Counterculture icon Timothy Leary was a longtime advocate of drug use as a way to expand minds. "Turn on, tune in, drop out," became one of his most popular phrases in the 1960s. But in 1987 Leary predicted that people of the 21st century wouldn’t need "old fashioned" drugs anymore. Instead, we’d all be using "brain radios" to alter consciousness.
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These cool looking toys are aimed at the amazingly small cross-section of people who are fans of both Hello Kitty and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or maybe there are a lot of fans who like both franchises. What do I know? This combination does make a super neat looking group though, I have to admit.
These feline heroes in a half shell are pretty adorable. The six inch-tall figures even have bows that match the masks. They are limited to 1,000 pieces and are going for ¥6,980 (~$69 USD) each. Pretty expensive, but then again, it isn’t everyday that you see Teenage Mutant Ninja Kitties.
They are available through DCT as far as I can tell since I don’t speak Japanese. Get the whole set. Who knows? Maybe this will be a cartoon.
[via Comics Alliance via Nerd Approved]
Welcome to Engadget’s holiday gift guide! Head back to our hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month.
Chances are you stick with a laptop longer than a smartphone — not everyone can afford to upgrade machines every two years, after all. And since you’ll be using that notebook for a while, it better be a mighty capable one. Whether you’re shopping for a lucky relative or friend or perusing for yourself, this shortlist of laptops and Ultrabooks is a great place to start. Our resident laptop expert Dana Wollman, along with others from the Engadget team, break down the best systems for all budgets.
Filed under: Laptops, Apple, Samsung, Google, HP, Dell, Lenovo
If you’re a soccer fan who likes to play on the field as well as the console, you’ll probably be aware of EA Sports and the amazing FIFA titles it has released over the years. EA Sports also used to market the FIFA Manager series, its popular football simulation series have a dedicated fan following and the series has been around for almost 13 years now. Sadly though, it won’t be around for much longer. It has been announced that FIFA Manager 14 is going to be the last instalment of this series, and that there will be no new titles coming out in the future. The recent title, FIFA Manager 14, is just a “legacy edition,” meaning that it doesn’t come with any significant upgrades over its predecessor.
The announcement was made in a blog post by Gerald Köhler, founder of the game. He says that the niche market and trend towards online and mobile games were the reason why FIFA Manager had to bite the dust. The series had reached a crossroads, he said, and that the only thing able to give the game a boost would have been a “new engine and/or corresponding online technology.” Evaluating these factors led them to make the decision that the final whistle on the series had to be blown.
FIFA Manager Bites The Dust original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Everyone’s in a tizzy about the “new” console generation, conveniently forgetting that, market-wise, it was already here a year ago with the release of Nintendo’s Wii U. It isn’t as advanced technologically as the new Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox One, but the Wii U’s like the kid who still likes Ninja Turtles when everyone’s moved on to Power Rangers: They might not be as cool, but they’re still your classmate, and they’re still going to graduate with everyone else. Nintendo might seem a little square compared to Sony and Microsoft right now, but it still has the skills to succeed in school.
At launch, Nintendo sold out its entire initial allotment of 400,000 Wii U’s — which looked promising — but after the holidays, sales softened significantly and continued to slide. By E3, the situation wasn’t looking so good. Just a few months later, Nintendo announced a price cut of $50 for the console, reducing its profit on each unit sold. However, the price reduction also moved a lot of units, with the Wii U experiencing a 200 percent uptick in sales for the month of September.
Ready for a big number? 502,165. That’s the number of LED lights the family of David and Janean Richards in Canberra, Australia has decked its home in order to clinch the 2013 Guinness World Record for most Christmas lights in one display. Whoa.
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Most people might be unaware of the fact that Denmark supplies half of the world’s hearing aids. A lot of companies based in the country have consistently been working to leverage modern technology to help those who are hard of hearing or those who can’t hear at all. GN ReSound, a company based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has worked closely with Apple on its LiNX hearing aids which are the world’s first “Made for iPhone” hearing aids. The technology is actually quite impressive, these are the first hearing aids of any kind that can connect directly to a smartphone without needing a “streamer” that acts as a transmitter between a hearing aid and a Bluetooth equipped mobile phone.
LiNX hearing aids can be used to stream music and as a two-way headset for phone calls, its settings can be adjusted through a companion app for iOS. They communicate with the device through the 2.4 gigahertz band using Bluetooth 4.0 LE. LiNX is going to ship early next year, it will be priced a tad over $3,000 per hearing aid. Apple has also been working with other companies on similar products, William Demant in Denmark and Starkey Technologies in Minnesota have been working with Apple to create similar “Made for iPhone” products.
‘Made For iPhone’ Hearing Aids Coming Early 2014 original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Yahoo has confirmed that Katie Couric will join Yahoo News early in the new year, with the ABC News correspondent taking the role as Global Anchor though also continuing to present her existing talk show Katie. Couric, who has previously worked at NBC News and CBS News, is no stranger to Yahoo, with her existing […]
It hasn’t been long since the official Android 4.4 KitKat update rolled out for the Google Nexus 4 smartphone. First the factory images were posted online for enthusiasts who like to manually flash their updates, and a short while after that the Android 4.4 KitKat update was rolled out over-the-air for Nexus 4 devices. Some users are reporting that the update has caused several issues such as rendering the Home button useless, breaking the dialer, non-working Quick Settings toggle and some other issues. The issues don’t appear to be widespread, as quite a lot of users running the same build report that everything is working like it should.
It seems that these issues affect those users the most who have upgraded from the final Jelly Bean build JWR66Y to Android 4.4 KitKat KRT16S over-the-air or through the factory image without first wiping the device. Users who updated through the KRT160 factory build don’t appear to be affected at all. The fix that most users have discovered to work for them is a complete wipe of the device, this obviously means that all data stored on it will be erased, so if you’re facing this issue, its best that you first create a backup of your data. The exact reason why these issues are being faced is not known at this point in time.
Nexus 4 Android 4.4 KRT16S Build Causing Issues For Some Users original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Line claims $10 million in monthly character sales.
(Credit: Line)
Inexplicably, the world craves more kawaii cute characters.
The dizzying ascent of Japanese messaging app Line has marked another milestone, notching 300 million registered users worldwide, executives told a press conference in Tokyo.
The app, which is drenched in horrifyingly cute cartoon critters, passed 200 million users back in July. It has doubled its number of users since late April, just seven months.
With increasingly global appeal, Line is competing against messaging services WhatsApp, which hit 350 million active monthly users last month, and China-based Tencent’s WeChat, which claims nearly 300 million users.
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