The TED2011 (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference wrapped up late last week, with presentations from big thinkers propelling TED’s “Ideas Worth Spreading” mantra. A list of all of the talks can be found on the TED Blog, and be sure to check out some of the related videos right here.
Need a Good Night’s Sleep? Turn Off Your Devices
If you haven’t woke up feeling refreshed in who knows how long, you can blame your gadgets from ruining your slumber.
A new study by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) shows that people are overwhelmingly using technology before sleep, which has proven to disrupt sleeping patterns. Ninety-five percent of the people surveyed admitted …
Professor Commissions Creepy Robot That Looks Exactly Like Him
This isn’t eerie at all: Geminoid DK, in conjunction with Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark, has created a robotic version of the associate professor that looks identical to him. If it weren’t enough that the robot looked exactly like Scharfe, it also mimics the professor’s shrugs and facial expressions.
The …
Top Five Monday Tech Deals
It’s Monday! Time for some handpicked gadget deals. We’re going from 10 deals down to five in the interest of honing in on the true bargains.
Silo 42-inch 1080p LCD HDTV: $400 at Woot.com (today only)
Silo? Never heard of it. But a 42-inch TV for $400 is a 42-inch TV for $400, and you can’t argue with a 42-inch TV for $400.
The TV
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Angry Birds Coming to Facebook, Pigs to Get Revenge?
Even though Angry Birds boasts more than 75 million downloads on nearly every mobile platform imaginable (and, with the PlayStation Network version on PS3, at least one home console), you’d figure that Rovio’s battling animals mega-hit would have reached everyone who wanted it. At GDC this weekend, Rovio’s “Mighty Eagle” Peter …
Sony Can Collect IP Addresses of PS3 Hacker’s Site Visitors
I’m no lawyer, but this seems a bit frightening. As the story goes, a well-known hacker named George Hotz—also known as GeoHot—figured out how to “jailbreak” Sony’s PlayStation 3 video game console. The trick essentially lets PS3 owners load alternative operating systems or run games that haven’t been sanctioned by Sony on their …
Four Seasons in One Minute: Instant Virtual 3D Trees from Video
Scientists have created a way to generate realistic 3D computer models of trees, using a short video clip of a real tree as source material.
The technique represents a huge leap forward for people who need to create natural-looking 3D environments, such as animators, videogame designers, and architects.
Until now, if you wanted a …
Apple Looking to Simplify iPhone 5 with Aluminum Body, Internal Antenna?
The above image is not the iPhone 5! It is, however, a mock-up from a Japanese website that cites a Taiwanese source that says Apple’s next iPhone will apparently feature an aluminum casing and an antenna that’s been moved back inside the shell.
It’s a lot of dots to connect—don’t put too much stock into this information, in …
Loving and Hating Twitter’s New Quick Bar
Judging by the number of tweets with the hashtag #dickbar, Twitter annoyed a large number of users with last week’s iPhone app update that added a non-removable Quick Bar showing trending topics to the top of the screen.
The row has rumbled on over the weekend, with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo – after whom the bar was nicknamed by pundit …
TechnologizerGaming & Culture
Don Bluth is Back: The Dragon’s Lair Animator Does Tapper
“We didn’t know anything about videogames–that’s God’s honest truth.” That’s veteran animation director Don Bluth describing his gaming expertise before his studio created the animation for the 1983 arcade game Dragon’s Lair and its 1984 follow-up, Space Ace.
For a guy who says he was oblivious to the world of gaming, Bluth has had a …
ICANN vs. the World
A rose by any other name may smell just as sweet, but if that name is an Internet top-level domain name, world governments may beg to differ.
The “.com” at the end of TIME.com is known as a top-level domain—or TLD—and you may be aware of others, including .net, .org, .edu, and even .ly for Libya. While there are over a hundred …
Will Your Team’s Website Survive an NFL Lockout?
Last week, 330 fresh-from-college players, just under 1,000 coaches, executives and scouts and over 700 credentialed media members flooded Indianapolis for the NFL’s annual scouting combine. It is the closest thing that professional football has to a convention; even a late-night trip to the flagship Steak ‘n Shake downtown yields an …