fatalities

Why headphones are hazardous to your health

Several new headphones exhibited at CES last week featured an ambient noise boost, by which the user is able to hear the surrounding world without removing the 'phones. Such a feature may not only prove convenient--it could also save lives, according to a new study tracking headphone-related pedestrian injuries and deaths.

Serious injuries to pedestrians who are listening to headphones more than tripled between 2004 and 2011, researchers from the University of Maryland report in the journal Injury Prevention.

The team analyzed case reports from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google News … Read more

More texting behind the wheel, yet driving is getting safer

Texting while driving jumped 50 percent from 2009 to 2010, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study released this week.

But that rather ominous-sounding jump should bear an asterisk, because according to the administration, only 0.9 percent of the drivers it observed at selected stoplights and intersections were texting, up from 0.6 percent the year before--which means that in spite of the 50 percent jump, texting was observed among fewer than 1 out of 100 drivers. What's more, the 2010 number was still lower than the recent peak of one percent measured in 2008.… Read more

Mortal Kombat: Dying for a reboot

Does the most iconic fighting franchise of all time come back with a vengeance? Or is this one resurrection better left letting the coin credit countdown run out?

Jeff: If isn't broke, don't fix it. We've all heard the tired cliche, but now more than ever game developers are reaching back to a game's roots as inspiration for franchise reboots. The most recent example is the latest incarnation of Mortal Kombat.

The 2D fighting is back, along with the series' genre-defining iconic finale, fatalities. Mortal Kombat is a gift to the loyal MK fan. Anyone who grew up playing one of the classic Mortal Kombat arcade cabinets in the '90s will instantly feel right at home. The nostalgia is laid on thick at times with handfuls of inside jokes, references, and other "-alities."

We were also impressed to find that Mortal Kombat packed in a significantly deep story mode. While most fighting games go light on the narrative, MK successfully thickens the experience with in-game cinematics and dialogue beyond the trivial character intros. There are also hours upon hours of challenges here, including new "Test Your" modes including "Might, Sight, Luck," and more, not to mention the new double and triple tag team versus modes.

Graphically speaking, the character design in Mortal Kombat is nothing short of spectacular, with each unique fighter sporting a painstaking amount of detail. Speaking of pain, the new Mortal Kombat is more brutal than ever, properly taking advantage of current-generation hardware that delivers each gruesome blow, crunch, splat, and thud. Characters bleed and swell over the course of a match and their wardrobes rip and burn.… Read more

Finish him!

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPhone and iPad brings the legendarily gory and addictive fighting game to iOS, and it mostly hits the mark with only a couple of problems. What was formerly a smash hit (and somewhat controversial) stand-up arcade game went through a complete face-lift for the iPhone version. Gone are the stop-motion character animations from the original arcade game, replaced with beautiful 3D animations that re-create all your favorite characters' fighting moves. For the most part, this game looks and plays great, as long as you can get past the limited character set and the lack of … Read more

Blasts from the past: iPhone apps of the week

I grew up playing video games and was part of the era of going to arcades and dropping quarter after quarter into my favorite games. Back then, if you would have told me that one day I could play the same games on a mobile phone I would probably have said, "I doubt it, and who would want to lug one of those giant things around anyway?" In the '80s, mobile phones were huge. In other words, I would never have believed it.

Now, there are hundreds of games in the iTunes App Store that bring old classics to your touch screen. Not all of them are perfect, certainly. Sometimes the controls don't translate well to the touch screen, for example. But even with mediocre controls, it's still fun to be able to play a game you loved as a kid while you're commuting to work or in between classes.

This week, two games were released that were favorites of mine in the arcades, and both work relatively well on the touch screen. My question to you is, What games from the old days should be made for iOS? What games should not? Let's talk about it in the comments.

This week's apps are a classic gory fighting game and an arcade basketball remake that might already be one of my favorite games of 2011.… Read more

Laptop nightmares: Scary systems with fatal flaws

The Halloween season my be winding down, but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of scary laptops out there. Of course, the vast majority of laptops we review are pretty decent examples of technology. After all, there are only a handful of common components used in most systems, and things such as speed and battery life are, if not standardized, at least largely predictable based on the list of what's inside the box.

That said, we occasionally run into a laptop that just rubs us the wrong way. Maybe it's a key missing feature, or terrible design, or an unusable touch pad--or sometimes products simply don't work as advertised. We've compiled our own list of the scariest laptops of 2010, the models that either had one or more frightening flaws, or else were just dogs. … Read more

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Woman to virtual ex: 'I won't be ignored!'

This has to be the weirdest and saddest crime-of-virtual-passion story I've come across.

Kimberly Jernigan--a 33-year-old woman from North Carolina--was apparently distraught after her online relationship with a 52-year-old man from Claymont, Del., came to an end.

The pair apparently met through the online community Second Life and began a virtual relationship. The two finally met in reality several months ago, and the alleged victim ended the relationship, sending Jernigan into a downward spiral.

In early August, Jernigan allegedly drove to the victim's Pennsylvania workplace and attempted to kidnap him at gunpoint, according to local news station CBS3.com. When she was unsuccessful, according to the report, she returned two weeks later to track down the victim's Delaware address, and posed as a postal worker to do so. After four days of searching, authorities said she found residence in the Whitney Presidential Towers on the 7100 block of Society Drive in Claymont.

On August 21, police said, Jernigan broke into the unnamed victim's apartment with a Taser, a pair of handcuffs, a BB gun, her dog, and a roll of duct tape. He wasn't there, so she waited. When the virtual ex arrived home he saw what looked like a laser beam projecting on his chest. He immediately fled the apartment and contacted the Newcastle County Police. … Read more

WiiWare and Virtual Console releases for this week

A DS game reborn and a classic fighting game make up this week's releases. Virtual Console

Fatal Fury 2 (1993, NeoGeo, 900 Wii points): Fatal Fury 2 introduced brand new characters to the classic fighting game along with stage-specific interactive backgrounds. The game also revamped the two-line battle mode, possibly the most notable feature of the entire series.

WiiWare

Magnetica Twist (Nintendo, 1,000 Wii points): This new Magnetica game is a "twist" on the DS original--which itself was a port from a 1998 arcade puzzle game. In this updated version for the Wii, you'll be … Read more