Archive for March 2011

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Tribute to the golden days of gaming

BoingBoing posted this video celebrating the games of yore in a fitting tribute to some of the great arcade games from the past. I tried to name all of them, but failed miserably! How many can you name from this? Music is a cover of Mad World, by Tears for Fears  

Related articles

• Fun With Game Over Of The Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
• Shed a Tear for This Classic Videogame Death Montage (escapistmagazine.com)

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Microsoft Spends $7.5M on 666K Nortel IPv4 Addresses

 

As part of its bankruptcy proceedings, Nortel Networks has sold more than half a million IPv4 addresses to Microsoft for $7.5 million.

The sale includes 666,624 IPv4 addresses that Nortel obtained in the 1990s. Of that, 470,016 addresses are available for immediate use, while 196,608 will be ready by year's end.

Nortel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2009, and started exploring the sale of its businesses and assets in June 2009. Realizing that IPv4 addresses might be an attractive prospect to some companies, Nortel retained an advisor, Addrex, which reached out to 80 potential buyers in December 2010.

As Nortel pointed out in its filing, "IPv4 addresses will eventually be supplanted by IPv6 addresses, of which there is a virtually unlimited supply, but this is expected to take several years. Because of the limited supply of IPv4 addresses, there is currently an opportunity to realize value from marketing the Internet Numbers, which opportunity will diminish over time as IPv6 addresses are more widely adopted.

"In February, the Number Resource Organization NRO, an industry group made up of five regional Internet provider registries, said it had handed out the last of the 4.3 billion available addresses on the IPv4 system.

Of the 80 parties contacted by Addrex and Nortel, 14 signed non-disclosure agreements to examine more in-depth information about the IPv4 addresses. By January 2011, Nortel received four bids to acquire all the available addresses and three bids for a partial sale. Microsoft was the winner with a $7.5 million bid.

via Microsoft Spends $7.5M on 666K Nortel IPv4 Addresses | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.  

Related articles

 

• "Microsoft just scooped up 666,624 IPv4 addresses for $7.5 million" and related posts (pbokelly.blogspot.com)
• Microsoft buys 666,624 IPv4 addresses from Nortel for $7.5 million (downloadsquad.switched.com)
• Microsoft buys old net addresses (bbc.co.uk)

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Duke Nukem Forever delayed....Again!

Duke Nukem Forever being delayed again really shouldn't be a surprize to anyone, but the way they announced this one was very well put together in my opinion: It's nice to see them keeping it light-hearted and fun. What else can you do really? Every one is used to it and will just slam them anyway, might as well make fun of it your self!

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Sprint Teams Up With Google Voice | Epicenter | Wired.com

 

Google Voice is getting a lot easier for Sprint mobile phone customers to use starting Monday. The two companies are making it possible for customers to integrate their Sprint and Google Voice numbers, regardless of whether their phones are smart or dumb.

Sprint customers who don’t have Google Voice can now choose to use their existing Sprint number as their Google Voice number, without having to go through the hassle of porting it over to Google.

The move gives Sprint a marketing tool to win new customers — something Sprint will need if AT&T gets clearance to buy T-Mobile. The partnership also offloads some of the work in building new voicemail and phone features to Google, while the search and advertising giant finds a way to tie even more users to its web of software products.

It also marks the first time that a mobile carrier has partnered with Google Voice — which many had seen as a way for Google to eventually develop a phone service that bypassed traditional operators.

Google allowed any U.S. cellphone user to port their existing mobile number to Google Voice in January. That long-awaited feature makes it simple to switch to Google Voice because you don’t have train people to call a new number. However, the porting option is fraught with peril, due to the vagaries of cellphone contracts and mobile operator’s customer service.

The new Sprint partnership makes it much simpler to choose Google Voice. When you sign up, your Sprint number just becomes your Google Voice number without the hassle and expense of porting — or the need to download an app.

Once it’s set up, incoming calls to a Sprint user’s current number can also ring work and home numbers, as well as software inside Gmail. Those who switch also get low-cost international calls through Google Voice, call screening, voicemail transcription, phone number blocking, the ability to switch a call from phone-to-phone while in progress, free conference calling and per-person voicemail greetings.

Calls from Gmail and text messages sent using the Google Voice website, http://google.com/voice, will also display your.....Read more via Sprint Teams Up With Google Voice | Epicenter | Wired.com.

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HTC EVO View 4G: Release Date ETA and Specs – Good Enough to Compete?

Along with the official announcement of the HTC EVO 3D handset, Sprint has just gone live with another - the HTC EVO View 4G, which is Sprint's version of the HTC Flyer tablet that we've told you about before.The EVO View 4G will be a 7-inch device, and will be... via HTC EVO View 4G: Release Date ETA and Specs – Good Enough to Compete?.

Related articles

• HTC EVO 3D and EVO View 4G tablet spotted -- on Sprint's website, where else? (engadget.com)
• OnLive Snubbed in Sprint's HTC Evo View Reveal (technologizer.com)
• HTC Evo View 4G tablet hits Sprint, we try it out (electronista.com)

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Great Street Photographer discovered

To  some of you this maybe old news, but I just come across this video of a previously undiscovered photographer from the mid 20th century: Vivian Maier was a nanny and in her off time walked around Chicago taking pictures of people and things....a street photographer. A young man purchased some items Read more

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Radiation Dose Chart

Thanks to Randall Munroe at xkcd for this chart:

Sources: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/ http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html http://www.nema.ne.gov/technological/dose-limits.html http://www.deq.idaho.gov/inl_oversight/radiation/dose_calculator.cfm http://www.deq.idaho.gov/inl_oversight/radiation/radiation_guide.cfm http://mitnse.com/ http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/18/1303727_1716.pdf http://blog.vornaskotti.com/2010/07/15/into-the-zone-chernobyl-pripyat/ http://dels-old.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/rerf_final.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert

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First Look: Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman

Here's the first image of Adrianne Palicki in costume as the new Wonder Woman. David E. Kelley‘s new TV series is evidently going for the ‘Sexy Wonder Woman' Halloween look. See the full image after the break.Getting the costume right is one of the difficult factors in putting Wonder Woman... via First Look: Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman.

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The 18 Most Suppressed Inventions Ever Photo Gallery - The Original Electric Car: Unplugged? - Conspiracies on truTV

1. The Original Electric Car: Unplugged?

 

Getty Images

Perhaps the most notorious suppressed invention is the General Motors EV1, subject of the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? The EV1 was the world's first mass-produced electric car, with 800 of them up for lease from GM in the late '90s. GM ended the EV1 line in 1999, stating that consumers weren't happy with the limited driving range of the car's batteries, making it unprofitable for GM to continue production. Many skeptics, however, believe GM killed the EV1 under pressure from oil companies, who stand to lose the most if high-efficiency vehicles conquer the market. It doesn't help that GM had a policy of hunting down and destroying every last EV1, ensuring the technology would stall right then and there. 2. The Death of the American Streetcar

Getty Images

In 1921, if the streetcar industry wasn't actually naming streetcars Desire it was certainly desiring more streetcars. They netted $1 billion, causing General Motors to hemorrhage $65 million in the face of a thriving industry. GM retaliated by buying (or pressuring out of business) hundreds of independent railway companies, boosting the market for gas-guzzling GM busses and cars. The face of American transportation was all cars, cars, cars for the next half-century. While a recent urban movement to rescue mass transit has been underway, it is unlikely we'll ever see streetcars return to their former glory. 3. The 99-MPG Car

Landov

The holy grail of automotive technology is the 99-mpg car. Although the technology has been available for years, automakers have deliberately withheld it from the U.S. market. In 2000, the New York Times reported a little-known fact, at least to most: A diesel-powered dynamo called the Read more

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Super Full Moon - NASA Science

March 16, 2011: Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years. "The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. "I'd say it's worth a look." Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit. "The full Moon of March 19th occurs less than one hour away from perigee--a near-perfect coincidence¹ that happens only 18 years or so," adds Chester. Super Full Moon - NASA Science.

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Xobni Is Coming To Gmail, Android, And iPhone (100 Beta Invites)

Ever since Xobni launched at the first TechCrunch 40, it’s been about Outlook and then Blackberry. But those of us who use Gmail also want to make our inboxes smarter. Today, Xobni is launching aprivate beta for Gmail, and will soon also launch iPhone and Android apps. The first 100 readers to sign up for the Gmail beta will get in (use the code XOBNI-TC100). The Gmail app comes in the form of a browser extension for either Chrome or Firefox (Safari and IE will come later). Once you install it, a Xobni sidebar appears in your Gmail Inbox. Once you allow it to index your contacts and.... Read the rest of the story at TechCrunch: via Xobni Is Coming To Gmail, Android, And iPhone (100 Beta Invites).

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SMS On Steroids – eBuddy Debuts Realtime, Cross-Platform Messaging App

eBuddy, the Dutch company that enables millions of people worldwide to communicate with each other on the Web and a wide range of mobile phones, is today introducing a brand new application for iPhone and Android. With the app, dubbed eBuddy XMS, the company aims to go “beyond SMS” with a free realtime messaging tool that functions across a range of platforms (BlackBerry coming soon). eBuddy believes it can add value to the fast growing mobile messaging apps category based on its wealth of digital messaging expertise and by focusing primarily on the user experience. Already, the company enables over 30 million monthly active users to send via SMS On Steroids – eBuddy Debuts Realtime, Cross-Platform Messaging App.

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RipTen Review: Homefront (PC) | RipTen Videogame Blog

War. War never changes- but only because it doesn’t need to in order to sell 14 million units. I pen this journal on scraps of paper in my parent’s basement reinforced bunker, far underground. The bombs from battles above shake dust loose from the floorboards and give the entire room a dull brown haze. The pallet is quite familiar to me, as I’ve seen it dozens of times over the last few years. This is because we are at war. No, I’m not talking about the war the wealthy in America have successfully waged against the other 80% of the country, or the war the current iteration of the Republican party has waged against minorities, women, free speech, common sense, and decency. I’m talking about the war fought between gamers who.... Read the rest of the story at: RipTen Review: Homefront (PC) | RipTen Videogame Blog.

Related articles

• Homefront sells 375,000 units for first day of US sales (news.bigdownload.com)
• Massive Homefront Sales On Day One (godisageek.com)

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A Closer Look at Deals, Facebook’s News Feed-Based Answer to Groupon

On Tuesday, Facebook began signing up users for Deals, its answer to Groupon and other group-buying services. Subscribers will receive updates in their news feed and potentially by email about pre-paid coupons and experiences they can purchase. Businesses can work with Facebook's Merchant Services team to arrange and promote Deals... via A Closer Look at Deals, Facebook’s News Feed-Based Answer to Groupon.

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Revealed: US Military Spy Operation that Manipulates Social Media

From Guardian.co.uk:The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US... via Revealed: US Military Spy Operation that Manipulates Social Media.

Will a $200 ASUS Eee PC finally ship with Google's help?

As hard as it tried, ASUS never could get its Eee PC prices down to $200 MSRP as promised way back in 2007 -- a time when Intel-based netbooks still shipped with Linux distros and "tablet PCs" ran a Microsoft OS. Fast forward to today and netbooks are being kicked to the curb for ARM-based tablets running smartphone operating systems. To compete, ASUS, a company that's become synonymous with netbooks, is planning to ship an unsubsidized $200 to $250 netbook running Android 3.0 or Chrome OS in June. According to DigiTimes sources, anyway, who tend to be pretty accurate with regard to Taiwanese companies. If true then expect to see it announced at Computex which kicks off in Taiwan on May 31st.

Will a $200 ASUS Eee PC finally ship with Google's help? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Related articles

• $200 ASUS Eee PC could run Chrome OS in June (slashgear.com)
• ASUS to debut Eee Pad Transformer in Taiwan this Friday, Honeycomb confirmed (engadget.com)
• "ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Android Honycomb Tablet Made Official" and related posts (mobilewhack.com)

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V'ger is still out there!

Remember Star Trek: The Motion Picture? That movie had the alien life force that was gathering everything in it's path(basically). After reading the article below it makes one wonder if it really could happen sometime in the future. Thirty three + years after it's launch, Voyager 1 is still out there gathering information and taking orders, 10.8 billion miles away!

An artist's concept of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes near interstellar space. CREDIT: NASA/JPL [Full Story] View full size image

A venerable NASA spacecraft cruising toward the edge of the solar system has proved that it's not ready to retire just yet by performing a precision maneuver to gear up for new studies of the solar wind. NASA's Voyager 1 probe, which launched in 1977, rolled itself 70 degrees counterclockwise on Monday (March 7), and then held the position for more than two hours. The goal was to start positioning the probe — humanity's most distant spacecraft — to study how the charged particles streaming from the sun behave deep in space. It was the first such roll-and-stop move for Voyager 1, or its sibling Voyager 2, since 1990, NASA researchers said. However, the spacecraft have performed rolls — without any stops — regularly in the intervening decades, to help calibrate their instruments and take data on the sun's magnetic field, the scientists added. "Even though Voyager 1 has been traveling through the solar system for 33 years, it is still a limber enough gymnast to do acrobatics we haven't asked it to do in 21 years," Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "It executed the maneuver without a hitch, and we look forward to doing it a few more times to allow the scientists to gather the data they need." [The Solar System Explained: From the Inside Out] A solar wind mystery The two Voyager spacecraft are traveling through a turbulent region of the solar system known as the heliosheath. The heliosheath is the outer shell of a bubble around our solar system created by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles blowing outward from the sun at a million miles per hour. Astronomers believe that the solar wind banks as it approaches the outer edge of this bubble, where it runs up against the interstellar wind. The interstellar wind originates in the region between stars, and it blows by our solar bubble, researchers said. In June 2010, when Voyager 1 was about 10.6 billion miles (17 billion kilometers) away from the sun, data from its Low Energy Charged Particle instrument showed that the net outward flow of  the solar wind was zero. That zero reading has continued since. Read the complete article at Space.com

Related articles

• At Solar System's Edge, Old Voyager 1 Probe Performs New 'Acrobatics' (livescience.com)
• Voyager: Still dancing 17 billion km from Earth (bbc.co.uk)
• Voyager 1 will exit solar system soon, is so close to the void it can taste it (engadget.com)

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4.5 Trillion Dollars

4,500,000,000,000 is a HUGE number! To put it in perspective let's look at in a few different ways: 4,500,000,000,000 is the number of cigarette butts littered each year 4,500,000,000,000 is the amount of natural gas discover recently in Argentina 4,500,000,000,000 is the amount of euros the EU has approved for aid to the banks 4,500,000,000,000 is less than half of the total outstanding debt held by the public 4,500,000,000,000 is the total wealth of the Forbes list of billionaires 4.5 trillion dollars belong to 1,210 people! The Forbes list broke records this year for the number of billionaires and the total worth. Moscow has more billionaires than any other city, the BMOC gained 20.5 billion dollars this past year, Facebook has spawned 6 billionaires and a Russian internet investor is the youngest billionaire (by 8 days over Zuckerberg) at 26 years old! Just think what you or I could do with just a small fraction of the wealth these 1,210 people have! If they were to give away one million dollars to people until it was all gone, there would be 4.5 million new millionaires in the world! Would those 4.5 million people be able to make the same changes in the world as the 1.210 could? I doubt it.....human nature would cause us to spend that money on things for us and/or our families not on the things that would benefit millions more people. Take Bill Gates fro an example.....Bill would be the number one on the list had he not given away $30 billion dollars to his non-profit foundation. Others on this list have given untold amounts of money to help people across the world. Still, just think how much new computer stuff you or I could get with just a small fraction of that money!!

Related articles

• Forbes Rich List: Carlos Slim Beats Out Bill Gates, Warren Buffet as Richest Man in the World (okmagazine.com)
• Six Facebook billionaires on Forbes rich list (newstatesman.com)
• World's richest are almost $1 trillion richer (sfgate.com)

China clones the sliding netvertible tablet PC

We'd forgive you for thinking you're looking at a smartphone in the picture above -- seeing how HTC and Nokia owners have enjoyed this form factor for years -- but that's actually a netbook up there, sporting a full five-row keyboard and a desktop operating system. Yes, what took Samsung and ASUS until CES 2011 to realize has been copied by Shenzhen in two months flat, and even if you'd thumb your nose at its vanilla configuration (10-inch 1024 x 600 screen, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 3700mAh lithium-ion battery) and optical touchpad next to the display, it's hard for a lover of all things gadgety not to appreciate that. Besides, the 1,600 yuan (about $244) price tag doesn't hurt any.

China clones the sliding netvertible tablet PC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Profit shocker! Android brings home more bacon than iOS for Pocket Legends developer

Back in 2009, we wrote a story on crack mobile developer Larva Labs lamenting its inability to make a living off top-rated games in the Android Market. Well, to put it lightly, it ain't 2009 anymore: the Android ecosystem has expanded exponentially in every conceivable direction, the Market has taken on tens of thousands of additional apps, and -- according to one research firm, anyway -- Android has now overtaken BlackBerry to become the most prolific smartphone platform in the US.

To that end, Spacetime Studios -- the company behind mobile MMORPG Pocket Legends, which brings in revenue through in-app purchases -- was shocked to discover that it's making some 30 to 50 percent more from its Android users than its iOS ones. Furthermore, they're spending more time playing and downloading the app with far greater frequency, which might be a testament to the fact that really great apps still stand out in the Market better than they do in the more mature (and more populated) App Store. The in-app purchase disparity is a little more difficult to explain, though -- especially since iOS has a slick, integrated purchase mechanism that Google won't be rolling out in Android for a little while yet. At any rate, the online mobile economy -- regardless of platform -- clearly still has some growing, maturing, and stabilizing to do.

[Thanks, Michael]

Profit shocker! Android brings home more bacon than iOS for Pocket Legends developer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips FloatingCushions headphones have you on cloud nine

Philips FloatingCushions headphones have you on cloud nine originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s latest 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab teaser hints impressive slimness

Samsung hasn't been entirely shy about its forthcoming 8.9-inch tablet, though Mr. Blurrycam seems to be having some trouble getting on a plane in Seoul. Fortunately for us, today the Korean giant decided to give us mere mortals a sneak peek at said device, and it sure looks promising -- as you can see above, the bulge seems to imply that the tablet's general thickness almost matches the headphone jack's height. If true, this would put Samsung's 8.9-incher head to head with Apple's 8.8mm thick iPad 2 in a fitness contest. Bring on March 22nd!

Samsung's latest 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab teaser hints impressive slimness originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plugable DC-125 dock turns your solitary PC into a multiple workstation powerhouse (video)

Continue reading Plugable DC-125 dock turns your solitary PC into a multiple workstation powerhouse (video)

Plugable DC-125 dock turns your solitary PC into a multiple workstation powerhouse (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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