Coming in first to the 10 million sold mark for current generation game consoles is the Xbox 360, beating the PS3’s 4.1 million and the Wii’s 8.8 million.

The PS3’s high price tag is likely to blame for its third place showing, and the Wii would likely have sold more if they were ever in stock. But that won’t keep Microsoft from gloating at the annual Console Makers Memorial Day BBQ and Touch Football Game next weekend, you can count on that.

I’m likely never going to get married. Not that I couldn’t, indeed I do OK for myself, but because I’m not an idiot. Sure, for some of you it works out, but I’m not the type.

If I were, I’d do like this couple from the UK: They did it all Star Wars style. Themselves and the rest of the wedding party dressed up as characters from the film, and it looks like it was probably a lot of fun. They’d even planned on getting married a couple of weeks ago, so that their invites would read “May the 4th be with you.” How nerdy rad is that?

Good luck to Bramwell Brightey and his new bride Tamsyn.

Filed under: Robots

Rest assured, this won't be the first or last time you hear of insects and mammals being used as inspiration for robotic creatures. Nevertheless, a recent MIT mechanical engineering course saw students craft bots that could handle "beaver-like tasks" such as "knocking down trees and gathering food in the form of street hockey balls" while fending off competitors in 45-second rounds. Separately, the EU-funded SPARK endeavor is seeking to "develop a new robot control architecture for roving robots inspired by the principles governing the behavior of living systems and based on the concept of self-organization." There's plenty more material to make your skin crawl in the read links below, just don't feed the mechs, okay?

Read - SPARK project
Read - MIT competition

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Facebook is all about openess, right? And privacy. It’s a balance, or something. Oftentimes it’s a tricky balance, but Facebook has self-instituted standards to live up to. And those standards say that Google’s new Friend Connect is evil (in so many words).

As Friend Connect supposedly shares user data in a way that circumvents total disclosure to all users involved, Facebook has stated that Friend Connect does not comply with its standards for collecting user data and redistributing it across the web. The result? Friend Connect’s access to Facebook has been suspended.

So much for the web platform coming to fruition in an easy, cooperative manner. Google still has Microsoft and Yahoo to compete with on the search level, but when it comes to the development of open standards, MySpace, Facebook and Google have become the battling trio.

Between Friend Connect, Facebook Connect, and MySpace’s Data Availability on top of existing open platforms, the race is on to become the dominant, most widely adopted platform for such open standards. It’s quite dizzying at this point, and not so cooperative after all. Facebook has stated that it’s reached out to Google in order to find a way in which to reach a satisfactory level of compliance, so hopefully that will happen soon. Google does, after all, have a burning desire to own the universe’s data.mashable109:http://mashable.com/2008/05/15/facebook-blocks-friend-connec/

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Oh, hello there. I’m patiently waiting for the new Boylston Street Apple Store to open here in Boston. Did I need to show up four hours early? Probably not, but I just can’t resist sitting in an outdoor food court while pigeons buzz within inches of my fragile body. Seems nobody told them about the food chain and how humans are atop said food chain. Anyhoo, you might be interested to know that the line for the grand opening of the Apple Store stretches a country mile! Four city blocks to be precise.

A few randomly snapped photos after the jump.

Here’s the view from the end of the line at Commonwealth Avenue. This photo was taken at about 3:00, roughly three hours before the doors open. See the people way down the line there? They’re there, trust me. The line’s filled out a bit more, too. I’ll grab another photo as we get closer to game time to see if Apple’s got the mojo to fill out all four blocks. I’m guessing it’ll fill up. We’ll see, though.

Here’s the front of the line. I overheard the guy who’s at the head of it all say that he’s been here since yesterday. Good for you, my main man.

Here’s the front of the store. The line starts to the right. The gigantic security guard standing there has been surprisingly nice and helpful so far. I watched for a while as clueless passers-by tried to just walk right into the store. Two college kids laughed when he wouldn’t let them in and showed them the line. “You guys will be open tomorrow, right?” they bellowed. Ah, to be in college again.

I present to you the front of the Apple Store — the “facade” as it were. The store is three stories high; computers and laptops on the first floor, ipods and other gadgets on the second floor, and the Genius Bar on the third floor. It’s the biggest Apple Store in the US. Take that, former biggest Apple Store! God dammit, I’m pretty sure a pigeon just touched my ear with its wing. Sick.

And finally, here’s the Apple Store from afar. The roof has grass on it, I’m told. The kind you mow, not the kind you smoke.

So that’s it for now. I’ll be inside in a couple hours. If you’d like me to look for anything in particular or if you have any questions, let me know and I’ll try to find out for you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

See, it's not all dour news in the wireless industry -- oft-overlooked carrier Alltel just announced that it added over 1M gross wireless customers in the first quarter, and that it's committed to LTE in the next three to five years. The LTE news isn't particularly surprising, since Alltel's got roaming agreements to maintain and both Verizon and AT&T are committed to LTE, but the company did specifically say that it was picking LTE over WiMAX. (Oh, and if you're keeping score, that pretty much puts the final, final nail in the coffin for Qualcomm's UMB -- good thing it's got those LTE-compatible chipsets in the works.) Alltel's actually growing pretty fast -- this is the second quarter in a row it's added over 1M gross customers, probably due to those sparkling call-quality survey results -- but we still have our doubts when the company claims it's "America's Largest Network." Should be interesting to see how this all shakes out as 4G gets built out, no?

Read - Alltel Q1 results [Warning: PDF link]
Read - Alltel commits to LTE

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What it does

A refreshing new tarot site that offers live and amazingly authentic tarot readings that have been linked to relevant spell recommendations, completely free, and no membership is required. Save, view trends, make notes and share readings with friends. This seems to be a completely social divination experience. SpellSpace was developed with intent to offer a real live and authentic tarot reading, and amazingly sound and powerful recommended spells. This is the only site on the Web which offers a Tarot Reading that has been linked to relevant spell recommendations, designed to enhance your life. Much research was done into the development of these Spells, they use known and authentic ingredients, elements and spirits, which have been used from ancient Egypt, to Pagan, Jewish and other traditions.

In their own words

“An experienced and excellent Tarot Reader, who has had compelling and accurate historical results, created these readings. Working with a technical programmer, together they duplicated the process, karma, strength and feel of a real reading. The Tarot Reader is in essence providing the reading directly to you, it is her words, interpretation and aura, which surround this site. Many other sites use gimmicks that ask a person to chose their cards, then either ask a question or select a card. Then a computer uses formulas to display a card and the description and written information referenced. This is a complete disconnect with a Tarot Reader or the cards.”

Why it might be a killer

A completely different site on a very popular topic, SpellSpace Tarot provides a place for users to get complete readings to share, save, rate, annotate and view trends, and completely free. Spells are recommended based on personal readings that can be purchased at the online SpellStore. The tarot room feature will provide a social networking element that is not offered anyplace on the web. View readings with others or privately while chatting with friends, strangers or psychics. Psychic reader connections will be provided for those who wish to explore further.

Some questions

Maybe they are exaggerating with the amount of Google Ads, they take seriousness from the website.

Updates


 » original news

I love bus-powered devices, especially external hard drives, but they tend to have fairly small capacities. I do like, those, these new Other World Computing Mercury On-The-Go portable drives.

They’re compact, bus-powered, work with Firewire 400 or USB 2, and even look cool. What’s really great is they’re high-capacity and fairly affordable, topping out with a 200GB drive for $189.99. If you have a laptop with limited capacity and need to expand, these are a great way to go.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

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