Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Gaming news - Vest Makes Virtual Fights Real...

Next time your character gets shot while playing Call of Duty it could hurt for real. A tactile gaming vest created at the University of Pennsylvania can make wearers feel a punch or a gunfire hit in sync with what’s happening on screen.

Ouch!

“The idea is to develop a haptic interface for first person shooting games,” says Saurabh Palan, a graduate student at the university who is working on the project, on his website. “The feeling of bullet hit, body impact and vibration or a shoulder tap will enhance the gaming experience and fun.”

It’s not all play with the vest. It can be modified for real time simulation and training by the military, says Palan.

The vest uses four solenoid actuators in the chest and shoulders in front, and two solenoids in the back, explains IEEE Spectrum. Vibrating motors clustered against the shoulder blades simulate a reaction similar to getting stabbed. All the components are controlled and linked to the game such that the appropriate solenoid “fires” depending on where the character in the video game is getting hit.

IEEE Spectrum says the entire experience is “closer to a paintball excursion, but it doesn’t hurt as much.” Still the gaming vest sounds pretty masochistic to me. But for those who crave greater realism in their video games, this could be a good way to feel the pain without the bruises.

source article... or maybe here...

And there's more... check out http://tngames.com/ for an older version of the vest (circa 2008)

And here's a slightly lame and obvious video review of TNG Game's Vest... I can't say that it sounds any good really.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

RiP: A remix manifesto

Created over a period of six years, the documentary film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to the Open Source Cinema website, helping to create the "world's first open source documentary" as Gaylor put it. Let web activist Brett Gaylor and musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, serve as your digital tour guides on a probing investigation into how culture builds upon culture in the information age.But are his practices legal? Do his methods of frenetic appropriation embrace collaboration in its purest sense? Or are they infractions of creative integrity and violations of copyright?

Watch the trailer below...



or the full film is found here.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Spike Jonze's Robot Love Story "I'm Here" Hits the Web

If you’ve got 30 minutes and the ability to get through the rest of your work day essentially wrecked by heart-rending meet-cute robot romance, then consider hightailing it over to the Web site now hosting Spike Jonze’s short film I’m Here. And I do mean “hightail,” because from the looks of it, the movie is a limited-edition-viewing situation closely monitored by Jonze’s patrons at Absolut Vodka.

Movieline had a look at the I’m Here’s premiere as one of Sundance 2010’s opening-night selections, where Jonze spoke about designing the awkward machines at the center of the film. And it’s a lovely (if disturbing) little slice of robot life: “I’m Here may not have made it out of this twee purgatory alive were it not for the extraordinary presence of these characters — their animated eyes as suggestive as anything in Avatar, their bodies with the loose, limber spirit that accompanies new love,” was the take at the time, and two months hasn’t diminished that.

But the catch here appears to be a kind of special (i.e. gimmicky) engagement hosted by Absolut. The movie’s Web site passes visitors beneath a marquee advertising the film, then to a ticket counter staffed by some mutant usher with a camera lens (I think) for a head. Then a computer monitor on the counter alerts you to “seats remaining.” As of this writing, it was 301. Who knows what happens when that number drops to zero, but don’t bother waiting to find out if you’ve been wanting to get a look at the movie since its debut. It’s a half-hour well spent, and anyway, it’s Friday. Treat yourself. Tell your boss we said it’s OK.

Full article...

And interestingly there's an intergrated Facebook plugin that lets you watch it with your friends at the same time, very similar to the Xbox Live Zune Films app. Have a look, it's really cute...

Tech News: Google Reported to be Leaving China

We've all heard the drama over the past few years with the Chinese Government trying to control the internet access to it's approx 1.5 billion people. Now it seems that Google has decided to stop chasing the dragon. This is big news for the internets so here's a compilation of a few articles for extended info...

Google in China: A timeline

Google's Blog: A new Approch to China 12/01/2010


Google may quit China over cyber-attacks

Google to announce China exit tonight after negotiations with Government fail

Google 99.9 percent certain we're leaving...


So now my question is what will happen next? if Google Leaves who will fill in the void that's left? Bing? A Chinese Government supported search engine?

Tech News - Chatroulette Is 89% Male, 47% American, And 13% Perverts

This is a guest post by Robert J. Moore, the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, an on-demand database analytics and business intelligence startup. His last guest post was an analysis of Twitter user data.

It’s no surprise that Chatroulette is the latest media darling. It has all the elements of a good story: technology, mystery, celebrity, and sex. If you haven’t heard of Chatroulette, this Daily Show segment is a good primer.



We were itching to study Chatroulette in a RJMetrics Dashboard, but no one seemed to have any good data for us to explore. So, we decided compile the data ourselves by leveraging Chatroulette Map, some scrappy programming, and a passionate tech community. We soon had detailed data on 2,883 Chatroulette sessions that tied users to geography, gender, appearance, and more.

Here are a few highlights from our findings:

* About half of all Chatroulette spins connects you with someone from the USA. The next most likely country is France at 15%.
* Of the spins showing a single person, 89% were male and 11% were female.
* You are more likely to encounter a webcam featuring no person at all than one featuring a solo female.
* 8% of spins showed multiple people behind the camera. 1 in 3 females appear as part of such a group. That number is 1 in 12 for males.
* 1 in 8 spins yield something R-rated (or worse)
* You are twice as likely to encounter a sign requesting female nudity than you are to encounter actual female nudity

full article...


or have a look at the Chatroulette Map

Funny Video - Ben Folds does Chatroulette

Thank god something other than dick is on this site...





Folds Does Merton live before an audience at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 20th, 2010.

Game News - Here Comes Reason: Michael Atkinson resigns from front bench !!

R18+ video games are a step closer to being allowed in Australia following the resignation of South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Mr Atkinson's decision to leave the front bench means he will no longer be in a position to vote on changes to the country's classification system, including the introduction of an R18+ rating for games.

The decision came after voters gave the Rann Government a kicking in last weekend's state election. Mr Atkinson won his seat of Croydon comfortably but still suffered a 14.3 per cent swing against him, according to ABC reports.

Mr Atkinson said he was stepping down so there could be "renewal" in the Government's leadership and so he could spend more time with his family, including his son Johnno.

"He was supposed to play his first game last night at 7pm and like so many times in my time in Parliament I wasn't there," Mr Atkinson said yesterday.

"I am pretty disappointed about that.

"So I resolved that every time Johnno walks on the pitch this year his dad is going to be there even if it embarrasses the hell out of him."

Mr Atkinson has been Australia's most vocal opponent of introducing an R18+ rating for games and earlier this year claimed his family was more at risk from angry gamers than bikie gangs.

Gamers4Croydon candidate and R18+ games campaigner Kat Nicholson, who ran against Mr Atkinson, secured 3.7 per cent of the votes, ABC said.

Changes to Australia's classification system require the approval of all state and federal attorneys-general. Their next meeting is in late April.

Earlier this year the Federal Government asked for public input on the issue and received around 60,000 submissions.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Conner said the response was "staggering". A report is being prepared for the attorneys-general meeting.

Mr Atkinson, who was first elected to Parliament in 1989, said he would stay in his seat until the next state election in 2014.

link to article...

Friday, March 19, 2010

Gaming News - PS3 PlayStation Move ad pulls no motion-controlled punches against Wii & Project Natal

Miaow Miaow - A new menace on the streets?

I've noticed in the various news broadcasts I peruse that there is mention of a new drug called "Miaow Miaow". The strange name, ecstasy type effects and the fact that it's still legal in most places around the world set it up for a big entrance on the worlds drug scene. So what is it? Where does it come from? How does it make you feel? Thanks to New Scientist we have a rundown...

Briefing: Should miaow-miaow be banned?

The "legal high" mephedrone – also known as M-Cat, plant food, and miaow miaow – is getting a lot of attention because a series of deaths have been linked to the drug. Most recently, two teenaged men in the UK died after taking it on Sunday night, although the results of medical tests to determine the causes of their deaths will not be known for several weeks.

It has become the fourth most popular drug in the UK behind cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine over the past year. The British government's official drug advisers are expected to recommend that it be banned, but some drugs policy experts say criminalisation could do more harm than good. Now New Scientist cuts through the hype.

What is mephedrone?

The leaves of the khat plant, Catha edulis, are chewed for the stimulant, amphetamine-like properties of its active ingredients cathinone and cathine, mostly in east Africa and in migrant groups elsewhere. Mephedrone – more properly 4-methylmethcathinone – is the best known of a family of synthetic or substituted cathinones. It is commonly sold as a white powder or in capsules and is usually snorted or swallowed.

Where does it come from?

The vast majority is produced by Chinese chemical companies, which sell it for around £4,000 a kilogram, mostly to European dealers who sell it online for £10 to £15 per gram or less for larger quantities.

What are its effects?

There has been very little peer-reviewed research. Users who have posted their experiences online or taken part in surveys describe the effects as similar to those of taking amphetamine or ecstasy. They include euphoria, increased energy levels, alertness, sociability, jaw grinding, blurred and twitchy vision, pupil dilation, excessive perspiration and increased heart rate and sex drive. Some users have reported re-dosing compulsively. Even less is known about the effects of combining mephedrone with alcohol and/or other drugs.

Can it kill you?

Yesterday, it was confirmed that mephedrone poisoning killed John Sterling Smith, a 46-year-old man who died in the UK last month. His death is considered to be the first in the world that can definitely be blamed on mephedrone: several other suspected cases in the UK and elsewhere have turned out not to have been caused by mephedrone – or are still unconfirmed.

Gabrielle Price, 14, from Worthing in the UK, died in November after taking the drug at a party. Journalists are still saying her death was linked to the drug despite the publication of a medical tests showing she died of a "cardiac arrest following broncho-pneumonia which resulted from streptococcal A infection". Other reports of fatalities have turned out to be similarly unfounded.

Fiona Measham at Lancaster University, UK, a member of the committee that is advising the British government on whether to ban cathinones, says deaths caused by the drug are "inevitable" if it triggers heart palpitations, as reported, and because of the similarities of side effects to other stimulants that can be fatal.

Where is it used?

Significant use has been reported in Sweden, Finland, Israel, the UK, Ireland and Australia. Discussions about it first appeared on internet forums in 2007, and French police identified it in a pill in May that year. It has been banned in Israel, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Germany.

What about in the US?

Hardly any use of mephedrone has been reported in the US, but under the US Controlled Substances Act, its chemical similarity to MDMA mean that it is considered to be a banned substance.

Should it be banned elsewhere?

A tricky one. Young people may be encouraged to take mephedrone because it is legal. On the other hand, making it illegal would hand the trade to organised crime, drive users to crime to pay the higher prices that would result, turn others back to existing illegal drugs and create a market for the next generation of legal highs.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Game News Promises for Teabagging Support in Halo: Reach

This is great, and a bit funny too. Good to see they they are looking at the big picture about why users love the Halo games....


And your humiliated foes will have to watch it.

March 8, 2010 - File this one under "Only interesting because it is Halo." In its latest update, the folks over at Bungie.net have revealed that in its current Alpha state, Halo: Reach does not support everybody's favorite way of humiliating their downed opponents in Halo: teabagging. Don't worry. It's been filed as a bug and will be fixed for the upcoming Beta this May.

I'm not making this up.

In the current build of Halo: Reach, when a player dies the game immediately brings the camera back to the respawn location. This prevents the downed player from seeing any potential teabagging that the victorious foe may or may not engage in. Here's the full text of the submitted bug as published by Bungie:

"Title: Teabagging / humiliation moves impossible

Type: Bug

Opened: 3/4/2010 8:53:13 AM

The respawn camera flies back to the spawn location immediately after dying, so your opponents can't teabag / shoot / melee your body and have a possibility of you seeing it."

Game Video - Perfect Dark N64 v XBL

Interesting comparison between the graphics of Perfect Dark Classic (N64) and Perfect Dark Xbox styling. Ooo.. our eye's use to be punished.

Movie Video - OooOoo... Preditor Reboot Trailer

Thank you Robert Rodriguez... this actually looks kinda good.

Video - WTF?? Strange Animated Dog/Geek Avatar Video?

Why Hello GregMutt you're quite creepy now arn't you...

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Mattel's "Mindflex" Hack

So you may or may not have heard of Mattel's latest and greatest toy the "Mindflex", the toy that lets you move a ball with the power of your mind... well here's a video if you have no idea what I'm talking about.



It may be telekinesis, it may be a mere illusion of control but the really cool thing is that there have been a couple of hacks released for this toy. I personally enjoy the one where the toy brainwave reader is rigged to electrocute people if their brainwave frequency got too high (by concentrating) which is the entire point of the game! Pretty funny...



Thanks Harcos labs you guys are messed up...

Tech News - Human arm transmits broadband

First we sent data through wires, then the air, now the human body is becoming a communications conduit.

Researchers at Korea University in Seoul have transmitted data at a rate of 10 megabits per second through a person's arm, between two electrodes placed on their skin 30 centimetres apart.

The thin, flexible electrodes use significantly less energy than a wireless link like Bluetooth. That's because low-frequency electromagnetic waves pass through skin with little attenuation, a route that also shelters them from outside interference.

Rather than wiring people directly to the internet, the team see health benefits for their technology.

It is difficult to monitor vital signs, such as blood sugar and electrical activity of the heart, in a person going about their everyday lives because it means either covering them in snaking wires connected to a recording device, or using wireless transmission.

"If we use wireless for each of these vital signs we would need many batteries," says study co-author Sang-Hoon Lee of Korea University in Seoul. A network transmitting through the skin would cut energy needs by roughly 90 per cent, he says.

Full Article...

Thursday, March 11, 2010

TV News - Mad Men Barbie's coming out

Mad Men,” the television series about advertising in the 1960s, has attained a level of popular-culture cachet. There have been magazine cover articles, calendars and an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” all devoted to it, spoofs on “The Simpsons” and “Saturday Night Live,” and even a “Mad Men” category on “Jeopardy.” Soon, the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters.

The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.

Full article...

Zero Punctuation: Aliens vs Predator

Friday, March 5, 2010

Movie News - Toy Story 3 New Characters

We have Toy Story 1 & 2 coming out in 3D this year along with a new addition to Pixars behemoth franchise. Toy Story 3 (released 24 June 2010) sets to be a new favorite for the kiddies. So what new characters are we all going to have to go out and buy this Christmas? Let's have a look...

Zero Punctuation: BioShock 2

Thursday, March 4, 2010

A measure for the multiverse

WHEN cosmologist George Ellis turned 70 last year, his friends held a party to celebrate. There were speeches and drinks and canapés aplenty to honour the theorist from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, who is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on general relativity. But there the similarity to most parties ends.

For a start, Ellis's celebration at the University of Oxford lasted for three days and the guest list was made up entirely of physicists, astronomers and philosophers of science. They had gathered to debate what Ellis considers the most dangerous idea in science: the suggestion that our universe is but a tiny part of an unimaginably large and diverse multiverse.

To the dismay of Ellis and many of his colleagues, the multiverse has developed rapidly from a being merely a speculative idea to a theory verging on respectability. There are good reasons why. Several strands of theoretical physics - quantum mechanics, string theory and cosmic inflation - seem to converge on the idea that our universe is only one among an infinite and ever-growing assemblage of disconnected bubble universes.

What's more, the multiverse offers a plausible answer to what has become an infuriatingly slippery question: why does the quantity of dark energy in the universe have the extraordinarily unlikely value that it does? No theory of our universe has been able to explain it. But if there are countless universes out there beyond our cosmic horizon, each with its own value for the quantity of dark energy it contains, the value we observe becomes not just probable but inevitable.

Despite the many virtues of the multiverse, Ellis is far from alone in finding it a dangerous idea. The main cause for alarm is the fact that it postulates the existence of a multitude of unobservable universes, making the whole idea untestable. If something as fundamental as this is untestable, says Ellis, the foundations of science itself are undermined.

read the full article...

Game News - On No, Infinity Ward devs fired for 'insubordination,' lawsuits 'expected'

Not to mention that the upcoming DLC for Modern Warfare 2 is now in jeopardy. Damnit!

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot

[UPDATE] SEC filing reveals Activision is dismissing two "senior employees" of Modern Warfare 2 studio for "breaches of contract"; Jason West, Vince Zampella confirm sudden simultaneous departure.

In 2008, anyone who would've said Activision would be culling the studios behind the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises would've been laughed off as a lunatic. However, last month Neversoft's staff was drastically trimmed as part of a large wave of layoffs and the Guitar Hero IP handed over to Vicarious Visions. RedOctane, which Activision bought for $100 million in 2006 so it could own the Guitar Hero brand, is apparently also being prepped for all-but-complete closure.

Having just finished developing the $1 billion dollar-grossing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward was considered safe--untouchable, even. However, Monday afternoon, Activision amended its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission to include a notice that two top members of the studio are being fired.

The filing read, "The Company [Activision] is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation. At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company." (Emphasis added.) Activision bought Infinity Ward outright in 2003.

Though it offers no names, the SEC filing appears to coincide with the sudden departure of Infinity Ward president, game director, co-CCO, and CTO Jason West. The veteran developer LinkedIn profile lists the studio under "past employers" and his end date as occurring in "March 2010." West helped cofound the studio in 2001.

West's departure was backed up by an unconfirmed screenshot of his Facebook page (sent to gaming blog Kotaku) that lists his status as "Jason West is drinking. Also, no longer employed."

Deepening the mystery is an as-yet unverified G4 report that paints a sinister picture of the day's events at Infinity Ward. Citing an unnamed source, it claims several weeks of "tense" interaction between Infinity Ward and Activision culminated in a meeting this morning between several studio heads and some publisher brass. Those heads included West and cofounder and Infinity Ward CEO Vince Zampella.

After said meeting, the Infinity Ward heads reportedly vanished--and a group of gruff "bouncer types" suddenly appeared on Infinity Ward's campus outside Encino, Calif. The source allegedly said the men refused to say why they had shown up unannounced, leaving the developers "freaked out."

Read the rest of the article...

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Game Video - Just Cause 2

Here's a nifty little video that lets you choose your own adventure, well... kinda. It's a good looking GTA style game that's coming out April 1, 2010.

Never Forget!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Tech News - Turn your arm into a touchscreen

Finding the keypad on your cellphone or music player a bit cramped? Maybe your forearm could be more accommodating. It could become part of a skin-based interface that effectively turns your body into a touchscreen.

Called Skinput, the system is a marriage of two technologies: the ability to detect the ultralow-frequency sound produced by tapping the skin with a finger, and the microchip-sized "pico" projectors now found in some cellphones.

The system beams a keyboard or menu onto the user's forearm and hand from a projector housed in an armband. An acoustic detector, also in the armband, then calculates which part of the display you want to activate.

But how does the system know which icon, button or finger you tapped? Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, working with Dan Morris and Desney Tan at Microsoft's research lab in Redmond, Washington, exploit the way our skin, musculature and skeleton combine to make distinctive sounds when we tap on different parts of the arm, palm, fingers and thumb (see video).

Read full article...

See full PDF from the inventors "Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface"

Video - Die Antwoord - Zef Side (Official)

It seems like it's funny MC week on Tapemonkey... so here's another one.

Tech News - Innovation: Who wants ultra-fast broadband?

Google recently announced it will attempt to provide a select group of US communities with internet access at an unprecedentedly high rate of 1 gigabit per second – between 100 and 1000 times greater than what's available in most countries. It's 10 times faster than homes receive in the online gaming haven of South Korea – where they plan to have gigabit delivery in 2012.

But although the Googlers are sure that such a speed boost is A Good Thing, even product managers Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly admit they don't know what people will do with such capacity.

What suggestions they do have are a little uninspiring. Would users, they ask, stream 3D medical scans to distant doctors for second opinions? Or watch lectures in 3D while simultaneously collaborating with classmates? Meh. Doesn't sound much fun.

Higher than hi-def

Technology market research firm In-Stat – based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and owned by the same parent company as New Scientist – has some better clues in its latest report. That 3D TV is on the way is already clear, it says, but TV makers, public broadcasters such as Japan's NHK and Britain's BBC, plus some of the movie studios, are already thinking about ultra-high-definition TV (Ultra-HD). Standards bodies like the International Telecommunications Union and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers are on the case, too.

Offering pictures with a resolution of 4000 lines compared with HD's roughly 1000-line images, the Ultra-HD format currently requires bandwidths of around 45 megabits per second to broadcast 2D images.

With TV on demand evidently here to stay, and 3D and gaming variants of Ultra-HD plausible too, it isn't hard to see how future gigabit fibre networks could be rapidly eaten up. Just like software always expands to fill the memory available, apps that eat gigabits will doubtless appear. full article...

Zero Punctuation: Dante's Inferno

Monday, March 1, 2010

Video - Christiaan VanVauuren AKA Bored dude in Hospital.

So it seems that this guy Christiaan (or FullySickRapper) from Sydney has gotten struck with teh TB has been stuck in Quarantine for around 55 days. 55 days stick in one room. It's funny what the mind does when it's deprived of attention.



His Tweets are kinda interesting too, for Tweets that is. Poor dude, he's seriously bored... he lists the social sites he's recently signed up for.

"Alright... More online thingy's..... I think I've ticked them all off.... Facebook (yep), Myspace (yep), Youtube (yep), and Twitter:"


Good on you FullySickRapper... get well soon and keep up the internets.