Abdulaziz Alhamidi

Wow.

You know your video game has made it when you get to appear on late night television and it's not at the behest of a marketing team pushing an upcoming blockbuster.

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Belmont Avenue is a perfectly typical street on Chicago's North Side. There's a stretch of it not too far from Wrigley Field that has a good used book store and a bakery with decent crognets, and as you head west from there, the storefront shopping slowly disappears from the streetscape, leaving you, before long, on an ordinary residential stretch where people do ordinary things, like getting into a quarrel with a melee weapon-wielding cab driver while driving an allegedly stolen car and then plowing into nearly a half-dozen other cars while fleeing the scene in a panic. A good place to raise your kids.

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Markus Persson, or Notch, is known across the Internet for throwing lavish parties and wearing a trilby. Oh yeah, you might’ve also heard of a little indie game he made. It’s called Minecraft. It’s only sold something like 30 million copies, which raises the question of why doesn’t Notch own a more expensive-looking hat.

Well, Notch is going to be on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Thursday night.

Quoth Notch’s Twitter:

This is some well-deserved publicity for the world of games, particularly indies. But I have to say, why relegate our Swedish friend to the after midnight spot. I mean, the man has sold 30 million copies of his game. Any musician or actor who propelled a product to that kind of success would be Tonight Show material. 

(via http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?u=/watch?v=hE2lna5Wxuo&feature=share&a=0EFR5s4Meyza7NcGXtOgOA)

Shutterstock

Nov. 12 - 13, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Amazon released a “login and pay with Amazon” service today that lets its users pay for online goods and services using their Amazon account information.

Amazon has 215 million active customer accounts. Online retailers can now invite those customers to pay with their Amazon credentials, rather than entering it anew.

Friction with payments is one of the major barriers to e-commerce. 50 percent of buyers want to create accounts while shopping to save purchase preferences, but eighty-six percent are bothered by having to repeatedly enter their information.

Lengthy checkout processes result in fewer conversions and dropped shopping carts, and Javelin Strategy and Research firm found that customers are increasingly choosing to shop on sites with easier online payment systems.

PayPal has long been the dominant player in Web payments, and there are few companies out there capable of taking on its strength. Amazon, another giant in the realm of “buying stuff online,” is one of the few (if the only) companies that could gain legitimate traction here.

Amazon sells more stuff online than its 12 biggest competitors combined, and a significant amount of growth within e-commerce spending is driven by Amazon. It did $61 billion in sales in 2012.

Furthermore PayPal has a bad rep when it comes to customer service and charging merchants and customers. Real competition could perhaps force a little more friendliness, and Amazon is known for cutting out unnecessary fees to undercut the competition.

Now with sites that have “Login and Pay with Amazon,” recognized customers won’t have to deal with registering, and will be able to manage and track orders, see their purchases history, access discounts, and quickly pull up their shipping and billing addresses.

Of course, if you wanted, you can still enter your credit card information or pay with PayPal. If you wanted.

Easy checkout is increasingly important now that mobile commerce is on the rise. Payment friction is even more pronounced on mobile devices and minimizing clicks is important for any business that hopes to sell anything online.

Through a “set of widgets and APIs,” these businesses can get the service up and running through Amazon. Hundreds of brands across the wide range of industries are already signed up. This could also represent a threat to third-party payment providers like Stripe and Square.

Amazon and PayPal are both rapidly churning out new products and services. PayPal recently spent $800 million to buy backend payment company Braintree in an effort. 

“The consumer side and the merchant side have to come together for the next generation of e-commerce,” Braintree’s CEO Bill Ready told VentureBeat. “Payments will become a network effect play about who can make it easiest for merchants and consumers to connect with one another with context-driven experiences. To do that, you need to have thousands of merchants and millions of consumers.”

Amazon has all of those things. It is also plugging away at other areas of the business, including Amazon Web Services, the Kindle Fire, original television programming, and maybe even a Kindle TV. Meanwhile PayPal is making a push into offline retail with point-of-sale and beacon systems.

Both within e-commerce and without, Amazon is trying to get involved in everything.

The old iPad 4 will supposedly be replaced by something more in line with the design of the iPad mini.

Chris Foresman

"Sources familiar with the matter" are telling AllThingsD that Apple's next product announcement will be taking place on October 22 and that the event will likely focus on new iPads, the Mac Pro, and OS X 10.9 Mavericks. AllThingsD has a strong track record when it comes to Apple news (the publication correctly predicted the company's September 10 iPhone event), and the date would make sense given the iPad-focused announcements Apple made in October of 2012. If Apple's scheduling is the same as it normally is, look for official invitations to go out at some point next Tuesday.

Apple refreshed a good-sized chunk of its product line in September—its event on September 10 gave us iOS 7 and a pair of new iPhones. The iMac was quietly refreshed with new Haswell CPUs a couple of weeks later. That said, much of Apple's lineup is still due for some sprucing up. The larger iPad is expected to get a physical redesign to bring it more in line with the iPad mini, and the mini may (or may not) be getting a Retina display to go with the expected internal upgrades. Both Retina MacBook Pros and the new Mac Pro that Apple first teased back in June are also due for a release date, and all of these product lines are sufficiently high-profile that we could see them sharing stage time with the iPads at the event (the Mac mini is also due for a Haswell refresh, but don't expect Apple to dwell much on its smallest, cheapest Mac). Both the redesigned 2012 iMac and the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro were unveiled at last year's October event, and the recent Golden Master build of OSX 10.9 gives Apple even more reason to talk up its Macs.

Analysts are also looking for an all-new (perhaps watch-shaped) product line, but if it's coming, Apple's notoriously sieve-like supply chain has yet to give us any indication. We would expect an event that focuses primarily on the iPads and on Apple's professional Macs at this point. Whatever is announced, we'll be covering the events as they happen, and we'll be giving the review treatment to any new hardware and software that Apple sees fit to release.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

digg:

Tiny people. Teeny, tiny people.

Customers at a cafe in New York City’s West Village were shocked to watch an angry young woman use her “telekinetic powers” to lift a man off the ground and cause other supernatural trouble in an elaborate staged prank. The stunt was made as a clever promotion for Carrie, the upcoming remake of 1976 horror flick of the same name. The movie opens in theaters on October 18th, 2013.

Thanks Mable Syrup!

So what have Japanese students been doing in class of late? Well doing a search for 授業中 [Jyugyouchuu] (meaning "during class") brings up a load of photos which give us some idea of what shenanigans some of them get up to.
The following photos include stuff that the students have doodled during class too.

First photo - a bunch of young ladies doing the Japanese Peace Sign.
https://twitter.com/mrn_ck/status/381030545766895616/photo/1

So what is it like in your class? Folks focused on study or larking about? Is your teacher good at teaching or about as useful as a slap to the face with a wet dog?

https://twitter.com/724yuirin/status/382160916290080769/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Murata0527/status/382679618508972032/photo/1

https://twitter.com/mizuki0305/status/380892046644350976/photo/1

Looks like some eroge during a computing class?
https://twitter.com/OtaakO/status/375987151399178240/photo/1

The tweet says "How to play Kancolle [艦これ] during class."
https://twitter.com/azuma_higashi_p/status/377983839320035328/photo/1

"How to use your mobile phone during class."
https://twitter.com/koukouaruarub/status/345940882719117312/photo/1

"Playing Monster Hunter 4 while poking about on the mobile phone."
https://twitter.com/kleme2222/status/382676153409863680/photo/1

"How to use your phone during class without being caught."
https://twitter.com/seisyundayone/status/349870014712647683/photo/1

"I want to do this during class."
https://twitter.com/girly_moe/status/329993123012964353/photo/1

https://twitter.com/_yuzu_petix_x/status/358765901937516544/photo/1

https://twitter.com/vvvok3/status/382878916525842432/photo/1

https://twitter.com/ptw245/status/341161090555723777/photo/1

https://twitter.com/tomisuke_LTE/status/381439780430430208/photo/1

https://twitter.com/tomisuke_LTE/status/361128087578103809/photo/1

https://twitter.com/majikayo2700/status/379951793658007552/photo/1

https://twitter.com/saki25cl_luv/status/382842044927852545/photo/1

https://twitter.com/gougounow/status/382757237095006208/photo/1

"My friend made this during class."
https://twitter.com/hokkory_bot/status/317267998756990978/photo/1

https://twitter.com/LoveRugby14/status/375190534278479872/photo/1

https://twitter.com/O5kU/status/361305485426704384/photo/1

https://twitter.com/chanmiyaso/status/380633614834089984

https://twitter.com/micheru_s/status/253382073144987648/photo/1

https://twitter.com/rilakkuma_111/status/380268056800272384/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Koman_25/status/378332122714349568/photo/1

https://twitter.com/nama_kubi/status/384921735683776513/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Cyoripon24/status/383070165488771072/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Skynm508/status/379230557462220800/photo/1

https://twitter.com/yumi6666666/status/378881659682037760/photo/1

https://twitter.com/j_as06/status/378494091920560128/photo/1

https://twitter.com/cwe0113/status/378328189895856128/photo/1

"How to drink juice in class without being caught."
https://twitter.com/ikoringo/status/378034664348188672/photo/1

https://twitter.com/kfbkiou3/status/378402510265778176/photo/1

https://twitter.com/hashibu0117/status/377672057729085440/photo/1

https://twitter.com/jouhoku_m2b_ren/status/377603069263228928/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Fuuka0920/status/376905064624824320/photo/1

https://twitter.com/teeyan0617/status/376897122005561344/photo/1

https://twitter.com/shunsaku0125/status/359163411369717760/photo/1

https://twitter.com/szk_182/status/375567385316438016/photo/1

https://twitter.com/8girls_kne/status/360786231895932929/photo/1

https://twitter.com/ron1224ryu/status/375390237217669121/photo/1

https://twitter.com/gakusei_2525/status/325636528929906689/photo/1

https://twitter.com/chamimayu/status/364201953451974656/photo/1

"Homo"
https://twitter.com/kasukakun/status/380969526453477376/photo/1

https://twitter.com/fruit0042/status/382319231712235520/photo/1

https://twitter.com/0413Beams/status/375092364080992256/photo/1

https://twitter.com/ogataking/status/383062755101511681/photo/1

https://twitter.com/heroyattin/status/325075341725007872/photo/1

https://twitter.com/nachankittyluut/status/381087728277782528/photo/1

https://twitter.com/LovddT/status/382259764089978881/photo/1

https://twitter.com/chaaasoyuri/status/380193419697467392/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Suooopy/status/380708025343815680/photo/1

https://twitter.com/_____kure_____/status/357682659004145664/photo/1

https://twitter.com/aina_amaha283/status/383112462045704192/photo/1

https://twitter.com/kakakakaedo/status/382337696691011584/photo/1

https://twitter.com/005luke/status/381011143570903040/photo/1

https://twitter.com/005luke/status/380630432829550592/photo/1

https://twitter.com/An_2390/status/380683880790908929/photo/1

https://twitter.com/myunaito/status/380670047955337216/photo/1

https://twitter.com/kkk__kakikaki/status/380642214197469184/photo/1

https://twitter.com/kototo74/status/382845141934800896/photo/1

https://twitter.com/potesala_119/status/383041408518479872/photo/1

https://twitter.com/mmr_mro/status/383152175607603201/photo/1

https://twitter.com/supika04/status/380342654338228224/photo/1

https://twitter.com/ayami1212/status/379961692764913664/photo/1

https://twitter.com/izuuuuuu611/status/379907531587330048/photo/1

https://twitter.com/myunaito/status/380257623263555585/photo/1

https://twitter.com/azunyan_519/status/379615457184976896/photo/1

https://twitter.com/1120Riitan/status/380316158785630209/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Jyun_xix/status/383583537149919232/photo/1

https://twitter.com/masiro0903/status/384314844695912448/photo/1

https://twitter.com/82_yuuu/status/380586649626763264/photo/1

And if you want to see other photos that I've taken in various high schools in Japan then check out the School tag.

• Japanese School Boys
• Japanese School Uniforms
• Japanese High School Photos
• Kyudo
• Fujisawa High School Photos 2
• Fujisawa High School Photos 1
• Nihon University
• Japanese School Girl Uniforms
• Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School
• Japanese Archery
• View more

Read more about Mirai Suenaga >>>

Aaron Paul being confused by fashion

http://anasomnia.com/

http://corgiorgy.com/

http://eelslap.com/

http://essaytyper.com/

http://www.fallingfalling.com/

http://heyyeyaaeyaaaeyaeyaa.com/

http://tholman.com/texter/

http://www.mapcrunch.com/

http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/

http://omfgdogs.com/

http://www.pointerpointer.com/

http://procatinator.com/

http://www.rainymood.com/

http://thequietplaceproject.com/

15 Websites you will not regret opening

http://zoomquilt.org/

سعاد الشمراني (الرياض)

كشف المتحدث الرسمي للرئاسة العامة لهيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر الدكتور تركي الشليل، أن الرئيس العام للهيئة الدكتور عبداللطيف آل الشيخ أصدر تعميما بإزالة الدعامات الموجودة في الدوريات الميدانية التابعة للهيئة، وبين الشليل أنه تم التأكيد على الفروع بإزالتها فورا وستتم متابعة ذلك.

من جهة أخرى انتهى الطب الشرعي صباح أمس من إجراء عملية الصفة التشريحية للجثة الثانية لضحيتي المطاردة وسيسلمها وفق توجيهات الجهات المعنية، ويستطيع الطب الشرعي عبر الفحوصات المخبرية التوصل إلى إن كان المتوفى قد استخدم مواد سمية أو مسكرة وما شابه ذلك، وسيصدر تقرير الطب الشرعي بعد عشرة أيام تقريبا ويتم تسليمه للجهات المختصة بصفة سرية.

المصدر: عكاظ

Lannister lions Tywin, Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion get made over as actual lions in Disney style. They just can't wait to be the power behind the Iron Throne.

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Game creators who have tried Valve's unusual new game controller tell Kotaku that the device holds a lot of promise. But make no mistake, they also say it feels pretty different from what we're used to.

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SteamOS isn't just an effort to move gamers and game-makers over to a Linux-based system, it also wants to move them from an office desk or laptop to the living room TV. Valve has already tested the waters for this by rolling out the Big Picture interface for Steam last September, making the service much easier to navigate with a controller in hand and a big-screen TV a few feet away.

This initiative seems to be paying dividends in getting PC game developers to support handheld controllers in addition to the PC's traditional mouse and keyboard. When Big Picture mode was launched last September, 23.7 percent of the games available on Steam were listed with full or partial controller support (382 games total). Of the games that have launched on Steam since then, about 48.4 percent have featured full or partial controller support (raising the total proportion of games in this category on Steam to 29.4 percent or 617 games total).

This could be a case of Valve simply favoring games that support controllers for Steam inclusion, of course, but it could also be indicative of a general trend toward less keyboard/mouse-heavy games that has nothing to do with Big Picture mode. On the flip side, developers might be reacting to Steam's long-running chatter about bringing PC gaming to the living room by adding more consistent controller support to their PC titles. In any case, the idea that you need a keyboard and mouse to play a large majority of PC games, or that the platform is unfriendly to games that need handheld controllers, is looking a lot less relevant than it did just a year or so ago.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Valve

Valve's SteamOS logo. It's coming to your living rooms "soon."

Oct. 29-30, 2013
Redwood City, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Just like that, Valve is challenging Microsoft and other console makers on a host of fronts in the gaming business with the announcement of a new a new SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system focused on games and entertainment.

While Valve is known as both the creator of Steam digital distribution platform and the maker of blockbuster games like Portal and Half-Life, it has also staked out its claim as the steward for a community of hardcore game fans who want openness. As such, it represents a very credible threat to Microsoft, which is often viewed with suspicion in that community for having corporate interests at its heart. If Valve can marshal community support for the SteamOS, through the grassroots from the bottom up, it could loosen the grip that Microsoft and other console makers have on hardcore game fans in the living room. And if Valve gets gamers, it could very well get fans of TV and music as well.

“With SteamOS, ‘openness’ means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to,” Valve said today. “Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation.”

Valve is using its position as the king of digital game distribution on the PC to expand its reach into operating systems and console games in the living room. Steam is already available in 185 countries for digital game downloading. In effect, the SteamOS will enable gamers to play their PC games in the living room and for Valve to create a Linux-based OS as a rival to Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform. But Valve has not yet said if the SteamOS is going to be open source. It simply looks like it will be more open than its rivals’ platforms.

Microsoft angered Valve last year be creating a store for its Windows 8 platform that served as the default store for Windows products, much like Apple does with the iTunes App Store. The problem was that Valve had a perfectly good store for games with Steam, running on the Windows PC. Gabe Newell, the managing director at Valve, called that move a “catastrophe” for openness in games.

And as a result, Valve decided it needed to create a Linux-based rival operating system to Windows for games built for big screen entertainment. Valve says hundreds of games are already running natively on SteamOS. Valve said the SteamOS supports in-home streaming, which enables any SteamOS machine to stream PC and Mac games from any computer to a big screen. Since Steam already has a huge following, the OS can have immediate traction. Players won’t have to give up their lists of favorite games, online friends, and other Steam features.

With Linux, Valve can tailor an OS for gaming, adding features such as better audio, Valve said. For hardware manufacturers, this means anyone else will be able to field a “SteamBox” console that can run Steam games on a television. For game makers, it means they will have another game platform to support, but one that takes their interests at heart, in contrast to larger companies that have other concerns besides games. Valve could also position itself as the game console that is friendliest to “indie” game makers.

Valve said the announcement is one of three coming soon. Based on the timer on the Valve site, the next one is coming Wednesday. Newell said last week that Linux is the future of gaming despite its tiny share of the market today. That led to speculation that Valve would do a “Steam box” based on PC hardware and the Linux operating system. The idea is to make Valve’s PC-focused Steam system easier to use and display on TVs and to head off attempts by Microsoft to make Windows and Xbox into the kings of the living room.

Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve Software in 1996. The software company went on to produce beloved games like first-person shooters Half-Life and Half-Life 2 for the PC. In 2003, Valve released its Steam digital-distribution store. Today it is one of the biggest online retailers for PC games. In doing so, Valve moved beyond being just a game maker to being a platform owner, and that has made it much more powerful as a player in the game industry.

In 2012, Valve introduced the Big Picture mode for its Steam software. This optimizes Steam for use on HD televisions. It has big text and a controller-optimized user interface. At the time, Newell claimed this was the first step in getting Steam into the living room.

Newell fueled speculation in January about using the Xi3 gamer PC as the basis for a possible Steam box, but then he went quiet. Valve also had a number of layoffs, and Xi3 tried to dispel wrong assumptions people made about whether its Xi3 Piston was itself the Steam box. But now it seems clear it could be one of many different SteamBox consoles.

But the ambition with the SteamOS is clear. Valve is also will target fans of TV, music, and movies with the SteamOS.

Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Despite being the desperate girl on the dance floor, it looks like BlackBerry has found a suitor.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited sent BlackBerry a letter of intent today, published by Business Insider. The letter says Fairfax would pay $9 a share, acquiring the company for $4.7 billion. It will pay out all of the existing stock holders in cash and take on all of the remaining shares for itself. It currently owns 10 percent of BlackBerry’s common shares.

Earlier today, the company’s stock were sitting at $8.23 a share, down a little over five percent since opening. On this news, however, the stock took a sharp upswing and is now approaching the $9 mark.

BlackBerry recently admitted that it will release losses of over $950 million in its upcoming earnings call. On top of that, the company will let go of around 4,500 employees in order to get its bottom line under control.

The letter goes on to say that the terms have been pre-approved by BlackBerry’s board. One of these terms is that Fairfax will take BlackBerry private after a period of due diligence is completed by November 4 this year.

There were reports over the weekend that BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis was talking with private equity firms, courting a bid for the beleaguered company. Of course, even if due diligence goes through and Fairfax is still interested in BlackBerry, the deal is subject to further approvals, including regulatory ones.

BBRY data by YCharts

Report: Sega to purchase Atlus' parent company for 14 billion yen originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 18 Sep 2013 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.