Nedge

What mattered to me today.

Facebook appears to be in the midst of testing voice chat with a number of its users, a feature that has been a rumored addition to the social networking site for some time. Late last year, Facebook code was uncovered that included references to Skype and Skype user IDs.Facebook and Skype already have a partnership that tightly integrates Facebook within the VoIP client, but not the other way around. Rumors of Facebook voice chat date back to 2009, however, when the company was said to be working with startup Vivox on video chat capabilities. Facebook is also in the midst of rolling out its Messages product, a service that integrates e-mail, IM and texting under the Facebook umbrella and an @facebook.com address. One would assume then that VoIP calling would be a logical addition to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls a “modern messaging system.” Such a move would yet again bring Facebook into close competition with Google, which has integrated voice calling in Gmail and made it free to make phone calls (beyond the already free user-to-user calling) in the U.S. and Canada through 2011.

Facebook appears to be in the midst of testing voice chat with a number of its users, a feature that has been a rumored addition to the social networking site for some time.

Late last year, Facebook code was uncovered that included references to Skype and Skype user IDs.Facebook and Skype already have a partnership that tightly integrates Facebook within the VoIP client, but not the other way around. Rumors of Facebook voice chat date back to 2009, however, when the company was said to be working with startup Vivox on video chat capabilities.

Facebook is also in the midst of rolling out its Messages product, a service that integrates e-mail, IM and texting under the Facebook umbrella and an @facebook.com address. One would assume then that VoIP calling would be a logical addition to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls a “modern messaging system.”

Such a move would yet again bring Facebook into close competition with Google, which has integrated voice calling in Gmail and made it free to make phone calls (beyond the already free user-to-user calling) in the U.S. and Canada through 2011.

‘We are a nation of Facebook and Google”

‘We are a nation of Facebook and Google”

With that we start a nice little mid-week intro into a seemingly benign civilization crisis. Who provided said quote you may ask? Well none other than the now not so popular man himself president Barak Obama during his SOTU speech.

It strikes me as interesting that out cultural habits can become so socially acceptable that they become assimilated into political games so enthusiastically; but then again, should this be that big of a surprise considering (and I shit you not) the majority of the participants of the  State of the Union Address were in fact Tweeting while their president was giving his speach? The Presidents team itself tweeting parts of his speak in quote unquote ‘real time’.

 

Some tweeters however weren’t as cordial with their flowers. Republican Party member and current Speaker of the House of Representatives John Bohener( don’t laugh … don’t laugh Iris) was caught talking shit about the presided behind his back on Tweeter, during the actual speech.

 

I personally find that funny. No, not because the man’s name sounds like a underhanded (pun intended) nickname for an erection (because it does, and I don’t care how many ‘h’s’ you add to your last name a Boner  is a Boner), but because this just stands as one of the many reasons why I think Obama was entirely right in his little quote of the week here. We are a nation of profiles and search filters, as one of my favorite bloggers said today; the fact that politicians scooped as low as bitching online like a small gathering of noobs should be blamed entirely on us.

 

Yes … you heard me. I said it and I don’t plan on taking it back.

 

When studies come forwards and show that family members that live within 10 square miles of one another keep in touch through Facebook more than through the phone or IRL visits, then  it shouldn’t surprise us when a man, named after a penis action, screams his frustrations online. It also shouldn’t  come as a surprise to the said man, if … I don’t know …somehow somebody calls him out on his apocalyptical levels of n00b-ness.

 

It amuses me how people can get riled up from that one small affirmation, while idly letting Bohner get away with trolling. Just goes to show … planet of facebook and google with people  dumb as … as … something else that is really dumb >.> . Shut up! I didnt have a good punch line for that line .. ok. -.-

E-Book Pub Bitway Invests US$750,000 in Crunchyroll

Bitway, a Japanese distributor of electronic books and other online media content, has announced on Tuesday that it made a US$750,000 strategic investment in the American media-distribution website Crunchyroll. According to Bitway’s announcement, the company aims to work with Crunchyroll to build a comic-distribution platform overseas, with an emphasis on the United States and Canada.

Bitway is a major distributor of electronic books, including manga, within Japan, and it intends to apply that “know-how” overseas. Japan’s Toppan Printing launched Bitway in 1999, but Bitway was spun-off as a separate company in 2005. Established in San Francisco in 2006, Crunchyroll is best known for distributing anime and other Asian media content over the Internet to 6 million unique visitors every month.

Crunchyroll had announced at the Tokyo International Anime Fair this past March that TV Tokyo made a similar US$750,000 strategic investment for a minority stake in Crunchyroll. At the time, Crunchyroll had said that there are “negotiations currently underway with an undisclosed group of major Japanese book publishers” for a second round of strategic investment.

Source: animeanime.biz

Mind your cell phone manners on the Seibu Shinjuku train

Cell phones are pretty much a necessity in today’s world. Could imagine a day without yours? Honestly, it would kind of suck. There’s a downside to everyone and their grandmother having a cell phone, though. Annoyances; high volumes of annoyances at that. Some people just don’t know when to shut the hell up while on their damn bluetooth headset or whatever and allocate respect to those around them. On numerous occasions, I’ve encountered people acting so inconsiderate on their phones in public that I have almost resorted to violent actions. Almost. I’m keen enough to realize when I’ll get my ass beat down; so I wouldn’t take the risk.

Having this mentality about proper cell phone etiquette in public, I read this story today and nearly applauded one man’s retaliation to someone who presumably went too far with their level of cell phone-rudeness. Of course, this particular story comes from Japan where the number of people constantly on cell phones is freaking insane. Remember that scene in Durarara!! when all the Dollars members’ ring tones go off at the same time? Yeah, it’s just like that.

Credits:Jpntr

Microsoft Announces Xbox 360 Slim

The rumours about a sleaker version of the Xbox 360 being due were correct – Microsoft has announced the very same at E3.

 The console is to be priced at $299, have a 250GB HDD and wifi support, and be somewhat smaller.

Shipping has begun and Microsoft were giving the consoles away to journalists at the event, out of respect for their unbiased coverage no doubt.


Looks pretty cool. lets just hope this one doesn’t explode on command :))

the new controller previously dubbed as Natal has been given an official name. Meet kinect (seriously)

the new controller previously dubbed as Natal has been given an official name. Meet kinect (seriously)

14 year old arested for uploading manga

Kyoto’s High-Tech Crime Task Force and other police units have arrested a 14-year-old middle-school student on Monday for allegedly distributing One Piece and other manga on the YouTube website before the manga’s official release dates. The unnamed male suspect comes from Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture southwest of Tokyo. According to the police, this is Japan’s first arrest for alleged copyright infringement on YouTube.

The teenager is suspected of uploading One Piece, Naruto, Major, and one other work as videos between December 22, 2009 and February 9, 2010. The suspect reportedly admitted to photographing the manga, page by page, and uploading the images as videos without authorization. The police are investigating the details of how the suspect obtained the manga before release.

The America-based YouTube is the world’s most-visited video-sharing website. Over 10 million people use the site in Japan alone. The public relations department of Shueisha, the publisher of the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine that runs One Piece and Naruto, told the Yomiuri Shimbun paper, “These acts of copyright infringement are truly regrettable. To protect manga culture and the rights of manga creators, we’re taking every available measure.”

Sources: Mainichi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun

Update: In May of 2007, Kyoto’s High-Tech Crime Task Force and other cooperating authorities arrested three male suspects in Tokyo, Morioka, and Osaka, and searched their homes for unauthorized file-sharing of manga before release. One of those arrested was a 17-year-old Tokyo student who allegedly uploaded Weekly Shonen Jump every week on the Thursday before the official Monday release date from February 15 to April 5, 2007. All three reportedly used the Winny peer-to-peer file-sharing network to distribute the scanned manga.

Japan’s Copyright Law prohibits unauthorized uploaders but expressly allowed people to download for private use until this year. Last June, the Japanese parliament passed an amendment that will make it illegal to knowingly download copyrighted material without authorization for the first time. The new law went into effect on January 1, 2010.

The years of the alleged copyright infringement have been corrected in the article above. Thanks, Twilightmaster and Kurisu-kun.

Update 2: According to what the police told the Sports Nippon newspaper, the suspect used the Twitter social networking site to announce the four times he is known to have uploaded manga.

Update 3: According to the Asahi Shimbun paper, the fourth manga that the 14-year-old suspect uploaded frame-by-frame was Gintama, another Weekly Shonen Jump manga title. Major runs in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine.

Update 4: According to the police in a Mainichi Shimbun paper report, the suspect allegedly uploaded 118 manga installments from 30 works in Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly Shonen Sunday from December of 2009 to this month. The resulting videos were accessed 8 million times. The videos were usually posted four to five days before the magazines’ official release dates, although the special New Year’s issues were posted nine days before.

The suspect reportedly maintained a “Netabare Jōhō Kyoku” blog and Twitter account to announce his uploads to his various YouTube channels. A “Manga Netabare Jōhō Kyoku” (“Manga Spoiler Intelligence Agency”) blog has been shut down, but its affiliated Twitter account and at least one YouTube channel are both still active. 47 News reports that the blog was co-maintained by a 15-year-old high school freshman from the southwestern prefecture of Saga and another 14-year-old middle school student from the southwestern prefecture of Okinawa. 47 News also posted a photograph of the manga magazines, notebook computers, and game consoles confiscated from the suspect’s home.

Here’s how Michael Bay will ruin Transformers

USA Today published a not-short article on Michael Bay and Transformers 3 yesterday. I suppose I could sift through the shit and give you the important bits from it, but that wouldn’t really convey what a fucking douchedozer Bay is, or his disdain for the Transformers movies he makes. So basically I’m going to reprint the entire article and add my comments, much like FFF. Hope you don’t mind.

The Transformers promise they can change, baby.

With shooting underway on a third movie and plans to debut next summer, Michael Bay and Co. acknowledge missteps with the last one and aim to upgrade the shape-shifting robot franchise with a more coherent story, less goofball humor and a pledge that characters who die will stay dead. It will also be in 3-D.

Note that “less goofball humor,” despite the fact the parents have already been rehired. Obviously, I can’t prove that the movie won’t have a coherent plot until I see it, but I’d say odds are against it. Also, if characters can come back-to-life willy-nilly in the first two movie of a trilogy, the fact that they’re going to stay dead in the third movie still doesn’t have any emotional impact. You already broke that toy, Bay.

Revenge of the Fallen was the No. 2 movie of 2009 (behind only Avatar), earning $836 million worldwide — clearly very popular, though complaints from some moviegoers and a negative fusillade from critics made the filmmakers take notice.

“I’ll take some of the criticism,” says Bay, standing at a set built to resemble a dilapidated nuclear reactor. “It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers’ strike (of 2007-08).”

So having the writers available and not on strike was a problem? Yeah, I bet.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says the rush strained the plot: “We tried to do too many things in the second movie, which didn’t give enough time in any one of them. We were constantly jumping to the next piece of information, the next place.”

Yes, information like Skids and Mudflap can’t read, and that Devastator has balls. That was the problem with Transformers 2 — there was just too to know! More after the jump.

Bay is not one for mea culpas, but he says he can do better. “This one really builds to a final crescendo. It’s not three multiple endings,” the director says.

If you understanding that having three endings in the same film is bad, why did you do it on TF2? It wasn’t exactly your first rodeo, asshole.

Bay calls the second film’s villain, The Fallen, “kind of a (expletive) character.” The new movie’s foe is certain to make fans of the original ’80s incarnation smile: Shockwave, the robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of their home world of Cybertron after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.

So even Michael Bay thought the character of The Fallen was shit — and he used him anyway. He didn’t veto the character, or ask for a rewrite, or for anything to be fleshed out — he just made the fucking movie as is. Because Michael Bay does not care. If the Fallen was a shit character, that’s 100% on Bay, because he’s the fucking director. He’s the man in charge. He calls the shots. Now can anybody tell me why we should think Shockwave is going to be any different?

“One thing we’re getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy,” Bay adds. So the twins, the two bumbling, slang-spewing robots? “They’re basically gone,” he says, though John Turturro returns for comic relief.

“Basically.” Meaning they’re in the movie at least a little. Which means Bay says he’s getting rid of the “dorky comedy,” but we know for certain the movie will include: the Racist Twins, Sam’s bumbling parents, and John Turturro specifically for comic relief. Yeah, sounds like Bay is determined to make TF3 a more serious affair to me.

The new film features Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime. “Shia has this great line: ‘You know, I’ve saved the world twice, but I can’t get a job,’ ” di Bonaventura says.

THE ECONOMY!

Megan Fox, who played Mikaela, was dropped just before shooting, so LaBeouf’s character also has a new love interest, played by Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

“I love Megan and I miss the girl,” LaBeouf says, flecked with fake blood and dirt during a break between shooting. “But Sam and Mikaela became one character, and here … you have discovery again from a new perspective.”

Translation: “Megan Fox managed to get out this shit-pile. Lucky bitch.”

Plot details are under wraps, but it delves into the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets. “The movie is more of a mystery,” Bay says. “It ties in what we know as history growing up as kids with what really happened.”

Oh my fucking fuck. There’s going to be a Decepticon with a comically stupid Russian accent.

While Optimus Prime, Megatron and even Sam all have died and been resurrected, di Bonaventura says this film will have no do-overs: Die, and that’s it.

Again, you can’t just arbitrarily decide you’re changing the rules now and expect anyone to give a shit. Megatron and Optimus were resurrected with random macguffins, and Sam went to fucking Autobot heaven for what will be 66% of the Transformers movie trilogy. Kill off whoever you want, no one is going to be impressed. It’s not like Sam can’t find a few more flecks of the Matrix of Leadership in his sweatsock to resurrect whoever.

Bay hints that there may be a lot of that. “As a trilogy, it really ends,” he says. “It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”

“Sure, Transformers 2 was a massive pile of shit. But despite the fact I’ve learned nothing from my mistakes and made no changes to the formula, I think Transformers 3 will be awesome.”

Reblog via Toplessrobot

One step closer to lighsabers :D

Wicked Lasers has made the world’s deadliest laser. This is noteworthy for several reasons.

1) They put the laser in a lightsaber hilt.
2) The beam is blue, like Luke’s first lightsaber.
3) The laser blinds people “permanently and instantly.”
4) It also sets people’s flesh on fire when it hits them.
5) It’s — and this is the best part — available to purchase by anyone for only $200.

So we’re still having trouble with the “blade” aspect of the lightsaber, but setting people’s flesh on fire via laser is a significant step forward. I mean, a laser that just slices through flesh can’t be that far behind, right? Hopefully Wicked Lasers will get on this quickly, because I fully expect these things to be declared illegal as soon as some nerd accidentally sets his little brother’s face on fire with one.

(Via Great White Snark)

Supernatural goes anime !

I happen to agree with Dale North(blog source) on this one, as an anime fan we just dont do TV, but Supernatural was one of those shows you just had to watch and keep track off. Maybe it was the insane amount of smex that was oozing out of the two main chars, or perhaps it’s the endless fascination that humans have with ghosts and demons; but whatever it was, this show made it epic and reeled int the audience.


As with most succes stories this one too gets and anime version. Show creator Eric Kripke is on staff, of course, but invites some top-notch Japanese talent to help. According to ANN, Masao Maruyama from MADHOUSE is serving as executive producer. Naoya Takayama (Liar Game) is supervising the series’ scripts, and Takahiro Yoshimatsu of Trigun fame is designing the Sam and Dean and friends.

If I were you i’d keep a close eye on this one, because it already sounds epic.

New Gantz trailer !

This just might be the one live-action manga based movie that gets to impress me. It looks more promising thaN death note did in it’s trailers back in the day. And for once, admit it … the actors actually ACT despite being Japanese :))

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