Hasta La Gadget!

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. We’ve seen some odd photos turn up on Google Street view over the years. My personal favorite was the little girl who played dead on the side of the road as the Street View car rolled by. A donkey has now played a very similar game with a Street View car in Botswana.

To make this an even stranger story, it started to go viral after a tweet from the account of fictional character Dr. Sheldon Cooper saying that “I think Google Street view ran over a donkey in Botswana.” The story gained enough traction the Google has had to come out and offer up an official explanation of the circumstances surrounding the downed donkey.

Google says that because of the way its 360-degree imagery is put together it appeared as though it’s Street View car cruising down a dirt road in Botswana had run over the poor creature. Google says that in fact the donkey was laying down and taking a dirt bath as the car approached, and then stood up and moved to the side of the road as the vehicle drove by.

Having known someone who rear-ended a cow, and assuming running over a donkey would work basically the same way as running over a cow, I can say without a doubt that there would have been donkey poo all over the front of the Street View car had an impact actually taken place. If you’re curious, the rear-ended cow survived with nothing more than an significantly cleaner colon after the impact. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the vehicle.

[via TheNextWeb]

Like most people who have something they don’t need anymore, Aimi Jones decided to put a yellow skater dress she had up for auction on eBay. She didn’t bother to check the pictures she took of the dress until after she posted the listing – and that’s when she spotted her humiliating mistake.

In one of the listing’s photos, Aimi can clearly be seen in the reflection of her mirror, taking a picture of the dress wherein she was wearing nothing more than a bra. In other words, she was buck naked from the waist down. She quickly ended the listing, but it was still up and viewable online.

Sure enough, some eagle-eyed shoppers spotted Aimi’s listing and the rest is history: it went viral. eBay has since taken down the listing and sellers worldwide have learned an important lesson from this – always check your images before uploading them. You’ll never be able to hit the “undo” key on the entire internet.

Here’s Aimi with her infamous yellow dress, fully-clothed now.

[via Gawker]

Wreck-It Ralph has been released in a lot of places worldwide, my country of residence included, and I really found it entertaining and enjoyable. If you like video games at the very least and played a couple of games when they were still all pixelly and in 8-bit form, then chances are you’ll like the movie, too.

The film doesn’t come out in the UK until February 8, 2013, so Disney is going the extra mile – or is it the extra lane? – to promote the movie by setting up 8-bit Lane in London.

It’s basically a street art exhibit where, if you look closely, you’ll spot a few things that aren’t as they should be. For example, water flowing out of a pipe looks suspiciously pixelated. Two pigeons on a pipe also get treated to some 8-bit action.

All of the sculptures on 8-bit Lane were created by Aden Hynes, who is Disney’s film production sculptor. Check out more of the exhibit in the gallery below.

Photos taken by Michael Reeve.

[via it8bit via Laughing Squid]

If you pay attention to all the game announcements made at E3 each year, you may remember the cool looking adventure game from SEGA and Double Fine Productions called The Cave. Now that we’re all burnt out on our holiday game purchases, we could use another good game early in 2013. Thankfully, you won’t have to wait long to play this one, from the guys behind the classic Psychonauts.

In the highly-stylized, side-scrolling adventure game, players will choose three uniquely-skilled characters from seven available and then descend into a cave to explore. During their journey, players will find an underground amusement park, a medieval castle, and even a nuclear missile.

SEGA has announced that The Cave will be available on January 22 for PlayStation gamers via the PlayStation Network and on the Nintendo Wii U the same day. Xbox 360 gamers and PC gamers will have to wait one day extra for the game’s release on January 23. PC gamers will be able to get the game via Steam. The Cave will cost $14.99(USD) or 1200 Microsoft points.

Early demos of the much-awaited Leap motion sensor mostly showed how it can be used to control graphics programs, browsers and video games. But the motion sensor can also be used to make an audio program, as shown by software developer Adam Somers with his AirHarp demo.

Proof of the responsiveness and accuracy of the Leap, AirHarp can recognize the speed and position at which a string is hit.

Adam has a fantastic sound system. Head to his website to download AirHarp, and to Leap Motion’s site to pre-order the Leap for just $69.95(USD).

[via Smarter Planet]