This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net

When was the last time you actually read through an entire EULA? Unless I’ve encountered one that was only a couple of lines in length, I probably have never read one completely. After all, who wants to read through pages of legal mumbo-jumbo just so they can install something? Armed with this knowledge, British retailer GameStation acquired the souls of roughly 7,500 unsuspecting customers.

As part of an April Fool’s stunt, the company added the following clause to their Terms and Conditions page:

By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions. We reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act.

Of course if you actually took the time to read the fine print, you’d find that this was an optional clause:

If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction.

The amusing part is that the few people who found this gem were given a £5 voucher. If you’ve been feeling a little hollow since making a purchase from GameStation, fear not. The company will be sending out notices nullifying any claim they may have had over your eternal soul.

[ GameStation ] VIA [ GamerFront ]

Those wacky artists at Art Lebedev are at it again. This time, they’ve created a concept clock that uses a single laser beam directed by 60 rotating mirrors to tell us what time it is.

The bad news is, as cool at it would be to have, the Reflectius (is that a spell in Harry Potter?) is just a concept. And I’m entirely sure that it will ever be made. Lasers are notoriously sensitive about heat, and having a laser on all the time just to be used a clock just isn’t practical. Of course, when was the last time you saw a product from Art Lebedev that was?

[via Endgadget]

The idea of having a 64GB card in your camera is a strange one. I take a fair amount of pictures in RAW, yet I rarely if ever run up against the edge of my 8GB card. I mean, you’re shooting digitally and regularly offload your pictures, right? The only situation I can think of where this might be useful is one where you literally have to shoot thousands of pictures in a row (somehow the battery must last that long) without ever switching out a card or dumping them into your image editor. When was the last time you took four thousand pictures in one go?

I suppose people shooting high-definition video might find these useful. You’d have to have a bunch of them in array, though, because data throughput is pretty limited right now (the SanDisk one goes at a poky 9-15MB/s). But at $350 per card, you’re paying way more per gig than you would if you just got a 1.8″ SSD or two — and they’ve got fantastic write rates. Plus, again, you’d probably run out of battery before you ran out of space, even shooting at 4K or something.

There’s really no market for these right now, unless I’m overlooking something. Not that I don’t think it’s cool — I mean, it’s totally sci-fi that I could carry around my entire music collection in the coin pocket of my jeans, but right now there’s really no reason to. Give it a year, though, and these things will be looking much more practical.

Update: Ahh, I thought of one use. Storage in a small form-factor computer like a tablet. Can always use more space there. Still too expensive for that, though.

Just because something is cool doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Transparent displays, for instance: we’ve all seen them in movies. Of course, the reason they’re transparent in movies is because A: it looks cool and B: it lets the camera see the operator’s face. It’s not because the set designer for “Minority Report” knew something Samsung doesn’t.

So while the idea of a laptop or tablet with a transparent screen sounds good at first, you soon realized just how useless it is. When was the last time you wished you could look through your display to the wall or table behind it?

The only reason a screen should be transparent is to allow you to interact with what’s behind it. But a transparent display can’t do that, since you can’t accommodate multiple viewpoints. A camera on the back of a device may let you interact with the world around you, but not something see-through. I mean, on a windscreen, maybe, but a laptop?

Anyway, if they do make it, it’s probably just for kicks. Not sure why I feel the need to rub their face in the impracticality of it. Go for it, Samsung. Be awesome.

This is great. Original reviews of classic gadgets and computers are fun because you can marvel at the things that were new and mysterious then, but beyond commonplace now. In this review of Sony’s CDP-101, it is noted that there are many buttons, but no knobs. How things have changed, and now we value knobs as high-end and disparage buttons as peasant interfaces.

This one is lower and wider, has a horizontal drawer that slides out to accept the disc, and has much more flexibility of control. Audiophiles will however be dismayed to note that there is nothing on it to adjust; there isn’t even a knob to diddle. But there are plenty of buttons.

After the unit is turned on, a touch of a button opens the loading drawer. The disc goes in label-side up, playing-side down. To close the drawer, you can push the same button again or simply select a band for playing.

They also remind you of how far we’ve come. The digital encoding of music may have lost something in the early days (some would argue has never been recovered), but the medium made possible a perfect replicability and precision that some would say vinyl lacks.

The most immediately noticeable characteristics of the CD sound are its awesome lack of background noise and its almost unbelievable freedom from strain during the loudest passages. After a while one starts to notice other things. For example, the low end seems to have no bottom limit. In fact I am willing to bet I was hearing stuff at the extreme bottom that the record producers hadn’t heard, because some of it was soft but obviously extraneous infrasonic noise—occasional thuds that were totally unrelated to the music.

I mean, when was the last time you thought, “Ahh, what a refreshing lack of background noise!”

Definitely an interesting read for anyone interested in the history of technology.

[via Retro Thing]

I heard from a woman from France yesterday. She told me about her experience with dental implants. One did not make it. Implants don’t always ‘take’. What was truly interesting about this conversation is that she never realized that her lost teeth were most likely due to gum disease. This plague on humanity is the number one cause of tooth loss.

She complained in the same way I did and many others do when they find out they have gum disease, "Why didn’t my dentist tell me?" There is not really a great way to answer that question. The focus of many dental practices is to fix teeth. This is understandable. As a result there are very few champions of prevention.  The Hydro Floss is useful tool that very few are aware of. 

When was the last time your dentist set you down and told you how to prevent cavities and gum disease? Perhaps they told you about brushing and flossing. Yet, gum disease and cavities are still very prevalent around the world despite this minimal advice

There are two troubling issues here. Is there a way to prevent dental disease beyond brushing and flossing? Second, if so, should someone tell us about how to prevent cavities and gum disease?

This assumes that someone really knows how. On the other hand, the question is more complicated than that because every human body is different and what works for one person may not work for another. Conditions, chemistry and other factors vary too much. This is why medicine is considered an ‘art’ and not a ‘science’. Some claim to get results from the hydrofloss oral irrigator.

On the other hand, doctors and dentists are bound by protocols that restrict them in what they can recommend to their patients and keeps them focused inside certain boundaries. They don’t have time to investigate or validate modalities and treatments outside the ‘standard’ care. But who is dictating that standard care? That’s a question for another article.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and entertainment purposes only. It does not intend to render advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have or think you might have gum disease or any other health problem, visit your periodontist or physician for advice, diagnosis and treatment. The USFDA has not evaluated statements about products in this article.

Author Dave S.