Friday, September 29, 2006

New Zealand filmmaker, Peter Jackson and screenwriter Fran Walsh announced at the X06 convention, Wednesday, that they are teaming up with Microsoft to create Xbox and Xbox 360 games with their new company, Wingnut Interactive.

Wingnut Interactive will initially create another video game based on sci-fi series Halo with help from Microsoft and Bungie Studios, but staffed locally in Wellington. His second project can be whatever he likes, while trying to bring new people into the world of gaming.

Peter Jackson spoke to New Zealand news broadcaster, 3 News and said: “I want to able to experiment with ways of telling stories that’s not using the structure of a movie. It’s immersive and interactive, but it goes beyond (today’s) games. It’s what we’ve been looking forward to for 10 years. I’m sure it will start small and if things go well it will expand to fit whatever this turns into.”

Simon McCallum, computer scientist from the University of Otago, said: “For the new company to succeed it would probably need to employ a mix of industry veterans and about 20 or 30 top computer science graduates. However, at the moment New Zealand would struggle to fill any new jobs. In the past two years demand for computer science graduates had tripled while supply had halved.”

The New Zealand Game Developers Association said around 140 people work in the development of video games in New Zealand. They say the industry is worth between NZ$8 million and $10 million each year. “There is a lot of potential to do something very very big and something very revolutionary. We’ll just have to see what happens when the game comes out in a few years time, whether they deliver on that,” said Mario Wynands, from the New Zealand Game Developers Association.

David Mclean, director of Australia and New Zealand Xbox, said: “The whole ten billion dollar video games business will be looking at New Zealand and what Peter Jackson produces. There is no release date yet, because Jackson will take as long as necessary to ensure the games meet his exacting standards.”

Kerry Prendergast, mayor of Wellington said: “The venture’s potential boost to Wellington’s economy is enormous. Certainly the early advice I have is that it is worth millions of dollars and more jobs in our city.”

Peter Jackson is the producer for the movie version of Halo which is to be shot next year, in Wellington. Jackson also worked with Ubisoft to produce the King Kong video game.

Jackson said: “Xbox has fundamentally changed how people think about games. My vision, together with Microsoft Game Studios, is to push the boundaries of game development and the future of interactive entertainment.”

Microsoft also announced at X06 that it is releasing a HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, which will come bundled with a free HD-DVD version of King Kong for a limited time only.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Yesterday at about 10:30 pm local time (2030 UTC) in the French city of Nice, a truck killed at least 84 people and more than 100 people were injured, at least 18 critically, who were watching fireworks on Bastille Day evening, French officials reported. The attacker was later shot dead by the police.

The attacker drove for some distance — by one report as much as 2 km (more than a mile) — through the crowd along the Promenade des Anglais. The owner of the Le Queenie Restaurant near the seaport told  France Info, “People went down like ninepins”.

Agence France-Presse reported police had discovered identity papers of a 31-year old Tunisian-Frenchman along with, according to one source, fake weapons including rifles and an “inactive” grenade.

20-year-old eyewitness Fanny told Reuters the fast-approaching truck was moving in a zigzag manner, driving in the pedestrian area. Another survivor described sheltering with others in a restaurant. An eyewitness named Nader told BFM TV he thought the driver had lost control of the truck. Later, he also saw the driver taking out a gun.

European Council President Donald Tusk said, “Tragic paradox that the subject of the Nice Attack was people celebrating liberty, equality, and fraternity”^{((fr))French language: C’est un tragique paradoxe que les cibles de l’attaque Nice attaque soient les gens qui célébraient liberté, égalité, fraternité}.

French president François Hollande tweeted, “France is tearful, sorrowful, but she is strong and will always be more than the fanatics who now want to smite her.”^{((fr))French language: La France est éplorée, affligée, mais elle est forte et le sera toujours plus que les fanatiques qui veulent aujourd’hui la frapper.}

A few hours before the incident, Hollande had announced the state of emergency would be lifted on July 26 after November’s Paris attack, but after this incident, he announced extending the state of emergency into October. Condemning the incident, he said, “We will further strengthen our actions in Iraq and in Syria.” He also said “operational reserves” will be called up to support the armed forces in France.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

An attempt to cap the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has hit yet another obstacle, reported officials from British Petroleum (BP).

Friday night’s attempt to install a 6-inch (15.2cm) tube into the leaking drill pipe was only the latest in a series of efforts by BP to stop or slow down the spill. Previously, the oil company had tried to enclose the pipe with a large container dome, and then lowered a smaller “top hat” container dome. The siphon tube method is designed to reduce the amount of oil flowing into the ocean, but is not a permanent solution to stopping the leak altogether. It will draw the oil from the broken pipe to a tanker at the surface, said BP.

The tube was to be inserted into the broken pipe by robotic submarines, but the attempt on Friday to do so was unsuccessful, causing it to be taken back up for changes. The problem was a metal frame on the tube, which had changed position and this prevented the tube sent down from the drill ship Discover Enterprise from connecting. The tube had not been inserted into the leaking drill pipe before it was brought back up.

BP said that it would try again Saturday night (local time) to slow the leak using a reconfigured tube. If this attempt is unsuccessful, they will use the smaller dome to cap the leak, and may also try to plug the leak by covering it with trash, mud, or concrete. The company is already in the process of drilling relief wells to completely stop the leak, but this is expected to take several more months. The amount of oil currently leaking from the pipe is disputed, and BP said it has spent several hundred million US dollars in response to the oil spill.

BP was also given permission yesterday by the US Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency to use chemical oil dispersants to combat the spill.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Many media outlets traditionally deliberately spread hoaxes on April Fools’ Day, including notable quality sources such as National Geographic and Science.

The popular British tabloid The Sun wrote that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to undergo stretch surgery to make him taller than his wife, Italian artist and model Carla Bruni. The report claimed the 5 foot 5 inch leader would be made 5 inches taller in one year using a method by Israeli professor Ura Schmuck. The Sun noted that during his visit to Britain last week, Sarkozy had high-heel shoes while his wife wore a pair of flat pumps.

The Guardian on the other hand ran an article that suggested that Carla would head an initiative by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to bring more glamour, good taste and sophistication to the U.K. general population. This would involve collaboration with Marks & Spencer for high-street fashion and Jamie Oliver for meals and wine.

BBC News had real-looking footage of flying penguins fronted by documentary host Terry Jones, which were actually an advertisement for its new iPlayer.

Friday, June 1, 2007

A former mailman who proposed to paint the town hall pink, turn the local town square into a nudist pool, and to plant a marijuana field in the local park has been elected to the Reus, Spain town council.

Ariel Santamaria promised to show up to the town’s council meetings dressed up as Elvis Presley if he was elected and kept his word at the town’s first meeting on Thursday.

Before being elected, Santamaria who is a member of the Reus Independent Coordination, had also promised the town’s 100,000 residents that he would install a GPS system at the police department that would allow officers to track people who are smoking marijuana and provide them with a light if they need one.

An unnamed media consultant who works for Santamaria set up a website for his campaign and followed Santamaria wherever he went, dressed as a pirate.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Methane gas was blamed for the explosion deaths of 8 miners in southern Polish‘s Halemba coal mine Tuesday, November 21. Officials say at least 15 are missing.

Rescue efforts were halted because dangerously high levels of methane gas returned, according to Zbigniew Madej, spokesman for state-owned Coal Co., which operates the mine.

The missing miners’ locater devices were not emitting signals, increasing rescurers’ concerns for their well-being. Grzegorz Pawlaszek, head of Coal Co., said the 15 missing miners’ fate is “not known,” but added that “there is a chance to find someone still alive.”

“This is a tragedy. People have died here,” Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said when he came to Ruda Slaska to see the blast.

Earlier Wednesday, a reconnaissance rescue team descended 3000 feet toward the blast scene, only to retreat because of safety concerns related to high methane gas levels. Rescue digging efforts were also halted because of explosion concerns.

The missing men were aged 21-59. One of the miner’s family members, Andrzej Pytlik, 30, remained on scene with his sister, hoping and waiting for news of her husband, Krystian Gaszka.

Pytlik, also a miner, said through teary eyes that, “I work in the mines and I know that hope is scant because that’s the truth.”

The explosion occurred in a closed portion of the mine where the now-missing miners were working to retrieve abandoned equipment. According to Pawlaszek, the value of the equipment was $23 million, adding that “It was new equipment and that is why we decided to retrieve it.”

He indicated that the recovery work was performed under the supervision of gas detection specialists, and that the bodies of the recovered miners were difficult to identify because of the severity of burns and because their ID tags were blown away in the explosion.

The Halemba mine, located in Ruda Slaska, has produced coal for nearly 50 years, has been fraught with safety concerns and has a track record of serious accidents. One of the oldest mines in Poland, it is centrally located in the industrial Silesia region.

Earlier this year, a miner was trapped underground in the Halemba mine five days after a cave-in. In 1990, 19 miners were killed and 20 hurt in a gas explosion, and five were killed in collapse in 1991.

Inside, priests and mining officials were comforting and counseling with distraught relatives. Outside, eight white candles flickered on a main gate wall.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Ernest Krajniak from Chilton, Wisconsin in the United States has been charged with arson after a lit cigarette ignited gasoline soaked clothes, setting his apartment ablaze.

On Friday April 3, Krajniak, 47, cleaned his entire apartment with about five gallons of gasoline, wiping everything down with the soaked clothes. After he was finished, he piled the soaked clothes in the center of his bedroom, lit a cigarette and then threw what was left of the still lit cigarette, into the pile.

Krajniak never called the fire department and never pulled the alarm. Instead he yelled ‘fire’ a few times then walked to the police station where an ambulance took him to a local hospital for the treatment of minor burns. The fire department later arrived to put out the blaze and his apartment was extensively smoke damaged. 11 other apartments were also damaged, leaving the occupants without a place to stay for at least a week.

“I should have never used that,” said Krajniak during a court appearance on Monday. He admitted to knowing that gasoline was highly flammable. He was arrested and his bond has been set a US$2,500. Krajniak’s next court appearance is scheduled for Monday, April 13. According to WISinfo.com, Krajniak has no prior criminal record.

The careless smoking of cigarettes has been blamed for thousands of fires across the U.S. In January 2008, an unnamed elderly woman in Buffalo, New York was receiving oxygen for medical problems in her home and lit a cigarette and began to smoke it. The oxygen coming from her mask then facilitated the ignition of her clothing, setting her on fire.

In the U.S. in 2002, only 4% of all residential fires were reportedly caused by smoking materials. These fires, however, were responsible for 19% of residential fire fatalities and 9% of injuries. The fatality rate due to smoking is nearly four times higher than the overall residential fire rate; injuries are more than twice as likely. Forty percent of all smoking fires start in the bedroom or living room/family room; in 35% of these fires, bedding or upholstered furniture are the items first ignited.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Yahoo! has launched a beta version search tool at http://search.yahoo.com/cc, designed to locate content on the web under a Creative Commons (CC) license. While most copyrighted material on the web does not allow reuse, other than “fair-use” allowances, copyrighted material held by Creative Commons licensing allows the public to reuse material in a variety of ways specified by the copyright holder under the licensing agreement.

The nonprofit organization behind the license, Creative Commons, was founded in 2002 by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. The organization provides 11 agreements customized for use in various countries. Depending on the licensing agreement, users can reproduce or modify the work as long as they mention the original creator. Some licenses prohibit reusing works in a commercial setting.

Not everyone is impressed by the new search tool. Shelley Powers, author of Practical RDF from O’Reilly Press, writes in her book’s blog, “Since CC licenses are recorded using a standardized meta language,” Yahoo! is, “just checking for this information in the process of their normal operations.” John Batelle of Searchblog points out that A9.com incorporates a similar feature in A9.com’s Open Search. Wikinews reporter Pingswept found that A9.com requires registration and login to use the Creative Commons search.

Lessig recently reflected on Creative Commons’ success in a guest post at Yahoo!’s search blog. Describing an event at the launch of Creative Commons Korea, he said: “At the end of our final celebratory dinner, one of the judges who had helped launch CC-Korea asked me, ‘so what will make CC in the world as successful as CC-Korea?’ And I recognized, for the first time, that this project that we started two and a half years ago had finally left home. I was no longer asking others to help; others were demanding from me a success to match their own.”