Reality Bites
Zounds! So this is what my ex-girlfriend meant when she said sex with me was akin to “carnal relations with an empty husk.” Too much web porn! It’s killing our libidos, lads, one frantically one-handed mouse click at a time. More »
An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude rocked eastern Turkey Sunday, the strongest to hit the country in years.
Albert Pujols joined Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson as the only players to hit three home runs in a World Series game, tying records with five hits and six RBIs that led the Cardinals to a 16-7 rout of the Texas Rangers on Saturday night that gave St. Louis a 2-1 Series lead.
As if it weren’t hard enough keeping your house safe from debt collectors these days, now you have something else to worry about: a falling German satellite called ROSAT. The German Aerospace Center has estimated that the hunk of decommissioned, extra-orbital metal will enter the atmosphere sometime between 7:30pm ET tonight and 1:30am ET tomorrow. It’s unknown whether any of the thing will survive re-entry, but the 1.7 ton telescope mirror onboard very well may, striking the surface at a hasty 17,398MPH. The agency doesn’t know where it will fall, but did reassuringly say that it won’t hit Europe — German scientists basically telling the rest of the world to spend all night worrying while they doze away, peacefully. At least it won’t be taking any of its orbital brethren with it…
Update: Looks like it landed in the Indian Ocean on Saturday night.
Achtung: German satellite to crash down tonight, won’t land in Germany originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Oct 2011 18:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The apparent indifference shown by passersby to a Chinese toddler hit by a van in a hardware market may be the result of the country’s legal system, observers say.
While certainly impressive technology, modern touchscreens are still kind of limited in that they only really know where on the display they’ve been touched. So researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping to advance their capabilities with a new system that can tell exactly what they’ve been touched with. More »
Are you in DevCon withdrawal? Need a little BBX preview to ferry you safely into the weekend’s arms? Well, you’re in luck, as German site Macberry.de took the time to film a walkthrough of the recently released BlackBerry Playbook 2.0 developer beta. The homescreen of this new build now offers users folder options similar to that on iOS, neatly collecting your gaggles of data into appropriate bundles — like documents and games. But you probably care less about that, and more about seeing BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps in action. We’re happy to report those Google-specific applications are shown here running quite smoothly, filling the 7-inch tab’s screen without any hint of lag. You can download the dev build now for your own first-hand account, or simply click on past the break to gawk at the silent tour.
BlackBerry Playbook 2.0 developer beta previewed, Android apps look right at home (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Are you prepared to stay away from swimming pools for a year or two? Then go ahead and watch this music video for the DyE’s track “Fantasy,” directed by French animator Jérémie Périn. It’s all sorts sorts of brain-scarring fun. We dare you to watch this without making a sound. More »
Styli and Android haven’t exactly been strangers as of late — with devices like the HTC Flyer and Samsung Galaxy Note offering pen-based input — but it looks like that option will soon be even easier to implement with Ice Cream Sandwich. As noted on Reddit, Google’s recent overview of some Android 4.0 platform highlights includes a small tidbit towards the end that details the “full support for stylus input events” in the OS — including features like pressure sensitivity and the ability to distinguish motion events from different sources (i.e. a pen and your finger). Of course, it still requires some hardware-level assistance from tablet and smartphone makers, but native support in the OS could well open up some interesting possibilities, especially when it comes to third-party apps.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich includes native stylus support originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It has long been rumoured that William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, attended high school in Regina, but in an interview Thursday with CBC Radio’s The Morning Edition, Shatner settled the matter once and for all.
After getting its first showing at AsiaD, we know ASUS’ Transformer sequel is super thin, powered by NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 chip and coming soon. And now we really know it, because the Transformer Prime has been gifted an official landing page, along with a requisite shadowy product shot. There’s no trace of the original’s mocha hues, which have been replaced with something brighter, and we think it looks mightily enticing. Those with a similar fetish for modular tablets can ensure they’re up-to-date by bookmarking the source link below.
Transformer Prime gets official landing page, shows mostly bezel originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Someone has graffitied this Burger King billboard in downtown Seattle to transform it into criticism about how sugary fast food contributes to diabetes and the obesity crisis.
The original billboard does that classic advertising trick of getting away with making a joke while still promoting an idea that’s not so great for you, which is to eat more deserts at Burger King.
The billboard shows an ice cream cone, a parfait, a milkshake and then a Burger King logo. Underneath the items in progression it says “side,” “entree,” and “drink.” To modify it into a commentary, on the logo, the vandalizer drink a bloated person with a frowny face and x-ed out eyes. Below it they scrawled, “diabetes.”
Soda Free Sundays [Facebook]
[via COPCWA]
If Apple is that paranoid friend that has four deadbolts on his door and a loaded weapon in every room, then Microsoft is the over-sharer who tweets where, when and what he had for lunch — including both before and after photos (and we’re not talking about pictures of a clean plate). Redmond wants you to know about everything it does — no accomplishment is too minor for a lengthy explanation of the what and why. Take for example, portrait mode. Windows 8 will have one. We know what you’re thinking, “well I would frackin’ hope so,” but the devs want you to know this isn’t just some feature they slapped in the OS knowing people would expect it. The team studied users both familiar with and new to the tablet form factor. They looked at grip, posture and when people chose to rotate their slates. And, if you’re some weirdo who likes reading things on their side, there’s a rotation lock option. For more details hit up the source link and the video after the break.
Continue reading Microsoft talks Windows 8 portrait mode, really wants you to be proud of it (video)
Microsoft talks Windows 8 portrait mode, really wants you to be proud of it (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Lenovo Ideapad is now up for pre-order with an “Estimated release date: 10/27/2011″. Some good news regarding this Android Honeycomb tablet, a couple months back Future Shop listed it for $499.99 but it’s been slashed to $349.00 outright – 30% savings even before being sold. The specs of this Wi-Fi only tablet ring in at a 10.1-inch display, 1GHz dual core processor, a 5 megapixel camera with a 2 megapixel camera front facing camera for video calling and weighs 239 grams.
Source: Future Shop
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Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise? Looks like the updates just keep hitting the Transformer without a hiccup. The device has been gracious and generous enough to get regular updates, mostly due to its popularity, no doubt. And it looks like Ice Cream Sandwich will be no exception this time around. Asus revealed via their official Twitter account that the device will see sweeter days (see what I did there?) and to stay tuned for a date.
Coming to an @ASUS #EeePadTransformer near you… Stay tuned for dates
This does beg the question however, will the Transformer 2 come with ICS pre-loaded?
Asus Tweets ICS is “Coming to an @ASUS #EeePadTransformer near you”
Bell says it may stop slowing downloads and uploads of files shared through peer-to-peer applications by the customers of independent internet service providers.
More and more Canadian farmers are using Twitter to bridge the gap between farm and table, connecting Canadians wanting to know more about where their food comes from with the people who make their living producing it.
Posted by Alan Green, Software Engineer
In the next week, we’ll be making some highly requested changes to Google Reader. First, we’re going to introduce a brand new design (like many of Google’s other products) that we hope you love. Second, we’re going to bring Reader and Google+ closer together, so you can share the best of your feeds with just the right circles.
As a result of these changes, we also think it’s important to clean things up a bit. Many of Reader’s social features will soon be available via Google+, so in a week’s time we’ll be retiring things like friending, following and shared link blogs inside of Reader.
We think the end result is better than what’s available today, and you can sign up for Google+ right now to start prepping Reader-specific circles. We recognize, however, that some of you may feel like the product is no longer for you. That’s why we will also be extending Reader’s subscription export feature to include the following items. Your data belongs to you, after all, and we want to make sure you can take it with you.
Like always, the new Google Reader will be a great place to read and share your feeds. And in addition to Google+, you’ll still be able to share to almost any service using Send To. We’re looking forward to launching the new features very soon.
A leaked product demo reveals a few great changes Google has in store for Gmail, including a redone action bar, a new conversation display, an improved search interface and a screen-friendly layout that automatically adjusts depending on your window size. More »
You may recall that we had kind of a big problem with Google+’s policy of not allowing pseudonyms. Well, Google just announced they’re finally going to open the doors for them, as well as Google Apps and brand names. More »
