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Games

Submission + - Olivia Wilde, Jeff Bridges on TRON & Arcade Ga (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Bally Midway released the arcade classic TRON in 1982. Disney Interactive Studios released TRON: Evolution in 2010. And buoyed by technology, video games today can deliver experiences that rival and even help shape Hollywood films. "I don't know if anyone imagined games would get to the point they are at now, but I think that it's affected the way that people are re-imagining the mediums," actress Olivia Wilde said. WIlde plays Quorra in both the new 3D movie and the game (which is out now in stereoscopic 3D on the Sony PlayStation 3 and available on all platforms in 2D). Steve Lisberger, who directed the original TRON and produced the new film, summarized how far technology has come: Today's iPhone has more computing power than his team of visual effects technicians had access to for the original TRON. "We had IBM main frames when we started making TRON that weighed one ton and were five megabytes, and that was state of the art," said Lisberger. "For this film, we had so much computing power that I don't even know all the words for how much power we had."

Submission + - Hidden code found in the eyes of the Mona Lisa (dailymail.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Charliemopps
Charliemopps writes: Members of Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage have revealed that by magnifying high resolution images of the Mona Lisa's eyes letters and numbers can be seen. 'In the right eye appear to be the letters LV which could well stand for his name Leonardo Da Vinci while in the left eye there are also symbols but they are not as defined. 'It is very difficult to make them out clearly but they appear to be the letters CE or it could be the letter B — you have to remember the picture is almost 500 years old so it is not as sharp and clear as when first painted. 'While in the arch of the bridge in the background the number 72 can be seen or it could be an L and the number 2.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337976/Real-life-Da-Vinci-Code-Tiny-numbers-letters-discovered-Mona-Lisa.html#ixzz17xCSMgLM

Submission + - Kinect plays an Air Guitar (geekword.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Kinect camera has been hacked and programmed to play an Air Guitar
Businesses

Submission + - Hosting Giants Teaming Against Small Businesses (simplecdn.com)

Submitted by
BlueToast
BlueToast writes: "Hosting giants SoftLayer, ThePlanet, Hosting Services Inc., and UK2 Group are teaming up to wipe out small competitors like SimpleCDN. Though ThePlanet isn't directly involved in the slicing of SimpleCDN's throat, ThePlanet runs the sales chat scripts for SoftLayer (check your NoScript). As a loyal customer of SimpleCDN, I really do not appreciate the disruption of service to a company I have been with for over a year on fabulous cloud services. As a supporter of small and medium businesses, I will not bow and give my money to the top dogs of the hosting realm. I doubt I will get far in my frustration against these huge companies, but the least I can do is try in attempt of voicing my frustration across the internet."
Quake

Submission + - Navy Aims for Record-Setting Railgun Test (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And it's quite real too, as the U.S. Navy will prove — yet again — in a record-setting test today in Dahlgren, VA. Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the technology uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7. The result: a weapon that can hit a target 100 miles or more away within minutes. "It's an over-used term, but it really changes several games," Rear Admiral Nevin P. Carr, Jr., the chief of Naval Research, said prior to the test. You have to see the video of this thing firing. It's sick.
Security

Submission + - Botnet Operators Join Up With 'Operation Payback' (techweb.com)

Submitted by ancientribe
ancientribe writes: Organizers of the so-called Operation Payback cyberattacks on Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, so far have relied on volunteers' computers to wage their distributed denial-of-service attacks. But they asked for and are now also getting help from established botnets to further their cause of disrupting firms they perceive as deterring Internet freedom of speech by not supporting WikiLeaks and its now-incarcerated founder Julian Assange.

Submission + - Australia's Foreign Minister supports Assange (smh.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has offered support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange saying: "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network, The Americans are responsible for that,". This comes after cables revealed that US officials regarded Rudd as a 'control freak' during his time as Prime Minister. Assange has been given consular assistance by the Australian Embassy in London.
Firefox

Submission + - Don't Begrudge Mozilla for Being a Commercial Open (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Thinkcloud
Thinkcloud writes: Do you hate the idea of anyone tracking your habits and usage patterns online? I'm convinced that most of us hate the idea, and even more convinced that users of Linux and open source platforms and applications hate it even more than the average user does. Efforts are ongoing to track your habits very closely, though, and that's why it's worth paying attention to the ongoing debate over Mozilla's stance on web privacy. Canonical COO and noted open source blogger Matt Asay has a good piece up on the topic at The Register, and The Wall Street Journal has been covering it as well. So far, Mozilla appears to have behaved

Submission + - Wikileaks releases list of "vital' US Facilities (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Dasuraga
Dasuraga writes: Wikileaks, in its continuing leaks of diplomatic cables, have released a list of what the DHS considers essential infrastructure, including mines, hospitals and undersea cables.Essentially a list of potential terrorist targets, and not much more. So much for Assange's minimizing harm policy.
Microsoft

Submission + - Scare Your Employees: Telepresence Force Feedback (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I am sure there is a perfectly good reason to build force feedback into a telepresence system. But do we really need electrical stimulation, pressure and temperature change? Microsoft apparently thinks so and has filed for a telepresence force feedback patent and a device that can deliver electrical feedback, pressure changes, temperature changes, friction, vibration, and noise. Imagine how the employee of the future could be motivated across the globe in a virtual meeting.

Submission + - Twitter Appears to Censor Wikileaks-Related Trends (studentactivism.net)

Submitted by Sheep
Sheep writes: This past week I found it weird that none of the words #wikileaks, #cablegate, #cables, #Assange, etc. were actually "trending" on Twitter. Today, my fears of some secret censorship going on, are slowly coming true. It appears that Twitter is censoring all these keywords, essentially trying to minimize the effect Wikileaks can have on the world through Twitter's democratized popularization of information. It's ironic that last year Twitter suspended their own scheduled server maintenance in order to not interrupt its users from tweeting on Iran's revolution, and now it appears to censor, and manipulate public opinion as it sees fit!
Science

Submission + - Mobile science lab to improve education (philstar.com)

Submitted by svetoch1999
svetoch1999 writes: Public school students in rural areas will soon learn about scientific concepts in a vehicle borne out of faith and a vision to improve the quality of education in the country.

Submission + - Wikileaks took advice from media outlets (google.com) 1

Submitted by formfeed
formfeed writes: According to the AP (through Google News), Wikileaks isn't just sitting on the recent material so they can release it bit by bit to the press, as many people implied. On the contrary, it's quite the other way around: "only after considering advice from five news organizations with which it chose to share all of the material" are they releasing it themselves. These Newspapers "have been advising WikiLeaks on which documents to release publicly and what redactions to make to those documents"

AP questions whether Wikileaks will follow these redactions, but nevertheless seems quite impressed by this "extraordinary collaboration between some of the world's most respected media outlets and the WikiLeaks organization"

Submission + - TSA Told To Tell Children That Groping Is A Game (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Marc Desrochers
Marc Desrochers writes: Apparently TSA agents are being told that one way to handle the new groping pat downs for children is to try to make it out to be some sort of "game." This is apparently horrifying some sex abuse experts who point out that a common tactic in abuse cases is to tell the kids that they're just "playing a game." The TSA has said that the newer patdowns will not apply to children under 12, but the rules have been somewhat unclear — leading to the statement from a TSA director, James Marchand:

        "You try to make it as best you can for that child to come through. If you can come up with some kind of a game to play with a child, it makes it a lot easier."

He also said that the idea of making it a game would become a part of the TSA's training. Ken Wooden, who runs an organization to try to stop sex abuse of children was not pleased:

        "How can experts working at the TSA be so incredibly misinformed and misguided to suggest that full body pat downs for children be portrayed as a game?" Wooden asked in an email. "To do so is completely contrary to what we in the sexual abuse prevention field have been trying to accomplish for the past thirty years."

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