PIRATES! (The new masters of quality control.)

Avast ye! This torrent of The Green Lantern was an .mov and thar be no Quicktime in these parts!

A new study has been making the rounds across the interwebs which states that the advent of copyright piracy dens the Pirate Bay and torrent clients like BitTorrent have had no effect on Hollywood's box office receipts. Unfortunately, this study has been falsely hailed as the definitive assuagement of the internet's collective guilt over illegal downloads.

The Future of Meat Creation

I came across a particularly disturbing article on Wired today.  It describes a process of growing (not raising) chickens for meat in some sort of unconscious Matrix-style apparatus.  This imedietly sounded like a project being worked on by Veridian Dynamics and another attempt at their lab grown meat blob, that turned out to taste like nothing else other than despair.  Not only am I unsure about eating something that was stimulated by electricity rater than good ol' moving around.  I am also worried about how easy we are making it for the singularity to us into a far more complicit state when it takes over.

The most horrifying news of the day.

For anyone who has read Farenheit 451, news that the modern world has successfully created the primary human-life-ending robobeast from Ray Bradbury's masterpiece would be met with little less than abject terror. Well get your terror faces ready, because that news appears to be upon us. DARPA has released the video of the first field test of their unsettlingly named Alpha Dog.

A Decade Later, Nintendo tries to catch up.

A week after a Japanese tweeter noticed a suspicious-looking "Nintendo Network" logo on the box art for a game that anyone would be brave to tweet about, Nintendo confirms the existence (or future existence) of The Nintendo Network.

Those with a keen insight to the passage of time will note that a similar service has been offered by both of Nintendo's primary rivals for the better part of ten years, yet the legendary company sees fit to tout features like "Personal Accounts" and "Community Features" as things that make Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console worth purchasing. There are already plans for the network to interface with the already released 3DS handheld as well, allowing for wondrous volumes of downloadable content.

Obviously, Nintendo is pretty confident that the Network will at least turn enough of a profit to make up for any ill-will incurred any time someone sees an RSS icon.


Because, it's like... yeah. Awkward. This was there already, and, like, you took it, Nintendo. I mean, I guess you kinda put an "n" in there, which, it's like, yeah... that's you guys, that's your thing, your letter, but... couldn't you have at least gone with green or something?

[via Kotaku and Joystiq]

It's been a big day for Sci Fi breakthroughs.

First the NYPD and the DOD announce a visual metal-detector straight outta Total Recall, and now word comes through the BBC that a breakthrough has been made in full three dimensional invisibility.

I'm all teched out after paraphrasing that metal-detector article earlier. I'll let the links do the talking.

[Header via Deus Ex: Human Revolution - hopefully real life cloaking has a longer battery life]

One step closer to X-Ray glasses

Perverts everywhere rejoice.

So as it turns out, New York has a wee bit of a gun problem. Despite having some of the strictest firearms restrictions in the Republic, New York has been unable to curb gun crime with any satisfying results. The New York Police Department's current method of dealing with the overwhelming handgun population are  random (read: of black dudes) pat down searches. While this technique managed to procure over 800 guns, 88% of the searches performed came up with nothing. The NYPD wants better results, and if they can get those without all that pesky "movement" required when frisking someone, all the better.

Enter science!

The Payoffs of Procrastination

A couple months back I got an email saying that there is a recall on my 1st gen iPod nano.  Something about the possibility of the battery exploding, I think. Now, I figured that I would probably get around to this one eventually, but since my 6-year-old iPod has been just been sitting in a drawer for a couple years, it wasn't really high on my to do list.  That is until now.

Apparently, Apple has run out of their original iPod nano refurbs that they were sending as replacements.  So, what does this mean if you listen to music in fear that your pocket could explode or if you would just like you music player to have fewer scratches?  Apple is still replacing the recalled iPod's, but now you'll get back a current generation nano.  (MacRumors says this may be happening for some; while, my cousin has received his free upgrade already.)

For those of you that have the original iPod nano just sitting around, this is a fantastic deal.  I'm just hoping that Apple doesn't manage to find some old iPod nanos in the next few weeks.

Avoid Ghetto App - For When the Block is just too Hot

Microsoft Patent does what Our Education System Never Could: Keep people off the street.

words Robert Hribernick

On January 3rd, 2012, Microsoft patented a new system for GPS devices that will allow pedestrians to avoid bad weather and unsafe areas. Why pedestrians would have to worry about localized weather shifts is not something the patent discusses.

But overall, that seem like a pretty useful idea. I mean, I'd like to avoid bad weather and WAIT. What do YOU MEAN, "UNSAFE AREAS?"

That's right. The software uses recent crime statistics to divert users away from areas in which they are statistically more likely to get shanked, shot and/or heated, merc'd or "ridden on."



Already dubbed the "Avoid Ghetto" App, Microsoft's latest has sparked some hilarious responses, along with, as is usually the case when the national media so freely uses the word "ghetto," some serious accusations of racism.

Check it: It's the future!

4 millimeters. (Insert penis joke about someone I don't like then move on.) That is how thin LG's new OLED television is. You may recognize it from the future. Click through to LG's blog to check out an insane amount of specs that I'm not patient enough to regurgitate, but all sound really impressive.

Another fine addition to the "Models Pointing at Things" Archive.

Hit the jump to see a video of some accented fellows discussing the forebear of the above TV over a year ago: