You No Longer Need To Be an Artist To Appear In Your Own Comic Book

If you haven’t been able to convince publishers your life would make for an awesome comic book, and can’t draw more than a crude stick figure facsimile of yourself, you can thank the imaging researchers at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan. They’ve created a fun system that can automatically generate manga-style comics starring anyone striking a pose in front of its camera. Read more…        

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You No Longer Need To Be an Artist To Appear In Your Own Comic Book

A Million Cockroaches Escaped From A Chinese Farm And Are On The Move

According to the Agence France-Presse, “at least” one million cockroaches escaped a nursery in Jiangsu, China where they were being farmed for traditional medicine applications like cancer and inflammation treatments. The bugs got away because of an “unknown perpetrator” who tampered with the plastic greenhouse where they were being raised. Read more…        

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A Million Cockroaches Escaped From A Chinese Farm And Are On The Move

The New Star Wars Will Be Shot on Film, Which Is Probably Great

Last night, Star Wars: Episode VII cinematographer Dan Mindel announced that the J.J. Abrams-directed movie will be shot on 35mm film, as opposed to digital video. The decision symbolizes the changing of the guard from the reign of George Lucas, and hopefully adds some much-needed vigor to the beloved franchise. Read more…        

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The New Star Wars Will Be Shot on Film, Which Is Probably Great

Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

hypnosec writes “If you are a BlackBerry owner, navigate to BlackBerry World (or just visit the website) and you will find that developer S4BB has developed over 47k apps for the BB platform. Unsurprisingly, most of them are just spammy apps that don’t add any value. Apps like ‘Restart Me Free, ‘ ‘Daily Quote, ‘ ‘Lock for SMS, ‘ ‘Search for Amazon, ‘ ‘Silent Foto Free’ are just a few among the thousands of apps on BlackBerry World that actually have no utility whatsoever. BlackBerry announced back in May that developers were increasingly interested in making apps for the platform, and that BlackBerry World had more than 120, 000 apps. This raises questions about the authenticity of the claims, and about the approval process that’s been accepting these apps. S4BB may have a few useful apps for the platform, but that doesn’t mean all of their apps are of ‘A’ quality. A statement from BlackBerry said, ‘Developers in all app stores employ a number of different monetization tactics. BlackBerry World is an open market for developers and we let market forces dictate the success or failure of these tactics.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

Florida Town Stores License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years

An anonymous reader writes “Yet another privacy concern story, this time from Florida. The Longboat Key police have their new license plate camera up and running, but according to the police chief, this one stores all images as ‘evidence’ for up to ten years. When questioned about the possibility for abuses of this camera’s historical record, the chief said, ‘There are regulations, policies and laws in place that prohibit that kind of abuse. And if abuse is discovered, it’s punished.’ What could possibly go wrong?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Florida Town Stores License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years

LG Made a 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 Smartphone Display with 538 PPI

Hot diggity. LG just announced an insane 5.5-inch smartphone screen that has pixels that must be made from some sort of mixture between dense diamond sparkles and unicorn blood paint. More seriously, the 5.5-inch AH-IPS LCD display’s resolution is 2, 560 x 1, 440 (Quad HD) and packs 538 pixels per inch. That makes it the highest resolution and ppi for a smartphone panel. Read more…        

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LG Made a 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 Smartphone Display with 538 PPI

Archaeologists Just Realized 5K-Year-Old Egyptian Beads Are From Space

Over a hundred years ago, archaeologists dug up these nine blackened, corroded lumps of stone from a pre-dynastic Egyptian cemetery. But it wasn’t until now that we realized just how old they are—and that they came from outer space. Read more…        

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Archaeologists Just Realized 5K-Year-Old Egyptian Beads Are From Space

Legal Site Groklaw Shuts Down Rather Than Face NSA in Heartrending Post

For the last 10 years, if you wanted to understand a complex legal issue in the news, your first stop was Groklaw. A free, open source exchange of theories and ideas, Groklaw has been an invaluable resource for lawyers and laymen alike. Last night, its owner pulled the plug. It was a matter of privacy. Read more…        

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Legal Site Groklaw Shuts Down Rather Than Face NSA in Heartrending Post

After its acquisition of Waze this past June, Google announced this morning that it is deploying rea

After its acquisition of Waze this past June, Google announced this morning that it is deploying real time incident reports from Waze users to Google Maps mobile and apps users. Waze users can now search with Google, too. And if you’re into mapmaking, the Waze Map Editor now includes Google Street View. [ Google and Waze ] Read more…        

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After its acquisition of Waze this past June, Google announced this morning that it is deploying rea

Google Outage: Internet Traffic Plunges 40%

cold fjord writes “Is 40% anything to worry about? Sky News reports, ‘Worldwide internet traffic plunged by around 40% as Google services suffered a complete black-out, according to web analytics experts. The tech company said all of its services from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube to Google Drive went down for between one and five minutes last night. The reason for the outage is not yet known, and Google refused to provide any further information when contacted by Sky News Online. According to web analytics firm GoSquared, global internet traffic fell by around 40% during the black-out, reflecting Google’s massive grip on the web. “That’s huge, ” said GoSquared developer Simon Tabor. “As internet users, our reliance on Google.com being up is huge.”‘ Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Outage: Internet Traffic Plunges 40%