The Death of the Couch-Potato Gamer

In the world of gaming, the motion wars are in full effect. 

  Now that motion-control game controllers like Sony's PlayStation Move and Microsoft's Project Natal are suiting up, jumping off the couch, and preparing to do battle with the best-selling Nintendo Wii, there's no place left for couch-potato gamers.  

 Having spent quality time last year with Natal I was anxious to get my hands on Sony's glowing orb Move controller, which I did this week. And you can color me impressed.

 If you've seen a Nintendo Wii before then you already know how it works: You slap on a wrist strap, grab a virtual tennis racket, baseball bat, or sword and let the gaming begin. You'll find the games intuitive and easy to get acquainted, whether you're playing table tennis or gladiators. 

  I have to admit I wasn't expecting to be wowed by Sony's Move. The idea of using a controller with a glowing ball on top of it seemed far a field from Microsoft's evolutionary Project Natal which ditches the Wii styled controller all together. But not so fast!

 "Microsoft's Natal is really limiting," a Sony representative told me. "You can't get the full range of virtual motion in a 3D space with just a camera on top of a television." What about the massively successful Nintendo Wii, I asked?

  "The Wii controller can only be tracked based on its previous position -- it's jumpy, it's not smooth. The Sony Move controller is tracked exactly in 3D." 

 The game play was remarkably accurate and snappy, all in a 3D environment. Holding a sword, I was able turn it quickly in every direction imaginable: forward, backward, up, down, in, out, sideways, you name it. I felt like William Wallace in Braveheart -- without the biceps, tight abs and bulging pectorals. A boy can dream.

 If you're used to getting away with those little flicking motions while playing tennis on the Wii, you'll be in for a rude awakening on the Move. Sony uses your full range of motion; no more phoning it in when you should aually be working your body.  

 If you already own a Playstation 3 you won't need a whole new system. Simply purchase the new Move controller and the Sony Eye camera for the top of your television and you're up and running. The Sony Move is a promising step for a company that's failed to impress lately. Two words: PSP GO!  

 The real question, though, is will a family that's already purchased a Nintendo Wii be compelled to purchase another motion-controlled system -- albeit one with better graphics and tighter controls? If Christmas sales are any indication, the Wii doesn't show any sign of slowing down.

 Now that motion-control gaming has been nearly perfected, I'm tired of tennis, ping pong and bowling. I hope someone's paying attention when I say this: I want a light saber game and I want it soon. And I'm not ashamed to admit that.

The Internet's most successful scams

Most people think they'll never fall for a scam. In fact, that frame of mind is precisely what con artists look for. Those who believe that they know better are often the last to raise their defenses when criminals are nearby. Yes, Virginia, people lose money online. A lot of it. They wire cash to London, they can't help investigating the one-in-a-million chance they really are related to a dead prince from Africa, and they sometimes even travel to Nigeria to find out. Just in case.

Many of the scams you read about are sensational, such as the silly "hit man" scam created by real amateurs (recipients get an e-mail that says send me all your money or I'll kill you).  And you've also seen lists that offer oddly skewed results, such as the recent FBI announcement that scammers pretending to be FBI agents are now the most prevalent Internet crime. You’d figure those numbers are a bit exaggerated because victims of FBI scams are a bit more likely to report those scams to the agency.

Fantastic stories like these only serve to convince many consumers to let their guard down even more, helping to increase the pool of marks for the professional scammers.

I know, because I hear from victims all the time.  My inbox is littered with people whose notes say,"I know I should have known better, but ...." And with that, they beg me for help restoring their ravaged bank accounts. In fact, every single victim I've ever interviewed says they had an inkling that something was wrong from the outset, but they ignored that feeling. That’s why the single most important factor in avoiding fraud is this: Learn to trust the feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Usually, I can't help restore those bank accounts. But I can help you, if your turn hasn't come up yet.  And even if you are convinced you'd never fall for any online con, someone in your circle of friends or family is vulnerable. Please forward this story to him or her. 

Because I hear from so many victims all year long, I know what people really fall for. Here are the top 5 ways cyberthieves separate people from their money, based on my 12 years of writing about Net cons.

1.)   Online dating scams

Anyone out there never done anything dumb for love?  If you are raising your hand, congratulations. You may now relinquish your credentials as a human being.  The rest of you should read on.

Love-based cons are the easiest to perpetrate. Why? Because love always involves a leap of faith -- trusting something you can't see or touch. Just like Internet scams.  For years, criminals have made haunts out of dating services and lonely-hearts chat rooms.  Broken-hearted folks are rarely in their right minds, so they make easy targets. 

I once knew the FBI agent in charge of investigating cyber-love scams.  He put it this way:  Men could learn a lot from con artist lovers. They send flowers and candy constantly while wooing a mark (purchased with stolen credit cards, of course).  Gifts really do put women in an agreeable state of mind, he assured me.

Some cons spend months grooming their marks, waiting until after several "I love yous" before asking for $800 to be wired to the passport office in London to help clear up a paperwork mess so he can come to America for a visit.

Yes, it all sounds ridiculous. It's not. It's so profitable that criminals actually pay monthly fees on some dating services. Generally, the more you pay for a service the fewer criminals you'll see, and free Craigslist personal ads tend to be a cesspool. But I've heard from victims who never joined a dating service but were still conned into fake love from perfectly innocent-sounding places like Facebook groups or chat rooms devoted to hobbies like stitching or horses. It all starts with a simple e-mail, perhaps enhanced by a little Facebook research (“Hey, you love the New York Islanders and the Beatles, too! Wow”)

Since I've written about this scam many times, I've even heard from concerned family members who beg me to talk the deluded lover down off the cliff when he or she is about to send a bunch of money to a scammer. Usually, I fail. Love is blind; it's also really, really stubborn.

In the latest flavor of the scam, when a deluded lover actually wises up and confronts the criminal, he or she admits to the crime but then adds this twist: "Yes, at first it was just a con, but while we were talking I've really fallen in love with you."

For a whole lot more on this insidious, more-common-than-you'd-believe crime, visit romancescams.org. The group, founded by former victims, has been fighting back for nearly 10 years. They post blacklisted photos there, e-mail addresses and typical opening lines from scammers , and lots of additional helpful scam-fighting tools. If you fall in love and have any doubts, visit the site.

2.)  Fake or "rogue" anti-virus software

We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get help now!"

If you've ever clicked through such an ad (really, a hijacking), you know that the price for freedom is $20 or $30 a month.  At first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware, which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong antivirus product. That's why consumers forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to fake antivirus distributors in 2009, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Your best bet?  Make a plan now.  This is the one scam that just about anyone can fall for.  The best protection of all is to back up your important files, so the day your computer is hacked, your digital life won't be on the line.  It's also important to have a fire extinguisher nearby.  A second PC or laptop is often your best help when disaster strikes.  Many viruses disable Internet access, so you'll need a second computer to research your infection and download disinfectant software.  Have a flash drive nearby, too, so you can move the inoculation from one computer to the other.

Meanwhile, if you aren't paying for antivirus software, at least employ one of the popular free products like AVG or Windows Defender

3.)  Facebook impersonation

Facebook is no longer a Web site -- it's a full-fledged platform, rapidly approaching the scale of the Internet itself. Many young users spend more time on Facebook than on e-mail, and actually use Facebook as their e-mail service.  That means scammers are now crawling all over the service, since they always go where the people go.  There are hundreds of Facebook scams, such as phishing e-mails, Trojan horse infections, misleading advertisements and so on.

But the crime you should most worry about is Facebook impersonation. A criminal who hacks into your Facebook account can learn a staggering amount of information about you. Worse yet, he or she can gain trusted access to friends and family.  We've seen plenty of stories that show Facebook friends can easily be tricked into sending money in response to believable pleas for help.

For this reason, it's time to upgrade your Facebook password. Treat it like an online banking site, because it's not a stretch to say that a criminal who hacks your Facebook account is only one small step away from stealing your money (“Hello, First National Bank, I've lost my password. But my high school mascot is the Owl and my mother's maiden name is Smith. Oh, and my first girlfriend's name was Mary. Can you reset the password now?”)

4.) Becoming a bot

You may not know it, but your computer might be a criminal.  Botnets -- armies of hijacked home computers that send out spam or commit other crimes -- remain the biggest headache for security professionals. The various botnets ebb and flow in size, but at any given time, tens of millions of computers on the Web are under the influence of a criminal. No one thinks it's their PC, of course, but look at the odds. If one estimate claiming 100 million infections is accurate, then about one out of every 20 computers in the world is infected.  In other words, someone in your extended family is aiding and abetting a spammer.

How can this be? Victims typically don’t notice the criminal activity.  Cyberthieves can easily use your machine without leaving a trace or slowing down your PC performance. They do not deposit e-mails in your sent items folder. Instead of sending 1 million e-mails from your machine, they send one e-mail every hour from 1 million infected machines.

Any honest antivirus company will tell you that there is so much new malicious software created every day that the good guys simply can't keep up. The Web is jammed full of e-mails and Web sites that can turn your home computer into a bot. Your PC could very easily be safe today but at risk tomorrow. That's why it's so important to keep your computer's security tools up to date. But you shouldn't assume that this will keep you 100 percent safe. Avoid the Web's seedier side, and don't let the kids download illegal music or games, a main source of infections. And always keep on the lookout for strange programs, files or surprising hiccups from your machine.

5) The fakosphere

The Web is now littered with fake blogs, fake ads, fake acai berry products, fake work-at-home jobs and fake Web sites saying how great all these things are. You'll even see ads for such products on all major media Web sites, as they've become the Web's answer to late-night infomercials. 

The FTC recently issued an opinion clarifying that fake testimonials on Web sites are a violation of federal law, and some of the over-the-top ads have disappeared. But the fakosphere is far from dead.

I know it's tempting to obey one rule that will make your tummy flat, make your bank account fat or make your cancer disappear.  But you can't believe everything you read online.  Never purchase a product without searching Google using this search term:  "(Product name) scam" and "(Product Name) complaint."  Then, spend three minutes familiarizing yourself with the reputation of the item you are about to buy and the price you are about to pay.  One or two complaints might say one thing, but 500 complaints should certainly scream at you that you should put that credit card back in your wallet.

Contributed By: http://redtape.msnbc.com

Whats with the iPad???

The Apple iPad tablet is finally here, but it hasn’t drawn quite the same cheer from Apple enthusiasts and gadget fans that some observers expected.
About 60 percent of the 1,114 readers that took Wired.com’s iPad poll said they would not buy the iPad. Some 41 percent of the 892 readers who took a separate poll said the tablet did not live up to its hype, though they expect it to find a home among high-end consumers.
The iPad name was the focus of many jokes with, predictably, the comments hitting the “pad” aspect of it.
“I think they should have gone with iSlate for the name,” commenter Navi101 wrote in response to our live coverage of the event. “iPad makes me think of feminine products.”
There’s more. The Jezebel blog, written for women, published an entire article summing up the “best period-related iPad jokes.”
“Not gonna lie, the name iPad makes me shudder a bit,” tweeted Lisa Gumerman. “Kind of even makes me less interested in buying it.”
The iPad name is also symptomatic of the lack of women engineers in IT, said Eve Tahmincioglu on the Huffington Post blog.
“I suspect a room full of female computer engineers would not have named Apple’s new cybertablet the iPad,” she wrote. “This naming faux pas is a perfect example of why we need more women IT professionals in this world. Apple wants women to buy these gizmos, but is anyone really thinking about us gals?”
Still some Apple fans says that customers are likely to warm up to the name after the initial reaction. “It’s a poorly chosen name. But so was Wii, and everyone got over those jokes after the first week,” tweeted Rob Sheridan, creative director for Nine Inch Nails.
Other users focused on the real shortcomings of the device. “What? iPad has no [Adobe] Flash player. That’s what it needs for so many websites. That’s not good,” tweeted Andrea Bakes.
Others pointed to the lack of USB port and multitasking in the device as features that will be missed.
“I don’t understand no multitasking, I mean how can you expect anyone to use this for work?” commented ’spitfiredd’ on Wired.com.
Though Apple’s Steve Jobs introduced the iPad as a device that would occupy the world between smartphones and laptops, potential customers aren’t convinced. A full 71 percent of 934 readers polled said they won’t buy an iPad, because they are happy with their smartphone and notebook.
Some Apple fans are not ready to give up on the device.
“I am not a fanboy at all, and I find it absolutely awe inspiring,” commented NickSA. “This is the future. Hats off to Apple, they have done it again — though personally I would wait till the second generation [of the device] for all the bugs to get ironed out.”
Ultimately, the question is, who really needs an iPad and is the data plan worth it. “Why would you take a iPad with you if you have a iPhone? Do you need to have both?,” commented jescott418. “Why spend an amount on two service plans with AT&T to basically do the same thing? I am scratching my head at who really needs this except for the base model for a coffee table piece.”
And as for the publishing industry, where some had pinned their hopes on the tablet, the iPad is unlikely to prove to be the digital savior that was wished for. About 59 percent of 824 readers who took the poll say the iPad won’t save the publishing industry.
That’s a few hundred readers that publishers won’t be able to count on.

Scientists in Germany invent invisibility cloak

The creation of Harry Potter-style invisibility cloaks may be closer than you think.
 German scientists have found a way to make an object vanish from view in three dimensions for the first time, according to a study published in the journal "Science."
 The researchers placed a "cloak" over a tiny lump of gold and distorted the lighting, hitting so it appeared invisible.
"We put an object under a microscopic structure, a little like a reflective carpet," said Nicholas Stenger, one of the researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology who worked on the project.
"When we looked at it through a lens and did spectroscopy, no matter what angle we looked at the object from, we saw nothing. The bump became invisible."
The invisible cape was made up of crystals with air spaces in between that resembled piles of wood and bend light to hide the gold beneath.
The dimensions were tiny: the lump was 0.00004 inches high by 0.00005 inches wide, and the object used to cover it was 100 microns by 30 microns, with one micron being one-thousandth of a millimeter.
Researchers said the chances of making a life-size cloak suitable for a wizard's wardrobe was still many years away, and it would first be a rigid structure instead of a free flowing cape.
"Theoretically, it would be possible to do this on a large scale but technically, it's totally impossible with the knowledge we have know," said Stenger.
"But it could become a reality in 10 years."
Previous attempts to achieve invisibility only worked in two dimensions and if the object was viewed from a specific angle.
They also only worked for microwave frequencies, but this study works for infrared light, which is a key step closer to the spectrum visible to the naked eye.

Pros and Cons of a gap year

A gap year is a welcome break for many students but can also be frustrating to others. It may indeed be a way to recharge your battery or to explore activities near home or afar that you never had time to experience before. However, students with lofty gap-year plans have been known to end up zoned out in front of “Full House” reruns or steamed up behind a fry-o-lator at the local Mickey D’s. Thus, before deciding on a year off before college, it’s important to assess your reasons for the change and to make sure you spend your time in an engaging way that meets these aims.

For instance, if your main objective is to get a breather from classrooms, tests, and homework assignments, a gap year can be a great way to do that. Whether you’re working full time, pursuing an extracurricular interest (e.g., training for a triathlon or interning at the local TV station), or taking part in an organized travel, study, or volunteer program, it’s important to have focus. We advise you to come up with a plan–at least a preliminary one–before you commit to the year off. One complaint we often hear from dissatisfied “gappers” is that, once their friends headed off to college in the fall and they didn’t have any fulfilling activities on the docket, they regretted their decision.

The biggest plus of a gap year is that many students who take time off before college find that the break from academics enables them to return to the classroom the following fall with renewed vigor and focus (and even maturity ). Some parents (maybe yours?) and even some students, too, worry that a detour from college may lead to a long-term derailment, but this is rarely the case. Most gappers who take a year off of the academic treadmill are eager to climb back on when the time comes.

While often it makes sense to apply to college while still in high school (where you’ll have access to guidance counselors and their services, teachers for recommendations, etc.), and then defer admission once admitted, some students find that after a year away, their priorities change, and they’re interested in a different institution and/or major field. So one thing you’ll need to consider as you proceed is a timeline … will you make your college plans before your year off or during it?

Some students, too, view a gap year as a way to get into a “better” college than those that would have admitted them straight from high school. Typically, this is NOT an effective strategy. Most colleges base their decisions primarily on academic factors, so–if your year away does not include taking classes–then don’t expect it to offer a back-door route to a top-choice college. However, there ARE stories out there about applicants whose gap-year efforts were sufficiently impressive that they led to acceptances at colleges that had already said “no” once before or that probably would have previously been somewhat out of range.

If you ARE hoping that your gap year will lead to better college options, be sure to choose your activities especially carefully so that admission folks regard your time away from school as worthwhile or even unique. For instance, if your applications already point to a particular passion (silk-screening or ceramics, playing the sitar, volunteering in a shelter for battered women or AIDS babies, etc.) then perhaps you can take that interest and involvement to the next level. That is, you can pursue it full time or in an atypical way or locale.

Getting a job–even a menial one–to help defray college costs would also be construed as “worthwhile” by admission officials. Many left-leaning elite-college admission staffers have some degree of prejudice against silver-spoon kids who spend a summer–or a year–studying, traveling, or “volunteering,” only after Mom and Dad have written out a hefty check to pave the way. Thus, if you defer for a year, and then explain to colleges that your parents expect you to pay a portion of your own college expenses so you needed to earn significant cash before matriculating, then this could work in your favor when it comes to impressing admission committees.

Finally, keep in mind that, if you don’t have any gap-year plans that truly excite you, then you might want to postpone your break until you’ve had a year or two of college under your belt. Some students feel they most need a hiatus at the end of high school, while others find that they get more bang for their buck only after they’ve had a taste of college life first.

To Kill a Mocking Bird (Book Review)

It seems appropriate that I finished this book the same day that we heard in the UK that America had elected its first black President. If anyone doesn’t see the importance of Barack Obama’s rise to power, they should read this book to see how far the nation has come.

This book sits uncomfortably with the usual age categories prescribed to fiction; it is narrated by a little girl so on the surface appears to be a children’s book, but the material is far darker than most children would be allowed to read. So why does Harper Lee choose to tell her story through a child? The answer becomes apparent throughout the novel – in a 1930’s American town full of hypocrisy and prejudice, only the children have minds pure enough to see injustice for what it is. The narrative also lends the story a ‘morality tale’ feeling, without it becoming preachy or self-righteous.

This novel has become one of my favourites already, and one I will definitely be lending to my future children when they’re old enough to appreciate it. I really recommend it to anyone who wants to understand American history better, or who just like a good story.

What is Mozilla?

We’re a global community

   of thousands who sincerely believe in the power of technology to enrich people’s lives.

We’re a public benefit organization

   dedicated not to making money but to improving the way people everywhere experience the Internet.

And we’re an open source software project

   whose code has been used as a platform for some of the Internet’s most innovative projects.

The common thread that runs throughout Mozilla is our belief that, as the most significant soci

al and technological development of our time, the Internet is a public resource that must remain open and accessible to all. With this in mind, our efforts are ultimately driven by our mission of encouraging choice, innovation and opportunity online.
   To achieve these goals, we use a highly transparent, extremely collaborative process that brings together thousands of dedicated volunteers around the world with our small staff of employees to coordinate the creation of products like the Firefox web browser. This process is supported by the Mozilla Corporation, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
   In the end, the Mozilla community, organization and technology is all focused on a single goal: making the Internet better for everyone.

Benefits Of Dangerous Sports

Most people tend to avoid doing dangerous sports. They are anxious about wounding themselves with a broken ankle or a scar on their skin while they are doing dangerous sports. However, doing dangerous sports has a lot of beneficial factors, so some people are attracted to dangerous sports.  

 First of all, doing dangerous sports can release stress from under stressful people. While people are doing dangerous sports, they have to focus on doing the sports, which means they forget a lot of things which they got from their job or relationship between people. For example, one of the dangerous sports is climbing cliffs. It is not easy because they have to climb very high slope with some rope; however, while climbing the cliff, they have to concentrate to climb. 

Also, when they get to the top of the cliff, they will satisfy what they do. During this activity, they forget their stress from their job.  

 Another benefit of dangerous sports is they are more interesting and exciting sport than other sports. For example, golf is one of the boring sports because they have to walk after they hit a golf ball. It will take a few minutes as well as they usually walk alone. Also, golf requires the same way in 18 holes. However, there is three way sport which is comprised of bicycling, swimming, and running. This sport requires the ability to be able to bicycle, swim, and run. People doing this sport feel more excited because they can do three sports in only one match. 

  In conclusion, dangerous sports have more benefit for people doing them. Dangerous sport can give people more release from stress and excitement than other sports, so some people will still prefer to do dangerous sports.