ThePowerGeeks.com

We are LIVE on Ustream!!! This week we talk Internet TV, Chinese Space Program, microsoft fails, geek movies, and even a serious topic for once!

Items of Interest

• JEREMY IS BACK! (do we need more?? ) (udg)
• Glassless 3D TV’s (12”,20”,52”) (toshiba, etc)
• The one convention that I’m sorry I missed (SM)
• Warehouse 13 Farnsworth replica blueprints!!!! (JP)
  • Very cool, detailed blueprints for the Farnsworth communication device for only $9.95

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
• Woookie Coookies – a piece of UDC before there is even a physical cafe
• first Piece revealed and accompanying t-shirt @hefnatron
• Ellen campaign!!

• Today in Geek History
  • JebApps (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 October 6th, 1967 – The Star Trek episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’ airs, introducing the Mirror Universe and the evil goatee.
  • 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
  • Also, Golden Pic and Golden Pic Lite for Android devices

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• L4D2 “The Sacrifice”
  • Oct. 5, Free for PC, 500 pts for X360
  • 2 new campaigns, “Mercy” from L4D1 + new one
  • Both playable w/ original survivors (SM) Just played, it was blast
  • *jumps up and down* it’s available for MAC too!! Squeee! (udg)
  • The Full games are on sale for $10+ on Steam for limited time
• Remote Linux Desktop for Your iPad! (udg)

• • iLIVE launched this past week for a slightly steep price of $14.99. But, from everything I read, you get some pretty big bang for that 15 bucks.
  • For starters you can connect to remote Unix or Linux servers and control a remote desktop or individual X application from your iPad. You can also connect to an existing LIVE session you initiated from a Windows, Macintosh or Linux workstation using other StarNet LIVE client solutions.

• Highlights:
  • Speed — Fastest remote Linux/Unix desktop program available
  • Persistency — Switch back-and-forth to other apps without losing data
  • Sharing – You can share your Linux desktop with other iPad, Windows, Macintosh and Linux desktop users.
  • Security – All traffic to remote server is SSH-tunneled
  • Switching – Seamlessly switch your remote desktop between iPads, Windows, Linux and Macintosh PCs

• • FREE LINUX DESKTOP

• • iLIVEx customers qualify for a free iLIVEx desktop account on StarNet’s iLIVEx Linux server. On your Linux desktop you can:
  • Run the Open Office Suite, including word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, drawing and more.
  • Run FireFox to surf the Internet.
  • You can run multiple applications on one Linux desktop or run one application on each of Linux’s 4 virtual desktops virtual desktops.

• Skype for Android
  • After fits and starts, Skype is now available on Android
  • skype.com/m
  • The catch? You’ll need 2.1 or later.

• Star Wars Uncut
  • Star Wars cut in to 15 second clips and then crowd sourced

• DVD / Blu-Ray Releases
  • BEATY AND THE BEAST!!!! (Blu-ray) (huge disney nerd)
  • Last of the Mohicans
  • Karate Kid remake (lots say its good, don’t mess with 80’s cheese)
  • Grindhouse! (Blu-Ray) (buyer beware, very bloody, over the top) Planet Terror and Death Proof all squenched together, theatrical release
  • The Maltese Falcon (Blu-Ray)
  • Mad Max (before road warrior) Blu-Ray

Geek Speak

• • TV Devices Market Heating up!

• Google TV
  • Based on Android, optimized for larger screen, intel atom chip
  • Patent for $2 commercial skip fee, questionnaire to skip, or 10 mins commercials
  • Logitech set-top box (revue)
  • Plans to search both internet and traditional channels
  • Custom content from: Turner Broadcasting, HBO, NBC Universal, and the NBA-
  • Won’t sell ads for the first year, but this is how Google makes its money
  • Promising more data mining for advertisers.
  • Did you know, only 25,000 homes own a nielson box? yet these homes set the ad money for the year just by sampling 3 months of usage
  • Other downfall? Probably pricy
• Apple TV (99)
• Boxee (199)
• Roku (99)

(Netflix, Hulu, bittorrent, amazon, apple, etc)
Are we really ready for streaming TV content????

When is a Joke Too Much?

• Penny Arcade released a strip about “dickwolves” commiting rape
  • Pretty tastless but when called on it by people who have actually been targets of this absolutely, HORRIFIC experience that literally scars people for life
  • A reader pointed this out to them, in their own words:
  • A survivor of sexual violence who experiences a trigger is experiencing the same thing as a soldier who experiences a trigger, potentially even including flashbacks. Like many soldiers who return from war, many survivors of sexual violence are left with post-traumatic stress disorder.…I will never understand why anyone wants to be the total jerk who evokes someone’s memories of being assaulted by blindsiding hir with a rape joke (or image, or metaphor, or whatever), in the guise of “humor.” No “joke” is worth triggering someone. Not if you understand what triggering someone really means.
  • Their callow retort? They’re making a DickWolf shirt about the whole thing
  • When is a Joke too much? (discuss)
  • www.rainn.org  Rape Abuse & Incest National Network 1-800-656-HOPE

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• China Plans for Lunar landing 2017 (SM)
  • I’m a bit bitter, US has given up on going to the moon
  • China on the other hand, launched its 2nd unmanned moon mission
  • The probe will take 5 days to reach the moon
  • Testing technology for an unmanned flight in 2012
  • If all goes well, Chinese plan to be on the moon in 2017

• Quality Family Time! Brooklyn father and son launch their own spacecraft (udg)

• • They may not be rocket scientists, but Luke Geissbühler and his 7-year-old son, Max sent a “homemade spacecraft” into the stratosphere nearly 19 miles (around 100,000 feet) above the Earth’s surface to be exact – and they have the awesome video to prove it.
  • After eight months of research and flight tests, they launched the craft  made up of a a 19-inch helium-filled weather balloon attached to a Styrofoam capsule that housed an HD video camera and an iPhone. It was rigged with a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth, and the iPhone broadcast its GPS coordinates so they could track it down. The GoPro Hero camera recorded 100 minutes of the flight before its batteries conked out two minutes before landing in a tree 30 miles north of the launch.
  • Go to the link and check out the video, it’s pretty amazing.

• Twitter founder stepping down as CEO (JP)
  • Evan Williams has been CEO since 2008
  • Stepping down to focus more on making twitter “profitable”
  • “Growing big is not success in itself” and “Success to us means meeting our potential as a profitable company that can retain its culture and user focus while having a positive impact on the world.”
  • one experts take “This is about turning Twitter from a communications platform into an advertising platform and a real money-making business.”
  • Rumored “Promoted Accounts” now a reality
    • How this is funny to me when people get mad about it…
  • Discuss! What can twitter do to make money without pissing us off?

• Adobe Air coming to Android (SM)
  • Everybody acknowledges that IPhone has better App Store
  • It’s a pain to develop for that platform
  • Android is making it even easier to write for their OS by allowing this app
  • 1 tool that allows you to port an application from Android, Windows, Linux, Mac, etc (maybe iOS in the future)

• Holy Fail Microsoft. (udg)

• • So, in yet another attempt to copy Apple, Microsoft has their own stores.
  • They look like Apple Stores. Their Geniuses are called Gurus. And they clap when people buy a PC.
  • Part of Microsoft’s store offering is Microsoft Signature which is Microsoft’s own version of Windows 7 installed on any machine bought there.
  • So what’s the advantage of buying a Signature PC? According to Ken Fowles, Microsoft’s “Signature Samurai” it means a cleaner machine with around 15 less tasks running on initial boot, faster boot and shutdown times, and basically less crap to deal with.
  • So why is it Microsoft can offer a faster, cleaner version of Windows 7 than other vendors? It’s all due to a lack of other software from 3rd-party vendors being preinstalled on machines. Something commonly referred to as “crapware”. It consists of all those trial applications nobody wants that vendors install to make some extra cash on the sale of every PC. Microsoft Signature PCs have none of that so by default will run faster and with fewer tasks active.
  • But in an attempt to push Signature beyond new PC sales Microsoft is also offering it as a solution to crapware removal. Rather than spend the time uninstalling all that software you don’t want, just haul your new Windows 7 machine down to a Microsoft Store, buy a second full-price retail copy of Windows 7, and the techs there will happily do a clean install for you. Return home $170+ lighter and enjoy. Spank you very much Microsoft.
  • PCWorld did a list of 10 ways Microsoft stores will DIFFER from Apple’s
  • 1) Instead of Apple’s sheer walls of glass, Microsoft’s stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes — reminiscent of Windows security.
  • 2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.
  • 3) Instead of a “Genius Bar” (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it’s a problem with the hardware — not a software bug.
  • 4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.
  • 5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).
  • 6) Stores will be named Microsoft Live Retail Store with PC Services for Digital Lifestyle Enthusiasts.
  • 7) Fashioned after Microsoft’s User Account Control (UAC) in Vista, sales personnel will ask you whether you’re positive you want to purchase something at least twice.
  • Xbox 360 section of the store will be organized in a ring — which will inexplicably go red occasionally.
  • 9) DreamWorks will design a scary in-store theme park ride called “blue screen of death.”
  • 10) Store emergency exits will be unlocked at all times so people can get in anytime they want even if the front doors are locked.

• Verizon to issue refunds to 15 million customers (JP)
  • Verizon announced Sunday they will be issuing $90 million in refunds to 15 million cell phone customers who were erroneously charged for data sessions or Internet use.
  • They will do this via $2-$6 credit on either the Oct or Nov bills for existing customers in that group. For those that are no longer customers, a refund check will be mailed.
  • So what happened? The charges affected customers who did not have data usage plans, but were billed because of exchanges initiated by software built into their phones. In the past three years, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission received complaints from Verizon Wireless customers who said they were charged for data usage or Web access, the New York Times reported Sunday.

• Robotic Heart Transplant for Boy (SM)
  • Boy suffering from Duchene muscular dystrophy, a rapidly degenerating muscle disorder, making him ineligible for a heart transplant
  • Fitted with a fully “robotic” heart in his left ventricle
  • Powered by battery pack at waist and connected at left ear
  • Said to give him another 25 years life, had only days to live

• Zach Snyder Confirmed to Direct Superman (udg)

• • The speculation is over Zack Snyder of Watchmen & 300 fame has been officially confirmed as the director of the upcoming Superman reboot. I don’t think this comes as terribly shocking news to anyone. Oh wait, considering back in 2008 he was quoted as saying “They asked me to direct a Superman movie, and I said no. He’s a tricky one nowadays, isn’t he? He’s the king daddy of all comic-book heroes, but I’m just not sure how you sell that kind of earnestness to a sophisticated audience anymore” there may be some out there confuzzled.
  • Either way the film will move forward with a script from David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan. Christopher Nolan will “godfather” the production, aiming for a late 2012 release.
  • A little more dish has been revealed this weeks since the Snyder announcement. Some of the dirt- General Zod will be the film’s main villain and that it is unlikely that Brandon Routh will return for the role.
  • Many speculate the reason why Snyder was chosen to direct the film is because Warner Bros. doesn’t like Goyer’s script, calling it “rushed” and “still a bit of a mess.” The studio believes that Snyder can take on the project and not need months to figure it all out. The reason for the pressure comes from the fact that a new Superman movie needs to be in production by 2011 or they can be subject to legal action from the heirs of the hero’s creators.
  • What is the messy rushed plot? Sources state the film will see “Clark Kent [as] a journalist traveling the world trying to decide if he should, in fact, even become Superman.”
  • This leaves me with two questions 1) can that storyline provide more action than the less than awesome Superman Returns and 2) The word “become” suggests that the film may take place before Superman puts on the tights for the first time, which means that we might need to brace ourselves for an origin story.
  • Given the timeline they are up against, I expect some rapid firing casting being announced and a WHOLE LOT of praying going on by all those involved in this project. Afterall, do you really wanna be known for half assing Superman?

• Apple loses $625 Million patent suit (SM)
  • Texas jury ruled that Apple broke a document patent on the Iphone, Ipod Touch, and Mac OS
  • Mirror Worlds Company awarded damages for the 2008 infringement
  • The app at the center of controversy? CoverFlow
  • $208.5 Million for each infringement
  • Apple appealing and issuing a stay all at once??? (doesn’t have to pay and wants more time)

Intarweb Goldmine

• Segway company owner dies in Segway accident (SM)
  • Owner just barely bought the company a year ago from original, Dean Kamen
  • died after driving his ruggedized Segway off a cliff and into a river
  • Had just donated a 1000 Segways to disabled vets
  • Really sad because the guy was a humanitarian, 13 million pounds in donations plus his latest donation to the US Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center
  • Study just released showing injuries on the rise from riding segways
  • (SM) Yeah, because ppl are inherently stupid, you’re riding something standing up and going pretty fast

• That takes some nuts. (udg)

• • A district judge from Intercourse, Pa., was given a summary charge of disorderly conduct for handing out acorns stuffed with condoms to women.
  • The judge, Isaac H. Stoltzfus, 58, handed out the nuts to unsuspecting women and claimed that he was simply trying to pull a prank and has no sexual intentions behind his actions.
  • The women were not impressed with his nuts.

• Lawnmower sets new world record speed (JP)

• • Never thought of a lawnmower as badass before? You will now.
    • If Tim the Toolman were not fictional… he’d be… This guy!
  • Bobby Cleveland, a man who apparently does not know the meaning of a regular speed lawn mower, recently broke the World Record again for the fastest riding lawn mower in existence. On the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, Cleveland recently recorded a blazing speed of 96.529 mph, which smashed a British driver’s previous record 87.833 mph for the World’s Fastest Lawnmower.

• Dead Bodies on Google Maps Street View (SM)
  • After expanding into South America, there have been dead bodies showing up
  • 2 in Brazil were shown, one with police around, one without
  • All images complained about were taken off the service
  • “no different to what anyone might expect to see for themselves around the country. Sometimes that means our cars inadvertently capture odd or inappropriate moments as they drive past,”
    • I am hereby officially created a new game/sport. (JP)

• Piñata Optional At This Party (udg)

• • Police in Ohio walked into a hail of broken beer bottles and flying fists when called to respond to a blood-soaked brawl involving 75 people at a 3-year-old’s birthday party.
  • More than 20 officers from seven police departments were called to the scene at 1 a.m. at a Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall in Elmwood Place, Ohio, early last Tuesday and had to wait before entering the social hall as a melee of flying bottles and chairs erupted inside.
  • Wait. WHAT THE TRUCK? 1am on a TUESDAY?? For a THREE YEAR OLD!?!?
  • Weapon of choice for all involved? Broken beer bottle. 15 of the 150 maroons present were treated for injuries and released.  What started it? Age old story- the 3 year old’s dad had an altercation with her mom’s new boyfriend.
  • Saddest part- Only one arrest- the bday girl’s dad.

Extra Links

• Star Wars Finger Food

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen and I am @JPuent Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com and jpuent@thepowergeeks.com and uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!)
• And Become a Fan
• Follow our guest host Kristin on the web geekgirlsnetwork.com and on twitter @geekgirls (yes yes, im in the plural)