Following in the footsteps of our weird Japanese friends (who’ve had urine gaming for quite a while now), a British inventor created his own urine controlled video game system.

Advertising and gaming meet in an unlikely environment with the installation of the first hands-free urinal video game. Thanks to infrared technology, users can steer themselves down a ski slope, knock down penguins or even answer quiz questions. Ruairidh Villar reports.

The gaming system can also play videos and do other geeky stuff, although the image shown on the left display at the 1:04 mark might raise some issues for those not trying to pee all over the wall.

Frank La Rue, United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion, presented a report earlier this year in which he called the internet “an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress,” adding that “facilitating access to the Internet for all individuals, with as little restriction to online content as possible, should be a priority for all States.”

The report, which was presented to the UN General Assembly on June 3, 2011, supports the internet as a communication platform and warns against attacks on online anonymity, whistleblowing and privacy.

To note here is the fact that the UN is not saying that governments must provide internet access to people, but rather that they must have a very strong reason for limiting access to it. Think of it as the opposite of SOPA.

There’s a lot of talk about the promise and potential of nanotechnologies, but we rarely get to see them used for anything practical (especially in the consumer market). Here’s a really cool exception to that rule.

Ross Technology Corp. needed a better way to reduce corrosion on the steel products. When they couldn’t find a suitable one, they worked on creating something on their own. And eventually they hit upon a slick product that’s led to a whole new business. That product is NeverWet, a silicon-based spray-on coating that repels water and heavy oils.

Thanks to a spectacular breakthrough in robotics, Honda’s new ASIMO robot no longer walks like it shit itself. Instead, it walks like it is about to shit itself and is trying to find a toilet.

The new humanoid is capable of running at 9kph, hopping on one or both legs, walking on uneven surfaces, opening a thermos, pouring drinks, and more.

The all-new ASIMO is now advanced from an “automatic machine” to an “autonomous machine” with the decision-making capability to determine its behavior in concert with its surroundings such as movements of people. At the beginning of the development process, the following three factors were identified as necessary for a robot to perform as an autonomous machine, and the technologies required to realize these capabilities were developed; 1) high-level postural balancing capability which enables the robot to maintain its posture by putting out its leg in an instant, 2) external recognition capability which enables the robot to integrate information, such as movements of people around it, from multiple sensors and estimate the changes that are taking place, and 3) the capability to generate autonomous behavior which enables the robot to make predictions from gathered information and autonomously determine the next behavior without being controlled by an operator. With these capabilities, the all-new ASIMO takes another step closer to practical use in an environment where it coexists with people.

You’d be tempted to think that one of the world’s most technologically advanced nations, the United States, has left dial-up connections where they belong — in the past. But AOL has just reported that it still has 3.5 million subscribers to its dial-up internet access service. And it isn’t exactly cheap either at $17.50 per month.

For comparison, $40/month can get you a 18mbps broadband connection — which is over 300 times faster than dial-up.

Of course, most of AOL’s dial-up subscribers are probably living in rural areas where there’s nothing else available. Either that or they’re old and/or computer illiterate. Still, it’s funny that so many people in a first world country still get to hear this sound in these modern times.

Update: Anonymous have cancelled the operation. “Destroying #OpCartel because the lives of people who are not participating can be put at risk.”

So apparently the Zetas (Mexico’s second most powerful drug cartel) kidnapped an Anonymous member (internet’s toughest guys) who was taking part in a street protest in Veracruz. Being the badasses they are, Anonymous didn’t take kindly to this and issued a warning to the crime syndicate, informing them that they’ve “made a huge mistake by taking one of us.”

In the threat video demanding the release of their fellow nerd, a man wearing classic Anonymous attire says:

“We cannot defend ourselves with a weapon … but we can do this with their cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession. It won’t be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located.

 

We demand his release.”

The group’s threat is that it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate’s associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates’ businesses.

This sounds great the first time you hear it, but it’s actually the stupidest thing ever. I mean, sure, competing cartels would love to tear the Zetas apart and take control of their market, but the names of a few easily replaceable people aren’t going to make that happen. The only thing achieved through a weak information leak would be getting a lot of people killed, which is just another day at the office for the Zetas.

If Anonymous really wanted to make the Zetas take them seriously, they should have threatened to recruit Charlie Sheen to use up all the drugs in Mexico. Now that would have been a problem for the cartels, given that they need drugs to survive.

English language transcript of Anonymous’ message after the jump.