In not so hot news for all-inclusive science today, (but great news for Eugenics supporters, you bastards!)  Wired.com has another kind of gloomy article about the state of genetic research today.

Here’s the lowdown: The latest, greatest revolution in Genetics revolution is what’s called “rare variants.” These are variations in different people’s genetic code that are only shared by a few people, but they have powerful effects.

Before you do what I do and shout “LIKE THE X-MEN?!” at your monitor, I have to put a dampener on your news. So far these Rare Variants are only being categorized in people of European descent. Which is a HUGE problem for science. It means that medical breakthrough achieved through the study of rare variants LITERALLY can’t be used for all populations.

Why is this? Well, supposedly according to the data, it’s because Rare Variants exist more commonly in European populations. But the sinister underside here is that data only exists because people of European descent. (AKA, Europeans and Americans) have better documented medical information and health systems, making them easier to test.

It’s hard to get proper sampling data for, say, a group of Africans, since (In part thanks to the damn Europeans), Africa’s borders are carved up and don’t line up with where its genetic populations lie…oh, and half the continent is in poverty and has poor enough medical care as it is.

In short, GET IT TOGETHER SCIENCE. We all live on this planet, and we don’t get to ignore how the other half lives just because it’s inconvenient.

This is like some kind of sick, twisted remake of Lakeview Terrace, except instead of Samuel L. Jackson being badass, you get creepy old white guy being creepy. Wired.com has the unbelievable story about a man, Barry Ardolf, who decided to take revenge on his neighbors for accusing him of kissing their 4-year old child on the lips. (Which, judging from this article, he probably did.)

He makes this stuff seem cool. Creepy old white people make it seem TERRIFYING

The Prosecutor of the case puts it best… Continue reading “WTF?! World’s Worst Neighbor DESTROYS Lives over Wi-Fi” »

And lo and behold, something good came out of the Star Wars prequels. (By…extension). If you feel like having some laughs, watching people play through almost EVERY Star Wars game ever imagined, and maaaybe giving something for a good cause, check these guys out.

They are the Speedgamers, and they game for good! (As opposed to gaming for evil. Which I have no idea how to do.)

WHO THEY ARE: A group of Gamers Continue reading “Gamers Doing Good: Marathoners Go through Star Wars for Charity!” »

Did you like playing Halo without Master Chief? Microsoft’s not so sure you did. Phil Spencer yesterday, chatting with Xbox Magazine UK, admitted that “We kind of lost our way a bit,” with Halo 3 ODST and Halo Reach.  ”That’s why I wanted to make sure that at the unveiling of Halo 4, you knew you were playing Master Chief, that John was back. Because Master Chief is the John Wayne character of that universe, and that’s who you want to play.”

Don’t get him wrong though—Spencer doesn’t think Reach and ODST were bad games. ”I loved Reach as a game – as a fan of the fiction, I totally love the story in Reach, Reach is one of the best stories in the Halo universe. But it made more sense to you if you were a Halo fan” Continue reading “Did Halo Go Wrong? Microsoft Talks Bringing the Chief back to Halo” »

Guys, say it with me. The future of the internet, will be in the delivery of cheap content, at high speeds, with payments seemingly “invisible” to users. We got that, right? So why on earth are two Internet giants dropping the ball today like Lebron in the fourth quarter?

It's okay Lebron, we'll all forget about this soon

So, we’ve got two bits of news here. First: Netflix. Netflix announced 60% price increases today and shifted a lot of their plans around. Their single DVD plan now will coast you $9.99/month, (previously about how much their DVD+Streaming cost), and DVD+Streaming now will cost $15.98/month. Streaming-only is going to be $7.99/month…you get the picture.

So why the change? Weeeell there were rumbling lately about Sony pulling its movies from Netflix after a certain term of their contact was reached. Now that Netflix is dominating bandwidth across North America, it’s likely that Cable providers are strong-arming the streaming service in order to make sure live TV doesn’t go the way of the Dinosaur. Fan-TASTIC idea boys! ‘Cause making something more expensive is TOTALLY going to drive customers to the more-expensive-and-less convenient service instead of Piracy.

Ugh. So, unfortunately today, that’s the boring news. Here’s the good stuff.

This story making the rounds of the web is a potential vision of Draconian internet laws to come. Blogger Andre Vrignaud recently had his service cut off from Comcast for a year. The reason? He’d violated his 250 gb/mo data cap—twice. But how did he violate it, you ask? It wasn’t pirating tons of software. It wasn’t downloading mountains of Porn. No, he violated it by legally using all his streaming services and cloud-uploading services, the latter of which shotgunned his bandwidth usage and shot him past the cap. (He was syncing .RAW and other big file size formats to multiple clouds and servers.)

And because of that, Comcast saw fit to deny him internet for a year. And in his area, there are no other ISPs. This man is without internet.

Is that the future we want? Where companies can just kill our internet just because we’re using our services legally? Because that 250gb per month also includes uploading files?

I do not think so.

Talk about a good time to jump to Google Plus! (Though they can probably search that too, come to think of it.) Police and law enforcement agencies across the nation, according to a recent Reuters news report, are gaining warrants to access people’s Facebook accounts, going after everything from your latest status update to the time you turned down that creepy girl’s friend request (if it can happen once…)

NOT WORTH IT DUDE, NOT WORTH IT

Don’t sweat it though—the authorities aren’t looking to tear into every single Facebook account, these warrants were issued in ongoing investigations for a variety of different departments, with the accused crimes ranging from Arson to Continue reading “Facebook Search Warrants: Yep. They’re Real.” »

JHS: Hey guys, thanks for joining us! First of all, would you mind introducing yourselves for our audience Continue reading “Extra Credits, One of the Smartest Gaming Shows on the Web, Talks Gaming!” »

Alright, this is just silly. Myspace didn’t just got beat by Facebook, LinkedIn just sped by and curbstomped the beleaguered social network. Which, to make sure our metaphors are still in perspective, is like the most popular kid in school getting sped by and curbstomped by that nerd he shoved in lockers back in the ninth grade.

On second thought, LinkedIn probably isn't....quite so crazy.

Despite Justin Timberlake’s desire to turn Myspace into a talent show, the once-great website took another plunge as LinkedIn’s user numbers jumped to make it the #2 most popular social network in the world. To be fair to Myspace, the recent economic downturn has made plenty of out-of-work Americans turn to LinkedIn in order to help network their way back into employment. (Or for fresh-out-of-college interns to keep in touch with their colleagues.)

So is this the equivalent of the internet turning twenty? First, we had the awkward teenage years with Myspace, then we went to College with Facebook. Are we growing up now that Google+ and LinkedIn are storming the scene?

Though Lulzsec may have vanished in the background, Anonymous has taken up the flag of operation #Anonsec—but that’s chump change compared to the storm that’s been rumbling in Great Britain in the last few days. If you thought Lulzsec’s shenanigans were pretty rough, they’ve got nothing on Rupert Murdoch’s British Newspaper News of the World, which was forced to shut down over a huge scandal its propagated.

That scandal? Hacking into people’s cell phones, and listening to and stealing their voice mails.

More on that outrage in a moment–first, Anonymous. The faceless, headless, V-For-Vendetta worshipping hackers targeted Booz Allen Hamilton today, a Military contractor that was targeted for its involvement in a recent surveillance minor-scandal. Anonymous managed to make off with 90,000 military-related email accounts and passwords–not just of Booz Allen employees, but military employees staffed at US CENTCOM and SOCOM, as well as other military departments. The long and the short of it Continue reading “Hacking News Roundup! Not Entirely What You Expect…” »

By R. Bryant Francis

Competition

On the surface, I was pleased to see an article like this, especially in the wake of the recent Supreme Court Ruling. But on the downside, I was a little troubled. As someone who pays attention to the news for a living, this reminded me a little bit Continue reading “Five Thoughts on Video Games: Let the Gamers Speak!” »

Scan To See Awesomeness

Okay, this news is one-half cool, one half wasted potential. First off, a video for your consumption!

Here’s the story. French Tattoo Parlor Ballantine’s got the crazy idea to take those same QR codes you see in Magazines, on Subways, and even on TV and Web and incorporate Continue reading “Man gets first ever Animated Tattoo on his chest…Opens Minds to Future Ideas” »

You’ve been DOMINATED. Check out this awesome PS2 collection by collector Ahans76, as presented by playstationcollecting.com

Alright, so Xzibit wouldn’t be proud of my failed attempt up there. Still, check this out. Onlive has just secured a partnership with Facebook to bring their content to the Facebook platform. Meaning that instead of using Onlive on your PC to play games–you’d….be able to use your Facebook? Huh?

Where you GAME?

Wait, back it up, there’s some sense in this. You still need some special Continue reading “OnLive on Facebook: Yo dawg, we heard like to have games in your…social networks…” »

This happened: Eve Online Players flipped a shit over microtransactional content like pay-for-ships a la Team Fortress 2. The developer actually flew players out to their HQ in Iceland to discuss this.

G4M3Rs do physics: Angry Birds Make Happy Physicists

Army bans toe-shoes! Now my good friend Higgins cannot do Parkour in the desert.

Verizon muders the unlimited Data Plan, shoots in the head, then buries it at sea. (But gives current unlimited owners the chance to upgrade to 4G phones at the same price for unlimited?)

Sony slips with the PSN Pass–which–seems totally useless and is just a way to make you buy new games.

Bioware has NO IDEA what’s under Tali’s Helmet! FANFICS, YOU ARE REDEEMED!

Star Wars in your Modern Warfare: N00btube some Stormtroopers!

Errr, gonna make an apology here guys. That post we did about Comic-Com losing its clout maaaay have been a bit premature. For one, io9′s pointed out how TV is the new hot thing at Comic-Con, and while the Avengers may not (or may?) be making a presence, Game of Thrones, the Guild, and others will be storming the gates. For two, the Mass Effect movie is finally making an appearance.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE

All we know so far is this Continue reading “Fight for the Lost at Comic-Con 2011–the Mass Effect Movie is coming!” »

Yarrr! Ready the guns, hoist the anchor, and get that damn fool Jack Sparrow back in the brig! We best be prepared for the coming storm–

I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. That won’t happen again.

Sorry about...that.

Anyway, here’s the news. A group of Internet Service Providors today announced they were moving in cooperation with the RIAA and other organizations to shut down pirates by targeting them with what are called “Copyright alerts.” Copyright alerts might manifest as a Continue reading “Batten down the Hatches, mateys! ISPs Targeting Pirates.” »

First, a preface. Check this out.

It’s a video of a guy who snuck into an Apple store and loaded some software on the computers that took pictures of people looking at the display models and sent them back to him. It’s a leetle shady on the personal privacy part, but to the fair, this is in a public place, so the pictures he’s taking aren’t going to be of people naked or anything. The art (italicized for emphasis) here is based on the question of what we do when we stare at computers. Which is kind of interesting when you think about it. The question of the perspective of a device that cannot see what we see on a screen OH WAIT Continue reading “Apple Releases the Hounds on Spy-Cam video Artist” »

We’ve talked about the future of Console Gaming here at the Jace Hall Show, and most of our expectations were sort of based on one question–why should there be new consoles? Our current generation consoles can make a lightsaber look like a lightsaber, and they’re even getting pretty close to showing true facial expression. So the processing power’s there, but what’s missing?

Well according to Ubisoft Yves Jacquier, it’s in the AI. Artificial Intelligence. The stuff that turns ordinary computers into neurotoxin-pumping, test-chamber solving, revenge-obsessed robots. No, I did not just finish playing Portal 2, why did you ask?

I am lying. Just like she lies. SO MUCH.

Right, back on subject. Well anyway, Yves talks about the challenges of making good AI Continue reading “Ubisoft Head talks Future Consoles, AI” »

No, it’s not the latest nerdcore group. No, it’s not digital avatars. It’s Spotify. It’s the first legitimate competitor to Apple’s iTunes, and it’s about to crash into the states and rock your world. For those not in the know, Spotify is a music-streaming service formed in Stockholm (Sweden, for our non-internationally inclined readers) that has built up over one million paid subscribers to its service since its foundation–and that’s not even taking in the numbers of people trying out the service for free, which has a pretty generous offer Continue reading “Spotify coming to the U.S: Now Americans can catch this European Music Sensation” »