HizookRobotics writes "A new covering developed by Senseg and Toshiba Information Systems gives touchpads, LCDs, and other curved surfaces (eg. cellphones) programmable texture using a high-resolution electrotactile array — a grid of electrodes that excite nerves in the skin with small pulses of current to trick the body into perceiving texture, pressure, or pin-pricks depending on the current amplitude and electrode resolution. The new covering has many potential applications: interactive gaming, touchscreens with texture, robot interfaces, etc."

An anonymous reader writes "In response to calls by Russia and the UN for a 'cyberwarfare arms limitation treaty,' this article explains that 'cyberwar' and 'cyberweapons' are fiction. The conflicts between nation states in cyberspace are nothing like warfare, and the tools hackers use are nothing like weapons. Putting 'cyber' in front of something is just a way for people to grasp technical concepts. The analogies quickly break down, and are useless when taken too far (such as a 'cyber disarmament treaty').'"

infinitevalence writes "Every few months the good Viking programmers of the north organize and present one of the most geeky e-sports out there. Thanks to them, for three weekends in a row we get to watch player-controlled spaceships fight it out for accolades and unique in-game items available only to the first, second, and third place winners. This year CCP has all of the content live online and streaming in HD for your viewing pleasure. So find a drink, whip up some snacks, watch the shiny explosions, and listen to the soothing words of player experts as they walk you through the action!"

Barence writes "If you've ever struggled to build anything more complex than a cube of Lego, this will blow your mind. It's a fully functioning Lego printer, complete with felt tip print head."

A survey by Entertainment Weekly has named Homer Simpson the greatest character created for television or film in the past 20 years. Everyone's favorite beer-swilling, donut-eating dad beat out Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the top spot. From the article: "'People can relate to Homer because we're all secretly propelled by desires we can't admit to,' Groening was quoted as telling Entertainment Weekly. 'Homer is launching himself head-first into every single impulsive thought that occurs to him. His love of whatever ... is a joy to witness.'"

WrongSizeGlass writes "Reuters is reporting that netbook pioneer Asustek Computer Inc. has become the latest technology company to jump on the tablet PC bandwagon. The device will be called the Eee Pad, will run on Intel or ARM chips, and use Microsoft's Windows operating system. 'The Eee Pad can display Adobe Flash for the full web experience, has a USB port and a camera,' Asus Chairman Jonney Shih said. Asus did not release pricing details or a potential release date, and did not provide further details on the format or a launch date for the new app store."

Anarki2004 writes "Sony recently debuted its latest in OLED technology: a 4.1-inch screen that's only 80 microns thick. The super-flexible display can roll up into a cylinder just 4mm in diameter while still showing moving images at 432×240 resolution. Instead of brittle integrated circuit chips, the screen has an on-panel gate-driven circuit — a world first, according to Sony. That innovation would allow everything but the power supply to roll and flex in applications."

krou writes "Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba has gone to South Africa's Law Reform Commission to see whether the law can be changed to allow a complete ban of digitally distributed pornography. Gigaba has also been in discussion with The Justice Alliance of South Africa, 'a coalition of corporations, individuals, and churches committed to upholding and fighting for justice and the highest moral standards in South African society,' which has written its own draft bill regarding the issue, which covers the banning of pornography on television, mobile phones, and the Web. Using a car analogy, Mr. Gigaba said, 'Cars are already provided with brakes and seatbelts.... There is no reason why the Internet should be provided without the necessary restrictive mechanisms built into it.' Related documents and the JASA's proposed bill can be found online, one of which has the wonderful title 'A reasonable and justifiable limitation on Freedom of Expression and Right to Privacy.'"

jamienk writes "Imagine if you could grab and manipulate audio with JavaScript just like you can images with Canvas. Firefox experimental builds let you do just that: crazy audio visualizations, a graphic equalizer, even text-to-speech, all in JavaScript! Work in progress; you need a special build of Firefox (videos available), being worked on via W3C."

Elliot Chang writes "For Sony's newest display, the company decided to throw into the mix ultra-thinness (just 80m or a bit thinner than a human hair) and the energy-saving power of OLEDs. The new prototype is so bendy that it can be wrapped around a pencil while still streaming video!"

An anonymous reader points out an 18-month-old interview with the founders of Adobe (and creators of PostScript) Charles Geschke and John Warnock, and highlights three interesting quotes from the book Masterminds of Programming that seem very timely now. "'It is so frustrating that this many years later we're still in an environment where someone says if you really want this to work you have to use Firefox. The whole point of the universality of the Web would be to not have those kind of distinctions, but we're still living with them. It's always fascinating to see how long it takes for certain pieces of historical antiquity to die away. The more you put them in the browsers you've codified them as eternal, and that's stupid. ... With Flash what we're trying to do is both beef it up and make it robust enough so that at least you can get one language that's platform-independent and will move from platform to platform without hitting you every time you turn around with different semantics. ... You can see why, to a certain extent, Apple and Microsoft view that as a challenge because they would like you to buy into their implementation of how the seamless integration with the Web goes. What we're saying is it really shouldn't matter. That cloud ought to be accessible by anybody's computer and through any sort of information sitting out on the Web."

Elizabeth Sabet writes "Google, Microsoft, NASA, The World Bank, and Yahoo! are unlikely partners, but they are bringing together the best and brightest in disaster relief management and the ever-growing hacker community in a progressive initiative called Random Hacks of Kindness. Its mission is to mobilize a world-wide community of technologists to solve real-world problems through technology. RHoK is gearing up for its first world-wide 'hackathon for humanity' on June 4-6, 2010. Following last year's inaugural event in Mountain View, California, which produced software solutions that were used on the ground during the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the partners have decided to take the effort global. RHoK engages volunteer software engineers, independent hackers, and students from around the world in a marathon weekend of hacking events and coding competitions to develop software solutions for problems posed by subject-matter experts. This first global Hackathon will feature sponsored events in Washington, DC, Sydney, Nairobi, Jakarta, and Sao Paulo." Here's where to go for more details or to register for the DC event.

Tarinth writes "Social games (such as FarmVille, etc.) are hardly new, because games have been part of recorded history for thousands of years. An infographic has integrated many of the key games from history (starting with Egypt's Senet game from 3100 BC), showing major milestones along the way, such as play-by-mail, Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic: the Gathering. Today's cultural phenomenon of social games, which might better be better called 'social network games,' is the confluence of several trends ranging from asynchronous gameplay, social play, and virtual economies — all of which are shown within the infographic."

databuff writes "Google has released a data prediction API. The service helps users leverage historical data to make predictions that can guide real-time decisions. According to Google, the API can be used for prediction tasks ranging from product recommendations to churn analysis (predicting which customers are likely to switch to another provider). The API involves three simple steps: upload the data, train the model, then generate predictions. The API is currently available on an invitation-only basis." Google also recently announced several other API additions, including Buzz, Fonts, and Storage.

nj_peeps writes "Harvard professor Hemant Thatte has developed a cocktail of 21 chemical compounds that he calls Somah, derived from the Sanskrit for 'ambrosia of rejuvenation.' Using Somah, Thatte and his team have accomplished some amazing feats with pig hearts. They can keep the organ viable for transplant up to 10 days after harvest — far longer than the four-hour limit seen in hospitals today. Not only that, but using low temperatures and Somah, they were able to take a pig heart that was removed post mortem and get it to beat 24 hours later in the lab."