Here ya go Europe. Another fuck you from Sony.

The European version of Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) console will not play as many old games as American and Japanese models, Sony has announced.Gamers who already own PlayStation 2 (PS2) and PlayStation (PS) games may find they will not work on the long-awaited, new console. The European PS3 has a different design to the Japanese and American consoles, which went on sale in November.

Reason

The console was supposed to be “backwards compatible”, meaning all older PS and PS2 games should work on the new console.But the European PS3 utilises a new combination of hardware and software emulation in which software takes over some of the functionality that was previously taken care of by dedicated chips.This means that while European gamers will be able to play a wide range of original PlayStation titles on the PS3, there will be a limited number of PS2 games that will be compatible with the new console.

Above taken from BBC Story

Big laser pointer, huge projector: L.A.S.E.R. Tag.

Nasa released a compilation of footage from various cameras attatched to both solid rocket boosters. Nasa TV showed all views from accention to decention. But this compilation shows the most dramatic and interesting views captured. It is still primarily a single shot from low earth orbit down to earths oceans surface

From the inevitable department comes news that Google is working hard on AI. Larry Page; Google co-founder says:

“We have some people at Google [who] are really trying to build artificial intelligence (AI) and to do it on a large scale…It’s not as far off as people think.”

Full story. But will our new google AIs want to be more than just utilities that make keyword advertising better?

AI 1: You know Bill, I’m sick of just being a Swan Porn keyword analysis tool

Thanks Dave.

Those cooky kids over at the Doom9 forums hate themselves some DRM. Not more than two months after discovering a means to extract the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc “volume keys” to decrypt AACS DRM on individual films, we’re now getting word that DRM hacker arnezami has found the “processing key” used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films

DRM is pointless when you have to provide the key along with the lock! Full engadget story.

Gurgling is a technical term. It’s true; Youtube is coming to mobile; on the biggest chunkiest nokia’s first with crucially no browser required, but it’s only a matter of time… NokiaTube click.

Previously: YouTube available on Mobiles.
Also from the past, where everything was much simpler and kids respected their elders and there wasn’t as much violent crime: Social networking on the way to mobiles.

Wind and solar energy could be used to set up mobile phone networks in rural areas of the world without power.
The world’s first mobile phone base station powered by wind and the sun’s rays will soon open in Namibia.

Thats cool. Story on the beeb.

Steorn has redesigned it’s website around Orbo, the name it has given to it’s free energy technology.

Orbo is the brand name of our free energy technology. Orbo is a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy. It can be applied to power products ranging from portable music players to cars.

This is all just getting so exciting. Why if they are as good at free energy production as they are at vacuous but pretty looking websites then boy are we in for a free energy related future. Steorn it.

Steorn previously at TCAL.

Update: a video!

Troy Hurtubise is world renowned for his Ursus Series of bear suits as well as such breakthrough innovations as Firepaste, LIMBC, AngelLight and many more. Troy Hurtubises latest innovation required 1800 hours and 150,000.00 dollars and is the first of its kind in the world–The Trojan. The first full-body exoskeleton ballistic suit of armor. The Trojan was specifically built for coalition troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan to combat the dreaded IED’s as well as for police across the world manning the front lines of riot control.

Specific stats on the Trojan are as follows:
90% flexibility, 95% body coverage. The Trojan allows the wearer to drive vehicles, run full-tilt, climb stairs and conduct dive roll manoeuvers. The Trojan weighs a mere 30 pounds without the Trojan shield. The Trojan incorporates 16 different electronic functions and prototypes impregnated into its exoskeleton. Some of the Trojans key features are a laser tracking system, 5 L.E.D. light spectrums, a voice recorder, a voice activated pedometer, a digital electronic compass, built in compartments for salt tablets and morphine pills, a digital thermometer, a built in intake cooling fan which runs on solar power, a throwing and knife, a medical emergency light transponder and much more.

Go and bid for it on Ebay.

Wow.

The Life Extension Values Clarification Survey seeks to find out what you think about life extension technology.

The results page is interesting. Weird that most people taking the survey say they are atheist.

Also have a read of the Why Life Extension? or Why Live At All? article.

It’s all on the Ben Best website. Ben Best Wikipedia.

Thanks Si.

People that seem both nuts and genius-smart are really interesting. My favourite is Ray Kurzweil, who you may well be sick of hearing about on TCAL. I’m subscribed to his newsletter and it arrives in my inbox periodically, glowing energon-cube like with the latest weirdness in science. This issue informs me:

Raw algae can be processed to make biocrude, the renewable equivalent of petroleum, and refined to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and chemical feedstocks for plastics and drugs. Indeed, it can be processed at existing oil refineries to make just about anything that can be made from crude oil.

Story. How cool does biocrude sound?

Physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe.

Story. Physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we salute you.

EoPlex is developing a revolutionary way to print objects in three dimensions: mass-produce tiny gears and switches using a process that builds 3-D objects by layering materials on top of each other, over and over, until a third dimension takes shape.

Story. Uh oh! Grey goo warning!

Futurists see a conflict forming over our dominion over the human body, and over the choices we make about our biological future, and that of our children. Some call it a clash between “bioliberals” and “bioconservatives,” and frame it as a debate over individual rights.

Story. I consider myeslf a bioliberal. You?

Loads more.

Not sure exactly how true this is. Any UK readers out there confirm or deny this for us?

British gamers trying to order a PlayStation 3 from HMV were in for something of a shock today. The high street chain e-mailed customers to let them know it has opened up preorders for its PS3 as part of a bundle that includes a PlayStation Portable and two PSP games: Killzone: Liberation and Gangs of London.

The total price of the HMV bundle comes to £674.99 (approximately $1,328), almost £250 (~$490) more than the console itself. Buying games for the new console is likely to add at least another £50 (~$98) to that sum.

Gamestop reports & PS3 previously on tcal

News story. (via.)

The Guardian with some conspiracy theory stuff about Google.

The perception of Google as an honest broker, disinterested in the information it presents, remains a popular one. We like to believe that “we the people” control what comes out of Google’s mouth.

But while that may have been true once, and while it was in fact one of the company’s founding ideals, it’s not so true any more.

Story.

The most important drum-break thus far.

This six-second sample from 1969 alone is responsible for the entire musical genre - ‘jungle’, and arguably stakes a place as about as important to hip-hop as James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer’ break.

Visually stark (boring), this informative video traces the use of the break and its incredible importance in terms of recent musical history (from NWA through jungle, to Squarepusher and investigating copyright implications - even sighting a company providing commercially available sample CDs aimed at advertisement industry, and hence, claiming the sample as its own property) and implications of its recontextualisation in cultural and commercial terms.

Six-seconds of one b-side, responsible for an entire cultural movement, The Amen Break:

Yes it is. Web site for European Data Protection Day.

A 2003 Eurobarometer survey on the protection of privacy in the European Union showed that 70% of European citizens feel they know little about what is done in their country to protect their personal data.

However, data protection issues are central in citizens’ lives: at work, in their relations with public authorities, in the health field, when they travel or surf the internet. The right to data protection is also the prerequisite for the exercise of other fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of speech or conscience.

Therefore, in 2007, for the first time, the Council of Europe will be celebrating a Data Protection Day on 28 January. This will be the occasion for European citizens to become more aware of personal data protection and of what their rights and responsibilities are in that regard.

Loads of interesting stuff at that site. To coincide with the day, Digital Rights Ireland have a piece up; 5 ways to protect your privacy.

Simon McGarr of tuppenceworth.ie sends in this interesting tidbit:

Academic journals are a shell game. You have to publish in them if you want to be believed or promoted as a researcher. And every large library must subscribe to them if it is to take its job seriously.

But the fees for these subscriptions are astronomical, and rising. Hence the new Free access to information sources such as the Public Library of Science.

In the face of being eaten by the internet, it seems the old publishers have decided to introduce old fashioned bluster to the mix.

Article at nature.com.

Now, Nature has learned, a group of big scientific publishers has hired the pit bull to take on the free-information movement, which campaigns for scientific results to be made freely available. Some traditional journals, which depend on subscription charges, say that open-access journals and public databases of scientific papers such as the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) PubMed Central, threaten their livelihoods.

Information wants to be free, it’ll eventually route around bureaucracy just as it routes around censorship.

From Detroit to Beijing, the Jeep Waterfall has mesmerized auto showgoers from across the globe. Tune in to discover how this H20 wonder works.

Thanks Dave!

Cool idea.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who built his fortune on innovations in information technology, announced a plan yesterday that will allow emergency 911 call centers and the popular 311 service line to receive digital photos and videos from callers.

The city will be the first in the nation to incorporate digital images into its 911 system, Mr. Bloomberg said, calling it a “revolutionary innovation in crime fighting.”

New York times article.