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Hollywood movies have a tendency to glorify the ‘bad boys,’ but the realities of a ‘life of crime’ aren’t exactly glamorous. What’s more, those on the wrong side of the law aren’t exactly the criminal masterminds of Sherlock Holmes movies. What it comes down to is that, sooner or later, you’re going to end up in jail. That said, who’s to… (read more)

The tension between the EU and Greece is heating up, as central bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet warned the country to get its budget situation under control NOW or else.

Greece bonds fell again, as a result, according to Bloomberg.

But Trichet’s message wasn’t aimed simply at Greece. Apparently he’s not all that eager to use the power of the press to monetize massive deficits across the continent, and he basically implored everyone to get their financial houses in order.

This comes hot on the heels of Moody’s declaring that both Greece and Portugal were on a slow, probably irreversible death march.

The crackup of the euro continues.

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See Also:

• MOODY’S: Greece And Portugal On The March To A ‘Slow Death’
• German President Angela Merkel Just Dropkicked The Euro
• Are European Leaders All Freaking Out At Once Because They Saw The Same December Economic Data?

The Puyocon isn’t about to swoop in and replace your trusty old two-dimensional laser pointing mousie just yet, but we’re always suckers for bizarre input peripherals. Demonstrated by Tsukuba University at Siggraph Asia 2009 last month, it is a soft and squeezable ball that offers a quirky new spin on the old airborne controller idea. Differing from the Wii Remote in the fact that it won’t break your HDTV (or itself) if it slips out of your hand, the spongy ball operates on the basis of a three-way accelerometer and 14 pressure sensors in order to give detailed multidimensional information to the system it’s controlling. That’s probably overkill for the humble computer desktop, but there might be hope for the Puyocon becoming a commercial reality through games that make use of all its input points — after all, if there’s room for the Wiiwaa, why not the Puyocon too? See it in action after the break.

Continue reading Puyocon mouse reacts to being squeezed, thrown, gyrated (video)

Puyocon mouse reacts to being squeezed, thrown, gyrated (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Multitrack digital recorders might not be front and center of the gadget lover’s mind right now, but slap that “unlimited” modifier in front and all of a sudden interests are piqued and ears prick up. Korg has made official its new Sound On Sound Unlimited Track Recorder, which will do exactly what its name suggests while keeping each overdub separate for future modification or retuning. You’ll be able to fit up to 26 track hours on a 16GB MicroSDHC card and a dedicated guitar input is available alongside mic and line-in ports. Another useful-sounding feature is Sound Stretch, which should allow you to alter speed to between 25 and 150 percent of the original recording without altering pitch. Price is tentatively set at £230 ($375) for a March 2010 release.

Korg Sound On Sound sneers at multitrack recording, offers unlimited tracks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Estos últimos días el gran mundo que rodea a la Fórmula 1 ha estado movidito. La noticia que abría la semana y sin duda la de más repercución mediática, fue ver a Fernando Alonso vestido con los colores de Ferrari de manera oficial, haciendo realidad el sueño de muchos ferraristas españoles. A parte de presentar a su nuevo piloto, Ferrari sigue insistiendo en incorporar un tercer coche a la parrilla de la Fórmula 1 con el motivo de tener un asiento de sobra para poder incorporar, por ejemplo, a pilotos de la talla de Valentino Rossi, que volverá a probar un Ferrari a finales de Enero en el circuito de Cataluña.

Dejando al margen el mundo Ferrari, la otra gran noticia de lo que va de semana giraba entorno a los entrenamientos de pretemporada que se realizaran en España en los próximos meses. El mal tiempo que azotaba a España y a todo el continente Europeo ponía en peligro la preparación de pretemporada los equipos, incluso se llegó a decir que el circuito de Bahrein podía ser una alternativa, pero afortunadamente parece que el tiempo está mejorando así que los espectadores ya no tiene excusas para no ir a adquirir sus entradas para contemplar el primer test de pretemporada en Cheste.

Si bien los entrenamientos de pretemporada eran noticia por culpa del tiempo, también eran noticia por la ausencia de algunos equipos en los primeros test. Puede que la ausencia en los test de Valencia de equipos como Virgin Racing, o Lottus sea vista como normal, son equipos nuevos que parten desde cero, pero no se explica que un equipo que aspira a ser campeón del mundo como Red Bull se pierda el primer test de la pretemporada.

Y como os estamos comentando los problemillas que tienen algunos equipos para llegar a los test de pretemporada, los problemas del equipo Campos Meta 1 se llevan la palma. Aunque parece que el equipo español estará en todos los test de pretemporada, sus problemas económicos puede que le impidan comenzar la temporada, aunque esto según Adrián Campos, Director del Equipo, no sucederá. Por si fuera poco, los problemas no acaban aquí ya que Bruno Senna, único piloto confirmado por Campos Meta, parece que puede abandonar la escudería.

Para finalizar y no menos importante, esta semana hemos sido testigos de la vuelta de Michale Schumacher a las pistas de carrera. El alemán realizó unos test en Jerez con un monoplaza de la categoría GP2 que estuvieron pasados por agua. Vuelve el más grande de todos los tiempos y vuelve con ansias de victoria.

Vía | Recta de Meta
Más Información | Recta de Meta Altas Pulsaciones
Foto | Autosport

Tokyo-based USB gadget maker Thanko gave us a video camera button last July, which was basically a mini camera for your shirt or jacket that could be used for secretly recording video. And today the company started selling the second version [JP] of the Spy Button Camera whose main new feature is the sound recording function.

So now you have a device that shoots video (AVIs in 720 x 480 and at 30fps) and JPEGs (in 1,280 x 1,024), but which also lets you store sounds. The Spy Button Camera weighs 20g and is powered by a lithium-ion battery that lets you shoot up to 70 minutes of video. As the device has no internal memory, you’ll need to get a microSD card for it (cards holding up to 16GB are supported).

All the material you recorded can be transferred to your PC via USB, but only Windows XP/Vista and 7 machines are supported. The new camera doesn’t have a remote control anymore, meaning you have to push a button on the device itself to start the recording (see picture above).

Thanko already started selling the Spy Button Camera on their Japanese website (price: $55 including six buttons). If you live outside Japan, you can ask import/export specialist Geek Stuff 4 U if they can get one for you.

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from bbc, 14 January 2010: “Police officers filmed using riot shields to sledge down a snowy hill while on duty have been reprimanded. The footage of a group of officers on Boars Hill, Oxford, was taken by Rick Latham on Tuesday. He posted it on the file-sharing website YouTube. Supt Murray added: “I have spoken to the officers concerned and reminded them in no uncertain terms that tobogganing on duty, on police equipment and at taxpayers’ expense is a very bad idea should they wish to progress under my command.”  more

Italian carmaker Fiat rolled out the 2010 Bravo hatchback, after it received a minor facelift that brought slight modifications to some styling parts and equipment levels. Before jumping into details, we must mention that model year 2010 Fiat Bravo has the same price tag as its predecessor.

At the exterior, the mirror housings and the door handles are now painted in the same color as body, while both the front grilles now in chrome or finished in black. There are two new colors available, a n… (read more)

Twitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed. In a nutshell, this is their response to the massively popular Facebook Connect.

Facebook Connect was first announced in May 2008 (Google and MySpace announced similar projects at the same time).

Facebook Connect became generally available later in 2008, and it hasn’t looked back since. Today, Facebook says 80,000 websites have added Facebook Connect, and 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook connect on these third party websites each month. For many sites, like our own CrunchBase, it’s the only way to create an account and log in.

Facebook Connect is attractive to a lot of smaller sites simply because it’s so easy to implement. They’ve created a number of widgets that bring Facebook features directly to third party sites, and integration is easy. You can find some of these here on TechCrunch.

Last year Twitter released simply buttons to let users on third party sites sign in to Twitter and identify themselves (we use it in our commenting system).

The new Twitter product will allow sites to authenticate users, pull data and then publish back to Twitter, we’ve heard. All of these features exist today via the Twitter API, but the slick Facebook Connect-like packaging and easy-to-use widgets don’t exist yet.

Twitter is also taking an open, standards based approach. They use OAuth, for example, for authentication and data sharing. Facebook uses proprietary protocols for Facebook Connect.

We’ll update as we hear more. But our understanding is that Twitter has been working with a handful of publishers and will likely announce the new product shortly.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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All you game freaks out there who were rubbing their hands as you awaited March to come and bring along with it the Gran Turismo 5, stop…rubbing. Both the Japan launch date, March 2010, and the US one, summer same year, have been scrapped…

Last year, Kazunori Yamauchi, the president of Polyphony Digital, the developer of the game for Sony Computer Entertainment, said the Playstation 3 version of the Gran Turismo 5 was to be expected at the aforementioned dates.

Today however, Sony step… (read more)

We could hardly wait to make the quinoa-avocado salad we spotted in the most recent issue of Fine Cooking. Eagle-eyed readers will note that the grain in our picture isn’t exactly quinoa – craving overruled precision and so a few substitutions were made!

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Felipe Massa told the reporters gathered at the Wrooom media event in the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort that he had doubts about the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix ever since it happened two years ago. He revealed to the media that he actually confronted Nelson Piquet Jr. and Flavio Briatore on the matter, but both laughed back at his accusations.

I spoke to him, yeah. I spoke to him before (it became public). We were going together to drive go-karts in Italy and I asked him about Singapore – I … (read more)

The Ford F-150 is apparently going to receive a new six-cylinder engine from the Ford Mustang, which will join the 3.5 liter EcoBoost V6 that will enter the stage this year, as PickupTrucks.com reports.

The EcoBoost powerplant uses direct gasoline injection and twin-turbo forced induction in order to provide good fuel efficiency, while offering a V8 rivaling level of power. Of course all this technology comes at a cost, so it will probably retail for a higher price than other V6 units offered… (read more)

Cardinal women rout Cougars

Washington State proved once again to be no match for the Stanford women’s basketball team, which defeated the Cougars for the 49th consecutive time. The Cardinal will take on Washington tomorrow. (MASARU OKA/The Stanford Daily)

Nnemkadi Ogwumike posted her seventh 20-plus point game of the season, leading both teams with 22 while picking up 13 rebounds. Stanford is now 49-0 all time against Washington State.

The Cardinal (14-1, 4-0 Pac-10) all but locked down the game on the defensive side to open, holding the Cougars (5-11, 0-5) to just 18.4 percent shooting in the first half. Stanford, meanwhile, found the basket on 54.8 percent of its shots during the first frame.

“I think people tried to work hard defensively, and we were a lot bigger than them,” said Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer. “I think we could affect their vision and affect their shots. Our team has been working hard defensively, and I think we’ve played well defensively every game this season.”

Stanford’s dominant first half was led by an eight-for-10 effort by Ogwumike. The sophomore guard nearly earned her eventual double-double in the first half with 16 points and nine rebounds, and provided one of the game’s most exciting moments with a mid-air put-back off a missed Kayla Pederson lay-up.

“[Ogwumike] is a phenomenal athlete, just a gifted young lady who’s really improved her skills,” said Washington State head coach June Daugherty. “It looks like she’s just living in the gym here at Stanford, and she’s very difficult to guard. She can hit the step-back or square up; it’s not just a drive and rebound game like in the past. Her skill package makes it really, really tough to guard.”

Stanford had a fairly comfortable control over the game coming into the second half, leading 42-19, but an injury to Jeanette Pohlen would ignite their offense and lead to them putting the game away. Two and a half minutes into the second frame, the junior guard went down hard near the basket and had to be carried off by two trainers, keeping weight off her right foot.

“Jeanette sprained the same ankle that she sprained in the Cal game [two weeks ago],” VanDerveer said. “We’re gonna have to let it heal up.”

Her teammates, who had yet to score since halftime, would respond with a marked increase in tempo and intensity.

Captain and senior Jayne Appel, who had only six points until Pohlen’s injury, immediately became more involved in the game, pulling down two rebounds and taking more aggressive shots over the next two minutes. She ended the game with 14 points and nine rebounds. Point guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude took initiative as well, picking up two quick three-pointers after a scoreless first half.

“I think that they did step up big . . . Everyone’s attention was gotten at the point, and I think Jayne really said, ‘Wow, I gotta get to work in here,’” VanDerveer said. “Jayne’s a competitor, and she always posts up big . . . Ros had been playing really well, too, and she helped us especially when Jeanette went out.”

Gold-Onwude, long praised for her leadership and pesky perimeter defense, has been contributing a lot on the offensive end recently as well. On the heels of a career-high 18-point effort at UCLA last weekend, the redshirt senior put up 11 points against the Cougars last night.

“I think she’s playing really confidently right now, she’s coming out and looking to take her shot, and I think that’s the main difference-maker for her right now,” Appel said. “She’s run this offense for five years now, so I think it kind of comes with her role that we expect.”

As Stanford built its lead, VanDerveer was able to move deeper into her bench. Seven non-starters got at least four minutes of time on the court, their contributions highlighted by an uncontested Ashley Cimino three-pointer that electrified the crowd.

Statistically speaking, the one dark spot for the Cardinal last night was in turnovers. The Cougars stole the ball nine times and forced 16 turnovers, compared to seven steals and 12 forced turnovers for the Cardinal.

“We definitely have things to work on,” VanDerveer said. “We need to take care of the ball better, and I think we can get on the O-boards better. I thought we were a little bit sloppy sometimes, [but] we also have a lot to build on.”

The Cardinal will continue its first full homestand of the conference season tomorrow afternoon, hosting the Washington Huskies at 2 p.m. at Maples Pavilion.