I don’t know whether these guys are technically on solid ground, but to everyone involved this has to look like just the most egregious money-grab of all time. So this company, Clear With Personal, holds a patent describing something like an electronic configurator akin to the one pictured. Of course, the patent is ridiculously broad […]

I don’t know whether these guys are technically on solid ground, but to everyone involved this has to look like just the most egregious money-grab of all time. So this company, Clear With Personal, holds a patent describing something like an electronic configurator akin to the one pictured. Of course, the patent is ridiculously broad to begin with, but that’s a whole other ball game.

It was 1997 when they were given the patent, and it is now the year 2008. A tiny late, guys! Hardware configurators like the ones they allege infringe on their patent have been around for a long, long time now. It’s like the people suing game companies for having analog sticks. You’ve to be on the ball and at least respond within, oh, five years to have any kind of credibility at all.
[via Ars Technica]

Via [crunchgear]

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The world is spinning out of control, but the New York Times still finds time to examine what Metal Gear Solid 4 means to the medium of video games and to humanity as a whole. Super. An article there this day goes around asking some of the guys from Kotaku and 1UP what they think of the […]

The world is spinning out of control, but the New York Times still finds time to examine what Metal Gear Solid 4 means to the medium of video games and to humanity as a whole. Super.

An article there today goes around asking some of the guys from Kotaku and 1UP what they think of the game’s heavy story. Is the game too preachy? What does it say about America’s position in the world? How does Blacwater tie into all of this? Is the game as effective in telling its wacky story as novels? And so on.

More interesting is when the game is compared to Halo 3, which is popular because “you shoot people.”

I forget: does Halo even have a storyline? Something about two sets of aliens fighting? And U.S. Marines are involved for some reason?

Image from Flickr

Via [crunchgear]

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Tweaktown has (in an inexplicably explicitly-worded article) taken apart one of the new, black Eee Personal computers and checked out all its bits and bytes. To be honest, there’s not much in the way of surprises. It’s mostly common OEM hardware, the expected Atom processor, and the normal layout for webcam, microphone, and all that. What’s nice […]

Tweaktown has (in an inexplicably explicitly-worded article) taken apart one of the new, black Eee Personal computers and checked out all its bits and bytes. To be honest, there’s not much in the way of surprises. It’s mostly common OEM hardware, the expected Atom processor, and the normal layout for webcam, microphone, and all that.

What’s nice though is that because the RAM and HDD are both common OEM, you can very easily replace them with something nicer. The HDD for instance is an 80GB, 5400RPM 2.5″ Seagate. You could replace that with something far more high-performance in a jiffy, likewise the generic RAM. Like we talked about in the podcast last week, though, the Atom processor is going to get the multi-core treatment as soon as this summer, so I’d wait for that before putting together your Ultimate Eee.

Via [crunchgear]

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There’s a Lucid Dream Machine sleeping mask on Instructables that pulses LEDs in your eyelids four hours after you fall asleep, waking you up just enough to notice your dreams and control their outcomes. The mask requires a fair bit of soldering and programming experience, so it isn’t for DIY luddites like me. Which is good, because my sleep is too precious and my dreams are too weird to want one of these anyway. [Instructables via Make]

Via [Gizmodo]

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