Rexfeng

Gaming studio Valve has released a 15-minute film short starring the colorful characters from its popular Team Fortress series, and it's pretty fantastic. The story, "Expiration Date," follows the team of mercenaries on what may be their last 72 hours alive, and it's funny, original, and well-crafted.

The film's debut coincides with the release of new content for the game this week, beginning with the "Love and War" update that will allow players to dance with enemies or challenge them to a game of rock, paper, scissors.

Continue reading…

Apple's upcoming smartwatch is pegged for a fall release and will come in multiple designs, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. The device, widely dubbed the iWatch, is said to include over 10 sensors, with some dedicated to tracking users' health and fitness. Apple is planning to "address an overarching criticism of existing smartwatches that they fail to provide functions significantly different from that of a smartphone," according to one WSJ source.

Reuters reported yesterday that the smartwatch is likely to feature a 2.5-inch screen, wireless charging, and a heart sensor, with mass production starting next month for a release as soon as October. The WSJ, however, claims that the watch will come in multiple screen...

Continue reading…

A proposal to block the NSA from using backdoor searches on US communications without warrants has been passed by the House of Representatives. The surprise vote, adopted 293-123, is an amendment to the 2015 Defense appropriations bill that would effectively prohibit the NSA from using funds to conduct warrantless searches. It’s also designed to prevent the NSA from using its budget to force companies and organizations to add backdoors to encryption standards and products.

"Tonight, the House of Representatives took an important first step in reining in the NSA," says Mark Rumold, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We applaud the House for taking this important first step, and we look forward to other elected...

Continue reading…

1987 episode of The Computer Chronicles, featuring Bill Atkinson and Dan Winkler demonstrating and explaining the then-new HyperCard. I was going to joke about how old this looks, but realized I’m using a keyboard from that era.

Via Lessien, who notes that there’s still a place in the world for a tool like HyperCard.

Kevin Baker, writing for Harper’s:

Still unsatisfied, New York Central proposed in 1961 to build a three-level bowling alley over Grand Central’s Main Concourse, which would have required lowering the ceiling from sixty feet to fifteen and cutting off from view its glorious blue mural of the zodiac. This, too, was stopped. Foiled again, New York Central resorted to plastering the terminal with ads and bombarding travelers with canned Muzak, complete with commercials, over the public address system.

Good lord.

The latest of Steam's much-loved summer sales only went live a few hours ago, but digital download competitor Origin has already hit back with its own riposte. The EA-run service is offering you two days in which to play the recently released Titanfall for free, with a new scheme it calls "Game Time." Players will be able to download the PC version of the mech-heavy first-person shooter this weekend for no charge. The first time they play the game it'll start a 48-hour timer, at the end of which access will be revoked.

EA make it clear that players have access to the full game during this time, and their progress is saved in both multiplayer and singleplayer modes, should they choose to stump up the price for the full game. The scheme,...

Continue reading…

Joshua Ho, writing for AnandTech:

To be clear, iOS 8 will expose just about every manual camera control possible. This means that ISO, shutter speed, focus, white balance, and exposure bias can be manually set within a custom camera application. Outside of these manual controls, Apple has also added gray card functionality to bypass the auto white balance mechanism and both EV bracketing and shutter speed/ISO bracketing.

I’ve said it before and will say it again: Apple has become one of the leading camera companies in the world, and quite possibly the most innovative. The image quality from the iPhone camera is an ideal example of hardware and software being inextricably tied in Apple products.

I've never seen anything like this stunning 360-degree time-lapse videos by photographer Vincent Brady. I think it's the first one ever. He made them using a multiple camera 360-degree time-lapse panorama after years spent experimenting and customizing his kit. Incredible.

Read more...

If today being National Martini Day hasn’t driven you to pour a stiff drink yet, this will. Jiminy.

(Via Chris Ziegler.)

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

[Photo: Facebook]
Sorry folks. Jean-Georges, the most affordable three Michelin star restaurant in New York and possibly America, is now less affordable. The Central Park West venue, famous for its tuna ribbons with soy-ginger sauce and foie gras brulee, has HIKED the price of its lunch offerings across the board.

Let's start with the shorter menu, previously $38 for two courses and $19 for each additional course. You more or less build your own tasting menu — not too shabby, right? Well, now that offering is $10 spendier at $48. And extra dishes are $24; dessert remains at $12. That means a three-course lunch plus dessert for two will now cost $217, up from $178. So your meal is nearly $40 more expensive than it used to be — which is about the price of two glasses of wine at Jean-Georges, or four half-glasses. And if you're feeling a bit more peckish, the six-course lunch tasting menu is also ten bucks pricier at $158.

Now here's the thing. At $48 for two courses, Jean-Georges still offers a lower entry-level price for lunch than any of NYC's other three-Michelin-starred spots; Masa is $450, Eleven Madison Park is $225, Per Se starts at $205 (service-included) while Le Bernardin is $76. But since most diners don't choose a restaurant based on Michelin stars (let's be real), it's worth noting that Jean-Georges's new mid-day price makes it more expensive than lunch at Del Posto ($39), Marea ($47), Ai Fiori ($37) or Betony ($38).

What's even more interesting is how this all might affect your decision of when to dine at Jean-Georges. Before the HIKE, parties of two who ordered four courses (three savory, one sweet) at lunch would pay $126 less than for a meal of the same length at dinner. Now, the savings are down to $88. The dinner menu, of course, is $118 for the prix fixe, $198 for the tasting, or $298 for a longer tasting.

So what say you, world? Is Jean-Georges still a BUY during lunch, when the stunning foliage of Central Park is visible from the restaurant's floor-to-ceiling windows? Or is dinner the smarter move, with more choices on the prix-fixe menu and more pricey supplements to choose from? Leave your thoughts in the comments and check out our interactive charts below! (Mobile users: click here).

A group of lawmakers this week voiced their concern over the Obama administration's plans to monitor individuals with security clearances as part of a post-Snowden leaks crackdown.

Read the rest

Over the course of his 3000 columns at The Motley Fool, Morgan Housel has learned a few things:

I've learned that short-term thinking is at the root of most of our problems, whether it's in business, politics, investing, or work.

I've learned that debt can cause more social problems than some drugs, yet drugs are illegal and debt is tax deductible.

I've learned that finance is actually very simple, but it's made to look complicated to justify fees.

Unfortunately, the list is undermined almost completely by the get-rich-quick advertising on the site, including this bit at the end of the article, which I can't even tell is an ad or just a promotion:

Opportunities to get wealthy from a single investment don't come around often, but they do exist, and our chief technology officer believes he's found one. In this free report, Jeremy Phillips shares the single company that he believes could transform not only your portfolio, but your entire life. To learn the identity of this stock for free and see why Jeremy is putting more than $100,000 of his own money into it, all you have to do is click here now.

Short-term thinking is at the root of most of our problems, click here now. Now!

Tags: economics   finance   lists   Morgan Housel

From onion peels to kiwi seeds or even bits of chocolate, it seems any canvas is sufficient for Turkish artist Hasan Kale (previously) as long as it meets the requirement of being incredibly tiny. Hasan delights in the challenge of depicting landscapes of his native Istanbul in the most infinitesimal of brush strokes, a feat that requires the use of a magnifying glass to appreciate the details of each piece. While the longevity of each object he paints is questionable, the steadiness of his hand is impressive to witness. See much more over on Facebook. (via Illusion)

The Amazon Fire Phone's Dynamic Perspective—the famed "3D effect"—works almost as if by magic. As you look at the phone and move it around, the Fire Phone watches you back, and changes what you see. It's not voodoo, though. It's crazy camera tech. Here's a closer look at how it works, even in the dark.

Read more...

Comments

 T-Mobile pulled something of a “One More Thing!” this evening, with a bit of a surprise announcement tacked onto the end of their Uncarrier 5.0 event. T-Mobile will no longer count data used on the “top music streaming services” (including Pandora, iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Slacker, Spotify, Samsung’s Milk service, and Rhapsody) against your data cap. As it… Read More

Just who is providing all the iPhones that will be offered to potential T-Mobile customers as part of a new program that lets people test drive the carrier's network for a week? Apple. That's according to T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who said Cupertino is doling out the now nine-month-old handsets free of charge.

Continue reading…

GIFs have finally come to Twitter. On Twitter's website as well as its iOS and Android apps, you'll be able to watch a GIF in your timeline by clicking a play button that shows up over top of them. GIFs won't animate automatically, likely to prevent you from downloading large files that you don't need. Opening up a tweet on its own will, however, immediately begin playing the GIF.

Support for GIFs has been a highly requested feature, and adding it in makes reading through a Twitter feed much simpler, as you won't have to open up a new window every time you want to view one. Notably, Facebook has adamantly refused to add support for GIFs, seemingly over concerns of how it would make its News Feed look. They may not all be beautiful, but...

Continue reading…

Amazon just announced its long-awaited Fire Phone, and the company is taking a shot directly at one of Apple's perceived weaknesses by offering free unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud Drive. It matches what appears to be an impressive camera on the new phone, and is an easy way for the company to immediately differentiate itself from the competition. With smartphones having become a de facto way for people to take photos, storage has become a real issue, particularly when they're not being backed up to hardware devices on a regular basis. Apple announced a host of upgrades to the Photo app in iOS 8 just last month, but even then free unlimited storage wasn't on the table: for iCloud, Apple users get 5GB of storage for free, but...

Continue reading…

Harley-Davidson appears to be just a day away from unveiling an electric motorcycle, and it's teasing the new bike on YouTube. In a video, a (relatively) quiet motorcycle whizzes down a highway, letting out a sharp, almost sci-fi sound that you certainly don't hear from noisy gas vehicles. That it's an electric cycle is all speculation for now, but there's some reason beyond the video to suspect that this is in fact what's coming. Fueling the suspicion are spy shots published from the set of the next Avengers film that show a stunt double riding an electric bike from Harley-Davidson, which auto publications seem to think looks street legal and surprisingly realistic for a supposed prop.

Continue reading…

Impressive use of the new pressure-sensitivity (really, more like surface area) APIs coming in iOS 8 this fall.

Ellis Hamburger, writing for The Verge:

At first, Facebook’s new ephemeral messaging app, Slingshot, feels like yet another Snapchat clone. The free app, available now for iPhone and Android, lets you take a quick photo or video, mark it up with some colorful drawings, caption it with big white text, and then fire it off to a bunch of friends. But then you receive your first message, and you realize this is something completely different.

In Snapchat or any other messaging app, you can view a message as soon as you receive it. But in Slingshot, you can’t view an incoming “shot” until you send a shot back to the sender. “It’s not just about telling your story, it’s about asking others for their story,” says Slingshot designer Joey Flynn. In other words, Slingshot makes you trade a photo of what you’re doing before you can “unlock” the picture of whatever your friend is up to. Huh?

If they give you phones in hell, this is the sort of app that’s on them.

Jordan Kahn, writing for 9to5Mac:

In iOS 8, Apple is making the process of logging into apps a much smoother experience by allowing native iOS apps to access usernames and passwords stored in Safari. The new feature, which works by letting iOS apps tap into Safari’s AutoFill & Passwords feature, will allow users to login to apps with a simple tap rather than having to type login info. Imagine your username and password are stored in Safari’s AutoFill for Facebook, for example. When launching the native Facebook iOS app, the feature will let users select from passwords stored in Safari to quickly login (as pictured above with Apple’s demo “Shiny” app).

Blizzard has outlined the changes that will soon roll out as part of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls' upcoming 2.1.0 patch, including a new "Seasons" mode that offers a number of unique quests and challenges. When playing as a Seasons-enabled character,...

"This Burger King Owner IS the 99%!!!"

It's unclear whether this sign was posted in response to a rising tide of anti-fast-food-chain sentiment in the Bay Area or just old-fashioned hooliganism, but the owner of a Burger King franchise in Oakland has allegedly been dealing with repeat instances of broken windows. No one deserves that, really, so the store's owner went ahead and posted a message of bold solidarity: "This Burger King Supports the Occupy Movement." It's unclear how it does that, especially if workers get low wages and the restaurant is affiliated with a huge, multinational fast-food corporation that is also called Burger King, but at least it banks locally. [Reddit]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: whoppers, burger king, oakland, occupy burger king, occupy whoppers, the chain gang

Bloop bloop.

Manhattan's first Barcade opened in Chelsea earlier this month, and its second, which is headed to a 2,220-square-foot space on St. Mark's Place in the East Village, is already on track for a late-summer opening. Unlike its other locations, this one will have beer only, no liquor, a fact that it hopes to make up to patrons with a vintage Konami Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game and a "crazy Jersey-style fat sandwich," a monstrosity built for convenience consisting of a sub roll stuffed with a burger patty, fries, and cheese. [DNAinfo, Related]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: score, barcade, bars, coming soon, expansions

Sharp today announced plans to produce a new type of screen dubbed 'Free-Form Display' that could radically change the shape of our future electronics. Recent years have brought a number of products with novel form factors, like the curved Samsung Gear Fit and the upcoming circular Moto 360 smartwatch. Sharp's new display tech could potentially facilitate far more unique designs than presently possible.

Conventional displays usually integrate certain circuitry within their bezels, forcing manufacturers to generally opt for rectangular designs. With Sharp's new tech, that circuitry is spread throughout the display, allowing for not only very thin bezels, but also a potentially infinite number of shapes. The company released a number of...

Continue reading…

Yelp has announced that its users can now message business owners directly with any questions or feedback they have. "While some customers prefer to pick up the phone, others would much rather communicate via a keyboard, so this feature adds one more way to reach out to businesses," the company said in a blog post yesterday. If you're hunting for information that's not readily available on the listing page, a new "message the business" option will let you fire off a quick note. It also offers a last-ditch chance to resolve a bad experience you've had somewhere before posting a review about it for the whole world to see.

Continue reading…