Archive for July 6th, 2009

Little People Call For Ban On “Midget”

Little People have filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, calling on them to ban the word “midget” on television.

The controversy was sparked when contestants from “Celebrity Apprentice” created a detergent called “Jesse James and the Midgets,” to which Joan Rivers suggested bathing little people in the detergent and hanging them to dry.

The little people claim that the word “midget” is objective, discriminative, and offensive in the same way as racial slurs.

What are your opinions on this delicate matter?

Is the word “midget” disrespectful and offensive or is it just a harmless term used by people who are uneducated in the correct way to address little people?

Sony Patents Everyday Objects As Game Controllers

With video games becoming ever more realistic, Sony now has a patent on “real life objects” motion control technology. Yes, that’s right, in the future we could be using our real life keys to open doors, along with other everyday objects we own such as coffee mugs, drinking glasses, books, and bottles, in gameplay.

The patent is intended for the Playstation Eye which can recognise 3D objects and use them as part of its games.

Players show the object (U shaped object in image above) to the camera, rotate it and save it as a file. The system is then able to recognize the object and respond to its movements.

It seems as if Sony is taking gameplay and motion sensing technology to a whole new level, which sounds very exciting. Although what’s next…Sony patenting its game players?

New Technology For U.S. Soldiers

When the U.S. Soldiers of the 5th Stryker Brigade touch down in Afghanistan later this month, they will be equipped with the most high-tech gear to aid them in combat.

The new “Land Warrior” computer system enables soldiers to view digital terrain maps, track fellow soldiers with GPS, communicate with soldiers and medics via text messaging or whispers and quickly pinpoint where the enemy is located.

“We’d jump off the helicopter, and within seconds we knew exactly where we were and exactly where we the target was,” one soldier stated. “You don’t really need to communicate through the radio to find out where others are or pull a piece of paper out of your pocket to find out where you need to go.”

Like in the movies, soldiers’ helmets contain microphones and computerized eyepieces, and their rifles will have an extra array of laser sights and sensors networked with backpack computers.

The Pentagon’s push to continually improve soldiers’ equipment will most definitely come in handy as troops increase their offense against the Taliban.

A Scent Of Fear

New research suggests that anxiety prompts the release of a chemical that bypasses conscious experience, automatically triggering similar feelings in anyone who sniffs it.

That is the findings of a study at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. Bettina Pause, a psychologist from the university, put absorbent pads under the armpits of 49 students an hour before they took their final oral exam and again as the same students exercised. Other students then sniffed the sweat samples while having their brains scanned.

None of the students noticed a difference between the samples, however the two samples had differing effects on their brain activity. The sweat sample taken before final exams triggered activity in areas of the brain associated with emotion as well as areas involved in empathy.

In a similar study in 2002, Kerstin Ackerl from the University of Vienna in Austria reported that women seemed to be able to detect the scent of fear. The 60 women rated sweat from women who had watched a scary movie as stronger, less pleasant and smelling more “like aggression” than sweat from women who had watched a neutral movie.

Exams really do stink!

Rubik’s Cube Inventor Releases New Puzzle

Professor Erno Rubik, who sold over 350 million Rubik’s Cubes since 1980 is set to launch a new puzzle onto the market next week.

The game is called the “Rubik’s 360.” The 360 is a clear plastic ball holding six small balls of different colors. Players must get the colored balls from an inner sphere into matching slots on the outer sphere by shaking them through a middle sphere that has only two holes.

The Rubik’s 360 is set to repeat the success of the maddening Cube, which became an overnight sensation almost three decades ago and remains the world’s fastest-selling toy.

“I feel that the 360 is one of the most innovative and exciting puzzles we’ve developed since the Cube — adopting elements of my original design, challenging the solver to use skill, dexterity and logic,” Rubik said in a statement.

Priced at $14.99, the 360 is set to be a big success, following in the footsteps of the cube. If you get your hands on one of these spheres let us know what you thought of it? Is it any match for the legendary cube?