by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 10:52AM It’s hard to say if the pigeon you see above actually understood what he / she was doing, but apparently these birds can be taught to at least play App Store games in a very poor manner. The creature’s owner does note that Mr. Pigeon was pretty awful at racking up high scores on Tap Tap Revenge, but the important thing to realize here is that pigeon pecks do register as presses on the screen. Now that this is all out in the open, we fully expect a follow-up video next week of someone teaching their bird to dial a number on command. (Read the full post about ‘Video: pigeon learns to “play” Tap Tap Revenge’…)

While we’re not really a science blog, this news seemed big enough to post. The Phoenix Mars mission has confirmed that water exists on Mars by what they call ‘touch and taste’ tests, electronically of course. Next up, Phoenix will extend its mission through the end of September to search for life on Mars.

(Read the full post about ‘Phoenix Mars Lander confirms existence of water on Mars’…)

It has just occurred to me, upon seeing this design that I have never seen a novelty mixer.  I mean we have novelty gadgets in general galore.  However, the poor mixers they are stuck with just getting a few bright colors.  Yes, you can get the more expensive ones but they are just better, not novelty or cool.  I know it was exciting when they threw in a pink mixer, but seriously that’s not really thinking outside of the box.  Well the designer Ming Tong has created these cute little guys resembling bunnies. (Read the full post about ‘The Rab Mixer makes mixing a little more childlike’…)

For many of us, bacon is a staple in our diets, despite what doctors might tell us about the health consequences of eating too much of the delectable pork treat. I think some of the past bacon-themed gadgets we’ve talked about prove that this delicious pig part is a favorite among geeks and gadgeteers alike. What if us humans were composed of such delicious meat? Would we have human meat farms? We wouldn’t go that far, but indeed, you might find many more incidents of cannibalism and bite injuries. If you’re brave enough to risk being serious cannibal target, and eager to show off your love for a nice plate of bacon and eggs, the Bacon & Eggs Bandages are a tasty way to cover your wounds. (Read the full post about ‘Bacon & Eggs Bandages might lead to cannibalism’…)

Its now official, Microsoft spent $500 million on the purchase of Danger. Of course this does not come as much of a surprise, after all that figure was the exact number that was rumored several months back. However, thanks to Microsoft’s most recent quarterly report this number has been confirmed. Its always interesting to see just how much a company is purchased for, especially something of this magnitude, more important is just what Microsoft plans to do in order to make this a worthwhile acquisition. Sadly though, even with all that money spent you would have thought they could have come up with a better name for the latest Sidekick to hit the market, which if you remember was simply called the Sidekick 2008. (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft confirms Danger acquisition was a $500 million purchase’…)

NVIDIA won’t be resting on their laurels as they make yet another move forward in the world of gaming notebooks thanks to their new range of graphic cards that are touted to push the boundaries of today’s gaming to a totally whole new level. Other that cramming in more pixels and speeding up the frame rate while throwing in physics-related programming, how much more advanced can graphic cards get? Only time will tell, but in the mean time, read more about the newest NVIDIA GeForce 9800M and 9700M GPUs right after the jump. The GeForce 9M Series GPUs, with their parallel processing design, are ushering in a new generation of ultra-realistic games by being the only GPUs to support PhysX technology. (Read the full post about ‘NVIDIA ushers in new gaming notebook era’…)

LiveCountingCrows is offering a free MP3 download of their live show in Charlotte, NC. Hurry up, only 10k available!

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Tags: ipod, video, mobile devices, MP3

LiveCountingCrows is offering a free MP3 download of their live show in Charlotte, NC. Hurry up, only 10k available!

[ Download ]

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Tags: hdtv, video games, games, Ogg Vorbis

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 1:21AM
Remember Space Exploration Technologies Corp, otherwise known as SpaceX? You know, the private space transport company started by PayPal founder Elon Musk that won the NASA Commercial Comercial Orbital Transportation Services competition for its Falcon rocket? Last we heard from SpaceX it had lost Falcon 1 during a test launch, but this week its Falcon 9 launch vehicle was successfully fired up. (Read the full post about ‘SpaceX conducts successful static launch of Falcon 9 rocket’…)

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 4:17AM Whoa, wait a second. Is ASUS about to plop another Eee PC onto the totally numb-to-this-brand public? As confident as we are that ASUS wouldn’t dare hesitate to dilute its once meaningful Eee moniker even further, we’re still taking this with a morsel or two of salt for now. Spotted on French site Blogeee, a host of new images depict the Eee PC 900 (with a design occasionally preferred over the 901) with an “A” bringing up the rear. (Read the full post about ‘New images point at Atom-based ASUS Eee PC 900A’…)