Turbulenz offers the ability to play the most engaging and connected games the web has to offer today. Games on Turbulenz provide everything, from 3D visuals through to real-time multiplayer, social feeds, leaderboards, and badges. The best part of the Turbulenz experience is that everything is free to play!

This was pretty cool. I tried “Save the Day” and ran over some people with my helicopter — don’t do that.

James Kendrick, ZDNet:

The folks at Lenovo are going into the Chromebook space with the announcement of a version of its ThinkPad X131e for the education market.

Samsung and Acer both make Chromebooks – small, inexpensive laptops running Google’s Chrome operating system, designed to work exclusively with Google’s cloud services rather than depending on local applications. Their big benefit is their cost – available to consumers for as little as $200.

The Thinkpad X131e is an 11.6-inch laptop with Intel processor, 1366 x 768 screen, USB ports and Web cam. The same laptop is already available from Lenovo for schools running Windows for $539. The article does not indicate how much less a Chromebook version would be.

Use of negative space is a factor that is often overlooked but just as, if not more, important than the physical aspects of a website.

Graham Cochrane put together a great video on what phase issues can do to your recorded guitar tone.

Jim and Dan discuss the article put out by the Wall Street Journal “devaluing” Apple and speculate on Dell’s plans with private-equity firms.

Sponsored by Hover, (use code DANSENTME for 10% off) Mailchimp, Sourcebits, and Squarespace (use code DANSENTME1 for 10% off).

You can download it and then pay when you submit your taxes.

Seth Godin:

If you go to work and do what you’re told, you’re not being negative, certainly, but the lack of initiative you demonstrate (which, alas, you were trained not to demonstrate) costs us all, because you’re using a slot that could have been filled by someone who would have added more value.

So true.

And this is why people are flying Virgin.

Many people may have known about this, but I didn’t. I haven’t had that much trouble with the new default behavior though.

Harvard Business Review:

The critics that are screaming right now are intellectually lazy. They’re throwing temper tantrums instead of looking at the big picture. Like two-year-olds, they don’t really know what they want. And they’re not happy when they get it, anyway. Apple could unveil a new car and they’d say Apple’s days are over because it’s just bet its future on an industry it knows nothing about. Not unlike, say, Apple’s entrance into the mobile phone industry. I bet that if Apple did unveil a time machine, they’d claim it wasn’t fast enough.

Tim Cook is taking exactly the right approach, staying the course, despite distracting expectations swirling around him. Apple is a marvel of human achievement.

Don’t worry, Apple fans. This too shall pass.

Oh Google.

Rene Ritchie outlines what an LG smart home would look like and wonders how Apple will fit into that future.

As a result of ongoing testing, we’re announcing AT&T will enable FaceTime over Cellular at no extra charge for customers with any tiered data plan using a compatible iOS device.

Just go read Mark Rogowsky’s article on Forbes. Lots of good points.

That looks cool.

Brendan Sinclair, Gamesindustry.biz:

So when tragedies happen, our response must be galling to those who don’t “get” games. Instead of explaining the merits of what we do, we throw up discussion-ending roadblocks of First Amendment rights and scientific research (ignoring that parent watchdog groups also claim to have the weight of scientific research on their side). It’s not unlike what the National Rifle Association does when the issue of gun control comes up. They say it doesn’t work, namecheck the Second Amendment, and change the subject.

Sinclair is absolutely right – the video game industry has an unfortunate tendency to go the First Amendment whenever anyone in government questions what they’re selling or how they’re selling it much the same way the NRA goes to the Second Amendment.

I really wish both industries would stop rubbing our noses in their respective constitutional rights to exist.

Sinclair also talks about the backdoor marketing of violent video game content to children, despite ESRB ratings:

They put Kratos in Little Big Planet and Hot Shots Golf, Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the cast of Army of Two, Dead Space, and Medal of Honor in MySims: Sky Heroes. Oh, and who could forget the Mortal Kombat animated series?

Sinclair talks about broadcast television’s requirement to serve the public interest with a portion of their programming, and suggests the video game industry do the same.

The problem as I see it with that approach is that left to their own devices, consumers will choose shit over gold almost every time. Otherwise the cable broadcaster once known as “The Learning Channel” wouldn’t be shoveling crap like “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” I don’t think the answer is as facile as “make better quality stuff,” otherwise PBS would be the most-watched channel on television.

iRig HD features superior digital audio quality, and offers a premium 24-bit A/D converter for a crystal clear digital signal that’s free from noise and crosstalk. Plus, its ultra-low-draw power-consumption circuitry eliminates the need for batteries – it’s powered by your mobile device or computer. An onboard gain control allows you to dial in the perfect signal level for your instrument and apps, and a multicolor LED lets you know what’s going on with your interface and signal.

IK Multimedia is taking the Apogee Jam approach. A much better idea in my opinion.

“Apple needs to adapt to a very different world,” Sculley said. “As we go from $500 smartphones to even as low, for some companies, as $100 for a smartphone, you’ve got to dramatically rethink the supply chain and how you can make these products and do it profitably.”

Seriously? The guy that kicked Steve Jobs out of Apple and then ran the company into the ground is giving advice to Tim Cook, a supply chain guru. What’s Bloomberg got on tap for tomorrow to give Apple advice, an interview with a car full of clowns and a skateboarding dog?

The Atlantic:

Astronauts can, certainly, tear up — they’re human, after all. But in zero gravity, the tears themselves can’t flow downward in the way they do on Earth. The moisture generated has nowhere to go. Tears, astronaut Andrew Feustel put it, “don’t fall off of your eye … they kind of stay there.” NASA spacewalk officer Allison Bollinger, who oversaw Feustel’s EVA, confirmed this assessment. “They actually kind of conglomerate around your eyeball,” she said.

In other words, yep: There’s no crying in space.

Even worse? According to the article, “space tears” actually can hurt.

Some tips from the Lightroom team.

Jonathan Penn outlines another way for developers to produce App Store screenshots, following up on today’s earlier post.

With Pixelmator you can resize your images quickly and easily, while the resized pictures remain crisp and sharp.

Love Pixelmator.

Congrats to the After Effects team.

Over the weekend we brought you word that an online petition asking the U.S. government to build a Death Star had elicited an official response.

The whole thing was tongue-in-cheek, of course. The White House’s Chief of the Science and Space Branch penned a response shooting it down based on cost, design issues (the Death Star can be destroyed “by a one-man starship”) and the administration’s policy on “not blowing up planets.”

Now the administration’s position has evoked a response from the Galactic Empire itself. The bloggers at the official Star Wars Web site, posting as “Galactic Empire Public Relations,” painted the Obama administration’s position as confirming “the overwhelming military superiority of the Galactic Empire” and discounted the administration’s cost projections as not taking into account the Empire’s own massive economy of scale. An Empire spokesman also dismissed any attack attempting to exploit an alleged weakness in the Death Star’s design as “a useless gesture.”

We look forward to the inevitable counterpoint response from the Rebel Alliance.

Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called “Graph Search.” It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.

Who gives a fuck.

Very interesting.