Author: Leon

Categories
News Programming

Ford offers OpenXC, an SDK for their cars

I think Ford just left the other carmakers in cloud of bytes.

Ford’s open-source kit brings era of smart car apps – tech – 24 January 2013 – New Scientist

MIRROR, signal, manoeuvre – now set your engine to “supercar”. Car maker Ford has just released OpenXC – an open-source hardware and software toolkit that will let the hacker community play around with the computer systems that run modern cars. While the first apps may add nothing more exciting than internet radio, the open nature of the system should eventually lead to custom apps that give drivers far more control over their car’s performance.

Categories
Entertainment News

PS4

Great news! We love our PS3 even if the XBox 360 has been getting a bit more attention since it arrived at XMas. Aside from the games, the PS3 has been a superior way to watch video, whether it’s Netflix, Blueray or streaming from our media center.

WSJ: PlayStation 4 will launch this year

If your heart hadn’t already made up its mind regarding the subject of last night’s PlayStation tease, the Wall Street Journal flat-out said this morning the PlayStation successor is launching this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-3GMHIgR-U

 

Categories
Entertainment News

Linden Lab’s ‘dio’

I wanted this to be a lot cooler than it actually is. It’s a toolkit for making Scott Adams-style adventure games, the fancy kind with pictures rather than the text-only Infocom ones. Six years ago we were thinking we’d have Second Life in a browser tab any day now…

Exclusive: Linden Lab’s ‘dio’ to Let You Gamify Your Media for Fun and (Eventually) Profit – Forbes

Do you think Instagram would be more fun if it were an experience rather than a site? Do you think advertising could benefit from more interactivity? Do you like playing games? Do you want to make money the new-fashioned way? Linden Lab says they have what you’re looking for.

Categories
News Politics

Gun Buy-back turns into ad hoc gun show

Vivat liberum mercatum!

Gun LOL: Seattle Cops Get Pwned

Nothing gives me an eye roll quite as much as hearing the phrase “gun culture” applied to America. Alls I can’t figure out is which is dominant. Is it the “gun culture,” “big-car culture,” The “drive-in, diners & dives culture,” or something else altogether?

Or, do all these sub-cultures simply have a common thread running through them, manifest when people are so messily left to their own proclivities to pursue their own values for they own sakes?

Categories
News Psychology

Self-help books treat depression

This data threatens those who consider depression to be solely biological and treatable by drugs only.

BBC News – Self-help books ‘treat depression’

Prescribing self-help books on the NHS is an effective treatment for depression, a study suggests.

Patients offered books, plus sessions guiding them in how to use them, had lower levels of depression a year later than those offered usual GP care.

The effect was seen in addition to the benefits of other treatments such as antidepressants, Scottish researchers report in the journal Plos One.

Such an approach may help the NHS tackle demand for therapy, they said.

Enhanced by Zemanta