Is it possible to write a full post on deadly military robots without making a snarky joke about SkyNet? Nope. The foot soldiers in the future super-computer overlord’s army aren’t the Terminator series robots, but mechanized drones, like the Israeli killer robot its army has just developed, called the Guardium. This isn’t just a remote controlled killbot, though; the Guardium is autonomous, meaning it makes its own decisions on who to shoot. What could possibly go wrong? We’re guessing a lot. The machines run on software, and software can be faulty. We’re hoping we never encounter one of these mechanized killers. → Read More
AOL and XM are no longer friends, right, (the contract expired) so you can no longer listen to XM Satellite Radio via AOL Radio. For us in the promised land of North America, big deal. We can either pony up and get a dedicated satrad, or we can listen online with XM Radio Online. Others outside of the majesty of North America, however, are, shall we say, le screwed. And they’re complaining about it. As an European listener of XM Radio via AOL … it’s a disaster for me, since I love XM Radios 6 and 7. The outraged radio fan, Jacques, has no recourse, since XM isn’t broadcast outside North America and you can’t get XM Radio Online anywhere but here. Quel dommage. → Read More
Because police don’t have enough ways to ruin my weekend, a company called AcuNetx (I spelled that right) has developed a device called the HawkEye, a non-invasive device that scans the eyes of drivers to tell their intoxication levels. It’s not meant for field stops so much as checkpoints, which are illegal in many states, and requires a laptop and hand-held device to operate. It detects movements of the pupils as they react to certain stimuli to determine sobriety levels. The HawkEye itself can’t exactly determine the BOC, something needed as evidence, but will give probable cause for a full field test. You teetotalers have nothing to fear, but those of us with lives are keeping a wary on the fun-killing Big Brother. Personally, I find it offensive that they would attempt to interfere with my goal of endorsing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happy hour. → Read More
Web chat startup Meebo has closed the funding round they’ve been working on with investment bank Montgomery & Co., a source tells us. Expect an announcement shortly. The best information we’ve been able to gather says the company raised $25 million or so on a $200 million valuation. Earlier this month they abandoned efforts to sell the company, focusing instead on raising money. Meebo was negotiating with strategic partners to join the funding round as well, including eBay, Fox/MySpace and AOL. From what we’ve heard, none of those companies invested. To date Meebo has raised $12.5 million from Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. CrunchBase Information Meebo Montgomery & Co Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Tomorrow we welcome those with emailed invites to Red Sky at 47 E. 29th Street between Park and Madison. We’d like to thank our sponsors again. If you got an email for the wait list spots, congratulations. If you didn’t, there’s always next time. See you tomorrow! Hopefully Marvel doesn’t shut us down. After all, Matt Hickey is coming dressed as No-Pants Spiderman. Gold Sponsors Adamantium Sponsors Nivea for Men Palladium Sponsors Blast RatePoint Giveaway Sponsors Samsung Western Digital → Read More
GTA IV fever is far from over, and the controversies are still pouring in. But for one organization, it’s not the sexual content or graphic violence of the game that they find objectionable, it’s the in-game drunk driving. MADD, or Mothers Against an Average Weekend, released this statement today: Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. This is why MADD is extremely disappointed by the decision of the manufacturers of the game Grand Theft Auto IV to include a game module where players have to drive drunk. Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable. MADD is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, a step up from the current rating of Mature and for the manufacturer to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving. True enough, but does it really qualify — over the other, more obvious questionable material in the game — as something that should have a dreaded AO rating? → Read More
When Devin skewered the MacBook Air some time ago, he was summarily insulted and burned in virtual effigy; we all laughed at him in the chat room. Far from being useless, however, one valid criticism against the MacBook Air was that it wasn’t portable enough. How could Apple leave out built-in EVDO, no one said? Rather than complain about, one Jordan Bunnell took the Apple by its core or some other stupid metaphor and installed his own damn EVDO module. Hello, world indeed! The man, armed only with a Veriozn USB727 Aircard, a soldering iron, the heart of a lion and the free time of a loaf-about, managed to get the card working as clear as day. I have zero engineering ability, so I won’t even pretend to re-tell exactly what he did, but all the pictures are dynamic. Pretty neat, deep and otherworldly cynicism aside. via MacNN → Read More
http://update.videoegg.com/flash/proxy.swf?jsver=1.4 Fingering a robot prostitute for all of us. → Read More
Samsung’s developed a new battery for small form factor laptops that it’s going to be selling to American PC manufacturers, likely to HP and Dell, according to rumor. They’re using a new technology that gives the battery a 10% longer charge than previous generation batteries as well as a faster charging time. No word yet on if, like Sony’s, the batteries will explode and cause a fire, burning you and your family alive. → Read More
Valve is having another Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend to celebrate the latest big map release and achievement/unlockable pack. What this means is you get to use a state-of-the-art digital distribution system to play a fantastic game all weekend, for free. It’s super easy and it’s a lot of fun. If you haven’t tried using Steam yet, you’re in for a treat. This is the future of content distribution – pushed updates, free media, and a library of games only a click away. Check it out already. Don’t worry about being new to the game, there will be a surplus of medics healing up everyone they see, trying to get the new achievements. Now’s a great time to start. → Read More
Update to our January post: Super blogger Robert Scoble, who has argued that having advertisements on blogs destroys trust, added advertisements to his blog today along with a redesign. At least it’s clear now who scratches Scoble’s back – Seagate. One thing I do like – the FriendFeed widget that shows his activity stream and comments from readers. → Read More
Finally, a UMPC I’d want. Someone got the idea into their head to install Leopard on an OQO UMPC. It dual boots from Windows to Leopard, and appears to run rather slow, but it does work. I’m not a fan of the MacBook Air, but something like this is what Apple should work on. → Read More
Using excess or leftover corn as a fuel source sure sounded like a good idea, especially here in the U.S. Let’s get our farmers from, I don’t, Iowa, to set aside a certain percentage of arable land for the production of fuel corn. (The term “fuel corn” may or may not exist, but it should if it doesn’t.) This corn, rather than being used for food, would be used for the production of ethanol, an alcohol that can power combustion engines. Follow the logic: grow corn, which is fairly inexpensive to do, create ethanol, power car engines. Simple, direct and seemingly a possible solution to our reliance on foreign oil and all the bonus adventurism that comes with that. Grow corn at home, or meddle in other people’s affairs for access to oil? Onward! to our bright, biofueled future. Wait, what? There’s a word in that opening paragraph that suddenly no longer applies, apparently. What if all that corn (and other sources of biofuel) is no longer “leftover”? What if, you know, we should be using all that corn (etc.) to feed people? (Food used to feed people? Madness!) What if the price of food, for some reason, skyrocketed, and the poorer peoples of the world look longingly at all that “excess” corn being used to fuel your dumb automobile? It would seem we, Westerners, are stuck between a rock and a rock. Big rocks. With sharp edges. → Read More
Lenovo today took the wraps off a new line of notebook computers called the IdeaPad. The IdeaPad is meant as a consumer-oriented version of its popular ThinkPad and is meant to go head-to-head with Apple’s MacBook line. The launch consists of three models: the U110, the Y510 and the Y710. → Read More
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has invested $3 million into user-generated casual gaming site Kongregate through Bezos Expeditions, his personal investment vehicle. Kongregate CEO calls it a “super angel round,” although technically it is a B1 round (the startup raised $5 million in a round led by Greylock). Bezos Expeditions won’t be taking a board seat. Greer says: If we had done another venture round, we would have had to raise $12 million to $15 million [to satisfy current the target equity stake that would be required by new VC investors]. We don’t need that to get to profitability. We still have $6 million in the bank of what we’ve raised so far, including Bezos’ money. He really didn’t need the money, but when Jeff Bezos wants to invest in your a startup on good terms, you’d be crazy to say no. (LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, also an investor in Kongregate, made the introduction to Bezos). Greer says the process was very efficient. He flew up to Seattle and had one meeting with Bezos and his investment team. Greer explains why he thinks Bezos invested: He looked at it the way he looks at the Amazon seller business. Amazon is a better place to sell your stuff than on your own site, and Kongregate is a better place to host your games. Community is really important. He said you should really consider developers your customers to the same extent that you consider players your customers. That was his big emphasis. Kongregate lets anyone create their own Flash video games and splits revenues with game creators, starting at 25 percent of any associated advertising, up to 50 percent. ComScore shows 1.7 million global unique visitors in March (see chart below), with the average user spending 82 minutes per month on the site. (The company claims 3 million worldwide uniques and 349,000 registered hardcore users). The video above is one we shot of Greer at the Crunchies awards earlier this year, explaining what Kongregate does. (The figures he cites at the end of video of 2800 games and 1.5 million visitors are outdated, and now would be 4,200 and 3 million respectively, on an apples-to-apples basis. And only 63 million games have been played in total, not the half a billion he states in the video). Greer also has a Facebook strategy up his sleeve which he plans to unveil next month. Kongregate → Read More
For those of you that use Google’s personalized home page, iGoogle, you may have noticed that there are now even more options as far as your themes are concerned. Google recently added themes by “world class artists and innovators” like Jackie Chan, The Wiggles, and yes, even Coldplay. iGoogle Artist Themes [Google.com] → Read More
