The Power Geeks #110
by DarthMolen on Jul.26, 2011, under The Latest Shows
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We are LIVE on Ustream. This week we talk R2D2 XBox360, Chinese going too far, and even a bit of Ant-Man the movie… WHAT??? Seriously?? blech
Intro Natali
Items of Interest
- R2D2 XBox360 (SM)
- Kinect version
- Total R2D2 paint job
- Gold 3PO controller
- Star Wars Kinect Game
- Star Wars for system sounds…
- Must.Buy.Immediately.In.NOVEMBER!!! NOOOOO!~
Gold Sponsors:
Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History
- Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
- Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
- Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
- Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
- After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
- Go check out both apps, TIGH and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
- Now As Seen on Wired.com!!
- Need your noms????
- @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
- Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
- Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go
Deals of the Week / New Release
- New Released DVD’s / BR
- Source Code – Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Action thriller where a guy gets amnesia and has to uncover his identity and a bomb plot at the same time
- Red Planet – More realistic, gritty portrayal of space travel.. might be worth some of your time
- Blues Brothers / Animal House – RIP Jon Belushi
Entertainment Geekly (new feature)
- FX Picks up Superhero movies left and right
- Recently acquired Captn America (the one in theatres)
- Already had TF: Dark of the Moon, Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Thor, Tron: Legacy, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Green Hornet
- Maybe they should rename themselves “TSN: The SuperHero Network
- Most of these came from an epic 2008 deal with Marvel, before the Disney acquisition
- Wanna See What We’re Not Missing W/ WW?? (udg)
- io9.com “We’ve seen the unaired Wonder Woman pilot, and it’s actually kind of worse than we expected. It’s bad in the ways that we were all expecting, but it’s also bad in other, more fundamental, ways.”
- Comic Con Trailers (udg)
- Features- The Amazing Spider Man, Haywire, Sherlock Holmes 2, Dark Knight Rises Teaser
Geek Speak
- SDCC! – Tease it for next week, Everyone has hangovers, we’ll bring on some heavy hitters and have a good round-table
Tech, Gaming, and Geek News
- The Chinese Have Now Gone TOO FAR! (udg)
- Cuz selling fake iTunes cards and really cheap Apple knockoffs on their sites weren’t enough, last week five supposed Apple stores were operating in China. Only they weren’t actually official Apple stores!
- To make it worse, they were nearly flawless copies of the official stores. To the point that the employees thought they were working for Apple!
- Two of those five have since closed. But, not for them being complete fakes. Nope, the only reason they are closed is because neither had a business license in the first place.
- The iFakes hit the major media and were brought to light last week when blogger BirdAbroad visited one and spoke to staff. The store she located and visited was in the southwestern city of Kumming, and is not one of the two that have been shutdown. There’s a video of how Apple Store-like the store is in our show notes.
- What’s going to happen to the other 3 stores is unclear at the moment. Chinese law does deem the stores illegal, but it’s the Chinese. If they’re able to cough up a business license, there’s no guarantee they’ll get shut down.
- One thing is certain- Apple is definitely going to be talking to Chinese officials and this could get interesting.
- Hacker Caught, 10 years in jail (SM)
- Rogelio Hackett Jr. 25, of lithiuania, plead guilty to stealing 635,000 credit cards
- Instead of light slap: Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200
- Must pay $100,000 fine and serve 10 years in a jail
- Guy had been hacking since 2002, and trafficing in purchased accts
- Before you go all boo-hoo, the CC companies found that he bamboozled over $36 million dollars over the years
- Yeah, I’m personally glad they threw the book at him
- Google’s Print Mag (udg)
- Because you know they haven’t launched enough new stuff over the last few weeks, Google has now released the first US edition of its marketing mag Think Quarterly.
- Actual print copies of the mag will be sent to a select and limited and are all kinds of lux with a magnetic cover, heat-sensitive end paper and a pretty blue ribbon fastener. Don’t fret though, us little people get to at least check out the online version.
- The magazine is essentially a very pretty advertisement for how wonderful Google is, with a feature story highlighting the positive work done at Google. In addition to several pages dominated by advertising executives, the magazine also has several essays on the future of the Internet and society. I actually kinda dug it.
- The UK version of Think Quarterly launched in March 2011, under the clear distinction that it is not intended to be a consumer magazine. Through Think Quarterly, Google may be taking steps to change its image from a familiar search engine to a group of innovative thinkers and strategists who have a real impact on the world.
- But change their image with who? Well, potential advertisers of course. They are the people getting the snazzy print version, after all. The rest of us Googlers are just left with our Intarwebs.
- Samsung passes Apple in Smartphone Sales (SM)
- Samsung passed Nokia for new sales in the last quarter
- According to bloomberg, 18-21 million handsets were sold in the last quarter
- Thats in comparison to the 20 million sold by Apple
- Nokia has been sliding from their dominance for awhile now
- M$ partnership has not helped them.
- Lets be real, Everyone is waiting on the IPhone 5…
- Data Furnaces (udg)
- Servers are energy hogs. Not just to run, but they get so bloomin hot you have to use more energy for the air conditioning that keeps the waste heat at by. This problem with inefficiency is only going to compound as the hoopla about the cloud continues.
- Seems Microsoft has come up with a wacky-in-a-way-that-just-may-work solution: Distribute cloud servers to businesses and homes for use as heaters.
- “Data Furnaces” as Microsoft dubbed them in a research paper on the subject would provide exhaust that, while too cool for energy regeneration (104-122 °F), is just right for space heating. Not only does this reduce waste, but it could increase the overall efficiency of the cloud servers involved by making it far more practical to locate specific servers near the areas they serve.
- That’s a lot of win right there.
- Obviously with issues like size, the fact heating systems are complicated, security, reliability, you get the point- this is something for way off in the future. But, it’s definitely got my interest piqued.
- Netflix Up, Blockbuster Wooing (SM)
- Netflix made a profit, just not as much as investors had hoped.
- To blame? The price hike announcement for September
- Not all doom and gloom, their subscriptions are up 70% for streaming
- Netflix talks with Dreamworks (Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar)
- Blockbuster is looking to capitalize w/ a $9.99 1-disc out plan
- (still no streaming from BB)
- Fox Gets Stupid (udg)
- In what is probably one of the lamest ideas I’ve heard in a very long time, Fox has just announced that it will only allow approved cable or satellite consumers free next-day access to its popular TV shows. Fans could previously catch shows the next day on Fox.com or Hulu.com for free.
- Don’t have cable or want to pay for Hulu? Well then you’ll have to wait until 8 days after they’ve aired to watch it.
- Got DISH? No worries!
- “DISH Network is proud to be the first pay-TV provider in America to give customers the opportunity to take full advantage of the new Fox.com viewing experience — at no additional cost,” according to a Fox press release.
- Hulu Plus customers will also still have access to Fox shows, according to a tweet from New York Times reporter Brian Stelter. Fox hopes to add more cable and satellite partners in the coming months.
Intarweb Goldmine
- What Ya Get For Being A Sound Sleeper In South Africa(udg)
- A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out – scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost.
- His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.
- He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region’s health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency.
- The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.
- The man – whose identity has been withheld – was treated in hospital for dehydration.
- The man woke up at 1700 local time (1500 GMT) on Sunday, demanding to be let out of the chilly morgue in Libode village, frightening the attendants on duty.
- “At first the men ran for their lives,” said Mr Kupelo.
- Officials have urged the public to contact doctors or the emergency services so they can they can pronounce someone dead before calling an undertaker.
- “You begin to ask yourself how many other people have died like that in a morgue,” said Mr Kupelo.
- “We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died,” he said.
- Jaws Jumps into boat… Literally (SM)
- Have a front row seat to Discovery’s shark week? Not as close as these guys
- 6 researchers off the coast of africa got the scare of their life
- After an hour of shark activity, 10 foot great white breached the water and jumped halfway on the boat
- In a panic and apparently trying to eat a crew member, he thrashed all the way on board and then became stuck
- Despite the danger to their lives, the scientists eventually rescued the shark after being towed to port, letting it go, being beached, pulling it back out, and finally getting it out to sea
- Mystery Prisoner (udg)
- A mystery man arrested on minor charges more than three weeks ago remains behind bars in Utah while law enforcement officials try to determine his true identity, which he refuses to reveal.
- “This is really a strange case,” said Lt. Dennis Harris with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. “He just doesn’t want to be found.” The unidentified man, who has graying hair, a light beard and is believed to be in his 60′s, was arrested on July 1 for trespassing in a parking garage.
- He was booked into jail on three misdemeanor charges and has thwarted any chance of release, with or without bail, by refusing to identify himself.
- “I’ve been trying to think from A to Z why he would want to stay here … why he wouldn’t give us any information,” Harris said.
- “He either has to be wanted by some other state or he could be on some other registry or database that has not shown up,” he added.
- Law enforcement officials say the man is “fairly well spoken and educated,” but very guarded about his identity.
- As a result of several short conversations with him, officers believe he may not be from Utah.
- Officials gave the man a telephone calling card so he might contact friends or relatives, but he has not used it.
- “He was very aware of what we were trying to do and he would not give us the slightest bit of information indicating where he was from or anything relating to his family situation,” said Harris.
- “We’ve had a lot of people call in but nothing has panned out. Nothing,” he added.
- Officials say in three weeks of jail the mystery man has shown a pleasant demeanor and has communicated that he is being treated well.
- “He said the food has been great,” Harris said.
- “I realize that sometimes people want to go to jail because they are homeless, have nothing, they are destitute. I’ve seen that over the years. I just don’t get the impression that’s the reason. He just doesn’t want to be discovered by somebody.”
- Now in his fourth week of incarceration, the man added another twist to the story recently by hinting he had business of some kind outside prison that he would need to attend to.
- “He said there was a point at some time that he would need to get out of jail,” Harris said. “That’s the closest I can find of what he wants to do. And that makes no sense to me whatsoever.”
- I’m surprised I don’t know the guy. I seem to attract people like this.
- RDJ New Hazards: Exploding manholes
- Imagine if you will, walking down the street
- A rumble and a roar shake the ground and all the manhole covers explode into the air
- This isn’t hollywood, welcome to Rio De Janeiro
- Recently a manhole cover blew up into the air, injured 2 ppl, smashed into a nearby window, and ended in a parked car
- This was the 130 of these in April alone…
- Sparks from old transformers igniting “gasses” (read human methane) causing the random explosions around the city
- Talk about some dangerous crap….
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