Gerhard Potgieter

All you pc and mac gamers, Logitech just announced the G13 Gameboard. With three game modes, a built in LCD capable of 160 x 43 pixels for stats and messaging, programmable joystick and 25 programmable keys, Logitech says it “offers up to 87 ways for you to control your game.”

It will be available sometime this month in the US and Europe for round about $80 and should make its way abroad anytime after that.

The G13 comes pre-configured for a couple of games including Call of Duty 4: Modern Warefare and Word of Warcraft: Burning crusade just to name a few. Otherwise, you can setup custom button-profiles as you please and even create macros on the fly without having to pause your quest.

For everyone who works in computers, this Tuesday, 9 December, is a significant date. It’s the 40th anniversary of the day when Douglas Engelbart, one of the industry’s great visionaries, gave an audience of geeks at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco their first glimpse of the technological future that we all now inhabit.

The computer mouse was a key element in the icon-based interface that we now take for granted, and it was a great success in its day (though Engelbart did not make a cent from it). Last week, for example, Logitech, a leading computer accessories manufacturer, announced that it had shipped its billionth mouse. ‘It’s rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company.

Original story from Guardian

Wikipedia has been blacklisted by a British online child pornography watchdog, causing almost every internet user in Britain to be blocked from contributing to the site anonymously.

The British Government-backed Internet Watch Foundation blacklisted Wikipedia over an article on the 1976 album Virgin Killer by German heavy metal band Scorpions.

At issue was a screen shot of the album cover, published with the article, that featured a naked, young girl with her genitals obscured by a simulated tear in the photograph.

After hearing of the blacklisting, Britain’s six main internet service providers blocked their users from accessing the article.

But the method they used means users of each provider now access Wikipedia as a whole through the same IP address.

Usually all internet users have a unique IP address, allowing Wikipedia to block users who vandalise the site or otherwise break its rules.

Wikipedia dubs itself the “free encyclopedia anyone can edit”.

As a result, Wikipedia, which contains 2.6 million articles all written by its users, has instituted a blanket ban on anonymous edits from the six ISPs, which account for 95 per cent of British residential internet users.

Sarah Robertson, spokeswoman for the Internet Watch Foundation, told the Associated Press that the picture was flagged by an internet user late last week. The foundation concluded, after consulting British police, that the picture could break child abuse laws.

Wikipedia administrators have refused to remove the album cover on the site, saying they do not censor articles.

This from http://www.smh.com.au

Moontlik een van die snaakste boeke nog ooit gepubliseer in afrikaans is die boek “Is dit net ek of is als tos?” deur Chopper Charlie en Griffen, stigters van die website WatKykJy.

Die boek is gebasseer op die engelse top verkoper, Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Kak? So waaroor gaan die boek nou eintlik? Wel dit handel oor als Suid-Afrikaans en wat ons beinvloed van A tot Z - met als wat ons irriteer, frustreer, warm onder die kraag maak, verveel of sommer net ons dag opneuk.

Meer as 150 aspekte van vandag se lewe loop kwaai onder die skrywers deur insluitende die AWB, Blou Bul ondersteuners, call centres, Eskom, gholf op TV, lapswaaiers, Oppikoppi boneheads, Saffas, Star Wars junkies, Telkom, Joost van der Westhuizen, Vereenigning, witmense met dreadlocks en talle ander.

Ek beveel die boek aan vir enige iemand wat lekker wil lag oor als wat in ons lewens aangaan op ‘n daaglikse basis.

Die boek is beskikbaar teen R95 by Kalahari.net

Been on Google lately and wondered what that icons next to you results are? Well its part of Google’s all new SearchWiki functionality.

Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid sports enthusiast and the site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. From now on you can do just that.

SearchWiki enables you to customize your search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on it. With one simple click you can easily move the results you like to the top and next time it will be there. You can even write a little not about the site to help you remember why you must visit it again.

The changes you make to the results will only affect your search result, but the SearchWiki is also a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.

A few ways to use the SearchWiki.