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Donald Rumsfeld helped make an iPhone game
Like him or hate him, Donald Rumsfeld has been a jack of all trades -- and apparently, that now includes mobile games. The veteran politician has teamed up with programmers to release Churchill Solitaire, an iOS game based on the card game that Winston Churchill supposedly played to sharpen his strategic thought processes. Rumsfeld was strictly a creative director (he's not exactly a coder by trade), but his influence is everywhere. Reflections on Churchill's life appear while you're playing, and even the pricing mirrors Rumsfeld's values -- while the base game is free, hints and retries cost money ("there are damn few undos in life," he says).
Google adds the 'Polar Bear capital of the world' to Street View
One of the more immediate effects of climate change is that the icy habitats of the Polar Bear are very rapidly evaporating. In an attempt to connect people more directly to the issue, Google and Polar Bears International have teamed up to bring the evidence straight to Street View. Attaching a Trekker Backpack to the charity's specially adapted vehicle, the pair have mapped the frozen tundra of Churchill, Manitoba, otherwise known as the "Polar Bear capital of the word." In addition to the harsh landscape, the team have captured a few of the most famous four-legged residents, so if you fancy getting up close and personal with nature, head down to the source link and get looking.
MAG trailer requires your inspirational battlefield speech
Do you frequently find yourself filling the role of an inspirational leader amongst your group of friends? Do you utter phrases such as "once more into the breach" and "screw your courage to the sticking-place?" You sound like a likely candidate to win a recently added contest on PlayStation.Blog -- all you need to do is write an "inspirational battlefield speech" for Zipper Interactive's upcoming plus-size shooter, MAG.Winners may hear their speech included in an upcoming trailer for the highly anticipated title, and will receive an ambiguous "fantastic MAG prize" to boot. Unfortunately, the contest's rules hamstring entrants by prohibiting cursing and quoting other legendary leaders. You'll have to save your profanity-laden Churchillisms for your Anachronistic Civil War Re-enactment Club.
Gigabyte intros Churchill mini DTX motherboard
As this year rolled in, AMD introduced a DTX open standard in hopes of boosting the allure of SFF adoption, and sure enough, Gigabyte took the bait. The firm's first mini DTX motherboard, dubbed Churchill, reportedly "serves as a base for AMD's Live! Home Media Server platform," and supports the Socket AM2 Athlon 64 and Sempron single- / dual-core processors. The mobo also features a SiS761GX north and SiS966 south bridge, an integrated Mirage 1 graphics core, a single PCIe slot, one vanilla PCI slot, six SATA ports, a total of eight USB 2.0 connectors scattered about, an built-in audio to boot. No word on pricing just yet, but the wee board should slip in under your nose sometime in July.
Britons build working replica of the Turing Bombe
Just in case Al Qaeda or other "evildoers" du jour decide to start communicating in code via the WWII-era Enigma code -- we'll have the Turing Bombe on our side. This working replica of the machine used by British cryptologists at Bletchley Park, the epicenter of the counter-Enigma effort was unveiled at that site earlier this week. According to an article by The Register: "The Bombes used 108 electromagnetic spinning drums to test combinations of letters and reveal the likely keys to the Enigma code used in a particular message." The article goes on to say that Churchill ordered the 200 Bombes that had been built dismantled by the end of the war, and that it wasn't until the 1970s that the classified nature of these devices was lifted. Unlike the shrouded secrecy that its original was wrapped in, this replica will be open to the public -- from September 23-24, there will be a reunion of Bletchley Park veterans and a special demonstrations with war re-enactors in period dress. No word on who will play Alan Turing, though, but our own England bureau chief, Conrad Quilty-Harper, is a likely candidate.[Via The Register]
