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News: Mobile Game Developer Fined $50,000 by FTC for Soliciting Emails from Minors

Children under the age of 13 possess insight that can blow the minds of their elders, but not the wherewithal to make important life choices for themselves. This is exactly why there are strict rules against marketing cigarettes to them. In 2000, a law went into effect called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act that institutes similar consumer protections for our youth's online identities, prohibiting companies from soliciting personal information from children under 13 years of age ...

News: Should Google+ Require You to Use Your Real Name?

Google started culling Google+ accounts. There are two main targets: businesses and those who are using pseudonyms. For businesses, Google is promising to provide their own version of Facebook Pages, which will be released later this year. For those who use pseudonyms, they aren't so lucky. According to Google+'s community standards, users must "use the name your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you". The purpose of this rule is ostensibly to discourage spammers and people from set...

News: Ball Pythons

Ball Pythons have become big business in the pet trade industry over the years, due to them being one of the most docile snakes in the constrictor family usually preferring to roll into a tight ball hiding it's head than to striking out with the intent to bite. These snakes come in a vast assortment of colors and patterns many of which are highly sought after and can get to be rather pricey. If you are considering adding a ball python to your home please put serious consideration into the nee...

World Siege: Orc Defender for iOS Turns Your Real Life Home Into a Video Game

Tower defense games have covered a lot of creative ground over the last five years. They've gone from simple desktop amusements to a staple of the indie game scene, having been integreated into nearly every other type of game and released on every platform. They have taken place in ancient times, the far future, and on alien planets. But one place they (and most other types of video games) have never taken place is the real world. Not a virtual recreation of the world, but on the very terra f...

Super Marrow Brothers: The Story of the Greatest Pun Ever

Playing Super Mario Brothers for the NES is the first thing I can ever remember doing, at age 3 sitting on the carpet at my grandparents' house. It was a special game for an entire generation, including British youths Andrej and Adam Zamoyski. It inspired them to eventually become video game testers and designers themselves; Andrej at Lionhead Studios and Adam at Headstrong Games, and then Zynga Mobile UK (until recently called Wonderland Software, developers of Godfinger for the iPhone).

Coming Soon: Spy Video Glasses with Real Time Streaming to... Facebook?

Lady Gaga and Polaroid's upcoming Grey Label Camera Glasses can record video and snap pictures, but who really wants to show the world what they're up too on those mini LCD screens? It's nothing more than a fancy gimmick between a pop star and a failing company. Isn't the intention of camera glasses to capture things around you as they are? Drawing attention to yourself with clunky video-displaying eyewear kind of defeats the purpose, but that's why they're "fashion" glasses and not practical...

May 21st: End of the World or Zombie Apocalypse?

Could the world really be coming to an end tomorrow? Presuming you believe the biblical prediction from 89-year-old Harold Camping, May 21st, 2011 is undeniably Judgment Day. If you have confidence in that prophecy, you're probably not even reading this because you're too busy either A) preparing for the Rapture or B) sitting in your backyard bunker hoping to outwit annihilationism.

How To: Teaching Nerds How NOT to Love with Silver Dollar Games

I am the sort of man whom game companies fall all over themselves to seduce. I'm sweaty, pale, awkward, and spend too much money on video games. There are many of us, especially among XBox 360 owners. We are the most stereotypically "gamer" group of console owners. The XBox 360 doesn't have motion control like the Wii or a blu-ray player like the Playstation 3. It just plays games really well. That's why hardcore gamers like me prefer it amongst all the consoles, and probably why Silver Dolla...

News: MyndPlay Gives Mindf*** Movies a New Meaning

Were you horrified when Gwyneth Paltrow's head ended up in a box in Se7en? Do you share Harrison Ford's opinion that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi? Think Kurt Russell could have handled aliens better in The Thing? Well, sorry—you're out of luck. There's nothing you can do to prevent William Wallace's beheading or Carrie's mayhem. But thanks to MyndPlay, controlling the plot to future films is totally possible.

News: Do Real Science. No Degree Required.

What's the next best thing to being an official scientist? Being a non-official one. A new website called Science for Citizens helps you find the science experiment of your dreams, hook up with the scientists involved, and actually take part in the experiment itself. Here are some examples of what you can do:

Play GIRP: All the Finger Strain of Climbing without the Risk of Death

Great controls are the most important and difficult part of game design. Games with vector graphics and non-existent stories are classics because their creators managed to create a system where using buttons to control a shape on a screen was intuitive and fun. This is the tradition that Pac-Man has left us with, a gaming world in which controlling the character onscreen in an engaging way is the crux of the game's enjoyment.

How To: Record the Evolution of Your Face with an iPhone App

It's amazing how the years seem to slip by. One day you're a dreamy, starry-eyed college student. Hopeful intern the next. Before you know it, you're just a hard working stiff like the rest of them. Even though those college years don't seem too far in the past, it's always a shock when you come across an old photo and see a somewhat fresher, baby-faced version of yourself. Think about how shocking it would be to see a time-lapse recording of years gone by, each day incrementally displaying t...

News: Fluorescent Puppies You Can Turn On and Off

Always wanted a fluorescent dog but didn’t want to commit? Well, here’s your solution. Researchers at Seoul National University developed fluorescent puppies that only glow when you want them to. Just inject the special pups with doxycycline and they’ll glow like a black light poster for a few weeks. Then, they return to dull, furry normal.

News: Carnivorous Furniture Eats Flies and Mice for Energy

PETA wouldn't consider James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau's ingenious flypaper clock very eco-friendly, but I might beg to differ. The clock doesn't require any electricity or batteries. Instead it captures flies and converts the bodies of the dead insects into energy. Eight dead flies makes for roughly twelve days of power. Not bad.

News: Blind Photographer "Sees" With Sound

A couple weeks ago, I attended Photo LA with my mother, a photographer. On our way out, we came across a blind man with a seeing eye dog. It begged the obvious question-- "blind photographer" is about as oxymoronic as it gets-- but, then coincidentally, this morning I came across a video of the same man. Pete Eckert is indeed a blind visual artist, a sculptor and industrial designer in his former life, before being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition that results in p...

Blue: The Color of Dishonor and Subterfuge

When I used to play Magic every day during 7th grade, one of my regular opponents was a kid named Eddie. He played an all-Blue, deck, the first I'd ever seen. At that point I was even more creature-obsessed than I am now and my deck were unwieldy hulks practically begging to be shamed by an all-Blue deck. I couldn't hurt him. Every time I tried to do something he had a response, a way to negate what I was doing. He would barely ever hurt me. He would win games just by making me play for so lo...

News: Culver City Seido's Approach to Improving Your Fitness

The point of any workout is to stress your body and initiate an adaptive training response. Period. What are appropriate levels of stress necessary to achieve the adaptive response? In terms of the cardiovascular system, studies have shown that it usually takes about two minutes to get the heart rate into the training zone. Once there, the heart shows an adaptive response after five more minutes of training in the zone. Total minutes needed to get an adaptive response from your heart? Seven.

News: The Green Kitchen

Alice Waters and The Green Kitchen So what, yes I admit it I am drawn to all things Alice Waters. So sautee me. A new discovery was made today while walking through my local bookstore. I found a sweet looking cookbook with Alice on the cover. Naturally I stopped. The item of my interest was a sort of "how to" cookbook called In The Green Kitchen

News: Organic Soy Milk at Starbucks!

Starbucks may be the McDonalds of the coffee world, but sometimes there is just no way around that jones for a cup of joe. Today was one of those days. A late night of wishing friends farewell from the city of angels turned into sleeping past my alarm and running late for work. With no time to make my usual breakfast, I was hurting for a jump start. With Starbucks directly across the street from my office it was my only option. As I walked in, silently wishing I was at Intelligentsia, I commi...

News: Crochet Break Coming To End

I've been on the inside of my box reflecting to what is on the outside. I live my life outside the box but occassionally have to get back intot the box to see what's going on... I have been on a 4 - 5 week non creative mode... Through this time frame... great people on Mikeyssmail have been still continuing to exercise their creativity... I'm so pleased to see that! Though many ideas come daily on what I could do next... I'm not motivated by just a simple request... I've allowed this same tim...