We’ve been following the Raspberry Pi for quite some time, because how can you not follow the production and retail launch of a $25 fully functional computer? The little guy finally launched today, in the standard $25 model and a somewhat more powerful $35 model, made available at British companies RS Components and Premier Farnell, though as of this post, the sites are experiencing a heavy load and may not load properly. Due to the digital frenzy, the Raspberry Pi sold out in minutes, and users who missed the initial launch period were greeted with pre-order pages, but there’s a bright side to the madness of the Pi: The cheaper $25 model has been given double the amount of RAM at no extra cost, bumped up to 256 megs.

If you weren’t aware that academics convene and vote on words, they do. A group of German academics, led by Anatol Stefanowitsch, did just this, and voted on what German’s best English loanword is — something of a niche category of word-voting. A loanword is a word borrowed from another language that is incorporated into a different language. “Kiosk,” for instance, is a Turkish loanword the English language took and now helps us describe makeup stands in the middle of the mall. As for what academics voted to be German’s best 2011 English loanword, it’s “shitstorm.” The English language should be proud.

Back when Minecraft creator Notch tweeted that he’d fund a sequel to Psychonauts, the gaming Internet freaked out, seeing as how Psychonauts is one of the best video games ever made, but unfortunately didn’t make enough money to convince publishers to fund a sequel. After Notch and Tim Schafer tweeted a bit about the situation, they went quiet for the most part, and the news got overshadowed by Tim Schafer’ development studio, Double Fine, raising almost two million dollars on Kickstarter for the development of an adventure game. Notch spoke up on his blog about the Psychonauts sequel, giving everyone a status update, and some insight into what caused him to make that initial tweet offering to fund the game.

As if Android users didn’t already have enough to distract them while on the go, there’s now a Humble Indie Bundle just for them. In the usual Humble Indie Bundle state of things, they’re offering some great indie games, free of DRM, that works on multiple platforms, and costs you exactly how much you want it to. Yes, you can pay $0.01 if you really want to. This time around, the games involved are Anomaly, Osmos, EDGE, and if you pay above the current bundle average price (as of this post, it is $4.97), you get one of the best indie games in recent memory, World of Goo, along with the rest. Along with the games, you’ll also receive the games’ soundtracks, which is another one of World of Goo’s strengths. Head on past the break and check out the trailer, and head on over and grab your Android bundle.

As many of you may already know, eating something while playing video games is one of the hardest and most frustrating things in the history of mankind. Unless you’re playing a Metal Gear Solid game — where the cutscenes are long enough for you to eat a five course meal — you find yourself floundering between controller and foodstuff, losing lives in-game and hygenine points in real life. Now, there’s finally a solution to the problem, a controller-mounted Hot Pocket holder; it’s so convenient, you could probably use it during competitive online play.

Inside Mobile Apps reports that a “source with knowledge of the company’s decision” claims that Microsoft will be phasing out Microsoft Points, its system of currency, by the end of the year. Affecting developers of Xbox Live, Windows Phone, and the Zune, Microsoft Points will be replaced by a system in which the user makes purchases with real money, rather than paying real money to buy points, then using said points to make purchases.

You know how you keep a notebook next to your bed because you have all these great ideas all the time whenever you’re trying to fall asleep, or when you wake up in the middle of the night because your cat doesn’t have to get up for work in the morning and wants to play? A new study suggests that, no, life isn’t trolling you and making you creative when you’re too tired to do anything about it but say you’ll remember it in the morning even though you know you’ll forget, but people are actually more creative when they’re tired.

If you’re a person who feels the need to use something right when it turns out you can’t, or you’re the type of person that must know everything about everything when it comes up in conversation, then the Wikipedia SOPA protest blackout is probably an obnoxious inconvenience, though it is happening in the name of all that is good. Fortunately for Wikipedia enthusiasts who can’t live without learning all they can about Bruce Willis and his studio albums, Wikipedia is still accessible during its blackout protest. Head on past the break to find out how.

There’s no doubt that an antidote for drunkenness would have a wide range of uses. Take a pill and all of the sudden, calling Shelia and confessing your undying love for her and her sister doesn’t seem like such a great idea anymore. Decide not to get plastered on a Friday night, take a pill, and not be able to go back on your decision later. Take a pill and then not have a hangover. The possibilities are endless and now, a study lead by Jing Liang of the University of California, Los Angeles suggests that these possibilities might also be possible.

Sitting at your desk at work, looking up, all you might notice is a flat, offwhite panel with holes in it. Looking behind you, you may notice a wall, and looking across the room, you may notice that the only window is what seems like miles away, and just so happens to have a shade pulled over it. Feel trapped? Never fear, the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering is here. Emulating why cool college teachers have been taking their students to the chemistry green for ages, the German researchers have created a ceiling with fluctuating lighting that acts as a virtual sky, simulating the light patterns and cloud cover that one may see if they can ever get a seat by that window with the shade.