Hasta La Gadget!

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on …

FRESNO, Calif. — FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Family members of the five nurses who died in a limousine fire on a San Francisco Bay Area bridge have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against several companies, including those that maintained the limousine and customized it.

The lawsuits — filed on Thursday — claim the companies were responsible for design and manufacturing defects with the 1999 Lincoln Town Car that caused the May 4 fire on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge.

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Math says there is hope.

(Credit: GaryGeckDotCom/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

I struggle with theories. They so rarely work out in practice. And though teachers tried to force-feed theories, theorems, and theologies down my throat when I was impressionable, these days nothing gets through.

Two Apple aficionados, however, decided to take on the Big Banging Theory — whether God exists — and claim they now have proof.

My irregular reading of Der Spiegel brought me to the news that all it took was the help of one MacBook and one early 20th century theorem. (Thank you, TechEye, for sending me there.)

The theorem belongs originally to Anselm of Canterbury and was taken on by Austrian mathematician Kurt Godel. It goes like this: “God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived. God exists in the understanding. If God exists in the understanding, we could imagine Him to be greater by existing in reality. Therefore, God must exist.”

I am not going to enter into the finer points of this fine leap of logic. However, what’s clear i… [Read more]

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Phenakistoscopes, praxinoscopes, and zoetropes, oh my! Richard Balzer, a 69-year-old New York native, has cultivated a remarkable online museum of early animations and optical toys of the 18th and 19th centuries.

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Yesterday, I had an opportunity to take a look at the next-gen NBA 2K14 basketball game in San Francisco. The 2K team had brought a number of demo systems and even a head scan setup to show us a peek at the 2K14 “behind the scenes” game production. Since I don’t play sports games much I’m not going to “review” or preview the game, but what caught my attention is how extensively 2K worked on making the 2K14 experience immersive – including a “MyCareer” mode where you start as a rookie player and have to deal with the business side of things. NBA 2K14 is not only about playing basketball, but actually about “living” basketball. (more…)

2K On NBA 2K14: Next-Gen Means “Getting Everything Right” original content from Ubergizmo.