Category: Blog

Rather like #idleRPG for irc, Justin Hall of bud.com is working on a “passively-multiplayer online game” where you level up based on what sites you visit and how frequently you surf the Web2net. (Aside: did I just coin that? Using Web 2.0 in a sentence tends to get klunky.) Browsing different sites changes different stats…for example, browsing Flickr lowers strength, but raises dexterity and wisdom. With the right format and a little Firefox extension (similar
to Swarm) to passively gather your browsed pages, I think this is a fabulously fun idea. Planned features include finding people with similar browsing statistics and gathering obtainable “items” embedded in browsed pages (I can see webmasters designing quests already). More about this from the developer:

“Oh look, here’s a collectible virtual tool I just picked up on the Make magazine site.” “I put this crazy unicorn up on my MySpace page – now
people are riding it!” Perhaps bud.com can channel information packrat tendencies by providing a playful structure for exchanging web curios: raising an avatar, and feeding it information.

Justin has a proof of concept page here. A single-player version is planned to be out this summer, with multi-player following in the fall. I assure you I will be signed up for the alphas as soon as I can get my grubby little hands on them.

Tags: firefox, browser game, idlerpg, Web 2.0, web2net

Based on the Music Genome project, Pandora tells genre preconceptions to fuckoff. The high-quality 128Kbps stream serves you an entire station of music that is “genetically” similar to your seed song or artist, sans advertising (other than requisite links to buy the song or album on Amazon and iTunes) .

I have to admit it was a bit disconcerting at first to hear Britney Spears on a Bjork station, but I listened to the musical qualities of the song, and it did actually fit. J-Lo’s “Jenny from the block” that came up two songs later did NOT fit, but that’s why Pandora has made it easy to provide feedback on what songs appear on your stations. Suffice to say, that song will never play on my station again. ^_^

The service is invite only for now, but there’s an invite-request box on the front page (personally, I got my link from the CEO’s post on downloadsquad). Best of all, the preview version is free.

Holy balls, they’ve finally done it.

This toaster features a 4 line LCD, USB keyboard, 10/100 ethernet port and a RS232 serial port for the external console. The toaster’s internal circuit boards have been bypassed and routed through the CPU board allowing NetBSD complete control over the toaster’s features. A keyboard connects through a USB port on the side of the toaster and the 4×40 LCD displays a NetBSD/toaster login prompt. The burner element is also controlled by the TS-7200 via an internal relay. Unlike previous NetBSD toasters which were nothing more than a glorified PC case-mod, this toaster can actually toast bread!

Read the full article: http://www.embeddedarm.com/news/netbsd_toaster.htm

Slashdot quote of the day:  

Reason #1 why I use FreeBSD over Linux, I just want a Unix-like OS without a revolution packaged with it. Talk about bloat. :)

Windows Mobile is about to whoop the ever lovin’ schnarkins out of palm if they don’t get their act together.

• New mobile versions of Word Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile Viewer, and Excel Mobile
• Improved one-handed navigation so you don’t have to use a stylus
• A new camera API that’ll make it easier for developers to write apps that use a device’s built-in camera
• Better WiFi support for Smartphones
• Support for push-to-talk and video calling
• Improved Bluetooth (e.g. ability to use ActiveSync over Bluetooth with multiple PCs)
• Support for “persistent memory,â€? which means that you won’t lose all your data when your battery dies (a feature the Treo 650 and several other Palms already have)
• Support for USB 2.0 AND support for internal hard drives

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000923042798/