Abdulaziz Alhamidi

Those who owned an original grey PlayStation back in the day will no doubt be familiar with Silent Hill, the survival horror series that went on to spawn a host of sequels as well as a questionable feature film of the same name. The series has had its ups and downs over the years, and many feel that it has lost much of what made it so great to begin with, but it looks like the newest instalment is set to bring back what gamers they loved about the originals: the kind of tense, teasing, genuinely horrible horror that makes you consider keeping the lights on at bedtime.

Don’t believe us? Check out these reaction videos from makers Konami.

Last week, a mysterious project known only as “P.T.” was revealed at the Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany. Short for “playable teaser”, the demo was made available to download for PlayStation 4 immediately after it was unveiled, but little else was known about it.

As it turns out, P.T. was actually a brief snippet of the upcoming game Silent Hills, which is in development at Kojima Productions. Headed by industry legend and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima with the help of, curiously, Hollywood director Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim, Pan’s Labyrinth et al), it was also revealed that the game’s protagonist will be voiced by and borrow the likeness of none other than Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame.

▼ No, seriously. Daryl will be in the next Silent Hill.

via NeoGAF

We tried the demo for ourselves over the weekend, and can confirm that it scared the pants off us. It’s also incredibly nasty, featuring a (talking) gore-covered paper bag, things that do much, much more than go bump in the night, and, a <spoiler> baby-type…thing left in a sink </spoiler>. If scares and unrelenting tension are your thing then you’re going to love it.

Konami has since released a series of reaction videos featuring supposedly everyday members of the public playing the P.T. demo for the first time. The videos also feature snippets of the game itself, which looks gorgeous (well, technically speaking anyway!), so if you haven’t had a chance to try it for yourself yet, check these out.

OK, so these are excitable teens/twentysomethings playing a horror game in front of a camera–hardly the best way to prove that your game is scary, we know. So how about these middle-aged ladies playing through the same demo?

Yup, that’ll do it.

P.T. is up on the PlayStation Store now as a free download. Play it alone in a darkened room with headphones on–if you get all the way to the end without jumping, ripping your headphones off, or checking over your shoulder at least once then you’re way braver than any of the RN24 team.

Source/screenshots: YouTube – Konami 573ch 1, 2

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Origin: Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills might just be the horror game we’ve been waiting for【Videos】
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Today is the Clippers Fan Festival in Los Angeles, which means it's the first chance fans have to welcome former Microsoft CEO and all-around super excitable guy Steve Ballmer as their new owner. Ballmer made, well, quite an entrance.

Eminem's "Lose Yourself" seems just astoundingly appropriate for this occasion.

After high-fiving presumably every single Clippers fan in attendance, and after a couple of jokes from Clippers coach Doc Rivers, Ballmer took the stage at the Staples Center to introduce himself as the new owner. There was yelling. And excitement about the Clippers. And cheers about Larry. And then a lot of yelling. Steve Ballmer is a lot of things, but above all he's a fan. He's going to be a fun owner.

The whole video is...

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A little over a week ago people around the world began talking about a particular, and peculiar, Japanese beauty gadget.

Plus ça change, we hear some of you say.

But the Facial Fitness Pao Smile Trainer became the latest Japanese oddity to sweep the globe’s digital spheres not just because it is a rather unusual item but because its marketing prominently features Real Madrid football star Cristiano Ronaldo.

We’re not really sure of the connection between the biggest soccer player in the world today and a beauty gadget — surely Ronaldo of all people doesn’t need this! — but he appears in the posters and even a TV commercial.

Significantly, Ronaldo doesn’t actually try to use the Pao himself!

How does it work? All you do is pop the bar-shaped tool in your mouth and bob to swing it up and down. It will then help exercise your cheeks to give you a better, younger smile. The unique rhythmical technology is simple and charming, and has been created in consultation with experts so it’s intuitive but effective. You are meant to use it for two 30-second sessions per day and the balanced exercise created by the Pao apparently has a 94% success rate!

While a lot of people write these products off as more the usual “wacky Japan” nonsense — and it can understandably make expats in Japan angry that blogs like this even feature them — we think there’s more to it than that.

This is a genuine beauty gadget. But it is novel, bordering on the silly. The makers are aware of that and so, rather than risk being laughed at,they turn it into a marketing strategy. The silliness becomes if not part of the appeal, at least a way to gain attention and also to offset any unease people feel about these kinds of anti-aging products. It’s quite typical of Japanese companies to do this. Marketing for male baldness is also quite tongue-in-cheek in tone and one major campaign a few years ago for hair loss services successively employed two famous comedians. Laughter can be a greater way of communicating.

Not all beauty gadgets do this. Plenty of massage tools and so on are marketed and sold in perfectly ordinary ways. But this also makes certain products like the Beauty Lift High Nose that are both unusual in their design, functionality, and (perhaps, by extension) their presentation really stand out.

The MTG has obviously spent a lot of money. Firstly, they snagged Ronaldo to front the ads and brought him to Japan for a promo event. Everything is well-made. The music in the videos and the bright visuals make it very slick and professional. They made a special Pao website and spent money on getting decent copy and photos done. Many Japanese beauty products often come across as even more bizarre because the marketing, while sophisticated if you accept our argument above, is nonetheless quite cheap and shoddy. But here MTG have also got some other actors and models involved — keen-eyed Japanophiles might have spotted the ubiquitous veteran foreign performer Ian Moore, from the Navitime ads — and invested in lots of advertising. For us, the results are less wacky Japan and more United Colors of Benetton.

On a final note, keep in mind that this is not just Japan. The BBC also recently ran a very “wacky Japan”-esque article about a Chinese beauty trend called the “face-kini”.

The Facial Fitness Pao Smile Trainer is available for overseas deliveries via the JapanTrendShop.

neuromaencer:

real time face tracking & projection mapping.

warmly recommended to all my followers! MUST WATCH

Wow!

Twitter has promised to improve and expand its policies after Robin Williams' daughter is bullied off of the social network. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

Internet trolls bullied Robin Williams' daughter off of Twitter and Instagram just days after her father's death. A handful of Twitter users sent Zelda Williams messages on Twitter that blamed her for Robin Williams' suicide by hanging, as well as pictures of the comedian altered to show bruises around his neck.

As my Washington Post colleague Caitlin Dewey reported, Zelda Williams, 25, said she could not bear the messages and would stay off of Twitter and Instagram for a "good long time." She also asked her social network followers to petition the company to block two particular accounts that were responsible for the bulk of the abuse. Those accounts have since been removed by Twitter. In a statement, the company said that it will be updating its policies in light of the incident.

“We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter," Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement. "We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one. This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users.”

But the messages that forced Zelda Williams offline are just a sliver of the types of abuse many face on Twitter. Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst at the reproductive health publication RH Reality Check, wrote Tuesday about abuse she said she faces on the service every day -- in general and from one man, in particular, whom she has been unable to stop.

This is more than a few mean comments, according to her account. She wrote that the abuse leveled at her has been constant because of her race, gender and even her medical condition -- she said she has a brain tumor which this man has accused her of faking.

She's ignored him, and taken other steps as well. "I’ve blocked at least a thousand of his accounts over the past two years," she wrote. "I’ve reported him using Twitter’s 'Report Abuse' form. I briefly considered calling the police, but, really, what would be the point? I’ve seen how police treat stalking victims and victims of online harassment far more severe than mine."

Gandy has also collected other instances of harassment similar to hers. In one case, she said, Twitter reviewed a tweet threatening to rape a woman and decided it did not violate its community rules against "abusive behavior."

"Got that?" Gandy wrote.  "It is not a violation of Twitter’s rules to threaten to rape another Twitter user."

Twitter does have a system that lets users report abuse, document harassment and -- in some cases -- get bad accounts taken down. The company also last year introduced a "Report Abuse" button, after Caroline Criado-Perez, a British woman leading a campaign to put Jane Austen's image on the 10-pound note, was subjected to a flood of abuse. She said she faced at least one rape threat per minute.

As even Twitter's own statement on Wednesday indicates, many still find its tools don't address the problem. For example, Twitter allows users to block accounts that target them. But sadly, these measures don't even begin to stop persistent attackers, who often create new accounts to continue their actions almost without pause.

"While I am truly sorry for what the Williams family is experiencing during this time, I am concerned that it takes an event like this to bring heightened attention to a problem that so many face every day," said Soraya Chemaly, a media critic and feminist activist who has worked with Facebook to make more robust protections for those targeted by abuse online.

Gandy, in her post, recommends that Twitter take a leaf from a third-party software called "Block Together." The program, which is free for download, lets users automatically block the accounts of new Twitter users who send them direct "@" replies, and share their list of blocked accounts with friends. It was created by Electronic Frontier Foundation technologist Jacob Hoffman-Andrews after he read a blog post by iOS developer Danilo Campos calling on Twitter to add many of those features.

Chemaly said that Twitter's fierce commitment to free expression may be clouding its judgment on this issue. That attitude is "all well and good, except it seems to strongly suggest that they don't fundamentally care about the effects of harassment on certain members of their customer base - namely, the ones most likely to need additional protections built into the system," she said.

But if Twitter doesn't take steps to protect the character of its community, Chemaly added, everyone loses. "As is often the case, it is Williams, the target of abuse, and not her abusers, who's left Twitter," she said.

Image Credit: Flickr user zcopley

Everyone’s favorite cryptocurrency may soon be apart of the sharing economy. The Wall Street Journal reports, “eBay Inc. has been quietly working to integrate acceptance of the virtual currency into its Braintree payments subsidiary, part of its PayPal unit, according to people familiar with the matter”.

Braintree serves a number of popular online companies, including AirBnb and Uber.

The move could be a nice boost to Bitcoin, which has become the ire of governments around the world. The U.S. treasury recently announced it would apply money-laundering rules to Bitcoin; and a number of local governments, including New York City, are mulling additional regulations. Bitcoin is great for fee-less transactions and anonymity. But, these same benefits also make it perfect for the black market.

These money-laundering problems haven’t stopped major companies from jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon. Just in the last month both, Dish Networks and Wikipedia announced that they would also accept the cryptocurrency.

eBay itself is still hesitant about Bitcoin. “It’s a new disruptive technology, so, yeah, we’re looking at Bitcoin closely,” eBay’s John Donahoe told the WSJ in a previous interview. “There may be ways to enable it inside PayPal.”

eBay Inc. connects millions of buyers and sellers globally on a daily basis through eBay, the world's largest online marketplace, and PayPal, which enables individuals and businesses to securely, easily and quickly send and receive onl... read more »

PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promot... read more »

Uber Technologies Inc is known as Everyone's Private Driver. Uber operates an on-demand car service used all over the world. With the touch of a button from your phone, you can experience your own private driver. Sign-up quickly, g... read more »

A catalyst for the next generation of commerce, Braintree provides the easiest way to pay and get paid across any device. Braintree’s global payment platform processes more than $10 billion annually (with more than $2 billion on mobi... read more »

Scout writes, "Billions of people experience a severely-censored version of the Internet -- most famously in countries like China and Iran. Now there's something you can do about it."

Lantern is an open-source, peer-to-peer tool that helps people work around this censorship by crowdsourcing access from people in other countries. Run it in "give" mode to help people elsewhere in the world access blocked sites. Run it in "get" mode to escape censorship.

The Lantern folks are running an Indiegogo campaign too. One of the perks? A "Lantern Pi" -- a Raspberry Pi board that runs Lantern in "give" mode, inside an actual lantern, shining brighter as more traffic passes through it.

Lantern (Thanks, Scout!)

Apple CEO Tim Cook. Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers. Aaron Levine trying to meditate with freezing-cold ice water pouring down his back. We've collected a ton of our favorite Ice Bucket Challenges for you to watch.

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The late Robin Williams was so smitten with The Legend of Zelda he famously named his daughter after the title character. Shades of World of Warcraft, fans have banded together via Change.org petition to ask Nintendo to honor the actor and comedian in the next game in the series, and Nintendo has responded.

The petition, now with more than 100,000 signatures, is a heartfelt plea from fans that the next entry in the series name a non-player character "Robin" in William's memory.

So, in a day where there aren't many words, what can we do? Well, there's a new Zelda game on the horizon. A bold reinvention, a fresh new open world adventure for Wii U. I would like to suggest that when the game is localised to English, Nintendo of America and the Treehouse name one of the characters "Robin" in his memory.

He won't get to play it, but he'll live on forever in a universe he always loved.

In a statement to Polygon, a Nintendo representative expressed the company's love for Williams, offering its condolences to his family, especially daughter Zelda Williams, who has worked with Nintendo on several occassions, including a commercial with her father for the 3DS remake of The Ocarina of Time and the celebrity tournament at the Super Smash Bros. Invitational at E3 earlier this year.

Nintendo acknoledged the petition's request, but declined to discuss potential action at this time.

"We appreciate the outpouring of support from the gaming community, and hear the request of fans to honor him in a future game. We will not be discussing what might be possible for future games during this difficult time, but we will hold our memories of Robin close."

Artist Thomas Leveritt recently setup a special UV motion camera in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with the intent of filming random passersby. Ultraviolet rays have the ability to expose not-yet-visible changes to human skin, namely freckles, that turn even the most unblemished faces into dark explosions of dots. Leveritt installed a monitor above the camera so people could instantly see the results, and then to heighten the effect, supplied them sunscreen in a vivid demonstration of why you should probably never again step outside without it. (via Laughing Squid, Co.Create)

Following Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's dousing in ice-cold water as part of a campaign to raise money in the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has done the same.

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توقعت جمعية سعودية متخصصة في السكر والغدد الصماء حدوث زيادة «مرتفعة» في الإصابة بمرض السكر لدى الأطفال، بعد الزيادة في نسبة السمنة، التي وصلت لنحو ثلاثة ملايين طفل وبالغ سمين في المملكة، على رغم التوجه الحكومي للحد من الزيادة، من خلال التثقيف الصحي في المدارس. وبلغ عدد الوفيات في المملكة بسبب أمراض متعلقة بالسمنة 20 ألفاً سنوياً.

وحذرت جمعية السكر والغدد الصماء في المنطقة الشرقية، من ارتفاع نسبة السمنة والسكر من النوع الثاني، بعد أن وصلت نسبة البالغين المصابين بالسكري في المملكة إلى 25 في المئة، «ما يهدد الصحة العامة والاقتصاد الوطني السعودي». وأوضحت الجمعية أن «السمنة والسكري (من النوع الثاني) يهددان الصحة العامة والاقتصاد الوطني في كثير من بلدان العالم، ومنطقتنا ليست مُستثناة»، لافتة إلى أنه «بحسب الإحصاءات العالمية، فإنه يوجد 1.7 بليون سمين في العالم، ما يشكل عبئاً مالياً ثقيلاً على الدول، وكذلك يزيد من نسبة انتشار الأمراض المرتبطة بالسمنة، مثل السكري وأمراض القلب والسكتات الدماغية، وبعض أنواع السرطان».

وأوضحت الجمعية، في بيان صحافي أصدرته أمس، أن «نسبة الإصابة بالسكري في المملكة تصل إلى 25 في المئة من عدد السكان البالغين، وبانتشار السمنة لدى الأطفال والبالغين، فإن نسبة الإصابة بالسكري من النوع الثاني لديهم هي بازدياد مرتفع». وطالبت بـ «التحرك العاجل الذي أصبح ضرورياً لتطويق مشكلة السمنة، ويشمل هذا التحرك القيام بإجراء تغييرات في سلوكيات الحياة، مثل تناول الغذاء الصحي والمتوازن وممارسة الرياضة وإنقاص الوزن الزائد، وضبط المشاعر بعيداً عن تناول الطعام».

وأثبتت دراسات علمية أن «أكثر من نصف إصابات السكري من النوع الثاني يمكن تجنبها بإجراء التغيرات الإيجابية في سلوكيات الحياة». ونوهت الجمعية إلى أن «دور الأسرة مهم، وبخاصة الوالدان، في اتباع نهج صحي في الحياة ليشمل كذلك أفراد الأسرة كافة، إلى جانب دور المدارس ووسائل الإعلام والبلديات ووزارة الصحة ورعاية الشباب وهيئة الغذاء والدواء ووزارة الصناعة والتجارة، لدعم سلوكيات الحياة الإيجابية». بدوره، اعتبر الأمين العام للجمعية الدكتور كامل سلامة، ممارسة الرياضة اليومية لكل أفراد الأسرة والمجتمع «أمراً ضرورياً». وقال: «أفضل الأنواع هي المعتدلة والمستمرة، مثل المشي السريع لمدة نصف ساعة يومياً، كما يمكن ممارسة رياضة ركوب الدراجات أو السباحة، إذ تسهم الرياضة إسهامات كبيرة بتحسين الصحة العامة لأفراد المجتمع وإنقاص الوزن الزائد، كما تسهم ببناء مناعة الجسم ومكافحة الكثير من الأمراض، مثل السكري من النوع الثاني وارتفاع ضغط الدم وارتفاع الدهنيات وبعض حالات السرطان، وتقليل نسبة الإصابة بأمراض القلب والسكتة الدماغية وهشاشة العظام، كما تساعد في تقليل الإصابة بالتوتر».

وأكد سلامة ضرورة «زيادة تناول الأطعمة الصحية والمتوازنة، مثل منتجات الألبان خالية أو قليلة الدسم، والإكثار من تناول الخضراوات والسلطات والفواكه، وتقليل تناول السكريات والحلويات، وأيضاً تقليل تناول الدهون المشبعة والمتحولة، وإبدال قلي الطعام بشيه، وإزالة الشحوم والدهون عن اللحوم والدواجن، وتقليل تناول البسكويت الدسم والشوكولاته والحلويات الدسمة. ويفضل استبدال الحلويات بالفاكهة الطازجة، واستبدال المشروبات الغازية والعصائر المحلاة بالعصائر غير المضاف إليها السكر، ولكن بشرط أن تشرب باعتدال».

وقال أمين جمعية السكري: «إن الاستثمار بالصحة من خلال تناول الغذاء الصحي وممارسة الرياضة، وعدم التدخين وشرب الكحول، والمحافظة على الوزن المثالي هو الجدار الصلب أمام الكثير من الأمراض غير المعدية، والمرتبطة بأسلوب الحياة غير الصحي، وذلك بتقليل نسبة الإصابة بها وتقليل كلفة العلاج وتحسين نوعية الحياة».

المصدر: الدمام – «الحياة»

Today at Gamescom, instead of showing off actual new gameplay footage from Metal Gear Solid V, director Hideo Kojima came out and gave us this:

Hahahahahahaha. Hideo Kojima, you are the best.

Sony today announced that Share Play will arrive this fall as part of the PlayStation 4's 2.00 software update. First announced during the PS4's unveiling, Share Play will let any PSN friend hop into and play your games so long as he or she is a PlayStation Plus subscriber. Here's the kicker: only one person will actually need to own the game in question. Sony is selling the new feature as a convenient way to have friends help you through the toughest spots of a game's campaign or earn elusive trophies. It's basically the virtual equivalent of handing off your controller to the person sitting next to you. Sure enough, Sony likens it to a "virtual couch." Sound familiar? It should. This level of flexibility is something Microsoft wanted...

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Amid all the announcements at Sony's pre-Gamescom press conference today, one stood out as particularly baffling: the brief mention of an immediately downloadable PS4 "playable teaser" for a horror game simply being called P.T, from unknown studio 7780s. The mystery has now been solved, with P.T. revealed as a stealth announcement for a new Silent Hill game from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima.

After wandering through a dark, creepy house lit primarily by a flashlight, the P.T. demo culminates with a cut scene showing a rain-soaked street. The name Hideo Kojima pops up alongside noted film director Guillermo Del Toro as the camera pans up to show a character modeled after The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus.

The game name Silent Hills then appears against a white background, followed by a disclaimer warning "This game is a teaser. It has no direct relation to the main title."

Kojima teased his interest in working on the popular Silent Hill survival horror franchise nearly a year ago at a Eurogamer Expo panel, where he recalled simply, "the president of Konami rung me up and said he'd like me to make the next Silent Hill." At the time, he said he'd like to lend the technology for the high-powered Fox Engine to the project.

Earlier this year, in a Twitch Q&A, he again cited Silent Hill as a franchise he'd like to work on. "Hopefully sometime in the future I am able to work on this," he said. In another bit of stealth teasing, Kojima has also been tweeting pictures of himself with Reedus over the past year or so.

Since its start in 1999 on the original PlayStation, Konami has published nine main games in the Silent Hill series. While the first three games in the series were critically lauded and are frequently cited as sterling examples of the survival horror genre, more recent games in the series have not had as warm a reception: 2012's Silent Hill: Downpour got negative to mediocre reviews that cited technical and plot issues.

Apple, like much of the world, is mourning the loss of Robin Williams, and has delivered a rare public tribute on its homepage. "We are deeply saddened by the passing of Robin Williams," the company says in a message accompanying a black-and-white portrait. "He inspired us through his passion, his generosity, and the gift of laughter. He will be greatly missed."

The actor and comedian joins the likes of Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela, two public figures to receive similar treatment. Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs was also commemorated, as was board member Jerry York.

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Robin Williams is dead from suicide over depression. While tributes go on and people say how ironic it is that a ‘comedic genius’ struggled with depression, I’m going to tell you the truth.

-Robin Williams was married three times.

-The two divorces ruined his finances. He had to keep a steady job.

-After three marriages, it is clear that ‘love’ was a lie. That had to be part of the cause of the depression.

Why on earth did Robin Williams have to pay so high an alimony to his wives? It makes no sense.

What? You don’t believe me? Here you go.

Robin Williams wasn’t some ‘tragic depressive’ but someone who got his soul destroyed by the American divorce industry (and it is an industry). To you young men out there, do NOT marry.

This short video from Pampers Japan takes a moment to celebrate not just baby’s, but mother’s first birthday. It sounds a little bit cheesy, and yes, it was ultimately made by a multinational company promoting their brand of nappies (or diapers in non-British parlance), but it is nevertheless insanely moving, and we challenge you not to cry, or at least tear up, while watching it.

While these young mothers were taking their babies for their one-year check-up, with the help of their husbands the Pampers team set up a mini photo gallery in the hallway for them to discover on their way out. Accompanied by thank-you messages from their husbands, the photos documented baby’s first 12 months of life and reminded the women of how much they have achieved in their first year as mothers.

If your eyes remain dry the whole way through this video, then you’re far stronger than anyone at the RocketNews24 office!

▼ In case of fluid leaking from eyes, stare at this happy little baby until it stops.

YouTube

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Source: YouTube – Pampers Japan h/t Kotaku US
Feature image: YouTube

• You’re probably not as genki as this old lady!
• Buy, play, quit – 10 videogames Japanese players gave up on
• Robot fools real birds – and us – in flight【Photos & Video】
• Put away your textbooks, kids – the key to learning Japanese is Minecraft
• We go ghost hunting in our apartment – with bone-chilling results

Origin: “Mom’s 1st Birthday” – Try to get through this video without tearing up【Video】
Copyright© RocketNews24 / SOCIO CORPORATION. All rights reserved.

Here’s two amazing videos of musicians realizing the air pressure from their faulty plumbing makes for a great music. The violinist from the first video us from the Altra Volta Quartet in Poland, and the video of the guitarist appears to be uncredited. If you like this, also check out Diego Stocco’s Music from a Dry Cleaner. (via The Awesomer)

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The infamous Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a bowl of potato salad wrapped up this morning with $55,492 raised from 6,911 backers for that purpose. And with that money, campaign architect Zach Danger Brown plans to hold a music festival.

Brown said in a campaign update this week that "PotatoStock 2014" will be held at the Columbus Commons in Columbus, Ohio, which he says he's reserved from noon to 8pm on September 27. The show will be free, and concessions will be sold to benefit a charity fund. But more importantly, this festival is where those who earned the "get a bite of the potato salad" tier will get that backer reward.

But back to that charity, since the amount of cash being funneled into this campaign has, uh, been a pretty big point of controversy this month. Brown says he'll be using "a significant portion of the remaining money" (beyond what's required for backer rewards and the PotatoStock and the potato salad itself, of which there will be a lot) to create a new permanent anti-hunger fund with The Columbus Foundation, an entity set up to handle such funds. The fund is intended "to help Central Ohio's non-profits end hunger and homelessness."

But Brown is also taking some of the cash for a not-so-altruistic purpose. "We plan to use some of the profit from this campaign to start an LLC, pay web hosting and buy / rent production equipment to continue making content. Our LLC will be a for-profit venture and its goal will be to spread humor and joy around the world."

So there's that. Brown says he'll keep backers apprised of how much money is being used for each of these purposes. And you can read the breakdown of when and how all the backer rewards will be delivered in the most recent update.

One man. 21 video game theme songs. A whole lot of really, really silly costumes.

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Above: Twitter signage dominates the NYSE.

Image Credit: Eric Blattberg / VentureBeat

Twitter is now a mobile first player.

No. Really.

At least when it comes to Twitter’s vigorous earnings statements for the second quarter, released Tuesday. Q2 shows the San Francisco microblogging specialists pulled in $312 million in revenue, up from $139 million a year ago. And here’s the kicker: 81 percent of that haul derived from Twitter’s mobile ad offerings.

Twitter’s mobile base climbed too, to 211 million, a 29 percent year-over-year increase. Without question, these numbers were bolstered by Twitter’s show in the World Cup in Brazil, where millions of mobile Tweeters blasted play-by-plays of their favorite teams to their country brethren scattered over the globe. Twitter acknowledged as much.

To be sure, Google and Facebook dominate the mobile ad arena, accounting for nearly two thirds of a pie that totaled over $17 billion in 2013 and is projected to crest $34 billion by years end, according to analysts who monitor the mobile space. Twitter has long followed in their footsteps, and Tuesday’s numbers point to this, but they’re catching up. Slowly.

Twitter knows this. Which is why it’s been on something of a mobile analytics buying binge, purchasing 12 companies since the outset of 2013, for over $1 billion collectively.

Purchases include, among others, advertising play Trendrr, mobile advertising stalwart MoPub, mobile ad player Namo Media, and — and perhaps the best of the lot — TapCommerce, a mobile retargeting ad heavyweight.

That 81 percent of revenue that came from mobile was also helped by Twitter unveiling a new suite of developer tools, which are crucial for mobile app developers looking to drive installs. It was not clear Tuesday what the breakdown was for Twitter’s mobile ad revenues in terms of mobile app installs versus other mobile ad revenue.

Also: While Twitter has been on an acquisition binge, it still relies on outside analytics to drive accurate ad and app campaigns. Facebook, for its part, also relies on relationships with outside analytics companies, but has increasingly been building up its own in-house capabilities while, like Twitter, buying others.

In the end, Twitter has lots to do before it swoops firmly behind Google and Facebook in mobile ad intake.

“I’m not sure they’ve been as effective as they might,” said Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.

But that is changing. Just slowly.

Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations. At the heart of Twitter ar... read more »

The trailer was done by Japan-based visual effects artist Dean Wright, who's worked on the teaser for the upcoming Mighty No. 9 animated series. It's good! I could even see this used as a TV spot for the upcoming games.

Mario Jumps into Battle! [Dean Wright@YouTube, via his blog]