always knows what's near you. Pigeon shows you a list of popular businesses and places nearby; first on the list will magically be whatever business Penelope thinks you are in. For each business you can click to get to its web page, Bing page or Facebook page.

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This is the first in a series of posts this summer where I will cover the options available to TiVo owners from their Windows Phone.

The Slingbox is simply a device you connect to your TV or DVR that lets you control and stream the video output to your phone from any internet connection in the world.

Out of all the options for getting TiVo video to your phone, this one is the easiest. I plan to cover the rest in future posts.

The Slingbox experience on the phone is not provided through streaming video on your browser, there is an application designed by SlingMedia, the company that makes Slingbox, available in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Getting this setup is very easy.  It will take about 15 minutes to unpack the box and follow the simple instructions to connect it to your TV and another 5 minutes to download and setup the app.  There is no need for any router or firewall configuration.

If you are going to use your TiVo as the hub of your video entertainment, the Slingbox may be your best option.  You can extend your TiVo with an additional external drive, giving you lots of extra storage.  Using DVD ripping software and either TiVo Desktop or pyTivo, which we will cover in a future post, you can even copy your DVDs and Blu-ray over to the TiVo.  The latest TiVo Premiere includes Hulu Plus which which fills the gap on your phone until an official app arrives.

Slingbox is also the only way you are going to get live TV from your TiVo onto your phone.

There are a couple of big downsides though.

First, a Slingbox is not cheap.  The Pro-HD is $300 and the Solo is $180.  The big difference between the two is HD streaming output.  Now you might not think this makes a big difference for the phone, but if you also want to watch from an iPad or your laptop, you are going to want the HD model.  If you’re going to spend this kind of money, go HD.  Try to find a used one if you have to. I would recommend skipping the Solo. However, you’re not done spending money yet.  The Windows Phone application will cost you an additional $30. You can double that amount if you also want the iPad app.

Second, you must have an internet connection from your phone.  That might not be too big of a deal if you are usually in a Wi-Fi spot, or you have an unlimited data plan from your phone carrier, but the all you can eat plans are getting harder to come by.  The Slingbox does a good job adjusting to the available bandwidth, but there is only so much it can do.

There is one other downside that may not be as important.  The SlingCatcher is no longer available.  This additional device would stream the Slingbox to another TV.  So now you will either need an additional TiVo, or connect a PC to the TV in another room to watch it there.  In the upcoming articles I will cover some ways of getting the video off your TiVo to make it more portable.

Summary

The Slingbox is the easiest solution to get your TiVo video anywhere in the world, including your Windows Phone.

Pros: Easy to setup, access to live TV, also easily available on the iPad and PC.

Cons: Expensive, not easy to get on to an additional TV.

SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Phone

SlingBox Pro-HD

Image Sources: Slingbox

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