Posts Tagged ‘perception’

Sometimes it pays to wait before spending your hard-earned cash on the year’s best games. If you haven’t yet played through BioShock Infinite , for example, Amazon just eliminated “price” as a valid reason for your willful ignorance. The heralded first-person shooter from Irrational Games is Amazon’s Deal of the Day across all platforms — though the cost isn’t uniform. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can grab the title for $39.99. The asking price for either a physical or digital Windows version is $34.99.

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Good Deal: ‘BioShock Infinite’ on sale at Amazon for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

Today is YouTube’s eighth birthday, and to mark the occasion Google is revealing new statistics that underline what a cultural sensation its video site has become. Most staggeringly, over 100 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube each and every minute. One year ago on this day, that figure stood at 72 hours per minute (it was 48 hours in 2011). So aside from record-breaking viewership — over one billion people now visit YouTube monthly — more and more users are continuing to upload their own clips to the site in hopes of creating the next viral phenomenon

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YouTube users now upload 100 hours of video every minute

Twice a month in California’s Mojave desert, anyone can spend half a day in a war zone. The Fort Irwin National Training Center is meant to give soldiers a crash course in realistic combat before they deploy. The thousand-square-mile base contains everything from fake towns to caves for “insurgents” drawn from a regiment whose role is to provide an opposing force, no matter who the US is fighting.

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Inside Fort Irwin, fake cities provide a training ground for real warfare

Google and other tech companies have come under fire for exploiting a common tax loophole to book revenues through their Irish subsidiaries, but today The Sunday Times is reporting that a former Google UK executive has evidence of further tax avoidance by his one-time employer. Barney Jones worked for Google between 2002 and 2006 and says that during his time at the company, Google relied almost exclusively on its UK sales staff to secure advertising deals in London, effectively closing deals there rather than in Dublin, where it booked the revenues. Google VP Matt Brittin had previously testified to the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that “nobody” at Google’s UK office was selling Google advertising, last week revising his… Continue reading…

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Former Google UK exec alleges company misrepresented sales to avoid paying taxes

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What would you like to see Google do next after I/O? – Verge Forums

PS3 and Vita game Sound Shapes has some amazing music from some amazing artists: think Beck, Jim Guthrie , and Deadmau5 . But it also lets players create their own levels and sounds, and soon you’ll be able to check out our favorites. On May 28th, the Sound Shapes Milkcrate will add five guest-curated albums, featuring the best player-created levels the game has to offer. Among those guests is The Verge , and you’ll also be able to check out hand-picked albums from the likes of gaming site Gamespot , record label Ghostly International, Pixeljunk Eden composer Baiyon, and Sound Shapes developer Queasy Games. And if you’re looking to get started making some levels of your own, there’s good news, as today the game received two new $0.99 sound…

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Play The Verge-curated ‘Sound Shapes’ album on May 28th

The Guardian this week published a fascinating in-depth report on the village of Newtok — a remote Alaskan community that, because of climate change, will likely be underwater within the next few years. Experts say it could be just four years before rising sea levels swallow Newtok, and although the community has already agreed to relocate to higher ground, a shortage of money and resources has precluded them from taking action. Meanwhile, erratic climate and weather patterns have convinced locals of the threat that global warming poses. “It’s changing a lot,” Newtok resident Nathan Tom said. “It’s real, global warming, it’s real.” Continue reading…

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Climate change threatens to destroy Alaskan village within four years

Relations between those who build mobile apps and their customers are getting a leg up today with Google’s announcement that all developers will now be able to reply to user reviews in the Play store. The company made the announcement on the Android Developers blog , discussing best practices like identifying and prioritizing bugs based on user impact and getting ideas for new improvements and features. The ability to respond to user reviews first started rolling out nearly a year ago, but now appears to finally be complete, following a false start in January . Continue reading…

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Google Play now lets all developers respond to user reviews

Google has been extending the functionality of Google+ with a steady stream of feature rollouts , and today the company has announced the latest addition: the ability to add content recommendations to mobile websites. The feature — launching today on the Forbes mobile site — appears as a small bar at the bottom of a given article. Tapping it brings up suggested articles for that site, keying off the author, the topics discussed, or what is being shared on Google+ to generate the suggestions. Users don’t need to be signed into their Google+ account to see the recommendations, but if they are they’ll also see suggestions based upon what those in their Google+ Circles have been sharing. While Forbes is the immediate launch partner, any..

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Google+ extends its reach with article recommendations for mobile websites

Examining encrypted iPhones and iPads as evidence in police investigations has become so common that Apple has created a waiting list to handle the inundation of help requests that it receives, reports CNET . Though it’s been known that Apple is willing to assist government agencies in opening up inaccessible iOS devices, the extent to which the company helps law enforcement hasn’t been detailed before. Court documents seen by CNET reveal that an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was told that there would be a 7-week wait before Apple would be able to handle a case that he had submitted for assistance. CNET reports that after Apple completes its examination of a device, it provides the investigating..

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Apple reportedly inundated with police requests to decrypt iPhones

It’s a fine line between clever and stupid, but the 1984 faux-documentary This is Spinal Tap walked it perfectly, and Spinal Tap’s self-titled album is coming back in its original black vinyl. While it’s obviously been available in modern formats, this is the first time in decades that record aficionados can get their hands on a new copy. The album will come with the original liner notes, with an all-black color scheme. Naturally, it’s launching on June 11th — though you can pre-order it from Amazon or The Control Group — and includes 11 tracks, including the classics “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight,” “Stonehenge,” and “Hell Hole.” If you can’t wait until June, of course, you can always go ahead and laser-cut your own copy on… Continue reading…

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‘This is Spinal Tap’ album reissued on vinyl for the first time in 30 years

Twitter, even more than many other social media tools, can feel disconnected from the real world. But a group of students and professors at research site Floating Sheep have built a comprehensive map of some of Twitter’s most distasteful content: the racist, homophobic, or ableist slurs that can proliferate online. Called Geography of Hate , the interactive map charts ten relatively common slurs across the continental US, either by general category or individually. Looking at the whole country, you’ll often see a mass of red or what the map’s creators call a “blue smog of hate.” Zooming in, however, patches appear over individual regions or cities; some may be predictable, while others are not

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‘Geography of Hate’ maps racism and homophobia on Twitter

One of Iron Man 3′ s defining action scenes is the so-called “barrel of monkeys” scene ( minor spoilers ahead ), in which Tony Stark saves the passengers of Air Force One after a hole is blown in it at 30,000 feet. While it’s a scene that may stretch the laws of physics , it’s also one of the film’s high points — two minutes of edge-of-the-seat drama and visual effects spender. The Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex blog breaks the whole scene down , covering both VFX needed to pull it off as well as the stunts that made it look so convincing. For starters, those falling passengers were skydivers from Red Bull’s skydiving team, with their gear and parachutes removed in post-production. “It’s something that’s incredibly difficult to fake —..

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Behind the VFX and stuntmen who created ‘Iron Man 3′s’ Air Force One rescue scene

Microsoft’s efforts to build out the app ecosystem for Windows Phone 8 appear to be reaching a plateau. Buried in today’s announcement of the Nokia Lumia 928 for Verizon was the fact that the Windows Phone Store now has 145,000 apps , up only slightly from the 120,000 apps announced in October. The figures suggest momentum has slowed after the Windows Phone catalog doubled in size over the first half of last year. And it raises the question of whether developers are shying away from a platform that is still struggling to catch on in North America.

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Windows Phone hits 145,000 apps, but progress slows

Today, electric cars are too expensive for most of us, even with prices creeping downward. A Tesla Model S will run you over a grand a month , and even Ford’s electric Focus sells for nearly $40,000 . Making matters even tougher on the wallet is the fact that a home charging station will set you back as much as another $2,000. The auto industry knows all of these prices have to come down if electrics will catch on. And finally — on the home charger side of things anyway — something is being done about it

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Bosch’s $449 electric vehicle home charger is a bargain

Last year ABC gave writer-director Joss Whedon the go-ahead to shoot a pilot for a television show set in The Avengers universe , and Deadline reports that the network has picked up the show to series. Entitled Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , the show will focus on — to no surprise — a group of agents from the fictional global law-enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The show will star Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, a character that has appeared in several of Marvel’s films up until this point.

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‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ is coming to ABC, sneak peek airing on Sunday

The beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is BINGO! Continue reading…

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90 Seconds on The Verge: Google Wallet, Lumia 928, and Stormtroopers

The immigration reform bill currently sitting in the Senate is huge: it’s more than 800 pages long, with more than 300 proposed amendments crammed in. Senators are in the early stages of debating the measure, and so far, there’s a lot of talk about border security. But one detail that isn’t getting much attention yet is a deeply buried proposal to create a national database of nearly every adult in the US. Continue reading…

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Immigration reform bill wants employers to ID all new hires with national photo database

Executed by the State of Illinois in 1994 for murdering 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978, serial killer John Wayne Gacy is long gone. But rumors about the possibility of more Gacy victims live on. That’s why a retired police detective, a filmmaker, and a veteran journalist are now fighting to reopen the Gacy investigation by searching a property where the notorious serial killer may have buried additional bodies. Their argument is not that anyone in law enforcement needs more murders to solve

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Grave mistake: the controversial, high-tech search for John Wayne Gacy’s lost victims

Following weeks of rumors , Nokia is finally unveiling its Lumia 928 handset today. Verizon will stock Nokia’s latest flagship on May 16th, which includes a 4.5-inch OLED display, 8.7-megapixel camera, and wireless charging. Nokia’s latest flagship also includes a Xenon flash that the company has been teasing over the past few days. Most of the hardware is similar to Nokia’s Lumia 920, but the company has also included a loudspeaker that, coupled with three microphones, will record sound up to 140dB and then play it back without distortion

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Nokia Lumia 928 for Verizon announced, available May 16th for $99.99

Apple’s popular iTunes app might be available for the desktop mode of Windows 8, but Microsoft wants the company to create a “Metro” version. In an interview with CNN Money , Windows CFO Tami Reller revealed that Microsoft has tried to convince Apple to build an iTunes Windows 8 app, saying “the welcome mat has been laid out. It’s not for lack of trying.” It appears that Apple is reluctant to create a Windows 8 iTunes app, and Reller says you shouldn’t expect it “any time soon.” Sources at Microsoft have revealed to The Verge that iTunes is one of the most searched for applications in the Windows Store, and that the company has been actively trying to secure a Windows 8 version.

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Microsoft wants an iTunes app for Windows 8, but it’s not coming ‘any time soon’

Since the release of Facebook Home last month, the software has been limited to a small handful of phones headlined by the new HTC First , but it appears that Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One owners can now give their phones a Facebook makeover, too. Android Central reports that after an update to the official Facebook app (but strangely, not the Home app), both phones are reportedly able to run the launcher. In the case of the S4, you’ll first be greeted with a popup asking if you want to “Use Home Anyway,” but everything works fine. The One, on the other hand, has no such confirmation, and we’ve been able to confirm that installing Home does work despite a lack of changes in the app’s Play store listing. Android Central reports that…

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Facebook Home now available for Galaxy S4 and HTC One

Budget UK airline Easyjet will help create an artificial volcanic ash cloud for the final test of new aircraft systems capable of detecting and avoiding volcanic debris. The company teamed up with Nicarnia Aviation and Airbus last year to test the AVOID (Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector) system, and will use a tonne of volcanic ash collected from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland — which helped ground hundreds of thousands of flights when it erupted in 2010. Continue reading…

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EasyJet will recreate Iceland volcanic eruption to test ash warning system

We don’t always see what Microsoft’s marketing teams are cooking up around the world, but whoever filmed these insane, absurdist Asian promo videos deserves a raise. It’s possible that the trio of clips below (titled Windows 8 Training Camp) weren’t meant for public release, but they’re still some of the most memorable, engaging, and on-message 30-second spots we’ve seen featuring the new touch-based operating system since it was released last October. According to a company spokesperson, the videos were made for Asian markets and posted to Microsoft’s general channel by mistake, where they were discovered by the rest of the internet. Just imagine what they could do on purpose.

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Microsoft’s crazy Windows 8 video campaign swaps watermelons for features

Shane Black, the celebrated action movie screenwriter and director of Iron Man 3 , has signed on to helm Doc Savage — a film adaptation of the pulp comic series from the 1930s and 1940s. Sony Pictures announced the deal Tuesday, confirming that Black will direct and co-write the film, with Neal H. Moritz, Ori Marmur, and Michael Uslan serving as producers. Continue reading…

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‘Iron Man 3′ director signs on for ‘Doc Savage’ adaptation