If you so much as touched a computer in the 1990s, we’d wager that the mere mention of You Don’t Know Jack will bring back a flood of memories. Jellyvision’s irreverent trivia game has seen a resurgence in popularity over the last few years, with its presence expanding to Facebook, iOS and Android, and the Jack Attack isn’t stopping there: beginning June 11th, you can “Screw Your Neighbor” on the OUYA game console. You’ll be able to get a trial 11-question episode for free or upgrade to get a full set of 20 games. Cleverly, this version includes a new feature called Party Play which lets up to three additional players compete against you by turning iOS and Android devices into external controllers. Not a bad addition for OUYA users eager to answer questions like the one you see above (and if you’re curious, we’re pretty sure the answer is “The Keebler Elves”).
Bumblebee, you’re doing it wrong. Or maybe he just got scared and decided to roll into a ball. This vehicular sculpture was actually made by Indonesian artist Ichwan Noor. He created this Volkswagen sphere that is 1.8 meters across out of the parts of actual Volkswagen Beetle.
To put it in more artsy-fartsy terms:
The sculpture’s visual form yields an impression of a sphere – the basis of all forms. The shape of a car is pressed onto the spherical form, producing a dynamic movement, a certain flexibility, but also fragility. It is a concept of “totems” that is embraced/believed by the people of today.
Or maybe it’s just cool because someone crushed a car into a ball and it looks like Bumblebee. Yeah, that’s why I like it.
We weren’t able to make into the studio again, but a week without a new episode of the Engadget Podcast is hardly a week at all, right? Tim’s still a traveling man, but he finally picked up a PlayStation Vita for entertainment on the move. Tune in to find out if he likes it and get a recap of the week’s tech news, including the tastiest tidbits from D11. Stream the audio below and find the video version embedded past the break.
(Credit: Activision) In this day and age, perhaps it’s not the best idea to erect a life-size statue of a gunman and place it in the front window of your office.
Yet this is precisely what the Los Angeles Police Department confronted late Thursday night when officers stormed the building of game studio Robotoki. The LAPD, guns drawn, faced off with a gun-wielding, very human-like replica of soldier Simon “Ghost” Riley from Robotoki’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — that and a very startled Robert Bowling, the company’s president, who happened to be working late that night.
You might think that the looming presence of a life-like gunman was what inspired the LAPD to raid the building. But actually, it was the result of an unknowing employee mistakenly hitting the panic button of the office’s newly installed security system, according to gaming news site Polygon.
Bowling told the publication that the employee hit the button, saw that nothing happened, and left. How does Bowling know this? Thanks to one of the office’s security video cameras.
Earlier this year a device code-named DA220HQL was introduced to the world – silently – this being the same device appearing along technology newslines being reported as brand new, and coming soon with Haswell inside. What’s actually happened here is a bit of a mistaken identity – the device in question is, indeed, already on the market – and it comes with a dual-core Texas Instruments processor inside.
This machine is what Acer calls a “Smart Display”, working with a kickstand in the back, a full touch display, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich inside. This machine works with the dual-core TI OMAP 4430 inside and is available in Europe right now for right around $450 USD, depending on where you’re picking it up from. Resellers, according to CNET, had as recently as earlier today been listing the device as coming with a next-generation Intel Haswell processor under the hood.
While the device won’t be busting up the next-generation charts with that particular bit of Intel technology, it will be continuing its odd placement in the market with a 21.5-inch multi-touch display at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution – across that much display space, it’s not exactly as sharp as some of the top smartphones on the market, but is more than enough to get you through the day as a media center.
Inside is 1GB of RAM, 8GB internal storage, microHDMI out, microUSB (one of them), and included in the box you’ll get both a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. This system is very similar to what appeared at the ViewSonic stand earlier this year at CES 2013. ViewSonic showed off their own “Smart Display” by the name of VSD240 – basically the same concept, but ringing in at a slightly more hefty $675 USD (MSRP). While that system did boast an NVIDIA Tegra processor, the style sticks with Acer.
These systems show the continued experimentation being done with Android as its versatility expands. Android notebooks like the HP SlateBook X2 have popped up alongside cross-breeds like this – and Android is inside Google Glass, too, mind you. Expect this trend to keep tapping.
A detailed analysis of the bead shows it meteorite origin.
(Credit: Open University)
There have been plenty of far-out theories about otherworldly alien visitations of the ancient Egyptians, especially those involving aliens building the pyramids. That’s all a load of bunk, but at least now we have a real scientist-approved story involving ancient Egyptians and objects from space.
Strings of unusual iron beads were excavated from a burial site near Cairo in 1911. The beads date back to around 3300 BCE. It took more than 100 years for scientists to conclusively sort out what they are made from. As it turns out, they are fashioned from meteorites.
Some scientists had already hypothesized that the beads were extraterrestrial in origin, but others thought them to be early attempts at smelting. Researchers from the Open University and The University of Manchester have now confirmed that a bead from the Gerzeh cemetery is, indeed, from a meteorite.
Zoho’s more commonly known around the interwebs for its document editing tools, but today the service is launching a product that’s a little more business-oriented than its Office suite. With the newly introduced Zoho Vault, the company’s hoping to give business owners a centralized repository where they can easily manage their passwords online — something slightly similar to what LastPass offers. Of course, security will likely be very important for potential customers, and Zoho says it’ll be able to keep a rigorous lockdown by implementing things such as Host-Proof Hosting, a measure which encrypts passwords at the browser and stores only encrypted data on the server. The Personal Edition of Zoho Vault is available now for free and can be accessed by one person, while the Enterprise Edition costs a mere $1 per month, offers an iPhone app and supports unlimited users.
Two different groups have announced their own unique kind of 3D printing material today, one of them from Materialise, the other from Shapeways. While the Materialise material is a bit more of a bendable material the company suggests could be made into such objects as purses and flexible piggy banks, Shapeways material is much more of a “squishy” sort of situation. While the difference between the two may seen slight to those who’ve not had the chance to experience either, we can’t stop our brains from pouring out the possibilities – squishy, squishy possibilities.
Shapeways Elasto Plastic material
The Shapeways company is one that generally has users create and order models – they have you send in a model or create one with their tools, they print it, and you get it shipped to you. Creators of these objects can also sell their items through Shapeways Shops.
With the release of this Elasto Plastic material, Shapeways is working with “makers” – people who design 3D objects for 3D printing – to test in “one big, global 3D Printing R&D team.” Elasto Plastic is being shown and experimented here on purely pre-release terms, noting that they’re not at a final point for properties, this including both finish and color.
The material presents a unique new platform where creators of 3D objects can get a bit more wobbly with their experiments.
“The new, improved Elasto Plastic is a great option for Makers as it is an incredibly durable material with a lot of really interesting properties such as high impact resistance, flexibility and compression (depending on the geometry), along with a high level of static friction because of the surface texture. Though not strictly water-tight, it can hold liquids, but it does not like high temperatures or fire … and it is not so good for very small things.” – Shapeways
How about a little set of squishy toys for the ol’ Pokemon collection? Have a peek at Shapways’ video for this material and see what you make of it.
Materialise Rubber-Like Material [TPU 92A-1]
The “Rubber-Like” material from Materialise being shown this week was originally created for a dress. This dress was shown off earlier this year by Iris van Herpen while the material was, as Materialise calls it: “the first fully-functional flexible material for 3D printing.” This material is being re-shown this week because it will here, for the first time, be offered for testing by the public.
Like the Shapeways material above, this material is part of Materialise’s own 3D printing service, and wont be available for purchase outside of their setup. This material works for shock absorption, rigid-yet-bendable applications, and of course, creating a bouncy ball of sorts. The company has made it clear that this material is not as strong as rubber, but has many similar properties.
And then there were three. Bloomberg is reporting that a trio of companies are hoping to fork out over one billion dollars for the privilege of taking online video service Hulu under their wing, and DirecTV is one of them. While we’re not quite sure which other companies are involved in the process, we’ve been told that Yahoo, Time Warner Cable and a few others have at least thrown out offers, with no confirmation on how much they were willing to spend. Although those “people with knowledge of the bid” could include a few hoping to encourage more $1b+ offers, those extra large checks increase the odds Hulu will actually sell this time. We’re quietly hoping that this potential bidding war will be resolved through an arm wrestling match, though DirecTV’s legal team likely wouldn’t approve.
We’ve seen plenty of niftycrochetedStar Warsitems and I’m sure we will see more. But a real Jedi Master crafter uses a weapon like this awesome lightsaber crochet hook.
Imagine what you could create with this lightsaber. It’s an elegant crafting weapon for a more civilized age. These cool crafting implements are made by Cherelled and are just $15(USD).
They are made from polymer clay. If you want to make one yourself, the tutorial for the grip can be found here. Craft or craft not. There is no try.
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