SAN MATEO, Calif. — Sean Riley, the host of National Geographic show “World’s Toughest Fixes,” has a message for kids today: Learn a trade.

Speaking with BoingBoing editor Xeni Jardin at Maker Faire yesterday, Riley pointed out that it takes four to six years to learn a trade, such as plumbing — about the same amount of time it would take you to get through college.

Yet plumbers, especially in big urban areas, will make far more money than the average college graduate. In other words, if you’re smart and ambitious, and you can’t get a Thiel Fellowship to help kickstart your startup idea, you might consider another alternate path: Getting your hands dirty.

In Riley’s case, his trade — rigging — led him to work with a wide range of interesting projects. He mentioned that he recently helped hang the 50,000-pound lighting equipment at the upcoming Rolling Stones show in Oakland, Calif., for instance. But it also led him to become the star of one of television’s more amazing reality shows. In each show, he travels to a different part of the world to watch (and sometimes help) as engineers, crane operators, riggers, and deep-sea divers help fix a wide range of massive problems, from replacing the engine on an cruise ship to swapping out the gate in a big dam lock.

Even if you’re not interested in the trades, Riley thinks more people should know about the massive amount of infrastructure that it takes to make the modern world possible. There’s a lot of redundancy built into systems like the power grid, he says — but that redundancy is diminishing, since we’ve spent less and less on upgrading and maintaining this infrastructure over the past 40 years.

Repairability is also a disappearing quality in many gadgets we own today. “If you can’t open it up and fix it, you don’t own it,” was one of the themes Jardin and Riley discussed onstage.

Learn how to fix things, and you’ll be more in control of the world around you. And, you will be in a better position to build the next great thing.

Riley revealed that, after four seasons with the show, he would not be continuing for a fifth. “I traveled 350 days out of the year,” he said, and said that while it was an amazing experience, it was exhausting, and took a personal toll. Also, he added, “a show like this is incredibly expensive to produce.”

Photo: Sean Riley with a young fan. Photo credit: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

The new TrackingPoint sniper rifle doesn’t fire when you pull the trigger. Rather, it fires when it knows it will hit the target you’re aiming at. And then streams video to the included iPad mini to allow you to share your hunting or sharpshooting experience with Facebook, YouTube, or maybe even Al Jazeera.

Now, the company says, everyone can be an expert marksman.

“With TrackingPoint, even a novice shooter can become an elite long-range marksman in minutes, accurately and effectively engaging targets out to 1,200 yards,” the company said in a press release.

That’s good, if you’re a hunter and you want to “ethically harvest” game by making immediate kills shots. But it’s also incredibly dangerous, since now inexperienced shooters can be as accurate — or more accurate — as trained military snipers from almost a mile away. The potential for terrorism and targeted assassinations is obvious.

The shooter simple tells the rifle what he or she is aiming at by locking a laser on the target. The gun’s built-in laser range finder, compass, environmental sensors to gauge wind speeds, inertial measurement unit, ballistics computer, and networked tracking engine then engage. But the rifle only fires when you’re holding it in exactly the right direction to hit the target, ensuring that even the unsteadiest and untrained hands can deploy death from a distance. And every shot is recorded and streamed to your nearby iPad.

“Think of it like a smart rifle. You have a smart car; you got a smartphone; well, now we have a smart rifle,” company President Jason Schauble told NPR.

Hunters are excited by the possibilities, apparently.

Source: TrackingPoint

XS1 is the largest-caliber Precision Guided Firearm (PGF) available today.

“When I first saw this system, I knew immediately that I had to have one,” said the first owner of a TrackingPoint rifle. “As a sport hunter and professional marksman, I see the TrackingPoint technology as an excellent way to ensure more ethical harvesting of game and to share the thrill of the hunt with anyone. I cannot wait to make amazing shots of my own.”

The Austin-based company that makes the TrackingPoint rifle calls it a “Precision-Guided Firearm (PGF),” carefully avoiding any reference to “snipers” or “sniper rifles.” But the size and weight of this deadly weapon — 27″ long, over 20 pounds loaded — make it a very unusual hunting rifle. I’m no firearms expert, but several sites I’ve checked indicate that average hunting rifles weigh in at 6-12 pounds, and that a rifle of 20 pounds or more is “just too heavy for general purposes.”

Ergo, it’s a sniper rifle.

TrackingPoint has made some efforts around safety. The sophisticated tracking scope that makes the rifle “smart” is password-protected, according to the company’s CEO, so while the gun will still fire without an authorized user, it won’t allow access to all the intelligence that could make a weekend warrior into an instant Marine sniper.

The company made its first deliveries this week, and due to “overwhelming demand,” has set up a web-based application process to get on the waiting list. We can only hope that the application process doesn’t allow any deranged individuals to access this type of deadly weapons.

And, no matter how smart these rifles are, the question is: are they wise?

The advertising industry’s top kudos show, the Clio Awards, gave Google the advertiser of the year award for 2013 for creativity and excellence in advertising this week.

Here are some of the best examples:

Google Fiber — and toy cars:

Build with Chrome — and Lego Sydney Harbor Bridges:

100,000 stars (go forth and explore):

And, of course, no gallery of great Google ads would be complete without Dear Sophie:

Image credit: Google; Hat tip: Mashable

Working with video rental stores in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Domino’s stamped DVDs with heat-sensitive thermal ink and scented varnish. Since DVDs and Blu-Ray players tend to get hot during operation, the discs warm up throughout the movie. By the time the movies ends and you pull the disc out, you’re both seeing an image of pizza on the DVD … and smelling what you could be tasting.

And, in thermal ink, a message invites you to enjoy your next movie with a “hot and delicious” pizza from Domino’s.

Here’s the video:

That’s simply a brilliant marketing campaign. And a very savvy mixture of both high and very standard technology.

While broadband has killed the video rental store in North America and much of Europe, Brazil’s Internet is not quite so robust, according to the marketing agency that created the campaign for Domino’s. So unless you’re wealthy or in a neighborhood with good Internet, chances are, you’re still using DVDs.

photo credit: bunchofpants via photopin cc

Voiding your warranty, apparently, is as simple as running five short commands. To run those, however, you need a higher-resolution way of communicating with your Google Glass device than the touch-sensitive screen on your specs.

“Fortunately, this is an Android device, and like most Android devices, it has a Bluetooth chip,” Google engineer P.Y. Laligand said today at the chat on hacking Glass.

Source: Google

Glass is just Android, underneath.

So he simply turned on Bluetooth, paired an external keyboard, opened up a terminal window, and typed five commands in ADB, or Android Debug Bridge:

1. $ adb reboot bootloader: (Allows you to access the bootloader)
2. $ fastboot oem unlock: (Removes security precautions, erases user data, and … voids your warranty.)
3. $ fastboot flash boot boot.img: (Replaces the boot image)
4. $ fastboot reboot: (Reboots back into a normal state)
5. $ adb root: (Finally, you have root access and access to all the data partitions)

These are not steps to be taken lightly, according to Google engineer Hyunyoung Song.

“Even though there are recovery methods, there is a chance that you could get stuck in a state from which it’s not easy for your device to be recovered,” she said. “And Google will not support you.”

Google Glass owners who have taken the lives of their $1,500 Google Glass Explorer Edition devices in their hands and bravely gone where few dare, however, have done some exceptionally cool things. One has installed standard Ubuntu Linux on Glass and now programs on Glass using Emacs, a text editor. Another has created an avatar that mimics your head motion, bobbing around just as you do while talking and gesturing.

Source: Google

Danger, Will Robinson! Voiding warranty now!

And Google — while not supporting you if you brick your device — encourages developers to play around in root mode, hacking new apps and experiences which can be then brought into the Google Glass ecosystem.

“Now you’re in root mode,” Song said. “Play around and go nuts with whatever you want to do.”

For the faint of heart, there will be a safety net at some point. Google will be releasing the standard Glass system images, which can be used to recover bricked devices.

Probably.

Image credit: Jolie O’Dell/VentureBeat

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That’s what you might be thinking after you read this article.

If you’re starting the next big thing, building a business or looking for your next venture, likely you could use all the networking opportunities you can get. The challenge is to find a high quality community made up of entrepreneurs and VCs who have the know-how, clout or resources to facilitate your success.

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With the entrepreneurial community hitting its next big wave since the 90s, you’ll be kicking yourself for not trying it sooner. VentureBeat readers can access the preferred membership rate of $395 per year (30% off standard price of $595) using code FCVENTB13 by May 31. Learn more.

Sponsored posts are content that has been produced by a company, which is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. The content of news stories produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact sales@venturebeat.com.

While Star Trek Into Darkness is still a few days away from premiering in theaters, Microsoft’s Bing is teaming up with Paramount to celebrate a little early with a brand-new feature.

Now, trekkies can use Bing’s Translator to translate text and whole websites into Klingon, the alien language spoken by the wrinkly headed warrior race. (For instance, majQa’ means “well done!,” which is exactly what I have to say when using this new tool.)

The translations themselves are done using the Klingon alphabet Kronos (see screenshot above) or a direct translation using the English alphabet. From here on out I will most certainly use the latter option to insult VentureBeat copy editor Jason Wilson in responses to all inquires he has on my articles.

You can access the Klingon translations via the Bing Translator website or through the Windows Phone Bing Translator app.

Augmented reality and 3D printing, while very different technologies, circle around the same general concept: bridging the gap between the physical world and the digital world. 3D printing makes the digital physical, and augmented reality enhances the physical world with digital overlays.

So what happens when you combine them? This question was at the heart of a project created by Dutch new media artist Sander Veenhof and designer Joris van Tubergen, who fused the worlds of 3D printing and augmented reality in a really interesting way.

The concept, dubbed the “UltimARker”, allows 3D printer owners to get a real-time preview of their 3D designs as their devices create them. Along with the design overlay, the UltimARker (which is a play on the name of the Ultimaker 3D printer and “AR” or “augmented reality”) also displays information like how long the printer’s been at work, and, in theory, how long it will take a job to complete. You can see how this works in the video below.

While the project doesn’t seem to have all that many practical applications yet, it is a very interesting proof of concept of what happens when you combine two technologies that don’t seem to have very much in common. With the idea of augmented reality glasses and 3D printing both becoming increasingly popular, you can expect to see projects like this a lot more often.

Here’s a link to the project’s Thingiverse page.

The highlight of my day, nay my week? Watching Richard Branson serve airline passengers dressed in full flight attendant drag.

Branson reportedly lost a bet to a “frenemy” and former employee, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes. Two years after the deal was struck at the 2010 Formula One event in Abu Dhabi, Branson finally made good on his word. He served up drinks on a flight from Australia to Malaysia this weekend sporting lipstick, freshly shaved legs, and a fetching red skirt suit.

Branson tipped a full tray of orange juice on Fernandes, who declared that his skills as an attendant were “rubbish.” Branson was immediately fired after the six-hour flight.

The Virgin Group sent us a few additional photos taken on the flight if you’re in need of a good laugh.

On a more serious note, Branson is a prime example of a business leader taking an innovative approach to a more traditional industry.

We recently ran a contributed piece from an entrepreneur who was invited to spend three days with Branson in South Africa. One of the major lessons learned? “Don’t just experience fun and enjoy after 5 p.m.” As Branson makes clear with his publicity stunts, work should not be rigid and uninspiring.

It’s been a few years since VentureBeat’s editors dived into San Francisco Bay to celebrate a traffic milestone. Inspired by Sir Branson, any ideas for our next stunt? 

Images courtesy of the Virgin Group // Video via USAToday

CharityBuzz is auctioning off a 30-60 minute coffee break with Tim Cook, and after 85 competitive bids, the current highest offer is $605,000. The amount is now so high that prospective bidders need to personally phone and verify their banking details and ability to pay in order to place a new bid.

“It’s truly amazing,” CharityBuzz’ representative Glenda Felden told me this morning. “We’re really excited.”

The current CharityBuzz record-holder is a March auction of a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador, Felden told me. The 700-horsepower car boasts a 6.5-liter V-12 engine that propels the car from 0-60 mph in under three seconds, and it reaches speeds in excess of 215 mph.

Source: Dean Takahashi

Tim Cook, last October at an Apple event.

But that sweet Italian supercar may not be worth more than a quick cuppa with Cook.

Cook’s auction started almost a month ago at $50,000, and quickly shot up to $160,000 in a single day. And with one day left, it seems likely to become the highest-value auction ever held on CharityBuzz, Felden said.

Bids close tomorrow at 4:08 p.m., and a potentially winning new bid will have to be at least $610,000, as bid increments are $5,000 each.

That’s $610,000 for a 30-60 minute meeting, travel and accommodations not included. Or over $10,000 for each minute, if it goes the full 60.

Proceeds benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

“Charitybuzz is blown away by the incredible support we’ve seen for the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights through our coffee with Tim Cook online auction,” CharityBuzz CEO Coppy Holzman said. “With 140 experiences on the auction block closing this Tuesday to benefit the RFK Center, including exclusive access to Robert DeNiro, Alec Baldwin, Peyton Manning and more, we expect to raise well over one million dollars for human rights.”

Image credit: Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat

One of the great fears in the 3D printing community is that overeager politicians will use concerns over 3D printed guns to regulate 3D printers themselves.

That fear may soon be realized. State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) says he wants regulation that would track 3D printers and figure out what people are doing with them. This means measures like background checks and a system that would force printer owners to register their devices before they can use them.

The source of Yee’s concerns is, of course, the Liberator, the 3D-printed firearm Defense Distributed announced last week (and was forced to take from its website soon after).

“We must be proactive in seeking solutions to this new threat rather than wait for the inevitable tragedies this will make possible,” Yee said in a press release .

Yee is no stranger to the gun debate. The state senator has been on the most outspoken critics of assault weapons, which he proposed legislation to ban last year. “It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear — there is no debate, no discussion,” he told CBS San Francisco last May.

But while Yee’s attitudes toward assault weapons seems pretty well grounded, there are more than a few problems with his desire to regulate 3D printers. For one, while 3D printing is a relatively new technology, it doesn’t give bad guys any tools they didn’t already have access to. If you really want to create a gun in your garage, there are plenty of existing ways for you to do it that don’t require a 3D printer.

The other problem with Yee’s idea is that … well, it doesn’t make much sense. The 3D printer is closer to the personal computer than the AK-47, which makes forcing owners to register them seem excessive. (This assumes that the 3D printer can even be regulated, a notion that’s still up for debate.)

Even prominent anti-3D-printed gun advocate Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) didn’t go as far as to implicate 3D printers themselves in a recent letter. For him, it was all about the undetectable nature of the plastic firearms, not what created them. That, as Public Knowledge vice president Michael Weinberg pointed out, was a welcome sign that the 3D printed gun debate was maturing.

Fortunately for the 3D printing community, Yee says he isn’t quite sure how his regulation would work — which means that your 3D printer is safe, at least for now.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has charmed us from the International Space Station with music before. But his latest (and last) song from the ISS is a rousing cover of David Bowie’s classic “Space Oddity,” and the visuals alongside it match the tune perfectly.

Hadfield has been commanding the ISS during the past five months, and he’s taken some stunning photos, participated in fun science experiments, and shown how you sleep in space. Sadly, he handed over control of the ISS to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov on Sunday eventing and will be returning to Earth shortly.

On top of the music video, Hadfield also recorded some final thoughts before he departs the station.

The latest dance crazy in Europe right now is Algoraves, a rave where you’re actually dancing to algorithms that produce music based on who shows up.

Basically the idea behind Algoraves is to take a program that can produce algorithms and constantly alter the music that’s playing. BoingBoing is reporting that the new dance craze started in the U.K. and Germany and is quickly spreading to Mexico and Australia. (I suppose the U.S. is just too lame to pick up on this for at least another year, heh.)

Algorave, a site that looks like an official hub for all kinds of information about the dance raves, explains that lots of electronic music uses software, not only for its production but also while its being played in club. Algoraves seems like a natural extension of that, turning  musical experience into a full performance.

And while this will undoubtedly label me as a trekkie, I absolutely see this as being the first steps to a society that favors math-based music over traditional scores that are inspired by a musician — just like in the Star Trek Voyager episode Virtuoso.

Let us know what you think of the video embedded above in our comment section.

The car is a Maverick (slogan: “the flying car that does”) and is basically an ultralight open-wheeled buggy with a cloth exterior skin and a propellor on the back. It uses a wing-style deployable parachute for lift, and costs $94,000. Development of the car was funded by the Indigenous Peoples’ Technology and Education Center, and apparently the idea is that when the road in Borneo, Tanzania, or Peru runs out, the missionary can simply fly to his or her destination.

Source: http://mavericklsa.com/specifications.html

One model of the Maverick flying car

Now, however, the company may need to revise its slogan.

Curtis Allen, a reporter for CTV News who was on the scene, told Jalopnik that the pilot took off in Vernon, British Columbia, and crashed around 8:45. He hit a school fence and — from the picture — a tree, which may have saved his life, according to Allen.

Flying cars have been in the news lately as Terrafugia, the flying car company from Woburn, MA, reported that it plans to build street-legal airplanes. The company is working on feasibility studies for the TF-X, which “will further increase the level of safety, simplicity, and convenience of personal aviation.”

It’ll need to increase the level of safety quite considerably before the FAA and other governmental organizations think it’s a good idea to give the power of flight to every yahoo with a driver’s license.

The pilot and passenger walked away from this accident, but it is just one more reason why a Jetsons-style future is — and maybe forever will be — in the future.

An experimental flying car cashes in #Vernon, meters from an elementary school field. @ctvbc twitter.com/CTV_Curtis/sta…

— Curtis Allen (@CTV_Curtis) May 10, 2013

When I contacted the Maverick flying car company for a comment, an employee apologized and said “I don’t know anything about it.”

Image credits: Curtis Allen/Twitter, Maverick

We receive a lot of odd, unsolicited mail at the VentureBeat offices. But this piece of art, pictured above in the hands of a VentureBeat reporter, might take the cake.

It’s an image by Wieslaw Walkuski, who apparently is a famous poster designer, illustrator, and painter. According to the blurb on the back of this poster, he won 3rd prize in the III-rd International Theater Poster Competition in Osnabrück, Germany, in 1997. Congratulations, Wieslaw!

However, this is one horrifying image. When I pulled it out of the mailer, my first reaction was “What the hell is this thing?”

Everyone in the office who has seen it has said something like “Eeew,” “That’s disturbing,” or “Get it away from me!”

The poster was sent to me not by Walkuski but by a startup that’s printing posters from a variety of artists.

If the main goal of a public relations campaign is to get the attention of the media, this mailing succeeded. I have now heard of this company!

And now I’m getting rid of this poster as fast as I can. I was thinking of trying to give it to someone who is a fan of eyeless jesters and green tongues. The problem is, if I find that person, I am not sure I want to get close enough to them to hand them this thing.

Instead, I’ve decided to turn this into a caption contest. So have at it, VentureBeat readers!

What caption should we put on this photo?

Put your suggestions in the comments below. We’ll pick a winner at the end of the day Friday — and if you live in the U.S., I’ll send you the poster, if you want it!

Lockheed Martin published a video today of its new Area Defense Anti-Munitions system, codenamed ADAM. ADAM is a bad-boy 10-kilowatt laser that is trailer-mounted, tracks targets up to 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) away, and destroys targets up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away with its HEL beam.

Yes, that’s the actual name, short for “high-energy laser.” Here’s the demonstration video on a Iranian-style Quassam rocket:

Lockheed Martin says ADAM is designed to provide short-range defense of high-value targets from improvised rocket and “unmanned aerial system” threats. It’s self-contained, towed into place by a tractor-trailer, and can destroy missiles in seconds.

“High-energy lasers complement kinetic energy systems and have unique attributes, including very low cost per engagement, a virtually unlimited ‘magazine,’ and minimal collateral damage,”  Doug Graham, Lockheed Martin’s VP of advanced programs, said in a statement.

Source: Lockheed Martin

ADAM with its trailer and tractor.

In other words, it’s cheaper than antimissile missile systems like the Patriot, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and has more capacity for protection than something like the Navy’s high-speed Phalanx guns, which can fire depleted uranium or tungsten rounds at incredible speeds to down enemy rockets or other threats.

One downside of a laser-based system, however, as you can see in the video: They’re seldom as instant as Star Wars would make you think.

To deliver adequate heat to a target missile to make it explode, ADAM needs to lock on to the missile for a second or more. Which means that ADAM needs sophisticated guidance hardware and software to stay on-target while the missile continues accelerating.

All of which seems to work, at least on test flights. ADAM destroyed eight small-caliber rocket targets in testing so far this year and another 11 in tests last year.

photo credits: colorblindPICASO via photopin cc, Lockheed Martin; Hat tip: Engadget

While a lot of the focus on 3D printing these days is people can use it to take lives, the technology can be used to improve them as well.

One example of this is the Robohand, a prosthetic appendage created in part by a MakerBot 3D printer. The idea was born after Richard Van As, a South African woodworker, lost his fingers in an on-the-job accident.

Enter the 3D printer, Van As, along with prop designer Ivan Owen, used to create the Robohand, a $150 alternative to more expensive prosthetics.

With the invention, Van As and Owen could restore hand functionality to those afflicted with diseases like amniotic band syndrome, which causes children to be born without fingers and toes.

While there’s not much that I can tell you that the video below can’t say better, there are a few key takeaways here. One, while MakerBot has traditionally shown off the Replicator’s capability to print out a variety of rather useless widgets, it’s clear that the technology has use cases that extend far beyond that. 3D printing can — and clearly, has — changed lives.

Also, as Van As points out in the video, 3D printing was vital to the creation of the Robohand, which the designers were able to prototype much faster thanks to MakerBot’s technology.

“The Makerbot and being able to swap files up and down via the Internet cut our prototyping down from a week to 20 minutes. It was incredibly fast,” he said.

More notably, Van As and Owen placed the Robohand’s design files on Thingiverse, MakerBot design file repository. The move means that anyone with access to a 3D printer can download the files and create their own Robohand (though Van As recommends consulting an occupational therapist to help with the fitting of the device).

As amazing as the project is, it’s not the first of its kind. Last year a Delaware hospital developed a 3D printed exoskeleton for a 2-year-old born without use of her hands. The project, like this one, shows that there are uses for 3D printers that not even their inventors have thought of yet.

And while some have taken that idea an applied it to firearms, others are going in a different, but equally interesting direction. And we can only applaud them for that.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with years.

The moon will block out the sun this Thursday and Friday, May 9 and May 10, in what promises to be a spectacular ring of fire effect as the moon will appear to slip “inside” the sun and a bright circle of solar light — in geek-speak, annulus — shines all around it.

Those who wish to see the annular eclipse might want to pray for clear weather, but they’ll also have to be geographically blessed. The ring of fire effect will only be visible from parts down under, as NASA explains:

An annular eclipse will be visible from a 171 to 225 kilometer-wide track that traverses Australia, eastern Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Gilbert Islands. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes Australia, Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s the path in visual form:

Source: NASA

The path of the solar eclipse May 9 and 10

photo credit: matthileo via photopin cc; Hat tip: Space.com

The Dumasoft application, released by the State Duma’s executive office to streamline the work of the deputies, can only be downloaded to iPhones or iPads, with no Android version available for mobile device users. A few deputies wrote a request addressed to Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, asking him to deal with this inconvenience.

“Dumasoft does not support the Android operating system, while not all deputies are willing to buy iPhones and iPads,” a co-author of the request told Izvestia.

The new software was deployed in the fall of 2012, after Naryshkin had personally insisted that deputies needed to have the ability to work anywhere an Internet connection was available. The Dumasoft application allows deputies to view documents and correspondence, alter bills and comment on their colleagues’ proposals.

Yury Shuvalov, deputy head of the State Duma executive office, confirmed that the administration of the lower chamber was fully aware of the problem and looking for ways to solve it.

“We will certainly issue apps for other operating systems. I think this could be expected before the end of the year,” said Shuvalov.

According to Nikita Kislitsin, editor-in-chief of Hacker magazine, Apple devices are traditionally the choice of the well-to-do. Thus, it is no surprise that the State Duma executive office did not expect any opposition to the gadgets from the Duma deputies, whose average annual income hovers around 2 million rubles ($63,100) per person.

In addition, the State Duma thought that it could go easy on software developers in this case, an expert in Internet technologies, Ilya Knopov, added.

“Apple has just one platform for which new apps can be developed,” said Knopov. “It’s more complicated in the case of Android, so the development would cost more.”

photo credit: jurvetson via photopin cc

This article from Russian daily Izvestia was first published in English in Russia Beyond The Headlines and East-West Digital News.

Politicians aren’t too crazy about this whole 3D printed gun thing.

At a press conference on Sunday, New York senator Charles Schumer said he would support legislation to ban 3D printed guns like the one Defense Distributed announced on Friday (and has been teasing for quite some time).

“A terrorist, someone who’s mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon can essentially open a gun factory in their garage,” Schumer said.

Schumer joins fellow New York  politician Steve Israel, who has been one of the most vocal critics of what Defense Distributed is working on.

“When I started talking about the issue of plastic firearms months ago, I was told the idea of a plastic gun is science-fiction. Now that this technology is proven, we need to act now to extend the ban [on] plastic firearms,” he said.

While Israel and other politicians have been on the 3D printed gun case for months now, the situation has gotten a lot more dire now that Defense Distributed has created a completely plastic gun that fires real bullets.

Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson understands the dangers that could come of his controversial project. ”I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people. That’s what it is — it’s a gun,” he told both Forbes and the BBC.

The design files for Wilson’s firearm, dubbed the “Liberator”, are freely available online, which means anyone — yes, including you — can download it. For Wilson, it’s a dream fulfilled, but for gun control advocates, it’s a nightmare realized.

In case you haven’t seen what everyone’s so upset about, take a look at the video below.

If you weren’t born as the son of all father of the nine realms, the chances are you won’t be able to pick up Thor’s almighty hammer, Mjölnir, which gives you the power to knock down bad guys and call upon the elements of thunder and lightning.

However, you might be able to make one yourself.

As you can see in the YouTube video below, Caleb Kraft over at Hackaday decided to build his own Mjölnir that contains a 80,000-volt Tesla coil. Yes, that means you’ll actually be able to get that “god of thunder” effect of calling down lightening bolts to scare off your enemies. … OK, well, only if your enemies are easily scared off by illuminating a lightbulb while it’s inside your mouth.

Still, this is way cooler than the $15 foam toy you can buy at Walmart. (You might also notice that, in addition to Thor’s hammer, Caleb also has a Portal gun and a miniature TIE fighter on the shelf behind him.)

Via BoingBoing

Big media companies like Warner Bros. are quick to send out their teams of lawyers whenever one of their properties gets used without permission, which is more frequent thanks to the Internet.

Well, now the Internet is striking back, so to speak, reports the BBC.

Creators of Internet cat meme videos Nyan Cat (a kitty with a Pop Tart body that flies through space on a rainbow) and Keyboard Cat (aka Charlie Schmidt’s cat, Fatso, made famous in this 2007 video) are suing the media company for copyright infringement. The lawsuit claims that both kitties appeared — and are even specifically referred to — in Warner Bros. game Scribblenauts that was produced by game studio 5th Cell. The game itself appears on the Nintendo DS as well as many other platforms.

From the legal complaint:

For the past three years, WB along with game developer 5th [Cell], have knowingly and intentionally infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights and trademarks by using  “Nyan Cat” and Fatso’s image in WB’s top selling “Scribblenauts” games, including, most recently, “Scribblenauts Unlimited,” which WB released in 2011. Compounding their infringements, defendants have used “Nyan Cat” and “Keyboard Cat,” even identifying them by name, to promote and market their games, all 6 without plaintiffs’ permission and without any compensation to plaintiffs.

The creators of the cat videos, Schmidt (Keyboard Cat) and Torres (Nyan Cat), are attempting to block further sales of the Scribblenauts games. Presumably they’re doing this as a purely symbolic gesture, but something tells me this one will be settled out of court for a hansom sum.

This is certainly an interesting development, especially because media companies are rarely on the receiving ends of these copyright infringement claims.

A busy men’s room is one of the toughest challenges a young man will face. When should you use the urinal? Can you take a stall to yourself if you just have to do a No. 1? Is it OK to use the urinal right next to someone else?

Finally, an enterprising indie developer is helping out confused bathroom-goers with a new game for the PlayStation Vita called Men’s Room Mayhem. Developer Ripstone, founded by Super Stardust HD creator Phil Gaskell, teamed up with a new company, Sawfly Studios, to produce the title for Sony’s powerful handheld.

Men’s Room Mayhem is due out later this year, but Ripstone didn’t reveal a price or specific release date.

“In Men’s Room Mayhem, you’re hired as the janitor of your very own chaotic men’s room,” Gaskell wrote on the PlayStation blog. “You’re responsible for directing patrons, keeping everywhere sparkling clean, and steering patrons away from trouble.”

The title plays similarly to those air-traffic-control games that are popular on smartphones. Players need to draw paths for characters that have to take a whiz or drop a deuce to the correct bathroom fixture.

“You need to get your customers safely to the urinals and cubicles in time – otherwise there’ll be a few nasty accidents for you to clean up,” wrote Gaskell. “Avoid fights by strategically steering patrons past each other with pinpoint precision, but be careful, as the waves increase the patrons pile up fast – so mind your pees and queues.”

For the women reading this and wondering if this is a realistic interpretation of a man’s bathroom-going experience … yes. It’s exactly like this. You get bonus points for not peeing right next to someone else.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The first time I started hearing people talking with hands-free devices on their cellphones, I thought the population of local crazies in San Francisco had increased. When I started seeing Bluetooth headsets in people’s ears, I fretted about the coming of the Borg.

Enter Google Glass.

Stylish it’s not. But creepy? Sunday at my local Ikea (a scary place in its own right!), I saw someone using Google Glass in public for the first time. The slim, thirtysomething man was sitting in a children’s chair, and I assume he was looking at something that Google Glass was showing him. But I couldn’t tell. From my vantage point, he looked like he was staring off into space, looking at some undefined “middle distance” while the rest of us merely existed in the real world.

Oh, and he was ignoring his kid, too, who was begging for him to play with her.

At least he didn’t take the damned thing into the shower. (Seriously, Robert Scoble, did we really need to see your naked shoulders?)

I have no idea if Google Glass is going to be useful, or if it’s going to be a transformational piece of technology that changes how we interact with information and the world. But right now, seeing someone using it is like watching a creepshow.

And I just want out.

Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat. Original image: AMC/The Walking Dead

If you were wondering if Google Glass survived a full shower, here’s some photographic proof courtesy of tech industry cheerleader Robert Scoble.

“You thought I was kidding when I said I would never take them off,” Scoble wrote on his Google+ page this afternoon. “Yes, they survive being wet. I had them full on soaked in my shower this morning. +Google Glass still works.”

Good luck scrubbing this image from your mind. But hey, at least we know Glass can survive a heavy downpour and amateur porn shower scenes.

Scoble has written extensively about his experience with Glass, and not surprisingly, he’s fully on board with Google’s latest gadget. That’s not saying much, though, as he has a reputation for jumping on every new technology trend with the enthusiasm of a schoolchild.

As the Cult of Mac reports, Apple’s messaging services deletes the last word of a few key phrases in iPhone-to-iPhone texts. One is “The best prize is a surprise,” and another is “I could be the next Obama.” The only catch?

You have to leave a trailing space after the phrase.

Mac users have noticed that sending certain messages from the Messages app on a Mac to an iPhone causes similar issues, with the cryptic message “man, why are you here?  Two are in testing places” arriving without the trailing “places.” This seams to be a similar type of issue, but though I could make the iPhone glitches work, so to speak, I could not personally confirm Mac-to-iPhone problem.

One Mac user speculated in Apple’s support forums that the problem may be related to word wrapping:

David, I agree with your intuition that it has to do with how Messages wraps words and perhaps bubble size.  I think that’s why adding/deleting words or changing several words can change whether the bug occurs.

There is probably some very simple and silly explanation for this, and I’m asking Apple about it right now. It’s pretty clear, however, that there is not some kind of hidden, devious preprocessing taking place based on the content of messages which affects how they’re delivered: iPad shows the entire messages as they were sent.

Image credit: John Koetsier; Hat tip: The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

We all possess a reservoir of unique knowledge and skills, but this expertise does not always pay off. Rewarder, a company that matches people with specific needs with people eager to meet them, launched a mobile app today to keep people fulfilled on-the-go.

Rewarder is a social marketplace where people can solicit advice, expertise, and resources from the community it exchange for rewards. It takes a unique approach to the shared economy by offering a peer-to-peer marketplace for knowledge, rather than products or services. People can offer $50 for a travel itinerary, or $1000 to locate a rare collectible item.

“In the last six months, we have had many conversations with our users on how to improve our marketplace,” he said in an email.  “Not only is our community filled with multi-taskers that want the option to create and submit Rewards on-the-go, but many also felt that inspiration struck when they were out and about vs. at their computers, and wanted to be able to have a way to create Rewards or respond to them instantly with an idea they came across.”

The company launched with $7 million in October 2012 and has since grown by five times, reaching almost 500,000 members. The funding also supported development of the mobile app which will allow people to post rewards from their smartphones. Users submit to win rewards anytime, anywhere. Rather than flipping through an outdated Highlights magazine at the dentist’s office, why not provide a list of romantic anniversary date ideas to a clueless boyfriend? Or search for an original set of Dungeons and Dragons dice?

CEO Kendall Fargo said that Rewarder’s community is already highly engaged. More than $14 million rewards have been offered to date and hundreds are won each week. Each reward receives an average of seven submissions and there is a 250 percent increase in rewards viewed since December. The mobile app will not only raise levels of engagement, but also facilitate expansion into international markets where mobile technology predominates.

Rewarder is backed by Granite Ventures and Radar Partners, as well as Ron COnway, David Lee, and Kenny Lerer. The team is based in San Francisco.

CharityBuzz set the estimated value at $50,000, and by mid-day, bidding was up to $42,375.

This afternoon and evening, however, another 23 bids have come in and the 30-60 minutes experience, which cannot be resold and expires within one year, is now up to a massive $160,000. The next bid must be at least $5,000 more, at $165,000 or above.

Travel and accommodations, of course, are not included.

The proceeds of the auction will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. Other notables and celebrities who are auctioning off experiences for the RFK Center include Elon Musk, Peyton Manning, Alec Baldwin, and Jay Leno.

Interestingly, Tim Cook has them all beat — by a long shot.

A tour of SpaceX with Elon Musk has an estimated value of $25,000 and a current price of only $5250. Peyton Manning — Peyton freaking Manning! — is at $5,750, with an estimated value of $10,000. And Academy Award-winning actor Robert DeNiro is currently at only $1,750, with an estimated $10,000 value.

What a deal!

Tim Cook is, of course, CEO of iconic Apple corporation, and a runner-up for Time’s Person of the Year in 2012. And he does lead the world’s second most valuable corporation.

If you’re interesting in bidding, however, beware:

Winning bidder and guest(s) subject to security screening. We expect all winning bidders and their guests to conduct themselves appropriately when attending an experience won at Charitybuzz. Polite manners and respect for the generous donor and adherence to any rules or parameters are a must.

In other words, Apple owners who have lost millions in the stock’s slide from $700 to $400 need not apply.

Image credit: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles and Women in Games International (WIGI) have joined forces to create a video game developer badge.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a STEM-aligned video game badge for the Girl Scouts of the United States of America,” said Amy Allison, vice president at WIGI, in an interview with Girl Gamer. “Creating this badge will get young girls excited in technology and science and let them know that they, too, can have a career in the video game industry.”

The announcement of this badge comes shortly after the Boy Scouts added a Game Design merit badge in March — but why should they have all the fun?

Girl Scouts earn the game developer badge by working with Gamestar Mechanic, a “learning experience” that teaches kids how to design and develop video games. E-line media, the creator of Gamestar Mechanic, will work with WIGI to provide a custom-made program that meets the Girl Scout requirements.

The Girl Scouts formed a hundred years ago with the vision of empowering girls and supporting their physical, mental, and spiritual development. The organization led efforts to break girls out of traditional gender roles and give them the skills and confidence to achieve anything they dreamed. From the beginning, Girl Scouts were encouraged to try their hand at fields traditionally dominated by men.

In 2012, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education came to the forefront of The Girl Scouts mission and badge system. The organization completely revamped the badges by placing greater emphasis on STEM. This move followed a study by the Girl Scout Research Institute that found that 74 percent of high school girls are interested in STEM, but few pursue these careers because of perceived gender barriers.

The badges on STEM education are thus not only dedicated to the development of specific skills but also to changing girls’ perceptions about these fields and providing a safe place for them to explore, lead, and excel.

Selling cookies may earn money in the short-term, but the skills and desire to code? That pays off in the long-run.

Photo Credit: reconstuctionist/Flickr

This post is an homage to a profanity-laced staff favorite from the week’s Internet news. When we heard that 26-year-old Benjamin Kohler was jailed for texting while serving as a juror, this was roughly our reaction. Please practice basic text etiquette, especially when jail time is on the line.

For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, we have been SCREWING UP in terms of legal events and general adult interactions in the courtroom.

You’ve been sending texts on texts about defendants LITERALLY being so freaking AWKWARD and so freaking BORING. If you’re reading this right now and saying to yourself, “But oh em gee, Jolie, I’ve been having so much fun with my jurors this week!” then punch yourself in the face right now so that I don’t have to freaking find you in court to do it myself.

I do not give a flying fig, and Judge Dennis Graves does not give a flying fig, about how much you freaking love to text with your girlfriend. You have 361 days out of the freaking year to text your girlfriend, and this week is NOT, I freaking repeat, NOT ONE OF THEM.

This week is about convicting or acquitting a man accused of armed robbery in Oregon, and that’s not freaking possible if you’re going to sit around and text your girlfriend.

Newsflash: JUDGES DON’T LIKE CELLPHONES. Oh wait, DOUBLE FREAKING NEWSFLASH: MOST COURTHOUSES ARE ONE-WAY CHUTES TO JAILHOUSES, which by the way in case you’re an idiot and need it spelled out for you, JUDGES WILL SEND YOU TO JAIL FOR TEXTING.

If Judge Dennis Graves openly said “Yeah, I’m gonna watch YouTube clips while this trial goes on,” would you be happy? WOULD YOU? No, you wouldn’t, so WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU DO IT TO HIM?? IN FRONT OF HIM?!! First of all, you SHOULDN’T be texting in court. I don’t give a CRAP if your girlfriend is texting you, if your mom is texting you, or if your entire family is texting you. YOU DON’T TEXT. YOU. DON’T. TEXT. And you ESPECIALLY do freaking NOT text on a glowing screen while the rest of the courtroom is dark because a video is playing.

“Ohhh, Jolie, I’m now crying because your blog post has made me oh so so sad.”

Well, good. If this blog post applies to you in any way, meaning if you are a tech-obsessed nerd that is glued to his cellphone at grownup events, or if you’re social media junkie constantly tweeting during the day, this following message is for you:

DO NOT CARRY A CELLPHONE.

I’m not freaking kidding. Don’t own one. Seriously, if you have done ANYTHING I’ve mentioned in this blog post and have some rare disease where you’re unable to NOT do these things, then you are HORRIBLE, I repeat, HORRIBLE PR FOR THIS INDUSTRY. I would rather have 40 jurors that are responsible, listen to the arguments, and not freaking awkward than 80 that are freaking texting. If you are one of the people that have told me, “Oh, nooo,  boo hoo I can’t pay attention in court I’m too bored,” then I pity you because I don’t know how you got this far in life, and with that in mind, don’t freaking buy a cellphone unless you can use it like an adult.

And for those of you who are offended at this blog post, I would apologize, but I really didn’t come up with it on my own. Go find some cake.

Image credit: cletch/Flickr