Sim racing keeps on moving toward higher-end accessories, while there have always been top-shelf components available to the hardcore, games like Gran Turismo 5 are encouraging more and more people to want a more and more realistic driving experience. Fanatec has been delivering that experience for years and its $250 Porsche 911 GT2 is the company’s latest and highest-end product, offering a luxurious Alcantara covering, the obligatory 900 degrees of rotation, and full compatibility with force feedback for the PC, Xbox 360 , and PlayStation 3 . Fanatec was also kind enough to send us a set of its $200 Clubsport pedals to hit the virtual road with. Click on through to see how we did. Gallery: Fanatech Porsche GT2 wheel and Clubsport pedals Continue reading Fanatec Porsche GT2 wheel and Clubsport pedals review Fanatec Porsche GT2 wheel and Clubsport pedals review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …For only the second time in known history, doctors have performed a successful voice-box transplant. Brenda Charett Jensen was unable to speak for more than a decade without using a device that produced robotic-sounding speech. Less than 2 weeks after her October surgery at UC Davis, she was able to…
Continue reading …A Virginia teenager stuck in Kuwait for a month after he was apparently placed on the US government’s no-fly list was reunited with his family at a Washington-area airport early Friday morning. (Jan. 21)
Continue reading …US airlines didn’t have a single fatality in 2010—a feat that’s at once rarer-than-you’d-think and becoming more common. Fatality-free years have not historically been unheard of in aviation, but they’ve been sporadic occasions—until now. This is the third time in the past four years that US carriers have…
Continue reading …The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords could have been averted if America had government-run health care, according to left-wing comedian Bill Maher. That's just the first instance of liberal media advocacy that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell touched in the January 20 “Media Mash” segment on FNC's “Hannity” program. “This is the desperation that they're in to sell ObamaCare, that they know the American people don't want,” Bozell argued. Video embedded after page break or click here for MP3 audio . Maher should know that the the problem lies more with liberal groups like the ACLU who have made it near “impossible, in some cases for the state to treat mentally sick people” like Jared Loughner, the MRC president added. Bozell also addressed the ABC's defense of ObamaCare, painting the repeal that conservatives want as a “disaster”: Why is it that after two years of [the media's] non-stop selling [ObamaCare], this is not selling? Six out of ten Americans want this thing repealed. Eight out of ten were happy with their own insurance. Why is it that they cannot simply say the reason this was repealed was because the American people don't want to pay huge billions of dollars in new taxes, they don't want their freedoms taken, they don't want to see something that's blatantly unconstitutional. Why not report on the reason why it was repealed instead of a shameless press release for Nancy Pelosi? Hannity and Bozell also addressed the media hyping Ron Reagan's claim in a new book that his father the late president may have suffered the earliest onset of Alzheimer's disease while in office: SEAN HANNITY: You know, I've got to give credit to one person in the media, and this was Barbara Walters, and she said she spent more time with the president than he did and she didn't believe him.
Continue reading …Venus Williams, the women’s fourth-seed, withdrew from the Australian Open Friday because of an injury. The seven-time winner of a Grand Slam event had never withdrawn from aa major before because of injury. (Jan 21)
Continue reading …We’ve known that AT&T has been test-marketing free 3G MicroCells to subscribers with particularly awful reception in certain parts of the country since the product launched last year, but as of January 23rd, they’re codifying the offer and taking it nationwide. Bottom line: the “top 7.5 percent of 3G wireless customers identified as likely to experience poor in-building coverage at home or in small offices” will be receiving some snail mail with a discount code; bring it into an AT&T store and you’ll be offered a gratis MicroCell. There’s a catch, though — you need to agree to a one-year contract on the unit (separate from your normal account contract), so if you cancel service within that year, you need to either return the MicroCell or get charged $199.99 minus $16.67 per month that you’ve had it. Of course, that lines up with the newly-increased MicroCell price that the carrier is instituting starting this Sunday. Considering that AT&T needs to acknowledge that you’re in a terrible reception area to get it, we can’t say we’d hope to be one of the “lucky” 7.5 percent — but it’s a nice benefit nonetheless. AT&T offering free MicroCells to top 7.5 percent of customers ‘likely to experience poor in-building coverage’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …photo: Andrew Booth / Creative Commons Recently released NOAA data showed that 2010 tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record (that’s since 1880, when records began in the US); and now the World Meteorological Association agrees, with a slight amendment. The WMO considers the data coming from NASA, the Nat… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Click here to view this media You know how Glenn Beck is now innocently proclaiming that he doesn’t use violent rhetoric ? On his radio show, he claimed you had to go all the way back to 2005 and his rant about killing Michael Moore to find any. Er, not exactly. For example, there was this from June 9, 2010: The media and the politician have all of this wrong. In every single walk of life — you want to know why TV doesn’t reflect you? You want to know why Washington doesn’t reflect you? Because they don’t understand, from the radical revolutionaries to the Islamic extremists — and yes, DOJ, they do exist — to the Tea Party movements. Just because you in Washington and you who are so out of touch with life in the media, just because you don’t believe in anything doesn’t mean nobody else does. We do. You know why you’re confused by this show? It’s because I believe in something. You don’t. Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the Founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government. I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don’t. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep’s clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends. You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you. Now, a few critics have misread this particular screed a bit; he’s not advising his audience to shoot these liberals in the head, rather, he’s actually advising mainstream Democrats that someday they’re going to have to “shoot” the “far left revolutionaries” they’ve invited into their tents. But there’s no question, regardless, that this is in fact classic violent rhetoric. And as Jeffrey Feldman warned back in March when discussing the violent rhetoric of the 2010 campaign season: When Americans threaten to use firearms to enforce their political views, the violent threats carried by that language undermines the system of public debate on which our system depends. Healthy political debate can sustain a great deal of anger and passion, but it cannot sustain repeated threats of violence and calls for violent assault as a form of political engagement. Moreover, this particular ramble is so incoherent and confusing that he might as well be urging his audience to shoot liberals — because frankly, that’s what it comes out sounding like. Perhaps just as importantly, rhetoric like this also sends a message: it gives permission to violent (and perhaps mentally unstable) actors to do their thing. Guys like Jared Loughner. I’ve added some further examples of Beck’s violent rhetoric — all from his tenure at Fox, in the past two years — to the video above in case anyone needed further evidence that, once again, Glenn Beck is lying.
Continue reading …More than a dozen people connected to the New Jersey waterfront are making court appearances to face charges that include extortion and illegal gambling. It’s part of a massive bust of reputed mob figures in the Northeast. (Jan. 21)
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