New iPhone 5 Release Experiment

They try this experiment every time a new Apple product is announced and people fall for it every time :\ 

Here's a video of showing people an iPad 2 disguised as the New iPad:
http://gizmodo.com/5894094/we-people-an-ipad-2-told-them-it-was-the-new-ipad-and-they-loved-it

Is it all just in our heads?

E3 2010 vs 2011

2010 so bad it's brilliant:


2011 plain bad:

Foxconn factory explosion in China kills two

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13476800

"The incident happened on a production line for Apple's iPad 2 in Chengdu in the south-eastern province of Sichuan, according to local media reports.

It is unclear whether production of the iPad will be disrupted."

Lol at the disregard for human life, OH NOES IPAD DISRUPTION.

Google's cloud based music site live!

 
Google's cloud based "Music Beta" site live! Ready for your invitation requests

Google just launched it's Music Beta page, and is taking invitation requests, a la Google voice back in the day. Their service won't let you purchase any music just yet, because their negotiations with the record labels has fallen through, for now, but they will allow you to upload up to 20,000 of your own songs to "the cloud" for play from anywhere.

The sooner you put in your request, the sooner you'll get your invitation.

http://music.google.com

Meanwhile in Egypt

Points of interest this last half hour, Cairo:

1. Military has shown up, has not stated what side they are taking.
2. Rioters and Police waring over the Octo' bridge.
3. A curfew has been put in place (from 6pm to 7am), anyone breaking the curfew is 'breaking the law', commuters are totally fucked as public transport has shut down.
4. The total baller who managed to throw a Molotov through the gunner port of a security van.
5. Riot police keep getting pushed back.
6. Government buildings on fire, ruling party buildings burning very fiercely, taking the main brunt of the rioter's attacks.
7. Live ammunition gunfire (automatic weapon) around the ruling party building, directed into crowd of protestors.
8. National Museum in the line of fire spread, no way to get fire services to scene.
9. Final prayers still took place! Unbelievable. Everyone broke off rioting to form lines and pray.
10. Police fire tear gas into praying crowd... Uh oh... HOLY SHIT... some total hero catches the damn thing and throws it right back at them!
11. Pray time over, back to rioting and dodging live gunfire.

Live stream here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Free Microsoft Graphing Calculator Released

Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 Released Today = FREE  
 
Microsoft Mathematics provides a graphing calculator that plots in 2D and 3D, step-by-step equation solving, and useful tools to help students with math and science studies.

Microsoft Mathematics provides a set of mathematical tools that help students get school work done quickly and easily. With Microsoft Mathematics, students can learn to solve equations step-by-step while gaining a better understanding of fundamental concepts in pre-algebra, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, and calculus.

Microsoft Mathematics includes a full-featured graphing calculator that’s designed to work just like a handheld calculator. Additional math tools help you evaluate triangles, convert from one system of units to another, and solve systems of equations.


Download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9caca722-5235-401c-8d3f-9e242b794c3a

Good alternative:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

The Best Kinect Hacks to date

 12 popular but primitive demonstrations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho8KVOe_y08

Interior mapping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5Ywwb4RaU

Aviation control:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmVrfjDCyw

Complete motion capture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5Ywwb4RaU

and the one so good even Microsoft says no..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhlvkXLiaCQ

USA no longer the fattest in the world!

 
WE DID IT WOOOO LET'S GO CELEBRATE AT BURGER KINGS

GMAIL to offer free phone calling in US - RIP Skype

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/call-phones-from-gmail.html

The title and article in the OP is not really clear, but in one swift kick, google has killed Skype.
Unlimited calling in the US/Canada for free.

Skype has already responded with a direct attack on Google.

The Google announcement came as a surprise, and would be a clear attack on the Skype service.
In what would best be termed a retaliatory announcement, approximately two hours after Google issued their press release, Skype announced a new email service, SMAIL (S[kype]Mail), which, according to their announcement "will be entirely free and which will be closely integrated with the premium Ask search engine, offering a paradigm changing way for users to get and use email. We also plan to introduce an integrated mapping engine to SMAIL. At Skype, we have always believed true innovation comes from thinking outside the box, and with our new email service we think you will begin to see the fruits of that way of thinking."

Skype expects to begin offering a beta version of their service within the next few months.

That is the weakest retaliatory response I've ever seen. Skype: "We charge for calls, but heres free email!" to Googles "We offer free calling to any US/canada phone, and we've been providing the best email service since 2003!"
Should be noted that calls are only free in 2010, which amount to about 4 months before they take a look at their competition and decide to start charging/not.

Attention ATI card owners

DO NOT upgrade your ATI driver / Catalyst control center to either 10.6 or 10.7


You'll thank me later.

Meanwhile in Sweden..

>"After their former hosting provider received an injunction telling it to stop providing bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, the worlds most resilient BitTorrent site switched to a new ISP. That host, the Swedish Pirate Party, made a stand on principle. Now they aim to take things further by running the site from inside the Swedish Parliament. ... The party has announced today that they intend to use part of the Swedish Constitution to further these goals, specifically Parliamentary Immunity from prosecution or lawsuit for things done as part of their political mandate. They intend to push the non-commercial sharing part of their manifesto, by running The Pirate Bay from inside the Parliament, by Members of Parliament."

Japanese police have attracted attention for their flashy samurai-style takedown of a knife-wielding maniac who had already stabbed one officer, being photographed in a “swordfight” as they subdued him.
The incident began one morning with police in the historic city of Nara receiving a report of a “quarrel” in which one man had been stabbed.
Police arrived in the area in force, dispatching some 40 officers to the area, and began searching for the suspect.
Soon a sergeant found the suspect, a 31-year-old unemployed man later found to have 3 kitchen and fruit knives in his possession (he can be seen dual-wielding in the photographs), 400m away from his home, and approached him for questioning.
He did not however come willingly, stabbing at one officer’s head and injuring him lightly. Reinforcements arrived rapidly and began to subdue him in uniquely Japanese style, using their batons as bokken:

The man was arrested and charged with interfering with police duties and assaulting a police officer, charges he denies saying “I have absolutely no recollection of the event.”
Whatever else can be said of Japanese police (who carry pistols as standard), they do deserve credit for not lazily gunning the suspect down or tasering him into cardiac arrest as police elsewhere do frequently.

Microsoft Photoshopped Black Man out of Advertisment

Many unfortunate incidents in the business world fall under the realm of "What could the involved parties possibly have been thinking?"

Microsoft, whose Windows operating system owns close to 90 percent of the market, experienced one such embarrassing incident on Tuesday, when it was noticed that one of the company's ads on its Polish site was changed from a U.S. version to Photoshop out the face of a black man at a company meeting.

In addition, the photoshopping (or perhaps using MS Paint, by the looks of it) was likely hastily performed, taking no effort to change the color of the man's hand and including a large smirking head that seemed strangely out of place on the body. Additionally, it was also noticed that the man was using a MacBook in both ads, with the logo photoshopped out in both, but the characteristic case was unchanged.

[source]

They should really be complaining abotu all the white people that get photoshoped out of images....

*sigh*... if the guy had been white this wouldn't be an issue...but oh no... because he's black....SUE SUE...make a race issue outta it.

However....clearly...if a MS exec. said "crop that n*gger out of that picture and put one of our own in"... then yes...lay waste to MS. otherwise...

Prince of Persia Movie 2010 May

what to expect:

PS3 Slim on Sale September

[video]

Sony’s longed for PS3 Slim has been greeted rapturously, with the console topping pre-order charts at retailers in the Japan and US alike. Additionally, new firmware has been announced for release (to all PS3s) before the year is out, finally offering full PS2 compatibility.

On the other hand, all the progress the Xbox 360 has made over the years:

The dread Red Ring of Death has long been a feature of Xbox 360 ownership, but a recent survey reveals the shocking truth: the console boasts a failure rate of 54.2%, compared to 10.6% for the PS3 and 6.8% for the Wii.

Microsoft of course never releases statistics on its returns rate, so it has taken a third party survey to uncover the apparent rate. In this case, rag Game Informer surveyed 5,000 readers, asking them about the failure rates of the consoles they owned.

DC Metro Horrors Compilation

[news] DC Metro employees are so high on drugs they can't count to ten

Yeah it's been a crazy couple months with Metro, starting with the fatal accident. Since then drivers have been caught reading while driving, texting while driving, sleeping(!) while driving, talking on a cell phone while driving, and one bus driver was charged with kidnapping for holding passengers hostage. There was also the case last week of subway train doors opening while the train was moving. Welcome to your nation's capital!

Iron Man anime dated 2010

[video]

looks good! now Wolferine on the other end caught the bads of both worlds..

2009 Solar Eclipse

[video]

VLC 1.0.0 is out!

VLC media player 1.0.0 download

VLC 1.0.0 Features:
Independent of systems codecs to support most video types
Live recording
Instant pausing and Frame-by-Frame support
Finer speed controls
New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, ...)
New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, ...) and major improvements in many formats...
New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
Video scaling in fullscreen
RTSP Trickplay support
Zipped file playback
MTP devices on linux
AirTunes streaming

Great stand-alone alternative to MPC when some things just don't play right. Softsub and H.263 decoding still not as good.

RIP TPB

"The Golden Age of the Internet existed between 2001 - 2007. When dsl/cable high speed access reached a zenith and content was unregulated.

Future generations will look back on this time, (if they can) through proxy filters and marvel at the freedom this medium once had. The death of The Pirate Bay, for me, is another hammer in the coffin. Australia's crackdowns, Germany's banning of certain games, Japan's banning of loli raep certain games, it's all rising in a crescendo of freedom dying."

i'll be behind 8 proxxies & 2 filters till this thing's over...