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YouTube offers the full 15 minutes of fame – yt15minutes
July 30, 2010 by JLister | 3 comments
In a move which it’s understandably hyping in terms of Andy Warhol’s famous saying, Google has extended the maximum length of clips uploaded by most users to 15 minutes.
Exactly why it’s doing this is somewhat unclear. Google claims it is because of the success of efforts such as the Content ID system and the resulting increase in the number of legit clips from TV and movie studios, though what that has to do with storage capacity is a complete mystery. Perhaps the company is splashing out some of the case it had previously burrowed away for copyright lawsuit defenses.
In any case, Google is marking the occasion by running a “15 minutes of fame” contest, with people encouraged to upload clips on the premise: ” Imagine that this video is all the world will ever know about you: what would you want to communicate?”
Perhaps I’ll be surprised and there will be some genuinely moving or inspiring entries, but my fear is that an extra five minutes of some of the personal clips people upload to YouTube is the last thing we want. Anyhow, if you fancy giving it a go, you need to upload your clip by next Wednesday and tag it “yt15minutes”.
It’s still quite tough to think of many cases of legitimate clips where the extra five minutes will be of any help. For most content I’d suspect that the type of clip which can be done in 15 minutes can probably be done just as well in 10.
Ironically the most useful result of the change is that it will make illegal content slightly more manageable: a 30 minute sitcom episode will now take two clips rather than three. And on stations which only have one commercial break during the program, it now becomes much easier to neatly split the show into clips.
So what would you do with 15 minutes rather than 10?
(Image © Copyright Christine Matthews and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)
Etsy: The Summer Squid Report
July 30, 2010 by Natania | 3 comments
I’ve written about octopuses in art before, but today I bring you their cousin, the squid. Squid typically have two tentacles and eight arms, which most people confuse. We often refer to all cephalopods as having tentacles, but that just isn’t the case. A tentacle is a long projection with suckers only on the end; the other, more multi-suckered appendages are called arms. The number of tentacles and arms varies by cephalopod.
At any rate, I’ve got a thing for squid. It starts with terror and ends with amusement, beginning when I was a kid watching Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Good gracious, was that a terrifying squid! The beak! The arms! The noises. Of course, looking at the footage now makes me laugh. But at the time there were few unparalleled horrors (except maybe Unico, but that’s a different post).
Thankfully there are quite a few squid havens on the internet, but few show as much variety and beauty as Etsy, where the artists seem to truly share my love of all things tenacled and aquatic. Since I spend a good deal of my time trolling the Etsy reaches (and since it’s summer and therefore quite a beachy time in my mind) I thought I’d share some of the more unique and geeky squid finds I’ve located. Remember: Etsy is a treasure trove of hand made art, by artists all around the world. If you see something that strikes your fancy, wrap your tentacles… I mean click your mouse their way and bring it on home!
Dan Bob Thompson
Etsy artist Dan Bob Thompson‘s art really appeals to me. The bright colors, the contrast, the framing technique. And his giant squid print called, well, “Giant Squid” (pictured at the top of this post) is perfect for any geeky decor. See those gorgeous tentacles? And those enormous eyes (some of the largest in the entire animal kingdom, to boot)? Just spectacularly tentacular.
Meatspider Studios
Okay, so Cthulhu isn’t technically a squid. But I couldn’t pass up mentioning the work of Meatspider Studios in this post. Specializing in Lovecraftian delights, Meatspider has a variety of tentacled lovelies to dangle on your person. My personal favorites are the severed tentacle and the Cthulhu pocket idol. I mean, you never know when you’ll need to show your allegiance to the Old Ones, so why not be prepared? Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn….
Comic Con 2010: User Submitted Pictures
July 30, 2010 by Casey | 4 commentsComic-Con is over, and attendees have been back to the real world for a few days. Meanwhile, we’ve had a chance to look at some of the pictures that our readers sent in, taken at the event. Here are some of our favorites!
From Daniel, a stormtrooper with a new batch of hardware (and a lot of style):
From Vlad, a tumble down the rabbit hole… Moxxie from Borderlands.
Flamethrower Vs. Fire Extinguisher: Fight!
July 30, 2010 by Geeks are Sexy | 0 commentsA very cool (and very weird!) music video featuring two crazy-looking dudes firing at each other. On one side, we’ve got a guy with a flamethrower, and on the other side: a fire extinguisher. Enjoy!
[Via Geekologie]
C.R.A.B. – Cybernetic Remote Autonomous Barricade
July 29, 2010 by Geeks are Sexy | 8 commentsI don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d like to see these things roam around my home town. Somehow, it reminds me of the ED-209 droid that went defective early in the first Robocop movie.
Policing has been revolutionised with the introduction of the C.R.A.B. robotic sentry system, due to soon be trialled live on the streets of London, England.
The advanced robotics technology behind the C.R.A.B.’s artificial intelligence have been secretly developed over the past 12 years as a joint venture between weapons manufacturer Dalton/Stanley and megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.
The results of their historical collaboration has been to produce the most advanced robotic defence system ever constructed, featuring next-generation weaponry and armour protection. The C.R.A.B. is set to pave the way for all future Police and Military automaton technology from here onwards, and will be found on patrol in the public domain very soon.
[Via Jamie Martin Design]
Nintendo does badly at currency game
July 29, 2010 by JLister | 2 comments
The video games industry may be looking on to see if Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Kinect hurt sales of the Wii, but Nintendo has just lost a bunch of money for a very different reason.
The company has announced a loss of $289 million in the April-June quarter. That’s 25.2 billion yen, down from 42.3 billion yen profit in the same period in 2009. From a financial perspective that can be explained entirely by Nintendo deciding to mark up a 70.5 billion loss to take account of the money it has missed out on thanks to currency fluctuations. The yen has been particularly strong over the past year, meaning sales outside of Japan are worth less money to the company.
Still, even though without that adjustment the profit would have been slightly up on last year, the news from the financial figures is still somewhat gloomy. Most notably, revenue from the DS is in a slump: console sales have almost halved in a year, revenue dropped even more thanks to price cuts, and games sales are down more than 20%. The latter is being blamed on a lack of major new releases.
Things were mitigated by the Wii, which sold 3.04 million in the quarter, compared with 2.2 million in the same period last year, though game sales were down a little.
Nintendo is certainly hoping the release of a 3D edition of the DS boosts both hardware and software sales. Despite selling 3.15 million DS units since April, it’s predicting total sales of 30 million in the current financial year.
The company also confirmed that it will announce the 3DS pricing and release date on September 29. So far its only said the release date will be this fiscal year (ie before the end of March 2011), but both the September announcement schedule and common sense point to a pre-Christmas release.
Pricing remains a mystery: there’s some speculation of $250, while Nintendo’s UK marketing manager hinted that it won’t be ludicrously more expensive compared to existing models. My guess would be a $299 list price, giving a fair bit of room for retailers to play with discounts or game bundles.
(Picture credit: Flickr user supercharger5150)
How Low Can They Go? New Kindle Priced at $139
July 29, 2010 by Natania | 5 comments
While the publishing industry, and indeed readers themselves, are still figuring out just exactly what to do with e-readers and e-books, Amazon’s certainly not flagging. Engadget, and about 200 other media outlets, reports that Amazon’s new Kindle—in WiFi only format, of course—is going to be a paltry $139, just in time for the new school year.
Engadget reports a good smattering of improvements in the device itself, including better storage, purported quicker loading, and availability in two different colors (white and gray—oh, wow… such choice there, guys…). It’s also lighter and smaller than its predecessor. And, as always, if you want to continue selling your soul to AT&T, just as before, you can go with the $189 version that supports3G.
But still, we’re talking about the Kindle here, which by and large is very much built for one thing: reading books. I don’t own a Kindle, but there are plenty of folks out there who do—and I’ve probably heard more people go on about the joys of their special brand of e-ink than any other. Sure, other e-readers out there can juggle more things at once, including colors, but for the true bookish geek out there, the Kindle seems to be the way to go if you want your page to look as close to real print as possible. Apparently there will be a Webkit based browser with the new Kindle, but this is, as Engadget indicates, totally experimental. We’ll see what the verdict is on that, later.
As we’ve updated on the e-reader wars here at Geeks Are Sexy, you—the readers—have offered a number of options. Many of you prefer to read on your iPhones/smartphones, others take the Kindle anywhere including the beach; some just go with netbooks, while others are adamant about never giving up paperbacks (from your cold, dead hands… we know, we know!). And for those of us left over who just haven’t decided (myself included) or think you even have to decide (does getting a Kindle mean you have to burn all your books? … um, no) the price war is quite amusing to watch. How low is so low that these gadgets just become as common as iPods or cell phones?
One particular facet that the Kindle hasn’t really jumped on is the multitasking bandwagon, as with gadgets like the Nook or, of course, Apple’s iPad. But that’s just not what Amazon is about. Engadget is a little more tongue in cheek about it, but they do point us to this quote by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos:
“For the vast majority of books, adding video and animation is not going to be helpful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets.”
On a level, I agree. A book is absolutely about imagination. But the Kindle, and e-readers, are not books. They’re gadgets. And for gadgets to really become integrated into the daily lives of people—even those in the non-geek crowd—I think inherent flexibility is paramount. As lovely as the ink looks on a Kindle, and as enticing as the price is, I’m just not willing to buy something that’s for one single purpose. Maybe if I read 100s of books a year, I’d consider it. But as it is, I manage a handful a year.
And just to serve by way of anecdote. I recently finished my current novel, and was in discussion with my very geeky, gadget-minded husband as to the easiest way for him to read it. The conversation ended up with him going, “Can you just print it out? Y’know, make it look like a book?” I rest my case.
