‘Technology’ Archives
Activision releases Video Game Hero
HEY HEY 16K, Need To Know, Saturday (Big K) — Activision has announced its new playalong title, Video Game Hero, in which the player immerses himself in the world of the cultural hero of the twenty-first century: the gamer. The player enters a virtual parents' basement and starts shadowing an expert game of Tetris. He works his way up [...]
Facebook pits software against child predators
CYBERSPICE, Goatse-By-Cam, Friday (NTN) — Facebook has announced "sophisticated algorithms" to monitor its users and detect clear signs of paedophilia such as not clicking on ads, not playing Farmville or taking holy orders. The site analyses users' actions and compares that behaviour to a standardised set of actions, such as [...]
Microsoft releases world’s dumbest smartphone
NO MICROSOFT WAY, Redmond, Wednesday (NTN) — Microsoft has unveiled its new Zune One and Zune Two mobile phones for unusually stupid social-networking enthusiasts in their late teens and early twenties with a higher income than their IQ. Team leader Roz Ho said the company had tried to create a Microsoft gadget that people actually wanted [...]
iPhone developer agreement: Eat a bug on camera
ONE APPLE WAY, Cupertino, Saturday (NTN) — iPhone developers are up in arms at Apple requiring them to use only Apple toolkits, sacrifice a Windows developer at their local Apple Shop every Sunday and maintain an altar to Steve Jobs in their homes. And eat a bug. Apple is famous for its rigid control over its devices, in its quest to [...]
PlayStation 3 trounces Xbox 360 for reliability
GUTEN TAG, Wii Geht's, Monday (NTN) — Sony has proudly announced a Playstation 3™ Holiday™, where all users are advised to go outside and play in the sunshine. "Have some fun! Talk to a human! Party like it's December 31st, 1999! Amazing 3D rendering!" The company had long battled in public perception with Microsoft's Xbox 360 [...]
Apple admits using subtle and precise child labour
PROFESSOR JOBS' SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNGSTERS, Shenzhen, Sunday (NTN) — In its annual supplier report, Apple has admitted that its Chinese factories have employed children to build its gadgets. "Ones with a particularly refined sense of aesthetics." Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. The child workers [...]
Jaron Lanier: Why people should pay more attention to me and not Web 2.0
When I noticed myself getting mean online I thought, "Something has gone terribly wrong." It was obvious the rest of the ARPAnet had a social problem, not just me being some sort of asshole. My book You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto is ruffling virtual feathers across the ARPAnet. And so it should, because I invented virtual reality. Wikipedia, [...]
Derby commuter hell named after Lara Croft
SOFT SQUARE, Suburban Bedroom, Friday (NTN) — An impossibly uninteresting stretch of ring road in Derby is to be named after a 3D computer animation with ludicrously-rendered breasts. The new stretch from Osmaston Road to Burton Road will be named after the aristocrat and archaeologist Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, who Toby Gard of Core [...]
Google adopts new “Do, however, be stupid” policy
WHEREVER YOU ARE, At All Times, forever (NTN) — In the wake of massive Buzz privacy problems, Google has announced that its slogan "Don't Be Evil" will be extended for the 2010s with "But Do Feel Free To Be Dangerously Bloody Stupid." "I don't see how people could ever have thought it wasn't perfect," said Google marketing marketer Todd [...]
Facebook pressured to change from old style to old old style
YOUR DESK, Turing Tarpit, Monday (NTN) — Facebook has outraged thousands of obsessive shirkplace F5-pressers by changing its layout from the layout it changed to after the layout before that. The change has met a storm of protest from users going so far as to click "Join This Group," with nearly two million people with, apparently, [...]
