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Official planning a TweetUp during the San Diego ComicCon: Check out the FB Event Page, details on the way

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Background Music for YOUR Life (iKDR)
  • The Personal Soundtrack Shirt from ThinkGeek is an amazing new wearable audio solution that features a working speaker embedded into the front of the shirt. When you push the appropriate button on the pocketable remote you get music or sound effects appropriate for any situation
  • as seen on BIG BANG THEORY!

• Supreme Commander 2 Demo Hits Steam
  • The current iteration of a beloved classic (Total Annihilation) is on its second iteration.
  • Better emphasis on fluidity and performance, instead of total eye candy
  • TA literally made me quit the original Starcraft

• New DVD Releases (iKDR)
  • Neverending Story, Clash of the Titans, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Where the Wild Things Are, 2012,(JP – The Hurt Locker came out last week… pick this up!!!)

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• M$ Taking off Gloves against Google (SM)
  • Came out on blog stating that the whole impetus for yahoo deal was Google.
  • “we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume.”
  • “Microsoft would obviously be among the first to say that leading firms should not be punished for their success,” Heiner wrote,”Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly.”
  • Their argument? Sheer scale makes Google anti-competitive (pot meet kettle? – now that’s what I was saying the whole time I read through this)
  • Lawsuit by Apple against HTC, but really aimed at Google

• PSN Locked out for Older Consoles (JP)
  • People with non-Slim PS3′s were reporting that they couldn’t play online, and select offline, games
  • Error: 8001050F would not allow them to connect to PSN
  • The temporary fix? don’t turn on your console  (how on Earth would this qualify as either a fix or a workaround?? Epic Fail- JP)
  • Now its back, after 24, everything is back to normal, serverside fix for clock problem
  • Heavy Rain just released and users reporting issues – release day patch was a dud

• Portal Sequel Hinted (SM)
  • Mysterious patch d/led off STEAM with patch note: “changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.”
  • 26 radios around the levels that give off different clues from morse code to formulas
  • Consensus seems to point towards the antagonist GlaDos having transmitted herself outside of the Aperture science facility, which means a possible sequel
  • (SM: Literally a 474 page forum thread over on STEAM about this very thing)

• BBC Makes Deep Cuts in Internet Department (kdr)
  • The Conservatives are up in arms that the massive amounts of free online content make it harder for smaller retailers to compete
  • BBC is citing cost-cutting measures and ways to “focus” licensing fees
  • “The point of the reductions is not to diminish the service we offer to the public, but rather to focus the license fee and the creative energy of the BBC on delivering the highest quality and the maximum public value.”
  • Real impetus involves an upcoming election, and the newspapers and magazines grousing about investment in that new fangled “Intarweb”
  • (SM) Should a company change its business model just so that others don’t have to change theirs?
  • some are predicting this to backfire as it might not be enough to placate those up in arms.

• Steam heading to MAC (JP)
  • Steam is coming to Mac. Not just Steam, though. Judging by these awesome teasers released by Valve, so are Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress 2 AND Left 4 Dead

• Facebook on Track for $1BB in Revenue (SM)
  • Made $700MM last year, on track to whomp that figure this year
  • Their virtual currency still in beta phase and has only reaped a lowly $10MM
  • Whats Facebook’s secret? (Kristin and then JP)
    • (iKDR) with features like virtual farming and finding my pimp name, FB is an obvious win LOL
    • FB transends generations – promotes community building thru groups and fan pages, allow people of all ages to stay in touch with friends and family and reconnect with classmates and collegues, provides fun and addictive gaming platforms, real time news sources, etc.
      • (JP) I think this is not just generation related but user type related, power user, gossip, gamer… there is enough here and it doesn’t lock you into a certain way to use it… keep up w/ friends, play games with them, etc… it’s up to you
      • I actually know some friends with more than one account for different types of interactions ( a family account, a friend account, and a professional account – although they admit that one is going dead as most of it is being done on Linkd in now)
      • I think it’s great they have been able to monetize it like this too… if only Twitter could get it in gear and monetize it without hurting the users…

• Don’t Press F1 in XP (SM)
  • Hole in IE that allows a script to run in the help files after a user presses the help key.
  • Moral of the story? Don’t press F1 when in IE (some sites can prompt you to do it and then the script executes)
  • (SM)Patch forthcoming, yet another reason I run chrome

• Charlie Miller (Security Expert Pwn2Own Winner repeatedly) says best way to stay secure? Don’t install Flash (JP)

  • In your opinion, which is the safer combination OS + browser to use?

    That’s a good question. Chrome or IE8 on Windows 7 with no Flash installed. There probably isn’t enough difference between the browsers to get worked up about. The main thing is not to install Flash!

    so whether using Chrome or IE he says Win7 with either of these as long as you don’t use flash… you’re pretty safe

  • This guy won the contest each year for several of the last years in a row and is very well known in the industry.

• Turn your arm into a Touchscreen (iKDR)

  • The Skinput system beams a keyboard or menu onto the user’s forearm from a projector housed in an armband.

  • An acoustic detector, also in the armband, then calculates which part of the display you want to activate.

  • uses 2 technologies: detect ultralow-frequency sound produced by tapping the skin with a finger, and microchip-sized “pico” projectors now found in some cellphones

• Netflix hints at an IPhone App (JP)
  • Survey sent out asking if ppl would be interested in watching the same movies on Iphone as they do on other devices
  • The catch? Wi-Fi only
  • Can we say IPad prep?

• A Vintage Video Game Sells for $41,300 (SM)
  • Owner had 185+ video games just lying around in the basement, heard about an old game selling on EBAY for $13,000 and decided to look through his collection
  • The winning game… NTSC Stadium Events which was released in the USA and quickly discontinued
  • (SM) ok, why can’t I get that lucky… seriously? wait, I think I have an extra copy of E.T. for the atari 2600 somewhere. wonder how much that is worth…
  • haha, i have a CD of old Apogee games like Duke Nukem and Commander Keen…whaddya think my chances are of mega bucks??

• Bloom Energy Box (iKDR)
  • Electricity-generating device that takes fuel and air and turns them into power.
  • Fuel is mixed with oxygen and then a reaction is triggered through an electrolyte layer to create electricity. The actual fuel cells are primarily built with compressed sands. The fuel is interchangeable, although natural gas seems to the fuel of choice currently.
  • Green technology (low emissions) and it has the potential to power an entire home with a box that can fit in your hands.

• Self-Destructing Text Messages (SM)
  • Called TigerText – costs per month and a client on both ends but your text messages will “destruct” based up on rules that you create
  • Can even set up a “destroy on read”
  • Totally named before the Tiger Woods debacle, but he definitely shoulda used this
  • (kdr) If i find this on my partners phone, I’ll just assume… I don’t need to read.
  • dude, if i find this on my geekguy’s phone, it better be about some super top secret alien/conspiracy/indiana jones stuff, or *something clever here*

• Boy Genius Creates iPhone App (iKDR)  (hahaha.. might wanna change the title.. I was like… I’ve had the Boy Genius App for a long time Boy Genius Report app that is)
  • As 10-year-old Lim Ding Wei blasts alien space ships on a computer screen in his living room, his father Lim Thye Chean looks over his shoulder proudly.
  • The game is the latest in Ding Wei’s repertoire of mobile applications, which include the hit Invader Wars 1 and Doodle Kids that has registered more than half a million downloads since it was posted on the iPhone App Store last year.
• Man electrocuted after urinating on downed power line (this one is no longer linked) – (JP)
  • While it’s never a good thing to make fun of someones passing… this could be a darwin award winner here…
  • After crashing his car into a power pole he got out to relieve himself and evidently didn’t see the downed power line
    • (or maybe he thought let’s see what happens?)

• How Star Trek Shoulda Ended
• Darth Spankin the Kitty
• Decorating Cables Instead of Hiding Them

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