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IBM AI fails to beat human debating champion
After suffering defeat to AI at Go and Dota 2, the battle between man and machine was starting to look a little one-sided. But a human has finally notched up a win against our future robot overlords. Champion debater Harish Natarajan triumphed in a live showdown against IBM's Miss Debater AI at the company's Think Conference in San Francisco on Monday. The 2012 European Debate winner and IBM's black monolith exchanged quick retorts on pre-school subsidies for 25 minutes before the crowd hailed Natarajan the victor. You can watch the debate in full below.
Elon Musk shares footage of SpaceX's latest Mars rocket test
Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to celebrate the first-test fire of the SpaceX Raptor flight engine, which will be used on its next-gen rocket. The company's head honcho shared footage of the thunderous, two-second test conducted at its McGregor, Texas facility, the site where the Raptor was first put through its paces back in September, 2016. SpaceX followed up with an Instagram post confirming that the Raptor performed the "highest thrust ever" from a SpaceX engine, despite operating at 60 percent power.
Colbert tackles NSA spying in Second Life
Last week John Stewart had a chance to slam the NSA for trawling for terror suspects in World of Warcraft, and now it's Stephen Colbert's turn to poke fun at national law enforcement's new fixation on Second Life. The issue here stems from recent NSA documents which paint the organization as keen to infiltrate massively multiplayer online games. It believes that the relatively free, open chat systems in these games are rife with potential terrorist activity, though so far they've found nothing concrete (or at least nothing the public is allowed to know about). You'll find footage of Colbert's episode beyond the jump, but the best bits start at the 1:00 mark. Whether or not the NSA is collecting valuable information is questionable, but at least they look like they're having fun in that virtual club. Unlike the earlier Daily Show report which was rife with factual errors about the millennia-old Dwarven civilization that effectively shaped modern Azeroth, Colbert's discussion of Second Life is pretty spot on, even if he fails to mention the millionaire-hunting, flying penis drones.
The Daily Show touches on the NSA in WoW
Last night Jon Stewart of The Daily Show weighed in, as he does, on the topic of the NSA/WoW news that hit yesterday regarding information released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. In rare form, Stewart ran a segment entitled That Thing They Said They're Not Doing? They're Totally Doing, in which he lambasted government efforts to downplay the NSA's role in gathering and stockpiling information via phone, internet, and now video games like Second Life and WoW. Being a comedian, Stewart took the opportunity to take several ridiculously funny, tongue-in-cheek shots at gamers in the process. And if that weren't enough, self-proclaimed "proud dwarf paladin" Greychalk of Dun Morogh arrived on the scene to add even more comic relief. Of course, Greychalk seems to be more than a little confused about both the nebulous identities of people on the internet, and the class he plays -- his spell bar is chock full of priest spells. Oh, Greychalk. Silly Greychalk. That's not Holy Wrath you're casting, it's Smite. You can watch the segment above -- and you can catch the full episode on The Daily Show's website.
Jon Stewart covers Tim Cook and Apple's tax issue
On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart covered, in typically hilarious fashion, Apple's recent trip to Washington D.C. to defend its tax practices. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook Funny stuff, per usual. My favorite moment was Stewart's sarcastic take on various senators heaping praise upon Apple. How about we pay you?! How about that? For the inconvenience of you having to keep your money overseas. I mean, the upkeep must be unbelievable, like having a pony. The Tax Code nano bit is also great.
Jon Stewart kombats mortally with Supreme Court decision
Mortal Kombat makes Jon Stewart uncomfortable, and not in the good, pants-region way. Last night on The Daily Show, Stewart dissected the finer points of the United States Supreme Court's recent decision to allow the sale of violent video games to minors, using Noob's ripping-fun fatality on Sonya Blade as a demonstration of Mature material. Stewart noted the courts may regulate sexual material, while extreme violence can now terrorize our children's minds all the legal-long day. Stewart generally offers an open-minded comedic spin to the news, but at the end of the day he's still a middle-aged American man on television, and the sight of a woman's internal organs spilling from her gaping torso never seems to sit well with their kind. But good of him for showing it on basic cable and posting it for free online, where every child with thumbs can now access the gruesome slaughter of a busty blonde woman by two men in black masks. As long as her shirt stays on. [Thanks, Ben!]
The Daily Show takes on the Verizon iPhone
While the tech world debates both the merits and the shortcomings of the Verizon iPhone, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and John Oliver used the occasion to do some good ol' AT&T bashing. They celebrated the announcement of the Verizon iPhone with a rousing chant of "Freedom!" and poked fun at the dropped calls that plague iPhone owners on AT&T. The pinnacle of the seven-minute skit occurred when a band of frustrated iPhone owners trampled an AT&T sign. You can enjoy watching the segment in its entirety after the break. The video comes straight from The Daily Show's website, which uses Flash; sorry!
The Daily Show reacts to Verizon iPhone, Jon Stewart gets a little excited (video)
Were you excited about yesterday's iPhone announcement? Not so much as The Daily Show, which spent a whole seven minutes and 18 seconds out of its 30 minutes of programming to celebrate the announcement -- and certainly not sparing the whip when it comes to AT&T. Jon Stewart appeared to be somewhat excited, screaming in excitement at being able to use "the world's most popular almost phone" as, well, an actual phone. See it for yourself below.
Daily Show solves video game violence issue, saves Family Game Night
Okay, so maybe you were waiting to learn about this critically important Supreme Court video game case until you could hear The Daily Show's take on it. And yes, for that, you should be deeply ashamed. But here it is -- just after the break! In the clip, correspondent John Hodgman solves the violent video game problem through flattery, clever marketing and generous application of Ira Glass.
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear app now available
MTV Networks has released the official Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear app for this Saturday's Jon Stewart rally and Stephen Colbert march. The app features a map of the rally site, Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare integration, a portal to upload photos to the official rally photostream, news updates, and an exclusive message from the master satirists themselves. The app also features a complete FAQ about the rally including directions on how to get there, accessibility for the disabled, the average weather forecast, and what you are and are not allowed to bring to rallies in the National Mall. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear takes place on Saturday, October 30 at the National Mall in Washington D.C. from noon to 3pm. The app is available now as a free download. [via Obamapacman]
Found Footage: Pull My Finger stands for freedom
I've got a soft spot in my comedy heart for The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac, one of the newer correspondents on the program; he often manages to give interview subjects just enough Colbertian leeway to wander into the danger zone, then lets them blunder about, bumping into the awkward silences to excellent effect. That's exactly what Cenac did this week when he interviewed the creators of iPhone fart apps Pull My Finger and iFart, who have a long-simmering feud over who gassed whom on the fart-app frontier. The whole thing is fine and funny... right up until the point that Pull My Finger developer Eric Stratton compares his app's struggle against injustice to Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball. That's when it becomes deliciously, painfully hilarious. For the record, Stratton claims he was joking. You can check out the video in the second half of the post. Nice work, Wyatt. [via Mac OS Ken and AllThingsD]
Jeff Bezos chats up the Kindle 2 with Jon Stewart
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos showed up at Jon Stewart's pad the other day to discuss the Kindle 2, and Jon seemed fairly unimpressed. They were just finally getting into a groove when Bezos dropped the price bomb, and then their fleeting segment was over. It's embedded after the break. Amazon VP Ian Freed has also been chatting up the device, but in a more technical nature. On designing the Kindle he reiterates the "invisibility" design ethic surrounding the device, about making it "disappear" for the user. They also improved the cellular modem for improved reception, and also fended off features like a color screen that would shorten battery life, up the price and cause the device to generate more heat and make its presence known. As far as text to speech goes, he thinks it's good for short stretches of reading, and notes that it covers the vast majority of titles that aren't available in an audio format, but didn't speak specifically to the possible infringement of author rights. Read - Jeff Bezos on The Daily ShowRead - Designing the Kindle 2
Screen Grabs: the Daily Show's Jon Stewart grabs a Centro for some speech critique
Our latest micro-series, Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and occasional misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with a screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. We're not sure how this came to be, but when Jon Stewart needs to make a real / fake call to Democratic governor Mark Warner to let him know how bad his speech at the DNC "suuuuuuucked," he reaches for a Centro. Check the read link to watch the full episode, and if you don't enjoy comedy, you can just skip to about 3:29 in to see Palm's cheapo smartphone get some face-time.
iTunes remembers George Carlin
Of all the things said about George Carlin over the past few days, I like what Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show most: he's getting awfully tired of people who we need leaving us. But as Stewart also said, the good thing about Carlin is that he left us "hours and hours of video." iTunes has posted a page of George Carlin's famous standup to honor a comedian that I and many, many other comedy fans looked up to for laughter and inspiration.If you need a place to start, the "seven dirty words" monologue is probably the most famous, but Carlin often said that his favorite performance was the "Jammin' in New York" show -- he said it was the first time he'd done longer pieces, and talked about stuff that he really put his heart into (it's actually the show that was used for the Moment of Zen on the Daily Show). Definitely a great listen.Of course, it's probably not quite right that iTunes' system automatically listed "Concert Tickets" as an option on the page. But in the world that Carlin worked his whole life to show us, big companies doing stupid things is nothing new.Thanks, Steve!
GTAIV: Mainstream reaction roundup
With all the controversy surrounding anything even resembling violence or sexual content in games taking over news networks we felt it was time to round it all up for your viewing disgust pleasure. Have you ever heard the expression, "taking your cake and eating it too?" Watch as networks and talking heads die to portray any resemblance of pop-culture understanding, ironically alienating a segment of their current and future viewers, by grasping at straws to the content in Grand Theft Auto IV then cutting to commercial break, post fear-mongering, for a quick cash out.There's violence and criminal activity in Grand Theft Auto? Who knew?! You know, other than anyone who can read the title that is. Sexual content? Yes. No argument there. However, watching the spin added to the optional sexual material included in the game makes us wonder what happened to investigative reporters.If we made a claim here and were wrong our readers call us on it, but time and time again "respectable" reporters from mainstream networks get away with shoveling countless false claims against the gaming industry.Much like GTAIV's own radio news network, the whole thing is a giant joke. Jump in for some choice selections of news links and video clips revolving around GTAIV.
Cinemassively: The Metanomics Colbert Challenge
On April 1st, Philip Rosedale appeared before the Congressional Subcommittee to discuss virtual worlds. Among those testifying was Susan Tenby, whose in-world name is Glitteractica Cookie. Once the Daily Show found out, it was open season for Second Life.After John Stewart mocked poor Glitteractica, Robert Bloomfield, aka Beyers Sellers, had her on his show, Metanomics, on the SL Cable Network. While there, he issued a challenge to the man whom he felt was John's little brother, Stephen Colbert. You'll just have to watch to see the amusing incentives that he offers![Thanks, Beyers!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Daily Show visits Liberty City
We can always count on relevant, genuinely funny video game coverage on The Daily Show with John Stewart, a boatload of which (eight years to be specific) is available right here. They didn't let us down last night as correspondent Aasif Mandvi took a virtual trip to Liberty City to mark the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.Though they do repeatedly mention the violence that the series is (justly, we guess) known for, they manage to put it all in perspective at 3:43 in the piece on Antonin Scalia that we've lovingly embedded after the break.
Daily Show election center features a passel of MacBook Airs
The Daily Show, recently returned to full writer strength, apparently decided that the best way to say "high tech" for its March 5 Election Center feature was by getting a bunch of MacBook Airs on the set. Five of them, to be precise, arrayed before correspondents like Aasif Mandvi, Samantha Bee and Rob Riggle.Does putting an Air onscreen automatically make these fake journalists more credible and authoritative? Maybe not... but that isn't stopping some other jokers from using them in slightly more official newsrooms.Thanks to Kevin for the screen capture and Jesse for the Karl Rove tip.
Striking writers could migrate to videogames
Thankfully for all of us missing The Daily Show, there are signs that the writer's guild strike could be coming to a close. But what if we're not so lucky? What if the strike continues for months? Sure, it'll be bad for you, but think of the writers! You'll be suffering through reruns, but they'll be digging through the trash outside your house looking for scraps. ... Well, maybe it won't be that bad. But they'll at least be bored.Variety says that some of those scribes could make a little side money on video games, if the situation is right. With around $50,000 for six month's work, games may not be for every union member forced to sit out of Hollywood work. But if a few talented writers make the leap to games, TV and film's loss could very well be our gain.
Eight years of games on The Daily Show
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Eight_years_of_games_on_The_Daily_Show '; Now that Viacom has decided to post the full archives of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart online, we thought it was a good opportunity to look back at the many game-related stories and conversations covered in the eight years since Stewart took over the satirical news show. Read on for a trip down memory lane that includes Pac-Man, Grand Theft Auto and a much younger-looking Stewart (just look at that hair! It's huge!).
