Tag: duncan geere
UK Twitter traffic trebles in a month
Twitter’s popularity in the UK has exploded since January, after a number of high-profile celebrity Twitterers including @stephenfry, @wossy and @schofe started using it, and talking about it. As a result, the site’s traffic has trebled since ths start of the year, according to Hitwise Intelligence.
All that traffic has catapulted Twitter into the top 100 UK sites, where it now sits at #91, above Expedia, Gumtree and Easyjet. It’s also ranking seventh within the “Social Networking and Forums” category. Of course, this still underrates Twitter’s popularity, because many people don’t use the website to interact with the site. Real numbers would be even higher.
(via Hitwise Intelligence)
Top 10 Tuesday: Ways to spend Valentine's Day with your partner in World of Warcraft
If you don’t play World of Warcraft, or a similar MMORPG, then you might not want to read this. You’re going to thin. But there’s actually a lot of fun to be had playing World of Warcraft with a significant other, especially if circumstances mean that you’re unable to be in the same place on the special day.
Of course, World of Warcraft holds its own “Love is in the Air” event, but we’re not just going to limit ourselves to that, oh no. There’s a whole world to see, so we’ll pick out some of the nicest spots. Click into the post to begin the countdown.
US Army creates cyborg beetles to fight future wars
The University of California is undertaking research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, that will allow the creation of remote-controlled beetles. The beetles remain alive, but unable to control their bodies as the chips take control of their wing muscles via their optic nerve.
I don’t know what it is about this story that terrifies me most. It could be the fact that beetles are so easy to mind-control that you can just stick a chip on them and they’ll do your bidding. It could be that it would be incredibly cheap and easy to build a vast cloud of evil cyborg beetles and send them at your foes.
I might even be that there’s these poor beetles in California, alive, and unable to do anything but passively observe the remainder of their pitiful existence as their muscles spasm upon commands from military generals. I think it’s a combination of all three, so how about we end this post right about now, before I start shivering helplessly.
Remote Controlled Beetles (via Hackaday)
More beetle news: Forest fire fighting beetle-like robots in development | Scientists invent human gills after studying beetles
LED chairs – for the nu-rave regent
There’s no accounting for taste, is there? The fruit of designer Philippe Boulet’s loins, these Léon and Max chairs light up in different colours thanks to colour-changing LEDs within the seats.
Though given that it looks like they’re made out of solid plastic, I suspect comfort’s taking a back seat here. Would you buy these? No, not as a joke, for real? Let us know in the comments.
Collection LOUIS DIXMIL (via Technabob)
More geeky furniture: Be the hostess with the mostess with an airline food trolley | Atari 2600 lamp will light up your life
Google launches "Sync" beta for iPhone and Windows Mobile
Switching handsets is a pain, right? Having to copy across all your contacts, all your calendar info, your photos and videos, etc. Nightmare, unless you’ve got a handset like the INQ that just pulls it all off Facebook, or course. Well, Google wants to alleviate some of that pain with its release of “Sync”.
It’ll add your Google Calendar events and Gmail contacts to your phone, as well as syncing them in the background, over the air. Any changes you make are pushed, rather than pulled, onto the phone, so it all happens double-quick. If nothing else, it makes a handy backup of your important data if your phone gets stolen or lost. Now, where’s my S60 version?
Google Sync (via Official Google Blog)
More Google Apps: Google makes 1.5 million books available on mobile, free | Google Maps for Mobile gets an update – with friend tracking!
Nine-year-old Malaysian prodigy codes iPhone app
You’ve got to envy Lim Ding Wen. Although I didn’t do too badly in my pre-10-year-old geek cred (I learnt BASIC on a BBC Microcomputer), he blows me out of the water by learning six programming languages and coding an iPhone app.
The application in question is called Doodle Kids, and it allows users to paint with their fingers, and then clear the screen etch-a-sketch style by shaking the phone. It’s been downloaded more than 4,000 times in less than two weeks. His next project? A sci-fi game called “Invader Wars”. Pretty soon he’s going to be coding SkyNet…
(via BBC)
Related posts: New app lets you turn your iPhone into a web server | Turn your iPhone into a scanner
Gaming as Art – Tag: The Power of Paint
Click play on the video above. You’re watching a walkthrough of an innovative indie game called Tag: The Power of Paint, developed by a group of students from the DigiPen Institute of Technology.
It’s a first-person platformer where you spray your surroundings with different coloured paint to progress. Green paint makes you jump, red paint makes you go faster, and blue paint allows you to climb walls. It’s all cel-shaded, and looks like a wonderful cross between Mirror’s Edge and The Unfinished Swan.
It’s a free 55MB download from here (via Game:Life).
More Games/Art crossover: Counterstrike map based on Van Gogh painting | The Unfinished Swan
His Holiness The Dalai Lama joins Twitter
The Dalai Lama isn’t the first political leaderto join the microblogging phenomenon Twitter, but he might be the first religious leader. Well, the first real one, anyway.
His Holiness, or @OHHDL as he’s known on the site, has been networking like crazy, sending 46 updates and accruing 20,000 followers in just two days. Some of it is just sending out links to his other web presences, but there’s a smattering of other stuff, too, including the wonderful statement: “I’m sure HH will be just as inquisitive about technology as he has been over the past 14 reincarnations”.
Note: this post nearly contained a “Twibet” pun, but I thought better of it after seeing @natelanxon’s rant this morning.
More posts about Twitter: New INQ phone will have Twitter built in | Celebrity Twitter user Stephen Fry in LIVE LIFT TRAP SENSATION
Computer virus leaves France DEFENCELESS from the air
Now let this be a lesson to you in what happens if you forget to keep your McAfee subscription updated. France’s Air Force has been grounded due to the ‘Conficker’ computer virus.
Despite forewarning from Microsoft themselves, the Air Force failed to prevent the spread of the virus, and now several Dassault Rafale fighters are out of commission. I just hope that the British Navy is better at keeping things up to date. Oh, wait.
(via Silicon Valley Insider)
More virus antics: Virus infects Royal Navy computers; sailors lose vital access to Facebook | Introducing the virus that farts at you, fool
FLASH GAME CHALLENGE: Perfect Balance
The competition is certainly hotting up. The mysterious Vince won last week’s challenge with a mighty 13,728,350 score, obliterating the second place score of 34,170 from Neil. Vince says he played for an entire semester to get that good. That or he’s making up numbers. We’ll never know.
This week, we’ve got Perfect Balance. It’s less reliant on having a good mouse, you’ll be pleased to hear. It’s more of a puzzler, involving the stacking of blocks so that they don’t fall. I managed a score of 16091, on level 18, before getting stuck. How far can you get? Entries in the comments below, please.
Previous challenges: Winterbells | Armour Academy
