Author: Zach Walton

Ubisoft always has the best E3 press conference. This is an unmistakable fact. While she wasn’t quite as insane as 2011′s Mr. Caffeine, Aisha Tyler did a bang up job hosting last year. Ubisoft seemed to like her enough that they’re bringing her back as the host of this year’s press conference as well.

Alongside confirming that Tyler is back, Ubisoft released a teaser today that hints at what it will be showing at its E3 press conference this year. It’s obvious that we’ll see more Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell and Watch Dogs, but there’s a few other hints for some not so obvious games as well.

The Cartman figurine on the desk pretty much confirms that Ubisoft will be showing off South Park: The Stick of Truth at E3 after buying the rights from THQ earlier this year. The Vaas bobblehead may indicated that we’ll be getting some more Far Cry 3 content.

I may be reading too much into this, but does the brief cameo of Professor Farnsworth on the monitor indicate that we’ll be getting a new Futurama game in the future? Probably not, but it’s nice to dream.

Ubisoft’s E3 press conference is set for June 10 at 3 p.m. PST/6 p.m. EST. There will, of course, be plenty of live streams for those watching at home.

Windows Blue is now officially Windows 8.1. It will enter into a public beta in June. It’s rumored that the start button and a boot to desktop mode will be offered alongside numerous other updates. Thanks to a leaked screenshot, we can seemingly confirm one of those rumors.

Paul Thurrot’s Supersite for Windows shared the following screenshot today that shows the Start button is back in Windows 8.1, and it’s looking better than ever:

The start button will behave mostly as it did in Windows 7 with a few key Windows 8 eccentricities. For starters, hovering over the Start button changes it color in much the same way the Start charm changes color in the current build of Windows 8. It’s also impossible to turn off the Start button, at least for now. That should ensure that newcomers to Windows 8 won’t be confused by the lack of a start button.

Thurrot also reveals two more really interesting tidbits about Windows 8.1. The first is that you can use your own wallpapers now as backgrounds in the Start menu. Previously, you could only use a small number of Microsoft-designed illustrations and colors. Secondly, a boot to desktop mode is indeed present, but it is turned off by default. It’s understandable as Microsoft is still trying to sell consumers on the walled garden Start screen experience.

Microsoft will presumably make all of this and more official later in June when it releases the Windows 8.1 public preview on June 26.

A woolly mammoth was recently found preserved in Siberia with its blood intact. The find renews hopes that scientists may be able to bring the long-extinct species back with cloning.

North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk reports that members of a paleontological expedition found a preserved female Woolly Mammoth on the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Novosibirsk archipelago. What made this particular find amazing is that mammoth’s muscle tissue was well preserved. Even more amazing, the team found that the creature’s blood was intact and frozen in the ice.

“The fragments of muscle tissues, which we’ve found out of the body, have a natural red color of fresh meat. The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra. We found a trunk separately from the body, which is the worst-preserved part,” said Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition, the chairman of the Mammoth Museum named after P.A. Lazarev of NEFU Institute of Applied Ecology of the North. “The researchers collected the samples of the animal’s blood in tubes with a special preservative agent. The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities bellow the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out. Interestingly, the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10ºC. It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties”.

So, what’s next for our frozen friend from the past? The researchers will take the mammoth back to Yakutsk for further examination to ensure that the tissue isn’t harboring some ancient deadly disease. After that, researchers from all around the world will convene on Siberia to study the remains. Those of us who have dreamed of one day cloning mammoths are no doubt excited by the possibilities that this latest find presents.

[h/t: CNET] [Image: North-Eastern Federal University]

To say the Facebook IPO was a disaster might be a bit of an understatement. A few days after the social network went public, reports emerged that a technical issue prevented trading and many investors lost money as the stock’s value tanked. Those same investors brought lawsuits against the NASDAQ and the SEC launched an investigation into the IPO. That investigation has now come to an end.

The Hill reports that the NASDAQ stock exchange has agreed to pay the SEC a $10 million fine for its part in the botched Facebook IPO. It’s noted that the fine is the largest ever paid by an exchange.

In the official report from the SEC, the commission says that investors saw a delay of 19 minutes when trading opened. That delay caused 30,000 orders to be stuck for two hours. Sure, it’s annoying, but not scandal worthy.

What the SEC took issue with is how NASDAQ began accepting orders again after reportedly fixing its system, even as traders were still reporting issues. The commission says that the exchange initiated in trading without understanding the problem with its system, therefore violating many of its own rules. Doing so violates the Securities and Exchange Act.

“This action against NASDAQ tells the tale of how poorly designed systems and hasty decision-making not only disrupted one of the largest IPOs in history, but produced serious and pervasive violations of fundamental rules governing our markets,” said George Canellos, a co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division.

Most recently, Facebook itself became the target of another lawsuit in relation to its IPO in March. A shareholder accused the social network of sharing critical information about the business with key investors while leaving everybody else out of the loop.

Facebook’s stock is down 2.49 percent today on the news. It’s currently trading at $23.50.

It’s hard not to worry when a man goes missing for 16 hours. For one town, that worry turned into surprise when the missing man unexpectedly showed up on a live broadcast about his disappearance.

WMTW reports that Robert McDonough, a 73-year-old man from Limington, Maine, went missing on Monday. A local news crew was covering the story on Tuesday when McDonough walked past the reporter after he had just wrapped up an update on the case. From there, the reporting team identified McDonough as the missing person.

Thankfully, McDonough was not hurt after missing for 16 hours. He reportedly had blood on his hand and shirt, but it appeared to not be serious. It’s said that McDonough does have dementia, however, which could explain his sudden disappearance.

[h/t: Reddit]

3D printers are all about layers. Extruders pour plastic layer after layer until an object is complete. A new type of 3D printer out of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia has completely rethought that process.

Say hello to Mataerial, the anti-gravity object modeling 3D printer. In short, it’s a robotic arm with a special extruder that uses a material that instantly hardens upon being exposed to air. With it, the Mataerial 3D printer can create objects that defy gravity.

Mataerial by Petr Novikov, Saša Jokić and Joris Laarman Studio from Dezeen on Vimeo.

In its current state, the Mataerial can only print rods. You could make some really cool post-modern art pieces with it, but it’s not exactly useful to industry yet. Of course, that may all change as 3D printing evolves to the point where we can create houses, freestanding structures and other impressive objects with the help of 3D printers.

[h/t: Fabbaloo blog]

Should the Redskins change their name? Some members of Congress certainly think so.

The Los Angeles Times reports that 10 members of Congress have sent an open letter to Redskins owner Dan Snyder asking him to change the name of the NFL team. Many view the name as offensive to Native Americans as the term “redskin” could be seen as a racial epithet.

The letter sent to Snyder, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and others says that the term “redskin” is just as offensive as other racial slurs:

“Native Americans throughout the country consider the ‘R-word’ a racial, derogatory slur akin to the ‘N-word’ among African Americans or the ‘W-word’ among Latinos. In this day and age, it is imperative that you uphold your moral responsibility to disavow the usage of racial slurs. The usage of the “R-word” is especially harmful to Native American youth, tending to lower their sense of dignity and self-esteem. It also diminishes feelings of community worth among the Native American tribes and dampens the aspirations of their people.”

Will the letter work? Well, it can’t hurt. Earlier this month, Washington Councilman David Grosso announced it was his intention to change the state’s NFL team name to something more respectful. His idea was the “Washington Redtails,” named after the Tuskegee Airmen.

There are presumably countless other ideas floating around so Snyder won’t have any trouble picking a new name if he decides to change it. That being said, we’re probably not going to see a change anytime soon.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made an appearance at the All Things Digital conference to talk about everything from wearable computers and Google Glass to taxes and Apple’s market share. It’s an incredibly fascinating look into the mind of one of the most powerful men in tech today, and it’s worth a watch.

The full interview talk clocks in at 81 minutes in length, but Apple fans, and tech fans in general, will want to check it out.

Those looking for new product announcements will be disappointed by the above video, but Apple fans won’t have long to wait to hear of what the company has up its sleeve as WWDC is only a few weeks away. A rumored iOS 7 redesign, and other software and hardware products will presumably be shown during the opening keynote on Monday, June 10.

Wearable computers are somewhat of a fad these days. It’s hard to say if it will be a fad a year from now, but Apple is researching ways to capitalize on the trend it if happens to grow.

Reuters reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted that wearable computers were on the tech giant’s shortlist of new products this week during an All Things Digital conference. He didn’t come right out and say that Apple was working on a smartwatch, but he did say that his company is working on “several more game changers.”

So, what would an Apple-made wearable computer look like? It won’t be anything like Google Glass or other wearable computers. He said “there’s nothing that’s going to convince a kid who has never worn glasses or a band or a watch to wear one.” In other words, slapping a computer onto a watch isn’t suddenly going to make somebody want to wear a watch. Cook said that “there’s lots of things to solve in this space,” so Apple is obviously researching how to make wearable computers cool.

That’s always what Apple has done best – making nerdy things cool. You could argue that Google Glass is really cool, but then a bunch of pasty white nerds make it not so cool anymore. An Apple iWatch or whatever it’s called would have to convince people that it’s cool to wear something that’s inherently nerdy on their person at all times.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Apple may just give up on its plans to release a wearable computer. It was impossible to make a calculator watch cool in the 80s, and it may be just as impossible to make smartwatches cool today.

Rand Paul already made it clear that he’s a friend of tech businesses when he defended Apple during a tax hearing last week. Now the Kentucky senator is heading to the heart of Silicon Valley to see if he can drum up some fundraising support.

The Hill reports that Paul will be meeting with Google, Facebook and eBay this week. It’s officially designated as a fundraising trip, but he will probably take some time to talk legislation as well. It’s not known if he will actually be meeting with executives, but we’re sure to find out later this week.

So, what kind of legislation could Paul be talking about with the likes of Google and Facebook? Well, Paul did just recently introduce the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act. The bill would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant when snooping through email and other online communications. Google has indicated in the past that it would support such a bill, so it’s not out of the realm of reason to suggest Paul will be talking to Google about his legislation.

Of course, we can’t forget the tax issue either. Paul called out his fellow congressmen last week when they accused Apple of dodging corporates taxes. In the hearing, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that everything Apple does is legal under current law, and suggested Congress reform the tax code instead of pointing fingers.

Google CEO Larry Page largely agrees, even if he was talking about the UK tax code. He said that Google will pay whatever the tax code dictates. He called upon government to change the tax code if it’s unhappy with the current system.

In short, it seems that Paul and Google have quite a bit in common when it comes to certain issues. I’m sure he will be engaging some of the people at Google on these issues this week while he drums up support for his next move.

Fans of terrible 90s movies may remember Face/Off. In the film, John Travolta and Tom Cruise switch faces. Through the power of video editing magic, one YouTube parody filmmaker has brought the magic of Face/Off to other movies and celebrities.

In this famous scene from A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise have their faces swapped. The result is actually pretty creepy:

YouTube user FaceMashups has a number of these videos. They are all equally hilarious and terrifying.

Here’s Zach Galifianakis and Kristen Stewart:

Here’s Penn Jillette and Neil deGrasse Tyson:

[h/t: BabsonMcChonkers via Reddit]

It’s always sad to see a family of 4 killed, but that’s unfortunately what happened over the weekend in Washington state.

The AP reports that a family of 4 was killed when their SUV crashed into an irrigation canal near George, Washington. The coroner reports that those killed were 33-year-old Dioselina Buenrostro, 35-year-old Gabriel Ochoa, 4-year-old Yesenia “Jessie” Ochoa, and 9-year-old Sandra Ochoa.

Since the accident, the police have released the details of the crash. It appears that the SUV hit a car, then hit a guardrail and finally plunged into the canal. The SUV went underwater and pushed about 100 yards before it came to a stop. Unfortunately, the adults died at the time of the crash, and the two young girls died later at the hospital.

Unfortunately, Washington State is no stranger to cars plunging into waters. The I-5 bridge north of Seattle collapsed last week sending three cars into the water. Thankfully, there were no casaulties in that incident.

This accident is the latest to emerge from what has become a particulary violent Memorial Day weekend. In Chicago, 6 people were shot and killed in separate events. In central Texas, two people, including the shooter, were killed after a chase across two counties.

A $6 billion scheme has been uncovered by U.S. authorties today that indicts the founder of Liberty Reserve and others involved in the scheme.

Wired reports that the $6 billion scheme that was just revealed today in court documents is the largest international money-laundering scheme ever prosecuted. This was the result of Liberty Reserve serving as the hub in which cybercriminals used to transfer funds among each other. In short, Liberty Reserve is responsible for the transfer of dirty money.

Liberty Reserve was a favored tool among hackers and cybercriminals as it only required a user’s email address to set up an account. It was also popular for only charging 1 percent on all transactions while offering to hide account numbers for only 75 cents more. As you can plainly see, it’s obvious why the service was so popular among the online criminal underground.

During last week, arrests were made in Spain, Costa Rica and New York, One of those arrested was Arthur Budovsky, a Costa Rican of Ukranian descent and founder of Liberty Reserve.

It should be noted that Liberty Reserve was a legitimate money transfer business. The company had plenty of legitimate customers who are now caught in the crossfire of the U.S. prosecuting the site for serving criminals. It’s similar in a way to Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload as it was taken offline, and its founder indicted, for a few instances of copyright infringement while legitimate users of the service were left without recourse. It will be interesting to see if legitiate users of Liberty Reserve will come forward in the coming weeks demanding recompense.

Matt Kemp must be one of the nicest professional athletes in existence. Earlier this month, he gave $250,000 to tornado victims in Oklahoma. Over the weekend, he flew a terminally ill fan out to see the Dodgers play on their home turf.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Kemp and his fan, Joshua Jones, 19, have met. During a baseball game three weeks ago, Jones’ father asked if Kemp could come over to say hi to his son. Jones got all that and more. In fact, Kemp gave Jones his jersey, cleats and hat.

Cut back to this past weekend. Kemp flew Jones and his family out to Dodgers Stadium to see him play. He also introduced Jones to Dodgers president Stan Kasten, Angels player Mike Trout and fellow Dodgers player Clayton Kershaw. The team’s official Twitter feed captured a few moments with Jones at the game, including his meeting with Kershaw:

.@therealmattkemp welcomes a friend from San Francisco, Joshua Jones to Dodger Stadium: vine.co/v/bVLWQ6wnP6Y

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 27, 2013

.@claytonkersh22 visits with Joshua Jones: twitter.com/Dodgers/status…

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 27, 2013

To put icing on the cake, the Dodgers won their game 8-7. It was undoubtedly the perfect ending to a great night for Jones.

[h/t: Yahoo Sports]

JCPenney is currently going through a transition phase as it works to win back the customers it lost under its former CEO. Now the company is dealing with the fallout associated with one of its products.

Redditor Wrestles4Food recently found a JCPenney billboard ad for a tea kettle that looked remarkably like a certain German dictator from World War II, especially when blurred:

Does it look like Hitler? The Telegraph certainly thought so, but JCPenney fired back saying that it was not their intention to evoke the image of Hitler when advertising a tea kettle.

@telegraph Certainly unintended. If we’d designed the kettle to look like something, we would’ve gone w/a snowman: twitter.com/jcpenney/statu…

— jcpenney (@jcpenney) May 28, 2013

Besides the above response, JCPenney has spent a considerable amount of time on Twitter today defending the ad:

@pattonoswalt Totally unintentional. But they’ll need to grab it in stores since it’s sold out online. #SadHipsters

— jcpenney (@jcpenney) May 28, 2013

@miafarrow Certainly unintended. If we designed it to look like something, we would have gone with a snowman or something fun

— jcpenney (@jcpenney) May 28, 2013

Even if it wasn’t intentional (and it likely wasn’t), the Hitler tea kettle has been good business for JCPenney. It sold out of the kettle online and people are likely picking it up in stores on word of mouth alone. Maybe other brands should start making their products look like Hitler…

But seriously, don’t do that.

[h/t: Business Insider]

Remember Sonic Xtreme? You probably don’t as it was canceled before it ever came out, and only a few slices of game footage have ever made it online. Even so, it seems that Sega has not forgotten this title as the new Sonic title for Wii U – Sonic Lost World – looks to borrow some elements from the canceled Saturn game.

Sure, the game looks prettier, Sonic has a few new moves, and new enemies; but some of the gameplay shown looks like it was lifted straight out of Sonic Xtreme:

Of course, this is not a bad thing at all. Sonic Xtreme looked amazing, and it’s a shame that we got Sonic Adventure instead of it. Now it looks like Sonic Team is giving the ideas present in Sonic Xtreme another chance in its latest title.

Sonic Lost World will be available exclusively on the Wii U and 3DS later this year.

Who gets the money from the Starbucks tip jar? That’s the question currently up for debate in a New York courtroom this week.

CBS News reports that New York’s labor laws are currently being tested in the Court of Appeals. Baristas argue that only they are allowed to take money from the tip jar as they are the ones directly interacting with customers. Assistant managers don’t necessarily work directly with customers, but they feel that they are entitled to the money in the tip jar as well.

So, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that the courts now have to decide whether or not shift managers qualify as “agents” under New York labor laws. If the court rules that they are agents, then assistant managers would be barred by law from taking money out of the tip jar.

On the side of the baristas, they argue that Starbucks has not “seriously disputed that its shift supervisors are supervisors.” In other words, Starbucks has never explicitly told assistant managers that they are not supervisors.

As for the assistant managers, they argue that their inability to hire of fire employees makes them less of an agent and more of a low-level employee. They also argue that they do frequently interact with customers thus entitling them to tips.

What do the higher ups at Starbucks think about all of this? They argue that assistant supervisors shouldn’t get access to the tip jar because they are full-time, salaried employees. In other words, they get paid enough as it is. The tip jar is for the part-time baristas to make a little more on top of their meager wages.

One federal judge has already ruled that assistant managers aren’t agents, but she also said that New York’s labor laws don’t require companies to allow every eligible employee to collect tips. Now the Appeals Court must decide if the previous ruling should be upheld.

As you would expect, the ruling from the Appeals Court would have wide ranging consequences beyond Starbucks and other coffee shops. If the court rules in favor of the assistant managers, tips will be spread across more people in service industries. It may be fair, but it would also force restaurants that practice mandatory tipping to charge more for tips so that everybody gets a fair share.

[Image: Gingerblokey]

Rayman Legends, the delightful Wii U platformer, was delayed to September so that Ubisoft could port t the title to the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well. Now the publisher is adding a fourth platform to the mix – Sony’s PS Vita handheld.

It only makes sense, of course, as Rayman Origins was ported to the Vita. Of course, Rayman Origins also found its way onto the Wii, PC and 3DS. Out of those three, we’re likely to see a belated port hitting the PC at some point later this year. Still, the Vita port of Rayman Legends looks to play just like its big screen counterparts and it will most assuredly look beautiful on the Vita’s OLED display.

Coincidentally, the touch screen on the Vita ensures that the handheld version of Rayman Legends will be the most similar to the Wii U version of the title.

The vita version of Rayman Legends will also come with two exclusive costumes – a Prince of Persia costume for Rayman and a Sam Fisher costume for Globox.

Rayman Legends for PS Vita will launch alongside the console versions of the title on September 3.

Foxconn is best known as the manufacturer of the iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices that begin with a lowercase “i.” The massive manufacturer may be diversifying its portfolio this year, however, with mobile devices that run Mozilla’s new Firefox OS.

Reuters is reporting that Foxconn and Mozilla are planning to unveil a Firefox OS-based mobile device On June 3. The interesting bit about this new report is that Foxconn isn’t working on a phone, but rather a tablet. This would be the first time that Mozilla has shown how its Firefox OS would adapt to tablet computing as the non-profit has only shown Firefox OS running on smartphones thus far.

The question now is – why go with Foxconn? It seems that Foxconn and Mozilla are hoping the relationship is mutually beneficial as Mozilla can sell more cheap devices in emerging markets while Foxconn can diversify its lineup. In regards to the latter, it seems that Foxconn is trying out new avenues of income after finding that unit orders from Apple for iPhone and iPad devices have been slowing down in recent months.

The current report makes it seem like the Firefox OS tablets will be marketed and sold by Mozilla. So far, Mozilla has opted to partner with carriers and third-party manufacturers for its Firefox OS smartphones. It will be interesting to see if it decides to go the Google route and sell its own Firefox-branded devices in the future.

It remains to be seen if Firefox OS will really take off, but the hardware is projected to appeal to emerging markets thanks to its inexpensiveness. Unfortunately for Mozilla, Google’s Android has also been encroaching on that turf for quite some time, and Apple may be offering a cheap iPhone alternative in the future as well.

Mozilla’s advantage in low price may not much of advantage when Firefox OS finally launches to consumers later this year so it had better have a rock-solid OS that people will want to use over Android and iOS.