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'Birth' is the macabre indie game quietly crushing the convention circuit
“Showing Birth at conventions feels like putting my whole, raw, beating heart on a table in front of a bunch of strangers and asking if it is enough for them,” creator Madison Karrh said.
Health and beauty tech continues to fail pregnant women
There's a thread on Fitbit's Feature Suggestion forum titled, "Add Pregnancy/Nursing mode for more accurate calorie estimates," with the first comment logged in December 2013. It was locked at 328 comments and 1,388 upvotes. In the comments, hundreds of women chimed in to agree and add their own requests, including tweaks to Fitbit's menstruation-tracking features, nursing settings, weight-gain monitoring and other pregnancy-specific notifications. A moderator lurked, editing labels and updating the status of the request. At 4:41PM on May 6th, 2014, a moderator updated the pregnancy-feature thread to "New." By February 14th, 2015, the status had shifted to, "Not currently planned."
Uterus transplant recipient gives birth for the first time in the US
A woman who received a uterus transplant has given birth to a baby -- a first in the US, Time reports. She is part of an ongoing uterine transplant clinical trial taking place at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and she, like the other women in the trial, has a nonfunctioning or nonexistent uterus. Her uterus was donated by another woman, Taylor Siler, who wanted to be able to give someone else the opportunity to have a child. The trial, which accepts both living donations, like Siler's, and donations from deceased individuals, will complete 10 transplants. Eight have been completed already and while at least three have failed so far, a second trial participant is now pregnant following a successful transplant.
APB: Reloaded's version 10 to feature car surfing and more
GamersFirst has taken the wraps off APB: Reloaded's next patch. The version 10 update, otherwise known as New Breed Part Three, will appear "in the next few weeks" according to the latest edition of the APBR dev blog. The patch introduces two new T5 contacts, Birth and Templeton, both of whom bring a laundry list of new features to the game including vehicles, weapons, and modifications like Spotter and Car Surfer. The former is about what you'd expect given the name, as it allows players to paint enemy targets and display them to teammates (even through walls). Car Surfer, naturally, allows you to ride on a vehicle's roof. Check out a couple of quick example videos after the break. You'll find more like them on APBR's official site.
Foto Find: Angry Birds breakfast
This is super cute -- a breakfast styled to look just like the popular Angry Birds app. A woman had some complications during her pregnancy, and she was bedridden and restricted to only eating certain types of food during childbirth. So, her husband started making food art, using the various foods that she could eat in the morning, and he eventually came around to this little tribute to one of the most popular games on the App Store. It's wild -- those are pickles and carrots along the bottom, whole grain Eggo waffles in the middle, halved hard boiled eggs for the birds, and I'm not quite sure what the pigs are; they're probably some kind of veggies. But he even got the eyes and the eyebrows just right. Very impressive! Parenting magazine says she's due in December, and we definitely hope that everything works out all right. [via Neatorama]
Canon gives its workers time out -- for love
As you're no doubt aware, Japan is a country where the twelve hour workday is pretty well standard, the population is aging faster than any other in the world, and the economy is all "recessionized" -- not the most auspicious circumstances for makin' babies. With a national birthrate of just 1.34, the populace is in danger of disappearing -- but don't fear! Canon has a plan. The company is encouraging its employees to leave work at 5:30 PM twice a week, hoping that a couple shameless early-off days will relieve some stress and encourage folks to use their time, well, productively. In other news, we have it from a reliable source that Bad Company album sales are at an all time high in Tokyo.
Ask Massively: Babies, rings, and the Wild West
Thursday again, and that means its time for round two of our new advice column, Ask Massively. This week we're tackling what will happen to Lord of the Rings Online in 2008 (with guest shots from almost all the Massively staff), as well as creating some MMO offspring, and why cowboys and indians haven't jumped on the MMO bandwagon yet.If you'd like to ask a question of Ask Massively, it's super simple-- just leave your question as a comment on this post to get it answered next week, or leave us a note via our tipline. This week's Ask Massively kicks off right after the jump, so click the link below!
UK report predicts rights for robots; your AIBO wants a tax break
If you've got someone who loves you, holds down a steady job, helps you out, reads your mail to you, takes care of you, and even gives birth, it's only fair that they enjoy the same rights and liberties as everyone else, right? What if that individual is powered by an Intel processor? Concerns over the status of robots in our society around 2056 have emerged from "one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King," the UK government's chief scientist. Essentially, folks in favor of robotic rights suggest that if conscience bots are made to interact with humans, they should share a certain level of rights. Currently, the machines we know and love (and fear) are classed as "inanimate objects without rights or duties," but if rights were passed, somehow these creations would be forced to obey traffic lights and potentially pay taxes. Of course, a large concern is ethics towards these creatures, but some say that if robots in society are "correctly managed," it could lead to increased labor output and "greater prosperity." Although this stuff may seem pretty far-fetched right now, the logic behind it could actually grow legs in the (somewhat) distant future, but until there's a robotic candidate on the presidential ballot, we'll just keep on keepin' on.[Thanks, Fred R. and Laura O.]
