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A South Korean man, identified only by the family name “Lee,” died in an Internet Café in Taegu after 50 hours of online gaming. Lee’s 50-hour game-athon had been interrupted only for trips to the bathroom and small naps. The 28-year-old gamer had recently quit his job to pursue his obsession, but died after pushing himself to the point of exhaustion-induced heart failure. If you’re reading this and you haven’t been outside or away from your computer in a few days, especially if you’re in South Korea – please, take time for a nice, long break.
Read More 
| CNN
Disappointed Korean SPH-V4400 Users File Complaints Against Samsung
Posted by Alex Grahmann Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, Portable Audio / Video,
Alleging that Samsung grossly exaggerated the abilities of the SPH-V4400 camera phone, two consumer groups have filed official complaints against the company for false advertising. Armed with nearly 3,000 signatures, members of the “V4400 Consumers’ Power” and “Tipsters for the Public Good” groups are very disgruntled with the lackluster video recording capabilities of the phone, pointing out that the VGA camera only films 3-5 frames per second, rather than the digital camcorder standard of 15-30, despite Samsung’s claims that it would measure up. Sales of the V4400 have been strong up to this point, having been fueled by Korean superstar Kwon Sang-woo, earning the phone the nickname, the “Kwon Sang-woo Phone.”
Read More | Chosun
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Unrealart is a project developed by artist Alison Mealey. The images in the project are composed from information collected over the course of one 30-minute game each. Each game has 20-25 AI bots fighting in slightly user-influenced patterns on artist-created maps. The position of each bot is logged every second along with points of death and lines of movement. The data is put through Mealey’s custom code and outputs as the beautiful artwork you see above. There are many more examples on her website, each wonderful proof of what beauty is possible through such creative collaboration. Mealey’s art goes on live display at the CoEDD graduate exhibition in Huddersfield in the UK on August 13th.
Read More | Unrealart
Latest Gear Live Videos
Microsoft released an update to their MSN Messenger software for the Mac. The newly released Microsoft Messenger 5.0 makes some significant improvements on the previously released versions and seems to fit much better with OS X. The new version features blue gel buttons, a brushed aluminum frame, and support for newer MSN Messenger technologies such as display pictures, advanced emoticons, and easy conversation saving. Gear Live still feels that both AdiumX and Proteus are superior chat clients for OS X featuring not only support for multiple chat networks, but a highly configurable UI - but Microsoft Messenger 5.0 is certainly a step in the right direction.
Read More | Mac Messegner site
Our friends over at Single Serve Coffee got their hands on the uber-expensive Nespresso Romeo Coffe Maker, and put it through the paces. Now, despite that fact that it’s fully automated, and even uses really cool coffee “capsules” which make it even more attractive , I am not one to drop $800 large on a coffee maker. That being said, if you happen to love coffee - or capsules - that much, then check it out. It certainly is a beautiful piece of machinery.
We really like the Nespresso Romeo and the Nespresso coffee. We’ve seen Nespresso around for awhile now, but had no idea how fabulous the coffee would be. It’s also nice to see a well designed, well thought out machine to go with such great coffee. TheNespresso Romeo is easy to use and pleasant to the eye.
Read More | Single ServeCoffee
Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote Review
Posted by Rob Stevens Categories: Accessories, Features, Home Entertainment, Product Reviews,
If you’re anything like me, your living room is probably cluttered with remotes. OEM remotes, “universal” remotes, and remotes for the air conditioner you left behind when you moved. Men love ‘em; there’s nothing like the feel of a plastic remote (or five) in your hand to make you feel like you’re in control. Women, on the other hand, see the remote as a bone of contention and the more of them there are, the more contentious the bone.
We asked our friends at Logitech if they could solve the problem, and they sent us their top-of-the-line programmable remote: The Harmony 880. Logitech has designed the remote to be used in conjunction with HDTV and PVR devices, and makes the process of doing things like changing the aspect ratio of your HDTV from 16x9 when on a DVD source, to 4x3 Expanded when on a TiVo. Most importantly, they tout the remote as being easy to set up and easy to use. We’ll just see about that.
Click to continue reading Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote Review
Speculation: Two Xbox 360 Models at Launch
Posted by Jesse Easley Categories: Corporate News, Xbox 360,
There are tons of rumors flying around about the Xbox 360 launch right now and one analyst spoke up about what they feel Microsoft will be doing. Anthony Gikas of Piper Jaffray, believes that Microsoft will roll out two different versions of the Xbox 360 for launch, but doesn’t try to speculate of what the differences might be. There is the ever so strong rumor of one version will lack a hard drive, or at least come with a smaller hard drive, rather than the larger one Microsoft mentioned previously.
“Microsoft knows $299 is important,” Gikas explained. “They know that historically that’s been the launch sweet spot, but they also don’t want to take such large hardware losses this time. Of the 1 million units Microsoft is expected to have available at launch, I expect 80% of them will probably be the more expensive SKU, because that’s what early adopters are going to want.”
Read More | GameDaily
1 Million Songs Sold in First Four Days of Japanese iTunes
Posted by Alex Grahmann Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Music, Portable Audio / Video,
Debuting with prices ranging from ¥200 and ¥300 per song ($1.80 and $2.70), Apple has exploded onto the Japanese digital audio scene by selling over 1 million songs with the new service in under four days. Proudly, Japanese artists grabbed the honors for both the top-downloaded song (Def Tech) and the top-downloaded album (Ulfuls). Steve Jobs was quick to point out that the four-day business enjoyed by the Japanese iTunes dwarfs even a month’s worth of business on any other Japanese service. With the struggles that other American companies, such as Microsoft, have had breaking into some Japanese markets, Apples success in this area could bode very well for the company.
Read More | MacWorld
DIY Optical Mouse Hacked Into Classic NES Controller
Posted by Sparky Categories: Accessories, Mods / Hacks, PC / Laptop, Peripherals,
Some creative lads have posted instructions on how to make a Frankenstein creation using a Microsoft optical mouse, and a standard classic NES controller. This DIY project involved taking the guts from the mouse and transplanting them into the controller. Other than a hot glue gun, Dremel, and soldering gun, nothing special is needed. While the NES mouse does not seem to be the most ergonomic option available it sure does seem one of the coolest ideas for that hardcore retro-gamer in your life.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but Doom, the original cult classic FPS has been ported to the iPodLinux platform. I can’t imagine how they get the UI to work with the click wheel, and there are a lot of reports of frame-rate issues, but this is just nifty. Frustrating UI aside, it really is impressive how many platforms Doom has been ported to - I have it on my smartphone right now and can only imagine what portable devices of tomorrow will be able to run it.
Read More | iPodlinux
