Lego Rock Band confirmed

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I know, I know. You’ve always wanted to combine your love of Lego Star Wars and Rock Band. Well, Warner hear you and they’ve got your back. The company has confirmed that it’ll be releasing Lego Rock Band later this year on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and DS.

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Songs already confirmed for the game include Blur’s “Song 2”, Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting”, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”, Good Charlotte’s “Boys and Girls”, and Pink’s “So What”. It’ll combine the actually-quite-funny Lego games’ humour with the gameplay of the Rock Band franchise. And you can bet it’ll be one of those circular pieces over to the left speeding towards you.

There’ll be a career mode, just like the other versions of the game, except you play as a lego minifig. Players will be able to customise their avatars, as well as customising their entourage, including roadies, managers and crew. It’ll work with existing Rock Band instruments.

(via MCV)

Cod eats phone, fisherman catches cod, phone returned to owner

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Andrew Cheatle is a lucky chap. He lost his phone on a beach a couple of weeks back and assumed it’d been lost at sea. On a shopping trip to replace the handset, however, his girlfriend’s phone rang. She handed it to him, saying it was some guy going on about a cod.

On the end of the line was fisherman Glen Kerley. He’d found a handset in the belly of a cod, and figured he’d try and return it to its owner. After going to meet him, he was reunited with his (rather battered) handset, and after it dried out, he was amazed to find it worked perfectly.

So what was the handset that survived a week in a fish? I wasn’t sure, so I consulted the masses on Twitter. The wonderful @lovelychaos was first with the answer – it’s a Nokia 1600 – a handset designed for use in developing countries. Well, I guess it’s proved its worth!

CES 2009: Sennheiser announces "world's best headphones"- the HD800s

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Sennheiser’s making quite a bold claim here – the world’s best headphones. The HD800s apparently sound better than any other pair of headphones on the planet. I suspect that it might be difficult to prove that one to a jury – surely it’s more than a little subjective?

But let’s not quibble over that – it’s beyond doubt that these are damn good. A brand new “RING” driver, developed specifically for these cans alone, can deliver an amazing 6Hz – 51kHz frequency response. For comparison, your average person on the street can hear about 20Hz to 20kHz. Unless you’re an audiophile, therefore, you’re not going to get much out of these. Sennheiser also claims an amazingly low 0.02% distortion.

New Zealand's approach to file-sharing – "guilt upon accusation"

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The heavy-handed scaremongering and litigation being handed out by the entertainment industries in the UK and North America is one thing, but New Zealand seems to be taking an even-more-hysterical approach to the problem of filesharing.

From the end of February, Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act will come into force. This act assumes that any individual simply accused of sharing copyrighted works on the Internet is guilty. The punishment? Disconnection from the internet.

Scary, huh? Well, if you live in New Zealand, the Creative Freedom Foundation have got a “Not In My Name” petition for you to sign. If you’re not a New Zealander, then just thank your lucky stars that your politicians, for the moment, retain some sense.

Creative Freedom Foundation (via Torrentfreak)

Related posts: Australia remembers British convictism, asks for help dealing with filesharers | RIAA to drop failed lawsuits strategy

Petrol-powered Snowboard is snow joke

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Okay, in reality this bears as much resemblance to a regular snowboard as a petrol-powered, three seater lawnmower with cupholders does to a hand-pushed traditional lawnmower, but bright yellow paintwork aside, doesn’t it look awesome?

It’s got a 6.5 horsepower engine, and can carry up to 250lbs as fast as 18mph. That might not sound fast if you’re used to cars, but when you’re whizzing along millimetres from the snow, it feels a damn sight faster than is comfortable. You steer by – *gulp* – leaning to one side, and it’ll run for two hours on three quarters of a gallon of petrol. The cost? A slick US$2,000. At that price, I’ll stick to my skis.

Hammacher Schlemmer (via OhGizmo!)

Related posts: Sno-Baller: huge tongs for making perfectly spherical snowballs | 20,000MW Speakers made of snow

Four Google executives to stand trial in Italy

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This is a rather worrying story. Google is awaiting confirmation from Italian courts that four of its employees will face trial there for failing to stop a video being uploaded that shows a disabled kid getting bullied. Sources claim that they stand accused of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data.

The video in question shows, over the course of three minutes, four kids harassing a kid with Down’s Syndrome, and hitting him over the head with a pack of tissues. It was posted back in September 2006, and Google removed it within a day after it received a complaint, but that wasn’t good enough, claim prosecutors. It gained about 12,000 views…