In Real Life

The Ultimate Automated Dorm Room Comes Complete With Party Mode

UC Berkeley student Derek Low is a master of science and technology. Here he uses his vast powers to create a dorm room that reacts to his every whim, even if that whim is playing irritating house music.


December 16, 2011
Nintendo

The Louvre’s New Tour Guide Is A 3DS

Starting in March the Louvre, one of the largest, most visited art museums in the world, plans to replace their audio guides with 5,000 Nintendo 3DS programmed by the game maker to give full tours in seven languages, the AFP reports.


October 21, 2011
News

Now You Can Shoot Doom Demons … With Your Mind

First wireless controls, then motion controls, then motion-tracking like the Xbox Kinect… sooner or later, someone’s going to come up with a computer (and therefore a video game) that can be controlled entirely with our minds.


August 22, 2011
Xbox

Kinect Was Tested By Dropping It On Concrete

The Microsoft engineers building Kinect “knew this thing was going to be viewed as a toy,” says one, “and so it was going to be abused.” So they abused it first, toughening the thing up to the point it could be dropped on concrete and still function.


July 6, 2011
In Real Life

Helpful Chart Explains The Difference Between "good" Hacking And "bad" Hacking

Hacking is a noble pursuit — it’s what tinkerers do to create cool new machines and innovate. But the media is obsessed with using the word “hacker” interchangeably with “criminal.” That’s why IEEE Spectrum magazine has created this helpful chart (click to enlarge), in which they try to separate out the good hacks from the bad. See if you can guess which ones are good and which are bad . . . answers are on the interactive chart at IEEE, where you can check the boxes to show only good hacks, bad ones, or neutral.


News

Kinect Tech Inspires Glasses That Could Help ‘The Blind See’

A clinical neurologist at the University of Oxford is working on a pair of glasses that is meant to help the near blind better see shapes and people.


June 21, 2011
In Real Life

Non-Emergent Sex In Emergent Technology

In this excerpt from his book The Erotic Engine, Patchen Barss talks about one part of the future of pornography and sex on the internet: video games.


June 14, 2011
In Real Life

Ranking The Tech Nerds Who Own Sports Teams

You might have wondered why so much attention was lavished on one doughy white guy after the Mavericks won the NBA title last night.


June 1, 2011
News

Gaming Is One Reason This Driving Technology Is A Bad Idea

According to UK windscreen replacement company Autoglass, this video represents a future where augmented reality windshield displays can usher in a new era of driver safety. At least until gamers get a hold of them.


May 19, 2011
PC

The Witcher 2 Is Blurry In All The Right Places

Amidst all of the nudity and subtle gags lurking in CD Projekt Red’s latest PC role-playing adventure, the aspect of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that has impressed me the most so far is how blurry it is.