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Willy E. Coyote in real life. (via)

Here's a real hoot from MTV:

http://www.mtv.co.uk/game-of-thrones/news/game-of-thrones-cast-discuss-if-justin-bieber-were-in-the-show-watch

The fictional Nike Air Mag sneakers from Back to the Future Part II became a reality in 2011, when Nike auctioned off 1,500 pairs to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The shoes featured a glowing LED panel, an electroluminescent Nike logo, and a battery that kept them lighted for five hours between charges. There was just one problem — they didn't lace themselves automatically the way they did in the movie.

But that may be about to change. Sole Collector reports that during an appearance in New Orleans, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield suggested that Marty McFly's dream shoes might be on their way after all. "Are we gonna see power laces in 2015?" he said, according to the publication. "To that, I say YES!" There's no telling how...

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Se você acha que já jogou os Pokémons clássicos de todas as maneiras possíveis, você está errado. Isso porque conceito maluco, que está rodando há cerca de 2 dias e meio, permite que os usuários joguem Pokémon Red através do chat de um canal do Twitch TV, chamado "Twitch Pla...

Before Jesus arrived and his divine father chilled out, the Old Testament God was, ironically, kind of a hellraiser. He was not a nice guy. He really liked killing people. And he may have actually been insane, if his willingness to randomly murder devout worshippers like Moses was any indication. Here are the 12 craziest, most awful things God did in the Old Testament, back before that wacked-out hippie Jesus softened him up.

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If the world ran on nuclear fusion, the Earth could provide us with the resources to meet current energy demands for billions of years. So it’s no wonder that scientists have spent 60 years pouring billions of dollars into developing the technology.

Commercial viability is still a long way off for fusion, but Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers announced today that they have reached a long-sought milestone: the fuel used to create fusion in their reactor is capable of producing more energy than required to initiate fusion. They published their work in Nature today.

Unlike fission, which works by splitting atoms and is used in nuclear power plants, fusion works by joining two atoms together. When the atoms’ nuclei fuse, they release an incredible amount of energy. We experience this process every day via the Sun, which, deep at its core, contains a natural fusion reactor. The energy it produces is powerful enough to create the light and heat that make life here on Earth possible.

The Livermore reactor is complex. The fusion process begins with 192 lasers, which heat a cylinder (pictured above) that measures just 1 centimeter across to millions of degrees. Nestled inside of the cylinder is a tiny plastic pellet, and inside of the pellet are two forms of hydrogen plasma — the fuel. When the cylinder heats up, it produces x-rays that cause the pellet to explode, compressing the gas.

Only 1/200th of the laser’s energy makes it to the hydrogen atoms. The more energy the atoms receive, the more fusion happens, and, eventually, a chain reaction occurs and the fusion becomes self sustaining. That’s known as ignition. While the scientists have not yet accomplished ignition, today’s paper details that for the first time, the fuel produced more energy than it received–up to 2.6 times more energy.

That’s 10 times better than previous experiments. However, remember that only 1/200th of the original energy output by the lasers makes it to the hydrogen. That means that overall the reactor is still losing far more energy than it puts out.

Plenty of work still remains for fusion researchers. To accomplish ignition, the hydrogen needs to reach temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees instead of just millions of degrees. It also needs to be subject to pressure levels a thousand times greater.

“There is more work to do and physics problems that need to be addressed before we get to the end,” lead author Omar Hurricane said in a release. “But our team is working to address all the challenges, and that’s what a scientific team thrives on.”

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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• Locating data centers in an energy-constrained world
• The case for SSDs in the data center
• Why going “green” matters for high-performance computing

After decades of trying to harness nuclear fusion, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have finally done it, replicating the exact chemical reaction that powers the sun. By blasting hydrogen isotopes with a barrage of X-rays, the scientists managed to yield more energy from a reaction than was used to initiate it. This milestone of physics means it may one day become possible to consistently replicate the energy source of the sun, opening a whole new chapter in the tanning salon industry.

“You’re not going to power a car with it, you’re not going to power a house with it,” said physicist and epic last name holder, Omar Hurricane, adding that “it’ll be a while before we address all the needed scientific challenges and then the engineering challenges to make it more practical, but we’re excited. It’s a great step forward scientifically.”

In a series of trials at R. Kelly’s National Ignition Facility, researchers used 192 lasers to hit a plastic pellet sitting in a gold chamber. The pellet contained super thin layers of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which were chilled to negative 400 degrees Fahrenheit (-400 (F) = -204.44 (C) = SuperCold (Coors Light)). The gold transforms the laser light into a bath of X-rays which destroy the surface of the pellet, causing it to implode on itself. The pressure of this implosion pushes the deuterium and tritium together in a process we’ll call “smooshing together”. The result of the “smooshing together” is a mixture that reaches a density more than twice that found at the center of the sun. This immense pressure fuses the two isotopes, causing them to release neutrons and alpha particles.

 

This casing called a hohlraum holds the golden chamber, which holds the pellet of hydrogen isotopes. (Eduard DeWald / LLNL)

“We’ve assembled that stick of dynamite and we’ve gotten the fuse to light,” Hurricane said, completely undermining the notion of this being a “safe” energy source. “If we can get that fuse to burn all the way to the dynamite, it’s going to pack a wallop.” (1 wallop = ~1,000 joules).

The process also produced heat that seemed to boost the energy of the reaction’s output. This effect could be an early step in using nuclear fusion to create a safe and abundant energy source. This is great news for people like me who currently use waterwheels and wood furnaces to power their homes.

That’s the story of the Hurricane.

What does this milestone mean for the future of nuclear physics? How long will it be before nuclear fusion is used as a reliable energy source? Could we ever harness the sun’s ability to deliver two scoops of raisins into your cereal? Tell us in the comments section below.

Sources: ScientificAmerican, CNN

Warning, if you are easily creeped out, this video will not be easy to watch. The team at ScreenJunkies went against rules of Shia LaBeouf‘s elaborate Los Angeles art installation #IAMSORRY and snuck in a camera. They took off his bag and, well, it’s just weird. Check out the video below.

Thanks to ScreenJunkies for one of the more disturbing and ballsy videos I’ve seen in a while.

I honestly couldn’t even make it through that whole video. Not like Jerry O’Connell. What do you think?

• LOL: Jerry O’Connell Plagurizes Shia LaBeouf With #IAMSORRYTOO
• Shia LaBeouf Comes Out of Retirement to Join Bill Murray in ‘Rock the Kasbah’
• Shia LaBeouf Tweets Retirement Announcement
• In Short ‘HowardCantour.com’ Shia LaBeouf Dissects the Film Critic [Updated]
• Lars von Trier May Still Release 5 1/2 Cut of ‘Nymphomaniac’; See Two More Posters
• LOL: The Honest Trailer For Zack Snyder’s ‘Man of Steel’

According to Variety, director John Singleton will helm the Tupac Shakur biopic, a natural choice seeing as how Singleton worked with Shakur on the 1993 film Poetic Justice. “Tupac was the guy who I planned to do a lifetime of films with,” Singleton said. “His passing deeply affected my life ... More »

It’s not like Jack Bauer ever really has it easy, but as of today his job sounds just a little bit harder. 24: Live Another Day will have him going up against Michelle Fairley, known to Game of Thrones fan as Catelyn Stark. Considering what Cat’s been through on the HBO fantasy-drama, a terrorist plot in modern-day London should be a walk in the park.

Fairley replaces Judy Davis, who dropped out of the role last week for personal reasons. Learn more about her character after the jump.

Deadline reported the news. Fairley will have a major recurring role as Margot, a British arms dealer and the widow of a dangerous terrorist. 24: Live Another Day finds Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) in London four years after the events of the Season 8 finale. Now a fugitive wanted by the CIA, Jack resurfaces to try and stop a terrorist attack on London.

Shooting on the series has been going on in London since last month. Davis first signed on for the role in December, but pulled out last week due to personal family matters that prevented her from traveling. She had been scheduled to shoot her scenes later this month. Her exit did not delay production as producers immediately began looking for a replacement.

In addition to her Game of Thrones gig, Fairley is also known for recent roles in Philomena, The Invisible Woman, and USA’s Suits. She also had a small role as Hermione’s mom in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

24: Live Another Day premieres May 5 on Fox. Mary Lynn Rajskub, Kim Raver, and William Devane will reprise their roles from the original series. New actors include Yvonne Strahovski, Stephen Fry, John Boyega, Giles Matthey, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Benjamin Bratt, Tate Donovan, and Michael Wincott.

• Judy Davis Quits ’24: Live Another Day’
• First Look: ’24: Live Another Day’
• ‘24: Live Another Day’ Gets Yvonne Strahovski and a Premiere Date [Updated With New Plot Details]
• ’24: Live Another Day’ Adds Stephen Fry and ‘Attack the Block’ Star John Boyega
• Judy Davis Joins ’24: Live Another Day’
• ’24′ Event Series ‘Live Another Day’ Setting and Timeline Revealed

Are you one of the individuals who missed out on downloading Flappy Bird to your iPhone or Android phone before the weekend was over? Then take heart! While the official game may be gone now, there are some great ‘replacements’ available to fill in the gap. One of the best is Flappy Doge, an awesome variation of the game that you can play in your favorite browser for free!

The best part about Flappy Doge is that it is just as challenging as Flappy Bird was, has no ads to deal with, and lets you have fun with a pixelated Shiba Inu rather than the ‘notorious’ bird from the original. Good luck and have fun!

Play Flappy Doge in Your Favorite Browser

[via The Verge]

Indie developer Dong Nguyen has broken his silence following the sudden removal of his popular Flappy Bird game recently. In an interview with Forbes, Nguyen says the game was originally designed to be played "when you are relaxed." However, the notoriously difficult game, created in mid-2013, rose to fame recently, with some social network and YouTube users pointing out, comically, just how frustrating it is to navigate Mario-style pipes with a pixelated bird. "But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem," explains Nguyen. To solve that, Nguyen removed the app last weekend, and he notes "it’s gone forever."

The popularity of the game, which Nguyen revealed to The Verge generates on average...

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Did this giraffe really need to die? A Danish zoo shot and killed Marius, a healthy giraffe in their care, before feeding him to their lions... in front of a group of school children.

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That image above is Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role of The Imitation Game, in which he plays mathematician Alan Turing. The film is based on a Black List script by Graham Moore, directed by Morten Tyldum, and evidently Harvey Weinstein sees it as a primo Oscar contender to open later this year. The indie mogul just paid $7m for distribution rights at the Euopean Film Market going on as part of the Berlin Film Festival. That, says Deadline, is the most ever paid for an American production at the market there.

Keira Knightley also stars in the film, which hasn’t even played in full at the fest or market. Rather, the sale was based on a 15-minute “promo reel” that had several major buyers slavering for the film.

It’s easy to see why the Weinsteins might consider the movie a major Oscar contender: Turing is considered both a war hero and a major pioneer in computer science, but he was also prosecuted for his homosexuality, and the film does not have anything that could be called a happy ending. Together with Cumberbatch and Knightley, the project, on paper, has all the hallmarks of an awards contender. If the film is actually as good as the Weinsteins think it is (fingers crossed), we’ll all win.

Harvey Weinstein told Deadline,

Teddy Schwarzman and Morten Tyldum took a script that Bob and I loved but were worried about its tone because if you got it wrong one inch to the left or one inch to the right, you would have major problems. These guys got it so perfect, they did a better job than I ever could have. Benedict is unbelievable, and this is going to be a big year for Keira. Between this and Can A Song Save Your Life? she is going to be a major star. We look at this as a major release and we’re thrilled to have it.

• Benedict Cumberbatch to Play ‘The Imitation Game’ For ‘Headhunters’ Director
• ‘The Imitation Game’ Begins Filming With Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley
• First Look: Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in ‘The Imitation Game’
• Clint Mansell Will Score ‘The Imitation Game,’ Sample His Work for ‘Filth’
• ‘The Devil in the White City’ Gets New Screenwriter; Leonardo DiCaprio Still Attached to Play Serial Killer
• The 2011 Black List: The Year’s Best Unproduced Screenplays

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a one-on-one conversation with… God. It’s an episode filled with divine revelations about everything, from the fossil record and evolution to the Big Bang and string theory.

Ride Along's long box-office winning streak ended with a $9.4 million haul, putting the Ice Cube and Kevin Hart buddy comedy in third place for the weekend. (It has now earned $105.2 million total.) In Ride Along's old first place spot was the joy-inducing Lego Movie, which opened with a ... More »

We'd heard rumors that it was in the works, but now it's official: Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg are working on a television adaption of Preacher. AMC has announced that the duo are working on a dramatic adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's comic book series, which tracks a reverend named Jesse Custer who loses his faith in God and sets out to settle the score with the Almighty.

"We've tried for seven years to work on Preacher and we're so psyched AMC is finally letting us," the writing duo said in a statement. "It is our favorite comic of all time, and we're going to do everything we can to do it right." The pair most recently wrote the comedy This is the End, and while they may seem to have a light touch...

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Anyone who has dealt with Ethernet cables knows what it is like when a locking clip breaks and the cable constantly pops loose afterwards. Is there an easy DIY way to fix the cable, or is it simply better to replace it?

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

Photo courtesy of tlsmith1000.

The Question

SuperUser reader T… wants to know how to repair an Ethernet cable with a broken locking clip:

I have a 10 meter long Ethernet cable. One plug has the little locking clip missing, just like the part outlined in the red ellipse in the following picture.

How can I fix it? Is this something I should even attempt to fix myself, or is it better to replace the cable?

Is there an easy DIY fix that T… can employ, or should the cable be replaced with a new one instead?

The Answer

SuperUser contributors GrossT and user55325 have the answer for us. First up, GrossT:

If you don’t want to replace the cable or install a new jack, you have a few options:

1. Glue it into a coupler or a short extension like the ones shown below (with the coupler you will need another short run of cable on the other side):

2. Repair it with a zip tie. Use this guide for instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Repair-a-Broken-Ethernet-Plug/

Followed by the answer from user55325:

It’s entirely possible to cut off the plug and install a new one, but you will need a crimping tool. It’s about $15. The thing is, your local store will probably charge you more than $15 for a cable – even if you buy it online, it’ll probably be close to that when you take shipping into account. Therefore, it’s cost-effective in my opinion, even if you only need it occasionally (and those pieces tend to break somewhat frequently, in my experience).

Also, if you ever need to run large amounts of cable, it’s much cheaper to buy it in bulk and cut it yourself.

Don’t forget to match the plug type to the wire type – stranded or solid (in your case, the wire is almost certainly stranded).

As you can see, there is more than one way to repair a cable if you are up to tackling a quick bit of DIY work. Interested in more repair options? Then make sure to read through all the replies left on the discussion thread linked below!

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Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

snydeq writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has some advice for Apple CEO Tim Cook: consider offering a phone based on the rival Google Android platform. Speaking at the Apps World conference in San Francisco, Wozniak made the suggestion of an Apple Android device when responding to a question about the fate of the faltering BlackBerry platform, saying that BlackBerry should have built an Android phone, and that Apple could do so, too. 'BlackBerry's very sad for me,' Wozniak lamented. 'I think it's probably too late now' for an Android-based BlackBerry phone. Apple, Woz said, has had some lucky victories in the marketplace in the past decade, and BlackBerry's demise may provide a cautionary tale: 'There's nothing to keep Apple out of the Android market as a secondary phone market.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Installation art has a long history of shocking and surprising people, though there are now concerns a very realistic looking statue of a man sleepwalking in his underwear may have gone too far. That statue, quite literally called "sleepwalker," was made by sculptor Tony Matelli to promote his latest exhibit at Wellesley College's Davis Museum. The only problem? Wellesley College (where the statue was placed) is an all-female school, and the surprise sculpture not only spooked some students upon its arrival, but also became "a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community." That's according to an online petition to have statue relocated, penned by a Wellesley...

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You probably already know you can play your favorite retro games on your computer, tablet, or phone with an emulator. But emulators are good for more than just saving space in your entertainment cabinet—they can also make your games look and play better than the original systems. Here are a few ways you can modernize those old games when they've gotten stale.

Sometimes, there's nothing like playing the real thing, but the fact of the matter is that it's very hard to get the same experience you did back on the original console. Consoles like the Nintendo 64 look horrible on modern HDTVs, and old hardware breaks down over time (especially those controllers). So, while that original console still has its place, sometimes it's nice to embrace the future and make your games better with the power of modern technology.

Note that we can't give step-by-step instructions for each tweak, because it's a little different on every emulator—but we'll provide links where we can, and you should be able to find a lot of information about each tweak around the net. Think of this as inspiration.

Improve the Graphics with Tweaks and High-Res Texture Packs

Let's start with the obvious: graphics. For some retro games, their old school graphics are part of the nostalgia. I believe old 8-bit systems like the NES are perfect just the way they are. Other systems, though, could use some upgrades, especially if you're playing on an HDTV that accentuates all its flaws.

You have a lot of options when it comes to improving the graphics. In almost any emulator, you should have an entire menu dedicated to "Graphics Options" (or something similar). Bring up that menu and you should find loads of tweaks to render the image more smoothly. What you choose will vary a lot based on your personal taste, but I find that hq2x (shown above right) or 2xsai is usually a good place to start fiddling. You can do this on newer emulators too, like the Nintendo 64, which will make the game look significantly better.

These graphics settings can also make those old games look more like their original selves, too. For example, many emulators for old systems have the option to add CRT effects to your favorite games, including scanlines, screen curvature, NTSC filters, and more. This not only preserves that nostalgic feeling, but in many cases can even make the game look better. See the above image for an example—the image on the left is what it looks like without CRT effects, and the image on the right emulates an old TV for a more realistic-looking image (albeit a blurrier one).

Lastly, many newer emulators, like those for the Nintendo 64 or Gamecube, also support high resolution texture packs, which completely re-texture the game using new images that make use of your hardware. For example, take a look at the image above—on the left you'll see Zelda with its original textures, and on the right you'll see it with the Community Retexture Project pack. It's amazing what a difference it can make.

Texture packs are very easy to install, though the process differs a bit with each emulator and game. Most texture packs should come with instructions, so find one you like and download it to try it out. This guide should give you an idea of the general process (using Project64 as an example).

Unlock Anything with Built-In Cheat Codes

Remember devices like the GameShark, that could unlock a ton of cheat codes—both official and unofficial? You may not realize that lots of emulators have this built-in, meaning you can unlock just about anything your heart desires. Don't feel like playing the game over again from scratch to unlock extra levels? You can probably unlock them in the cheats menu. Want to have all the bonus characters for when your friends come over? No need to do all that work again (after all, you've probably done it once before in your life).

Some emulators will have the cheats built-in for each individual game you play, so you can just check off the ones you want. Others, however, may require you to enter a code to activate the cheat (shown above). So, Google around to find cheats for your game (Cheatzilla is a good place to start) and enter them in the cheat window to activate them.

Play Online with Your Friends

My greatest memories of these old games aren't playing them by myself—they're playing with all my friends from elementary and high school. Unfortunately, I don't live near most of those friends anymore, but thanks to emulators, I can still play with them over the internet using the built-in Netplay features.

It may sound crazy to think you can play Super Smash Bros. online, but when you think about playing Warcraft on a 14k modem back in the day, it doesn't seem so crazy. You just need an emulator with Netplay support to make it happen. Some emulators, like ZSNES, will require you to forward a port on your router and give your IP address to a friend. Others, like those with Kaillera support (including MAME, Nestopia, Gens, Project64k, and more) will let you connect to a server to play with people from all over the globe in just a few clicks.

Check out this guide to see how to play peer-to-peer with emulators like ZSNES. To see Kaillera in action with a Nintendo 64 emulator, this YouTube video is good for a basic overview.

Obviously, not all these tweaks are for everyone. You may prefer the look of the original game no matter what, or you might be a big believer in earning your cheat codes. But if you're looking for something a little new and different, these tweaks are a great way to take your emulated games beyond their original incarnations.

At a small media event in Mountain View today, Google announced the launch of Chromebox for Meetings, a $999 Core i7-based ASUS Chromebox setup with a remote, camera and microphone for conference rooms. The system uses Hangouts in the backend and is also compatible with existing conferencing setups from Vidyo and UberConference (for phone calls).

The system includes all the components necessary to run a meeting, with the exception of a display. For the first year, users don’t have to pay any additional costs; after that, the cost is $250 per year. The product is available in the U.S. today and is coming to Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and U.K. Businesses in the U.S. will be able to buy it through CDW, and resellers will be able to get it from SYNNEX. Both HP and Dell will make Chromeboxes for meetings available in the coming months.

As Google VP for Product Management Caesar Sengupta noted during today’s event, despite all the advances in video conferencing technology, remote meetings are still too hard. Over time, Google itself has developed a variety of solutions for its own teams and now, the company has decided to make some of this technology available to other businesses as well.

Sengupta hopes that this product “will transform meetings and meeting rooms. When you think of a meeting room, they have looked the same for the last 25 years.” It’s never clear when a meeting room is really available because the printout from the morning that somebody pinned to the door may not be up to date anymore. 

The system is deeply integrated with Google Calendar, which will also allow you to schedule conference rooms. The display will always show the schedule for the room (and rotate pictures in the background). If you’ve ever set up a Chromecast, the design will look very familiar.

Because the system uses Hangouts in the background, users can attend these meetings from any device that can run Hangouts. In total, Chromebox for Meetings supports up to 15 video streams (Hangouts itself tops out at 10 streams). As these streams will often go out over the public Internet, they will be encrypted.

As for the hardware, the system comes with an Intel i7-based Chromebox with four USB ports and a Logitech HD camera that can do full HD and automatically switch resolutions based on bandwidth. It also includes a microphone with a volume controls, built-in DSP and a remote control that includes a full QWERTY keyboard on the back and connects to the Chromebox over a nano-sized USB adapter.

On the software side, Chromebox for Meetings was designed to stay out of the way as much as possible. To start a meeting, users just pick up the remote and get started. There are no pass codes or PINs. If a room is available, users can also set up ad-hoc meetings, and whenever another meetings is about to start in the same room, the software will gently remind the current users that it’s time to wrap up their call.

Unlike regular meeting software, whenever somebody joins the meeting, the system automatically mutes them instead of announcing their arrival with a loud ping. By default, everybody is muted and Hangouts just un-mutes them when they start speaking.

Just like with large Chromebook deployments, these Chromeboxes can be managed remotely through the ChromeOS management console.

Google tested the product internally, as well as with beta partners like Lytro, Gilt, SoftBank and Yelp. In the process, Sengupta said, it found that having more video conferences tends to help improve the corporate culture and increases trust in remote teams.

Typical video conferencing systems, Google argues, tend to be expensive and too hard to set up. Because of this, they are often only available to high-level executives. The company hopes that its solution will be quickly adapted among enterprise. The price, after all, is less than a single ticket between San Francisco and New York.

Fox can't bring Cosmos to the entire universe, but it does plan on sending it around the globe in a major way. According to Variety, Fox has high hopes for Neil deGrasse Tyson's upcoming miniseries on physics and astronomy, and it plans to use two different networks to promote it worldwide. Within a week of the series' US debut, on March 9th, the show will begin airing internationally on 120 Fox outlets and 90 National Geographic outlets. In some areas — the US included — it'll even be airing on multiple networks, with the hope of bringing the series to different demographics' attention.

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It’s clobberin’ time! Well, at least for comment sections across the land it is, because multiple outlets are reporting that Fox’s Josh Trank-directed reboot of Fantastic Four has begun a battery of screen tests to nail down its leads for the hotly anticipated superhero flick. According to several reports including The Hollywood Reporter, House of Cards‘ Kate Mara and Shameless star Emmy Rossum tested for the part of Sue Storm, better known as the Invisible Woman, on Tuesday.

It’s also being reported that Miles Teller, one of the most sought after young actors in town after a dynamite turn in Sundance Grand Jury and Audience award winner Whiplash, has tested for the part of the group’s elastic leader Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic. Here’s hoping that Teller’s performance as Richards would be more The Spectacular Now than That Awkward Moment…

Last, but not least, Christian Cooke (Romeo & Juliet) has supposedly tested for the part of Ben Grimm, the craggy orange golem of the group better known as The Thing. Given that Cooke is an unreasonably handsome British actor and this is a big budget superhero film, we’d say that there’s a 99% chance that he has this part on lock. Better start working on your Brooklyn accent and hanging out with hot blind sculptors, Christian!

As of this writing, the only actor attached to the reboot is Chronicle collaborator Michael B. Jordan, who has previously been reported to play Johnny Storm, the fiery ladies man who moonlights as the Human Torch. Previously, reports naming actresses like Nerdist Podcast guest Saoirse Ronan and the One Olsen to Rule Them All, Elizabeth Olsen, were circulating, but have since been discredited. Yesterday’s news that Kit Harrington has signed on to period drama Testament of Youth also means that Jon Snow will know nothin’ about what it means to be exposed to cosmic radiation and develp superpowers.

In a move that will surprise literally no one, The Hollywood Reporter is also reporting that Doctor Doom (formerly played by Julian McMahon) will be the villain in the tentpole feature and will likely be looking for a big name to balance out the core cast of rising stars. In a move that may surprise some people, the studio evidently “isn’t ruling out switching genders for the role,” a move which is guaranteed to stoke the coals of internet intrigue (or outrage (honestly, how do you guys have the energy for this?)). Now before you go crying “Continutity!” in the quemments below, take a moment and consider the following: if a female Doctor Doom and a black Human Torch are the biggest problems in your life right now, then you must lead a relatively problem-free existence. Otherwise, just STFU and let Trank work his magic. Who knows? You might just wind up liking it.

The Fantastic Four is set to open June 19, 2015, so mark your calendars. Who would you like to see play the Fantastic Four? Let us know in the comments below or tell me like a herald of Galactus on Twitter.

HT: The Hollywood Reporter

Twitter / TheSmarmyBum: Super Bowl security headquarters accidentally shows their wifi username and password on national television (via Aaron)

absorptions: Mystery signal from a helicopter (via Dianna L.)

Last night, YouTube suggested a video for me. It was a raw clip from a news helicopter filming a police chase in Kansas City, Missouri. I quickly noticed a weird interference in the audio, especially the left channel, and thought it must be caused by the chopper’s engine. I turned up the volume and realized it’s not interference at all, but a mysterious digital signal! And off we went again. The signal sits alone on the left audio channel, so I can completely isolate it. Judging from the spectrogram, the modulation scheme seems to be BFSK, switching the carrier between 1200 and 2200 Hz. I demodulated it by filtering it with a lowpass and highpass sinc in SoX and comparing outputs. Now I had a bitstream at 1200 bps. […] What could it be? Location telemetry from the helicopter? Information about the camera direction? Video timestamps? The first guess seems to be correct. It is supported by the relationship of two of the three byte groups. If the 4 first bits of each byte are ignored, the data forms a smooth gradient of three-digit numbers in base-10. When plotted parametrically, they form an intriguing winding curve. It is very similar to this plot of the car’s position (blue, yellow) along with viewing angles from the helicopter (green), derived from the video by magical image analysis (only the first few minutes shown) When the received curve is overlaid with the car’s location trace, we see that 100 steps on the curve scale corresponds to exactly 1 minute of arc on the map! Using this relative information, and the fact that the helicopter circled around the police station in the end, we can plot all the received data points in Google Earth to see the location trace of the helicopter.

Amazon's Kindle Worlds, the company's publishing arm for legally-sanctioned fan fiction, is expanding fast. The company announced today that it's adding seven new properties, including GI Joe, Veronica Mars, and the Pretty Little Liars spinoff Ravenswood. That brings the total number of fan fiction franchises available exclusively through Amazon up to 20.

The announcement comes on the 50th anniversary of GI Joe, which is owned by Hasbro. "Hasbro now enters a new segment of the business by embracing the concept of open-source storytelling, and officially unlocking the world of GI Joe to our fans through Amazon’s Kindle Worlds," a Hasbro executive said in a statement, suggesting megabrands are starting to recognize that fanfic is a...

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No good at pool? Never fear, Cassapa is here! [Alex Porto] has created an augmented reality system for playing pool, and it means almost anyone can make those cool trick shots!

Ca-what? Cassapa (“caçapa”) is a Portuguese word for pool table pocket. The software works by placing a webcam directly above the pool table for image recognition. Dedicated software interprets the image and identifies the position of the holes, borders, balls and the cue which can then be used to calculate game physics. A projector then projects the forecast physics and allows you to make tiny adjustments — updated in real-time — to make the perfect shot.

Unfortunately, having a big projector shining down on your pool table won’t exactly make anyone believe you’re actually good at pool. Although if you could combine this with Google Glass or any other vision augmenting goggles… that would be pretty cool. Well, you’d still be terribly dishonest and a cheater — but anyway, take a look at the video after the break.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyuzagXqEP8

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen augmented pool though — what if you hooked it up to a robot?

Filed under: Virtual Reality

When Arthur Chu got the call saying he'd been selected to go on Jeopardy, his first move was thorough and decisive: He went to Google and typed in "jeopardy strategy."

"I knew that just like in terms of my natural knowledge base, I wasn't ready to go on Jeopardy," Chu told me on the phone this morning. "I wasn't like Ken Jennings—automatically knowing everything from the top of my head. So I had to train."

By training—that is, going through Internet message boards and reading up on past Jeopardy winners—Chu developed an unorthodox strategy that has made headlines over the last week. It's rare, controversial, and effective—and it's turned him into something of a grand villain for some fans of the long-running quiz show. Just one glance at his Twitter feed will show you some of the ridiculous vitriolic messages he's gotten over the past few days, as his story—and winning streak—started picking up steam. (He's won four games so far, and needs one more to get into the Tournament of Champions. His next appearance will be televised on February 24.)

So what makes Chu so unusual? While most players will start from the top of each column on the Jeopardy board and progress sequentially as question difficulty increases, Chu picks questions at random, using what's called the Forrest Bounce to hunt for the three Daily Doubles, which are often scattered among the harder questions in every game. Instead of moving from the $200 question to the $400 question and so forth, Chu might bounce between all of the $1,600 or $2,000 questions—not the kind of strategy you often see on Jeopardy.

Chu does this for two reasons. For one, it throws everyone off balance. "It's a lot more mentally tiring to have to jump around the board like that," Chu told me.

More importantly, snagging those Daily Doubles offers him a massive statistical advantage. Since Daily Doubles allow players to bet up to their entire bankrolls, just one can swing an entire Jeopardy match—and Chu's strategy is to control them all, even just to prevent other players from using them.

"The only chance you have to give yourself an edge—the only moment of power, or choice you have in Jeopardy is choosing the next clue if you got the last one right," Chu said. "So if you're unpredictable when you do that, and keep opponents on their toes, it's a lot more mentally tiring and might tick off people in the audience, but it lets you gain and keep an edge that's very important to winning the game."

Chu's Daily Double hunting can be disorienting and unpleasant for an audience accustomed to watching one category at a time. Check it out:

It's clear why this style of play—combined with Chu's slightly arrogant smirk—might upset some Jeopardy fans. But Chu points out that it isn't his job to entertain people. "For us, we're out there playing for real money, and quite a bit of money," he said. "I think it's obvious for me why that'd be more important than making the game fun for the viewers at home. I don't get paid for that—I get paid for winning the game."

Chu, who is 30, works in the legal department of an insurance company, where he reads contracts and does other technical work. He's into gaming, citing BioShock, Portal, and the Arkham games among his favorites. And his dream job, he says, is to work alongside the likes of Troy Baker and Jennifer Hale.

"My first love has always been acting and performing," Chu said, pointing me to his website, which has a voice acting demo roll. "I've always wanted to voice a video game some day... I would be happy to just be the voice of the grunt who gets killed in 20 different ways."

Chu does narration for a webcomic called Erfworld, and he even auditioned for the reality show King of the Nerds:

Chu's unusual Jeopardy strategy has netted him $108,000 so far. Given all this attention—and his success—it's likely we'll see future contestants start adopting it, but it's not a new invention: Chu cites older Jeopardy champions like Chuck Forrest and Roger Craig as inspiration for his techniques. In fact, Chu says, Jeopardy's "contestant coordinators" make it clear to everyone on the show that bouncing around the board is totally allowed.

"They tell you when you come onto Jeopardy, this is how most people play because it's easier to play the game this way—and it is," Chu said. "But the important thing for me was, I wanna maximize my chances of winning."

In theory, the producers of Jeopardy could nullify the bulk of Chu's strategy by shifting up board placement —if every question had an equal chance of being a Daily Double, board bouncing would be pointless. But there's one other wrinkle to Chu's technique: during the Final Jeopardy round, instead of playing for a win, he plays to tie.

Here's where we get into hardcore game theory: to sum it up, Chu bets for the possibilities that 1) both the first- and second-place players will get the final question right, and 2) they'll both get it wrong. (If one player is right and the other is wrong, it's safe to assume the correct player will win.)

So let's say Chu is in first place with $20,000, while, say, Julie is in second place with $18,600. Common sense might dictate that Chu should bet $17,201, so that if Julie bets her whole bankroll, and they both win, Chu beats her by a dollar. (Julie would have $37,200, while Chu would take home $37,201.)

But what if Julie considers that possibility, and then wants to bet so that she'd win if they both get the question wrong? In that case, playing on the assumption that Chu is betting $17,201, Julie would bet $15,800—that way, she'd make the most money if she was right and he was wrong, but she'd still win if they were both wrong, because Chu would have $2,799 and she'd have $2,800.

If there's a tie, of course, both players move on—so Chu bets $17,200, knowing that in both scenarios he'd make it to the next game. (Granted, Julie would still win if they both got the question wrong and she bet less than $15,800, but that's one of the risks to this approach.)

Here's one example of his plan in action:

Of course, the strategy was irrelevant in this case, because Chu was the only person to get the right answer, but you can see why he bet what he did—if they had both been wrong, a tie would be the worst-case scenario, and if they had both been right, he'd win.

It will be fascinating to see whether future Jeopardy contestants emulate Chu's strategy, and how the game changes accordingly. Internet reactions have been mixed; some fans and pundits think he's ruining the integrity of the quiz show, while others think he's improving it. No matter your position, it's hard to deny that now that "optimal Jeopardy strategy" has gone viral, Alex Trebek could have a whole new type of show to host.

"When I first started, I thought maybe I should just hide in a hole and wait for this to die down, because it's gonna be so unrelentingly negative," Chu said. "But I discovered it's not really so bad. Most people get what I'm trying to do, and don't judge me for it. And the people who don't like me? Well, you can never please everyone."