Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II trailer released
Sega has capped off 2011 by giving us a teaser into what we can look forward to in 2012, as a short promo confirms Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode II for release next year.
The trailer is light on information, lacking any actual gameplay footage; but it confirms the return of Tails to the series and "the Rebirth of a Villain." It's coming to Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, iOS, Windows Phone and Android. Nintendo Wii has been scratched off the list to receive this sequel. Better luck next time.
Apple's Jonathon Ive Knighted
Jonathon Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design has been granted knighthood as part of the New Year Honours ceremony.
Honoured for "services to design and enterprise," one of the key minds behind the look and feel of Apple products over the last 15 years joins a group of technology industrial pioneers who have also received this prestigious title, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Quite an impressive list to have your name added to.
Siri tells 12 year old to "Shut the f*ck up"
One particular aspect of Siri, beyond identifying the best locations to hide bodies, is the ability to instruct to refer to you as a name of your choice. A feature that was exploited, as young Charlie Le Quense fell victim to a hurl of expletive abuse.
Shut the f*ck up, you ugly tw*t.
In-store gadget trolling hits a new level. Regardless of the slight chuckle some people would share at the situation, you can't help but feel sorry for the kid in this situation, walking up to an iPhone 4S demo unit in his local Tesco (Coventry) and enquiring about how many people there are in the world, only to be told in a vulgar fashion to promptly be quiet.
Ministry Of Defence uses video game tech to increase combat simulation realism
Video game-esque combat simulations are nothing new in military training; but the MoD's war games have been turned down by recent trainees due to them not being realistic enough.
Turns out that compared to the visual quality of your standard war FPS games like Call of Duty have one-upped what was being used to train the fresh recruitsat the Ministry of Defence. With this in mind, significant upgrades have been made to its simulations, in order to bring them up to par with the aforementioned console titles.
China unveils plans for its space program
The country has published a white paper to celebrate its space achievements in 2011, including becoming the third nation to dock in space, and give a general idea as to where they want to be in five years.
From the paper, it's clear that China sees space exploration as a key part to its continuing development, revealing some rather ambitious plans for the next half decade.
MIT student builds an electric self-balancing unicycle
A rather fantastic DIY project to end the year: MIT student Stephan Boyer has built his own self-balancing electrical unicycle to roll with speed around the campus.
Called the "Bullet", the custom steel body holds two 7Ah 12-volt batteries, a 450-watt electric motor and an ATmega328 chip. This gives the solowheel transport a range of 5 miles with a max speed of 15mph. At that speed, it's not going to replace your daily commute; but it makes for the perfect round-campus mode of transportation, as the students in the video demonstration.
YouTube Slam asks you to cast your vote for the next viral hit
Today, YouTube has officially announced Slam, juxtaposing two videos and allowing you to cast a vote for your favourite out of them. Think Google Slam, only bought into the YouTube era.
This represents a "video discovery experiment" for the site, to help find those videos hidden beneath the clutter that is promoted channels and paid-for viral videos, to help give the average contributor a fairer chance at the gold.
Social networking accounts for one in every five minutes of global online activity
So we knew that the social web had taken the planet by storm; but we didn't realise the size of the impact. That was until comScore released a recent report detailing just how much online communities have embedded themselves into our daily internet usage.
Lego Train set used to build data network
We're going to pick up the pieces, and build a Lego IP data-transfer network out of a train set, courtesy of Hackaday.com.
Possibly one of the slowest speed rates out there; but also the most charming. Hacker Maximillien has devised a system that utilises a USB flash drive, to carry data around to different nodes (we'll call them stations) on the rail. The four nodes consist of aluminium foil contacts, which establish the connection from the attached computer to the USB storage on-board the train. After the data is sent across, the drive is unmounted and the power flow is transferred to the train to propel it forwards to it's next requested destination.
Most 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' users choose to be a Sith over Jedi
The recently released 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' has become "fastest-growing subscription MMO in history," gathering over one million users to date, including those who were granted early access a week ahead of time.
EA and Bioware released a press release detailing particular in-game statistics.
Tech journalist sued for the value of his Twitter followers
So how much is a Twitter follower worth? The answer could be $2.50, as phone technology site PhoneDog is suing their former employee Noah Kravitz for $340,000 for the 17,000 followers he kept after leaving.
Anonymous hit US security think-tank
Hacktivist group Anonymous claim they have stolen thousands of emails, passwords and credit car details from Stratfor: a US-based data security firm.
Information at the Austin-based company was unecrypted, meaning obtaining the information was a simple operation. Rather troubling since Stratfor's clients include the likes of the US defence department, Apple inc., various law enforcement agencies and media organisations. The firm has since suspended all operations on their servers.
MotoACTV wristwatch rooted, made into a tablet for The Borrowers
The sport of routing closed Android devices has been somewhat routine and uninteresting to behold. But when you see Honeycomb on the 1.6" display of a wristwatch, you can't help but reclaim the curiosity that fuelled this obsession in the first place.
Motorola's MotoACTV sports watch normally operates on a highly customised version of Android 2.3, with an iPod Nano-esque user interface; but it's gone under the knife and been opened up via Revolutionary's zergRush exploit.
Guns to be removed from Xbox Live Avatar Marketplace
Got your eye on a Lancer or Hammerburst for your Avatar, to give your persona that extra grunt? Well, according to community manager Raczilla on the Epic Games forums, you've got a week to go grab it, as Microsoft are removing and banning the sale of all gun-like items in the Avatar marketplace.
Trololo man makes a comeback
Thirty-five years on and he's still got it. Eduard Khil, a.k.a Trololo man makes his viral encore, yodeling to his heart's content.
As you probably already know as a second language, the 1976 clip from Russian TV of this fantastically cheesy singing individual became a massive viral hit on Youtube in early 2010. Turns out Eduard took note and returned promptly to the big time, not forgetting a single lyric or melody nuance in his time out.
Hajime Research is building a 4 metre tall robot
The people at Hajime Research have started on their path of creating increasingly taller robots than we humans, starting with a 13-foot humanoid.
This new iterative front for the company comes from the strategic goal of building a robot very much in the style of those from 'Gundam' Japanese anime: a 59-foot robot that will be the ultimate challenge, reached through gradual increases.
Save yourself from Facebook 'Frape' with this contractual agreement
Simple criminality encourages one to tamper with a friend's Facebook profile when left open. This recent phenomenon can be counteracted, as Martyn Kelly has drawn up a contract forbidding such acts against each other.
The semi-legal contractual agreement extends to all of the following:
Monkeyshines, gambols, rollicks, gags, deceptions, actions known in the vernacular or plebian languageas 'frape,' 'fraping' or 'frapeage', and thus extended to all devices, physical, digital & supernatural, networks platforms.
The Muppets try Google+ Hangouts in new ad
So Google, being the company to not do things by half, have released a new ad promoting it's social networking efforts, showing the Muppets sharing a 'Hangout' group chat.
We couldn't help but smile at our childhood icons (particular favourite has to be Beaker), share the video conferencing stage to cover Queen and David Bowie's classic "Under Pressure." Google couldn't help but show us the situation where "famously good friends get together in a Google+ Hangout, to rock out and blow off steam."
Stream TV Set To Return To CES With 'Next Generation' Glasses-Free 3DTV
If there was one technology triumphed over anything else at last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it was glasses-free 3DTV; with companies like Toshiba, LG and Sony each showcasing what is possible to achieve without the need for active/passive 3D glasses.
Stream TV, makers of the Elocity tablets, was another electronics company on the show floor, demonstrating its own wares to a sceptical public. Despite little else seen in 2011 from the company in terms of units on shelves (despite promising a 52-inch version in May and 56-inch and 60-inch models in September), the company has now announced its intentions to unveil its new Ultra-D technology at CES 2012.
Have Facebook tell you where you want to go with Suggested Events
Feeling entrapped by the grasp of social media? Facebook keeping you in the house for too long? Why not use the power of networked communities, your check-ins, friends and stated interests to suggest events for you to attend with the newly implemented Suggested Events.
The new feature replaces the 'Friends Events' down to where you'd find it on the menu, so it's relatively easy to find; but we've seen it available on some and not others (maybe a slow roll-out).