Hasta La Gadget!

Zynga has just announced a few things from its H.Q in San Francisco. One of them was updates to the Zynga platform, which is powered by the company’s infrastructure and network. Kostadis Roussos, Zynga’s Chief Engineer presented the platform, which is based on the company’s proprietary infrastructure and network. It is clear that Zynga has built a terriffic platform to run its own games.

With it, Zynga can analyze data and release about 100 game updates every day. Zynga’s computer are a mix of its own hardware and pubic cloud computers from Amazon, Rackspace and others. Zynga says that the whole point of having their own infrastructure is that they can be much more efficient than public clouds. The company claims to be 3X more efficient. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Zynga’s Draw Something will be made into a television game show, Zynga sues Kobojo over “PyramidVille” name,

At certain point in every geek’s life, their mother gives up and stops yelling at them to sit up straight. If the lack of constant reminders to maintain good posture has you slouching and hunching, there are countless technological substitutes. Even a few nice DIY ones. But we’ve got to give Ellen Sundh props for the simplicity of her solution. While similar projects rely on accelerometers, which can be difficult for the budding hobbyist to work with, to monitor the angle of your body, Bad Posture sticks with a simple bend sensor to keep tabs on your spinal cord. The flexible plastic is arranged vertically in a fabric belt that also houses an Arduino, a Wave Shield from Adafruit and a push button for calibration. Sit at your optimal angle, press the button and you’re ready to go. Bend too much and the Wave Shield plays a warning — “bad posture!” Check out the video after the break to see it in action.

Continue reading Bad Posture tells you to sit up straight, replaces your mom with an Arduino

Bad Posture tells you to sit up straight, replaces your mom with an Arduino originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The TV service provider that was more bullish on 3D content than anyone else is now cutting back on its three-dimensional programming due to low consumer demand, even though there are notably more 3D TV sets on the market. The problem is that viewers just aren’t tuning in, even if their TV supports the new standard. As a result, the flagship n3D channel will no longer operate 24 hours a day.

When it launched in July of 2010, just a matter of months after the very first stereoscopic 3D TV set was available in the US, n3D was touted by DirecTV as being the first 24/7 3D channel. It was made only available to DirecTV subscribers. The company also launched other dedicated 3D channels and was the first to offer ESPN 3D. So for DirecTV to backpeddle in this market speaks volumes.

The n3D channel is not going away for good. It will still run part-time, mainly for special events like live concerts and sporting events. But there will still be some regularly scheduled content as well. When it is off air, the channel will simply show the n3D logo. Even when it was running 24/7, a lot of the programming was looped and repeated throughout the day.

[via AP]

DirecTV 3D programming drastically scaled back is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

There must be a better way to take pictures of yourself without having to painstakingly set up the timer and running all the way to join the others who are already posing for the picture. It’s pretty clear who’s in charge of setting up the timer by just looking at the photo: just pick out the guy or girl with the haphazard hair and frazzled expression.

There are triggers and remotes for this kind of thing, of course. But if you can’t be bothered with that and don’t mind clapping to show the world you’re happy (and that you’re eager for a picture), then you can get the Snap Clap app for iOS devices instead.

It’s basically a simplistic trigger app that snaps a picture – every time you clap your hands.Now you’d probably have to worry about you clapping your hands in the photos, but that’s better than looking all haggard and unkempt, right?

The cool thing is that the app also has some post-processing tools up its sleeve, such as filters that you can apply to change the look and feel of your photos. Snap Clap can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store for $0.99 (USD).

[via Chip Chick]

“Dexter” is “definitely” ending after Season 8, executive producer Sara Colleton confirmed in an interview with TV Guide.

When Showtime’s serial killer thriller was renewed for two more seasons mid-way through Season 6, it was widely assumed that episode order would be its closing run. But Showtime president David Nevins left his options open, telling Deadline.com at the time of the renewal, “I’m not going to say with absolute certainty that this is the end, but that is the likely scenario, that the series is moving towards a definite end.”

Now, Colleton has moved the end-game a step closer. “This was definite,” she clarified. “We wanted to end it this year, but the network convinced us that it would be best to do it in two years. In some ways, this is a two-season series-ender. We have worked that out and know where it’s going to end. Next year will definitely be the last year of ‘Dexter.’ Absolutely.”

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