project

LAS VEGAS--That game onscreen in the picture below? It's Firefall, a full-fledged online first-person shooter for PC. Razer says Firefall, and other PC games, will run on its Project Fiona tablet in Windows 8.

The tablet is a concept. Razer says it's targeting a sub-$1,000 price tag when it brings the final version to market, planned for the end of this year.

Fiona looks to be the first true Windows 8 gaming tablet. For its specs, Razer intends to use a third-generation (aka Ivy Bridge) Intel Core i7 CPU, along with a solid-state drive (SSD). Razer reps here at CES 2012 were circumspect when I asked about the graphics chip in Fiona. CEO Min-Liang Tan said he wanted to highlight Ivy Bridge and Windows 8 gaming, although he at least acknowledged the possibility of a discrete graphics chip from AMD or Nvidia.… Read more

A little-noticed section of the Stop Online Piracy Act could make it illegal to distribute Tor and other software that can "circumvent" attempts by the U.S. government to block pirate Web sites.

The controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bill allows injunctions to be filed against "any" person, nonprofit organization, or company that distributes a "product or service" that can be used to circumvent or bypass blockades erected against alleged pirate Web sites such as ThePirateBay.org.

"It looks like SOPA would outlaw Tor," says Markham Erickson, an attorney with Holch & Erickson LLP … Read more

You are slightly less likely to be given a free Olympus camera by a stranger these days as the Olympus PEN Ready Project giveaway is in the books. Now, it's time to see the photographic results.

Olympus rolled out its $500 PEN E-PM1 camera earlier this year by giving more than 1,000 free cams to random people around North America. The recipients were asked to take pictures wherever they went. Olympus continues to collect those shots for display online.

I was asked to play along with the big promotion by testing the PEN Ready E-PM1's capabilities along with those 1,000 fortunate winners. I couldn't ask for a better way to review a camera than to take it on the freelance-journalism road from a Harley-Davidson event in Milwaukee, to a NASCAR race in Charlotte, N.C., to a Yamaha scooter ride in San Francisco. … Read more

A new study entitled Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Networks confirms much of what we already know about cyberbullying. Most kids aren't bullied and most kids don't bully either online or off.

In fact, the study--conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project for the Family Online Safety Institute and Cable in the Classroom--concluded that "[m]ost American teens who use social media say that in their experience, people their age are mostly kind to one another on social network sites." Nearly seven in ten (69 percent) of teens said that peers are mostly … Read more

Facebook today created a foundation to lead Open Compute, borrowing the open source software model to advance a set of freely available data center designs in order to speed hardware innovation and reduce the environmental impact of cloud computing.

The company announced initial members and directors of the foundation at the second Open Compute Summit today in New York. It also intends to release details on its guiding principles and how projects will be proposed and handled.

Facebook launched the Open Compute Project in April under the idea that the designs and specifications of its data centers can be shared … Read more

Olympus is rolling out its new PEN E-PM1 camera by asking random consumers to demonstrate how easy the latest PEN Ready camera is to use.

The PEN Ready Project looks to give more than 1,000 free PEN Ready E-PM1 cams to random people around North America. Those fortunate folks in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami, and Lehigh Valley, Penn., (Olympus' hometown) can go anywhere they like and take any pictures or HD videos they like (Olympus is asking them to shoot at least 20 still images or vids; those who do will be entered in a sweepstakes).

Olympus is collecting those works of would-be art for showcasing on a new custom-designed Tumblr blog. The company's hope is that people around the world will visit the PEN Ready site to see what the E-PM1 can do, thus wanting one for themselves. … Read more

Wunderlist is a beautifully designed, multiplatform task management tool that can sync with the cloud and even add tasks via e-mail.

The beauty of Wunderlist lies in its simplicity. Its interface is made up mostly of Tasks and Lists. Lists are essentially groups of tasks, great for organizing projects or categories of to-dos.

To get started, tap the Lists tab on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, then create a new List. From there, you can tap the List and add new Tasks to it. You can prioritize Tasks with a star, create due dates, and add … Read more

President Obama joined thousands today in marking the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center site in New York, laying his hands on a bronze memorial engraved with names of victims--a list arranged with the help of an algorithm.

The 2,983 names on 76 bronze panels surround two cascading pools of water where the towers stood, in architect Michael Arad's design "Reflecting Absence." In seemingly random fashion, the panels list those who died on September 11, 2001, as well as in the WTC bombing of February 26, 1993.

But the carefully thought-out memorial reflects the victims' complex web of relationships to one another--professional, social, and accidental. This was accomplished thanks to an algorithm created by data artist Jer Thorp working with New York design firm Local Projects.

Arad rejected arranging the names alphabetically or chronologically. The best way to set the names seemed to be one that wouldn't favor some people over others, so they're arranged according to groups and their relationships with one another. … Read more

The "Taiwan Economic Times" is reporting that Apple's iPad 2 assembler, Hon Hai Precision Industry, has upped its initial shipment projection of 14 million iPad 2 units for the third quarter to 20 million units.

If the report is accurate, that's a 42.8 percent increase in projected output. "Although declining to comment on the report, Hon Hai stressed that it is normal to forecast a shipment surge in the third quarter, a booming season for the electronic industry."

Obviously Apple is confident in high sales heading into the holiday season. The projected numbers … Read more