At TEDMED, Sheila Nirenberg shows a bold way to create sight in people with certain kinds of blindness: by hooking into the optic nerve and sending signals from a camera direct to the brain.
[Youtube]
2011 in Gaming: The Year in Under 2 Minutes [Video]
2011 has been a watershed year for gaming in almost every way. With an overabundance of terrific AAA titles and creative low-budget indies, developers this year boldly took the medium into new territory. This is a salute to their work, and all the terrific interactive experiences we had in 2011.
How to Make Harry Potter’s Butterbeer [Video]
Hey, this actually looks pretty good… or at least, better than last week’s recipe, Skyrim’s Sunlight Soufflé.
Apple busted for dubious Applecare selling
Apple has been fined more than a million dollars in Italy for misleading customers about their warranty rights.
Italian law says customers are legally entitled to a free two-year warranty and technical support on electronic goods. However, Apple staff kept quiet about this when selling to customers, instead detailing Apple’s standard one-year warranty and then encouraging them to take out Applecare, an extended warranty. They didn’t inform customers that the first year of Applecare would overlap with the second year of the statutory warranty period.
Italy’s Antitrust Authority fined Apple’s Italian subsidiaries a total of 900,000 euros (US$1.2 million): 400,000 euros for failing to provide the full two-year warranty as standard, and a further 500,000 euros for selling Applecare in a misleading manner. The 400,000 euro fine was slightly lower to recognize that Apple has taken steps to better highlight the statutory rights since coming under investigation.
The company must publish details of the ruling on its website and now has 90 days to revise the literature for Applecare to make clear that customers automatically get two-years coverage without charge.
Apple hasn’t yet commented on the ruling, or whether it will change the time at which Applecare kicks in for the Italian market.
Another Italian electronics retailer, Comet, escaped fines over similar breaches. The Antitrust Authority noted that Comet had begun fully informing customers of the two-year warranty before it began formal proceedings and simply ruled that Comet be bound to stick to this change of policy.
Uncommon Taste: How to Prepare Skyrim’s Sunlight Soufflé [Video]
Freddie Wong’s brother, Jimmy Wong, has just started a new web series that aims to re-create dishes presented in popular video games and turn them into reality. To the menu this week: Skyrim’s Sunlight Souffé, as presented in one of the game’s books: Uncommon Taste.
Why we Have Blind Spots – and How To See Blood Vessels [Video]
I am studying cognitive neuroscience at Brown University, and the trick in this video was shown to me by Professor David Sheinberg. A big thanks goes to him for all the awesome stuff he’s taught me!
[Source: TheGnome54]
To Understand is to Perceive Patterns [Video]
For decades, we assumed that the components of such complex systems as the cell, the society, or the Internet are randomly wired together. In the past decade, an avalanche of research has shown that many real networks, independent of their age, function, and scope, converge to similar architectures, a universality that allowed researchers from different disciplines to embrace network theory as a common paradigm.
The Raspberry Pi: An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25
The Raspberry Pi: A $25 system that features an Arm processor that supports up to 1080p resolution at up to 20 frames per second. It also offers onboard storage via an SD card, HDMI support, ethernet, a composite connection, and analog audio. The system will apparently go on sale sometime in January 2012.
[Raspberry Pi | Via [H]]