Let's imagine this terrifying scenario for a moment. You come home from a long day of work and sit in front of your computer to try out your newly purchased copy of the video game Assassin's Creed 2, and then ... nothing happens. You face an immobile title screen. You check to make sure everything's plugged in -- yup, sure is -- and simply cannot figure out what's going on. "Why doesn't this game work? It cost me $60!"

Reports from this week's Game Developers Conference make one thing clear: Games on mobile phones are not just a niche category anymore. Here are 10 hot games for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

On Wednesday, Sony unveiled Move, its motion-sensitive controller.

Forbes magazine released its annual list of the world's richest people Wednesday, and for only the second time since 1995, Microsoft founder Bill Gates' name was not at the top.

The Pentagon is training people to hack into its own computer networks.

On Friday, the major movers in the tech industry will gather in Austin, Texas, for the annual South by Southwest Interactive Conference.

Peter Smith was riding his bike down a particularly busy road in Austin, Texas, when, amid a frightening blur of big-truck traffic, a thought hit him:

Democrats opposed to Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign are hoping to get an assist from the public in their latest bid to push voters away from the Republican candidate.

Every bit of fully synthetic plastic that's ever been produced over the past 100 years is somewhere on our planet, a leading environmentalist, David de Rothschild, said Tuesday.

This week's Game Developers Conference reinforces the iPhone's status as a top gaming platform. For the first time, the GDC advisory board is devoting an entire summit to Apple's smartphone.

We knew virtual camera systems are starting gain traction, particularly in the world of cinema and within James Cameron's little set of toys, but it's pretty wild to see one in action. NaturalPoint is showing off its OptiTrack motion capture system at GDC, a budget-friendly multi-camera setup (if $6k is your idea of budget-friendly), but it also has a prototype of sorts of its upcoming virtual camera system. The camera's orientation and movement is actually tracked in the same way a motion capture suit is, and if you're in the same tracking space...

Palm just showed us the Unreal Engine 3 running on webOS, which apparently took a couple weeks to port over to the platform using that fancy new PDK. It runs at a pretty smooth clip, with just a tiny bit of artifacting in our enemy's death animation. As an added bit of wow factor, Palm has it currently setup to demonstrate the game at 1 fps when in card view. Like most touchscreen shooters, this doesn't really solve the problem of simulating dual analog sticks, but it's still a fun and good looking...

Naturally, we need to first disclaim this noise by saying that rumors of third-party multitasking capability in the iPhone are as old as the iPhone SDK itself. That said, it's hard to ignore a new reference to a "multitasking dialog box" buried deep within the iPhone SDK 3.2 beta that -- while not new to beta 4 specifically -- we're told didn't exist in 3.1.3. Now, the wildest possible speculation would have us believing that this is the very first by-product of a new multitasking system for developers that's being developed...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

TiVo's announcement of TiVo Premiere represents the most significant user interface overhaul for the device in years. Based on Adobe Flash and optimized for the high-definition screens that are likely to be paired with CableCARD programming, the new user interface blends together live, recorded, and broadband content. That presentation is more akin to what we've seen from Windows Media Center, and less like TiVo's Series3 that segmented programming sources by type. TiVo has also beefed up its...

If you needed any more proof that Apple's lame cat-and-mouse game with the iPhone jailbreak community has only served to increase the scene's resourcefulness and creativity, look no further than the iDongle, a slick piece of hacker-made hardware that can jailbreak and activate an iPhone 3GS or iPod touch running OS 3.1.2 just by plugging it into the dock connector. What's more, it allows a jailbroken iPhone to be rebooted away from a computer, which is currently a problem for on-the-go hackers -- just stick this guy in your bag and...

Sure, you read reviews and take recommendations from friends before you buy a new cellphone, but have you ever stopped to consider what the inventor of the cellphone uses on a daily basis? C-SPAN has, and recently took the opportunity to ask the man himself, Marty Cooper, that very question during a wide-ranging interview. While Cooper said that he has used an iPhone previously, he recently passed it on to his grandson in favor of a Motorola Droid, which he says he chose because he wanted to get more experience with...

Well, wouldn't you know it? 3D seems to be the topic of conversation here at GDC , and Paris-based Darkworks is making a splash by announcing the availability of its TriOviz for Games SDK. In short, this magical software concoction is a post-process effect that allows standard 2D games to be transformed into 3D masterpieces... and you don't even need to buy a 3D television. We were briefed on the tech here at the show, and we're told that the magic happens in the software and the glasses, and...

Well well. We'd always suspected that the JooJoo tablet was hiding something extra to run HD video and Flash, and it's just hit the FCC with full documentation and a teardown confirming that there's an NVIDIA Ion GPU paired with an Atom N270 packed inside. We're also seeing a 3G card in there, although it's unclear whether it'll be active or installed at launch -- we've been told the 3G version won't be ready until sometime later this year, but things have been changing fast, so that may be...

Sony dropped a lot of knowledge on us yesterday, at long last replacing rampant speculation with some cold hard facts -- and even a name! -- for its new PlayStation motion controller. The PlayStation Move is being described as a "platform" and a "virtual console launch" by folks at Sony, and we think they mean it, so prepare for a motion-controlled ad war later this year, as Microsoft and Sony set themselves up for a real three-way fight with Nintendo for your physical living room activity of the gaming variety. While some...

Freedom of expression on the web has been curtailed in 2009, the US state department says in its annual human rights report.

Virgin Media has begun trials of technology to deliver high-speed fibre-optic broadband over telegraph poles in the UK.

The Conservatives say they will make Britain the first country in Europe to have widespread super-fast broadband.

Phones transform healthcare in the developing world

The dawning age of the agricultural automatons

New skirmishes in war of Daily Mail v the internet

A gaming service that aims to kill off the traditional gaming console will begin streaming games over the net in June this year.

Sony reveals details about its new motion controller the PlayStation Move, as a contender to market leader Nintendo Wii.

The internet is among a record 237 individuals and organisations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Mobile technology that could allow prying bosses to monitor every movement of their staff is developed in Japan.

Facebook calls on game designers to make an iconic title, such as Mario or Halo, specifically for the social network.

Illegal file-sharers should be fined, rather than have their internet connection cut off, says the boss of BT.

Costumed fans queue for launch

Fraudsters are continuing their switch from traditional card fraud to raiding online bank accounts, research suggests.

A never-before-seen reaction in nanotubes could make for batteries that pack a mighty punch, say researchers.

Sony has just confirmed with us that PlayStation Move cannot support 4 players in its full configuration. More »


ModulR Case Liberates Your iPad From Your Lap [Cases]

Are you one of those people who collects stuff? Not material items, but little tiny scraps of information, be they photos, places, products,...

In today's Remainders: excellence. Carlos Slim overtakes Bill Gates as the world's richest man; Battlestar...

Martin Cooper knows a thing or two about cellphones, having invented them and all....

Sony barely mentioned pricing with their PlayStation Move motion controller, only noting that the...

The Casio...

If you were comforted by the first revieLITE, an iPod charger/nightlight combo from 2008, you'll be even more thankful for the sequel: the ReviveLite II has a slimmer footprint, an...

Usually it's frustrating...

When Jason first played with JooJoo's tablet, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a 1.6GHz Intel Atom in the device's BIOS. Via the FCC, now we know for sure: It's...

Exploit code is now online for the latest zero-day vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer, highlighting just how important it is to upgrade off of IE6 finally.

Watch the most disturbing YouTube videos of all time — if you dare.

These IT companies, technologies and ideas are dead or doomed to disappear this year.

Intel tries to understand real-time social networks through an investment in Betaworks.

Long-time Mac users know that you can type diacritical characters--for example, â, é, ì, ü, and ñ--by first typing the diacritical (which usually requires the...

The unreleased Alpha-series model, has an interchangable lens and is designed for those who don't want to carry a bulky digital SLR camera.

At the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week, security vendors pitched their next-generation of security products, promising to protect customers from...

If Motorola is pre-loading Bing services onto its Android phones in China, will we suffer the same bloatware on stateside units?

Universal Wi-Fi could help reduce loading on cellular data networks, reduce the need for more radio spectrum, and extend broadband to more businesses and homes. It needs to become FCC policy.

nut writes "Everybody's favourite actor, author and starship captain is bringing some new ideas to the world of social networking. Myouterspace.com is, in the Captain's own words, '...a Sci Fi Social Network for those with a passion for the arts.' Facebook and Myspace should be worried. Sign up now. Go on, you know you want to."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MikeChino writes "A group of scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute have devised a way to encode a visible-frequency wireless signal in light emitted by plain old desklamps and other light fixtures. The team was able to achieve a record-setting data download rate of 230 megabits per second, and they expect to be able to double that speed in the near future. While the regular radio-frequency Wi-Fi most of us use currently is perfectly fine, it does have its flaws — it has a limited bandwidth that confines it to a certain spectrum and if you've ever had someone leech off...

HvitRavn writes "SolarPHP 1.0 stable was released by Paul M. Jones today. SolarPHP is an application framework and library, and is a serious contender alongside Zend Framework, Symphony, and similar frameworks. SolarPHP has in the recent years been the cause of heated debate in the PHP community due to provocative benchmark results posted on Paul M. Jones' blog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

j00bhaka writes "I am a US citizen attending university in Nova Scotia, Canada. I currently have the Verizon America and Canada plan (also known as the North American plan). My bill is currently around $80-$100 per month. I chose this for a couple reasons. One, I have had my number for about 7 years. Two, I do not permanently live in Canada. I live in Canada for 8 months out of the year at school, then travel home for the summer months. Either way, I would be dealing with international roaming without having both countries in my plan. Currently, I...

An anonymous reader writes "Pennsylvania's chief information security officer Robert Maley has been fired for publicly talking about a security incident involving the Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system. He apparently did not get the required approval for talking about the incident from appropriate authorities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kanan excerpts from a BBC report out of Scotland: "A study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals. Researchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies — from wattle to toe — has an inherent sex identity. This cell-by-cell sex orientation contrasts sharply with the situation in mammals, in which organism-wide sex identity is established through hormones." Kanan also supplies this link to some pictures of the mixed-cell birds.

T-Mobile's First HSPA+ Modem Goes On Sale Sunday

smooth wombat writes "Before the advent of iTunes and MP3s, EMI and Pink Floyd entered into a contract which stated that EMI could not unbundle individual songs from their original album settings. This was insisted upon by the members of Pink Floyd, who wanted to retain artistic control of their works, which they considered 'seamless' pieces of music. However, with the advent of digital downloads, EMI has been selling individual songs through its online store. Pink Floyd sued, claiming EMI was violating the contract, whereas EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales. Judge Andrew Morritt...

lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."

Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

More signs are pointing to Tiger Woods' return to golf in two weeks, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando, according to a report in the New York Post

After meeting with Minnesota coach Brad Childress and other members of the organization, LaDainian Tomlinson left the Vikings' facility Thursday evening carrying a Vikings jersey.

Cole Aldrich had 12 points and 18 rebounds, and No. 1 Kansas become the third team to reach 2,000 wins by pulling out an 80-68 victory over scrappy Texas Tech on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger told police in Milledgeville, Ga., no sexual intercourse took place between himself and his accuser, a television station in Pittsburgh reported on Wednesday.

Chris Wright scored 27 points and No. 22 Georgetown sailed past No. 3 Syracuse with an impressive second-half surge, beating the top-seeded Orange 91-84 in the quartefinals of the Big East tournament Thursday.

A jury has found defendant Willie Clark guilty of murder in death of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams.

Merlin Olsen, a Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman who was part of the Los Angeles Rams' famed "Fearsome Foursome" of the 1960s, has died after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 69.

Mets shortstop Jose Reyes has been told to rest and refrain from athletic activity until his thyroid levels normalize.

Free agent quarterback Jake Delhomme, released last week by Carolina, is visiting the Cleveland Browns.

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Bill Guerin says the NHL must outlaw hits to the head.

submitted by beautify
[link] [comment]

submitted by diggro
[link] [comment]

submitted by LethalJelly
[link] [comment]

submitted by CliffDropOver
[link] [comment]

submitted by sanchitosonria
[link] [2 comments]

submitted by fuzzo
[link] [comment]

submitted by thecarchik
[link] [4 comments]

submitted by rmuser
[link] [4 comments]

submitted by nekoniku
[link] [3 comments]

submitted by saute
[link] [comment]

Minnesota seeks to distinguish itself in the increasingly reality TV-esque race to convince Google to build a high-speed fiber optic network there with a video featuring junior US Senator (and former comedian) Al Franken. It's funny stuff, but also serious business as Google shakes up the notoriously uncompetitive ISP business...

After a second jury is hopelessly deadlocked, hate blogger Hal Turner is granted a another mistrial in the government's quest to imprison him on accusations he threatened to "kill" judges.

Quantum systems may need a little disorder to effectively couple light with matter. The discovery eventually lead to simple quantum computers.

A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter finds the next-generation stealth aircraft years behind schedule and soaring over budget.

A unique Antarctic killer whale population is declining, and scientists think it is related to demand for Antarctic tooothfish, known on menus as Chilean Sea Bass. This could be the first sign of the ecological downfall of what some consider Earth's last pristine ecosystem.

We can't possibly rate a tool that covers 150 cities and 12,000 miles of bike trails. We don't have to. We've got you.

The FCC posts some tools to help you test your broadband speed. The crowdsourcing effort is an attempt to assemble data that the telecoms don't want to share with the feds.

A Transportation Security Administration worker is being charged with planting a logic bomb in the no-fly list network to sabotage the terrorist screening database.

Unveiling the final version of PlayStation Move, Sony's Wii-like motion controller for PlayStation 3, at Game Developers Conference is a big deal to Sony. But the games aren't that hot.

Google has added an iPad-friendly version of its RSS aggregator, called Google Reader Play. According to the Official Google Reader Blog, the new full-screen slide-show is for people who “aren’t interested in taking the time to get Reader set up”. It is also perfect for viewing on tablet PCs, including...