firehose

Law enforcement agencies in India will have real time access to email communications, BlackBerry Messenger chats, and the web browsing habits of users inside the country. The expanded surveillance capabilities come as part of a deal between BlackBerry and India's government, marking the end of a lengthy dispute over monitoring practices. While the pact isn't final, a leaked document obtained by The Times of India suggests India is preparing to purchase the BlackBerry-engineered equipment in Mumbai. The memo also reportedly says that nine mobile providers have already begun implementation of the technology.

Local authorities threatened to shut down BlackBerry's infrastructure in 2011 unless it agreed to comply with lawful access requirements providing the government a way to intercept messages. BlackBerry is emphasizing that all of this surveillance is in accordance with local law — leaving the company with little choice — and also points out that its Enterprise Server customers won't have to worry about any direct monitoring. Authorities won't have access to email records of BES users, but they will be able to request information about which businesses are using the platform, according to the Times.

Instagram has just announced that all public photos and videos posted by its users are now embeddable anywhere on the web where HTML is supported, a move that should make Instagram content far more visible across the internet. When viewing an Instagram photo or video through the web interface, you'll see a new "share" button that pulls up an embed code you can drop into any site that supports HTML. Instagram says only publicly-shared photos will have the "share" option, and the embedded content links back to the original photographer's Instagram page. It sounds like this feature will only be available when viewing photos on the web; there won't be any easy way to grab an embed code from your phone.

Instagram said that this was the app's most-requested feature from users since the launch of Instagram Video, and there's a good reason for all those requests. Ever since Instagram removed support for the growing Twitter "card" format, there was no easy way to embed an Instagram photo around the internet. Before cutting off support for cards, any photo taken with Instagram and shared with Twitter could be embedded using the standard Twitter embed feature, but that option has been off the table since December. Instagram says the feature will be available to all users starting today.

By John Walker on July 10th, 2013 at 5:00 pm.

We’re a couple of days late with this, but I felt it really deserves a mention. Spiderweb Software, the studio that creates classic isometric RPGs, has just celebrated its 20th birthday. There aren’t many studios that can claim that, especially with the original team still working there. Of course, it helps that the original team is Jeff Vogel.

That’s not quite fair. Regular contributors like Andrew Hunter, Linda Strout and Mariann Krizsan have been with him along the way, but Vogel is the core creator behind 21 games over 20 years. Games like the Geneforge series, the Avadon run, and the Avernum roleplayers. And the 21st is Avadon 2: The Corruption, due sometime later this year.

Recently Spiderweb have found broader success by releasing their games for tablets as well as PC/Mac, and I can testify to their excellence on both platforms. It’s tempting to describe the games as “hardcore RPGs”, but that never feels fair. They’re “classic RPGs”, born of a world where Ultima ruled, never feeling the need to abandon a simple aesthetic and interface, while offering extraordinary depth in story and exploration. Just the written content alone makes his one-a-year output absolutely remarkable, let alone that it appears in engrossing games.

Most of Spiderweb’s games are now on Steam, at far more sensible prices than their own peculiar webstore. You can pick up all of the games in one go for £30, or individual games for between £4 and £7. Which is an awful lot cheaper than the odd $15 to $20 that Vogel charges directly.

If you’re looking for somewhere to start, I strongly recommend picking up Avernum: Escape From The Pit – a remake of the original Avernum game, as well as the first in the new series, Avadon: The Black Fortress. Both have provided me with oodles of hours of entertainment, and I dip back in pretty regularly.

There’s a splendid timeline of the last twenty years of development right here.

Some memories just won't die — and some can even be transferred to a whole new brain. Researchers at Tufts University have determined that a small, yellow worm known as a planarian, which has long been studied for its regenerative properties, is able to grow back a lot more than just its body parts: after the worm's small, snake-like head and neck are removed, its body will even regrow a brain that's capable of quickly relearning its lost skills.

A little training makes it all come back

The researchers tested the memory of planarians by measuring how long it took for them to reach food in a controlled setting. The small worms dislike open spaces and bright lights — but they had been trained to ignore it so that they could find their meals. Even after decapitation, worms that had gone through training were able to overcome their fears and start eating much faster than worms that hadn't been trained. However, the memories didn't come back immediately. Each worm still had to be reminded of its earlier knowledge, though it only took a single lesson for it to all come back.

Why this happens is still unclear. Planarians' brains control their behavior, but the researchers suggest that some of their memories might be stored elsewhere in their body. Alternatively, they suggest that the worms' original brain may have modified their nervous systems, and their nervous systems may have then altered how the new brains formed during regrowth.

The researchers' findings appears in The Journal of Experimental Biology. They say that more work needs to be done to nail down the specifics of how planarians recovery their memory, but the hope is that the worms can be used as a way to study how memory and learning work. That may sound complicated for a seemingly basic creature, but existing studies are already using them to research drug addiction and withdrawal.

By Craig Pearson on July 10th, 2013 at 4:00 pm.

The reason tea is so ubiquitous in Britain is because it is easy to make. It allows us to devote time to other British pursuits, like apologising or being flooded. You put the bag in the water and then you have tea. All you need is patience and working limbs. If you take away even one of those, then tea-making grinds (hah!) to a halt. Ampu-Tea is a survival horror game (if you’re British) about a soldier attempting to make tea with his newly attached robot limb. It’s like Surgeon Simulator 2013, but with mugs. The man in the trailer below is also quick to temper, which makes tea-ing even harder. Ah, post-traumatic stress. Hilarious!

As you can see, the influence of the flaily surgery sim is all too clear, and there’s even a mug in the game that thanks them for the inspiration. Aw, that’s nice. The rest is standard stuff: a difficult to control robot arm with independent finger, height, and direction controls that you need to balance perfectly in order to grab a mug, a teabag, the water, and sugar. Everything is precariously placed and wobbly. Can the joke sustain another game? It looks like a fun little diversion. I could see kids giggling away at this, actually.

There is a longer look at the mechanics, but it has been made by an American and I’m not sure he quite understands the subtleties of the tea process.