Guy Builds Giant Version Of A Pocket Lighter That Can Shoot Flames Eight Feet
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This is a video of Youtuber BrainfooTV discussing the build of, then testing (by burning a bunch of stuff, heck yeah!) the giant version of a pocket lighter he built from a propane torch and various pipes and valves and fittings. The result is pretty sweet, although that’s certainly not something I want laying around the apartment when the police come by asking about last night’s fire. “What fire?” I don’t know of any fire, I was at home all night Netflixing with my girlfriend. She made him watch ‘How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.’ Back me up honey. ‘I totally did that.’ See? You believe me, right? “That was definitely you throwing your voice. Besides, everyone knows you’re a pyromaniac.” I’m not a pyromaniac, I’m a pyromancer, there’s a difference. “What’s the difference?” Mostly just the spelling.
Keep going for the video, but skip to 4:30 for the testing to begin.
Thanks to K Diddie, who’s going to have to start counting his own Geekologie gold star tipping awards and tell me how many I owe him at the end of the week.
Google opens Maps to bring the real world into games
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Pokémon Go and other games that use real-world maps are all the rage, but there’s a catch: they typically depend on semi-closed map frameworks that weren’t intended for gaming, forcing developers to jump through hoops to use that mapping info. Google doesn’t want that to be an issue going forward. The search firm is both opening its Maps platform’s real-time data and offering new software toolkits that will help developers build games based on that data.
The software includes both a kit to translate map info to the Unity game engine as well as another to help make games using that location data. The combination turns buildings and other landmarks into customizable 3D objects, and lets you manipulate those objects to fit your game world. It can replace every real hotel into an adventurer’s inn, for instance, or add arbitrary points of interest for the sake of checkpoints.
It’s going to be a while before you see games based on these frameworks. As with augmented reality kits like ARKit and ARCore, however, they could lead to a surge of titles from developers who previously would have had to write a lot of this code themselves. Now, they can focus less on the nuts-and-bolts aspects and more on the actual gameplay.
The move comes as cryptocurrencies—and especially “initial coin offerings” of new digital tokens—have come under increasing scrutiny by regulators. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission warned that many cryptocurrency exchanges are operating outside the law. Authorities have alleged that some cryptocurrency offerings are outright frauds, while many others are just extraordinarily risky investments.
Cryptocurrency markets reacted negatively to the news. The price of bitcoin is down about 6 percent since the Wall Street Journal first reported the new policy early Wednesday morning. Other major currencies, including Ethereum and Litecoin, are also down modestly.
Google’s new policy is broad. Google is not only banning advertisement of cryptocurrencies themselves, but also “initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice.”
In the same announcement, Google said it was also banning binary options, a financial instrument that either pays out a fixed amount (like a dollar figure or a share of stock) or else pays nothing. This type of asset is prone to fraud, and some jurisdictions ban them outright.
Ad Agencies Retell Classic Fairy Tales via Short Commercials [Videos]
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Ad Agencies Retell Classic Fairy Tales via Short Commercials [Videos]
The Greatest Stories Retold is a fun project where 13 world-renowned ad agencies were asked to reimagined various classic fairly tales in the form of short commercials. The result? A broad spectrum of imagination and creativity. showing that how stories are told is just as important as the stories themselves. Check ’em all out below!
Goldi’s Locks by 72andsunny Sydney
The Feast of the Wolf by Grey
Project Candy House by BBH China X Eagle Media
Pigsty or Palace by Enerdy BBDO
Jacky and the BeantCoinstalk by F/Nazca
Puss in Boots by Hecho en 72
Hers and Hairy’s by J. Walter Thompson New York
Thumbelina by Ogilvy Mumbai
Nadia Rose – Trapunzel by Ogilvy London
Snow White: The Fairest in Hollywood by Publicis New York
At the Stroke of Midnight by TBWA \ Chiat \ Day
Rumple-Stiltskin-Gold.com by The Richards Group
The Swan by BBH London
Advertisement
Tech
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Facebook, Which Is Totally ‘Not a Media Company,’ May Launch a Video News Channel
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Just when you thought Facebook was getting out of the news business, it’s… getting into the news business—but with video!
The social network reportedly plans to test out a news video section for its Watch tab, which will begin rolling out this summer, Axios reported on Tuesday. To do so, Facebook will partner with around 10 “legacy and digital-first news publishers,” according to sources who spoke with Axios, which will produce daily video series for Watch.
“Timely news video is the latest step in our strategy to make targeted investments in new types of programming on Facebook Watch…” Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships for Facebook, said in a statement to Axios. “As part of our broader effort to support quality news on Facebook, we plan to meet with a wide-range of potential partners to develop, learn and innovate on news programming tailored to succeed in a social environment. Our early conversations have been encouraging, and we’re excited about the possibilities ahead.”
When Facebook’s Watch tab rolled out last year, it contained a lot of viral garbage. Since then, it has slowly filled up with short video content from both individual producers as well as publishers like Wired (and Gizmodo.) Meanwhile, Facebook has stopped showing its users so much news due to that whole “fake news” and Russian propaganda thing. A move into publisher-produced video news certain seems like a step back in the other direction on the grounds that working directly with legitimate news outlets will help ensure it’s not spreading complete bullshit.
It also marks Facebook’s steady deviation from its earlier assurance that it isn’t media company. “No, we are a tech company, not a media company,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in August of 2016. In December of that year, he walked back his statements a bit, noting in a Facebook post that he thinks of the social network “as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through.” He continued:
“While we don’t write the news stories you read and share, we also recognize we’re more than just a distributor of news. We’re a new kind of platform for public discourse—and that means we have a new kind of responsibility to enable people to have the most meaningful conversations, and to build a space where people can be informed.”
A year and some change later, and it looks like Facebook is finally ready to have a hand in not just distributing the news, but in creating it. While Facebook is painting this as a move toward more legitimate news, it’s still disconcerting considering that the company is still grappling with a nightmarish flood of misinformation plaguing users’ feeds. In the absence of cleaning up its current fake news problem, rolling out another news product feels deeply misguided.
We have reached out to Facebook for comment and will update with a response.
It Took Almost 10 Days to 3D-Print This Giant Millennium Falcon Model
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3D printers haven’t quite ushered in a new industrial revolution, but every day it seems there’s another irrational reason why you might consider buying one. As this soothing timelapse reveals, if you’ve got the patience to wait almost ten days, you could 3D print yourself an impressive replica of the Millennium Falcon in a single pass.
Typically, when we see 3D-printed replicas as large as this 2.3-foot long Millennium Falcon, they’re assembled from hundreds of smaller 3D-printed parts. But YouTube’s stonefx83 didn’t want to go to all that trouble, so he simply scaled up Andrew Askedall’s 3D model of the Falcon, and then let his printer run for over nine days and 21 hours straight.
The machine consumed over six-and-a-half pounds of plastic filament in the process, and thankfully didn’t screw up once, which would have required the entire print to be restarted from scratch. Oh, that’s why no one 3D-prints giant models like this in one pass.
Ever since he was a kid, David Aguilar was obsessed with Lego. He spent his childhood building cars, planes, helicopters, and eventually, his own prosthetic. Born with a deformed arm, the self-named “Hand Solo” decided to take his Lego-building skills to the next level. At age 18, he perfected his designs with the MK2, a prosthetic arm with the ability to bend and pick up objects with a pincer-like grip. Now, he’s the coolest kid on the block.
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