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Latest Gear Live Videos
Do-It-Yourself M&Ms
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Misc. Tech, Video Games,
If you have seen the latest commercials featuring humans disguised as M&Ms, then you will be thrilled to know that Mars concocted a website where you can create one that looks like you or even better, someone you know. You can also put your character in a mini-movie or play games on the site’s arcade. We managed to create one of our illustrious leader for all the world to see, plopped him into a postcard and mailed it out. While this decrepit computer cannot turn it into a viable graphic, we thought we would at least offer you the link to see it. Andru, you are our muse.
Read More 
| Mars
Gallery: Do-It-Yourself M&Ms
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Interactive Games Take Over Bus Stops
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Smartphones, GPS, Handhelds, Internet, Music, Video Games, Wireless / WiFi,
London bus stops now sport interactive touchscreen ads designed to promote their Nokia N95 cell phone. You tap a jean pocket and when it is uncovered, try to find its match. With a 5 megapixel display, the N95 has advanced browsing, e-mail, GPS, DVD quality graphics, Carl Zeiss optics, and music download capabilities. It comes with a $749.00 price tag, making it understandable why they are doing some heavy promotional tricks. Let’s just hope that playing around with the display will not get so addicting as to make the Londoners miss their buses.
Read More | Nokia via Trendhunter
Gallery: Interactive Games Take Over Bus Stops
eScavengers has been in beta Test less than a month and already claims nearly 1500 members. The premise here is that you, as a consumer, read about the site’s partners and fill in clues. The only catch is that you are required to give those sponsors a minimal amount of information, such as your e-mail addy. Do it faster than anyone else and you win a prize.
We tried a couple of the sample games and, being the pseudo geeks that some of us are, kept getting penalized points for
not paying attention. We finally got the hang of it though, and although it might lower our odds, we are game enough to share the wealth. Membership is free and if you don’t win a hunt, you still amass Doubloons that you can trade for merchandise. Arrr-bee-garr, mateys!
Read More | Escavengers
Gallery: eScavengers Combines Gaming With Hype
Former Smithsonian Official Says Exhibition Soft Soaped
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Editorial, Internet, Science,
A former official at The Smithsonian claims that the Institution has toned down a climate change exhibition of the Arctic so that they will not irritate the Bush administration and Congress. Robert Sullivan, a former associate director of the Natural History Museum, claims that the script of “Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely,” has been rewritten to interject more uncertainty of the effect that global warming may have on humans.
Also included in the alteration were scientists’ interpretations of some research and graphs that now “show that global warming could go either way,” Sullivan said. Although the exhibition closed in November, you can still see it online. We had a bit of a problem in trying to navigate to the site in question, but managed to find a last line of a report that may back up Mr. Sullivan’s statement.
“The climate system represents a complex network of linked processes that help to both moderate and accelerate large-scale change, so it is difficult to predict the effect on living systems and particularly the rates of change that may occur over the near future.”
Current officials at the Smithsonian deny Sullivan’s allegations.
Read More | ABC News
Gallery: Former Smithsonian Official Says Exhibition Soft Soaped
A new term has been added to Internet maladies, Cyberchondria. Ninety percent of those who are already hypochondriacs one-up their malady when they gain Internet access, according to Dr. Brian Fallon of Columbia University. He says that these users sometimes become obsessive compulsive.
“Cyberchondria can be a terrible, devastating disease in the sense that the individual focuses on nothing other than checking their symptoms on the Internet and it destroys their lives,” he said.
We see his point. We checked out some symptoms of our own and it scared us to the point that we may never hit Web MD again.
Read More | ABC
Gallery: Cyberchondriacs Invade the Internet
Virginia Tech Game Not Amusing
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Editorial, Internet, Video Games,
We were horrified to learn that an Australian man has already created an online computer game based on the Virginia Tech Massacre. In V-Tech Rampage, the player controls Cho-Seung-hui. The game includes background sounds of shots and screaming. We were even more surprised that he was able to place and keep it on the Internet.
Its creator, unemployed Ryan Lambourn said he would remove it from each of two sites that it is on if offered $1000.00, and that “I’ve done offensive things before but they’re not usually this popular. No one listens to you unless you’ve got something sensational to do. And that’s why I feel sympathy for Cho Seung-Hui. He had to go that far.”
Lambourn also says that he was bullied and abused when he was a child and identifies with the killer. Isn’t this exactly the kind of behavior that should immediately trigger a bell somewhere that the game’s inventor may be the next to go postal? Although Gear Live learned this afternoon that one of the sites banned the wretched game, we suggest you not only not download the game, but that you contact NewGrounds as we did and ask them to remove it or, if you know Lambourn, get in touch with his mother, so that she can get him some much-needed mental health assistance.
Read More | Newgrounds
Gallery: Virginia Tech Game Not Amusing
An Update About One Laptop
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Internet, PC / Laptop, Wireless / WiFi,
In a report last night on 60 Minutes by Lesley Stahl, we saw first hand the reaction that children in Cambodia get when receiving their One Laptop Per Child. MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte says that the ~$160.00 “school in a box” is water, dirt, and sandproof, and can be viewed outside in bright light. Children can be taught to draw on it, compose music, and research in as little as ten minutes, even by another child. Run by wifi, it comes with a recharging crank when the 10 to 12 hour batteries run down.
Negroponte is hoping that some countries will commit to the OLPC by installing the required satellite dishes, but fears that Intel’s Classmate, among other companies’ products, may be enough competition that he will fall short of his 1 billion distribution goal. He says that in Pakistan and Nigeria alone, about 50% of children are not in school and could benefit most from the program. When asked if kids in the U.S. would have access to the laptops, he replied that they certainly could if the parents purchased one for them and one for a child overseas. We think it’s still a pretty nifty deal.
Read More | CBS
Gallery: An Update About One Laptop
One of the three forms of Japanese writing is known as Hiragana, which is about 70% in use in that country. There is a brand new site that can take your English name and translate it to the artistic language to impress your Japanese friends, or even those in English speaking countries. Because the site is barely up, there aren’t many names posted as yet. If your name isn’t among them, you can at least learn about the history of Hiragana. Then maybe you can impress your American friends with one of the other names, since the odds are probably against them being able to read Japanese.
Read More | Name Exchange via <3 yen
Gallery: Site Turns English Names Into Japanese
Survey Says Software Piracy Decreasing
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Software,
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has released data from a study that says software piracy is dropping worldwide in 62 out of 102 countries surveyed, although not by much. The company found in this fourth annual report that losses have decreased by 15%, which translates into $40 billion worldwide.
At first glance, this may appear to be good news, but the BSA says that in 2006, 35% of software installed wasn’t purchased legally. This means that for every $2.00 spent legally, another $1.00 buys pirated software.
The lowest piracy rates are found in Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden (26%,) Japan and Denmark (25%,) New Zealand (22%,) and the U.S. (21%.) At the top of the list are Armenia with a 95% piracy rate, Moldova and Azerbaijan (94%,) and Zimbabwe (91%.) We figure this study must have been quite extensive because until today, we didn’t even realize that there was a country named Azerbaijan.
Read More | Computerworld
Gallery: Survey Says Software Piracy Decreasing
Sudoko-Ball Online in Beta Test
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Internet, Misc. Tech, Toys, Video Games,
Addicted to Sudoku? Somewhere between a circular version of the puzzle game and a Rubik’s cube, Dutch inventor Hans van Brieman studied “the beautiful isomorphism of magic squares and geometric shapes” and together with Marcel Lennartz of Lensoft, has created a three-dimensional Sudoko-Ball. The beta is now available online if your computer supports Java. The company is hoping to market a 4 or 6-inch PVC model by 3Q 2007. We thought the SudoKube was difficult enough until we realized that this one goes way beyond our simple minds.
Read More | Trendhunter
