Speaking at the J. P. Morgan Technology, Media, and Telecomm conference, Shammo delivered the blow, which Engadget was kind enough to fish out of the somewhat long webcast:

“LTE is our anchor point for data share. So, as you come through an upgrade cycle and you upgrade in the future, you will have to go on to the data share plan. And moving away from, if you will, the unlimited world and moving everyone into a tiered structure data share plan.”

It’s pretty difficult to take what Shammo said out of context, and it pretty clearly conveys that unlimited data plans that have been grandfathered in will be switched over to a tiered structure. It’s unfortunate that those that have been on Verizon long enough to even have an unlimited data plan to lose aren’t being treated more favorably, but what’re you going to. Those customers will just have to enjoy how their phone gets reception almost anywhere, while certain competitors’ phones struggle getting reception when a microwave is warming something within a close proximity.

Unfortunate, but there’s always Republic Wireless, I suppose.

(via Engadget)

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Rumor has it the next iPhone will have a bigger screen (The Wall Street Journal)

The Google Docs research sidebar seems pretty awesome (The Verge)

Listing of all of the most valuable asteroids we’ve found (Asterank)

11 facts about the ambidextrous (Mental Floss)

4 ways to play Battleship online (GeekSugar)

Lighthouses + nighttime = pretty (Environmental Graffiti)

An over-the-counter HIV test? (The Week)

(title pic via reddit)

Who doesn’t want faster Wi-Fi? No one, that’s who. Researchers in Japan are working on a new kind of Wi-Fi that might be able to help you out in the speed department. Terahertz range, or “t-ray“ wireless transmission has reached speeds up to 20 times faster than conventional radio Wi-Fi. It also lies in a currently unregulated area of the spectrum, meaning it could be fair game for Wi-Fi use someday.

T-rays, which fall between microwaves and infrared light, allow for some pretty speedy transmissions, up to 3 gbps using the most current version of t-ray Wi-Fi hardware being developed at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The current prototype, a proof-of-concept, uses something called a resonant tunneling diode, which will churn out terahertz frequency signals when properly tuned.

As with all exciting, super-fast alternatives to standard Wi-Fi, though, there’s a drawback. In this case, it’s that t-ray Wi-Fi operates over a pretty short range, and it’s very unlikely that range could ever be increased beyond, say, tens of yards. That said, researchers think they might be able to jack up the transmission rate to something around 100 gbps in the future, and with speeds like that, who cares if you have to be close?

All that said, it’s unlikely that typical radio Wi-Fi is going to be replaced any time soon, but considering that our level of data consumption isn’t likely to stop anytime soon either, it’s always good to be looking into alternatives. And if the laws of irony have any effect on things, we won’t discover a new, better Wi-Fi right until right around the time we finally get a good blanket of the traditional stuff installed, and that’s going to be a while.

(via Gizmodo)

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At Geekosystem, we feel honored to have witnessed the birth of floppy drive music. In the past few months since renditions of popular songs performed on antiquated removable memory became vogue, we’ve brought you some excellent examples of the newly minted genre. Sadly, this latest one — featuring the theme song from HBO’s Game of Thrones — leaves a lot to be desired. Unless you desire what sounds like old xerox machines farting uncontrollably. That’s not to say that MrSolidSnake745′s rendition isn’t a technical achievement. Whatever his setup, he’s able to churn these things out in a matter of days. And sometimes, he really blows them out of the park. The Doctor Who theme, for instance, was a shining example of floppy drive music.

This one, however, seems to be outside the lowest range of the drives, giving portions of the song a grating drone. There are a few transcendent and surprising moments, but it falls down again in the face of a few syncopated beats. Still, worth a watch.

Before viewing, I highly advise turning your volume down a smidge.

(via BuzzFeed)

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Interesting bugs found trapped in amber aren’t solely the realm of Jurassic Park; it happens in real life too. In this case, however, the imprisioned bug doesn’t contain dino DNA or anything so crazy but it does contain the oldest evidence of pollination ever found, dating back over a 100 million years.

The specimens in question are of a previously unknown genus Thrips and are covered in ancient pollen, presumably from a a gingko tree. Still completely encased in their amber prison, the bugs are currently being studied in detail by x-ray.

Flowering plants first evolved about 130 million years ago, so in the grand scheme of things, these specimens are from the “early” days of pollen in general. Still, close-up inspection via synchrotron X-ray tomography has revealed that the bugs are covered in many, thin hairs that seem very specially suited to carrying pollen around, suggesting that the ties that bind insects and flowering plants go very far back. How close to the origin of flowering plants they get, however, is something we’ll have a hard time figuring out unless we find another, older artifact.

“This is the oldest direct evidence for pollination, and the only one from the age of the dinosaurs,” Carmen Soriano, one of the researchers involved in the discovery, said in a release regarding the find. “The co-evolution of flowering plants and insects, thanks to pollination, is a great evolutionary success story.”

(via Discover Magazine, image via Shutterstock)

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The latest video promoting the forthcoming Ridley Scott-directed Alien prequel Prometheus has dropped, this time focusing on Noomi Rapace’s character Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. Like the previous video with Michael Fassbender, the video gives us a glimpse of a cold, intrusive future and has an ever-present sense of menace just at the fringes of our perception. It’s not quite as engaging as some of the other promotional videos, but it does serve to reinforce that this movie looks pretty great.

(via Badass Digest)

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The Facebook IPO keeps rumbling toward completion while Facebook scrambles to monetize anything and everything as fast as it can. The announcement of the App Center and the testing of highlighted posts are only the beginning of what we can expect from Facebook as a public company, but what about where it is at right now? Not a bad place. Mark Zuckerberg makes a hefty $66.94 per second and is heading for a valuation larger than Boeing or even Starbucks. Does it deserve that? We’ll find out soon. In the meantime, you can study up on all the interesting facts and figures with this infographic from MBA Online and come to your own conclusion. Check it out below.

(via MBA Online, thanks Greg!)

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The Pirate Bay has been widely unavailable for many users over the past 24 hours, and reports suggest it may be due to a DDoS attack from an unknown source. Pirate Bay downtime is not unheard of, but the length of this outage has been particularly long and its proximity to the recent blockage of the site in the U.K. and the site’s open criticism of an Anonymous attack on Virgin mobile is suspicious, or if nothing else, at least a crazy coincidence. On its Facebook page, Pirate Bay alleges the source of the outage is in fact to due to a DDoS attack and if true, the consequences could be troubling.

Yesterday, The Pirate Bay posted on its Facebook page that it was aware of the outage and would be looking into it, but it wasn’t until early this morning that the page attributed the issues to a DDoS attack, an explanation TorrentFreak supports after hearing the same story from a “Pirate Bay insider.” The site remains down for most users, though it can still be accessed through many proxies, and third-party services indicate that the site is still up. If it’s a DDoS though, who could be responsible?

Sure, Anonymous — or some fragmented portion of it — may have taken offense to the Pirate Bay’s derision toward their DDoS tactics, but it seems unlikely that would spur an all-out attack considering that The Pirate Bay and Anonymous typically share a similiar ideology, opinion on DDoSing aside. On top of that, Anonymous has a tendency to be quite loud about anything they are up to and, so far, there’s been no confirmation of an attack from any of the usual Anonymous mouthpieces. In fact, some have reported an IRC outage also due to DDoS.

It’s unclear who would benefit from, or have an interest in, bringing down The Pirate Bay via DDoS. The Pirate Bay has plenty of enemies, particularly rightsholders, but it seems highly, highly unlikely that any of them could, or would, partake in a DDoS attack like the ones they have fallen victim to in the past. It’s also unlikely that the Pirate Bay is being purposefully disingenuous regarding the nature of their technical difficulties; it’s just quite hard to imagine exactly who would be DDoSing The Pirate Bay and for what purpose.

For the time being, the Pirate Bay can still be accessed through a number of means including many of the proxies intended to circumvent the U.K. ISP ban. The outage probably won’t last too much longer, but considering it’s already lasted around 24 hours —  a long time for a DDoS attack — all bets are off. Hopefully, we’ll get some kind of explanation on the other side because as it stands, this whole situation is very puzzling.

(h/t TorrentFreak, Ars Technica)

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Co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amy Pascal, had this to say about Sorkin penning the Jobs movie:

“There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin; in his hands, we’re confident that the film will be everything that Jobs himself was: captivating, entertaining, and polarizing.”

The movie will be adapted from the now-famous Walter Isaacson book that released shortly after Steve Jobs’ death last year, simply titled Steve Jobs.

Sorkin’s been on a roll as of late, winning an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for The Social Network, and being nominated for a best writing Oscar for the stellar Moneyball. He’ll almost assuredly be able to bring his writing magic to the Jobs movie. The Kutcher Jobs movie, on the other hand, should be releasing long before the Sorkin one, so at least we won’t have dueling Steve Jobs movies to deal with.

(via Reuters)

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Crows are already regarded as remarkably intelligent birds, having been the first feathered creatures to independently discover the art of snowboarding. However, a new study from the University of Vienna suggests that crows can tell the difference between humans by their voice alone — and what’s more, they seem to remember us.

The Vienna study was described in a recent research paper by Claudia A. F. Wascher, Georgine Szipl, Markus Boeckle, and Anna Wilkinson published in the journal Animal Cognition. In the experiment, researchers used a group of carrion crows living in the university’s aviary. They began by recording the voices of people who worked with the birds saying the word “hey,” and also recording strangers saying the same word.

When the recordings were played back, the birds showed acute interest to the strangers’ voices, but not the voices of people whom the birds had already met. The researchers took this to mean that the birds remembered the familiar voices, and investigated the voices of strangers — presumably because unfamiliar humans are possible threats.

Interestingly, when the researchers repeated the experiment with the calls of familiar and unfamiliar birds, the crows did the opposite. In this case, the crows paid more attention to the familiar bird calls and ignored the unfamiliar ones. This, the researchers believe, supports previous studies that suggested crows work cooperatively with some birds for mutual gain, but ignore others.

Though interesting, the results of the experiment should not be too surprising. A few years ago, scientists found that crows could not only remember human faces, but also seemed to hold grudges against people that had been mean to them. What’s more, further studies showed that crows seemed to teach these grudges to other birds.

Just another piece of research that makes Hitchcock’s The Birds seem just a little too close to reality.

(via Physorg, image via Thomas Quine)

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Warner Brothers has unveiled their latest Watchmen tie-in and it’s a toaster. Let me say that again: A toaster. In addition to ripping out Alan Moore’s soul and converting regular bread to crispy bread, the officially branded toaster officially brands your toast — presumably with the logo displayed on the side of the device. This makes Before Watchmen look like an exciting, artistically respectful project.

In fairness, DC comics had almost nothing to do with this and the blame falls entirely upon Warner Brothers who plan to sell a number of toasters based off existing properties. According to Gamma Squad, we can look forward to toasters based on A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Christmas Story, Friday the 13^{th ,} Friends, The Goonies, Gremlins, Little Shop of Horrors, Mad Magazine, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Wizard of Oz.

While arguably the worst thing to happen to this venerable comic series, I have to say that I am looking forward to the official Friends toaster. But only if it burns a ghastly, horrific image of Chandler into my toast. That would just be perfect.

(Comics Alliance via Gamma Squad)

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Confidence in Facebook’s plan to take its company public may have taken a blow today as U.S. automaker General Motors announced that it would no longer be advertising on the social network. The world’s largest automaker is reportedly questioning the value of ads on the website but, interestingly, will not be abandoning the site entirely.

According to the Wall Street Journal, GM no longer believes that purchasing ads on Facebook actually yields increased sales of vehicles. Last year, the automaker spent $10 million on Facebook ads alone — a tiny piece of its $1.8 billion ad budget — but still was unsatisfied with the results. However, the company plans to keep its Facebook presence in place in the form of free community pages. The company is reported to have spent about $30 million last year maintaing and creating content for these free pages.

For its part, Facebook has been seen by the advertisers and the marketing-minded as the holy grail: 900 million users, all of them plugged into a system designed for sharing information. In just a few short years, companies have gone from total ignorance of social networking to having it be an essential piece of any outreach effort. So much so that Facebook brought in $3.7 billion in revenue last year, mostly from advertising.

GM’s decision may be motivated in part by its recent bankruptcy and restructuring. Though the company has seen enormous success since emerging from Chapter 11 — setting all-time profit records — there is no doubt still pressure to remain focused on results and be tight-fisted with its cash.

What’s notable here is that GM isn’t saying Facebook isn’t worthwhile for marketing purposes; it still sees value in having a presence on the site, otherwise it wouldn’t continue paying marketing firms to maintain its fan pages. It does, however, call Facebook’s advertising model into question. If a company is willing to spend tens of millions maintaining free pages, but not a third of that cost on paid ads, perhaps Facebook’s best product is already available for free.

If that’s the case, it could make Facebook’s IPO a much tougher sell. After all, a company that can’t make money isn’t worth very much. Of course, GM’s announcement will probably do more to shake up investor confidence than it will to hurt Facebook’s bottom line. Unless, of course, GM is just the first of many big names to walk away from Facebook advertising.

(WSJ via Techmeme, image via Brent Mitchell)

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In honor of the passing of Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch, otherwise known as MCA, James Winters and family made this adorable video of little kids reenacting the music video for “Sabotage.”

(via reddit)

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Technology moves fast. Often, you’ll be hard-pressed to force devices that are just a few years apart to interface. Sometimes though, it’s surprisingly easy. Aliencurv accomplished quite the feat in that regard by modifying a 1983 TRS-80 with 20kb memory to control a 2012 Wall-E robot. Sure, it’s not quite modifying a telegraph key to tweet, but I’d argue this is somehow crazier.

The quick and easy addition of a Bluetooth module can intercept the TRS-80′s keyboard input and beam it somewhere else. After that, all it takes is a terminal program and a little extra code to parse the keystrokes into information that Wall-E can operate on and bam, remote controlled robot.

All in all, there’s nothing particularly daunting about the technical setup here, but the big picture is pretty wild. A computer nearly 30 years old, and all but worthless as anything besides a technique, can still manage to interface with things we are building today. Sure, it serves no practical purpose, but does it have to? Nope. It can just be cool, and is. Also Wall-E dances to dubstep. What more could you want?

(via Hack a Day)

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Though you may turn up your nose at the very thought of basketball, and would much rather dive into things that piss off Alan Moore, or control a robot made in 2012 with a 1983 computer, the NBA playoffs are in full swing, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a bunch of science going on.

Blake Griffin: First, we have this concise video explaining how Kia spokesman and Los Angeles Clipper Blake Griffin turns people into posters. Parabolic trajectory is involved. The video below can certainly explain it better than I can.

Jeremy Lin: Next up, we have two month superstar Jeremy Lin, who rose to meteoric fame by helping the tortured New York Knicks win a handful of games in an extremely exciting manner. Below, we have a video teaching us about Lin’s acceleration, as well as his dizzying spins, and release angles on his shot.

Kevin Love: Finally, we have fantasy basketball and Minnesota Timberwolves superstar and Kevin Love. The below video delves into his prolific rebounding ability, attributing it to his proficiency at boxing out opposing players. To prove this, a sumo wrestler joins the fun and Kevin Love boxes him out. Yeah, that was foul. Also, math.

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Guy Fieri will keep drivers from killing themselves in the Indy 500 (The Braiser)

Make the Curiosity rover an official LEGO set (Universe Today)

Apple may be looking to upgrade iCloud (The Wall Street Journal)

There’s a game-breaking Diablo III bug, but that’s no surprise (Piki Geek)

Virgin Atlantic to allow in-flight calls (GeekSugar)

The alien landscapes of the human eye (Environmental Graffiti)

12 really forced portmanteaux that didn’t catch on (Mental Floss)

(title pic via reddit)

Though Diablo III only released less than twenty-four hours ago, you can imagine that after waiting twelve years for Blizzard’s next clicktastic, hack-and-slash crawler, fans went hard in the paint. Like with new World of Warcraft level caps, there are always people who try to get to the “end” first, whatever the end is in any scenario. So, it’s probably no surprise that reports are surfacing around the web that multiple groups have already beaten Diablo III, and not very long after the 3 AM EST release time. The most compelling reports state that a single player beat the entire campaign in twelve hours and twenty-nine minutes, and two multiplayer groups, one of which comprised of four players, each have tackled the campaign in seven hours.

The single player who beat the game, named Yoshichan, posted his end-game stats, and has a time of twelve hours and twenty-nine minutes. He made it to level 32 as a barbarian, playing on normal difficulty.

As for the multiplayer groups, one is a group of Korean players, while the other is a group of Chinese players. Both groups posted screenshots of a dead Diablo to prove they beat the game.

Korean screenshot:

Chinese screenshot:

So, if you’re gearing up to play some Diablo III and want your money’s worth but don’t feel seven to twelve hours is enough, either set out to make some mad bank in that real cash auction house and make actual money, or make sure you play a few more difficulty levels.

(via Joystiq, Tom’s Hardware)

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Modern astronomy has finally begun to find planets outside our solar system, but it’s also tracked down some weird objects orbiting our own sun. Objects like Sedna have surprised astronomers, but one researcher is suggesting that something much larger might be out there: A never before seen planet in our own solar system. Of course, proving such a claim will be tricky.

The research was presented last Tuesday at meeting of the American Astronomical Society by Rodney Gomes, who works at the National Observatory of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. According to National Geographic, Gomes postulated that the bizarre orbit of Kuiper belt objects — that is, objects in the region beyond the orbit of Neptune — is best explained by the presence of a distant but as-yet unnoticed planet.

His theory is based on the observation of 92 such Kuiper belt objects, the orbits of which Gomes has entered into a computer model of the solar system. According to his model, these Kuiper belt objects form more orderly orbits without an additional planet, and only take their current configuration with an additional planet.

As to what this planet would look like or where it would be, Gomes offers a variety of possibilities. It could be a Neptune-sized planet 225 billion kilometers from the sun, or something more Mars-sized only eight billion kilometers from the sun. For reference, Pluto’s own eccentric, elongated orbit takes it between 4.4 billion and 7.4 billion kilometers from the sun.

How the hypothetical planet could have been brought into our solar system is also a mystery, though one ripe with possibilities. It could have been any number of the apparently numerous rogue planets that ply the ether. Or it could have been a planet that formed closer to the sun and was thrown outward — a theory that’s been floated before.

Unfortunately, it seems like it would be very difficult to prove the existence of Gomes’ mystery planet. Assuming that his research is correct, there’s no way to know if the presence of a ninth planet is responsible for the orbital variation he’s observed. What’s more, his research doesn’t give planet hunters a clue as to where look for the would-be world, so confirming his theory is made extremely difficult.

The difficulty of proof is a topic that science knows all too well. However, Gomes has given astronomers something to think about. While we’re busy hunting down exoplanets, we might very well forget about unknown neighbors in our own backyard.

(via National Geographic, image via NASA)

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The other half of the duo will be played by Nicholas Braun, who you might remember from Sky High for his super glowing power and dramatic delivery of the line, “When do we get to pick our names and costumes? Because I call dibs on Zach Attack.”

The two move from Bloomington, Indiana to Los Angeles to begin their lives anew at their Groupon gigs. One friend wants to stay in and be antisocial, while the other wants to go out and is forced to drag his antisocial buddy to have fun nights on the town. Good work, CBS.

Of course, it’s not quite fair to judge anything that has to do with writing by a simple summary. “People who work in a cable sports show studio and all they do is talk” probably sounds pretty boring, but Sports Night sure is magical. “A fairy has no less than three supernatural boyfriends, two of which are vampires, one is a werewolf” sounds pretty awful — and it is — but we legitimately can’t stop watching. So, you never know until you actually watch something.

However, what we can poke fun at, at the very least, is the name of the show. It’s called “Friend Me,” and has nothing to do with social networking as far as we can tell from the description. The thought process behind that might be a little insulting of whatever audience ends up watching: “Well, it’s about Groupon, which is a thing people sometimes talk about in context with social networks, and we can’t think of a title more suited for a group discount company. Whatever, they won’t care.” And we might not care, but for entirely other reasons.

(Newsweek via Uproxx)

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Back in the day, there used to be some guesswork in photography. Those of you old enough to remember film will also remember the anticipation of waiting for your photos to be developed and the crushing disppointment of finding out they somehow all managed to be horrendously out of focus. Brian Matanda is trying to bring some of that joy fear excitement and uncertainty to digital photography with an interesting analog-inspired digital design called the Timeless Capture camera. Picture takin’ used to be different, kids.

There are two things about the Timeless Capture camera that make it feel analog even though it’s digital. First, it has no LCD screen, which means that you’re going to have to take your pictures using the analog viewfinder and you aren’t going to be able to see what they look like right after. Second, it has a remarkably small storage capacity, meaning that you’re going to have to go “get your film developed” fairly frequently. It’s at that step that we venture back into the digital. The Timeless Capture camera has a dedicated digital frame you can use to view the pictures you just took, effectively making the process a little bit analog and a little bit digital.

On top of that gimmick, the Timeless Capture is a snazzy little prototype, built stylishly out of wood and aluminum. Matanda is a design student in Scotland, and has given a lot of thought to the analog-digital divide. You can read about how he came to build this little guy at his blog. So the next time you take a picture with your phone, stop and think about how different it is now, and how nice it is not having to wait more than a second or two to come face-to-face with the fact that you are an awful photographer.

(via Technabob)

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We’ve seen different variants on the tried-and-true chopsticks, some of which are purely aesthetic, while others are trying very hard to improve your chopsticking endeavors by adding more useful utensils. The above pair of Spork Chops, with one stick topped with a small fork and the other topped with a spoon, ventures to make your not-sticky-enough Chinese food a little easier to deal with. These things are only $3.99 each, so you can order up a bunch if they revolutionize your day-to-day largely Asian food related lifestyle.

(The Green Head via The Daily What)

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The big news on the net today is that, according to a CNBC poll, a whopping 46% of Americans think Facebook is little more than a passing fad. In addition, the poll revealed that 51% of Americans think Facebook stock would be a good investment (31% don’t), and 50% think the service is overvalued. Despite what those polled might believe, America is home to roughly 200 million Facebook accounts, or nearly two thirds of the population. Enlightening? Well, insofar that it reveals what Americans tend to think, sure. But about the facts of the matter? Probably not so much. It might be wise to consider a few of the other things polls have revealed about American beliefs. Let’s have a look, shall we?

• 58% of Americans think the economy will be fine by this time next year (May 2012)
• 22% of Americans are positive the end of the world will occur in their lifetime (May 2012)
• 16.6% of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim (May 2012)
  • 25% of Americans think Muslims aren’t patriotic (August 2010)
• 32% of Americans think scientists are unsure if global warming is real (March 2012)
• 48% of Americans think gay marriage should be illegal (May 2012)
• 25% of Americans don’t believe in evolution, 36% have no opinion (February 2009)
• 21% of Americans think the Internet should be regulated by the FCC (December 2010)

Granted, some of these things are up for grabs; who knows what the economy will be like next May. Others are incontrovertible facts. Scientists are completely sure global warming is a thing, though the finer points of the issue are still debated. All said and done, it’s interesting to see what Americans think, but all you’ll find out is what Americans think.

The Facebook poll consisted of the opinions of 1,004 Americans surveyed over the telephone from May 3–7, 2012. The margin of error is ±3.9 percent. It is, however, a poll, so it’s important to consider that there are certain inherent biases involved. The rules about calling mobile phones for polls, for instance, are a little complicated in the United States, and things like that could definitely have some effect on responses.

Really though, the main point is: So what? Americans can think whatever they want, but so long as they continue to use the service, which the numbers suggest they are doing, it’s certainly not going to be a fad that passes. As it rolls toward its IPO, Facebook definitely thinks its going to stick around, doing things like announcing its Apple-esque App Center to try and sprawl out into yet another part of the Internet landscape. 46% of Americans might not think so, but 100% of Geekosystem editors who wrote this post think that Facebook isn’t going to go away no matter what you think. Sit back and place your bets.

(h/t CNBC)

Facebook Facebook Facebook

• Facebook was testing a way to let users pay for better feed placement
• The Facebook App Center will have paid apps
• Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin recently renounced his U.S. citizenship

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth yesterday as Aussies discovered that by virtue of GAME Australia going “into administration” (similar to bankruptcy), customers who preordered Blizzard’s Diablo III would not have their preorders honored or refunded. Thankfully, Blizzard rode up in shining armor to help those fans get the hack-and-slash fix they’ve been waiting for.

By entering administration, GAME Australia was legally able to side-step having to fulfill preorders. In fact, they did not even stock copies of Diablo III. What’s more, the law allows GAME to treat its preorder customers as “unsecured creditors,” who would probably be the last in line to be repaid during a sell-off of company assets. For Australians who already spent their money on the game, things looked pretty grim.

Enter Blizzard, who heard the plight of its Australian fans and made them a pretty great offer. GAME Australia pre-purchasers were encouraged to buy the game digitally through Blizzard’s online store. Australian pre-purchasers can then send in their receipts to Blizzard who will honor their payment and apply a full credit to the digital purchase.

This is a great move for Blizzard, making the best of a bad situation and putting their fans first. Hopefully those Australian gamers felt the love and were able to get their hack and slash fix last night.

(Diablo III forums via WoW Insider, The Verge)

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It goes without saying that being shot at can be, well, uncomfortable. For one thing, you’re being shot at, but if you’re wearing a bulletproof vest, you’re likely to be quite hot and sweaty. Sure, it definitely beats having metal projectiles pierce your fleshy torso, but being hot and sweaty (and consequently dehydrated) is a problem that soldiers and police everywhere face. A very viable solution to this is a new kind of completely portable, air-conditioned bulletproof vest. It’s a lot less frivolous than it sounds.

Armor that doesn’t inhibit its wearer is, of course, an important military concern. As such, there are systems where soldiers in vehicles can actually plug into a vehicle-mounted cooling system and have chilled water pumped through tubing in their vests. This approach, however, isn’t fit for infantry — or police, for that matter — because you can’t very well keep your men attached some kind of refrigerator any more than you can strap one to their backs. You have to go with something a little more traditional.

This new model, designed by Swiss research company Empa, relies on two very traditional cooling mechanisms: Sweat and fans. Through the use of what amount to small, flexible air-conditioning shafts under its bulletproof surface, the Empa vest can moisten the surface of the wearer’s skin with water, blow air through these shafts, and cool the wearer much in the same way sweat does. This method eliminates the need for particularly cold water, effectively replacing a (big, hot, and heavy) refrigeration with a fan.

The vest can provide its cooling services for around 3-4 hours, at which point it can be easily refilled with water and have its battery replaced, preparing it for another go. The vest, which underwent tests in Zurich, got the thumbs up from the local police force.

Beyond bulletproof vests, the technology could have potential applications in things like camouflage suits and even more mundane things like backpacks. Further development is already in progress and let’s hope it really takes off. Thankfully, I rarely take fire, but I frequently have to do battle with backpack back-sweat, and I could sure use some backup on that front. Couldn’t we all?

(via Discovery)

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If you’re anything like we Geekosystem editors, you probably imagine the terrible lengths each and every single one of your emails must go through to get to its recipient; the little guy traveling through muddy ditches, through dark, isolated forests filled with dangerous wild beasts, killing any and all other rogue emails that cross its path. Just so you can reply to that office memo with a smiley emoticon. Google Green is here to tell us that no emails are harmed in the sending of an email, and have explained the whole process with the above cutesy animation.

Also, head on over to Google Green, where they have a pretty, interactive HTML version of the above video that you can mess around with.

(via Google)

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Reporters have held Amazon’s forthcoming illuminated E Ink Kindle in their hands, and rumors about three new devices being unveiled this year have been floating around for weeks. Now a new report says that we can look forward to seeing those new products beginning this July when Amazon is rumored to unveil the first of its new reading devices. The sooner we can put an end to doofy Kindle booklights, the better.

Citing an unnamed source, Reuters says that consumers can expect to see the illuminated E Ink Kindle for sale this July. Despite the addition of this much-needed new feature, Amazon is expected to keep the price the same for its E Ink line of eReaders — or perhaps increase the price very slightly.

Because E Ink only uses power when the page is refreshing, the battery life on these devices is usually measured in days and weeks instead of hours. The addition of an illumination system will no doubt have an impact on the battery life. However, TechCrunch writer Devin Coldewey suggested in his hands-on with a prototype of the device that new light-guiding technology could light up the screen while keeping power consumption to a minimum.

The Reuters report also touched on new Kindle Fires — the high-end, touchscreen tablet addition to the Kindle family. Last Holiday season, the Fire did extremely well and was played a large role in the December 2011 surge in tablets and eReaders. The news agency’s source says that consumers can look forward to a refreshed Fire for this Holiday season.

Any refresh of the Kindle line will be closely watched as Amazon has been a leader in eReaders and tablets (despite the iPad outselling the Kindle Fire, the device still commands over 54% of the Android tablet market). Especially since the eReader and tablet market becomes increasingly crowded; we’ve already seen a new illuminated E Ink NOOK already on the market backed by a deal between Barnes&Noble and Microsoft.

Amazon and Apple have dominated this budding industry thus far, but it’ll be interesting to see what the next round looks like.

(Reuters via Techmeme, image of a third-party Kindle light via Terry Chay)

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The game, which is currently slated for a November 6 release, is believed to take the series in a totally new direction. Something about an ancient evil and the fate of the universe — you know, typical sci-fi stuff. The completed image seems to hint at the new storyline with both human and alien spaceships being sucked into some kind of mechanical maw.

It’s a pretty cool image, and will no doubt whet the appetites of fans eager for a new installment to the series. Personally, all I can think is that it kinda looks like the Planet Killer from Star Trek.

(Waypoint forums via Coming Soon)

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In January of last year, China made a bit of splash when a never-before-seen jet suddenly appeared. It was dubbed the J-20 and though it’s been photographed by fans in the months since its debut, not much is known about this stealthy new addition to the Chinese fleet. However, one thing is now certain: There is another. 

Though it’s difficult to say, Google translated webpages seem to indicate that a second J-20 with the number 2002 has been spotted at an undisclosed airport within the last few days. For reference, the J-20 spotted last January is number 2001.

The two planes appear to be largely identical, with minor changes to the 2002 aircraft. One change, noticed by the DEW line blog, is that the air data probe (the spike thingy on the front of the plane) has been moved to the tip of the aircraft. Originally, it was slightly offset.

Interestingly, pictures of the new aircraft emerged on the Global Times. Though the Times apparently has a reputation for controversy, it’s worth noting that its parent company is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. While I hesitate to read too much into this, it could be that the government is continuing to use the prototype jet to attract public attention as well as develop new military hardware.

Not much is known about the J-20 program, but the unveiling of a second jet is certainly interesting. That would at least seem to indicate that the J-20 project is alive and well, and perhaps even progressing. Maybe we’ll be seeing more of these in the coming years.

And before you assume that the Chinese government is trying to mess with everyone’s mind by switching the numbers around, here are the two planes photographed together.

(The DEW Line, images via mil.huanqiu)

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Though you’re incest-deep in this season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, remember that your favorite worst-show-on-television-that-you-can’t-stop-watching is right around the corner. That’s right, season five of True Blood is starting June 10, less than one month away. Here’s the first trailer for the return of the series, which, as you undoubtedly expected, features Sookie crying, a love rectangle featuring her three kind of boyfriends, Bill and Eric being forced to team up, and Sookie shooting kamehamehas everywhere because that’s what fairies do.

(via Den of Geeks)

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Alton Brown is starting a zombie cooking show (The Braiser)

The Avengers already made a billion dollars (Digital Spy)

Apple rumors from DigiTimes are basically always wrong (Time)

Can GoDaddy revive their image? (Pando Daily)

New Yahoo! CEO is out after a few months (The Wall Street Journal)

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(title pic via FreakingNews)