Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

On Wednesday, a team of Russian investigators and a squad of masked, rifle-toting police raided IBM's Moscow offices. Big Blue is currently under investigation in the Russian Federation for allegedly having stolen money from the country's $57 billion pension fund. The Russian Interior Ministry accused IBM and two local software companies of committing conspiracy "to rig auctions and embezzle some of the 1 billion rubles ($38 million) of budget money allocated to the funds for new computers," reports Bloomberg. The spokeswoman of one of the other companies under investigation, R-Style Softlab, said that riot police were deployed at the company's offices for 10 hours yesterday, and "made copies of some documents, took the list of our contacts and copied some electronic mail." This reminds us an awful lot of that Siemens raid that took place last month -- is there some crazy European embezzlement epidemic going on that we should know about?

[Via The Register]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

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The Latin American School of Medical Sciences in Cuba offers a free medical education, with a bit of Communist theory thrown in.

UK gamers snap up Nintendo's Wii videogames console at midnight launches across the country.

rob101 writes "The CSIRO yesterday demonstrated the world's 'fastest' wireless radio link by transmitting sixteen full quality DVD streams over a 250m link and only using a quarter of the available bandwidth. 'The CSIRO ICT Centre today announced that it has achieved over six gigabits per second over a point to point wireless connection with the highest efficiency (2.4bits/s/Hz) ever achieved for such a system.'" CSIRO hopes to double the speed of this connection in the future, pushing twelve gigabits a second.

George Key, great-great-grandson of Francis Scott Key, discusses the importance of remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor during a presentation at Orange Coast College on Thursday.
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Reuters - Oracle Corp. boosted its offer for Indian banking software provider i-flex Solutions Ltd. to $1.3 billion, driving up i-flex shares 17 percent to a record high.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Oh LEDs, is there anything you can't do? We've seen you in jellyfish, dot-matrix display, mood detector, Wii GiftCard, and connected with all sorts of other crazy hacks. However, we've never seen you combined with something as low-tech, as say, fire. Elsewheres, a Brooklyn-based online retailer of "independent art & design" is now selling a $40 LED candle, called the Self-Destructo Candle. Yep, it's a small votive candle with an LED bulb and a battery, so when you decide you don't want that artificial light anymore, you can flip it over to light the wick for a completely self-destructing natural light source. We're not sure how eco-friendly it is to cover small amounts of electronics with melted wax, basically making them unusable (and probably un-recyclable) -- but hey, it's a cute idea.

[Via Inhabitat]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Well, it appears that our days as a species of lording supreme in the world of chess have pretty definitively come to an end. A six-game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik (pictured), the reigning world chess champion, and the computer Deep Fritz, has just concluded. Kramnik lost, 4-2 to the multi-processor version of Chessbase's commercial software in Bonn, Germany. (To Kramnik's credit, in 2002, he'd held Deep Fritz to a draw.) However, this match may end interest in further advancing the field of chess-playing computers, according to Monty Newborn, a professor of computer science at McGill University. Newborn, one of the people who organized the match, told The New York Times: "I don't know what one could get out of it at this point. The science is done." But don't think the story ends there, as Newborn added: "If you are interested in programming computers so that they compete in games, the two interesting ones are poker and go. That is where the action is." So watch out, World Series of Poker card sharks, there's about to be a digital throwdown comin' your way.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Reuters - Singer Leona Lewis, the bookies' favorite to win popular British talent spotting show "The X Factor," has fallen victim to "celebrity cybersquatting," with an Internet domain bearing her name up for auction on eBay.

For young people diagnosed with serious mental disorders, the transition from high school to college can be particularly fraught.

bishiraver writes "Multiverse has announced that they have gained rights to a Firefly Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Multiverse is a company started by several former Netscape employees, and they have developed an engine/network that works for all of their games. They intend to break into the MMO industry by being an MMO publisher of sorts. By standardizing, they can provide a less expensive alternative to the tens of millions of dollars and several years it takes to currently develop an MMO. They have said they will hire out a studio to build the game for them. Corey Bridgets, Massive's Executive Producer, says: 'If you're doing science fiction, you have to really think it out and create an incredibly rich environment that is compelling in its own right, and worth exploring and going back to week after week. That's what Joss Whedon did with Firefly.'"

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Wireless

While the portable (and semi-portable) boombox market has grown out of control, the sound quality you receive from these mini systems can't exactly match up with the larger, more powerful, and more robust sound systems more suited for home theaters or living rooms. Although a dedicated HTPC can pipe digital audio directly into a receiver without too much fuss, the rest of us need a clean, wireless solution to that dilemma. Enter Logitech's Wireless DJ Music System, a remote-controlled, Bluetooth-based system that BlueTomorrow praises as "simple to install," easy to use, and as intuitive as anyone could hope for. Reviewers were stunned at the sleekness and stylishness of the black / silver remote, and found that the button layout, LCD screen, and overall functionality were all "top notch." Additionally, they found the system incredibly simple to set up, claiming that wireless connections were set and ready to rock "within seconds." While piping audio from internet radio streams, iTunes / MusicMatch playlists, and using the included StreamPoint software, the crew declared its operations seamless from 100 feet away. The only digs came from the inability to search from the remote, no loop scrolling, and the apparent inoperability with Macs. Overall, however, the system was deemed a glorious success, and was said to be an excellent value for those looking to channel their audio to that svelte home stereo for just $250.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

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Fire officials in a handful of college communities have intensified their push for city ordinances requiring fraternity and sorority houses to install sprinkler systems.

Filed under: Gaming

We've been pretty lenient with Wiimote disaster pictures so far -- we're looking at you, Tyler -- since they're just so dang funny. But now Mr. Mmcheacher had to go and ruin it for everyone by faking a disaster of his own, and expecting people to fork over PayPal dollars to buy him a brand new laptop. Mmcheacher put up a cute little blog with that picture up above, along with a sad story of Wiimote strap-breaking woe, hoping to win some pity dollars with that "cracked LCD" of his, him being a student and all. Next, (for those potential pranksters out there taking notes), Mmcheacher tipped us about the blog, and had a friend tip us 16 minutes later, completing this marvelous deception. Unfortunately for him, that screensaver he's using has been around the internet a time or two, and he's not fooling anyone. Sorry to ruin the party, Mmcheacher -- if that's even your real name -- but perhaps you can try a little harder next time around?

UPDATE: Sorry to ruin the fun, but after this post went up, the aforementioned Mmcheacher (whose real name is Michael Parker McEachern, we've discovered) swapped his tale of woe for a NSFW page of hate, so we pulled the link. Now you'll just have to use your imagination. Or you can email him at mmceachern@gmail.com or michaelparker@gmail.com -- maybe he'll send you a screencap.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

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filenavigator writes "Another zero day flaw has been reported in Windows Media player. It comes only one day after a serious zero day flaw was found in word. The flaw is dangerous because it involves IE and Outlook's ability to automatically launch .asx files. No fix from Microsoft has been announced yet."

Updated: 10:43 AM EST It was all hands on deck at last week's School Committee meeting as administrators explained what's being done to boost MCAS scores across the district.
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Filed under: Portable Audio

Remember how we told you that Sony had hinted that "DRM would become less important" just a few days ago? Well, it appears that Stan Glasgow's quip wasn't just empty rhetoric. Late last night the wires lit up with reports that EMI Music has begun selling music tracks sans DRM for a buck apiece from Yahoo's online music service, becoming one of the few major labels to take the plunge into unrestricted territory. Of course, Sony dabbled with DRM-free tunes this past summer by releasing a song by Jessica Simpson, and Disney released an entire album by Jesse McCartney -- so consider these baby steps, folks. Meanwhile, if you want DRM-free music from the iTunes Store, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

[Thanks, aneet]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

AP - When Iranian journalist Mojtaba Saminejad was sentenced to two years in prison for insulting the country's Supreme Leader, it was not for an article that appeared in a newspaper. His offending story was posted on his personal Web blog.

Filed under: Wearables

We've seen our fair share of questionably designed watches (and extraterrestrial detection devices, too), but the Biohazard timepiece takes this alien watchdog stuff to another level. Sure, the solid stainless steel design and squared motif isn't the hippest thing to fly out of Japan, but the overall aesthetics still top some wrist adornments out there, and its functionality isn't half bad either. The company makes no bones about informing you that the "red and white DNA helix bars" are actually not registering levels of alien activity around you, but rather spell out the time via colored blocks, and the date via an "alien DNA percentage" meter. Aside from fooling your friends into believing that ET resides in your guest room, this thing actually performs the single most important duty a watch is supposed to accomplish, and it can be yours for (an admittedly steep) ¥15,900 ($138).

[Via BoingBoing]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!