Month: July 2014

Art Culture Design

‘Final Fantasy’ designer creates the wildest take on Batman yet

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As reported on The Verge. By Sam Byford Tetsuya Nomura’s Dark Knight is very, very dark If nothing else, Square Enix artist Tetsuya Nomura has built up a distinctive style over the years — his androgynous, zipper-heavy designs for characters in games like Kingdom Hearts and theFinal Fantasy series are recognizable anywhere. But none of that will have prepared you for his surreal take on Batman, revealed in action figure form at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. The “DC Comics…

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Business Culture Internet

The Server Needs To Die To Save The Internet

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Natasha Lomas    Do we have the Internet we deserve? There’s an argument to say that yes, we absolutely do. Given web users’ general reluctance to pay for content. We are of course, paying. Just not with cold hard cash, but with our privacy — as digital business models rely on gathering and selling intel on their users to make the money to pay (the investors who paid) for the free service.…

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Business Culture Engineering

Thiel Fellow’s Elegant Sleep Tracker, Sense, Crushes Kickstarter With $120K In A Few Hours

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Kim-Mai Cutler   When I first took a look at Sense, a smart sleep sensor launching today on Kickstarter, it reminded me of two things. Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium and Google’s old, discontinued Nexus Q product. “Those are two of my favorite things,” said James Proud, a former Thiel fellow who went on to found a startup behind the device called Hello. “I wanted to create something that didn’t feel like a piece of electronics that you don’t…

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Google Security

Google banks on its own tech to protect Chrome users from another Heartbleed

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As reported on Engadget. BY STEVE DENT Last month Google said that it was tired of mashed-together bug fixes for OpenSSL and decided to create its own fork called BoringSSL. It has now implemented that variant in thelatest Chromium build, the open-source software that eventually arrives in Chrome. OpenSSL is software used for secure connections — created largely by volunteers — and an overlooked code problem recently caused the infamous Heartbleed bug. When BoringSSL was first announced, there was some grumbling from…

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Space

Prototype NASA robot will burrow through sheets of alien ice

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANIEL COOPER  When it came to life on Mars, NASA might have struck out, but it’s got a good feeling aboutEuropa. The agency is working on a probe designed to scan its vast oceans for signs of alien life, but there’s a problem, namely the thick layer of ice that covers the moon’s surface.That’s where VALKYRIE comes in, a torpedo-shaped robot that’ll suck up water, warm it and fire it back into the ice…

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Art Culture Design

Here’s the first teaser art from the new ‘Fight Club 2’ comic series

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As reported on The Verge. By Chris Welch  Chuck Palahniuk’s long awaited sequel to Fight Club is coming in the form of a 10-issue comic book series, and today we’re getting our first look at what it will look like. Set ten years after the events of Palahniuk’s novel, the comic book will apparently feature the wedding of Fight Club’snarrator — who now goes by the name Sebastian — and Marla. Tyler Durden is also featured in the artwork;…

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Culture

Can’t Manage A Standing Desk? Meet Cubii, The Sitting Exerciser

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As reported on TechCrunch.  by Natasha Lomas  Sitting down — and the sedentary lifestyle it encourages — is killing you, slowly but surely. The problem is, standing desks aren’t for everyone. Making the switch is a big deal. I love mine but it took a week of pain and suffering to go from seat to feet, and it still feels pretty tough on calves and soles after a full day-long standing stretch. So here’s a third way: Cubii is a sitting exerciser that’s been designed…

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Apple OS

OS X Yosemite preview: the Mac gets a major makeover

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As reported on Engadget. BY DANA WOLLMAN  The last time Apple released a new version of OS X, we came away feeling a little… underwhelmed. Don’t get us wrong: We’ll never say no to a free software upgrade. But despite a handful of new apps and features, last year’s Mavericks release still felt like the same old OS X. You can’t say that about Yosemite, though. The company’s next-gen operating system ushers in the Mac’s biggest makeover in years, with a…

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Business Cloud

Dropbox for Business lets you limit your coworkers’ access to shared files

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As reported on Engadget. BY JON FINGAS Dropbox for Business is good for collaborating on files stored in the cloud, but it hasn’t had fine-grained permission control — not great if you have a sensitive project you’d rather notshare with the folks in Accounts Receivable. You’ll be glad to hear, then, that Dropbox is introducing some much-needed access limits. You can now say which of your colleaguescan edit or view a given file, and you can both set expiry dates…

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Culture

The Secret NYC Graveyard Where Ships Go to Die

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As reported on Wired. BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER  ADVERTISEMENT The filmmakers may have accidentally dosed themselves with radiation by getting too close to the USS YOG-64, a Navy gas tanker that was posted near Bikini Atoll during the Operation Sandstone nuclear weapons tests in 1948. WILL VAN DORP Reaching the marshy spot on southwestern Staten Island where good boats go to die requires a car, sturdy footwear, and a willingness to be prosecuted to the full extent…

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