GeekSugar

NYU to Start Offering Degrees in Video Games

GeekSugar — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:02:10 -0800

And your parents said all that video game playing would get you nowhere! If you really take your gaming seriously, you could take it to college - New York University is going to start offering degrees in video game design, research, and development.

Higher education has never seemed more appealing; gaming doesn't just have to be something you do in between classes.

Next Fall, NYU's course load will increase to add classes like The History of Donkey Kong and Feminist Theory: Princess Peach's Resistance. Just kidding about those course titles, but a girl can dream.

In the meantime, would you major in video games?

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The Kindle DX Has Landed

GeekSugar — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:55:57 -0700

This morning in NYC, Amazon's founder and CEO Jeff Bezos officially announced the Kindle DX, the larger-screened (9.7 inches large) wireless reading device. Unlike the Kindle 2 (which holds up to 1,500 books), this bad boy can be filled with 3,500 books with its 3.3 GB of memory. It also features an auto-rotating screen, a built-in PDF reader, and the battery life is said to last four days with wireless on and two weeks when it's off.

As you can probably guess, the bigger screen makes it easier to read books, newspapers, and magazines. And so far, five universities have already agreed to test it out, and three major newspapers will pilot the Kindle DX for a reduced price (the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe), so that subscribers will sign up for longer time periods. Bezos also revealed that Amazon has signed a partnership with three of the top textbook publishers that account for 60 percent of textbook sales.

You can preorder the device now (which is said to have a Summer release date) for $489.

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Tips For Creating an Online Wedding Registry

GeekSugar — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:40:39 -0700

I'm not married, or engaged, but the idea of creating a wedding registry totally excites me - dancing around a store (ahem, 27 dresses) with a barcode scanner, scanning to your hearts desire?! Good times indeed (yes, I'm delusional!). Scratch that thought for just a sec, and let's get back to basics and practicality - online wedding registries.

What's great about having an online registry is the fact that friends and family from all over can take part in the gift giving and the whole process is much easier than searching for gifts in stores. If you happened to miss CasaSugar's helpful guide to getting an online registry started, I'm going to give you a few more tips and suggestions.

First thing's first, deciding what stores meet your needs and which ones you want to be registered at. Thanks to sites like MyRegistry, the universal gift registry, you have the freedom to mix and match items from any of your favorite sites and stores to create the ultimate gift registry.

For more tips to setting up your online registry, read more.

Signing Up For Traditional Registries Online in One Place
The most traditional registry spots are Tiffany & Co., Bloomingdales, Macy's, Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Neiman Marcus, Restoration Hardware, Fortunoff, Gump's, REI, Target, JCPenney, Barneys New York, and Dean & DeLuca. You can actually create a registry at all these stores via the Wedding Channel website.

Register Based on Your Lifestyle
Macy’s Wedding and Gift Registry has created an “instant” registry bank for different types of couples and it's surprisingly preceptive and vast. You can just click on personality types like "Jet-Setters," "True Romantics," "Happy Hipsters," etc and get a look at kitchenware and gadgetry that will likely fit your interests. You can check it out at TheKnot.

Don't Forget Practical Gifts
Stores like Target and Amazon seems to one of the best spots for gifts of all kinds. You can register for the regular housewares and high-end electronics in the same place. You can also ask for gift cards from stores like Apple and Best Buy.

The Best Gift You Can Give
If you really don't need gifts consider passing your guests' generosity to someone in need. JustGive is a great nonprofit organization that offers an online Charity Wedding Registry. Couples can choose from any of the 850,000 charities in the US, add personal information about themselves and their wedding, send an email to friends and family notifying them of their registry, and access password-protected reports that detail who has donated to what charity on their registry so they can send out timely Thank You cards.

And don't forget to include your registry info on your wedding website!

To see all of our wedding coverage, check out IDoSugar.

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New Google Maps 'Street View' Causes Ruckus

GeekSugar — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:39:42 -0700

The new Google Maps Street View feature, which allows users to click on maps in major cities and get real images of the street, is causing a real ruckus on the web. In order to make the map work, Google had to send out a van with a bunch of 360-cameras to get street level images. Turns out, not all the images they picked up are the kind people want broadcast throughout the universe. Captured pictures of an old man jaywalking, a smiling man walking out of a strip club and two fellas walking into a cannabis club have made their mark in San Francisco, while two college gals sunbathing at Stanford University are making their mark on "oh there's a girl nearly naked" scene. And don't even get me started on the image (pictured at right) of what looks to be ET touching down in New York. Turns out, the view from the street might be more exciting than the view from the top afterall.

To check out additional images, read more

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How does the Google Maps Street View feature work?

Source: Buzzfeed

Geek of the Week: Kristen Bell

GeekSugar — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:13:16 -0800

Kristen Bell fanatic eclaireassuch nominated little Miss Veronica Mars as geeksugar's Geek of the Week after creating a Veronica Mars fanclub. The funny thing is, Kristen just happens to be featured on the cover of this month's Geek Monthly, a hot new magazine that covers all things geek. I have to concur, Kristen manages to play up the chic geek role better than anyone these days. "She's always using crazy gadgets (on Veronica Mars) that I have no idea where her character gets the money for - and she carries a taser. I'm not sure if that's geeky or gangsta, but still. She's also always outfiting iPod shuffles and little tiny things with minuscule cameras. If that's realistic, you'd have to be really geeky to know how to do that."

In real life, Kristen is seven years older than the high school student she portrays on Veronica Mars, attended New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts and (this is my favorite part) is a vegetarian and animal rights activist. Geek chic is right! For a galley of pretty photos from the Geek Monthly photo shoot, read more

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Want to know more about Kristen Bell? Check out the Kristen Bell fan site!
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Wii-diculous - Playing the Wii in a Movie Theater

GeekSugar — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:03:11 -0800

This group of geeky fellas deserves a medal. Lead by Jon Peck, who is a Zend Certified Engineer and Technology Support Professional at the State University of New York at Oswego, Ed Forth and Chris Van Deuson created the ultimate Wii experience: movie theater Wii sports. The group figured out how to play their Wii in a movie theater on a 344" screen using a homemade wireless sensor bar. Geek out!

For more on how they did it, just read more

Jon Peck says:

One of my friends is a manager at a local movie theater, which uses a digital projector to show advertisements between features. After seeing the It Burns When I Wii video, we figured we could one-up it with the equivalent of a 344" television screen. We wanted to use my friend's Nintendo Wii in the theater, but we didn't want to have to deal with yards of cabling. Inspired by doctabu's design, I built my own wireless sensor bar for less than $20. Doctabu left out something important; a resistor, which is needed to limit the current to the LEDs.

For more about the project, and a full list of the essential items in order to get Wii-diculous, check out John Peck's blog.