- Apple beats out Whole Foods and Nordstrom for best shopper experience title.
Factors that contribute to a good shopping experience, according to the survey, include having customer-centric store design, maintaining shopper history data, creating ambiance, and carrying and displaying a well-organized, 'rationalized' product assortment.
- Twenty fresh high-quality free fonts courtesy of the folks from Smashing Magazine.
Every designer knows that it can never hurt to have some quality fonts laying around in your design arsenal for a rainy day. Having too many shitty fonts in your library and using said shitty fonts often, well that's another story.
- NASA releases brand new Hubble images in honor of the telescope's 20th birthday.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured over 570,000 images of roughly 30,000 objects in our known Universe? What, you didn't know that? Then go ahead and start your day off right with some additional cosmic photography.
- Mr. Plinkett's review of Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones now online.
It's finally here! If you enjoyed the first seventy minute review of Episode 1 than you'll definetly have many a laugh with the ninety minute review of Episode 2. At least... that's what he said.
- A handy tutorial on how to build your very own R2-D2 lamp for under ten bucks.
Yes, with a little cutting, pin-striping, and some paneling you too can have a R2-D2 lamp for your home of office. Bonus points if you can have it make his signature chirping noise when you actually turn said lamp on.
- Ten signs that you might just be obsessed with the Star Wars saga.
Yes folks, if have this many toys on display for public view in your home you probably have an unhealthy obsession with that galaxy far, far away. And no, this picture is not of my living room.
- Blockbuster strikes deal with Warner Brothers to rent movies on release day.
Well, this is certainly a little strange. This deal is not currently available to Netflix and RedBox users - meaning you have to wait quite a bit before seeing new releases from Warner before you can rent them. But for Blockbuster members, you can rent their movie the day it's released on DVD. Okay then.
- External USB storage support might be coming to your local Xbox 360.
...with rumors and images of a slimmed down motherboard floating around the Internet, we may soon see a version of the system without slots for memory units at all. Whatever happens in the future, USB storage has become cheap; this news may cause a newfound interest in the Xbox 360 Arcade hardware.
- A collection of tutorials on how to make a variety of different money origami.
Yes, you really can make anything from a dollar bill heart to a dollar bill t-shirt. My personal favorite is the dollar bill wallet. The sheer logic of putting money in something that is already made of money makes me dizzy.
- Disgruntled employee disables hundreds of cars from the comfort of his PC.
I wouldn't call this so much of a 'hack' (or hacker according to Wired) but rather a disgruntled employee who happened to know his way around a most-likely poorl y designed online security system. If you put functionality like this online without proper security this is just an accident waiting to happen.
- Ars Technica reviews Sony's much-anticipated motion control scheme for PlayStation 3.
It's bad news when you reveal a product this large, with so much riding on it, and within an hour people are putting down the controller and walking away from the demos.
- New survey shows that 12% of employees knowingly violate IT policies.
With 12 percent of those people actively working outside of stated IT policy (and plenty more who do so out of ignorance), IT admins certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to maintain a tight ship.
- The top ten movies that should never, ever be converted to 3D.
It wasn’t bad enough that he made Greedo shoot first; now he wants to mess around with the whole look and feel of the movies. If we haven’t made our case yet, we have but three more words for you: 3D Jar Jar.
- Stride Rite offering up new line of Star Wars sneakers next month (younglings only).
Sorry to build your hopes up with that headline Star Wars fans, but these kicks are for kids only. However, if the comments on the source site are any indication - an adult line of these sneaks would probably sell too.
- Eleven of the world's craziest roads for you to gawk at.
Enjoy this collection of wild and in most cases ridiculously dangerous modes of travel. Maybe it's because I usually have video games on the brain but after seeing these pictures I really want to go play some Mario Kart.
- Ars Technica explains why blocking ads is devastating to the websites you love to visit.
Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn't pay. In a way, that's what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources.
- Miss some of the Oscars last night? Here is a complete list of all the nominations and winners.
It was quite nice to see that Cablevision and ABC were able to set aside there differences just twenty minutes after the broadcast started. Especially after Cablevision promised a free day of On Demand programming (which didn't work) and ABC's sponsors threatened to have them mauled by tigers.
- Man finishes LEGO Star Wars space ship from scratch after just two years.
This model was completed using approximately 30,000 pieces of LEGO and remarkably without the direct use of a licensed LEGO instruction manual. That's right - this Droid Control Ship was assembled using only schematics from a book of Star Wars space ships. That's some impressive architectural dedication right there.
- Ten creative and geeky hoodie designs for your viewing pleasure.
I added 'geeky' to the headline mostly because all of these hoodies are of the Star Wars, comic book or video game variety (not that there's anything wrong with that; I just felt it had to be clarified). Source link also contains purchase links for those who are so inclined. By the way, that R2-D2 hoodie will set you back $92 bucks.
- Internet manages to overtake print consumptionin the U.S. according to Ars Technica.
Only 17 percent said they read the print version of a national newspaper, however, and 50 percent said they read local papers. According to Pew, newspapers were most likely to be read by people who were over 50 or those who don't own cell phones — yikes.
- Students at Mississippi University call upon Admiral Ackbar as mascot replacement.
Ackbar, a member of the Mon Calamari species who led the Rebel Alliance ships into the Battle of Endor, appears to be the early favorite. He has more than 14,000 Facebook fans. Websites like notatrap.org -- 'It's a trap!' was his famous line -- are promoting Ackbar's candidacy.
- Speeding hearse manages to set new world record.
Secretary of the Tasmanian Drag Racing Association John Hurley says the modified 1987 Ford Falcon hearse was a challenging choice of vehicle. 'I guess there's all sorts of weird and wonderful machines that come out to play in drag racing.'
- Some highlights from the International Toy Fair held recently in New York.
No Star Wars collection is truly complete unless you have a carbonite-frozen Han Solo Lego figurine. Side note: this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of when the Empire Strikes Back was released.
- Turns out that Steve Jobs is not a big fan of Flash. Who knew?
...a source of 'security holes.' He also referred to Flash as dying technology, likening not supporting Flash on the iPad to Apple dropping support for floppy drives, ditching legacy data ports, and replacing CCFL backlighting with LEDs.
- Twenty-one unbelievable photos of Mars for your Martian viewing pleasure.
Behold the wondrous splendor of Martian landscapes in all their strange atmospheric glory. After viewing these photographs I have a strange desire to go watch Total Recall. Two weeks!
- Rare asteroid collision caught via Hubble space telescope.
Have a glimpse of what it looks like when two asteroids crash into each other in wide open deep space. Well, not so deep really - this event occured in an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
- Hacking cable modems for profit and advertising this fact publicly not the smartest idea.
Each charge carries a maximum of 20 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. Selling hacked cable modems and advertising them openly may have been a decent business model a decade ago, but it hardly seems worth bothering about today.
- Your brain just might be to blame for your bad video gaming skills.
The researchers recruited 39 healthy adults (10 men, 29 women) who had played fewer than three hours of video games each week during the previous two years. They then examined their brains with the aid of an MRI machine.
- Eleven minute solar eclipse won't happen again until the year 3034 says NASA.
NASA said on its website the eclipse was annular, meaning the moon will block most of the sun's middle, but not its edges, causing it to look like a ring. This blockage will last for 11 minutes, 8 seconds, an annual duration NASA said would not be exceeded until December 23, 3043.
- Intel sales promotion snafu reveals Macbook Pro about to get an upgrade.
A sales promotion for Intel retailers offers a chance to win a MacBook Pro featuring a Core i5 processor during the month of January, though such a machine does not currently exist in Apple's lineup.















































































































