Former MakerBot exec launches Solidoodle sub-$500 3D printer

Let's be honest -- we all want a a 3D printer to call our own, right? Price has always been a significant barrier to the dream of printing pretty much everything your imagination can conjure (barring some hardware limitations, of course). For its part, MakerBot has made some significant strides toward tearing some of those barriers, and now Solidoodle, led by that company's former COO Samuel Cervantes, is looking to take the trend even further. The company's current self-tilted model starts at just under $500. The printer, which is now up for pre-order, can print plastic pieces up to 6" x 6" x 6", and "all you need to supply is a computer and power." Also, interestingly, "a 200-pound man can literally stand on top of the machine while it's printing. " So, that's a bonus. Check out a video of the printer in action after the break.

Continue reading Former MakerBot exec launches Solidoodle sub-$500 3D printer

Former MakerBot exec launches Solidoodle sub-$500 3D printer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T HTC One X demo units sighted

 

The AT&T HTC One X is now available to pre-order, and it seems the network may be preparing to show off demo units in store, as evidenced by the latest photos sent our way by an anonymous tipster. Besides that, there's not a whole lot to surprise regular readers here -- it's an HTC One X, on AT&T, with the carrier's branding proudly displayed atop the screen. It'll launch on May 6, and we're expecting it to be just as good as its international Tegra 3-flavored sibling.

Check past the break for a couple more sneaky pics, and be sure to drop by the comments and let us know if you'll be picking one of these babies up come May 6.

Thanks, anon!

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Supreme Court makes ruling on genetic patents | Rockville Civil ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., was recently ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a decision it made in July 2011. According to the appeals court, biotechnology company Myriad Genetics was allowed to hold patents on two human genes used to test individuals for breast and ovarian cancer.

The two genes at the center of the controversy are BRCA 1 and BRCA 2. In order to test individuals for both types of cancer, Myriad Genetics uses a test that examines extracted DNA for mutated genes. This allows the company to determine if individuals are at a heightened risk for either of the cancers.

A decision made by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in March 2010 disallowed the company from patenting the genes because they were considered, legally, laws of nature. The appeals court's ruling overturned this, based on the concept that the company tests for specific chemical forms of the two genes, not the genes as they appear naturally.

This argument was shot down by the Supreme Court. According to reports, patents have been limited by the Supreme Court in recent years. Patents covering abstract ideas, natural phenomena and laws of nature have been invalidated by the Supreme Court several times. In a similar case, the Supreme Court recently ruled that another company using gene-related patents to perform medical tests could not hold those patents.

Opponents of the patents are excited by ruling. A staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said that companies should not be allowed to patent something as natural as DNA. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against Myriad in 2009, seeking to have the patents invalidated.

Source: Chemical and Engineering News, "Supreme Court Orders Review Of Gene Patents," Glenn Hess, Mar. 27, 2012

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A usefull Guidance To Financial Debt Management

by Jessica Brown on April 9, 2012

Most people today are experiencing a kind of fiscal problems, no issue just how higher the earnings of the household. Debt consolidation procedures are utilized by people who have essentially gotten within too deep-seated and also are barely making it from day to day. It is truly challenging when you start to understand there is no funds to pay critical invoices to keep electrical as well as water running in the home for your loved ones.

There are numerous proficient firms that will simply be located on the Net that may aid you negotiate your invoices into one manageable payment. They will definitely suggest plans of activity that can significantly enhance your financial standing and regulate your bills in a method that is comfy for you. You can must do some study to ensure the firm can simply do what it states and also is willing to employ the financial establishments you owe. When you have personalised monetary information that you have got to provide to an outside source, you must have the capability to rely upon that source to maintain your details exclusive and safe.

If you realize of everyone that has indeed pulled out of intense personal debt, you may just want to question precisely how they finished it. If they employed an expert firm, you are able to ask just what provider it was and if they were indulged by having the stuff they received. You might need to present the firm access to your personalized and also company business details, which can sometimes be surprisingly sensitive. You have to can depend on the people you are using.

Another course to think about is contracting an accountant to place your funds back on course. This pro individual shall speak to the lenders, work thru rates and also interest charges and also job to help you unblock your credit score. They may in addition educate you how you're able to personally regulate your funds in the future so that you are going to not finish up in a quite similar situation again.

Finance establishments will typically collaborate with suppliers that barter invoices and also by having accountancy firms and also lawyers to pick a practical payment strategy. The plan must be worked according to the money flow and expenditures of the debtor. Financial institutions will certainly frequently lose entertainment expenses as well as costs so the debtor may clear the principle rather than paying only the additional rates. The invoices can simply be annulled much faster when there aren't monthly additions.

The selection of individual insolvency, though it crosses a lot of people?s minds, is one that several battle to avoid. It is able to ruin credit, as it stays on the record for some years. Tons of lenders shall certainly not extend credit to an individual that's got a private insolvency on their record. The assorted sorts of individual bankruptcy enable individuals to reduce all their unwelcome personal debt or barter them in to one payment that may be paid monthly.

Administration deals and also personal debt merger are routinely selected before any type of individual bankruptcy is reviewed. Get all your questions replied to by a professional finance counselor before you make almost any enduring decisions. Knowing the simplest way to moderate your financial debt consolidationcan considerably lower your everyday tension degree.

Jessica Brown is a Finance Expert specialised in Debt Consolidation. She like to help folks by sharing Debt Managment Tips in his blog.

Tagged as: finance

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Conn's returns to a profit in 4th quarter

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Anonymous plans attack on British government

Anonymous' United Kingdom faction is calling for its supporters to draw digital arms to protest the extradition of U.K. citizens to the United States.

On its AnonOpUK Twitter feed, the hacktivist group announced "Operation Trial At Home," a campaign to fight the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) that could lead to the extradition of three accused criminals by the U.K.'s Home Office, the government department responsible for domestic security.

Scheduled for April 7, OpTrialAtHome invites supporters to "Charge Ya Lazers" and, at 9 p.m. GMT, hit the Home Office's website with denial-of-service attacks. Anonymous includes the Home Office's IP address in its announcement.

Anonymous' call to arms reads, "#OpTrialAtHome has been initiated, We are inviting every #Anon to join us in our fight against #Extradition and the #EAW."

[Britons Bash Proposed 'Big Brother' Law]

The faces of Anonymous' anti-extradition campaign are Gary McKinnon, Christopher Harold Tappin and Richard O'Dwyer.

McKinnon, a Scottish systems administrator, was arrested in 2002 for allegedly hacking into U.S. military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002 and deleting files and copying data. Tappin, a retired British businessman, is accused by the U.S. government of exporting materials to Iran that can be used to build surface-to-air missiles. The owner of TVShack.net, O'Dwyer has been charged with hosting copyrighted materials on his site; the U.S. Justice Department has been seeking his extradition since last May.

? 2012 SecurityNewsDaily. All rights reserved

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Clippers beat Jazz 105-96 for 5th straight victory

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Video Game Reviews | RotoRob

The Survival Horror genre has splintered into sub-categories since its inception with Resident Evil back in the late 1990s. Silent Hill worked almost like the yin to Resident Evil?s yang; rather than being a touch agent, you were just someone looking for a lost loved one. Silent Hill?s bodycount is generally pretty minimal compared to Resident Evil, and Silent Hill?s puzzles and mood are more based in the ?messing with your head? vein as opposed to a Rob Zombie horror movie.

Konami has reached back to two of Silent Hill?s best releases, spit-shining them for an HD release. Silent Hill 2 stars James Sunderland, just another dude who drives to the sleepy town of Silent Hill in a crappy car to investigate a letter from his dead wife. Silent Hill 3 is directly tied into the story of the series? first game and features a young woman named Heather.

Note: From a technical perspective, Silent Hill 2 and 3 are essentially the same game ? same engine, same controls, similar graphics levels. So for the purposes of reviewing technical aspects of both, I?m going to refer to the package simply as Silent Hill.

CONTROL (2.5/5)

Time has not been kind to the PS2-era Silent Hill games. Both games were released at a time when tank-style controls (rotate and move as opposed to, you know, just walking somewhere) were already obsolete. So when you first take control in Silent Hill and hit left or right on your analog stick, you might be confused for a second as your character starts to rotate rather than step. In this case, the trigger buttons shuffle you left and right while analog up/down move you forward and backward. If it sounds clunky, it?s because it is.

Fortunately, you?re not stuck with this setup. A simple menu change from 3D to 2D controls quickly fixes it, and movement is based on camera perspective rather than the orientation of your character. However, this does cause some problems as the camera can get tight in cramped quarters, which leads to constant camera angle flips that could literally leave you running in circles. If you?re trying to run from weird mutant things in a hazy fog, this tends to be problematic.

Survival, of course, is half of Survival Horror, and you?ll need weapons to fight your way into and out of Silent Hill (the town and the game). In most cases, holding the R1/upper trigger button gets your character into ready mode, which is somewhat locked on to the nearest enemy. The attack button on the face pad swings your melee weapon, and swing is the operative word ? there?s a canned animation that winds up and swings. It?s pretty slow and winds up being fairly inaccurate, which means it?s pretty damn frustrating. If you do manage to knock down your opponent, pressing the attack button without aiming allows you to kick them on the ground until they?re dead.

For me, this was so clunky and frustrating that I actually set the combat difficulty level to Easy. This allowed me to enjoy the story without really having to worry about fighting the lumbering, um, things lurking around. Silent Hill 3 refines this just a tad but it?s still difficult to work with.

In many cases, it?s easier to run from an enemy than engage it, which means you?ll find yourself holding down the run button on the face pad quite often. This is much easier with the 2D control scheme.

A large part of Silent Hill involves puzzles, and that means an interaction button. This all-purpose button simplifies things, though to use something from your inventory with the environment, you?ll have to go through the traditional menu screen. Consequently, Silent Hill often feels like the halfway point between old-school adventure games and Resident Evil.

GRAPHICS/SOUND (4.5/5)

Keeping in the context of when these games were made, Silent Hill looks and sounds incredible. The environment is as much of a character as any being (human or otherwise), and locations are all treated with the appropriate amount of decay. When the town of Silent Hill is overrun by its signature fog, you literally have a barrier of fog preventing you from seeing more than a few feet in front. This keeps things surprising and tense, even when the technical limitations of the graphics are exposed by the HD upgrade.

The HD upgrade hasn?t affected the audio atmosphere in any way. This is fine, though; Silent Hill has always excelled at balancing mood music, rhythmic sound effects (footsteps, etc.), and stark silence. When you encounter your first mystery footsteps through the silence, the tension escalates despite absolutely nothing else happening. That?s the beauty of Silent Hill and it works extremely well. The series? trademark radio static is still as disturbing as ever, and you?ll wind up reacting to static completely different for days on end after playing these games.

One controversial aspect of the Silent Hill collection was Konami?s decision to implement new voice acting. Silent Hill 2 gives you the option of using the original voices while only the new voices exist for Silent Hill 3. If you haven?t played these games before ? and thus, have no nostalgia for the original voices ? you?ll find that the goofy and overwrought delivery of the original voices detracts from the game experience while the new audio is much more natural. However, if you?re looking for an authentic experience, this collection won?t fully deliver that for you.

GAMEPLAY (4/5)

At its very best, Silent Hill is all about psyching yourself out from the series? unique combination of atmosphere and twisted narrative. Gameplay involves a lot of exploring, often without any clear direction on where to go or what to do ? you have a rough idea of what you want to do, but you can?t help but stumble upon disturbing incidents or curious characters. The games unravel layer upon layer ? in some cases, the unraveling layers break apart reality and the other world where the true Silent Hill exists. As you move further and further throughout the game, you?ll often have to solve puzzles in order to advance.

Puzzles range from interpreting clues for unlocking doors to using objects in the environment. For example, you may see a mysterious riddle scrawled on a wall, and certain words in the riddle relate directly to a mystery grandfather clock in the corner. In another situation, a ladder may be out of reach, but you can find a makeshift hook to pull it down from the ceiling.

These puzzles are pretty standard fare for any adventure game veterans. Those used to first-person shooters might get frustrated with them, but both games include a difficulty level for riddles ? and of course, there?s always online walkthroughs should you need it. Exploration is key to puzzle solving, though there are certainly some limiting design factors here, as you?ll become very familiar with the sound of a locked door. It makes sense that an abandoned town or a closed mall would have a lot of locked doors, but it sure sometimes feels empty ? not the fun kind that contributes to the atmosphere, but the kind that seems like lazy design. If a third of the closed doors in the game were replaced with a piece of art or some object that came with a unique description, that would add much more to the experience.

Silent Hill is claustrophobic ? more so indoors, but definitely in any situation. When nasty beasts start attacking you, you?ll find this cramped space as a strong design mechanism for amping up the tension. The problem, though, comes when the clunky controls make it difficult to escape this. Similarly, the occasional boss fight may not be terribly difficult if the action/aiming mechanisms totally cooperated with you.

The good news is that the game?s design focuses more on exploration and puzzle-solving rather than combat. This allows the narrative to unfold organically rather than feeling like cut scenes inserted in between action set pieces. And you?ll want to stick with the story as it starts off simple enough before gradually descending into hellish concepts and overtones ? this is a good thing, and one of the stunning parts that make Silent Hill so memorable.

OVERALL (3.75/5)

It?s very difficult to overlook the obsolete control scheme for the Silent Hill HD Collection. This is a video game, after all, and when controls are sluggish or messy, it severely hampers the experience. However, if you can overlook (or cope) with the controls, you?ll find a gripping and disturbing narrative, along with some of the best atmospheric work seen in gaming history. Gamers looking for a visceral thrill might get too frustrated but those willing to work with the deliberate pacing of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 will be greatly rewarded.

By Mike Chen
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2012 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Mike Chen, Video Game Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Pixie Lott seems rather preened after 12-hour flight as she lands in Japan

By Nadia Mendoza

PUBLISHED: 17:29 GMT, 31 March 2012 | UPDATED: 17:29 GMT, 31 March 2012

Sandwiched between strangers and breathing recycled oxygen, let's face it, no one is going to emerge from a flight ready for their Kodak moment.

That is, unless you're Pixie Lott.

The blonde pop princess looked typically picture perfect as she touched down in Japan after a long 12-hour flight from her home turf in London.

Always time for preening: Pixie Lott looked immaculate landing in Japan

The 21-year-old had fashioned her locks into a style worthy of a Disney princess, with a large fish plait crossing her forehead like a crown.

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Her make-up had clearly just been done, whether by an assistant or of her own doing cooped up in an on-board toilet the size of a broom cupboard.

As Pixie smiled for the camera, a fresh-coat of lip gloss glistened - only ever looking that perfect after first application and before eating or talking.

Not quite a fully-fledged diva: Pixie is still grounded enough to push her own trolley

Reporting for duty: The singer is performing at Spring Groove 2012 music festival

The BRIT-nominee flew into Tokyo this morning, ahead of her performance at the Spring Groove 2012 music festival at Makuhari Messe on Sunday.

This is Lott's second trip to Japan in a matter of months, and she is to be joined on the bill at tomorrow's event by David Guetta and LMFAO.

The Mama Do singer was clearly overwhelmed as she landed, greeted by loyal fans requesting her autograph and hoping for a snapshot.

Swamped: Fans took photos as Pixie signed autographs

Just shy of one million Twitter followers, Pixie wrote: 'Just landed in Tokyo what a welcome!.. Kawaiiii thank you for your gifts.'

Pixie was referring to 'kawaii', which is a Japanese word meaning 'cute.'

And it seems the pretty chart-topper is enjoying the local dialect, showing off her grasp of the vernacular as All About Tonight topped the charts.

She later added: 'Konichiwaaa (meaning, good afternoon)! Thank you Tokyo FM midtown studio #allabouttonight this weeks no.1!'

One for the album: Pixie spent time with her admirers despite the 12-hour flight

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Not just Suu Kyi: How a former general is opening up Myanmar

President Thein Sein has advanced reforms partly through his choice of advisers, allowing critical voices to be heard even before today's freer elections.?

President Thein Sein, the former general now spearheading a political?and economic liberalization drive in Myanmar, may have been a senior?member of the last dictatorial military junta, but he appears to have?the merit of an open mind.

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Exhibit A: The man he named to head his presidential advisory team?on economic policy, U Myint, is a good friend and ally of Aung San Suu?Kyi, leader of the opposition and the military?s most outspoken?critic. (Ms. Suu Kyi's party says she has won her constituency in today's voting, which would put the Nobel Peace Prize winner in public office for the first time.)?

Mr. U Myint is a member of a nine person panel that is playing a?key role in greasing the wheels of reforms underway for the past year?by forging the sort of link between the rulers and the ruled that?Myanmar has not known for half a century. Three deal with economic?issues, three with political affairs, and three with legal matters.

The nexus that they have created between civil society and the?government was on dramatic display last September, when President?Thein Sein announced the suspension of work on a $3.6 billion Chinese?project to build a dam at Myitsone, in northern Myanmar.

Environmental groups had been protesting this dam, in the?watershed of the Irrawaddy river, for a long time. As censorship?relaxed under the quasi-civilian government that took office a year?ago, the environmentalists found journalists ready to write about the?studies they had done. Public opinion turned against the dam.

Thein Sein has a team reading the local and international press for?him, and keeping him abreast of the public mood. But the anti-dam?forces? trump card was U Myint, and they took their case to him.

?U Myint has connections with the people and access to the?president,? says Kyaw Thu, a civil society activist who coordinated a?campaign by anti-dam environmental groups. ?Now we have a new?mechanism that has opened up access to people high up, in parliament?and in government.?

If it was a bold move by the president to invite U Myint to direct?economic policy reform, it was equally bold of U Myint to accept the?job. He did so, he said at the time, without knowing how much?influence he would have, but in the spirit of national reconciliation?? a leitmotif of Aung San Suu Kyi?s campaign for a seat in parliament?at the by-elections being held today.

Not all the presidential advisers have such an independent?background; the head of the legal team is a police colonel, and the top?political adviser, Ko Ko Hlaing, is a former army officer who was?working on an international news show at the state-run TV channel when?he was tapped for his new job. But all of them are seen as?reform-minded, most have enough international experience to know how?things are done in countries that are not military dictatorships, and?several of them are happy to talk both to the media and to nongovernmental organizations.

In the old days of a hermetically sealed military government??no one had access to the senior General,? says Kyaw Thu. ?Today, our?arguments reach the president.?

* Editor's Note: Our correspondent in Yangon could not be identified for security reasons.?

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