Items of Interest

Gold Sponsors:

UberDorkCafe

• Will be THE place for Geeks to hang out
• What is UberDorkCafe? It is the brain child and DREAM of Natali, aka @UberDorkGirlie from twitter, and it blends art + science = geek
• Place to hang, eat, have awesome kid parties (if thats your thing), or to get your gaming on
• Etsy Store – a piece of UDC before there is even a physical cafe
• THE AUCTIONS ARE HERE!!
• Calendar News!!!! http://rockthelanstore.com/

• Today in Geek History
  • JebsApps (owned by our own Jeremy Puent) released their latest app, Today in Geek History
  • Gives you factoids based upon date, spanning all sorts of geekiness
  • For example, did you know on 12/15/1970  In a boon to canned meats everywhere, Monty Python airs the ‘Spam’ sketch on BBC One.
  • This app is available for Android in a Lite version for free or a paid version, all on the Marketplace
  • Check out the lite version, but the paid version for .99
  • Or check out their new app Movie History

• Child’s Play made over 2 million this year

Deals of the Week / New Release

Geek Speak

• CES Talk!!!!
  • Vizio jumps into the cell phone / Tablet Business
    • Also adds Google TV and Blu-Ray players to lineup
    • Onlive added to Vizio TV’s, Blu-Ray Players, Mobile devices
  • LG Unveils Smart TV and App Store
    • Gets in the Boxee, Google TV, Apple TV wheelhouse
    • Little smarter in providing an app store from the get-go
    • Why not get more from your TV without having a peripheral?
    • Accesses shared media too? sign me up
  • Tablets, Tablets, Tablets
    • Sharp, Panasonic (glorified remotes?), Vizio, all in the mix for tablets from TV makers
    • Honeycomb (adroid 3.0) (video demo)
      • List of compatible tablets forthcoming
      • Asus EEE MeMo,
    • Toshiba Tablet – (SM) mmmm, I think I want this over an IPad
    • Windows Devices:
      • Lenovo Slate ( Win 7 little thicker than 2 gen IPhone and 10” screen, comes with a digital pen and specialized UI to make the thing tablet friendly)
  • Ford Sync now Standard on Mustang
    • Allows you to control apps on your phone device (iphone, android, etc) by voice commands
    • Another app allows you to send directions from your phone to the car nav as well as realtime traffic reports (Sync Destinations)
  • NVIDIA (gpu’s) and ARM now coming to a PC…
    • ARM owns the mobile market, Intel owns PC market
    • Now the GPU maker is joining AMD in the PC market
    • Microsoft will support ARM in next version of OS
      • Targetting the smaller “System on a Chip” that most tablets, phones, and high end peripherals run
      • see the writing on the wall Ballmer?
  • Sandy Bridge from Intel
    • Means Bigger, Faster, Better Performant – CPU + GPU
    • Here’s what they don’t tell you: There’s DRM built down all the way ot the CPU Level
    • Hollywood is promising straight streaming to sandy chips because of the lockdown
  • Free eBooks from your library

• Weird CES Products:
  • IProp: Flexible IPad stand

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• Electronic Tattoo Display Runs on Blood (udg)

• • Jim Mielke’s wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin.
  • The basis of the 2×4-inch “Digital Tattoo Interface” is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It´s inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin to align between skin and muscle. Through the same incision, two small tubes on the device are attached to an artery and a vein to allow the blood to flow to a coin-sized blood fuel cell that converts glucose and oxygen to electricity. After blood flows in from the artery to the fuel cell, it flows out again through the vein.
  • On both the top and bottom surfaces of the display is a matching matrix of field-producing pixels. The top surface also enables touch-screen control through the skin. Instead of ink, the display uses tiny microscopic spheres, somewhat similar to tattoo ink. A field-sensitive material in the spheres changes their color from clear to black, aligned with the matrix fields.
  • The tattoo display communicates wirelessly to other Bluetooth devices – both in the outside world and within the same body. Although the device is always on (as long as your blood´s flowing), the display can be turned off and on by pushing a small dot on the skin. When the phone rings, for example, an individual turns the display on, and “the tattoo comes to life as a digital video of the caller,” Mielke explains. When the call ends, the tattoo disappears.
  • Could such an invasive device have harmful biological effects? Actually, the device could offer health benefits. That´s because it also continually monitors for many blood disorders, alerting the person of a health problem.
  • The tattoo display is still just a concept, with no word on plans for commercialization.

• Phone Chargers to be standardized in 2011 (SM)
  • Do you have a drawerful of phone chargers? How many sockets do you use in your house to keep your babies up?
  • It’s horrible, ppl have been screaming for years for some sort of standard
  • Most of the major phone hardware makers have finally standardized (14 of em)
  • This process was started way back in 2009, finally the spec is going to manufacturing
  • Based on the micro-USB connector, a lot are already using it
  • One notable??? IPhone doesn’t, but even Apple has signed on.
  • Downside? Probably won’t see it on an apple phone until sometime next year
  • Most other manufacturers will implement sooner

• Iomega Unveils the SuperHero- iPhone Charging & Back Up in One (udg)
  • The average user doesn’t keep a regular schedule of backing up their computers, so how about their smartphones? With as much as we now do and rely on our phones for, regular back ups save you a world of hurt should something happen to it.
  • Well Iomega has decided to make life easier for iPhone users as it announces it’s new product- the SuperHero. And it appears rightfully named. It’s a back up and charger in one. Kind of surprisingly simple- we run through our batteries constantly and need to charge, why not back up at the same time?
  • The SuperHero takes the form of a compact docking station your iPhone sits in to charge. Included in the package is a 4GB SD card that can be used to store your contacts and images from the phone’s internal storage. The SD card can be replaced with a larger card for additional storage if required.
  • Management of backups is handled through a free-to-download app called the SuperHero iPhone app. The app launches automatically when your iPhone is placed in the dock. The user is then given the option to perform a backup. If a backup already exists then only an incremental backup will be performed.
  • And I have to say the proposed $69.99 price tag seems well worth it!

• Bethesda “Demakes” Fallout 3 in Japanese (SM)
  • This is a growing trend, take a modern game and push it back to 8 bit
  • Portal Flash version, Left 4 8 Bit, FFVII in SUBOR Famicom, etc etc
  • Usually these are fan creations, a way to glorify old memories, 8 bit is easy on the graphics budget
  • Most follow a sort of Dragon quest-style graphics and gameplay
  • Now Bethesda made an official Fallout 3 demake and is using it to market the game to the Japanese (fallout: las vegas site)
  • Supposedly to teach them about “open-world sandboxes” (JRPG’s – not so open)

• Finally- a Viral Video Does Good! (udg)
  • Geekosystem renewed my faith in YouTube, viral videos and the general public this morning.  Yesterday they featured a video recently posted by the Columbus Dispatch. It was an interview with Ted Williams, a homeless man with a remarkable voice for radio.
  • After demonstrating his talent, Williams provides some back story:
    • “When I was 14 I kind of listened to one of our area radio announcers, and I went as a field trip to go meet the guy, and he looked nothing like what he sounded like. So I asked him about that, and he said to me, “listen, radio is defined — theater of mind.” And so when he said “theater of mind,” I just said, well, hey. I can’t be an actor, I can’t be an on-air personality, but the voice just became something of a development over the years and I went to school for it. And then alcohol and drugs and a few other things became a part of my life. I’ve got two years clean, and I’m trying hard to get it back. And hopefully somebody from one of these television  or radio stations will say, ‘hey, I need a voice-over,’ or ‘ I need something.”
  • After watching the video, I wanted to give him a job! Okay and a huggle. This morning, they made me want to huggle even more people. In an email update, Geekosystem announced that during a radio interview on local station WNCI today, Williams revealed that the Cleveland Cavaliers had offered him a full-time announcing job and a house.
  • In less than 24 hours a talented man trying to turn his life around is being given the chance to let that talent shine and that new life begin. Long live the intarwebs.

• PS3 Cracked Permanently
  • Famed hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz is claiming he cracked the PS3
  • This is the guy who helped crack the IPhone
  • His claim is this, he found the root key, which is used to verify whether a piece of software should be running on the system
  • Everything that runs first has to go through a verification process using this piece of data
  • So with this piece of data, now public, you can conceivably run anything on the system, cracked or otherwise
  • Here’s the crazy part: they would have to change the hardware out for them to fix this problem…
  • Already there are various teams out there working to bring that little treasure in an easy-to-use user-friendly format

• Happy 70th Birthday Miyazaki! (udg)
  • Today is the 70th birthday of renowned Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, known to some as “Japan’s Walt Disney,” known to all as the creator of some of the most successful animated features in recent memory. His 2001 release, Spirited Away, was the first Japanese movie to win an American Academy Award and was produced after a short retirement following his previous effort, Princess Mononoke in 1997. In other words, we probably haven’t heard the last of him.
  • Miyazaki has been a major figure in manga and anime since he was in his twenties. Unsatisfied with his training and work as an economist, he gave it up to work in an animation studio and never turned back. After producing his first two films, he co-founded Studio Ghibli, reviving the animation industry in Japan before expanding his audience to America with Princess Mononoke.
  • One of the most unique and inspiring things about Miyazaki’s process is the way he constructs his stories. Namely, he doesn’t. Production of his animated films begins before his storyboards are complete. In a 2001 interview, he says:
  • I don’t have the story finished and ready when we start work on a film. I usually don’t have the time. So the story develops when I start drawing storyboards. The production starts very soon thereafter, while the storyboards are still developing. We never know where the story will go but we just keeping working on the film as it develops. It’s a dangerous way to make an animation film and I would like it to be different, but unfortunately, that’s the way I work and everyone else is kind of forced to subject themselves to it.
  • In 2005, when he was named among Time Magazine’s Most Influential People, Stan Lee wrote that “[i]n the field of theatrical animation, where talent abounds and everyone has his or her own style, the art and creativity of Hayao Miyazaki are unrivaled.”
  • Having been a fan of all things Japanse for decades now (I haz an old), Miyazakisan has helped to shape me in many ways. In high school, we would watch “My Neighbor Totoro” in class (non dubbed!) because it was at a level language-wise we could understand. In fact, if given a choice, I would go to a Miyazaki World over Disney World in a heartbeat.
  • You may rent many of his works through Netflix, including watching Ponyo through streaming. Some of the other titles I suggest:
    • Spirited Away
    • My Neighbor Totoro
    • Princess Mononoke
    • Howl’s Moving Castle
    • And another of the monkey’s favorites: KiKi’s Delivery Service
  • ???????? (tanjoubi omedetou) Miyazakisan!  I can’t wait to see what more of a legacy you continue to leave in the many upcoming years I hope that you have.

• Stan Lee to get Hollywood Star (Finally) (SM)
  • The maker of superhero’s such as Spiderman, Hulk, X-Men, FF4, Iron Man, etc
  • Finally will get his name and Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
  • Jokes: “had to wait 50 yrs after the walk and 70 yrs after his career started to get his just dues”
  • Hollywood is making bank right now on superheroes… bout time they gave him his just desserts
  • They learn what we already knew, Superheroes always made good drama

• For Traditional Mac Developers, Armageddon Begins Tomorrow (udg)
  • The Mac software market is about as old-school as you get. Developers have been creating, shipping, and selling products through traditional channels and at traditional price points for decades. Prices back then weren’t much different than we see today.
  • Or, more precisely, we’ve seen until today (and then it all changes).
  • Mac software has historically been priced on a parity with other desktop software. That means small products are about $20. Utilities run in the $50-60 range. Games in the $50 range. Productivity packages and creative tools in the hundreds, and specialty software — well, the sky’s the limit.
  • Tomorrow, the sky will fall. Tomorrow, the iOS developers move in and the traditional Mac developers better stick their heads between their legs and kiss those price points goodbye.
  • iOS developers are not like Mac developers.
  • Sure, the development environment is largely the same, but the difference iis their business model.  iOS developers are The Flood. (Yup, that’s a Halo reference) They will annihilate everything in their path, and what’s in their path, starting tomorrow, are all the developers who’ve made a living off Mac software since the 1980s.
  • Tomorrow, the Mac App Store opens and sadly, traditional Mac developers are in for a world of hurt. Tomorrow, their price points are going to plummet and fast
  • Here’s an example from a well-written blog by iOS developer Markus Nigrin. Markus asked four of his iOS developer buddies what they were going to sell their products for on the Mac App store and how those prices would differ from those on the iPhone and iPad.
  • The news for the traditional developers is not good:

• Chopper 2 — iOS price: $4.99. Mac price: $4.99.
• Air Hockey — iOS price: $0.99. Mac price: $0.99.
• ReMovem — iOS price: $2.99. Mac price: $2.99.
• Compression — iOS price: $2.99. Mac price: $3.99.

These are all games and one did have a price difference between iOS and Mac, but it was a buck.

• • Compare that with Mac games listed on Amazon today. $38.99 … $19.99 … $27.54 … $29.35 … $54.99 … $24.38. These are traditional Mac and PC prices.
  • As of tomorrow, games priced at $20-60 will be competing against games priced at 99 cents to $4.99. The most expensive iOS games are around ten bucks. In effect, game pricing will drop by 90-95% — on average —overnight.
  • What do you think that’ll do to all the other Mac software? Sure, Photoshop might still be expensive. But how many under-$5 photo editing programs are their for the iPad? Answer: too many to count.
  • Expect to see Mac software prices dropping by 90-95% within a month. Traditional developers will fight to hold onto their price points, but they’ll be overrun by The Flood. They may hold their price points, but they’ll be mired in so much noise from the iOS horde that their products will begin to lose traction.
  • This time next year, the Mac market will look entirely different.
  • Apple wins. Many of their very loyal developers will lose.
  • Here’s the big question: how will this price-point change impact the PC market? Will PC software prices plummet to match? With $1 software, the Mac’s total cost of ownership will undoubtedly drop, compared to PC systems. So what will that do to Apple’s market share for the Mac vs. the PC?

• Kinect may cause scratched Discs (SM)
  • There have been reports all across the Internet that the Kinect is causing tons of scratched discs
  • The 360 uses a pretty cheap disc drive, any jiggling and it will scratch your disc
  • So what do you get when you cross that flaw with a peripheral that makes you jump around animatedly, you get jiggling xboxes of course, which cause ta-da scratches
  • (SM) I actually have a friend who had this problem on the first day they bought the new Kinect, Kid was being animated with the Kinect, and knocked over the system, and they had to take it in to extract the disc, but even then it was scratched.

• Verizon iPhone 4 Leak? (udg)
  • A video was recently posted to YouTube from a firm called GlobalPartsDirect. In it they show what appears to a new iPhone 4 design–what could be the Verizon (CDMA) iPhone 4 or possibly, as they call it, the iPhone 5.
  • Of course none of this is even remotely confirmed (or confirmable) but they have a 5-minute video up with what is either a leaked handset or a convincing fake, complete with the metal frame and interior components. They take the supposed iPhone apart and compare it to a legitimate iPhone 4 noting internal changes as well changes to the antenna. You can see below that a gap in the antenna looks to have been moved–from the highly problematic spot on the lower left hand corner to above the mute switch.
  • Strangely the new device has a micro-SIM slot, just like the iPhone 4, which means it’s either a global CDMA device or it’s not for Verizon at all. The new design also has 4 antenna breaks, as opposed to 3 in the iPhone 4.
  • Rather than getting further into the analysis let’s keep in mind that as convincing as this might be we’ve all seen too many fakes to take this without a grain of salt. The timing is perfect–right when the CES news is heating up and everyone is talking about Android phones–which could be evidence for or against it, but let’s not get too excited just yet.

• Complainer Sued by Apple Service Company (SM)
  • Guy takes his computer in for repairs through an affiliated repair show (systemgraph)
  • His iMac came out worse than when he came in. (moisture inside the LCD, etc)
  • When pointed out, they offered to re-fix but by this time the guy said no
  • Asked for them to replace computer, Systemgraph declined
  • While in legal process, he posted his story on forum
  • Now Systemgraph is suing him for damages at 200,00 euro ($267)

Intarweb Goldmine

• For Arkansas Blackbirds, The New Year Never Came (udg)
  • This scares the bejeebers outta me!!
  • Times Square had the ball drop, and Brasstown, N.C., had its descending possum. But no place had a New Year’s Eve as unusual, or freakishly disturbing, as Beebe, Ark.
  • Around 11 that night, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling out of the sky over this small city about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and terrifying anyone who happened to be outside.
  • “One of them almost hit my best friend in the head,” said Christy Stephens, who was standing outside among the smoking crowd at a party. “We went inside after that.”
  • The cause is still being determined, but preliminary lab results from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission revealed “acute physical trauma” in samples of the dead birds. There were no indications of disease, though tests were still being done for the presence of toxic chemicals.
  • At most recent count, up to 5,000 birds fell on the city. Sixty five samples were sent to labs, one of which is at the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the other in Madison, Wis.
  • “It just looked as if it had rained birds,” said Tracy Lightfoot, a member of the City Council, declining to speculate on the reason. “There’s lots of theories running around. I have no idea. I just don’t have a clue.”.
  • Meanwhile roughly 500 dead birds were found on Monday outside New Roads, La. Those birds were much more varied, with starlings and grackle in addition to blackbirds, and a few samples picked up by James LaCour, a wildlife veterinarian with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, did not show any signs of trauma, he said.

• Woman Stabs Boyfriend Over FaceBook Page
  • Well, we know that FB ruins relationships (according to a minister of ill repute)
  • Well, now there is empirical proof.
  • Couple fights over a post on BF’s facebook
  • BF hides profile from live-in GF
  • 21 yr old GF then shanks the dude for such a mis-deed
  • Guy checks into a hospital with a lacerated bicep…
  • Moral of story? Stop dating and living with crazy GF’s
• Man blames Ozzy Osbourne for Traffic Arrest (udg)
  • An Ohio drunken-driving suspect is blaming his arrest on Ozzy Osbourne. William Liston was arrested Christmas Eve in suburban Cleveland. WJW-TV says he told police officers, “Ozzy Osbourne and his music made me do it.”
  • Osbourne’s hits as lead singer of heavy metal band Black Sabbath and as a solo artist include “Paranoid” and “Road to Nowhere.”
  • Liston is awaiting arraignment. He’s to appear in court Tuesday on a charge of operating a vehicle while impaired.
• Santa Clause Cleared, The Bartender Did It
  • Bartender in RI claimed a man robbed him in full Santa garb
  • Calls 911 to report the robbery…
  • Lady later cops to lying, Santa is cleared of all charges
  • We all know that Santa only steals kisses and cookies!
• Frogger Gone Wrong (udg)
  • You all remember Frogger- right? I LOVED that game, but I was bright enough to know it was JUST A GAME. While it was created in a time before we needed to put the “don’t try this at home dumbass” warnings on it, it would seem it needs one now.
  • A man has been hospitalized after police in South Carolina say he was hit by an SUV while playing a real-life version of the video game “Frogger.”
  • Authorities said the 23-year-old man was taken to a hospital in Anderson after he was struck at around 9 p.m. Monday.
• Don’t Mess With The Cows In Florida
  • Them thar varmints are MEAN
  • Well, apparently this farmer was repairing a fence when the cow went off on him and started to maul (wonder if he had mad cow disease?)
  • Anyways, wife came out, Cow already shot w/ .22, saw the cow still alive and attacking
  • Went and got truck and started ram it.
  • Still didn’t kill it, Got pistol again and shot it again, still didn’t kill it
  • Finally cow got bored and wandered off, still alive
  • Farmers, it’s whats for dinner
• Tip to Robbers: Don’t Accept Victim’s FB Request (udg)
  • A robber walked out of a Taunton car wash and gas station with a flat-screen TV under his shirt. The robber thought he got away, but the manager of the car wash tracked him down.
  • The manager of Prestige Car Wash and Gas Station, Nicole Telles, showed 7NEWS the men’s restroom where the crime went down, where the 27-inch flat-screen used to hang. But police say a 20-year-old ripped it right from the mount and took off.
  • Telles said he hid the TV under his sweatshirt.
  • “I felt like, if we had all the information … the process would be a lot quicker,” said Telles.
  • Telles said she didn’t catch the culprit when the crime happened, but she figured she could do some detective work of her own and try to figure out who the suspect was.
  • Surveillance video showed the suspect using a credit card to pay for gas, and he had been at the counter as well. So Telles looked up the transaction and got his name. She then started digging into Facebook.
  • “I went on Facebook, searched the name — the first and last name — and he was like the third one up top. He looked like the guy, and I was like, ‘All right. Let me request him’” as a “friend,” said Telles. “He accepted me, so I went through all his pictures, made sure it was him.”
  • She says her boss even sent him a message telling him to bring back the TV and they wouldn’t call police.
  • “He ended up deleting me, so then we thought to ourselves that the kid doesn’t want to give it up,” said Telles.
  • They went to police with all of their evidence and the suspect was then arrested.

• He May Not Walk Softly, But He Certainly Carries A Big Stick
  • Guy decides to rob a convenience store..
  • Does he bring a gun? a knife? a taser? He brings a 10 foot long stick
  • WTH was the guy smoking?
  • Eventually the robber was successful but seriously???

Extra Links

• Voyager 1 reaches edge of solar system
• Skype to offer mainstream mobile video chat
• 750 Million Photos uploaded to FB over New Years

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Jeremy is @jpuent, Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com and jpuent@thepowergeeks.com and uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!)
• And Become a Fan

Sponsors

Shiny Lines

• What: Shiny Geek Jewelry, clothing and other bits & bytes, made by Geeks for Geeks.
• Why: Geeks, Nerds & Gamers alike deserve to shine at their very best, on and offline.
• 10% off power rings
• Who: @aDigitalAngel & fellow nerds at ShinyLines.com

Get Shinylines in Gold Sponsors

• ShinyLines Power Geek Rings!!!
  • I’m almost giggly with anticipation!!
  • Check out shop.shinylines.com for more product -OR-
  • Send darthmolen@gmail.com an email saying you want this ring. If there’s enough interest, we are going to make this available to the public

Luxury Lane Soaps

http://luxurylanesoap.com, @KyleeLane, GORGEOUS, IMAGINATIVE, HANDCRAFT ED, GEEKY Soap

• Can I say any more superlatives? You will love her products.
• (We Do! They’re Geekalicious! but don’t eat them… they are SOAP!)