[Cult of Mac]

Firemint and EA Mobile are once again bridging the gap between mobile and home entertainment with the release of the next major Real Racing 2 and Real Racing 2 HD update, just in time for the launch of iOS 5. Version 1.12 delivers full 720p AirPlay support with the brand new Party Play mode, while stepping it up a notch in the visuals department by fully utilizing the power of the A5 processor!

To see these game changing new features, check out our trailer below:

Here’s what the v1.12 update will include:

AirPlay Features

• Real Racing 2 (iPhone 4S) and Real Racing 2 HD (iPad 2) streamed to HD TV over AirPlay
• Completely Wireless- The most liberating and immersive racing experience ever
• Full screen, totally borderless display with stunning upgraded 3D graphics
• Take advantage of dual screens with real-time racing telemetry on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S

Party Play features

• Split screen local multiplayer over AirPlay, known as “Party Play” – for 2 to 4 players
• iPhone 4S or iPad 2 acts as host, all other iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch devices can join

Visual upgrades

• Car interiors feature real-time dynamic shadows and specular lighting
• Normal mapping applied to car interior, some car exteriors and driver arms for improved lighting and detail
• Some cars have been upgraded, with an average 4x increase in polygon count, details such as front grills, door handles and seams are all modeled in
• Improved reflections on all cars
• Enhanced road lighting with normal and specular maps to highlight details that were previously indistinguishable
• Improved building window reflections
• HDR like exposure effects providing dynamic range adjustments when in shadows or looking at the sun.

*features only available on iPhone 4S & iPad 2

Reverse engineering is really cool and has great benefits, for example, TUAW’s very own Erica Sadun, has managed to reverse engineer AirPlay’s playback video so you can play it on your Mac. How so? Well, here’s some info:

What AirPlayer does is create and advertise a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV. Bonjour is Apple’s zero configuration networking solution for allowing devices and applications to communicate with each other over local area networks. When Apple created AirPlay, it basically set up a new way for Apple TV to interact with iOS using Bonjour communications.

For those of you who aren’t into jailbreaking, I have some good news for you, this requires no jailbreak at all, however, if you want to jailbreak and download some custom apps that allows more functionality, that’s up to you. But anyway, if you want to do this neat little hack, here’s how:

[TiPb, AirPlayer]

When the hidden AirPlay APIs and AirPlay enhancements from Cydia were discovered just a few days ago, the party surely started right there and then. Well, a reader over at 9to5Mac managed to stream a live TV show from his iPad to his Apple TV via a modified version of AirPlay. Yes, you read the correctly. Here’s a video.

But wait, that’s not all.

FireCore has announced that they will be bringing a software suite to the Apple TV 2G that includes both a web browser and even a Last.fm application. But just recently, FireCore has released a new walkthrough video that demonstrates HTML 5 video playing functionality on the Apple TV 2G.

To say the least, is this is just the beginning then that has to mean as time progresses and more developers utilize this, it will be amazing what will be possible someday in the future.

[Thanks to 9to5Mac for the videos and information!]

Steve Jobs has spoken again, folks. This time around, it has to do with the Apple TV and Keynote streaming coming to it. TUAW reports that according to a purported e-mail from Steve Jobs the next version of Keynote will include some sort of AirPlay functionality. Users of Keynote ’11 will be able to create a presentation and stream it to a projector or a TV via an Apple TV, along with that, this functionality will apparently also work from an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

The question:

Will the new Apple TV accept keynote presentation via iOS device or a Mac? If it will, I will go buy two at an apple store tonight.

And Steve’s answer:

It’s all coming soon. Stay tuned.

Here’s a screenshot of the e-mail exchange:

My bet is that this new functionality will be released sometime around Christmas or near the beginning of next year, but who knows, only time will tell.