The Kor-fx plugs into your audio jack, drapes around your shoulders and makes gaming and movie watching more immersive by vibrating directly into your chest cavity. You can tell where sounds are coming from more accurately and you can play with lower volume levels.
A Physics Rebel Shakes Up the Video Game World, Literally | Xconomy.
2 council run adventure playgrounds in Watford are off limits to parents. Only “play workers” are allowed to supervise the children playing there. For some reason, the local council thinks it’s not appropriate for parents to be in the same area as playing 5 – 15 year olds.
Let’s fuel the paedophile paranoia some more shall we?!
Brave New World arrives In Watford • The Register.
Looks like the British are blithely going where the French couldn’t go by adopting a 3 strikes rule for illegal filesharers. First you get warning letters and then you get disconnected from the internet.
Not only does this mean that basically your internet connection will be monitored for this kind (and what other?) behaviour, but also that people will be forced to switch to encrypted internet connections, making police and MI5 work much more difficult.
This is a huge and useful list:
The full list of keyboard shortcuts includes:
You can also interact with windows by dragging them with the mouse:
In Windows 7, using the Windows key along with the numbers 1-9 will let you interact with the applications pinned to the taskbar in those positions – for example, the Windows key + 4 combination would launch Outlook in this example, or Win+Alt+4 can be used to get quick access to the Outlook Jump List from the keyboard.
You can use any of these shortcut combinations to launch the applications in their respective position on the taskbar, or more:
In addition, you can interact with the taskbar using your mouse and a modifier key:
The new hotkey goodness didn’t stop with the taskbar and moving windows around—one of the best new hotkeys in Windows 7 is the fact that you can create a new folder with a hotkey. Just open up any Windows Explorer window, hit the Ctrl+Shift+N shortcut key sequence, and you’ll be rewarded with a shiny “New Folder” ready for you to rename.
Here’s a few more interesting hotkeys for you:
The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts – Windows – Lifehacker.
Using Augmented Reality goggles, powered on an Android platform, marines are able to maintain their vehicles 46% faster than using a laptop with technical manuals.
The AR system provides label names to each object, shows a 3D model of the tool you need and gives instructions for specifica tasks overlaid on the camera view of what you are looking at.
Technology Review: Faster Maintenance with Augmented Reality.
These guys put some people through some basic trust experiments and it turns out that people who are in a recently windex-ed room behave far more morally and are much less likely to exploit other people.
Clean Smells Promote Moral Behavior, Study Suggests.
The Lausanne university in Switserland has moved from the software to the reality: they’ve managed to get robots to evolve and learn behaviours, as well as the behaviour to decieve and cooperate through communication (flashing lights) and movement. It’ s a very interesting experiment, showing that robots are getting smarter every day and are now showing some very very lifelike traits.
Darwin’s Robots | h+ Magazine.
Ninite looks great: you select the apps you want from a whole great list of them, it then gives you a custom installer to save and that then goes and downloads and installs all the applications you selected.
Ninite Easy PC Setup and Multiple App Installer – Great For Win7 Upgrades.
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Although this functionality was designed with OEMs in mind, it is pretty easy to turn on and off using regedit and some images lying around your hard drive.
First, a check is made to determine if the customization functionality is enabled or not. More precisely, a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key is checked. Its data, of Boolean type, defines whether or not this behavior is turned on, i.e. 1 for enabled, 0 for disabled. This value may not exist by default, depending on your system.
Afterwards, if customization is enabled, the primary monitor’s screen height and width are retrieved via calls to GetSystemMetrics. These values are used in the computation of the screen width (w)/height (h) ratio. For example, my desktop resolution is 1920×1200. The ratio, computed by the division of w/h, is 1.6:1.
The result of this computation is looked up in an internal table that drives what image to load on disk. Although I don’t have a large enough monitor to test, it appears resolutions higher than 1920×1200 will force the loading and zooming of an image of closest compatibility (i.e. same ratio, smaller image).
As this is an OEM feature images are derived from %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds. Like the registry value, this folder may not exist by default. The following files (sorted by width-to-height ratio) are supported in this folder:
NOTE: Images must be less than 256kb in size. Thanks for pushing me to investigate, Jay C.
The backgroundDefault.jpg image is loaded and stretched-to-fit when a resolution/ratio-specific background cannot be found. The other resolution/ratio-specific files are self-explanatory. If the background cannot be loaded (e.g. image physically too large, incorrect ratio, etc.), the default SKU-based image is loaded from imagesres.dll. You’ll see a Windows Server-themed grayish background in there, too, suggesting this functionality is not specific to client SKUs.”
Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization – Within Windows.
“The law in the Netherlands says that intercepted phone calls between attorneys and their clients must be destroyed. But the Dutch government has been keeping under wraps for years that no one has the foggiest clue how to delete them Google translation. Now, an email PDF from the National Police Services Agency KLPD has surfaced, revealing that the working of the technology in question is a NetApp trade secret. The Dutch police are now trying to get their Israeli supplier Verint to tell them how to delete tapped calls and comply with the law. Meanwhile, attorneys in the Netherlands remain afraid to use their phones.
via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | Dutch Gov’t Has No Idea How To Delete Tapped Calls.
Titanium allows you to develop apps for iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac OS and Linux using Javascript, CSS, HTML, Python, Ruby and now PHP.
Download Titanium | Appcelerator.
The PC Suite is also available for Windows Mobile and Android and offers and alternative way to handle your phone. For the iPhone it offers a way out of itunes and gives you the ability to mass SMS, back up your entire iphone (including cydia apps), a ringtone community and maker, a file explorer and a whole lot more.
In order to make it English, you may have to rename some language files in the directory C:\Program Files\NetDragon\91 Mobile\iPhone\LangPack (all except the en-US.lang – if you don’t rename, the updater will try to redownload them)
PandaApp.com | manage your smart phone easily and safely!.
So, son, you defended your woman by throwing some ketchup? That’s you on file – fingerprinted and DNA’d at the copshop. I’m sure it’s making the UK safer, this kind of discipline.
Cops DNA boy for throwing tiny ketchup pot at McDonald’s | The Sun |News.
The damn thing fits on a tabletop and draws electromagnetic waves to it.
The practical applications are for drawing sunlight, so collecting solar energy. It’ll mean you can do away with all those panels, as this should be much more efficient.
First black hole for light created on Earth – physics-math – 14 October 2009 – New Scientist.
This thing was proposed from the outset, but I have no idea what happened to it. Now finally they’ve got it going, and they’re claiming the new nozzles add 7% thrust and reduce fuel consumption by 5%.
VIDEO: Eurojet proposes thrust-vectoring upgrade for Typhoon.
The Bloomframe is a windowframe that unfolds to become a balcony whenever you want one.
In this form of searching, you upload an image, sketch or 3D object, and you get results based on where the image comes from, where else the image is placed and if (and where) there are similar images on the net.
Image Searchers:
TinEye
RevIMG
retrievr – search by sketch / search by image
Sauce Nao
3D Model Searchers:
Prinecton 3d model search engine (also for sketches)
an article about the Purdue sketch / 3D searcher
Im2GPS Estimates geographic information from a single image
keywords: pictures, photos
As an example, Peterson pointed to changes made along a section of Interstate 496 outside of Lansing, which accounted for 40 percent of reported incidents of aggressive driving in that area. When the speed limit was raised from 55 mph to 70 mph, incidents of aggressive driving dropped to zero.
“The low speed limit frustrated many drivers, so they drove over the speed limit. This caused problems for other drivers who were driving at the limit. The speed differential caused the tailgating, passing, and speeding that were reported as ‘aggressive’ driving,” Peterson said.
His data also showed accident rates in that area also fell when the speed limit was raised.
Surprisingly, the higher speed limit also improved traffic flow, nearly eliminating all symptoms of rush hour congestion along that stretch.
via Road rage’s causes and prevalence debatable | detnews.com | The Detroit News.
This is a remake of Star Wars with a twist: The whole movie has been cut up into 15 second clips. You can choose up to three clips, film it yourself and upload your interpretation. This is then spliced together and will form a final movie. So far, 105 clips still need to be made.
Yup – someone had to think of a way to turn those CCTV camera’s into something that everyone had access to! In an internet game, people are encouraged to use the CCTV network to spy on people in the street. Whoever catches the most “criminals” (say litterers or jaywalkers) gets GBP 1000,- every month! Have fun participating in the spy state!
Which goes to show – it’s the Ipod / Iphone which is floating the Apple. Nope, Macs just suck and their fanboy users are a teeny tiny minority. And the rest of the I-Have-A-Mac smug bastards are hypocrites. You wouldn’t need a PC if your Mac was so perfect, now would you, mister I’m a Mac.
85% of Mac users own a PC | News | PC Pro.
The Dutch RIAA: Buma / Stemra has decided it wants all users that link in a Youtube video into their page, to pat EUR. 150,- for up to 6 videos or songs. Fucking arseholes.
So – people are putting out plugins to block Buma / Stemra IPs.
Weblogs houden spider Buma/Stemra buiten | Webwereld.
The whole Pirate Bay saga continues: after strange court orders, dodgy sales, bans on Google, etc, etc, here is the latest:
Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde has gone to the Dutch police and has charged the Brein organisiation with fabrication of evidence and fraud.
Pirate Bay doet aangifte tegen Brein en Kuik – update 2 | Webwereld.
Brein has been trying to get the Pirate Bay down globally – due to Brein suboepna’ing the 3 mere conduits for the IP range they use:
Brein blokkeert Pirate Bay wereldwijd – Webwereld
That block has been circumvented by a Dutch guy working for a German host
Nederlander helpt Pirate Bay weer online – update – Webwereld
Never a boring moment with these guys!
It took this network of 200,000 IP adresses 2 weeks to amass $3M. Who knows how long it has been operating or how much it scammed in total?
$3 Million In Click Fraud Over Two Weeks? Just The Beginning – Chinese click fraud ring – Gizmodo.
This watchphone is bluetooth enabled and costs only around $200
Kempler & Strauss W PhoneWatch is everything we ever wanted in life.