Welcome to the Noisecast roundup for July 31, 2012. Almost all of this news will be irrelephant by next week. Unlike this song.
Final Fantasy III will be an OUYA launch title.
Square Enix enjoys re-releasing this title. In 2006, they remade it for the Nintendo DS. Now it seems that they’ll re-re-release it for the OUYA when that launches early next year. OUYA, by the way, has received over $5million in pledges, and currently sits at 616% funded. This is a good thing, folks. We’ve also seen the controller in its entirety. Also, OnLive has also moved to the OUYA team, with the first 30 minutes of a game being free to play, after which you can decide to buy it or not.
Neckbeards complain that Valve releasing paid games on Linux is wrong.
Yeah, you heard me. Richard Stallman, father of the GNU project, claims that since Linux is meant to mean freedom from paying for software, selling software on Linux is wrong. Never mind that paid versions of anything are better than the free versions 99.9% of the time, it’s just got to be free because freedom means free stuff for free. Linus Torvalds, who may or may not be important in terms of Linux, says that plans like Valve’s DRM are “perfectly OK,” although he doesn’t personally agree with them. I understand standing up for what you believe in, but Valve moving to Linux would be a monumental boost to the platform, one that finally puts it on par with Macs and Windows machines. Why are you fighting it?
Ubisoft dun goofed, but they dun fix’d it too.
Yesterday it was revealed that Ubisoft’s Uplay plug-in for browsers left a gaping hole through which evil leprechauns of the internet could infect your computer. Well, they’ve since patched the flaw (it was a really quick response) with a new version of the plug-in, but it might be too late. A lot of people ignore updates. Now, this wasn’t done on purpose, it was just a bit of poor coding and testing, so don’t get all ranty. Oh, wait: This is a software company that doesn’t properly test their software for major security flaws? Grab your pitchforks.
People are getting dumber OR Evolution is working its course.
There is a disturbing uptick in the number of people admitted to hospitals for incidents stemming from phone use. Over the past seven years, distraction-based ER cases have quadrupled, and it’s largely due to smartphones. Last year, a man was captured by security camera as he toppled off of a train platform onto the tracks, and we all know about the guy who looked up from his phone to meet a large bear. Incidents like these are leading more states to ban texting or cell phone use while driving. Sure, it may be a mild inconvenience to have to look at the road while laughing at that cat that clearly does not fits in that box, but do us all a favor and stop being idiots.
A French retailer is looking to trademark the Anonymous logo.
Early Flicker, a French retailer, filed for trademark rights to both the logo and slogan of Anonymous. The logo – a headless suited man on a background of the globe – and slogan – “Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” – are heavily associated with the headless group known as Anonymous. Aside from prior art arguments, the seller may have issues after it registers the trademark, due to the fact that Anon is against heavy-handed intellectual property practices. I also doubt that they’d take kindly to having their logo put on purses and hoodies so some guy can make a buck.
Outlook.com is unveiled.
If you were wondering how Microsoft was going to counter the awesome browser-based inbox of Gmail, here’s your answer. It’s clean, resizes well when you shift the browser around, and you can register for an @outlook.com email address if you want (hurry, they’re going fast!). It’s very, very, Metro, but that means it’s minimal, clean and even the ads aren’t as intrusive as Gmail – yet. You can use your current Live account to log in, or grab a new address. Try it. You’ve also got SkyDrive integration, Office web apps, chat and Twitter/Facebook integration. A very solid attempt at getting everything in one place.
Tailgating’s ultimate solution.
Mitchell Joseph is a brilliant man. He recognized that sometimes you don’t have enough ice to keep all of your beverages cold, or maybe your drink warmed up since you pulled it out of the cooler. His invention is a can that reduces the temperature of the beverage inside by 30ºF in three minutes. You press a button on the bottom of the can, which releases CO2 gas from a high pressure chamber. As the obvious reaction happens, it absorbs the heat from within the can and *poof* you’ve got a cold one. Currently, the can is being used to store his own brand of energy drink “West Coast Chill” which is on sale in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas, and will soon be available via their store. Now he needs to license his product to Anheuser-Busch.
Speedos help break records.
Speedo, the company behind the American version of the oft-maligned banana hammock, created a suit so hydrodynamic that it was banned after being used to break records left and right. The LZR racing suit, worn by 98% of medal winners in the 2008 Olympics, compressed the body, trapped air and added buoyancy, all things that made swimmers faster than ever. New Olympic rules state that suits may only extend from the knee to the waist for men (knee to shoulder for women) as well as be air permeable, and not have any fasteners – like those that would allow you to zip yourself into a small rubber torpedo.
Not content to fix the suit alone, Speedo spent 55,000 man-hours redesigning the system, which includes the goggles and cap. Many months of brainstorming, fluid dynamics tests and 3D capture and rendering followed the initial idea. Many tests were done comparing oxygen spent in in regular suits versus the new system, which apparently offers an increase of 18% oxygen efficiency – like mpg for your car. Of course, we won’t know the true results of the suit until all the medals are counted, but there’s bound to be an improvement. After all, the suit now takes 15 minutes for a female to wriggle into, that’s got to be worth something.
Twitter bans reporter for posting email address.
Well, he also ripped NBC a new one regarding their craptacular coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics, using the hashtag #NBCFail. Many people are incensed about NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, whether it’s the stupid announcers, the way they add time delays but spoil the outcomes, cutting live coverage for commercial breaks, or any of the other dumb things they’ve done. Yet, when Guy Adams, a newspaper correspondent for the Independent, used the hashtag to give out the email address for an NBC executive so that followers could actually contact someone about the idiocy, he was banned from Twitter. At first, it seemed that NBC told Twitter about the infraction (no private information should be posted), but now it seems that Twitter tattled to NBC, who then filed a report against Mr Adams. Just a reminder that Twitter can do whatever the hell they want.
I’ll leave you today with this video from TED about how little privacy you have from your phone company.
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