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In the classic time-travel film Back To The Future II, Marty McFly wears a very distinctive pair of sneakers. In 2011, Nike introduced the Nike Air Mag sneakers as a limited edition product – and wowed the film's fans by revealing they were an exact replica of Marty's iconic shoes; and that the proceeds from each pair sold would go directly to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. But there was something missing.
Marty's shoes in Back To The Future II had a cool and unique technology called "Power Laces", which were self-tying laces that meant your shoes would effectively tie themselves the moment your feet settled into them. Many fans loudly decried their absence from the otherwise accurate homage of the Nike Air Mags – but surely such technology was pure fiction, right? According to Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, not any more!
Starting 2015, Nike intends to bring to market shoes with the iconic self-tying Power Laces as designed by Nike's own shoe designers. That timing couldn't be more perfect, as canonically the power-lace-equipped shoes of the classic film were actually said to be introduced in 2015, making a perfect example of art imitating life – one can't help but wonder if Nike have chosen to deliberately delay the launch to fit the events of the film. It's unclear whether the laces will appear on an updated version of the Nike Air Mag or on a new product entirely – which also means we don't yet know what the Power Laces will cost. So, what would YOU pay for shoes that tied themselves?
An undisclosed number of Kickstarter users have been emailed with advice to reset their passwords after the company was made aware of a data breach that may have led to the disclosure of personal information.
Some time in the last 24 hours, Kickstarter updated their website to display a banner on the top of its site for logged-in users, advising them to change their password and providing a link to do so. The advice comes following a statement by Kickstarter – which was emailed to an undisclosed number of users – stating the company was made aware “by law enforcement officials” of hackers breaching their servers to steal account-related information. The advice also recommended users consider using tools such as 1Password or LastPass, which as well as offering storage to let you remember all your passwords, also include password generators to come up with randomised, highly-secure passwords (might I also recommend KeyPass, which does the same but also contains a meter telling you how “secure” any password you type in is likely to be?)
The following is the full text of the email as sent out by Kickstarter – I’ll leave the explaining to them as it puts it better than I could myself:
“On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers’ data. Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.
No credit card data of any kind was accessed by hackers. There is no evidence of unauthorized activity of any kind on your account.
While no credit card data was accessed, some information about our customers was. Accessed information included usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords. Actual passwords were not revealed, however it is possible for a malicious person with enough computing power to guess and crack an encrypted password, particularly a weak or obvious one.
As a precaution, we strongly recommend that you change the password of your Kickstarter account, and other accounts where you use this password.
To change your password, log in to your account at Kickstarter.com and look for the banner at the top of the page to create a new, secure password. We recommend you do the same on other sites where you use this password. For additional help with password security, we recommend tools like 1Password and LastPass.
We’re incredibly sorry that this happened. We set a very high bar for how we serve our community, and this incident is frustrating and upsetting. We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come. We are working closely with law enforcement, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this from happening again.
Kickstarter is a vibrant community like no other, and we can’t thank you enough for being a part of it. Please let us know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. You can reach us at accountsecurity@kickstarter.com.
While it’s disappointing to hear of any type of hack where data is stolen – and a sad reflection of the state of the world today that not even a website that exists to give those with ideas but no money to make them real, the chance to connect with their potential market and get the funding they need, is safe from being hacked – it’s reassuring to see a company own up to the breach so quickly and waste no time in attempting to secure their service better and protect their users. I hope more companies learn from this example.
SEGA has announced the third title in the Nintendo Exclusivity deal. The title is “Sonic Boom”, a Wii U and 3DS game set to tie in with the upcoming Sonic Boom CGI television series.
While this puts to bed questions any rumors about the nature of the third Nintendo exclusive, it’s also causing a bit of a stir. The main issue seems to be the design of the characters which is…unique. Thats if you are being charitable. Personally, I think they are terrible, particularly Knuckles. As one of my own station colleagues pointed out, it was always nice to have Knuckles be the strongman character without being BUFF. Yet now, he’s an overblown block of muscle perched atop tiny toothpick legs.
And lets not even get started on how trashy Amy looks. REALLY SEGA?
Furthermore, this is yet another example of SEGA continually sticking their foot in their mouth. After categorically denying rumors that the sign at the Nuremberg toy fair showing a new Sonic title were incorrect, they turn around and unveil a brand new title. Its literally like the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
I’m a long time SEGA fan, but even my patience is beginning to wear thin. First they deny that something exists. Then they tell us it does. To top it all off, they don’t confirm or deny that it will be on PS4 or XBOX ONE. They CLAIM it’s a Nintendo exclusive. But we all know exclusivity in the console world lasts about as long as a stack of twenty dollar bills in Vegas. Bottom line, SEGA is making themselves look almost as dumb as Microsoft did at E3 last year with the XBOX ONE. We all know they are making a new Sonic game. We all know its going to be coming out soon. So when information gets slipped, don’t deny it and then turn around and confirm it. We aren’t stupid! Just say “Yep. You caught us! New Sonic Game! Free plushies for everyone! Oh, and we’re sorry about Sonic 2006. The developers responsible have been fed to Shigeru Miyamoto as a sacrifice so they would keep Sonic in the new Smash Bros!”
After some very disappointing games (looking at you Sonic 2006) and the blatant cash cow milking of the Mario & Sonic Olympic game’s series, I’m beginning to wonder if it might not be time to put the Blue Blur out to pasture for a bit. or forcibly wrest control of the character from SEGA. If the past few days have been any indication, they sure don’t know what they are doing with the franchise!
Imagine if you could simultaneously play a game on your smartphone while also doing something beneficial to the world as a whole – like helping scientists in the quest to beat cancer in real life? Thanks to a new app by Cancer Research, described as “the world’s first app designed to unravel genetic data”, anyone with an Android or iOS device can stop dreaming and do just that.
In Play To Cure: Genes In Space, players pilot a ship through a hazard-strewn course across space, blasting asteroids on their way, in an apparent mission to collect a valuable material called Element Alpha. As they play, their movements through the game actively aid research into identifying genetic markers that could help scientists identify cancer-causing genes in actual patients in real life.
Cancer Research scientists recently created graphs representing genetic data from 2,000 anonymous breast tumour patients. These graphs often have abnormalities where some part of the genetic make-up suddenly peaks or drops significantly at isolated points, which Scientists believe could identify potentially cancer-creating genes that could help further research into curing and preventing cancer. The problem is, while computers can pick out some likely problem areas themselves, sometimes the peaks are so subtle they can only be picked up by human eyes; and identifying the specific responsible genes also requires precision – so Scientists still need to look at the graphs themselves as well. The more eyes available, the quicker this process will be; but Scientists know that for most people, looking at graphs all day is plain boring.
So game developers at the company Guerilla Tea worked with scientists on an approach that involves regular people in the research while allowing them to have fun as well. The game developers have transformed the readouts into an intergalactic landscape, where your path and the hazards you face are based on a randomly-decided genetic sample. As your ship moves through the game, you map a path across the graph it was based on; and these movements are tracked by the game.
To ensure accuracy, each section of gene data will be tracked by several different players. The information is fed back to the scientists and as more players highlight the peaks and troughs, scientists identify those areas for further research. The anonymity of the cancer patients used for the study will be preserved, the developers promised.
Every single second gamers spend playing our smartphone game directly helps our work to beat cancer sooner. As you steer your spaceship through Element Alpha you are mapping a path behind you. That path is really useful to the scientists because it will help them to identify where the peaks and the troughs are in the data […] by understanding exactly where those peaks and troughs are, we can understand where to go and look for faults in genes that might be linked to cancer […] With [just a few minutes play per player,] we could have an absolutely mind-blowing impact in terms of accelerating research.
-Hannah Keartland, Citizen Science Project Lead, Cancer Research UK
The app is the second “citizen science” project by Cancer Research UK, after the success of Cell Slider, which was also used to aid Breast Cancer research. More than 200,000 people classified almost two million cancer images, reducing the time taken for researchers to analyse a subset of breast cancer samples from 18 months to just three.
Today Wargaming announced that “World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition” will release globally on February 12, 2014. Custom built specifically for the Xbox 360, “World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition” will bring the franchise’s trademark 15 versus 15 team-based tactical online tank action and free-to-play accessibility to the millions of dedicated Xbox Live gamers around the globe.
Published by Microsoft Studios and developed by Wargaming West (formerly Day 1 Studios), “World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition” will be digitally downloadable and free-to-play for Xbox Live Gold account holders, with an additional 7-day timed trial for all other Xbox Live account holders. The title features all new intuitive controls, integration of Xbox Live features like Friends, Parties, Achievements and a custom user interface designed for the large screen experience. “World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition” will also feature in-game purchases such as premium tanks, consumables and premium accounts to boost experience and currency accrual rates.
At launch, “World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition” will feature more than 100 iconic tanks from three separate nations – the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. The game will be expanded with additional tanks, nations and more in the future.
