Scientific Fact: Young people smell worse than old people
Despite the jaw-dropping accomplishments of impressive senior citizens, our amazing elders suffer under the malodorous stigma that they somehow stink. Plenty of jokes can be found throughout pop culture suggesting the existence of a notorious Old Person Smell. Thankfully, science is here to save the day and prove that unfounded stigma is false. It turns out that the spice scent from the Old Spice Guy is actually old after all! Read more...
6 must-have Pinterest boards for parents
Pinterest — say the word, and heads swivel. Everyone I know is using the site to collect everything from recipes and craft ideas to favorite new products and inspirational quotations. But my friends who are moms, in particular, are beginning to see the beauty of it all — and I don't blame them. As a parent, I've found Pinterest especially helpful in wading through the wonderful and sometimes overwhelming ideas on the Web.
If you're not one of the million people already using Pinterest on a daily basis, here's a look at how to set up your boards for the maximum parental satisfaction. These six board ideas are a great starting point for building the perfect resource to keep your family organized, informed, well-fed, and entertained. Read more...
Eau de unboxing: Australian artists create the scent of the opening of a new Apple product
While videos and photos of unboxing Apple products have become commonplace, what about immortalising the moment through the memory of a smell?
That thought came to three artists in Australia who have concocted a fragrance that will appeal to Apple fanboys the world over, the smell of the opening of a new Macbook Air, as Macworld Australia reports.
The Melbourne-based Greatest Hits collaboration — which includes artists Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer and Simon McGlinn — put the unique smell, which is most definitely not about to rival J-Lo or Britney’s perfumes, together for their upcoming ‘De Facto Standard’ exhibition. Read more...
7 smart toys for today’s connected kids
The price of admission to this year's hottest toys list is a touch of tech. Not that old double-A battery and an on-switch kind — today's toys come equipped with capacitive screens, augmented reality, and the assumption that you already have an iPad, an iPod touch, or an iPhone in the family. You know what that means? There's a good chance our youngsters are (or will soon be) more tech-savvy than we are.
The good news? Many of these toys will do more than just suck those little brains in and get them glued to yet another screen. Choose right, and their favorite new tech toy could help teach them about math, science, physics, digital photography, computer programming, or even motivate them to go outside and learn more about good ol' Mother Nature. Here are some of the best teaching toys that I've seen and tested so far this year. Read more...
Famous bunnies of the Internet
"Between the death of Little Til, Herman Cain's dead rabbit ad, and the kidnapping of Miss Cooper, it's a bad time to be a bunny or bunny enthusiast," Gawker recently noted. Indeed, for lovers of all things lagomorph, it's best not to remember March at all. So, as we move forward to International Bunny Appreciation Day (which just so happens to coincide with Easter) this Sunday, let's cleanse our palates for April via this review of our very favorite bunny locations on the Internet.
Cocoa-chan, the therapy rabbit
Cocoa-chan is featured in "Pray for Japan," a documentary about survivors of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Here’s how she’s described it on her Pray for Japan Facebook page:
Sometimes humans can't help people more than little furry critters can. There was a special rabbit, Cocoa, giving people traumatized by the tragedy a little unconditional love. I gave this very special volunteer a folder of her very own. Cocoa-chan is still on her mission of providing help and hope...Stu is making sure all her fans here on the page get to see new pictures of her. Read more...
Hungry Hungry Hippos for The iPad: An April Fools’ gag that everybody wants to be real
Every year, ThinkGeek comes up with some of the most far-out (fake) products for April Fools' Day. In the past, several of these fictional items would be met with great enthusiasm by the masses that the retailer of odd devices would actually make them. And that's what a lot of people hope to happen with this year's runaway favorite April Fools' product: the iPad version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Read more...
Origami comes to life with reaDIYmate wifi toys
If you've ever tried your hand at creating an intricate animal or other sculpture out of paper, you know just how challenging origami can be. A new project called reaDIYmate aims to take all the challenge out of papercraft while allowing you to build customizable characters that not only look cool, but also connect to your digital life. Read more...
The Internet Has Killed April Fools’
It’s hard to tell if the Wikipedia article on April Fools’ Day is itself an April Fools’ prank. Tidbits of the ubiquitous holiday’s history seem like jokes in and of themselves;
“”In France and Italy, children and adults traditionally tack paper fish on each other’s back as a trick and shout “april fish!” in their local language (“poisson d’avril!” and “pesce d’aprile!” in French and Italian respectively).”
And this brings me to my point; The Internet has killed April Fools’. Back in the day you used to be able to tell your friends you were engaged, pregnant or had Cancer without them gushing all over your Facebook page or Twitter and immediately freaking out people who you didn’t want to prank, like your family. Read more...
Angry Birds Space flings 10 MILLION downloads in 3 days
The latest outing of Angry Birds - this time in spaaaace - has been downloaded 10 million times since it launched three days ago. The catapult-pinging galactic avian game was unveiled amid huge publicity on Friday. Rovio announced the expectation-smashing numbers on its Twitter feed this morning.
Angry Birds Space, which features zero-gravity physics and a new square Ice Bomb bird, went on sale alongside a line of plush toys, animation and books for keen fans. Read more...
Zynga reveals 9 new games, new game network
Brace yourself for a barrage of new games from social gaming giant Zynga — including the latest addition to its famed line-up of "Ville" games.
The company that brought us "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars" is preparing for an initial public offering, and on Tuesday it announced a slate of nine new games as well as a new gaming network called Zynga Direct (aka Project Z).
Chief Executive Mark Pincus unveiled the new games during a press event at the company's San Francisco headquarters. They are: "Zynga Bingo," a bingo game set in Las Vegas that will be part of a larger "Zynga Casino" setting; the seek-and-find game "Hidden Chronicles"; an exotic animal-collecting game called "Dream Zoo" slated to arrive in Apple's App Store, the mobile game "Mafia Wars ShakeDown" along with three games for Facebook’s new mobile apps site: "Zynga Poker Mobile Web," "Words With Friends HTML5" and "FarmVille Express."
But it's "CastleVille" — the company's latest in a series of "Ville" games — that sounds the most intriguing.
Zynga's forthcoming iOS mobile game "Dream Zoo" will let players collect exotic animals like this ... zebra? Read more...
Surf the web and fry an egg on this futuristic computer
The Electrolux Mobile Kitchen can slice, dice, cook, and surf the web all at the samElectrolux Mobile e. And, miraculously, all on the same laptop. Unfortunately, it's just a concept design right now from designer Dragan Trenchevski, but a very cool one.
The idea is to have an induction heat stove top, a cutting board and touch screen LCD in one unit. You can use the monitor to browse through recipes or watch videos on how to cook. There would be a web cam embedded on top of it so you can talk with your friends who may be walking you through the cooking process. Read more...
Annual Day Against DRM
The music industry may have largely given up on digital rights management, a largely ineffectual set of technologies meant to interfere with the simple and ubiquitous act of copying digital files, but the risks inherent in digital locks are as present as ever. Film studios must think that somehow their application of this technology is different, that this time it will work. As book publishers experiment with electronic editions, they also assume any such digital versions must be locked down to prevent their livelihood from being stolen out from under them.
Thinkers much brighter and more articulate than I am have pointed out that strategies relying on DRM proceed from rather flawed assumptions. Above all other things what the personal computer, and its descendants like smart phones, does best is to make perfect, infinite digital copies. Coding a thin veneer over this is comparable to trying to contain a rabid badger with a cardboard box. It willfully ignores the inherent nature of the situation. Hence business models based on digital technologies would be far better served to embrace the very abundance enabled. Read more...
AppleCrate II doubles the cluster computing fun
Back in 2004, Apple hobbyist/guru [Michael Mahon] built a cluster of Apple IIe main boards dubbed the “AppleCrate” as an experiment in parallel computing. Now that a few years have passed, he is back with a new iteration of the device, aptly named AppleCrate II. AppleCrate II was built to address some of the design limits of his first cluster project as well as to expand his parallel computing capabilities. His gripes with the first model were primarily structural in nature. The new system is organized in horizontal layers, using metal standoffs between each main board, rather than relying on a shaky wooden superstructure to keep things together. He also found his previous 8-processor configuration a bit limiting, Read more...
Seniors use computer program to try to stay sharp
Imagine being able to improve your brain health and fight memory loss and dementia by playing a series of games on a computer.
Fifty seniors, ages 65 to 95, who live independently at the Beacon Hill retirement community in Lombard are doing just that. They've been trying out the Dakim BrainFitness software system first introduced to the Beacon Hill community a little more than a year ago. Read more...