Here’s an odd one. Popular BitTorrent site TorrentReactor has announced that it has “bought” a small Russian town, Gar, for just under $150,000, and that the town will rename itself in honor of the site. Sounds like a bunch of nonsense, right? It kind of is, but then it kinda of isn’t, too. Oh dear. → Read More
In a speech at the American University last Thursday, President Obama highlighted the incredible economic rewards that America has gained from its immigrants. He spoke of new waves of immigrants—from places like Ireland, Italy, Poland, and China—challenging the generations before them, and consequently being subjected to “rank discrimination and ugly stereotypes”. Yet they kept coming to… → Read More
Stop the presses~! The Russians have come up with a pretty snazzy way to deal with that oil spill: nuke it all! Why waste time freaking out when you can unleash the power of mass-to-energy conversion, and let Mr. Atom clean up the mess in no time at all? → Read More
This isn’t the best time to be a traveler. Europe is still fighting plumes of volcanic ash—FC Barcelona had to take a bus from Barcelona to Milan for tomorrow’s game against Inter!—and now there’s word that a computer virus has wrecked a Russia-China border crossing. Some 2,000 Russians visiting the Chinese city of Heihe found themselves stranded when the computer virus totally wrecked… → Read More
Here’s a rather unique DIY project for you: a russian builder created a USB key design using a block of wood, a switch, and a fan. Why do you need a fan for a USB key you ask? Well, I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is the glowing LED lights inside the glowing logo need cooling? Honestly, no clue. → Read More
Fair warning to anyone trying to do evil in Odessa, Ukraine – they have a giant robot guarding the port. While he doesn’t seem to move much, I don’t think he has to. This silent sentry warns anyone coming in to Odessa to be good, or he will smite you with his mighty steel rod. → Read More
Someone call Bruce Willis. Russia announced Wednesday that they are considering launching a spacecraft with the intention of altering its possibly earth-crushing trajectory to a less threatening one. → Read More
[Russia] Russian online game developer Nival Network has closed a $5 million round from an undisclosed investor but will use the funds to develop Prime World, its online strategy game with social networking features aimed at the Russia and former Soviet countries.
Nival Network is currently majority owned by founder and CEO Sergey Orlovskiy. Software vendor 1C Group owns a 30% stake in Nival… → Read More
Note: This post contains Modern Warfare 2 spoilers. If you’re not cool with reading spoilers, well, then move along, nothing to see here (but you’re missing out!). → Read More
Maybe someday a human will walk on Mars. The last couple of generations has always told their children that they will be the ones to do it, but we’re still stuck on this planet. Anyway, 6 crazy Ruskies just emerged from a 1970′s Soviet-era testing facility after spending 105 days in isolation to simulate the voyage to Mars. I don’t know why some random Russian government spent so much money… → Read More
Oh it’s on! It seems Russian Prime Minister Putin got into a huge fight with Michael Dell yesterday at the Davos World Economic Forum, which is where world leaders plan their screwing over of the little guy while eating like princes. (So I hear.) Right, so Putin gave a speech talking about lots of stuff, including the current state of technology in Russia. Then Michael Dell opened his big mouth. → Read More
Ah, Russia. Home to a well-olied kleptocracy, Andrei Arshavin and, apparently, incredibly wealthy people who don’t know what to do with their money. (See: Roman Abramovich et al.) As such, we really shouldn’t be too surprised to see this new Vertu cellphone on a Russian luxury blog. As you can see, it, the Vertu Boucheron 150, looks just like that other Vertu luxury phone, but this one… → Read More
MIG variants have been flying for over 65 years and English Russia has a photo history of the storied Russian plane. I honestly didn’t know the plane was so old that it once had a prop. → Read More
The days of running free are over for Koni. The most powerful dog in Russia, perhaps the world has she could kick Barney’s presidential tail any day, now has her own 6 ounce GPS-like collar. Russia’s GLONASS satellites will provide the Prime Minister with 24/7 info about his beloved dog. I actually don’t know if he loves her, but who doesn’t love black labs? I mean, come… → Read More
Not a Russian hacker, just a filthy rich one There’s a reasonably interesting little story in Foreign Policy—I wear a big Napoleon hat when I post—about Russia’s cyber response during last week’s conflict with Georgia. It seems the Russians know a thing or two about Internet trolling, since instead of defacing Web sites and crashing anti-Russia servers, they teamed up… → Read More
When Allofmp3.com got shut down in July, it took little time for its replacement MP3sparks.com to fill the void. Well, MP3sparks has recently been blocked from many major ISPs in the United Kingdom thanks to its alleged links to the Russian Business Network, “a notorious group known for pumping the internet with child pornography and denial of service attacks” according to The… → Read More
Now that Russia is officially part of the Technocracy, their robot rulers are taking over more and more of the everyday maintenance. Apparently the Russian rail system (Motto: “If it worked in the 1950s, it will still work today.”) has hired robots to do most of the track maintenance and give presentations about the Great Bear’s delightfully archaic railways. Best of all, the… → Read More
Say hello to the source of the MPAA’s next ulcer. It’s ZML.com, a site with similar ultra-simplicity and low, low pricing to former heavyweight music champ Allofmp3.com. The site offers movies in varying levels of quality, with the lower resolution movies starting at $1.99 and the highest resolution movies (DVD-quality) topping out at $4.99. If it sounds too good to be true, it… → Read More
What’s going on here? It’s a scene out of Borat. Hit the link to find out. Then let us know: do you love your phone this much? The Toilet Phone [English Russia] → Read More
The irony here is extraordinary, check out this pic captured just moments after a giant Razr 2 crashed through a Benz on a busy corner in Moscow. Looks like Putin didn’t see this coming when he began enforcing strict cellphone use laws. We have to admit the marketing here turned out awesome, who wouldn’t want a car crushing phone? For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet… → Read More
Collapsing under pressure from the US and the possibility of scraping any chance that Russia has to join the WTO, music download site Allofmp3.com has closed up shop. Customers were greeted with your typical “site is down for maintenance” message, but a former employee has spilled the beans and confirmed its closure. The ‘nail in the coffin’ came from Visa and MasterCard in January when… → Read More
In the first war of its kind, Russia has been attacking the small country of Estonia for several weeks now. The incident started after a bronze statue of a soviet soldier was removed from its memorial by Estonians. Russia got pissed and has launched hack attacks, DDoS attacks and plenty of other tricks against the country, taking down websites of political members, newspapers, banks, companies, as… → Read More
An interesting little tidbit of information here. Comstar UTS and Moscow’s City Telephone Network will be teaming up to deliver 200 WiFi-enabled coin-box telephones throughout the city. These phones will be placed in subways, airports, hotels, and other public places. Each phone will allow customers to pay via coins, pre-paid cards, sms-authorization, and MGTS phone cards. Apparently… → Read More
Russian hackers may have broken into Valve’s Steam servers, obtaining credit card numbers and other sensitive information. While Valve, the developer of Half-Life, has yet to confirm such shenanigans, the Russian hackers are already patting themselves on the back. Next-Gen contacted the black hats, who go by the names of “MaddoxX” and “cintX” (does every hacker name… → Read More
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