Latest Posts from Switched

While we suspect quick-fix cosmetic treatments like microdermabrasion and Botox are popular largely because people enjoy saying the words microdermabrasion and Botox, we know it's also true that such treatments do in fact make people look different (though not always younger) and that they are more widespread today than they have ever been.

Though there are still many folks who shy away from such procedures, likely because sticking needles in one's face and having chemicals peeling away one's flesh just isn't natural or fun. But it looks like there's an exciting new option for those not ready for invasive (or painful) treatments, and are looking for something beyond Oil of Olay. It's called Isolaz, which is a photopneumatic device that uses a combination of lasers and suction to treat acne, reduce red or brown spots as well as remove unwanted hair.

The company claims that the Isolaz is painless and perfectly safe with no post-procedure recovery time needed.

If we can painlessly replace bikini waxing and Clearasil in one fell swoop, with a laser/vacuum combo no less, then mankind has indeed reached a new golden age.

From Popgadget

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With Microsoft's Xbox Live service turning 5 years-old this week, the folks in Washington are celebrating with original Xbox games like 'Halo', 'Fable', 'Crimson Skies' and the underrated 'Psychonauts'.

Taking a cue from Nintendo, Microsoft is making these old gems downloadable. Xbox classics will run you 1,200 Microsoft points ($15) and will be available beginning December 4^th. Microsoft has stated that this is only the tip of the iceberg and that we can expect many more "Xbox Originals", as they are calling them, very soon.

Not only will offer those golden oldies but they are giving away the popular Xbox Live Arcade game, Carcassone, free for 48 hours beginning at midnight Wednesday (last night) until 11:59pm on 11/16.

From Ars Technica

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In 1985, 'Super Mario Bros.' defined what the next decade of 2D-platform games would and should be on home consoles. Mario did it again for 3D games in 1996 with 'Super Mario 64' on the Nintendo 64. And while we may have to wait a bit longer for 4D games, this week's 'Super Mario Galaxy' seems to have, according to a plethora of pro-plumber reviews, set the bar unbelievably high not just for Wii games but all "next generation" action titles.

With a current metascore (an average of all review scores) of 97 out of 100, 'Super Mario Galaxy' is garnering critical acclaim not only for its adherence to what's made Mario great in the past, but also for its innovative use of the Wii control, outstanding visual presentation, and orchestrated score (a first for Mario games). It's not ALL good news of course as no game is perfect, but here's what the critics say:

Yahoo! Games

The Good:

• 'Super Mario Galaxy' is a reminder that games don't have to be ultra-violent, make clever social statements or ride the marketing machine to succeed. They simply have to be fun, and you'd be hard pressed to find one as genuinely enjoyable as Mario's latest.

The Bad:

• ...a little disjointed from time to time.
  ...it would be nice to hear Mario say something other than 'Woo-hoo!' from time to time.

Game Informer

The Good:

• ...the best Mario game since the NES classic, 'Super Mario Bros.' It innovates in a genre that we had thought we had seen everything from, and in doing so delivers some of the most entertaining gameplay to date.

The Bad:

• While it's nice that you rarely have to fuss with the camera, there are times where walls will obstruct your view, or you won't be able to rotate the perspective to see where you are supposed to jump next. And worst of all, for a game that puts such an emphasis on going out of your way to get an extra life, all of your lives are reset when you turn the Wii off.

IGN

The Good:

• One of the greatest platformers I have ever played, Wii's best game, and an absolute must-own experience.

The Bad:

• Every so often ... you will find yourself in a situation where the camera isn't quite right ... When that happens and you can't center yourself, you have no recourse, which is unfortunate ... It's not perfect."

1UP

The Good:

• 'Galaxy' proves that Mario matters just as much today as he did 25 years ago, and that makes him one of a kind in this medium. But don't play 'Galaxy' simply because Mario is the timeless godfather of gaming. No, play 'Galaxy' because it's fantastic.

The Bad:

• With the health power meter now reduced from six sections to three, experimenting with new enemies and tactics can be a little fraught - try the wrong thing twice in a row and you're in immediately danger of dying.

It's great to see Mario still kicking ass among such big titles this year like 'Halo 3' and 'Mass Effect'. Mysteriously, our copy seems to have gone missing in the mail. But, we are more than excited to see Mario return to the throne. And we don't mean that in the plumbing sense.

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Further hope that victims of paralysis or amputation could one day reclaim some form of motion came this week in the form of a robotically-enhanced, tobacco-chewing moth.

The Society for Neuroscience's yearly gathering in San Diego saw a presentation on research in which a tobacco hornworm moth's brain was connected to electrodes and amplifiers at the base of a fairly common kit of robotic parts. When the insect's highly developed eyes, evolved for evading predators and mating, would shift left or right, the attached robotic parts would react accordingly.

In order to get the "robo-moth" to shift it's eyes, the scientists placed it in tube with a 14-ich tall revolving wall covered in vertical stripes. The moths, which only live about a week, would then track the stripes resulting in motion with the longest tracking time lasting nearly a minute and a half.

While limited at the moment, the device's use in harnessing electric impulses in such a small brain gives way to added possibilities from using insects as bomb-detectors to the aforementioned ambitions for practical human applications.

From LA Times

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With 'Guitar Hero III' sales posting over $115 in one week and the hype for this month's 'Rock Band' reaching an Axl-esque pitch, it's safe to say that America's hunger for rock n' roll games is damn near insatiable.

So it was a surprising treat earlier this week when Harmonix, developer of 'Guitar Hero', 'Guitar Hero II' and 'Rock Band,' announced that it was releasing a brand new music game for the iPod -- title 'Phase.'

The game is similar to 'Guitar Hero' in the way it is played and only costs $5, but what is most exciting is that the game uses the music you already have on your iPod and converts those tunes into what you see on the screen.

Ever since the original 'Guitar Hero' camer out, fans have longed to not only play the songs that came pre-packaged with the game but also to incorporate whatever songs they wanted into the game's rhythm-based rocking.

The music-recognition software of 'Phase' is nowhere near the depth of a 'Guitar Hero' or 'Rock Band', but Harmonix's 'lil iPod game looks to be the first step towards playing your own selection of tunes on a giant HDTV or, in our case, a crappy Magnavox. Thrilling nonetheless.

'Phase' is available on the iTunes store now.

From Boing Boing Gadgets.

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Unless you have been living in a sound and fun-proof cave for the past couple of years, you are more than likely aware of 'Guitar Hero', the rock n' roll simulator that has would-be musicians kicking ass on such guitar-heavy hits as Lynard Skynyrd's "Free Bird" and Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle".

And after a year of waiting, fans can finally get their hands on 'Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock', which was released over the weekend and the reviews thus far indicate the latest game in the series does not disappoint.

With online support, collapsible guitar peripherals and over 70 tracks from classic bands like the Rolling Stones and the Who alongside newer acts like the Killers and AFI, 'Guitar Hero III' is ever bit as entertaining as previous installments and them some.

Below are just a few review quotes from popular gaming media:

IGN.com
"The soundtrack is fantastic and the new online additions are going to take the 'Guitar Hero' community to the next level. It really is hard to argue with any facet of the gameplay."

Yahoo! Games
'Guitar Hero III' won't disappoint either diehard fans or people new to the series. This is the latest step in the stairway to heaven of home rocking.

Official Xbox Magazine
Ultimately, 'GHIII' succeeds as a polished technical workout for top-tier shredders, but the game's magic was never really about pressing buttons anyway--it was about making the player feel like, well, a guitar hero.

If there are any complaints to be had they seem to mostly revolve around the fact that the game's presentation has changed very little in three years and that has perhaps become a little easier to be good at the game.

And it remains to be seen how Guitar Hero III stands up to the upcoming 'Rock Band,' which is being developed by the creators of the original 'Guitar Hero' game and features a full rock band rather than just guitars, as well as some serious licensing deals that promise a vast collection of bands and tracks to choose from.

These nominal issues aside, we plan on spending the next month rocking extremely hard.

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When we think about the future, things like flying cars and moon vacations are high on our list. But what about the future of...disaster relief?

A new "smart suit" designed by i-Garments looks to make emergency workers such as firefighters work faster and safer by including location and health-monitoring of individuals, who currently rely on cell phone networks and other erratic systems. The system used for the "smart suits" has its own closed infastructure and can be supervised from mobile HQ locations without outside interference.

While, currently not planned for the US, the European Space Agency has just approved the suits after rigorous testing.

These suits may not be not as exciting as a robot maid, but what they lack in sci-fi nerd cred, they more than make up for in their potential for saving the lives of emergency personnel.

From Engadget

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With Microsoft's promise of the Xbox 360 becoming your one-stop media hub becoming more and more evident with each passing day, the rumor of an IPTV update for the concave box should be a somewhat exciting non-surprise.

Recently, an Xbox 360 owner by the name of Aaron turned on his unit to see an interesting new icon had materialized on his dashboard that had four blank boxes and some text indicating that he could record live TV, see on-demand movies and chat while watching TV.

The option does not function at the moment, but does offer the website www.microsoft.com/tv , which takes you to the companies Mediaroom site, where some of the basics of Microsoft's IPTV features are explained.

His unit had just been returned from the repair center, which may explain how this weird preview ended up on his Xbox, but since he seems to be running the same dashboard version as everyone else (2.0.5787.0) it doesn't really explain why or how the currently non-working update came into being.

Either way, the photos he posted seem to lend credence to the rumor that this huge addition is impending in the Xbox 360's annual Fall Update.

Stay tuned!

From Xbox360FanBoy

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Using your digits to type out innumerable amounts of LOLs and ROFLMAOs on crumb-laden keyboards is something most people take for granted. But the physically disabled, or, more specifically, those without the use of their hands and fingers, have a much more difficult time navigating a computer keyboard.

Voice-recognition programs such as Dragon Naturally Speaking have gone a long way towards helping people who can't use a keyboard with a computer, but it looks like there will soon be some other options: Japanese company Actbrise recently developed a touch-free keyboard for people without the use of their hands.

Using a head-mounted sensor, the keyboard, which hangs over the top of your screen, picks up your noggin's movements and transmits the data to the computer as text. The system can also simply be used as a mouse to navigate your computer's windows and documents.

Now, here's the annoying part: The system costs $2,567, which makes Dragon Naturally Speaking suddenly seem like the bargain of the century.

From Akihabara News

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Despite the ever increasing Web surfing limits placed on employees at work, it looks like porn in the office is still an ongoing issue for many companies, according to a recent USA Today article. About 65% of U.S. employers use monitoring software, but the advent of wireless Internet and gadgets such as BlackBerrys and iPods have made continuous monitoring almost impossible, according to the CEO of PR firm RLM, Richard Laermer.

"There is nothing you can do," Laermer tells USA Today. "Liability is the thing that keeps me up at night, because we are liable for things people do on your premises. It's serious. I'll see somebody doing it, and I'll peek over their shoulder, and they'll say, 'I don't know how that happened.' It's like 10-year-olds. And it's always on company time."

Though many employees claim that ending up on such sites is often accidental, others troll the naughty sites at work for the thrill of it and some even claim to have a medical reason for doing so, like James Pacenza, a former IBM employee and Vietnam vet who said that his at-work porn-viewing helped him to get over post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pacenza was fired from IBM in 2003 for his porn habit, but he's currently suing the company because he found it unfair that those with drug or alcohol problems were allowed to continue at the company with treatment while he was not, citing his age as the real reason he was let go (though he has since dropped the age-discrimination claim). IBM is trying to get the case dismissed.

So what's next, a cell-phone and Wi-Fi network blocker for the workplace like they have at Apple announcements every time Steve Jobs unveils a new product?

From USA Today

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