Saturday, April 30, 2011

Android Users Can Finally Get Some 'Face Time'?But Only With Each Other

For Android users who have developed an inferiority complex watching their iPhone-wielding comrades indulging in the joys of video chatting?your time has come. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) will be rolling out a video-chat system on Android tablets and phones.

Source: http://feeds.paidcontent.org/~r/pcorg/~3/eTpg3JaxraY/

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Vintage 2008 Claim Chowder: ?iPhone Doomed to Failure ? Windows Mobile 7 Plans for 2009 Leaked?

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/23744?nwwpkg=iphone

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Samsung ramps Apple attack: adds US patent suit to legal feud

Samsung has added US patent infringement lawsuits against Apple to its existing European and Asian cases, citing ten mobile phone patents in the San Jose, California, federal court. The move follows Apple’s initial case against Samsung�earlier this month, and is part of what the company describes as its “continuing to respond actively to the legal action taken against us.”

According to Samsung, the ten patents “relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products.” That includes simultaneous voice calls and browsing, ways to boost mobile network capacity, and other performance tweaks. “Apple continues to violate Samsung’s patent rights by using these patented technologies without a license” the company maintains.

Meanwhile, Apple insists that Samsung has “slavishly” copied its own UI, packaging and device styling with its Galaxy series of tablets and smartphones; three of the ten patents Apple claims its rival is infringing refer to the aesthetic of the iPhone and iPad, such as their distinctive fasciae. Arguments have raged over which design came first, Apple’s or Samsung’s, though it’s likely that the court battles will be less vitriolic though far more expensive and time-consuming.

[via Bloomberg]


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PEW PEW! U.S. Navy Fires Lasers at Sea

ship on fireGood news, everyone! The future is finally here, and we'll soon leave bullets behind for a much sexier laser alternative, filled with "PEW PEW" and plenty of cat-shaped guns. The U.S. Navy successfully fired a high-energy laser at another boat, continuing its research into using lasers to blind or disable smaller vessels. The BBC has video but no sound, so you'll have to improvise the "BEYOO! BEYOO!" on your own.

PEW PEW! U.S. Navy Fires Lasers at Sea originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.switched.com/2011/04/11/pew-pew-u-s-navy-fires-lasers-at-sea/

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Facebook Strikes Deal to Create New Social Network in China

baidui
Facebook is reportedly working with China's largest search engine to create a new, jointly owned social network. The collaboration with Baidu would allow Facebook to get a foothold in the Chinese market while giving Baidu the chance to capitalize on Mark Zuckerberg's network-building expertise. The new site would still need to be approved by Chinese's Internet regulators, who retain final say on pretty much everything. And it definitely wouldn't be able to use the Facebook.com URL, which remains blocked throughout the mainland.

Facebook Strikes Deal to Create New Social Network in China originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.switched.com/2011/04/11/facebook-baidu-deal-new-social-network-in-china/

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Despite Sony's claims, PSN hackers may have credit card numbers

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Sony says there was no evidence that hackers have obtained PlayStation Network user's credit card info. However, new reports indicate that they have it, and are selling it to the highest bidder.



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Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean ? preview

Aaaargh ? Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory with this swashbuckling addition to the series

The Lego video games series must be the envy of many developers in the industry. While other companies fall over themselves to produce the next mega-selling casual/hardcore crossover hit, Traveller's Tales has quietly churned out the gaming equivalent of a chain of Pixar movies.

The company's titles boast cross-generational appeal, easy pick-up-and-play controls, smarts and depth which belie the simplistic mechanics ? and all of it comes wrapped in a family-friendly veneer that is cute enough to disarm all but the most curmudgeonly of gamers.

The Lego games sell very well and a lot of them are critically acclaimed. Furthermore, Traveller's Tales has shown an unerring knack at being able to adapt the series' formula to some of biggest blockbuster intellectual property in the entertainment industry ? the likes of Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter.

All of this makes the developer an enticing prospect for any company about to release a movie in need of some high-end brand extension. Monolithic entertainment entities, take note: if you have a movie that requires a video game, Traveller's Tales is a pretty safe bet.

So all thing's considered, the most surprising thing about Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean isn't that it exists ? because it's a natural fit for the series ? and it isn't its core gameplay. It's the fact that it's taken Disney this long to have Traveller's Tales weave its Lego magic over one of its blockbuster franchises.

Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory. The knock on Lego games in recent years is that the series' gameplay template has been left basically unchanged since the first Lego Star Wars game. That's certainly true of Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean, but it's not likely to put too much of a dent in the enjoyment level for punters. The lion's share of activity is taken up by charging around, smashing things up, collecting Lego studs, solving puzzles and hunting for collectibles. However, as with all Lego titles, Traveller's Tales has added quite a few tweaks and tucks to the overall experience, as well as some new functions which offer the game some more depth.

There are more than 70 characters for players to unlock and all of them have some special ability. Jack Sparrow, for example, has his magic compass which reveals hidden collectibles and trinkets in the game. Will Turner hurls axes as a ranged weapon. One pirate has a blunderbuss. Another is able to hurl his glass eye around (although it wasn't revealed in my playthrough just how this actually helps).

There's also a new system throughout the game which makes the characters easier to use and has allowed the developers to create some brand new puzzles. Icons will sometimes appear above a character's head, indicating the players need to find a specific item in their environment which will allow them to add a new member to their party. Once this is done, they gain access to that character's special ability. They can also bring up a character-wheel and switch between any character they've added to their party on the fly.

Another new feature is Super Freeplay mode, which is a beefed up, more free-flowing version of the Freeplay mode in previous Lego titles. In past games, players could select characters in a hub area and take them into levels to unlock new challenges and find collectibles. With Super Freeplay mode, they can switch at any time to any of the characters they've unlocked in the game at any point.

While the ability to switch characters on the fly is a boon, the best parts of Lego Pirates come from the way in which Traveller's Tales has adapted the movie franchise's aesthetic to the game. The best place to start with Lego Pirates is with its gorgeous production values. As is the case with every other Lego title, the game looks fantastic and the characters literally look as if they've been polished until they shine. In terms of the movie franchise's aesthetic qualities, Traveller's Tales has everything on point.

The characters are by turns hilarious and endearing; the Lego Jack Sparrow minces around the scenes like his real-life counterpart, Will Turner looks deadly earnest and Barbosa hits the right note between being menacing and mischievous all at once. Once again, all cut-scenes moving the plot forward contain hilarious silent mugging from all the characters involved. The environments are superb in their presentation and variety; they all look like giant playsets, and players will find themselves trundling along sun-bathed beaches, mixing it up in a barfight in Tortuga or fighting a battle on the deck of the Black Pearl in a hurricane.

The experience of playing the game is almost guaranteed to spread a smile over one's face. The puzzles are inventive and challenging; players won't saunter straight through them, but at the same time, they aren't so difficult that anyone will give up too quickly. There are plenty of fights to have, items to smash and buckles to swash, sure, but the developers have included a lot of elements based around the movie's set-pieces too. At one point, players will find themselves rolling around in giant ball-shaped bone cages from the second film, or fighting high up in the rigging of the Flying Dutchman in the finale of the third film. They'll also fire off canons, zip up mastheads by cutting ropes on pulleys and, at some stage, find themselves riding a pig.

All of the action in Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean is shot through with a boisterous, ramshackle charm, making the game very easy to forgive for some of its overly familiar elements. Whether you're a fan of the movie or game franchise, this new Lego entry looks set to satisfy all but the most sniffy of gamers. You may have a sense you've played some of this game before, but that's an issue that's hard to focus on when you're weaving around as Captain Jack Sparrow on the back of a pig.

? Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean will be out on 13 May 2011 for Wii, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, 3DS, PSP and DS


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/28/lego-pirates-of-the-caribbean-preview

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How to Calculate Major Pitching Statistics in Baseball

ERA, WHIP, DICE are all acronyms that make some people nervous, but true baseball fans should know them. They often seem difficult to calculate as well, but this article will prove that it's not necessarily difficult, provided you've got the background understanding.

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Major-Pitching-Statistics-in-Baseball

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MacLegion Spring 2011 Bundle

Source: http://maclegion.com/?a=df

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How should Nintendo sell the 3DS?

The company is worrying that it's not shifting enough units of the hands-free 3D console, because people don't get it. Yet

We've got used to Nintendo surprising us. No one gave the Wii a chance in hell before it was released ? then one look at those controllers and suddenly everyone and their gran wanted one. Meanwhile, the Nintendo DS has steadily become the biggest selling console of all time, mostly thanks to brain training, virtual dogs and adventure games filled with logic puzzles.

So when the company announced the 3DS ? a neat evolution of its smash hit handheld device, complete with glasses-free 3D ? it looked like another Nintendo must-have. But earlier this week, the company's president Satoru Iwata was forced to admit that the contraption hasn't sold as well as the company had hoped, shifting 3.61m units in the first month on sale, and not the 4m that it had modestly predicted.

In an investor call, Iwata intriguingly stated:

The value of 3D images without the need for special glasses is hard to be understood through the existing media. However, we have found that people cannot feel it just by trying out a device, rather, some might even mis-estimate it when experiencing the images in an improper fashion.

"We think it is very important to provide people with contents in which they can easily experience glasses-less 3D images. In particular, we need to enhance the contents which can be enjoyed passively by non-active users, like a 3D video distribution service. We will promptly work on this after the currently planned hardware update.

That's a rather shocking admission ? that consumers don't understand the appeal of 3D games, so they need to be provided with linear 3D content to make sense of the console's USP. Nintendo doesn't usually need a Trojan horse to get people to click with its products ? the products just speak for themselves. Sure, the Wii remote mimicked a TV remote controller, but players didn't have to actually watch a few minutes of TV to understand it.

More telling though, was Iwata's admission that a lot of consumers seem to be waiting for better titles: "There aren't yet so many people who are absolutely sure that now is the time to buy it," he said. And certainly, the lacklustre launch line-up drew criticism from many industry news sources ? compounded by the fact that a lot of the online and DLC services are only switching on in May. He also states that the company hasn't managed to communicate the other features of the device ? ie, augmented reality and StreetPass. Ironically, these are the elements that many in the industry believe will emerge as the true selling points of the technology.

This is probably just a blip, but what should Nintendo do now? Is it about cranking out another ad with the Redknapps (perhaps featuring Jamie swapping Streetpass data as he delivers his monotone pundity in the Sky Sports studio)? Is it about hurrying up and getting a bunch of Mario titles out on shop shelves? Or must we simply accept that, after the failure of Virtual Boy in 1996, 3D is to be the nausea-inducing albatross around Nintendo's otherwise blameless neck?

Come on, help Iwata out here!


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/28/nintendo-3ds-sales-disappointing

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Xbox Live security alert follows PlayStation Network hack

It's a much smaller issue than the PlayStation Network nightmare, but gamers are naturally jumpy at the moment...

In the midst of Sony's PlayStation Network security breach, Microsoft has had to issue its own security alert today. On the company's Xbox Live Status page, the following warning has been issued:

"Users may receive potential phishing attempts via title specific messaging while playing Modern Warfare 2.

"We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issue. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience."

The problem appears to be restricted to one title, and is centred around the system's matchmaking process, which arranges online multiplayer gaming sessions. It seems to be a reasonably routine problem, but with fears over online security riding high, several industry news sources have picked up on it.

US games blog Kotaku has also reported that dozens of modified Xbox 360 machines previously banned from Xbox Live have been allowed back on to the service ? but only for a short time. Users who had 'modded' their machines to run unnofficial applications and pirated games found that they could suddenly sign in to the Xbox Live service ? even though they had previously been ejected in one of Microsoft's regular 'banhammer' sessions. However, shortly afterwards all the machines were reportedly banned again.

The speculation is that Microsoft may have been testing its infrastructure in the wake of the PlayStation Network hack, or that it was trialling its new Xbox 360 disc format, which is partially intended to prevent piracy by blocking the DVD firmware hack that's been exploitable on Xbox 360 for several years.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/27/xbox-live-security-alert-playstation-network-hack

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A Political Case for the Libya Effort

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JamesFallows/~3/y3LQpmHQW5k/click.phdo

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Friday, April 29, 2011

Delicious' death sentence commuted by YouTube founders

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Yahoo said Wednesday that it had sold popular social bookmarking site Delicious to YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.



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Awkward Use of the First Person Singular

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270083925943178.html

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Operation Flashpoint: Red River ? review

Xbox 360/PS3/PC; �39.99; cert 15+; Codemasters

The Operation Flashpoint first-person shooters have always appealed to a particular constituency: gamers obsessed with the military (along the lines of Nick Frost's character Mike in Spaced). That's because they are about as hardcore as you can get: unlike more mass-market fps games, if you take a head-shot, you won't be getting back up, and in order to prosper, you will have to adopt tactics that real-life soldiers would employ. While Red River is much more forgiving than its predecessors, it will still test your soldiering skills to the limit, and remains firmly in the hardcore bracket.

You play Kirby, leader of a four-man US Marine Corps fire-team operating in Tajikistan, close to the Afghanistan border, in 2013. At first, you're taking on local insurgents, but things really heat up when the Chinese army gets involved, with its seemingly endless manpower. The missions are very long, multistage affairs which typically involve taking on enemies from a distance (so we'd recommend you choose the Scout class, with its sniper rifle). Involving periods of being driven around in the back of a Hummer, engaging in authentically expletive-studded Marine-banter, they feel stunningly authentic, and become more varied as the game progresses.

It's just as well that you level up during that period, unlocking new weapons, perks and upgrades ? one hot tip would to be experiment with different character classes in the early stages, as certain later missions require specialist, rather than all-round skills, and it pays to have levelled up.

Red River's core nuts and bolts are impressive: the graphics and scenery design are superb, the key tactical wheel for issuing orders to your fire-team works beautifully and the weaponry responds as you would expect it to. It's the first Operation Flashpoint game with a credible single-player story (although, in the interests of authenticity, it lacks the Hollywood-style set-pieces of games such as Black Ops). But it really comes into its own online, with some innovative modes, including one in which you defend a convoy beset by insurgents, and another in which you clear villages of insurgents and blow up weaponry stockpiles against the clock.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is emphatically not for the faint-hearted ? if you're anything other than a first-person shooter veteran, you will swiftly become frustrated by constantly being killed by enemies you haven't even seen. But it is impressively executed, infinitely slicker than its predecessors, and reveals the horror interspersed with periods of tedium that characterises modern warfare in a startlingly believable manner. Which will surely earn it cult status in the future.

? Game reviewed on Xbox 360

Rating: 4/5


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/28/operation-flashpoint-red-river

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Switched's Comprehensive Guide to Video Game Emulators

emulator guideThe video game emulator -- the bit of software that allows nostalgic button-mashers to mount an NES on their PCs in order to relive halcyon "HADOUKEN!" days -- is one of the most misunderstood elements of modern computing. But we're here to tell you exactly what they are, how they work, and even offer a comprehensive directory of the best ones for your favorite platform. Read on for our indispensable manual for the contemporary gamer looking back to a time when finally figuring out Kitana's "Babality" was a day's work well done.

Continue reading Switched's Comprehensive Guide to Video Game Emulators

Switched's Comprehensive Guide to Video Game Emulators originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.switched.com/video-game-emulators/switched-ultimate-guide-retro-gaming/

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PlayStation Network hack: why it took Sony seven days to tell the world

Sony's company blog says forensic analysis of the PlayStation Network hack took 'several days' to complete and extent of intrusion wasn't understood until Tuesday

Sony has admitted that it shut down its PlayStation Network last week because it discovered a "non-gaming" intrusion into the system, but had not realised until late on Tuesday ? following forensic security testing ? that the breach had led to the theft of the data of the 77 million users.

Security analysts said that the problem may mean that hackers have uncovered a fundamental flaw in Sony's networks which will be expensive and time-consuming to fix.

The company has suggested that an "unauthorised person" carried out the attack against its servers, during which usernames, passwords, credit card details, security answers, purchase history and addresses are believed to have been stolen.

The precise method by which the hacker broke into the systems has not been revealed, though earlier this year the encryption around the PlayStation 3 was cracked. That would have made software piracy on the PS3 simpler, but it's not clear if it would have enabled the wider break-in.

The Anonymous activist group, which had criticised Sony over its legal threats to people who exploited the encryption crack, has insisted it was not involved in the attack that brought down the network.

The breach has affected two separate Sony networks: the PlayStation Network (PSN), which serves the roughly 55m PS3 consoles, and PlayStation Portable owners, and its paid-for Qriocity music-streaming service.

The company has hinted that it may refund users for lost services and games.

Accounts on the PSN are free to start, and users only need to provide credit card details if they decide to purchase games. But the revelation that details have been stolen indicates that Sony was storing them in unencrypted form ? which is a major security error that even small websites avoid.

Having user emails and passwords could lead malicious users to steal all sorts of other personal details, especially because many people use the same password on multiple sites ? a security failing caused by the problem of remembering multiple different logins.

Alan Paller, research director of the SANS Institute, told Reuters that the breach might be the largest identity theft on record. Although bigger break-ins in terms of the number of credit cards potentially stolen have been recorded, those have been limited to names and card numbers. The detail here is a far richer trove which could be worth tens of millions of dollars if sold on the thriving online black market for credit cards and personal information.

Paller suggested that Sony overlooked security in building the network with the PS3 launch five years ago. "They have to innovate rapidly. That's the business model," Paller said. "New software has errors in it. So they expose code with errors in it to large numbers of people, which is a catastrophe in the making."

Elsewhere, the website VG247 said it had obtained a log of a hacker conversation from February in which two hackers said that it was easy to break into the PSN and defeat its encryption. "Sony is the biggest spy ever ? they collect so much data," one hacker comments in the log. "All connected devices return values sent to Sony servers. it collects when I had a USB device attached. So if they ever sue someone for PSN stuff, they will be sued themselves as most of the data they collect is just not legal."

Sony sought to explain to PlayStation owners why it has taken seven days to reveal the extent of last week's PSN hack. In a post on the company's blog, Nick Caplin, head of communications at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe issued this statement:

"There's a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers' data being compromised. We learned there was an intrusion 19th April and subsequently shut the services down. We then brought in outside experts to help us learn how the intrusion occurred and to conduct an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident.

It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach. We then shared that information with our consumers and announced it publicly yesterday evening."

Sony has also produced an FAQ to inform gamers about the security breach. It reiterates the huge extent of the intrusion: names, addresses, birthdates, PSN passwords and credit card numbers for any of the network's 77 million customers who provided such information may have been acquired.

With thousands of gamers livid that their details have been compromised, the Sony FAQ does briefly address the question of refunds on subscriptions and purchases: "When the full services are restored and the length of the outage is known, we will assess the correct course of action."


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/27/playstation-network-hack-sony

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Sony Shuts Down PlayStation Network Indefinitely

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/25/22402/

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Why did the iPod win and TiVo lose?

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/fortunebrainstormtech/~3/qZ3W0aP8vNE/

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? Why the Nitro JavaScript Engine Isn?t Available to Apps Outside Mobile Safari in iOS 4.3

Source: http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/nitro_ios_43

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Hundreds line up for iPad 2 in Tokyo

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/fortunebrainstormtech/~3/aQB2rmNwobI/

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Two Studios Hold Out On YouTube Movie Rental Deal?Piracy Is The Issue

Word leaked earlier this week that YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) was going to start renting out premium movie content, putting it in a position to compete directly with iTunes. But now there’s a snag. Executives at Fox and Paramount both say they won’t move ahead with a deal because “YouTube and its parent, Google, have not taken adequate steps to stop supporting piracy sites,” according to a report at TheWrap.

Source: http://feeds.paidcontent.org/~r/pcorg/~3/-pRODgB9PeY/

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution

what's your price
Somewhere near the intersection of online dating and unabashed prostitution is where you can find WhatsYourPrice.com -- a new dating site where cash trumps compatibility.

Site founder Brandon Wade compares WhatsYourPrice.com to eBay. "When you see a hot single you want to date, just make an offer and buy the first date," Wade explains, in a press release. But that's where the similarities end.

WhatsYourPrice members are divided into two groups: "the generous" (i.e., men) and "the attractive" (women). Attractive users are invited to create profiles on the site, featuring all the basic information you'd find on most dating networks, as well as the amount of money they'd accept for someone to go on a date with them. The generous, meanwhile, can browse through these profiles, and make offers to any attractive users that catch their eye. Once an offer is made, the attractive member can choose to accept it, reject it, or come up with a different price.

Continue reading New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution

New Dating Site Blurs the Line Between Capitalism and Prostitution originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.switched.com/2011/04/07/whatsyourprice-blurs-line-between-capitalism-prostitution/

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Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean preview

Aaaargh ? Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory with this swashbuckling addition to the series

The Lego video games series must be the envy of many developers in the industry. While other companies fall over themselves to produce the next mega-selling casual/hardcore crossover hit, Traveller's Tales has quietly churned out the gaming equivalent of a chain of Pixar movies.

The company's titles boast cross-generational appeal, easy pick-up-and-play controls, smarts and depth which belie the simplistic mechanics ? and all of it comes wrapped in a family-friendly veneer that is cute enough to disarm all but the most curmudgeonly of gamers.

The Lego games sell very well and a lot of them are critically acclaimed. Furthermore, Traveller's Tales has shown an unerring knack at being able to adapt the series' formula to some of biggest blockbuster intellectual property in the entertainment industry ? the likes of Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter.

All of this makes the developer an enticing prospect for any company about to release a movie in need of some high-end brand extension. Monolithic entertainment entities, take note: if you have a movie that requires a video game, Traveller's Tales is a pretty safe bet.

So all thing's considered, the most surprising thing about Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean isn't that it exists ? because it's a natural fit for the series ? and it isn't its core gameplay. It's the fact that it's taken Disney this long to have Traveller's Tales weave its Lego magic over one of its blockbuster franchises.

Lego game veterans will find themselves in comfortingly familiar territory. The knock on Lego games in recent years is that the series' gameplay template has been left basically unchanged since the first Lego Star Wars game. That's certainly true of Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean, but it's not likely to put too much of a dent in the enjoyment level for punters. The lion's share of activity is taken up by charging around, smashing things up, collecting Lego studs, solving puzzles and hunting for collectibles. However, as with all Lego titles, Traveller's Tales has added quite a few tweaks and tucks to the overall experience, as well as some new functions which offer the game some more depth.

There are more than 70 characters for players to unlock and all of them have some special ability. Jack Sparrow, for example, has his magic compass which reveals hidden collectibles and trinkets in the game. Will Turner hurls axes as a ranged weapon. One pirate has a blunderbuss. Another is able to hurl his glass eye around (although it wasn't revealed in my playthrough just how this actually helps).

There's also a new system throughout the game which makes the characters easier to use and has allowed the developers to create some brand new puzzles. Icons will sometimes appear above a character's head, indicating the players need to find a specific item in their environment which will allow them to add a new member to their party. Once this is done, they gain access to that character's special ability. They can also bring up a character-wheel and switch between any character they've added to their party on the fly.

Another new feature is Super Freeplay mode, which is a beefed up, more free-flowing version of the Freeplay mode in previous Lego titles. In past games, players could select characters in a hub area and take them into levels to unlock new challenges and find collectibles. With Super Freeplay mode, they can switch at any time to any of the characters they've unlocked in the game at any point.

While the ability to switch characters on the fly is a boon, the best parts of Lego Pirates come from the way in which Traveller's Tales has adapted the movie franchise's aesthetic to the game. The best place to start with Lego Pirates is with its gorgeous production values. As is the case with every other Lego title, the game looks fantastic and the characters literally look as if they've been polished until they shine. In terms of the movie franchise's aesthetic qualities, Traveller's Tales has everything on point.

The characters are by turns hilarious and endearing; the Lego Jack Sparrow minces around the scenes like his real-life counterpart, Will Turner looks deadly earnest and Barbosa hits the right note between being menacing and mischievous all at once. Once again, all cut-scenes moving the plot forward contain hilarious silent mugging from all the characters involved. The environments are superb in their presentation and variety; they all look like giant playsets, and players will find themselves trundling along sun-bathed beaches, mixing it up in a barfight in Tortuga or fighting a battle on the deck of the Black Pearl in a hurricane.

The experience of playing the game is almost guaranteed to spread a smile over one's face. The puzzles are inventive and challenging; players won't saunter straight through them, but at the same time, they aren't so difficult that anyone will give up too quickly. There are plenty of fights to have, items to smash and buckles to swash, sure, but the developers have included a lot of elements based around the movie's set-pieces too. At one point, players will find themselves rolling around in giant ball-shaped bone cages from the second film, or fighting high up in the rigging of the Flying Dutchman in the finale of the third film. They'll also fire off canons, zip up mastheads by cutting ropes on pulleys and, at some stage, find themselves riding a pig.

All of the action in Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean is shot through with a boisterous, ramshackle charm, making the game very easy to forgive for some of its overly familiar elements. Whether you're a fan of the movie or game franchise, this new Lego entry looks set to satisfy all but the most sniffy of gamers. You may have a sense you've played some of this game before, but that's an issue that's hard to focus on when you're weaving around as Captain Jack Sparrow on the back of a pig.

? Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean will be out on 13 May 2011 for Wii, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, 3DS, PSP and DS


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/28/lego-pirates-of-the-caribbean-preview

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Jim Dalrymple on Android vs. iPhone Market Share Arguments

Source: http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/04/28/the-truth-about-android-vs-iphone-market-share/

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Rice University graduate student extends WiFi for a mile using empty TV stations

I would bet most of us are cable users, so we don’t think much about the airwaves around our homes that local stations use to broadcast to people that still use antennas. In many smaller local markets there will only be one or two networks using those airwaves leaving much of the bandwidth unused and wasted. A graduate student named Ryan Guerra at Rice University has devised a really cool way to extend WiFi signals for over a mile using the vacant TV broadcast airwaves.

Guerra calls the project super WiFi and the system takes the normal WiFi signals and shifts them over to the TV station frequency. The student has already tested the system in a home where the cities free WiFi signals didn?t reach thanks to lots of tall trees surrounding the property. Super WiFi could get the single to the home even though it was a mile from the All Wi-Fi transmission tower that sent the free broadband service.

The system that Guerra designed uses components like an off the shelf 2.4GHz WiFi card on a Linux computer and the card’s frequency was connected to a frequency translator developed by Alcatel Lucent. This is the key bit of magic that downshifts the WiFi signals to the empty channels in the 563MHz frequency. The output from the translator was connected to a TV antenna set up outside the home.

[via Gizmowatch]


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