http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2283082&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1Papervision – Augmented Reality (extended) from Boffswana on Vimeo. A digital design shop in Australia, Boffswana, shows off a neat parlor trick in the video above. It places a 3D Flash character made with Papervision into a regular Webcam video using nothing more than a paper printout. (Update: Oh, and you can print it out yourself and add the character to your own video). Eat your heart out, George Lucas. (Hat tip to Cory O’Brien). → Read More
Our own sassy Doug Aamoth appeared on the Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy Show last week, turning said show into Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy and One Really Tall Norwegian. Pop over to their site to listen to Doug’s interview. → Read More
If you’ve been trying to find the ultimate in personalization, look no further – how does an 8×10 portrait of your DNA sound? For $169, you can send a swab of the inside of your mouth to dna11.com and 4-6 weeks later, you’ll get a visual image of your one-of-a-kind DNA sequence. You can customize the image in one of 25 colors, too, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity. I’d take a much closer look at this if it sold for closer to $100. Also, I find the $40 shipping charge to hover somewhere between outrageous and ludicrous. Other than those two deal-breakers, this looks like a pretty cool idea. [via DVICE] → Read More
Hey, look at this deal! You can see what all the SSD fuss is about for just thirty bucks after a $60 mail-in rebate. Tiger Direct has the 32GB OCZ SATA II 2.5-inch solid state drive for $89.99 with a $60 mail-in rebate. The rebate deal is good until 11/30 – that’s tomorrow — so you’ll have to be relatively nimble if you want to see that $60 ever again. The rebate applies to higher capacity OCZ SSDs as well, but it’s $60 across the board so the 32GB drive is the best deal. OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive [Tiger Direct via dealspl.us] → Read More
Bureaucracy kills innovation. We all know that. But why? Partly, it’s because bureaucracy grows out of prudence, a desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past. With the current economic crisis, for example, you can be sure that a lot more checks will be put into place—both in Washington and in corporate boardrooms—to prevent the excesses that got us into this situation from happening again. Governments and corporations alike react to crises by implementing more rules and regulations.
Putting checks in place, after all, is the prudent thing to do. But bureaucracies, and the checks they impose on companies, have their unintended consequences. Paul Graham takes a stab at exploring these costs in a new essay. He writes:
Every check has a cost.
148Apps, which tracks and reviews iPhone Apps, says 10,000 applications have now been released on the iPhone App store (the site is named after the fact that you can add up to 148 applications to an iPhone or iPod touch).
A tribute page shows a mini icon for every application. And it also gives some interesting data. About 24% of apps are free; 35% cost $.99. The average cost is $3.12, including free apps. About 34% are games or entertainment, and there are 49 weather related apps for the iPhone despite the fact that a weather app is built in. → Read More
How were the crowds at your local Best Buy, Circuit City and PC Richards yesterday? Good? Great? Grim? (My local Best Buy was pretty crowded yesterday, to say nothing of the mall itself; parking space was at a premium.) To be sure, if there’s one item these retailers hope to sell this holiday season it’s HDTVs. Lots of them, preferably. Like it or not, but HDTVs have become the great bellwether for this terrible economy: if retailers can sell a few of them all may not be lost. But if Best Buy & Co. has boxes upon boxes of them stored “in the back” it could be a sign that consumers are hoarding cash and aren’t going to spend their way out of this recession. Then we’re reduced to fighting each other with pointy sticks. → Read More
In case you’ve noticed more notifications from Facebook in the past 24 hours, it’s probably not because you’ve suddenly become more popular. It looks like Facebook’s email notification problem is getting worse.
Facebook lets members turn email notifications on or off for more than 30 different actions on the site. These include anything from when someone sends you a message inside Facebook, invites you to an event, or adds you as friend to when someone tags you in a photo or sends you a poke. Facebook sent out the email below to anyone who is affected: → Read More
http://www.liveleak.com/e/f59_1227894726 Here is a prime example of America’s incessant spending habits. They were fighting over Wal-Mart’s Xbox 360 Arcade Guitar Hero 3 bundle for $199, BTW. Insane. No wonder there was fatalities yesterday. → Read More
MSI deserves a round of high-fives for the Windbox. Generally, all-in-one computers tend to be pricey and stick owners with limited LCD screen options so the Windbox’s mounting solution just makes so much sense. The nettop is a slim-line PC that affixes to the standard LCD VESA mounting holes allowing owners to choose their monitor. → Read More
You know how in trailers of terrible “family” movies there’s always a part where the announcers says, “Here we go again!” in that dumb “enthusiastic announcer guy voice”? Think of that right now, only juxtaposed with the sights and sounds of Liberty City, for it has been revealed that Grand Theft Auto IV uses SecurROM DRM. That’s the same DRM that upset so many would-be Spore players (but didn’t bother Fallout 3 players). Straight from a Rockstar rep: GTA IV PC uses SecuROM for protecting our EXE… Product Activation is a one time only online authentication when installing the game. GTA IV has no install limits for the retail disc version of the game, and that version can be installed on an unlimited number of PCs by the retail disk owner. So, if we’re to believe this shadowy Rockstar fellow, the actual restrictions imposed by SecuROM seem to be minimal. That is to say there are none, as all it’s used for is to validate your CD key. Certainly that seems reasonable. You should also know that the game requires Games For Windows Live—how in God’s name did Microsoft manage to foist that upon savvy PC gamers?—is required to play the game. Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC is to be released on December 2. SecuROM or not, expect to find cracks available within two seconds of its release, if not before then. Such is life. via Rock, Paper, Shotgun → Read More
The theme this holiday shopping season is frugality. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan expects online sales to be flat this year. In a survey of U.S. consumers conducted by J.P. Morgan, nearly 30 percent of online shoppers say they plan on spending less this year during the holidays than last year.
Nevertheless, online retailers should do better than offline ones. In total, including offline shoppers, 44 percent say they plan on spending less this year (up from 33 percent who responded the same overall last year). But even among those who plan on reducing their total spending, 19 percent still think their online purchases will be higher.
And while only 12 percent of total shoppers plan on spending more money this year, that number is 32 percent for onine shoppers—slightly more than the number who are cutting back on their online holiday expenditures. → Read More
The debate about Netbooks, which are very small and very cheap laptop devices, is beginning to heat up. The category is only about a year old but sales are expected to top 5 million this year.
Lots of people think Netbooks are the next big volume market because they allow people who previously couldn’t afford computers to own one. People got so bullish on the devices that sales projections reached 50 million units by 2012.
I’ve had a chance to test many of the units, though, and I can say that the promise is much bigger than the payoff. Perhaps that’s why Intel is rethinking whether the devices are as great as everyone’s expectations. → Read More
A digital design shop in Australia, Boffswana, shows off a neat parlor trick in the video above. It places a 3D Flash character made with Papervision into a regular Webcam video using nothing more than a paper printout. (Update: Oh, and you can print it out yourself and add the character to your own video).
Eat your heart out, George Lucas.
(Hat tip to Cory O’Brien). → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2373142&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo. After reverse engineering the original kernel, some hackers have gotten their own version of Linux to run on the iPhone, proving that the first gen iPhone will live on as a hacker and hobbyists tool for a decade. They’ve got BusyBox running on the processor and the team reports that the following systems are working: – Framebuffer driver – Serial driver – Serial over USB driver – Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc. → Read More
Joost launched their iPhone application on the App Store this evening, giving users access to 46,000 Joost videos, including major television shows and films. The iPhone has a built in YouTube application already, giving them a serious head start when it comes to video on the iPhone. But archrival Hulu doesn’t yet – giving Joost a little room to maneuver for now.
I’m sure it’s a temporary issue, but the application just doesn’t work yet. I tried to play multiple videos, including the full length version of Men In Black, but an error message reads “The connection to the server was lost. This may be because of poor network quality. Please try again later.” Meanwhile, YouTube videos are playing promptly.
Still, when the app settles down and works properly, it will be a nice addition to the iPhone. Lots of great shows to watch while wiling away the hours on a plane. At least until the battery runs out. → Read More
Nothing says “well dressed man” like fine cufflinks. On the other hand, nothing says “I have no desire to date” like these cufflinks. Available from Etsy, everyone’s favorite peddler of homemade haute couture, these clay Mario Mushrooms come in your choice of a pair of green or red. Or hell, mix the two if you want. You’re the master of your destiny. They’re a bargain at $24, plus you save money by never having to buy a girl dinner. → Read More
