world

With all the recent advances in user interfaces and head-mounted displays, there's little reason virtual sex can't offer a truly 21st century, nearly realistic experience.

That's the sentiment behind VRSexKit.com, a set of sex simulators in the works from ThriXXX, a company that has been a leader in adapting technologies like Microsoft's Kinect for virtual-reality sex play.

Though ThriXXX was quick to figure out how to use the Kinect in virtual sex, founder Brad Abram now believes Microsoft's motion-control camera system doesn't offer a "granular enough" experience. … Read more

Flash Clocks' World Clock displays the time and flag for a number of cities around the world on an interactive daylight map on your Windows desktop. It's good looking and easy to use, too. For example, you can add and remove time zones and cities simply by clicking on the map, and even toggle visual effects on and off. New features include an Embed Tag for super-easy embedding in Web sites, presentations, and other programs, plus an improved and more accurate solar terminator. This portable freeware is ready for Windows 8. It requires Adobe Flash Player.

World Clock is … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Amazon's Kindle Worlds will pay writers to write fan fiction.

- Hire your favorite musician to write you a song .

- And now a reading from the worst fan fiction I've ever read.

- Follow Russ Frushtick on Twitter.… Read more

The first draft of the World Wide Web has gone missing, with perhaps one of the only copies of the very first Web site floating around the world's drawers or attics on a floppy disk somewhere.

Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first version of the very first Web page back in 1990 as a way for scientists to share information at CERN -- the European nuclear physics lab and particle accelerator site on the border of Switzerland and France. But it wasn't until 1992 that he actually saved a copy of that early CERN page.… Read more

People who write fan fiction could find a paying market for their work courtesy of Amazon.

Unveiled Wednesday, Kindle Worlds is a new publishing venture from Amazon that promises to reward both writers and the original rights holders for new fiction based on existing stories and characters.

Authors who create works of at least 10,000 words in length will receive 35 percent of the net revenue based on the actual sales price, with royalties paid each month. Those who write shorter pieces between 5,000 and 10,000 words will receive a digital royalty of 20 percent of the sales price.… Read more

Brickbreaker-esque game Bubble Worlds will keep you busy through hundreds of levels, even though they all feel the same. Bubble Worlds is polished enough to win a few fans, but the difficultly level goes from zero to 60 too quickly. It's enough to turn a lot of gamers off.

In this game, you shoot bubbles to try to free trapped bananas. When you match three or more bubbles of the same color, they pop and send any connected bubbles flying. It sounds bizarre, but it's actually easy to figure out. You'll be able to breeze through most … Read more

It looks like telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim has lost his grip on the title of world's richest person.

And who to fill his shoes? None other than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

With a $72.7 billion fortune, Gates is now $550 million ahead of Slim (who has a net worth of $72.1 billion), according to Bloomberg. This is the first time Gates has earned the biggest billionaire status since 2007.

Gates has seen his fortune grow about $10 billion over the past few months, according to Bloomberg. The increase came not so much from Microsoft stock -- only … Read more

FIFA may be implementing goal-sensing technology in international soccer games, but the World Cup is getting even more high-tech with military robot security.

iRobot announced today $7.2 million in contracts to provide Brazil with military PackBot robots for security at the 2014 World Cup. PackBots have been deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and even inside Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

As part of the deal, Brazil will get 30 PackBot 510 units, which usually cost about $100,000 to $200,000 apiece. The contracts include services, spares, and associated equipment. … Read more

It's a sign of the times, perhaps, that an award-winning news photo turns out not to have been faked.

Swedish photojournalist Paul Hansen won the World Press Photo of the Year 2012 for his shot of two children in Gaza killed by an Israeli airstrike in November. But Neal Krawetz called the photo a fake on Sunday.

"Hansen's picture is a composite," Krawetz declared, saying that metadata showed multiple photos had been combined into one image, that error level analysis (ELA) showed inconsistencies, that shadows in the scene weren't geometrically plausible.

Photography has always been … Read more