Chris Sabga

Tue
07
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

Dilbert Writer Repairs His Own Brain

Scott Adams has been the writer and illustrator of the popular and successful "Dilbert" comic strip since 1989. Eighteen months ago, Adams permanently lost his own voice. Yes, you're reading that correctly. It's a condition called Spasmodic ... Dysphonia. On the official Dilbert blog, Adams wrote: "I asked my doctor -- a specialist for this condition -- how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero." According to Adams, a "breathy and weak" voice can be achieved with "painful Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal cords." And so a long and painful journey began ... (view more)

Mon
06
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

Brokeback Bully: Boys Kiss Each Other In New Video Game

Rockstar Games has done it again! The company behind the controversial Grand Theft Auto titles has broken new ground with its latest PlayStation 2 release, "Bully." In the game, you play a 15-year-old boy named Jimmy, who lives in a stuffy boarding ... school. Just for the record, your character is not a bully -- as the title of the game might mislead you into believing. Instead, you stand up to the big, bad troublemakers throughout the course of the game. Indeed, getting into fights and dealing with cliques are synonymous with most school experiences -- and they're both represented in Bully. But ... (view more)

Fri
03
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

Chinese Youth Addicted to Internet: Government Warns, Considers Ban

Imagine a world where minors can have their online game sessions legally ended after a fixed amount of playtime. Envision a place where psychiatric clinics are available to wean children away from compulsive Internet use. Picture a country that bans ... its youth from Internet cafes. Welcome to China. The psych wards are already open, Internet cafes may soon be closed to children in China if legislation passes, and Chinese Parliament is currently considering technology to shut down a minor's online game access after the designated quantity of time has passed. (Source: physorg.com ) The Reason ... (view more)

Thu
02
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

The Newest Force Against Internet Piracy: The Boy Scouts?!

Young Boy Scouts all over Los Angeles now have a new reason to put on their uniforms, pull up their knee-high socks, line up their merit badges, and fill up their cookie boxes. That's because the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has just ... joined forces with the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts. Pitching a tent, starting a fire, crusading against Internet movie piracy -- it's all in a day's work for the Scouts. Here are a few excerpts from the official MPAA curriculum distributed to the Scouts: "Identify five types of copyrighted works (two may be your own). For each, give the author/ ... (view more)

Wed
01
Nov
Dennis Faas's picture

Criminal Activity Posted On YouTube Leads To Arrest

A young hooligan in North Wales stole a pair of sunglasses -- right from someone's face -- and then posted the evidence of his criminal act on YouTube.com. Real intelligent, mate. On the video-sharing website, the self-described "bald lad" refers to ... his behavior as "Absolutely WILD!!" The clip begins with a man grinning wickedly as he walks down a storefront street. He then quickly pilfers another person's sunglasses. But before the victim can react, the thief runs off like a coward. It ends with the criminal's buddies laughing and waving. The video -- which was titled "Wild specs robbery" ... (view more)

Tue
31
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Google's YouTube Cracks Down On Almost 30,000 Illegal Videos

The newest kid on Google's block, YouTube.com, has been listening to recent concerns that many of the videos uploaded to the site are in violation of established copyrights. A few months before Google purchased the video sharing site , Dallas ... Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went on record in claiming that YouTube would eventually be "sued into oblivion" for "breaking the law" by illegally hosting copyrighted material. A Japanese entertainment company -- The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) -- recently discovered almost 30,000 TV shows, music videos, and movies ... (view more)

Thu
26
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Google Earth Aids In Drug Bust

Attention, Marijuana Harvesters: If you are using your fields to grow pot, the cops may use utilize Internet technology to nab you. Dean Brown, a Wisconsin man found that out the hard way when the Racine County Sheriff's Department used the mapping ... software Google Earth to locate his marijuana fields in nearby Mount Pleasant. Ironically, Brown made it easy for the police -- by wearing the location as a necklace. He had a GPS unit around his neck, which police used to discover the coordinates of the drug field. From there, Racine's finest plugged the coordinates into Google Earth and were able ... (view more)

Wed
25
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

IE7 To Be Sent As Automatic Update

Now that Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is now officially out, and Microsoft is trying to position it as a viable replacement for Mozilla Firefox -- but there are already some security issues with the new browser. One way Microsoft may be trying to ... "bigfoot" Firefox is by making IE7 an automatic update. Starting in November, computers with Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or Windows Server 2003 will automatically receive IE7. (Source: pcmag.com ) From a distance, it appears that Microsoft is essentially forcing its newest browser onto an unsuspecting public. ... (view more)

Fri
20
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

The First Nation Where All Kids Have Online Access May Be ... Libya?

Remember that old TV commercial where each desk in a classroom represented a different country's educational ranking? At the end of the advertisement, an American kid walked to his desk -- and it was way in the back, symbolizing the U.S.'s poorer ... standard of education compared to the rest of the world. By 2008, the U.S. -- and every other country in the world -- may be left in the shade again ... this time, by Libya. By June 2008, Libya hopes to give every single one of its schoolchildren access to a laptop -- 1.2 million, to be exact. If successful, the third world nation could become the ... (view more)

Fri
13
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Ka-Ching! Google Buys YouTube for $1.65B

Google is at it again! The company is seemingly on a quest to buy the entire Internet. And that trend continued with its recent purchase of the video sharing website YouTube.com for $1.65 billion in stock. When a corporate buyout takes place, the ... new owners generally attempt to change or compromise their shiny new acquisition in some way. However, that won't be the case with YouTube, according to Google's press release: "YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community." Representatives of both Google and YouTube have already made comments about the ... (view more)

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Chris Sabga