Technology for Life

Yesterday, a massive denial of service attack brought down both UltraDNS and Amazon (S3 / EC2) services. The problems reportedly started around mid-afternoon (4:45pm PST), causing downtime to those and other major websites, including WalMart.com and Gap.com. Everything appeared to be back to normal within 2-hours, due to immediate mitigation efforts by the affected parties.

Amazon’s Web Services Health Dashboard said that services had completely returned to normal as of 6:40pm PST.

Amazon has the Invicta Men’s Pro Diver Collection Automatic Watch for just $66.59 shipped, originally priced at $315. Featuring “a black face with Tritnite luminous hands and markers and a unidirectional black bezel with white numerals and markings.” Product page.

Other features include anti-reflective mineral crystal, date display at 3 o’clock, and water resistance to 200 meters. The stainless steel band features highly-polished center links, and is secured by a fold over clasp with safety.

Snow to Go, also known as instant snow, is nothing new, but watching teacher Steve Spangler demonstrate the product on a popular talk show is. Not to mention, there’s still time to purchase some for the 25th, should you have missed festivus — a holiday celebrated 2-days before Christmas. Continue reading for the video.

For those who don’t know what NORAD is, this website basically uses a radar system to track Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Then there are the Santa Cams — “high-speed digital cameras pre-positioned at many locations around the world.” Continue reading for a message from Kelly Ripa.

The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat.

Here’s a new Nexus One Google Phone hands-on video that provides us with a look at the actual Android 2.1 interface, rather than just the menus. If the production model is anything like this, you can bet that it’ll give the iPhone a run for its money. Video after the break.

Google’s improved software with its spiffy animations, that smoothly rounded design with the textured back, and this sprightly performance has us eagerly anticipating the Nexus One’s arrival.

Russell Turnbull, a 38-year-old man from Consett, County Durham, went blind in his right eye due to a fight 15-years ago that involved ammonia being splashed into it. A new treatment was able to restore vision in that eye by taking stem cells from the healthy eye’s cornea and letting them grow in an amniotic membrane until ready. Video after the break.

The growth was then implanted in the damaged eye, which then helped it to begin functioning as normal – eventually restoring sight.

FarmVille fans rejoice! This popular real-time simulation game on Facebook (72,015,037-plus active users) that lets you manage a virtual farm, has just rewarded its players with early Christmas gifts — including a gold chicken and sled. Continue reading for the unwrapping video.

The game is based around the market, where items can be purchased: seeds, animals, buildings, vehicles, and more land using “coins,” which is earned by selling crops, or “cash” which the player earns at a rate of one dollar per experience level.

Though Panic Attack may not be as visually spectacular as Avatar or Transformers, it was produced on a budget of just $300 (live action scenes). Fede Alvarez spent approximately 1-year editing the 90 virtual FX shots. Continue reading to watch the short.

I used Premiere, After, Photoshop, 3DS Max, Boujou, Glu3d, and FumeFx. The modeling, mapping and rigging of the Robots, fighters and planes was made by Mauro Rondan.

ZodTTD unveils his latest project: N64iPhone. Priced at $2.50, this homebrew N64 emulator for the iPhone features Bluetooth support, which “allows you to control the emulator with a Wii remote.” Video after the break.

Twitter has just acquired Mixer Labs for their GeoAPI technology, providing developers with “a writable layer to annotate the world and do complex geo-queries; and location-enabled media layers (e.g., Twitter and Flickr).” Surprisingly enough, GeoAPI was founded by ex-Google employees.

Twitter CEO Evan Williams thinks GeoAPI could prove helpful by showing where people are as they share what they are seeing or experiencing.