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News Corp.'s iPad-only publication, The Daily, will be shuttered on December 15, 2012, almost two years after its public launch. News Corp. made the announcement on Monday morning as part of its organizational changes, referring to The Daily as a "bold experiment" that simply could not sustain itself. As such, the remaining staff will be merged into another News Corp. publication, the New York Post, and "the brand will live on in other channels."

The announcement may not seem particularly notable now, but when The Daily was first launched in early 2011, it was hailed as the beginning of a new age in digital publishing. Apple and News. Corp unveiled it together in New York City, where The Daily was called "the first 'all media' product" for tablet-using readers. The launch was unique because of Apple's direct involvement in the announcement—although Apple wasn't involved in the publication of the "newspaper" or its content, it was clear the company wanted to see The Daily succeed as an example of iPad-only (and later, tablet-only) publishing.

"There's no paper, no multimillion dollar presses, no trucks, and we're passing on these savings to the reader," News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch trumpeted to the press. "The target audience is the 50 million Americans expected to own tablets in the next year."

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Zothecula writes "One of life's less pleasant surprises is discovering the chocolate bar that you forgot you had in your pocket on a hot day. Two scientists working at Cadbury's research and development plant in Bourneville, U.K., are fighting that gooey surprise with the invention of chocolate that remains solid even when exposed to temperatures of 40 C (104 F) for more than three hours. Aimed at tropical markets, the 'temperature tolerant chocolate' is described in a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) patent application."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Olive (Cardigan) barking at those sheep. It was her first time to try herding.

Facebook Messenger has just been released for Mozilla's Firefox, offering users a persistent toolbar from which they can chat with friends while browsing the web. The experience largely mimics what you're used to from the social network, with realtime notifications (for comments, photo tags, and other events) also displayed. Messenger is the first product that has stemmed from Firefox's Social API, which Mozilla first began work on in March.

"Social activities go well beyond sharing," the company said at the time. A behind-the-scenes look at the development of Messenger for Firefox shows Facebook was also eager to integrate its product even deeper in the core browser experience. "Facebook was a natural early partner, having a mature...

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Toad’s Turnip by Brother Brain ★  
Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) Nintendo 1988.

netbuzz writes "As rumors and news reports of John McAfee's alleged capture circulated widely yesterday – fueled by McAfee's own blog and blogging cohorts – police and other authorities in Belize denied that they had the man in custody and, well, they should have been believed. McAfee surfaced earlier this morning and had this to say in a blog post: 'We are not in Belize, but not quite out of the woods yet.' He also painted a picture of his 'escape' that could have been taken from a bad spy novel."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

consulting-corellian-time-lord:

the-one-with-all-the-other-ones:

Sometimes I wonder if Matt Smith actually IS the Doctor…

Plot Twist: The Doctor decides to play himself on TV.

Today in amazing tour pair-ups: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have confirmed a string of North American shows for March and April, in support of their upcoming full-length Push the Sky Away, with Sharon Van Etten opening all dates.

As mentioned, Push is out February 18 in the UK and February 19 in the U.S. According to a press release, the record thematically grapples with "how on the internet profoundly significant events, momentary fads and mystically-tinged absurdities sit side-by-side and question how we might recognize and assign weight to what's genuinely important." 

The recently-shared first single, "We No Who We R", now has an accompanying lyric video, available to check out after the dates.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:

02-26-27 Sydney, Australia - Sydney Opera House
03-02 Melbourne, Australia - Sidney Myer Music Bowl
03-03 Adelaide, Australia - Thebarton Theatre
03-06 Perth, Australia - Red Hill Auditorium
03-08 Brisbane, Australia - Riverstage
03-14 Dallas, TX - McFarlin Auditorium *
03-16 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium *
03-17 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel *
03-19 Philadelphia, PA - Keswick Theater *
03-20 Washington, DC - Strathmore *
03-22 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis *
03-23 Toronto, Ontario - Massey Hall *
03-24 Boston, MA - Orpheum Theater *
03-28-29 New York, NY - Beacon Theater *
04-01 Chicago, IL - Chicago Theater *
04-03 Denver, CO - Ogden Theater *

* with Sharon Van Etten

Two of the most interesting games released over the past few weeks were also two of the strangest. One was a dubstep-infused trip down memory lane, while the other starred a 90s basketball star and a talking bear in a sweater. Both were created by notable developers, and both are quite fun to play, with simple mechanics and retro sensibilities. They also have one other important feature in common: they're ads.

Old Spice's Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World is a curious beast. It's a joint effort between advertising firm Wieden + Kennedy, Powerhouse Animations, interactive studio Driftlab, and a team of indie developers lead by Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman. The entire project is essentially a bizarre game jam, where new...

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A growing number of Tumblr blogs have been hacked by notorious troll group GNAA or the Gay Nigger Association of America, perhaps best known for its association with the recently convicted Andrew Auernheimer or "weev." The GNAA Twitter account says that 8,600 unique users have had their accounts compromised and blogs defaced. While we can't verify that number now, the compromise is visible on several personal blogs, as well as those for Reuters, The Verge, and others. The infected sites now display an exhortation for users to commit suicide, and visiting while logged in will spread the worm to your own blogs. We've contacted Tumblr for comment; for now, it's best to stay away from Tumblr if you've got an account that could be infected.

U...

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Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate, News Corporation, announced today that the two new companies being formed from its split will be called Fox Group and News Corporation. The company is being split to separate the media and entertainment side of the business from its news coverage. News Corporation initially announced plans for the separation back in July of this year.

Fox Group will include the company's cable and television assets, filmed entertainment, and direct satellite broadcasting businesses. The new News Corporation will handle publishing businesses, including The Wall Street Journal, its education division, and other businesses in Australia. Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Editor-in-Chief Robert...

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Filed under: Culture

It's the end of an era. After almost five decades, Bazooka bubble gum is getting a new look to make it more in tune with today's gum-chewing audience - and ditching the comic book adventures of Bazooka Joe in the process. ... Read more

 

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If the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill was a ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse – 52-times more toxic.

Chubbs the Wampug Strikes Back!

It’s a pretty simple recipe: First, get a pug. Next, put that pug in a costume so as to resemble a Wampa, the carnivorous creature that prowls the snowy wastes of Hoth in Star Wars. Then you’ve got a Wampug. This Wampug, who is appropriately and adorably named Chubbs, takes it to the next level by re-enacting a scene from The Empire Strikes Back. Personally, I think it improves over the original in some key ways. Namely, that it has 100% more pug than the original scene.”

[via Geekosystem]

NEXT GEN GRAPHIX hrrrnnnnnnngggg

notablegamebox:

vgjunk:

Burning Force.

I thought the water effects were so cool.

hmmmm…. no

cstacy writes "The American Psychiatric Association is dropping Asperger's Syndrome from the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) Its symptoms will be included under the umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorder, which includes everything from severe autism such as children who do not talk or interact, to milder forms of autism. Asperger's disorder is impairment in social interaction and repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, activities and interests, without significant delay in language or cognitive development. Often the person has high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lacks social skills. DSM-5 comes out in May and will be the first major rewrite in 19 years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Police say someone crept into the grounds of The Grotto at 8719 NE Beech St. and damaged three statues Wednesday and Thursday evening. The statues are more than 100 years old and are made from Carrara marble, a white to blue-gray stone from Italy.

Seeking Diversity (Especially Families): Because the PGP is self-recruiting, we don’t have a very balanced set of participants. “Self-recruitment” means that all participants have enrolled in our project through word of mouth, finding our website and enrolling online. To put it bluntly, that means we mostly end up with young white men.... ...Research within one or two racial/ethnic categories isn’t necessarily a virtue, biracial and multiracial heritage may be even more interesting to some r

netbuzz writes with a quick update about John McAfee on the run. From the article: "A blog being maintained for the past three weeks by antivirus pioneer John McAfee and others is claiming to have received "an unconfirmed report" that McAfee has been captured near the border of Belize and Mexico. However, authorities in Belize say that report is not true and that the whereabouts of McAfee, wanted for questioning as a 'person of interest' after the Nov. 11 murder of his neighbor, remain unknown."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mr Blobby on The Big Fat Quiz of the 90s (by SC25UK)

This is stupendous, and will make you snortle with joy. (ᔥ The Bloggess)

A demonstration showing a site that hijacks a browsers search function and intercepts the contents. h43z.koding.com

Be careful what you type on your computer while surfing the Web. It very well could be funneled to a script kiddie who has appropriated a handful of lines of code and inserted it into his site.

The hack has been possible for years, but two proofs of concept published this month graphically demonstrate just how easy it is for even savvy people to fall for it. Both demonstrations use JavaScript to hijack the search command found in all standard browsers. The script is activated when a user presses the ctrl+f or ⌘+f keys, causing whatever is typed after that to be sent to a server under the control of the website operator rather than to the browser's search box.

Proofs of concept here and here show how this method could be used to trick people into divulging their password or credit card number respectively. The pages pose as lists that catalog leaked user data and invite visitors to search it to see if their information is included.

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Photo by Ceilidh Madigan

Last night in Munich, Das Racist were scheduled to perform at the On3 Festival. However, according to the festival's website, Heems (aka Himanshu Suri) did a solo show, where he said, "You guys wanna know the secret? Alright, so I'm going to do some Das Racist songs, but Das Racist is breaking up and we're not a band anymore." Watch video of the announcement here. When contacted by Pitchfork, representatives for the band offered no comment.

UPDATE: Kool A.D. just tweeted: "for the record i quit das racist 2 months ago and was asked by our manager not to announce it yet. apparently @himanshu wanted to do it tho." Heems replied, "hah dag, my bad dont even remember saying that shit."

This year, while Das Racist have primarily remained a touring band, Kool A.D. (aka Victor Vazquez) and Heems have released two solo mixtapes each. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Heems said they'd finished "four or five joints" for the next Das Racist album, saying, "It should be done by the end of the year." He also said they were in the process of shooting a pilot for a Das Racist TV show.

Here's their episode of Pitchfork.tv's "Over/Under":

There are just a few things to keep in mind when making a fart brush in Photoshop.

 

Farts are invisible, so turn the opacity all the way down. ”Noise” can be on or off, depending on the setting. The most important thing is to turn “Wet Edges” off. Just… turn it off.

eldavojohn writes "NPR pointed out a press release claiming that North Korean archaeologists have found a 'unicorn lair' in Pyongyang. The members of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have "reconfirmed" that this site was used for King Tongmyong's unicorn where the unicorn would concoct his unicorn schemes and do his unicorn things if anyone ventured too closely. The last line is, perhaps, the most important line of the article, 'The discovery of the unicorn lair, associated with legend about King Tongmyong, proves that Pyongyang was a capital city of Ancient Korea as well as Koguryo Kingdom.' Fear not that North Korea is surpassing the world in cryptozoology, Dr. Melba S. Ketchum of Nacogdoches, TX has claimed to have recently sequenced Bigfoot's DNA and he's part human."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tardar Sauce aka “Grumpy Cat” is visiting NYC and made an appearance this morning on the TODAY Show.

Here’s Grumpy Cat in the green room awaiting her appearance on TODAY.

via Grumpy Cat

For a New York-based fashion brand Nooka advertisement, designer Mike Lubrano imagined converting a DeLorean into an iconic New York City yellow taxi cab. He says that the automobiles have ‘come to symbolize the future’ and communicate the brand’s ‘futuristic philosophy.’

images via Michael Lubrano

via BuzzFeed