square

The 404 290: Where both Natali and Justin are suspiciously absent

Dr. Michael Breus, the Sleep Doctor, gets snowed out of New York today, and Justin Yu and Natali Del Conte are both suspiciously absent. We thought they were joking about the whole getting married thing. We didn't actually think they would hook up. Anyway, Heavy fills in today and does an admirable job of explaining why people get migraines. Essentially, Justin needs to take some Midol.

So what the hell is this Facebook ad suppose to mean? Jeff can't figure it out, but Heavy is heavy on the case. As usual, Jeff has a hater opinion on the … Read more

The 404 290: Where both Natali and Justin are suspiciously absent

Dr. Michael Breus, the Sleep Doctor, gets snowed out of New York today, and Justin Yu and Natali Del Conte are both suspiciously absent. We thought they were joking about the whole getting married thing. We didn't actually think they would hook up. Anyway, Heavy fills in today and does an admirable job of explaining why people get migraines. Essentially, Justin needs to take some Midol.

So what the hell is this Facebook ad supposed to mean? Jeff can't figure it out, but Heavy is heavy on the case. As usual, Jeff has a hater opinion on the … Read more

Square Root Day revelers to party like it's 3/3/09

Count on Tuesday's alignment of the calendar to add some excitement to the lives of at least a few math geeks.

Tuesday is Square Root Day, a rare holiday that occurs when the day and the month are both the square root of the last two digits of the current year. Numerically, March 3, 2009, can be expressed as 3/3/09, or mathematically as √9 = 3, or 3² = 3 × 3 = 9.

"These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day--and poof--they're gone," … Read more

More popular games coming to a browser near you

Several announcements today further cemented the fact that the Web browser is the new game console.

"Quake Live" will enter public beta on February 24, offering players a stripped-down version of the full game. (Side note: interesting use of social-media tools Twitter and Facebook to promote the launch.)

Square Enix announced a deal to offer some of its games on Steam's Valve platform.The first Square Enix game to be available to Steam users will be the Unreal Engine 3-powered role-playing game, "The Last Remnant." It will release on Steam on April 9, days after … Read more

Hip to be squared

A-Squared Free 4 is one of the better free malware removers, but it's not flawless and some users question its efficacy.

The program starts off with a sluggish detection file update that also requires a program restart. This took about 10 minutes. Normally, though, it opens to the Security Status page. From there, you can run scans, update the program, access the A-Squared knowledge base, and choose from among 20 display languages. Program options are arranged on the left nav, and they are Security Status, Scan PC, Quarantine, Logs, and Configuration tabs. Scan PC contains four scanning options: Quick, … Read more

No need for a pencil

Dots Free is a free game that lets you play the classic pencil-and-paper game Dots and Boxes (aka Dots and Dashes, the Dot Game, Squares, and so on).

Players take turns placing horizontal or vertical lines between dots on a five-by-seven grid, and the player that places the last line to close off a box scores a point and takes another turn. In Dots Free, you can play with one or two players (or, if you're particularly risk averse, you can even watch the game play by itself), and you can choose between Easy and Medium artificial intelligence settings. … Read more

JVC's Time Square display finally on...display

I recently posted a blog about JVC's new 19 foot by 34 foot, 12,500-pound LED-based screen--which JVC says is the first true 720p screen in Times Square--that debuted on December 2.

Well, now that it's up, we can finally take a gander. Hmmm, this strikes me as the type of thing you'd have to see in person and in motion to really appreciate, cause pics just ain't cutting it.

This reminds me of the 2D age in video games and how you could look at a screenshot of a game and estimate, pretty accurately, its … Read more

JVC: Still here. Still making giant TVs you'll never own

Just in case you've forgotten, JVC is still around. And apparently it doesn't want you forgetting that fact anytime soon.

On December 2 it plans to unveil what it says will be Times Square's first true 720p HD screen. I assume they mean the first true 720p screen in Times Square that could not fit in your house.

The screen will be LED-based, boast a size of 19 by 34 feet, a 12,500-pound weight, a pair of LED tickers with animated programming synchronized between all three screens, and of course, giant LED letters illuminated by neon. … Read more

Study: BlackBerry has twice failure rate of iPhone

Apple's iPhone has half the failure rate of RIM's BlackBerry in the first year of use, a study carried out by a mobile-phone warranty firm has found.

The SquareTrade study, released Saturday, looked at more than 15,000 handsets that were covered by the company's policies. It found iPhones had a malfunction rate of 5.6 percent in the first year, compared to 11.9 percent for Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones. Palm's Treos fared even worse, with 16.2 percent having some sort of malfunction in the first 12 months of use.

Figures from the analyst firm Canalys, released last week, showed Apple has now overtaken RIM in the global smartphone sales stakes. … Read more