geekosystem

Europe usually gets the proverbial shaft when it comes to the video game world. Given that a number of popular developers hail from either the United States or Japan, Europe can be left out of the publishing cycle in embarrassing ways. Sometimes games never even show up on their shores, despite being everywhere else. With the recent update to the PlayStation Vita, however, our European brothers and sisters are finally getting some love. Whereas North America is able to download a grand total of nine original PlayStation titles, Europe will be able to grab 129.

Yesterday, thousands turned out across over 200 European cities to protests the Anti-Counterfeiting Trademark Agreement or ACTA. Like SOPA and PIPA in the U.S., ACTA (among other things) aims to create tougher penalties and grant broad new powers to law enforcement to stop the transmission of copyrighted works over the Internet. With the European Parliament poised to vote on ACTA in June, it's yet unknown what effect these protests will have.

A vuvuzela is a long, plastic horn that soccer fans blow into to produce a loud, irritating buzzing noise; they have inexplicably become the Internet's central obsession in the opening week of the 2010 World Cup. Auto-Tune is a pioneering pitch correction program by Antares Audio Technology, which you most likely associate with the robotic vocal stylings of T-Pain and other pop music icons. But you knew all that. What happens when you Auto-Tune a vuvuzela? And while we're at it, what happens when you coordinate several Auto-Tuned vuvuzela samples to play a few measures from Europe's anthemic 1986 hit, "The Final Countdown"? In the name of science, Geekosystem investigates:

It may be the weekend, but somewhere out there, some poor souls (hopefully not you!) are still slogging away in their cubicles. Fortunately, the Danish design geniuses at FourDesign have rethought it in a far more fashionable, but definitely more cramped way. What may look like just a chair crammed into a table features space for a laptop, phone, lamp, beverage (we’re thinking some traditional Gløgg,) lots of storage, and ample European flair.