Darendukes

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  A shot of Hand ID from LG's G8 video. [credit: LG ]

I can just imagine a group of Saturday Night Live writers sitting around after the iPhone X launch. "Hey guys," one of them says, "How can we make fun of Face ID?"

" I know!" says another, "Let's do 'Hand ID,' we'll say the phone can read your palm like a psychic."

"That sounds great!" says a third. "I'll cue up a laugh track."

Enlarge / A girl watches a video on youtube. (credit: Getty |ALAIN JOCARD)

Tips for committing suicide are appearing in children’s cartoons on YouTube and the YouTube Kids app.

The sinister content was first flagged by doctors on the pediatrician-run parenting blog pedimom.com and later reported by the Washington Post. An anonymous “physician mother” initially spotted the content while watching cartoons with her son on YouTube Kids as a distraction while he had a nosebleed. Four minutes and forty-five seconds into a video, the cartoon cut away to a clip of a man, who resembles Internet personality Joji (formerly Filthy Frank). He walks onto the screen and simulates cutting his wrist. “Remember, kids, sideways for attention, longways for results,” he says and then walks off screen. The video then quickly flips back to the cartoon.

Man giving kids wrist-slitting tips in the middle of a cartoon found on YouTube.

“I am disturbed, I am saddened, I am disgusted,” the physician wrote. “But I am also relieved that I was there to see this video with my own eyes, so that I could take the appropriate actions to protect my family.” Those actions included deleting the YouTube Kids app and forever banning it from the house.

According to Caters New Agency, the albino pinkbelly sideneck turtle was born with her heart exposed. In humans, this condition is called ectopia cordis, but in veterinary medicine there is no name for the life-threatening genetic defect. Even with her heart beating outside of her shell, the baby turtle, named Hope, has defied the odds and survived. Hope lives with her owner Michael Aquilina in New Jersey. Aquilina, known as AquaMike on Instagram, was given the turtle by a friend who felt Aquilina had the passion and experience to give Hope the longest, happiest life possible. The little turtle arrived at Aquilina's home in November 2018 and continues to grow stronger with each passing day. 

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Enlarge / Administration of a measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. (credit: Getty | MediaNews Group/Orange County )

Demand for measles vaccines leapt 500 percent last month in Clark County, Washington—a hotbed for anti-vaccine sentiment that has now become the epicenter of a ferocious measles outbreak.

As of February 6, the county—which sits just north of the border from Portland, Oregon—has tallied 50 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases of measles since January 1. The case count is rising swiftly, with figures more than doubling in just the last two weeks. On January 18, the county declared a public health emergency due to the outbreak.

Health officials have long feared an outbreak in the area, given the rampant skepticism of vaccines driven by misinformation and fear-mongering by anti-vaccine advocates. Only 76.5 percent of kindergarteners in Clark County had all the standard immunizations during the 2017-2018 school year. Overall, the county’s population is below the 92-percent to 94-percent range some experts consider necessary to curb the spread of disease.

Enlarge / The Opportunity rover leaves its landing site in Eagle Crater on Mars back in 2004. (credit: NASA)

Late Tuesday night, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent their final data uplink to the Opportunity rover on Mars. Over this connection, via the Deep Space Network, the American jazz singer Billie Holiday crooned "I'll Be Seeing You," a song that closes with the lines:

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you

The scientists waited to hear some response from their long-silent rover, which had been engulfed in a global dust storm last June, likely coating its solar panels in a fatal layer of dust. Since then, the team of scientists and engineers has sent more than 835 commands, hoping the rover will wake up from its long slumber—that perhaps winds on Mars might have blown off some of the dust that covered the panels.

Enlarge / Of the millions of copies of Super Mario Bros. ever sold, this is the rarest and most valuable known to exist. (credit: Wata Games)

A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES has sold for $100,150, setting a new record for the video game-collecting market and perhaps ushering in a new era for the valuation of gaming rarities.

Before you go searching to see if that old cartridge in your attic might be your gateway to riches, note that this copy of the game is so valuable primarily because it’s one of the earliest known copies of the game, and in near-perfect condition. The box in question comes from Nintendo's extremely limited "test market launch" for the NES in New York City and Los Angeles starting in late 1985 (no one actually knows the exact date). These copies didn't come in the usual shrink wrap but were instead sealed with a small matte or glossy sticker (this handy guide outlines the many different Super Mario Bros. box variants released between 1985 and 1994).

Deniz Kahn—CEO and cofounder of game-grading service Wata Games, which evaluated this specimen—estimates that only 2,000 to 10,000 copies of each of the 27 test market games were ever made in this sticker-sealed style. That makes finding even an opened box decades later rare enough. Finding one with the sticker seal intact is even rarer; Kahn estimates only a few dozen exist across the whole test-market line.

Stephen King published his bestselling novel, Pet Sematary, 35 years ago, and it has definitely stood the test of time. We think we know the story, but there will be some unexpected, horrifying twists in the new film adaptation, judging by the spooky latest trailer.

(Spoilers for original book and film below.)

Staunch King fans know the basic plot by now: a doctor named Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves his family from the big city (Chicago in the book, Boston in the 2019 film) to a charming small town in Maine. The new house is right by a busy highway on one side and bumps up against a forest in back. So many local pets meet their demise on the highway that the children have set up a "Pet Sematary" in the forest to bury their beloved animals. Louis' daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence) discovers the site while walking in the woods.

We had our doubts when FX first announced it was adapting the New Zealand cult hit "mockumentary" What We Do in the Shadows for TV. But the positive buzz has been building since a surprise screening at NYCC last October, and now we have the first full trailer (and a release date). Verdict: the FX version looks like it will be just as clever and witty as the film. Count us among those keen to see the full series.

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement wrote, directed, and starred in the original 2014 horror-comedy, playing vampire roommates Vladislav (Clement) and Viago (Waititi) in Wellington, New Zealand. Given their nocturnal nature, they and their vampire friends haven't adapted to modern life particularly well, and their mishaps as they struggle to navigate mundane trivialities in the 21st century are the source of much of the film's deadpan humor. What We Do in the Shadows garnered a solid cult following after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, ultimately earning $6.9 million—a decent showing given its modest $1.6 million budget.

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  "He awakens!" Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) is the human "familiar" to Nandor (Kayvan Novak). [credit: YouTube/FX ]

The FX adaptation is set in New York City, because where better for vampires to thrive than the city that never sleeps? The vampire roommates this time around are Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), his lover Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and their human "familiar" Guillermo (Harvey Guillen). Plot-wise, the roommates must prepare for the arrival of an ancient vampire called The Baron while dealing with an "energy vampire" (Mark Proksch), who finds a natural target in office environments: "We either bore you with a long conversation or we enrage you."

Enlarge / The logo for Dar. Mario World. (credit: Nintendo / Twitter)

Nintendo announced last night that it will be bringing the classic color-matching puzzle game Dr. Mario to Android and iOS devices in 60 countries as Dr. Mario World early this summer.

Nintendo said the game will be "free to download with optional in-app purchases" but didn't go into detail on how exactly the monetization system would work. Many mobile puzzle games (such as the Candy Crush series) use timer-based "energy" systems to limit the amount you can play without paying in a certain period. Nintendo has used similar cooldown timers in games like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes, though other Nintendo-developed mobile titles have used other monetization methods.

Dr. Mario World is being co-developed by Line, a Japanese mobile developer mainly known for the messaging app of the same name. Nintendo had previously partnered with Line for sticker packs in that app but had relied on a partnership with DeNA for games like Super Mario Run and Miitomo. Nintendo also owns a five percent share of mobile developer Cygames, which released action-RPG Dragalia Lost with Nintendo last year.

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  The iRobot Terra. Check out that huge antenna. [credit: iRobot ]

iRobot is the biggest name in home robotics thanks to its Roomba line, a robotic army of indoor cleaning bots that will suck up the dust and dirt on your floors. But what about that other giant flat surface you own that constantly needs maintaining? For that, the Roomba lawnmower is finally here: the iRobot Terra.

A Roomba lawnmower has been rumored for years. The company has robomower patents going all the way back to 2008, and as recently as 2015 the company was petitioning the FCC to allow it to make its outdoor beacon navigation system legal. The original Roomba was introduced in 2002, when iRobot mostly had the home-robotics market to itself. Waiting 17 years to tackle the great outdoors means iRobot is now jumping into a crowded field of competitors, and it will have to do battle with Robomow, Husqvarna's Automower line, Honda's Miimo, and a line of mowers from Worx, among others.

A lot of the Roomba basics make the trip to the outdoors. The Terra is still a battery-powered robot that wheels around your property. It has all the usual self-docking capabilities that allow it to park itself on the outdoor charger when it's low on power, and it can pick up right where it left off. It uses the same "Home" app as the Roomba, so you can relax indoors and still monitor the robot as it toils in the hot sun.

Enlarge (credit: Amazon)

Amazon said on Wednesday that it will start delivering packages using a six-wheeled sidewalk robot called Amazon Scout.

"Starting today, these devices will begin delivering packages to customers in a neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington," the company's announcement says—that's just north of Seattle. Amazon says that its robots "are the size of a small cooler and roll along sidewalks at a walking pace."

Amazon is far from the first company to experiment with sidewalk robots. Startups like Starship and Marble have been testing the concept for a few years now. But as the Internet's largest retailer, Amazon has the potential to rapidly make sidewalk delivery robots a mainstream phenomenon.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Joe Amon)

Health officials in Clark County, Washington, have declared a public health emergency for a measles outbreak in an area with a high rate of unvaccinated children.

As of Tuesday January 22, officials tallied 23 confirmed cases in the county, which is just north of Portland, Oregon. The case count rose rapidly, more than doubling since last week, and will likely continue to rise amid low vaccination levels in the area.

Nearly eight percent of children in Clark County were exempt from standard vaccination for the 2017-2018 school year, according to state records reported by The Washington Post. Breaking down that eight percent, about seven percent of kids had personal or religious exemptions, and the remaining one percent or so had medical exemptions. Factoring in the rest of the population, the county is below the 92-percent to 94-percent range some experts consider required to prevent the spread of highly contagious diseases such as measles.