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Demo of Spatially Aware Blocks 109

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the but-will-they-survive-my-2-year-old dept.
Chris Anderson writes "This 5-min demo just posted from last week's TED — got a big crowd reaction. It's a new technology coming out of MIT, about to be commercialized. Siftables have been seen before, but not like this. They're toy blocks/tiles that are spatially aware and interact with each other in very cool ways. Initial use may be as toys, but there's big potential for new paradigm of spatially-aware physical mini computers."

Comment Why are people still talking about this? (Score 0) 371

by adez (#19947391) Attached to: Where the Wii Fits In
Every time I read one of these "OMG!?! What is Nintendo doing?" stories, I get a good chuckle. Nintendo is still doing what they are good at, and will keep on doing it. I don't think their 'strategy' is so revolutionary. Casual games are HUGE on the PC. They are just going with the flow. They are expanding the console market by making fun, easy to play games. Do you think the casual gamers who buy the Wii are gonna turn into hardcore online FPS players? Probably not. They are expanding the market, but the people they are picking up are people who wouldn't have bought a 360 or PS3 in the first place. I bet they won't in the next generation, either.
For all the people who thought the Gamecube was a failure, keep in mind that Big N made money on every one they sold. They aren't a big conglomerate that subsidizes the cost of their bloated hardware, in hopes of making money off the games. They make money on the systems and the games.
After they got their asses handed to them by Sony and the original PlayStation, They found their little corner of the gaming market and keep expanding it slowly while still turning a profit. What about the GBA? It WAS the hand held console of the last generation. There were some others, but they aren't even worth mentioning. While the Gamecube was seen as a failure(which it wasn't, IMHO), the GBA sold like hotcakes for years. The DS already beginning to repeat that success.

Feed Engadget: Downloadable PSP games in the works? (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming

It looks like (legally) downloadable PSP games could maybe, possibly be getting ever so slightly closer to reality, as a Sony-made ISO loader has reportedly been discovered in the latest firmware update for the handheld. The current speculation is that the loader, discovered by the prolific Dark_Alex, gives the handheld the ability to load encrypted ISO images off a memory stick, not just the demos and PS1 games the handheld's currently capable of playing. That would, of course, open up the possibility of Sony selling games sans-UMD, which has long been near the top of the wishlist for PSP owners and would-be PSP owners alike. Then again, it could be something entirely less exciting, so we'll just have to wait for Sony to play its hand.

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Operating Systems

Submission + - Slackware 12.0 is released (slackware.com)

Submitted by
Matt
Matt writes: "Straight from our good friend and colleague in the fight for quality distributions, Mr. Patrick Volkerding, comes a brand-new and eagerly-awaited release of Slackware, version 12. HAL automount, KDE 3.5.7 and XFCE 4.4.1, Xorg 7.2, 2.6 kernels as far as the eye can see, oodles of updated applications and utilities, and hardware support for just about anything under the sun. Enjoy! I know I will."
Businesses

Best Buy Accused of Overcharging 301

Posted by Zonk from the maybe-shouldn't-be-quite-so-greedy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has accused Best Buy of overcharging its customers. His accusation is that customers see one price on Best Buy's website, in stores salespeople would show them a different internal site from a kiosk. Best Buy denies the charges. 'Previously, the company confirmed that store employees have access to an internal Web site that looks nearly identical to the public BestBuy.com site, but the company's policy is always to offer customers the lowest quoted price unless it's specifically identified as a deal available only to online shoppers. Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, said the lawsuit should be a warning to companies to be more transparent in their business practices.'"

Feed Nintendo reportedly making Wiis in Japan unmoddable (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming


Wii modders have already hit (and overcome) a few snags as a result of changes Nintendo has made to the console, but it doesn't look like the company is ready to give up the fight just yet, now reportedly introducing (as rumored) another round of revisions to stop folks from messing with the Wii's innards. According to at least one retailer in Japan, Nintendo has taken the somewhat drastic step of actually snipping some of the pins from the surface-mounted IC on the Wii's motherboard, making the current crop of modchips virtually useless. Currently, the changes only seem to apply to NTSC-J model Wiis sold in Japan, with no word of any NTSC-U model Wiis suffering the same fate -- although we wouldn't bet on them being immune for long. Of course, all this is of little concern for anyone planning on playing by Nintendo's rules, but the rest of ya may want to grab a moddable Wii while the going's still good -- or at least wait for the inevitable workaround to this latest impediment.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
User Journal

Journal Journal: survival by expression: Paper Clings to Pen 1

Journal by WannaBeGeekGirl
i cannot hide from time

the dusty clock opposite my bed
in the corner of my unadorned room
blinks ignored, angry crimson LED numbers
failing to captivate me to set it.
it has done so for as long as i can remember.

Feed DLO's HomeDock Music Remote mimics your iPod screen (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Gone are the days where you sat impatiently in another room flipping through endless tracks just waiting to hear the lead-in from Forever Young, as even DLO is joining the LCD-equipped remote game with the HomeDock Music Remote. Similar to the KeySpan, EWOO, and Popalive iterations, this RF remote dons a sleek OLED display (shown after the jump) that mimics the menus and text on your iPod's screen so that you can flip through playlists, scroll through albums, and see what's currently playing all without having your eyes glued to your Apple. The device also comes with a docking stand that can connect to your home stereo or TV, and doubles as a charging station when plugged into an AC outlet. Still, you'd have to be mighty lazy or incredibly burdened with disposable income to make this one worth it, as DLO's charging a stiff $129.99 for the kit.

Continue reading DLO's HomeDock Music Remote mimics your iPod screen

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed MySpace Dilemma: Sex Offenders Remain Online (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
MySpace has found and deleted "a few thousand" sex offenders since it announced its program to match Megan's Law registries with its user list last December, chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam says. But it looks like thousands more may remain.


It's funny. Laugh.

Judge Doesn't Know What a Web Site is 519

Posted by samzenpus from the and-the-earth-is-not-flat dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet. Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals. "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is". he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws. Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts.""

Feed No end in sight for Vista's Long Goodbye (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
Looking for yet another reason to hold off buying Vista? Read on

Seven weeks ago, when we first reported Vista was causing many machines to stall indefinitely while deleting, copying and moving files, we were sure the problem was caused by a bug that would be fixed relatively quickly. After all, Vista is Microsoft's flagship product. It's also an operating system. And everyone knows deleting, copying and moving files are among the most basic tasks any operating system can set out to do.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Toyota going 100% hybrid by 2020

Submitted by
autofan1
autofan1 writes: "http://www.motorauthority.com/cars/toyota/toyota-c utting-hybrid-costs/ Toyota's vice president in charge of powertrain development, Masatami Takimoto, has said cost cutting on the electric motor, battery and inverter were all showing positive results in reducing the costs of hybrid technology and by the time Toyota's sales goal of one million hybrids annually is reached, it "expect margins to be equal to gasoline cars". Takimoto also made the bold claim that by 2020, hybrids will be the standard drivetrain and account for "100 percent" of Toyota's cars as they would be no more expensive to produce than a conventional vehicle."
Education

Submission + - OLPC a reality in Uruguay

Submitted by
Acer500
Acer500 writes: "The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality yesterday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of the school number 24 "Italy" in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez, as most newspapers in the country headlined yesterday (in Spanish)

El Observador http://www.observa.com.uy/Osecciones/ciencia/nota. aspx?id=76129.
El Pais http://www.elpais.com.uy/07/05/10/ultmo_279860.asp

In what has become a matter of national pride in being the first country to realize the project's goal, the target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project.

From the newspaper articles "The happines of having a PC in their hands, some of them for the first time, had the kids in ecstasy, which didn't wait to turn on their computers, introduce their personal information (required the first time they're turned on), choose the screen colors, and start experimenting with them. What initially made them more enthusiastic was the possibility of taking photographs and filming each others with the included webcams"

According to the unofficial blog of the Uruguayan project, named "proyecto Ceibal", , the infrastructure for wireless is not yet in place but will be provided in the next few days by the national telco ANTEL. No photos of the event have been posted online, but you can see an institutional video on Youtube here

One interesting point is that it has not yet been decided that the XO will be the laptop of choice for the entire project. Two other companies want to be considered: Intel, with their Classmate PC , and israeli-manufactured ITP-C. In a press conference, Intel manager for the southern cone Esteban Galluzzi went as far as to compare the XO to a Pentium II, and stressed that the Classmate is able to run Windows XP. http://tic.item.org.uy/?q=node/1013

As advisor and local guru Juan Grompone stated, "who will ultimately benefit from this is education". This will be an interesting test to see if the OLPC project meets its intended goals of "learning learning". Let's hope this project is the means that will foster among some of the children the desire to learn and to tinker; I, for one, will be eagerly awaiting the first feedback from this."

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Work expands to fill the time available. -- Cyril Northcote Parkinson, "The Economist", 1955

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