Liam Frost

Holy crap. The Nike Mag is real—and you can score one of a very limited edition of 1500 pairs starting tonight at 11:30 PM EST on eBay.

Here’s the deal—Nike has reproduced the Mags from Back To The Future and will only sell 1500 pairs off to the highest bidders. All of the proceeds will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease Research and Google‘s Co-Founder Sergey Brin will match the bids.

The shoes will be faithful reproductions of the originals, though the power lace technology will be absent since it isn’t really ready for primetime. However, the sneakers will feature LEDs and an electroluminescent Nike logo.

Gah! I am so excited about this! And if this hasn’t got you psyched enough, check out the promo videos after the break.

By the way, you might want to check out Letterman tonight as Michael J. Fox is scheduled to appear. The timing seems to suggest that there will be some sort of announcement.

That having been said, interested parties should head on over to nikemag.eBay.com at 11:30 EST to try and score a pair. Apparently, none of the shoes will ship until each pair is sold.

(via Techcrunch)

The BBC has aerial footage of a huge blaze in the London Borough of Croydon, after violence broke out on the U.K. capital's streets for a third day. Camberwell, where I lived for years, is reportedly in a state of panic, with shops being vandalized in nearby Peckham. Sky News reports that there is now unrest in Birmingham.

The building on fire is the House of Reeves, a 140-year old furniture business.

Residents report widespread looting in Croydon's downtown, with updates appearing regularly on the the local newspaper's liveblog. One odd aspect of all this is that it's unfolding live on TV and twitter in one of the world's wealthiest and most high-tech cities, with politicians on-hand to condemn events occurring in front of their very eyes. But that seems to be all they can do about it.

Labour Party MP Diane Abbott expressed astonishment that the police were unable to prevent the continued looting: "is the Metropolitan Police telling us they can't be in two places at once?" The Guardian speculates that the Police are so accustomed to well-planned "kettling" operations that they are simply unable to cope with roaming groups who aren't filing their protest march routes. [via Mennonot]

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who had refused to cut short his vacation, has finally decided to return to the U.K., as has Prime Minister David Cameron.

The unrest was sparked after Metropolitan police shot dead 29-year-old Mark Duggan and did not contact his next of kin. The force has apologized to his relatives. Forensic evidence from the scene of the shooting is still being examined. [BBC]

You have to wonder who at Capcom figured this week, the start of Comic-Con, was the right time to announce the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3. It was a game crafted not only for fans, players who have been waiting 11 years, but by fans, as well.

It's not like Comic-Con is, you know, an entire convention dedicated to the fandom of geek entertainment.

"We are thinking about having all of you help by participating in the development of this game in a variety of different ways," said Mega Man Legends 3 director Masakazu Eguchi when the project was announced last October. "Your efforts will help us launch the rocket we are building to rescue Mega Man! Once the rocket is launched and successfully lands on Elysium, the game all of you have been working will be complete, and will usher in the release of Mega Man Legends 3!"

Comic-Con jokes aside, Capcom shouldn't be surprised by the bitter comments and ugliness after inviting fans on day one, asking them to be part of the development process. While there was always the chance that Capcom would decide to cancel the project, nothing like this had been attempted before. It was bold. Incorporating fan feedback is one thing, but to actively solicit their ideas and build them in midstream is another.

When the project was announced, Capcom made it sound like, "Hey, this is happening! Rejoice!" At the point that you're ready charge gamers to play a prototype version of the game on eShop, expectations are set.

And yet, Capcom fell back on the "oh, development" excuse when explaining the cancellation. It rang hollow--so fans pounced.

"From the outset the MML3 Project was intended to give gamers across the world insight and input into the development process," said the company this week. "Part of this process includes an assessment of whether the title will go into full production, and is based on a number of criteria with input from different sectors of the company. Unfortunately it was not felt that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project met the required criteria, and it is with regret that we must announce that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project has been cancelled, meaning that Capcom will not be releasing the Prototype or the full game."

"Assessment [is based] on a number of criteria." "Not felt [it] met the required criteria." Those are vague explanations that are understandably infuriating for fans who had invested their own personal time into this project.

The outrage has even extended to Comic-Con, which kicked off yesterday. There were rumors floating around that Capcom wasn't allowing Mega Man cosplayers into its booth, actively kicking out anyone who violated this rumored corporate policy.

"We welcome all cosplayers to our booth at Comic-Con," the company said. "Anything else you've heard is outright false."

Adding insult to injury were the bizarre explanations from Capcom Europe's Twitter account, which insinuated the fans had not put enough enthusiasm behind the project, resulting in the decision.

"We weren't asking people to do much but response to dev rooms was cool at best," said an update last night. "It's a shame the fans didn't want to get more involved :-( if we saw there was an audience for MML3 people might change minds."

Naturally, people were pissed off. This prompted Capcom Europe to quickly roll out a more nuanced explanation.

"Seems I upset some of our friends across the pond," said the retraction. "Sorry. We're not blaming anyone. Especially those that worked so hard on the Dev room. The original comment was in relation to the interaction in the Dev rooms NOT the fans who have been nothing but supportive. [...] That was a flippant answer, it was a shame lots of people didn't get involved in Dev room to devleop [sp] the game was my point."

Here's the problem with that, though. Capcom told fans they didn't have to get involved in order to show their support for Mega Man Legends 3. The evidence is found within Capcom's own videos (scrub over to 1:55):

Of course, the president of Capcom is not managing Capcom Europe's Twitter--it's the community team. The hyperbolic response and ensuing dogpile was a reaction to Capcom's unsatisfactory answers for why the game would never see the light of day.

Confusion over how to respond to Mega Man fans spilled over to Capcom USA, too, with vice president of strategic planning and business development Christian Svensson taking to the Capcom Unity message boards, unable to explain what happened on the Capcom Europe Twitter account.

"As far as the Capcom Europe thing, I'm not sure what that's about," said Svensson. "I do know that the European fanbase for MM [Mega Man] in general is far smaller than NA [North America] or Japan."

Capcom USA's Twitter account never referenced the comments by Capcom Europe. In fact, it never mentioned Mega Man Legend 3's cancellation at all.

Svensson seemed to be grasping at straws to provide fans with hope regarding Capcom's plans, as the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 comes not long after the cancellation of Mega Man Universe.

"I wish I had some other nugget of MM news to share for you guys to get excited about (we had Legends to focus on when we cancelled Universe) but I'm really at a loss," he continued. "I've got nothing I can share right now. I know it seems difficult to believe (and I expect loads of neg[ative] comments after this because of that lack of information) but MM is still really important to the company as a brand."

The official line from Capcom offered little to cling to.

"Mega Man is still an important franchise within Capcom’s portfolio and we will continue to pursue opportunities to create new titles in the series," said the company.

Svensson did confirm the fan and media anger had been vocalized to Capcom Japan during his most recent weekly meeting with higher-ups, but Svensson did not indicate what, if any, kind of response he'd gotten.

Bummer feelings extended to the development community, too. Skullgirls developer Reverge Labs poked fun at Capcom Europe's insinuations regarding fan interaction and the vocal disappointment the game would never come to fruition.

"They’ll never get to play Mega Man Legends 3 because, you know, the fans didn’t make enough art or program enough of the engine," cracked the studio on its blog. "Stupid fans--here’s some art to make you feel bad for what you didn’t do."

Even series co-creator Keiji Inafune couldn't help but chime in on the cancellation of the game. Mega Man Legends 3 is a game Inafune had been pushing for at Capcom for years. Inafune left the company in late October, just weeks after the initial reveal.

"The decision for the cancelation was out of my sphere, but as someone who took part in the development," he said on his personal blog, translated by Andriasang, "I'd like to convey something to the staff: I'm sorry that I couldn't be of assistance."

Inafune launched his new company, Comcept, in December of last year.

"I'm truly sorry I couldn't take part through the end," he added. "I didn't buy a 3DS for this project, but at the very least I'd like to have played the demo."

Players probably would love that, too, but Capcom has already said no.

Mega Man 10 was the last major Mega Man release. Mega Man Online, an online MMO not being developed internally at Capcom, is scheduled for sometime this year. It has not been confirmed for release outside Korea.

If you'd like to show your support, there's a Facebook group called "100,000 Strong for Bringing Back Mega Man Legends 3" that's well on its way to passing 10,000 likes on the social network.

That explains a lot. (via The Uniblog )

Well, that worked out.

A small secondary school in Ireland is doing something extraordinary -- ditching textbooks for iPads. Starting in September, St Coleman's College in the town of Claremorris in the west of Ireland will give students the option of learning from regular textbooks or specially equipped iPads, according to The Irish Times.

The school made the decision after consulting with students, teachers and parents for weeks. In the end, 96 percent of the people consulted supported the switch from books to iPads. Each iPad will be preloaded with a suite of educational apps.

Together the iPads and apps will cost €700 each, but the price will be spread across a three-year period. School principal Jimmy Finn told the Times that the value for the money was obvious. "It is a bit of a unique idea, but we have to continue to move with the times," he said. Finn also noted that the switch to the iPad isn't mandatory, and parents can choose to stick with textbooks for their children, though something tells me that if the children have it their way, the choice will clearly be the iPad.

Textbooks swapped for iPads by Irish school originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I want to go to there

The Chuck Taylor sneakers Converse Japan is putting out for Super Mario Bros’ 25th anniversary are cool enough, but check this packaging!

Too bad Chuck Taylor’s make my feet look huger than they already are. Also, I don’t live in Japan.

(Sneaker News via Albotas)

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Always been a fan of Adam and Joe. Great to see Joe getting his shot

Continue reading Australians might want to pick up Witcher 2 on GOG

Australians might want to pick up Witcher 2 on GOG originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 10 May 2011 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From the White House photo description on Flickr: "President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured."

Some questions and fleeting observations after viewing the larger size, some of which are picked up from Neil Mann's Twitter feed...

* There was some talk on the news wires of CIA director Leon Panetta and the National Security team watching the operation unfold, real-time, via live video. Is that what they're doing here? And how did that work?

* Are they viewing the moment of the kill, or perhaps the body?
* Wonder what that mosaic'd document was. Guesses?

* The document beneath it looks like the aerial shot of the compound one can also see on Google Earth.

* Next to Obama on the floor, there's a burn bag.

* Man next to Clinton has a "Secret Service" lanyard around his neck.

* Clinton's holding a binder that says "Top Secret Code Word NOFORN, For use in White House Sit Room only."

* They're using HP laptops.

* Ethernet, no wireless.

* Clinton's expression is particularly intense.

* Seating arrangement.

UPDATE: TIME has more context.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

UPDATE: Many photoshops will bloom. Here is one.

And below, by popular demand.

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Holy crap!Holy crap!Holy crap!Holy crap!

Production in Albuquerque, New Mexico begins today

by Paul Montgomery

This morning in New Mexico, Avengering is going on. Production has begun on next year's major motion picture event, Marvel's The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon. Here now from Marvel is the first production image, featuring some very exciting chairs. 

I wonder if the packing materials for these chairs featured a note reading: "Some assembly required." I'm so bad. 

Here's the final principal cast list from Marvel: 

"Robert Downey, Jr. (“Iron Man,” “Iron Man 2”) returns as the iconic Tony Stark/Iron Man along with Chris Hemsworth (“Thor”) as Thor, Chris Evans (“Captain America: The First Avenger”) as Captain America, Jeremy Renner (“Thor,” “The Hurt Locker”) as Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo (“The Kids Are Alright”) as Hulk, Scarlett Johansson (“Iron Man 2”) as Black Widow, Clark Gregg (“Iron Man,” “Thor”) as Agent Phil Coulson, and Samuel L. Jackson (“Iron Man,” “Iron Man 2”) as Nick Fury.  

"The star studded cast of super heroes will be joined by Cobie Smulders (“How I Met Your Mother) as Agent Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as Tom Hiddleston (“Wallander”) and Stellan Skarsgård (“Angels & Demons,” “Mamma Mia!”) who will both reprise their respective roles as Loki and Professor Erik Selvig from the upcoming Marvel Studios’ feature “Thor.”"

Set for release in the US on May 4, 2012, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is the first feature to be fully owned, marketed and distributed by Disney, which acquired Marvel in 2009.

Production in Albuquerque, New Mexico begins today and will eventually shift to Cleveland and New York. 

Is it next May yet? Is it this May yet? 

This full-size Lego Minifig space helmet concept from designer Jonathan Robson is intended to be a learning aid for children. As a child Robson was a Lego Club member and he attributes the comics that came in the monthly club magazine with helping him learn to read. The helmet is his way of giving back.

A life-size LEGO Space Helmet plays downloadable audio tracks for comics. The concept designed by Jonathan Robson is based on a LEGO helmet with a gold space visor. The helmet acts as a headset for listening to the audio for LEGO comics as well as a role-playing toy. Once subscribed to Audio Comic, you’ll receive the LEGO comic through the post with your activation code to download the audio onto a USB brick. Simply slot the brick into the back of the helmet, put it on and enjoy the exciting LEGO Audio comic experience! Two buttons on the side of the helmet allow to skip through pages in the audio tracks.

Again, the helmet is only a concept at this point, but it’s a cute idea. Even the instruction manual for a breadmaker would be thrilling when filtered through this helmet.

(Jonathan Robeson via DesignSpotter)

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Book is now listed by bordeebook only for $976.98

A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extra copy of Peter Lawrence's The Making of a Fly – a classic work in developmental biology that we – and most other Drosophila developmental biologists – consult regularly. The book, published in 1992, is out of print. But Amazon listed 17 copies for sale: 15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping).

I sent a screen capture to the author  - who was appropriately amused and intrigued. But I doubt even he would argue the book is worth THAT much.

At first I thought it was a joke – a graduate student with too much time on their hands. But there were TWO new copies for sale, each being offered for well over a million dollars. And the two sellers seemed not only legit, but fairly big time (over 8,000 and 125,000 ratings in the last year respectively). The prices looked random – suggesting they were set by a computer. But how did they get so out of whack?

Amazingly, when I reloaded the page the next day, both priced had gone UP! Each was now nearly $2.8 million. And whereas previously the prices were $400,000 apart, they were now within $5,000 of each other. Now I was intrigued, and I started to follow the page incessantly. By the end of the day the higher priced copy had gone up again. This time to $3,536,675.57. And now a pattern was emerging.

On the day we discovered the million dollar prices, the copy offered by bordeebook was 1.270589 times the price of the copy offered by profnath. And now the bordeebook copy was 1.270589 times profnath again. So clearly at least one of the sellers was setting their price algorithmically in response to changes in the other's price. I continued to watch carefully and the full pattern emerged.

Once a day profnath set their price to be 0.9983 times bordeebook's price. The prices would remain close for several hours, until bordeebook "noticed" profnath's change and elevated their price to 1.270589 times profnath's higher price. The pattern continued perfectly for the next week.

But two questions remained. Why were they doing this, and how long would it go on before they noticed? As I amusedly watched the price rise every day, I learned that Amazon retailers are increasingly using algorithmic pricing (something Amazon itself does on a large scale), with a number of companies offering pricing algorithms/services to retailers. Both profnath and bordeebook were clearly using automatic pricing – employing algorithms that didn't have a built-in sanity check on the prices they produced. But the two retailers were clearly employing different strategies.

The behavior of profnath is easy to deconstruct. They presumably have a new copy of the book, and want to make sure theirs is the lowest priced – but only by a tiny bit ($9.98 compared to $10.00). Why though would bordeebook want to make sure theirs is always more expensive? Since the prices of all the sellers are posted, this would seem to guarantee they would get no sales. But maybe this isn't right – they have a huge volume of positive feedback – far more than most others. And some buyers might choose to pay a few extra dollars for the level of confidence in the transaction this might impart. Nonetheless this seems like a fairly risky thing to rely on – most people probably don't behave that way – and meanwhile you've got a book sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Unless, of course, you don't actually have the book….

My preferred explanation for bordeebook's pricing is that they do not actually possess the book. Rather, they noticed that someone else listed a copy for sale, and so they put it up as well – relying on their better feedback record to attract buyers. But, of course, if someone actually orders the book, they have to get it – so they have to set their price significantly higher – say 1.27059 times higher – than the price they'd have to pay to get the book elsewhere.

What's fascinating about all this is the seemingly endless possibilities for both chaos and mischief. It seems impossible that we stumbled onto the only example of this kind of upward pricing spiral – all it took were two sellers adjusting their prices in response to each other by factors whose products were greater than 1. And while it might have been more difficult to deconstruct, one can easily see how even more bizarre things could happen when more than two sellers are in the game. And as soon as it was clear what was going on here, I and the people I talked to about this couldn't help but start thinking about ways to exploit our ability to predict how others would price their books down to the 5th significant digit – especially when they were clearly not paying careful attention to what their algorithms were doing.

But, alas, somebody ultimately noticed. The price peaked on April 18th, but on April 19th profnath's price dropped to $106.23, and bordeebook soon followed suit to the predictable $106.23 * 1.27059 = $134.97. But Peter Lawrence can now comfortably boast that one of the biggest and most respected companies on Earth valued his great book at $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping).

Michael Eisen is an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the evolution and population genomics of gene regulation in flies. This post was republished from his blog.

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F Yeah!

Losing Darren Aronofsky was a major blow for Wolverine, but it appears the franchise is trying to rebound in a big way. 20 Century Fox has a meeting with Duncan Jones to discuss the possibility of the young director taking on Wolverine as his next project. And, this is more than just some Internet rumor, as Empire confirmed the meeting with Duncan himself. Here’s a quote that Jones gave to IGN:

"[Wolverine is] more interesting to me than Batman. A good Wolverine film could be an amazing thing."

Now, before we get too carried away, Jones is still very keen on working on his own material, most likely in the form of Mute. Mute, of course is the Blade Runner homage the director has been talking about doing for quite some time now. Still, if Fox can nab Jones that would be a major boost to a franchise that needs a strong filmmaker to step in and fill Aronofsky’s shoes. And I’m sure Jackman is pressing the studio to find a strong director to helm the project, because he is so committed to the role. He has repeatedly said the script by Christopher McQuarrie is fantastic and that he would be keeping his workout regimen up to keep his signature look for the film ready to go.   

I absolutely loved Moon and was a fan of Source Code despite it not ending when it should have. Needless to say, I think Jones would be a great fit for this one. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if he thinks the same.

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Whats Sheppard doing in eve?

This trailer came out of CCP Games' EVE Fanfest 2011 and it is amazing. It shows CCP's pre-rendered vision of how their space MMO EVE Online will interact with their upcoming console shooter Dust 514. In a nutshell, EVE players will be handling the space components of the persistent universe while console players will be fighting out the planetary ground wars.

Maybe it's because it reminds me of Mass Effect, or just because I love space battles, but the last third of the video actually gave me goosebumps. That, or it's time to put clothes on. Either way, I'll have to keep my eye out on Dust 514, because I have never been able to get into EVE -- and probably never will at this point.

EVE Fanfest 2011 is still going on, and you can check out a livestream here if it is still working by the time you read this.

EVE Online: A Future Vision trailer shows a future vision [PC Gamer]

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For anyone thinking of getting one...

Guest post by James Britton

Ireland: the land of Guinness, shamrocks, leprechauns and soon - Thinner. Lighter. Faster. FaceTime. Smart Covers. 10-hour battery. Well, the Yanks have had their two-week head start, now it's our turn. It's the eve of the international launch of iPad 2 and excitement is building here in Dublin. We've got a quick preview of what to expect in Ireland for Apple's big day today.

Compu b, the only Apple Premium Reseller in Ireland and the closest thing to a bonafide Apple Store in the Republic, will have limited stocks of iPad 2 on hand from 5 PM local time today. The stores will close at 4 PM then reopen at 5 PM and there are four locations in Ireland where you can queue up: two in Dublin, one in Limerick and one in Cork. I spoke with one of the staff members in the central Dublin location on Grafton Street and he confirmed they would indeed have them. Unfortunately, he did not have any information about quantity available and was even a bit dismissive of my questions about the launch. I'll chalk that up to the fact that he was probably exhausted from dealing with the 999 other people who had similar questions.

Fortunately, their website will be updated with more details as they become available. After checks with all the major mobile phone networks, it appears Compu b is the only reseller in Ireland that will be selling the iPad 2, apart from Victoria Square in Belfast, Northern Ireland. However, it might also be worth checking HMV since they have been selling the first-gen iPad.

Pricing

Prices will start at €479 (including VAT) for the 16 GB WiFi-only iPad, all the way up to €799 for the 64 GB 3G-enabled model. Following are the current 3G data plans offered by the four major networks:

3 - 30 days, 15 GB allowance for €19.99

Meteor - 30 days, 7.5 GB allowance for €19.99

O2 - 30 days, 5 GB allowance for €20

Vodafone - 30 days, 5 GB allowance for €20

None of the plans require an activation fee, all are pay-as-go, VAT is included and bill-pay plans are available with higher data allowances. These plans are very generous, especially the one from 3. Competition is a good thing.

Keep glued to TUAW for more iPad 2 launch coverage from the Emerald Isle.

iPad 2 Ireland launch guide originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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