Month: March 2013

By Soulskill, Slashdot – July 05, 2010 at 10:30AM

An anonymous reader points out a recent story at NPR describing one of the greatest lightshows in history — a US hydrogen bomb test 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean in 1962. The mission came about after James Van Allen confirmed the existence of radiation belts around the earth that now bear his name. As it turns out, the same day Van Allen announced his findings at a press conference, he “agreed with the military to get involved with a project to set off atomic bombs in the magnetosphere to see if they could disrupt it.” According to NPR, “The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth’s atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons to see: a) If a bomb’s radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might ‘alter’ the natural shape of the belts.” The article is accompanied by a podcast and a video with recently declassified views of the test. They also explain how the different colors of light in the sky were produced.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By (author unknown), Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine – July 04, 2010 at 07:19PM

The words “You need root canal treatment” are not what you want to hear when you visit the dentist, even though millions of teeth are saved every year by the procedure. While the root canal procedure has a high success rate, it still leaves a dead tooth in the mouth. That could be about to change, however, with scientists reporting development of a nano-sized dental film that may bring diseased teeth back to life…
Continue Reading Nanofilm could bring dead teeth back to life

Tags: Dental,
Nano,
Regenerative

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By Soulskill, Slashdot – July 02, 2010 at 04:50PM

crimeandpunishment writes
“The US government is making colleges and universities join in the fight against digital piracy by threatening to pull federal funding. Beginning this month, a provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 requires colleges to have plans to combat unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials on their networks. Colleges that don’t do enough could lose their eligibility for federal student aid. ‘Their options include taking steps to limit how much bandwidth can be consumed by peer-to-peer networking, monitoring traffic, using a commercial product to reduce or block illegal file sharing or “vigorously” responding to copyright infringement notices from copyright holders.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By Evan Wondrasek, MakeUseOf – July 02, 2010 at 12:30PM

Video games — the absolute best way to waste a couple hours on a rainy weekend. Or heck, the best way to waste a couple hours on any weekend. You can be a soldier in almost any war (without that pesky risk of dying), fly through space, fight endless hordes of zombies, or micro-manage a virtual life. But, as any gamer knows, there comes a time when you might want (or need) a little help getting through an especially difficult level.

Enter the cheat code.

Cheat codes have been around as long as video games, but thanks to the internet we can now get them in huge stockpiles. In this guide, I’ll introduce you to 3 great sites to get your cheat code fix, many times with the added bonus of computer game walkthroughs and strategy guides.

GameFAQs

GameFAQs was founded in 1995 – making it the oldest (and most popular) site on this list – but it’s still in business today because it provides some of the best video game guides on the internet. Don’t let the “FAQs”, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions, mislead you – GameFAQs mostly contains strategy guides, cheats, and walkthroughs for almost every video game in existence.

Guides at GameFAQs are solely provided by volunteers, so you’ll find a wide variety of gaming and writing styles in their guides. With over 50,000 guides on their site, you’ll have the luxury of choosing from several guides for any one game. I have always been impressed with the thoroughness and quality of guides at GameFAQs, which speaks highly of the volunteers that contribute them.

Almost every game has a Cheats tab that contains a full list of cheat codes (if they’re available). Not sure if you want to purchase a game? GameFAQs offers over100,000 reviews, written by volunteers, for almost every game on the site.

GameFAQs released an Answers section last year where gamers can ask questions about any game they’re playing (not unlike MakeUseOf Answers for tech questions, which you should also check out). The Answers section also has a useful search, often allowing you to get un-stuck in a frustrating video game without waiting for a reply.

CheatCC

CheatCC, or Cheat Code Central, is another pre-2000s gaming website that has amassed a huge supply of cheat codes.  While they don’t offer the wide variety of information that GameFAQs has, you’ll still have access to a gigantic list of cheat codes, reviews (as well as previews of upcoming games), and videos. Most popular games have at least one accompanying strategy guide, but the focus is clearly on cheat codes at this site.

My only complaint about CheatCC is that they have started using some fairly obnoxious popup advertising that you will occasionally have to click through.

Mahalo Gaming

While I don’t find the Mahalo search engine to be terribly useful (actually, now that I checked, I don’t even see a search engine on the main page anymore), they do offer something very good: HD video walkthroughs of many popular video games. For as good as text-based and even printed-with-images walkthroughs can be, you simply can’t beat an actual video to get through a particularly hard level.

Many of Mahalo Gaming’s video reviews include detailed text instructions for accomplishing certain missions. The amount of time that went into these guides is really impressive, and certainly worth checking out the next time you’re struggling with a game.

Conclusion

With these resources, you should be an unstoppable, game-conquering ninja. And since you’re in the mood for video games, why not check out the rest of our articles about gaming?

Have a cheat code or a source for computer game walkthroughs worth mentioning?  Share it with us in the comments below!

Image credit: haljackey

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By John McClain, MakeUseOf – July 01, 2010 at 09:30PM

No doubt about it, toddlers can be a handful sometimes. They’re amazingly active and simply demand your time and attention. So, what do you do when you need just a little break from it all but also keep your child busy and entertained?

Playing some computer games with your toddler online is a good quiet and stationary activity for both of you to enjoy. It’s an excellent way to teach and introduce your toddler to some basic computer skills. At the same time, your child can learn and have fun with a variety of engaging games out there to choose from.

Best of all, these computer games for toddlers are all available for free online and anytime for you to enjoy and spend some quality time with your child. Here’s the 5 best computer games for toddlers.

The Musical Instruments Game

Join the jam with the Musical Instruments Game from Fisher-Price. This fun and interactive music mixer game allows your toddler to learn about instruments and songs. Start out by choosing a song you’d like to play along with by clicking on one of the animals.

Now, turn up your speakers, watch, and listen as the animals start playing the song you picked with their instruments. You can now stop and start each individual instrument by clicking on a musician in the band.

Feel free to mix it up a bit by changing the song to take control over different instruments.

Super Duper Dolphin

Let your toddler watch a dolphin perform tricks when you feed him. This entertaining Nick Jr. game demonstrates cause and effect and helps introduce your child to the mouse.

Just click on the bucket of fish to feed the dolphin and he’ll do a different trick for every fish thrown. It’s recommended that you and your toddler try to count the fish or come up with names for the dolphin’s tricks to bolster creativity and language skills.

Coloring Book

Coloring Book is just one of many games to play on the Sesame Street website. With the help of Elmo, just have your toddler move the mouse around the image to color it.

Once completed, the picture will come alive with a bit of animation, music, and another image will come up for more coloring.

Party Costumes

Recommended for age 1 year and over, Party Costumes and Presents for Kwala is a popular computer game for toddlers at UpToTen. The website says that this activity will help your child develop skills in observation, understanding, decision making, orientation, and using the mouse.

The game is pretty simple. You have to try to find who the costume pictured in the large circle belongs to by following the line to the correct character. You can keep at it until you get it right and once you do, a new game will come up for you to try again until all the characters are in their costumes.

Music-Maker

Music-Maker is another simple and fun activity for your toddler to enjoy. This game is from KneeBouncers, which offers a variety of quality and full-screen games to choose from.

On the right-hand side, you can select either the drums, piano, or guitar to play. Song selection is on the left, and from there, just start pressing any key to play the instrument to the tune you picked. For the piano, you can also move your cursor over the keys to play them.

Be sure to check out the sites all these games come from for more activities for your toddler to play.

What are some of your favorite computer games for toddlers? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: Tom Carmony

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By MG Siegler, TechCrunch – July 01, 2010 at 04:33PM

By now it seems like just about everyone has seen the iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO video (and the rebuttal video). The video portrays an electronics store employee trying to convince a person looking for an iPhone 4 to buy an HTC EVO 4G instead. It’s hilarious — like all good humor, so funny because it’s at least partially true. But you know who didn’t find it funny? Best Buy. How do I know that? Because they’re trying to fire the kid who made it.

The video in question was made by Brian Maupin, a 25-year-old based in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past three and a half years he’s been working at Best Buy selling mobile phones. He’s probably not going to be doing that anymore as Best Buy has suspended him indefinitely and is currently taking the steps to terminate him, Maupin tells us. The reason? The video.

The video became so popular (it currently has nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube) that someone at Best Buy corporate saw it. They then put two-and-two together that it was an employee at one of their stores that made it, and the hammer came down. “They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile,” Maupin says.

What’s ridiculous is that nowhere in the video does Maupin have anything indicating the fictitious store the iPhone buyer is walking into is a Best Buy. At the beginning, the cartoon employee identifies the store as “Phone Mart.” The character isn’t even wearing the signature Best Buy blue polo shirt — and they’re standing in an outdoor field with a pink tree.

In other words, nothing about this video seems to imply Best Buy in anyway. In fact, the only reason it will be tied to Best Buy now is thanks to this story.

Maupin says he was asked to quit, which he declined to do, and so they suspended him this morning telling him that he would most likely be terminated after they review it with HR. He expects the decision in the next day or two. “I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video,” Maupin says in his defense.

Maupin isn’t sure how exactly Best Buy corporate knew to tie the video to him, but believes they did so because a couple other videos under his Tiny Watch Productions (a little indie film group he made with his friends) YouTube account featured videos referencing him and Best Buy. Maupin says he removed those videos at Best Buy’s request, but refuses to take down the EVO vs. iPhone videos because, again, they in no way reference Best Buy.

Regardless of whether he keeps his job or not (which he doesn’t expect to), Maupin is optimistic. “I see it all as a blessing in disguise. I’ve wanted to start my career in graphic design/animation for so long, I see this as my kick in the pants to go get it,” he says.

And now, for an encore:

By (author unknown), National Geographic News – July 01, 2010 at 03:06PM

In a once-a-year sky show, the International Space Station can be seen Thursday night with the naked eye multiple times from select locations.











InternationalSpaceStation – Space – Technology – NASA – Missions

By Adam Pash, Lifehacker – July 01, 2010 at 02:30PM

You’re guaranteed to get a mosquito bite this summer, no matter how diligent you are. If the itching is more than you can stand and you don’t have itch cream on hand, check your drawers for nail polish or Scotch tape.

Earlier today, Reader Michael McElrath wrote in to sing the praises of Scotch tape as a mosquito bite itch reliever. We’ve heard in the past that both Scotch tape and nail polish can work wonders to relieve an itchy bug bite, and while we’ve still been unable to find any solid non-anecdotal evidence as to why, the predominant theory seems to be that sealing the bite off from the air can make a big difference.

If that’s the case, a solid coat of nail polish is probably the better option if you’ve got a choice. Alternatively, Twitter user Lemcott and Floridian offers this as an explanation:

The itch is actually caused by blood rushing to fill in the small entrance, but not be able to due to the proteins the mosquito used as an anti-clotting device. Thus it inflames, and the blood pressure sets off the nerve endings. Tape/nail polish actually keep the area around the entrance more stable, letting it heal faster/ become less inflamed. Scratching also only irritates the area further, meaning a longer heal time = more itching.

If you can drop a little science or just more anecdotal claims on this (or refute it completely), let’s hear your expertise in the comments. Photo by James Jordan.

By Lee Mathews, Download Squad – July 01, 2010 at 02:15PM

Filed under: Utilities, Troubleshooting

SSDownloader fetches popular antivirus, antimalware, and firewall apps originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows – Security – Process Explorer – Microsoft Security Essentials – Microsoft Windows

By Adam Frucci, Gizmodo – July 01, 2010 at 12:40PM

I am always looking for excuses to not brush my teeth, but the dentist always threatens me with painful cavity fillings. Well, screw you, dentist! With new tooth regeneration gel, I no longer have a reason to brush. More »





Health – Dentistry – Shopping – Dental – Tooth