Tag: Ryan Weir
Pirate Bay banned by Italian Government
In a particularly bold/stupid move the Italian government today took on the might of the internet’s geek underworld by deciding to block the Italian people from using The Pirate Bay – the daddy of illegal torrent sites.
Akin to jumping naked onto a greased up King Cobra with your arms tied behind your back in the hopes of pining it for the three-count, the Italians have discovered that it’s not that easy a thing to wrestle into submission. Indeed, what they’ve actually gone and done is awaken the beast of a thousand nerds, an army of ‘leechers’ and ‘seeders’ who have dodged and weaved the Italian’s paltry web-blocks and filters like Ryan Giggs dribbling his way past the entire Arsenal squad. Easily.
BBC, ITV & Ch. 4 ask for more time to prove 'Kangaroo' is above board.
British broadcasters and project 'Kangaroo' bed-buddies: the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, have been told by the commission in charge of their fair-competition inquiry that they have more time to get their facts straight.
The Competition Commission's inquiry was due to begin on the 6th August, but like three lazy students, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all begged for more time to prepare their case. And like a kindly avuncular professor, the Competition Commission has agreed to postpone the much anticipated inquest date until early September when it is hoped that all three big boys will have got their act in gear and gathered the relevant information they need to argue their case properly.
Keep your eye on the destruction of the planet with the Real-Time Global Disaster Alert Map
How are you feeling? Feeling good? Happy? Good, well go look at something else.
Feeling terribly depressed? Just watched ‘Zeitgeist the Movie‘ and think the world is going to hell in a teacup? Well, excellent. Join me, and read on…
The world is a big place, and no matter how often you read the papers or watch the news, you have no idea exactly how big the scale of the problems that exist at anyone time around the planet really is. Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Biological Hazards, Chemical accidents.. all these things are happening somewhere on the globe right now and unless you have access to the Thunderbirds mission control computer on Tracy Island, then you’re completely ignorant of them all.
Well, you were. Not anymore. Because EDIS, a non-profit emergency services organisation in Hungary, has provided us with a free-to-use online map compiling all of the world’s reported disasters in continually refreshing real-time. The perfect thing to look at and fret over.
Giving the blind a look-in.. Meet the Samsung Touch Sight Camera
Among the many winners announced at the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), the Samung ‘Touch Sight’ Camera clearly stands out as a winner of note.
A class bit of design genius from the tech-bods at Samsung, the ‘Touch Sight’ deservedly won the Gold Medal in their Communication Tools (concept) category, and in my opinion, now deserves every bit of free publicity it can get. So, i’m happily doing exactly that.
Designed specifically for those with impaired vision, the revolutionary camera allows it’s user to take ‘pictures’ of whatever they like, and like a sort of blind-man’s polaroid, it immediately displays the image, not on an LCD screen, but on a raised Braille display sheet on the back of the camera.
Brummies win Gold at Championship Gaming Series
At last.. There but for the grace of God go some British winners. Champions of the world. Bow before them. Make praise to those that have done what so many have failed to do before. These 10 brave souls have defeated, nay, slain the forces of global competition and emerged the unlikely victors! All hail The Salvo… The mighty Birmingham Salvo.
Yes, you heard right. Britain has won a major trophy. Okay, so it’s not a sport’s trophy, like a Jules Remet or an Olympic medallion.. and it is for winning the World Computer Game Championships.. But.. but it’s a trophy god-dammit, and we won it. It deserves celebrating.
Take a gamble on the 'Heads-Up Challenge' Poker table
Alright lads, listen up, yeah? Next time you're dahn the boozer, check aht the poker machine what's ready to swallah all ya nuggets, yeah.. Cos, it's diamond, innit.
Right. Enough of talking like I'm in a film by Guy Ritchie. It hurts my head. What i'm trying to say is: If you happen to find yourself having a drink in your local public house, then you should probably look out for the new machine by CosmicVideo Games – the Heads-Up Challenge Poker table. That is, of course, if you like that sort of thing.
It's dark. You can't find the thing you need. You need a Night Coaster.
This is a nice and simple gadget, and I like nice and simple gadgets.
The problem: You wake in the night and you need to take some medication / answer your mobile / put your glasses on – but it is too dark.
The answer: Night Coaster sits on your bedside table with your medication / mobile phone / pair of glasses on it’s surface. By simply waving your hand over the Coaster, a soft blue light is emitted and you are able to retrieve your item.
Cows herded by remote control… the most fun you can have on a farm?
After his recent campaign to clear up the clearly criminal practice of battery chicken farming, I'm pretty sure mad-as-a-march-hare celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will be gearing up for a brand new TV series over the latest news that farmers might soon be corralling cattle using radio-controlled bovine headsets.
Researchers from the Department for Agriculture in the good ol' US of A have put their thinking caps on and designed a high-tech cow-hat that sits over the cow's ears and allows the controller to corral the individual remotely, using sounds funneled directly to the ears.
Wake up to music – lots of music – with the Sound 40 alarm clock by Roberts
When the people at alarm clock manufacturer Roberts wake up in the morning, they like to do so to a choice of music. Not just some random bleepy-bleeping bleep alarm, or some scratchy FM radio static.. No. They want music. And they want to be able to specifically choose the track to wake up to. Something like ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2, perhaps.. or ‘Wake me up before you Go-Go‘ by Wham, maybe. Anyway, they appear to want us to have the same level of choice too, because they have invented a machine which allows us to do that very thing.
Step forward the ‘Sound 40’, an all new ‘bells and whistles’ alarm clock designed for the 21st Century individual who likes bells and whistles. Check out it’s impressive audio array: DAB radio. In-built CD player. SD media card player. MP3 and WMA playback. An input source for your iPod (or other such music player). And oh yeah, it still has a buzzer, presumably for those poor lost souls who can never decide on anything.
Blow me up Scotty: James Doohan's ashes scattered with Falcon 1
You may have already read about SpaceX’s failure to get their privately funded rocketship Falcon 1 into space on Saturday night, but just what you may have missed is the news that stowed onboard the doomed rocket-ship, ready for delivery to space, were three commercial satellites and the cremated remains of 200 people.
Of those 200 urns of ashes blown into mile-high confetti, one happened to contain the remains of everyone’s favourite Scottish Star Trek engineer: Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (actor James Doohan)…
