http://www.thecapturedlight.com Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:38:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Super Turrican (1993, Super Nintendo, 800 Wii points): From Factor 5 came Super Turrican, a 2D platformer that reminded us a whole lot of Mega Turrican. Also, you'll find the addition of a grappling arm in Super Turrican, an homage to the game Bionic Commando--a classic title that you'll be able ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/09/04/wii-virtual-console-release-for-this-week-super/ (Credit: JCVI) Critics remain unimpressed. "Venter is claiming bragging rights to the world's longest length of synthetic DNA, but size isn't everything. The important question is not 'how long?' but 'how wise?'" said Jim Thomas in a bio-watchdog article castigating Venter. Next step would be to insert the synthetic DNA into ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/30/researchers-in-maryland-unleash-synthetic-dna/ Per usual with the cone of silence that encapsulates Steve Jobs and the Apple troops surrounding new product announcements, it's uncertain what will actually be unveiled next month. Several blogs (see Techmeme) are reporting that Apple will roll out new products on September 9. As previously rumored, starting with ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/24/apple-ready-to-rumble-on-september-9/ Nvidia aims to fortify the Mac Pro moniker with its own "Pro" graphics. Currently, ATI Radeon HD 4870 (L) and Nvida GeForce GT 120 are offered as standard graphics chips on Mac Pro (Credit: Apple) The Quadro FX 4800, packing 192 processing cores, targets professional graphics customers, including scientists, engineers, and designers. ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/nvidia-pro-graphics-hook-up-with-apple-mac-pro/ This graph shows the activity in the brain's pleasure center; there's more activity with wine subjects think costs $90 a bottle (top line) than the same wine priced at $10. The arrow shows the moment when the subjects started tasting the wine. (Credit: CalTech, Stanford) In a study that could make ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/study-90-wine-tastes-better-than-the-same-wine-a/ Intel's future Larrabee graphics chip is still just a PowerPoint presentation. But one worth noting because it's likely one of the most important projects inside the world's largest chip manufacturer. That doesn't mean Larrabee will be a slam dunk. Intel has a checkered past in the discrete graphics chip market ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/intels-larrabee-chip-in-pictures/ Movie-rental chain Blockbuster announced Tuesday that it has withdrawn its $1 billion bid for consumer electronics chain Circuit City. Chief Executive James Keyes blamed "market conditions" for the demise of the proposed deal, valued at one time at more than $1.3 billion. "Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/blockbuster-abandons-circuit-city-bid/ commentary Having had a day to ruminate about the Open Source Business Conference 2008, a few key takeaways suggest themselves. It was by far the best OSBC yet, with a far more diverse audience and speaking faculty that we've had before. This naturally leads to a diverse set of "conclusions" arising ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/what-i-learned-from-osbc-2008/ commentary It might not seem like a big deal that Silicon Valley is losing its middle class - defined as those who make between $30,000 and $80,000 per year. That is, unless you want to create a company that employs normal people who make normal wages, which is just about every ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/silicon-valleys-disappearing-middle-class/ I'm always on the lookout for simple ways to manage video on the Web. One of them, called Mux has been getting some buzz lately for taking advantage of both Amazon's EC2 and S3 Web services to store data and do the crunching at the same time. Mux uses the ... http://www.thecapturedlight.com/2010/08/21/mux-does-quick-simple-web-video-ripping/