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Nintendo

Submission + - Namco blames Wii for arcade closures (engadget.com) 2

Submitted by
milsoRgen
milsoRgen writes: "Engadget is running a story, "Namco Bandai is shuttering between 50 and 60 arcades in Japan, and it's laying the blame squarely on Nintendo's shoulders. "A lot of the types of games that people played at an arcade can now be done at home," said company spokesman Yuji Machida. Namco figures that Japanese kids are saving up their pocket money to buy the latest and greatest Wii game or accessory, which is clearly unacceptable. Sega Sammy also has plans to close about 100 of its arcades, but there's no word of finger pointing from that camp. While we're certain the Wii's popularity has a little something to do with it, perhaps Japanese gamers are just beginning to learn something their American counterparts got down years ago: why leave the couch? Ever?""

Feed Engadget: Thor Shield ensures you can't tase me, bro! (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Wearables

So Point Blank Solutions, Inc. and G Consulting apparently went right ahead despite the existing patent app and came up with an anti-Taser material called Thor Shield, which weighs two ounces per square foot and can be integrated into anything from a flak jacket to gloves (pictured) to a standard issue t-shirt. We totally can't wait to wear our hilarious / ironic Thor Shielded Threadless shirts to the next G8 summit, yo.

[Via Danger Room]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments


The Internet

W3C Gets Excessive DTD Traffic 334

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the stop-the-intertubes-i-wanna-get-off dept.
eldavojohn writes "It's a common string you see at the start of an HTML document, a URI declaring the type of document, but that is often processed causing undue traffic to W3C's site. There's a somewhat humorous post today from W3.org that seems to be a cry for sanity and asking developers and people to stop building systems that automatically query this information. From their post, 'In particular, software does not usually need to fetch these resources, and certainly does not need to fetch the same one over and over! Yet we receive a surprisingly large number of requests for such resources: up to 130 million requests per day, with periods of sustained bandwidth usage of 350Mbps, for resources that haven't changed in years. The vast majority of these requests are from systems that are processing various types of markup (HTML, XML, XSLT, SVG) and in the process doing something like validating against a DTD or schema. Handling all these requests costs us considerably: servers, bandwidth and human time spent analyzing traffic patterns and devising methods to limit or block excessive new request patterns. We would much rather use these assets elsewhere, for example improving the software and services needed by W3C and the Web Community.' Stop the insanity!"
Privacy

Submission + - Startup Uses Cryptography to Protect Identities (wired.com)

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Wired has a story about a startup called U-Prove that has a cryptographic scheme to protect privacy. It works by using secure multi-party computation, which allows you to disclose facts to another party without revealing any more than you have to, and making the knowledge useless for anything other than the transaction at hand. One example is the "Millionaire's Problem" where Alice and Bob want to know who has more money without either of them telling anyone exactly how much they have. They also have a whitepaper (PDF) that goes into more detail."
The Courts

Submission + - Retroactive Telecom Immunity Unconstitutional? (wired.com) 1

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Many non-lawyers on Slashdot have speculated that retroactive immunity for warrantless wiretaps is unconstitutional, and it certainly ought to be, but the most cited reason — 'ex post facto' laws — only apply to retroactively condemning things, not excusing them. The lawyer Anthony J. Sebok has a different argument. He points out that, in other contexts where it was granted (e.g. for asbestos lawsuits), it was only allowed because there was a victim's compensation fund. Therefore, because the government can't reasonably do that here — they can't just give money to suspected terrorists — the immunity provision should be held to be unconstitutional."
Republicans

Submission + - "Keep her in it, so we can win it" (rawstory.com) 3

Submitted by anonymous coward
anonymous coward writes: Rush Limbaugh, appearing on Fox News with Ann Coulter, made clear that he was intending to raise money for Hillary Clinton's campaign because, get this: "The reason I'm raising money for Hillary is because, apparently, my party, the Republican party, is relying on fear and loathing of Hillary to unite the party," Limbaugh said. Truly, a sentence the Republican Party should have to live down from now until the end of time, specifically, the "my party, the Republican party, is relying on fear and loathing" part.

        Also from the article,"Speaking on his daily radio show Thursday, just after Romney announced the end of his campaign, Limbaugh said he was "dead serious about considering" soliciting Clinton donations from his listeners. He worried that she was in danger of losing the nomination to Barack Obama, who doesn't inspire the same fervent rage among GOP voters. The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Here's the slogan" for the fundraiser, he said: "Keep her in it, so we can win it." "
Announcements

Submission + - Nearing The Boundries Of Perpetual Motion (thestar.com)

Submitted by
milsoRgen
milsoRgen writes: "The Toronto Star is running a story of an unlikely inventor who has created an unlikely machine,
"Thane Heins is nervous and hopeful. It's Jan. 24, a Thursday afternoon, and in four days the Ottawa-area native will travel to Boston where he'll demonstrate an invention that appears — though he doesn't dare say it — to operate as a perpetual motion machine. The audience, esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn, could either deflate Heins' heretical claims or add momentum to a 20-year obsession that has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters.""
Social Networks

Submission + - Facebook Application Development Tutorial Part 2 - (meezik.com)

Submitted by
rsteig
rsteig writes: "Welcome back for the second installment of the Facebook Application Development Tutorial. In this post I will show you how to create a very simple PHP application for Facebook.

This tutorial requires you to have:
#1 — Web space capable of hosting PHP applications.
and
#2 — Copy of the core Facebook API files (found here: http://developers.facebook.com/clientlibs/facebook-platform.tar.gz)

First step will be to extract these files on your web host (I will show the FTP method for those of you without SSH access).

Download the Facebook API to your local computer. Using either WinRAR or WinZip, extract the archive onto your Desktop.

Facebook Development Part 2 — Step 1

Next, you must now upload these files into your web space directory using your favorite FTP client. If you don't have one, I recommend FileZilla.

p2_step2.jpg

Ok, great! Next thing to do is open a copy of your favorite Text Editor. For Programming I personally recommend Programmers Notepad, but regular old Notepad will work too!

Once you have your text editor open, you are going to want to download a copy of the example code from here and copy/paste this into notepad.

p2_step5.jpg

You will need to replace the $appapikey and $appsecret variables with your app's keys. This can be found on the Developers page.

step7.jpg

Save the file as index.php and upload onto your web server using your FTP client (note: this should NOT be in the facebook-platform directory. This should be in the directory CONTAINING facebook-platform).

Now you can check out your creation! Simply add the application to your profile, and you're done! (Go to the Developer screen, select your application from the menu on your right, and click Add To Profile)

For current web developers, creation of Facebook applications couldn't be easier.

The next installment will show you how to interface Smarty PHP template engine to save you time (Which means Money!) designing re-usable user interfaces for your applications.

Until next time.."
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia Ruled By Lord Of The Universe (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
milsoRgen
milsoRgen writes: "The Register is reporting, one of Wikipedia's top 3 contributers, Jossi Fresco. Is quietly suppressing negative views regarding Prem Rawat by editing views disagreeable to the ex-guru. Prem Rawat is consider by many to the leader of a cult, and it has been established Jossi has close ties to him. The most interesting part is that Jossi Fresco is also the one in charge of the Conflicts of Interest Notice Board."
Transportation

Submission + - New supersonic aircraft to fly at Mach 5 (sparkingtech.com)

Submitted by crazygamer
crazygamer writes: This is an interesting post about a new aircraft dubbed the "Son of Concorde" which will be able to fly at Mach 5. From the article: 'The A2 would fly with a top speed of 3,400mph and be able to take 300 passengers between London and Sydney in under five hours. Its engines are powered by liquid hydrogen and produce few carbon emissions, making this plane much greener than the ones we have today.' Do you think this will become a reality?
Power

Submission + - Energy from raindrops (discovery.com)

Submitted by conlaw
conlaw writes: As reported on Discovery.com today, scientist have found a way to extract energy from rain:

Energy is everywhere. In the sun, wind, and now rain.

Researchers have developed a technique that harvests energy from rain showers and converts it into electricity. The technology could work in industrial air conditioning systems, where water condenses and drops like rain.

It could also be used in combination with solar power to scavenge as much energy from the environment as possible, or to power tiny, wireless sensors designed to monitor environmental conditions.
Security

Submission + - RIAA is not targeting corporations, big surprise (informationweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In this Information week article, Joe Hernick reveals most of the old information about P2P file-sharing, but does include one interesting vendor quote, "I have never met with a large company that has been named in an RIAA suit," he says. "You draw your own conclusions." Could it possibly be that the RIAA is not distributing their lawsuits equally, instead going after only ISPs and Universities? Why does this make sense from a legal perspective...does this ultimately weaken their case to Congress?
Image

Combat Pilots May Get Viagra Screenshot-sm 5

Posted by samzenpus
Israel is considering giving its combat pilots Viagra to improve their performance in the air. A study by Israeli doctors of mountain climbers in Africa found a correlation between erectile dysfunction drugs and improved performance in high altitudes. It looks like this already tough job is about to get a lot harder.

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