Read: Looking for Love in Dead Space
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Sounds fun!
Bored? Looking for a new timewaster? Need a little more survival horror in your life? Look no further. The necromorphs are here for you and ready to entertain (and possibly award prizes!)
Deep Focus recently released No Known Survivors, an interactive narrative series set in the world of Electronic Arts' upcoming survival horror game, Dead Space. The narrative series is one part of a extensive cross media marketing package which includes comic books, animated shorts, developer diaries, and a movie.
In the world of Dead Space, necromorphs have overrun the USG Ishimura, a deep space planetcracking ship, after a mysterious stone is discovered on the planet below. No one outside the ship knows there are necromorphs (parasitic zombie-like creatures) running around killing the Ishimura crew, so a shuttle is sent to investigate why the ship's communication systems are down (of course!).
No Known Survivors, however, has subject matter which is a bit lighter. Griggs, a technician in the Organ Replacement Lab, spends his days replacing the organs of the crew and residents of the Ishimura. He isn't worried about necromorphs (yet), but is more concerned with how to impress a seven-fingered girl named Jane.
No Known Survivors, still in its first chapter, plays out much like an old school PC adventure game with point and click navigation and puzzles to discover and solve. As players advance through the game and solve puzzles, they will be awarded points and a spot on the leaderboard. The top 100 players on the board at the end of the narrative will receive a copy of the Dead Space video game. The first puzzle, a severed finger code, is still unsolved, so it's not too late to join in!
For those who like to peek behind the curtain, a few familiar names are attached to the project. Dave Szulborski helped out early in the production of the game, while Nick Braccia and Dee "Addlepated" Cook are both on the current development team.
Read: Google Open Sources Skia Graphics Engine
Shared by Gabriel Kent
I agree, however I see it as dual-front... Chrome is about mobiles (sure) but its also about lightweight web app wrappers.
I know I know… by now the world doesn’t need yet another Google Browser blog post, with yet another news item or a hands on review. How about something different, even though it was buried deep inside the Google Chrome announcement?
As part of the Chrome release, Google open sourced a big portion of Android’s graphic engine code. This code comes from the Skia Graphics Engine that was developed by Skia Inc., a company Google acquired in 2005. It was based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and was started by Michael Reed.
This vector graphics rendering software makes highend visual effects possible on feature phones. It is tiny in size and is capable of delivering very high quality. Skia’s engine is the graphics core of both Google Android and Google Chrome.
This is yet another proof point to my theory that Google Chrome is more about the mobiles and less about the desktops. By adding Skia engine to Chrome, Google can ensure good graphics performance on devices that don’t have graphics processing unit.
Read: 3 Cool Sites to Bookmark Your Favorite Images on the Web
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Nice little list.
When browsing through websites we see hundreds of images a day that we think are cool. Some of us may download these images to our desktop. Others may bookmark them in their browser or add them to their Flickr account. However, as the web changes and we look for more useful ways to manage our interests, services are popping up that manage our interests for us. Here's a look at 3 neat sites to save images to and share with friends.
Vi.sualize.us
Vi.sualize.us is a great social bookmarking service for images. You can think of it as the Delicious for images. A place where the cool photos hang out. If you head to their homepage, you'll see a ton of great images that users of the service have recently added. From fashion to architecture, you'll have a blast going through the archives of users on vi.sualize.us. We recommend using their Firefox plugin to bookmark images whenever you'd like by simply right-clicking on an image to save it. You can also embed your latest bookmarked images on your blog or subscribe to a friend's RSS feed for vi.sualize.us.
FFFFOUND!
Ffffound! was one of the first image bookmarking services to hit the scene. With a fantastic selection of images to browse through, the only downside to this service is that it's invitation only. A bookmarklet and IE extension are provided to make it easier for users to bookmark images to their Ffffound account. A neat twist that this service has is that the more images you bookmark, the more the service will recommend personalized images for your viewing pleasure for a more dynamic experience.
We Heart It
We Heart It appears to be more of a Ffffound! clone with a better user interface. Still, the service is pretty appealing with great images, social tagging, and commenting, which Ffffound! happens to lacks. We Heart It provides a bookmarklet for saving images and videos from Vimeo or Youtube. However, this bookmarklet does not work in IE.
Bookmarking Taken to the Next Level
Bookmarking is going further than we might have originally expected. We can now bookmark images, links, save webpages just the way we found them and tons more. I'd love to see these sites incorporate the ability to upload photos that we take from our cellphones. After all, those are images too. Let us know what you think the next step for bookmarking will be. With We Heart It's ability to bookmark videos, what will we see next?
Read: Moon as research outpost, training ground
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Sign me up!
One of the host of challenges facing NASA as the agency plans to rekindle robotic and human exploration of the moon is the development of a corps of investigators and technologies suitable for long-term missions akin to the research stations that dot Antarctica.
Read: Computer virus strikes space station
Shared by Gabriel Kent
haha... I bet the coder is smiling. I once embedded my logo in code used for hybrid satellite/copper media streaming... I was pretty proud to think my code (and logo) were directly transmitted to space and received in mid-west homes... but the space station...woo ;)
A virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has inexplicably popped up in some laptop computers aboard the international space station.
Read: Dark matter detected in cosmic crash
Shared by Gabriel Kent
That title is misleading.
Astronomers say fresh imagery of a powerful collision of galaxy clusters supports the idea that dark matter is something totally separate from ordinary matter.
Read: Space station dodges controversial junk
Shared by Gabriel Kent
I remember reading about the problem of space junk in 4th grade... and that was a long time ago... as time passes it only gets worse... a difficult problem indeed. Unfortunately, nothing really will be done till a major accident occurs :/
For the first time in five years, the international space station changed course on Wednesday to avoid a piece of space junk — in this case, satellite debris that the Russians have insisted wasn't there.
Read: NASA seeks next Carl Sagan — and E.T.
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Oh wow...
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, famous for its manned missions to the moon, announced the creation of the Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration on Wednesday.
Read: Cosmic Log: Courts weigh doomsday claims
Shared by Gabriel KentScience editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: Courts in the U.S. and Europe are considering claims that an atom-smasher could destroy the world, but that won't hold up the device's startup.
LHC goes online next week! These court cases are rather lame and baseless but I give credit to those willing to stick up for their beliefs against the establishment... its just in this case they are off their rocker... er we should hope ;)
LHC go! w007!
Enjoyed: Latin Lessons
Latin Lessons by MetricksEnjoyed: Prophet
Prophet by RivelEnjoyed: The sacred dance of Mimi Lush
The sacred dance of Mimi Lush by PimmonEnjoyed: 44 edit
44 edit by Terminal11Enjoyed: The Dangerous Empty
The Dangerous Empty by Marshall WatsonRead: Comcast Appeals FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling
Shared by Gabriel KentIan Lamont writes "Comcast has filed a court appeal of an FCC ruling that says the company can't delay peer-to-peer traffic on its network because it violates FCC net neutrality principles. A Comcast VP said the FCC ruling is 'legally inappropriate,' but said it will abide by the order during the appeal while moving forward with its plan to cap data transfers at 250 GB per month."
In other news Cox is tracking your downloads and issuing DMCA notices.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read: Cancer Research Heads Down New Pathway
Shared by Gabriel KentThe discovery that different cancers have common pathways to disease could open the door to treatments that are effective for multiple cancers rather than targeting specific genes for each individual cancer type.
This is an amazing area of research... there are some great bio hacks in stopping how cancer functions.
Read: New TiVo DVR Proves Bigger Is Sometimes Better
Shared by Gabriel KentGadgets are supposed to get smaller not larger, right? TiVo hears this and TiVo so doesn't care. The new TiVo HD XL is enormous with a terabyte of memory and THX-certified audio and video for pumping out true hi-def glory.
wooo a new toy.
Read: A Flotilla of Artists Sail down the Hudson River-Swoon and her Switchback Seas
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Looks fun!
photo by Angela Coppola
You know that summer is over in New York City when the gallery openings kick up speed. Thursday evenings, Chelsea streets become cluttered again with wine sipping gallery hopping enthusiasts. One of these art openings in particular caught my eye. “Swoon and Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea” will open this Sunday, September 7th, at Deitch’s Studio in Long Island City, Queens. I’ve always been a fan of Swoon’s...
Read: If Tesla’s plans had come to fruition, .. such towers would have peppered the globe, saturating the planet with free electricity and wireless communication as early as the 1920s
Shared by Gabriel Kentsubmitted by qgyh2 to science
Ahh Tesla is getting a lot of hype lately cause of the green trend... good!
[link] [13 comments]
Read: ‘Knockout’ rats could aid study of psychiatric illness
Shared by Gabriel KentTechniques pioneered 20 years ago to make "knockout" mice -- animals genetically engineered so that they lack a specific gene -- can at last be applied to rats, which are more socially sophisticated than mice, and so could provide better models for psychiatric disorders, researchers at Stem Cell Sciences say. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn14654-knockout-rats-could-aid-study-of-psychiatric-illness.html)
I didn't know rats are more social than mice... interesting.
Read: Beyond the Mobile Hype In Election '08
Shared by Gabriel KentFollowing the hoopla about the "first ever VP announcement by SMS" launched by the Democratic party, here's an interesting and thoughtful article by Justin Oberman for techPresident reminding us how mobile phones have been used politically before with a far greater viral reach and, in the end, impact.
...still, just because it has been done before doesn't mean the impact won't grow or that its any less meaningful.
Oberman begins with text book case of "the Second People Power Revolution" that occurred in the Philippines in 2001 - whereby the people's text messaging toppled a a government - and follows up with other examples from around the world. And you can find even more examples in this blog's " SMS and Politics" category which has been following the impact of politics and text messaging for nearly ten years.
I'm glad he Justin wrote this paper, I too was irritated by e-mails from marketing managers suggesting I schedule a talk time with their company president to discuss how Obama's text messaging idea was unique and how in the future SMS was to become "a new wave of communications for the political sphere". Sometimes, US marketers lack perspective and a knowledge of history.
Read: Mobile phones 'boost school standards'
Shared by Gabriel KentSchoolchildren should be allowed to use mobile phones in the classroom to boost education standards, according to researchers, reports The Telelgraph.
I wrote about this very subject recently for the EduBlogger 2008 event.
Despite fears that mobiles and MP3 players are a huge distraction, it is claimed schools can get the most out of pupils by giving them full-time access to the latest gadgets.
Academics said mobiles could be used for a wide range of educational purposes, including creating short movies, setting homework reminders, recording a teacher reading a poem and timing science experiments.
New-style "smartphones", which can connect to the internet, also allowed pupils to access revision websites, log into the school email system, or transfer electronic files between school and home.
Employing them as part of day-to-day lessons boosts pupils' motivation levels, it was claimed.
The conclusions comes despite high-profile calls from teaching unions for an all-out ban on the use of mobiles in schools."
Related: - Phone a friend in exams - A Sydney girls' school is redefining the concept of cheating by allowing students to "phone a friend" and use the internet and i-Pods during exams
Read: HP Bags Wal-Mart’s Reduced Packaging Award With Laptop In A Bag
Shared by Gabriel Kent
Nice litle package... I want ;)
It's at least a bit ironic that Wal-Mart drove HP to come up with some seemingly significant packaging reductions for its Pavilion dv6929. After all, Wal-Mart IS still the place where you can leave the store with a 1-to-1 plastic bag-to-purchase ratio. Consumer packaging reduction of 97 percent
Still, reduced packaging is a beloved theme here at TreeHugger, and both HP and Wal-Mart deserve a little respect. Wal-Mart offered the Home Entertainment Design Challenge - HP responded by cutting conventional packaging on the dv6929 an unbelievable 97 percent. Gone are the styrofoam inserts and enveloping cardboard. What's left are couple of plastic ba...
Read: Mozilla CEO uncertain about future relationship with Google
Shared by Gabriel KentThe simple fact that Google is now pursuing its own browser could leave Mozilla scratching its head. And quite apparently, Mozilla has not quite figured out how its relationship with Google will work out over the next few years.
Google pays mozilla... I am playing with Chrome and find it lacking as a full browser... great for a web app wrapper. I don't agree with using webkit over mozilla though... seems like a waste to me... though I'm sure its because of webkits optimization... still, I would rather see a google optimize a mozilla branch :/
Read: Massive $208 million petascale computer gets green light
Shared by Gabriel KentNASA Ames, Intel and SGI will work together on a project called Pleiades to develop a system with a capacity of one Petaflops peak performance by 2009 and a system with a peak performance of 10 Petaflops by 2012. And the 200,000 processor core system known as Blue Waters got the green light recently as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) said it has finalized the contract with IBM to build the world's first sustained petascale computational system, delivering sustained performance of more than one petaflop on many real-world scientific and engineering applications. The system may be used to study complex processes like the interaction of the Sun's coronal mass ejections with the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere; the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe; understanding the chains of reactions that occur with living cells; and the design of novel materials. (Source: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32152)
More than one petaflop sustained... holy wow (you may now laugh future me).
Enjoyed: Happy Mistake
Happy Mistake by Waffle ManEnjoyed: New Age
New Age by Canoply GamesEnjoyed: Spiralize
Spiralize by MiwonEnjoyed: Kissa
Kissa by OvucaEnjoyed: Iyf
Iyf by Menu:ExitRead: The “New” Facebook: Learning From Old Mistakes (Becky Bitzenhofer/Compete Blog)
Shared by Gabriel Kent
I agree with the gradual release... seems its going good for them.
Becky Bitzenhofer / Compete Blog:
The “New” Facebook: Learning From Old Mistakes — A few weeks ago, I logged on to Facebook to see if any of my friends had dared to challenge me in another game of word twist. As was expected, due to my unprecedented dominance in the game, no one had. What was not expected, however …
Enjoyed: Black Ice (Sutekh Remix)
Black Ice (Sutekh Remix) by AuchEnjoyed: 02 - pextris - Computer Love
02 - pextris - Computer Love by PextrisEnjoyed: Le Elancholia
Le Elancholia by LexaunculptRead: The 5 Most Laughable Terms of Service On the Net
Shared by Gabriel Kentnicholas.m.carlson writes "According to these five terms of service and EULA, Google owns any content you create using its Chrome browser and can filter your Gmail messages if it likes. Facebook says it can sell its users' uploaded images as stock photography. YouTube can keep footage of your kids forever, even after you've deleted it from the site. And AOL can ban you for using vulgar language on AIM. Funny, right? That's why Valleywag calls them 'The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net.'" Reader dlaudel writes, regarding the previously-mentioned Google EULA for Chrome, "According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."
I am pretty sure all EULAs are laughable since their point is to retain as much control as possible... the Google tactic isn't that odd... its really no different than code reuse... we shouldn't be anyway. I have talked about auto contracts in the past at future progress. Damn interesting topic.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read: Music From the Past - Bringing Back the Epigonion
Shared by Gabriel KentA group of researchers has recreated the music of an ancient harp-like instrument, the epigonion.
Sounds interesting... pun intended ;)
Bookmarked: SAMSUNG OMNIA
I just found out that I want this... really bad ;)Read: Comcast’s Moral Obligation: If You Cap It, Help Us Count It
Shared by Gabriel Kentsubmitted by HarleyJane to technology
Agreed, though not really on moral grounds.
[link] [0 comments]
Read: Is Windows Vista really driving people to Linux?
Shared by Gabriel KentLast year, curious over the hype that was flooding the internet in the wake of the release of Windows Vista, I decided to turn masochist and inflict a 14-day Vista trial on myself. I found the operating system much worse than even its worst critic.
I don't use Vista... but have used it for a month or so and I don't remember it being that bad. There seems to be way too much anti-vista hype.
Read: The Net Neutrality Debate All On One Page (Erick Schonfeld/TechCrunch)
Shared by Gabriel Kent
A close friend of mine just had her Internet turned off by Cox because her roommate downloaded the movie 'there will be blood' -- they sent the account holder an email detailing the filename, size and timestamp of the download. Time for always on encryption.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The Net Neutrality Debate All On One Page — Are you confused about Net Neutrality? Who isn't? Some people argue it is necessary for continued innovation on the Internet, and point to Comcast's bandwidth metering as a sign of things to come. Others claim that it is unnecessary regulation …
Read: German Customs Agents Raid Another Trade Show
Shared by Gabriel KentJagsLive tips the news that German customs agents have shown up in force to raid the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. (The last time we discussed news like this was during CeBIT, in Hanover, last March.) 220 customs agents seized electronic gear from 69 different booths at IFA. The Register reports that this raid, like the one last spring, was touched off after complaints by patent firm Sisvel. "They seized equipment which will now be checked for evidence of patent breaches. A spokesman for German Customs told us: 'We've raided 69 companies today. We have seized equipment including flat-screen TVs, CD players, set-top boxes and MP3 players.'"
Sounds like a massive government learning campaign.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Enjoyed: Samba Legrand
Samba Legrand by DaedelusBookmarked: Healing Rhythms Guided Training Program - WDP HEALING
Healing Rhythms artfully combines effective biofeedback training with guided meditation and breathing techniques, allowing you to witness and transform the rhythms of your mind and body as they play together on-screen. A multi-dimensional approach to relaxation training that includes guided breathing and meditation exercises, Healing Rhythms graphically immerses you with biofeedback challenges, and soothing music.Bookmarked: CYGNET - EEG Neurofeedback / Biofeedback Software, Updates, Downloads, Tutorials, Knowledgebase, Support, Hardware
Cygnet is the pinnacle of Neurofeedback software. It is a fusion of powerful tools and simple control designed with the Clinician and everyday practice in mind. Intuitive layout and controls allow for effortless use of advanced neurofeedback protocols along side the industries best feedback games.Enjoyed: #362: Got You Pegged
#362: Got You Pegged by Chicago Public RadioEnjoyed: Until the Red Fog Rises
Until the Red Fog Rises by AuchEnjoyed: Com shot (version 3)
Com shot (version 3) by AwtEnjoyed: 16th Wave
16th Wave by Amen OrchestraRead: Steve Jobs is Not — Repeat, Not — Dead
Shared by Gabriel KentWe're not in the habit of piling on the gaffes of other media, but we feel duty bound to share this gawker story about Bloomberg somehow publishing its work-in-progress obituary of the Apple CEO -- who, by the way, is very much alive.
Thats weird.