I would have guessed that the widely available complete ROM dumps of these games would have made a release like this unnecessary, but that’s apparently not true. Clearly there’s more to these old games than their assets and final code. There are also some internal utilities released, dev systems and such. Be sure to check the notice at the bottom of the Atari Museum page, by the way. Very funny.

They’re really getting into over at Reddit, where I found this, and one of the commenters (jeffbell) is actually a former Atari coder whose work is in this release! How cool is that? He says:

Hey! That’s my code!

I worked on Robotron in the Summer of ‘83. I was going into my Junior year at MIT, and I was working at General Computer Corporation in Cambridge. The next summer I worked on Rescue on Fractalus. Then Jack Trameil bought Atari and it all ground to a halt.

It was 6502 assembly. There was 4k RAM, and carts could be 16K or 32K. I’m not sure how you would run it without a Maria chip emulator.

Very nice. Thanks, dude, Robotron is great (played it last week at Wiimbledon) and Rescue on Fractalus was awesome (and scary when you’re a kid).

[image and via: ProgrammerFish]

The boost from 333MHz to a potential 480MHz is unlikely to affect games except in CPU-only operations, like decompressing textures or switching files in and out of RAM, that kind of thing. I’m guessing you’re going to see improved load times and reduced slowdown, but beyond that it’s wishful thinking.

Certainly no one will release any “PSP Go only” games other than those inevitable small ones which are only downloadable, since 95% of the PSP market will be old PSPs for a while — due to Sony’s regrettable pricing, pickup rate will be slow. So you’re not going to have “PSP Go-accelerated!” or anything like that.

Relieving news for old PSP owners, and decent news for PSP Go owners. Good times all around.

It’s unclear what went down, exactly, and what if anything is missing. Apparently she was shot as soon as she opened the back door, which bespeaks a less-than-subtle perpetrator.

Maybe they’ll start making those glass storefronts bulletproof now?

[via HardOCP; image credit: Tracy Woodward, The Washington Post]

In principle, any advance in any field of technology is welcome, but I have my doubts about this new service developed by a Japanese company called DSS. It’s basically aimed at establishing a “big brother”-like control system [JP, PDF] within factories.

After paying $21,000, factory management can simultaneously monitor the activities of up to 30 workers and then analyze and visualize the data collected (fee for a 3-day-analysis). Each worker has to wear a gyro sensor and an acceleration sensor at the ankle and a mini video camera in the shirt pocket.

DSS also installs so-called infrared milestones (pictured above) at various places in the factory halls to be able to locate the workers, record their activity and then deliver a “digital heat map” of the factory to their clients.

The company claims their system helps to significantly boost productivity and cut costs in any factory. It also says the inspiration came from a Toyota production philosophy: “1 second = 1 step = 1 yen of productivity”.

Via Tech-On

[Update] The video has been removed from YouTube, but is still available at korg.com.

Click: Korg microKORG XL

Smart. And a little gross. An Italian company has resorted to using remote-controlled toy submarines to run fiberoptic cable through the sewers of Milan.

The model of the submarine is apparently the Neptune SB-1, a $600 toy by Thunder Tiger of Taiwan. There’s a full article here but it’s in Italian. Seems pretty self-explanatory, though: attach cable to submarine, drop submarine into river of poo, pee, and bathwater, then pilot said submarine down to the poor sap on the other end of the pipe who’s gotta fish the thing out and connect the cable to whatever needs rigged up.

In unrelated news, think twice about bidding on used Neptune SB-1 toy submarines on eBay — you can never really know where they’ve been.

[via Slashdot]

I guess Mafia games are a big hit these days. Zynga’s Mafia Wars, a multiplayer game that’s playable on social networks like Facebook, as well as the iPhone, has attracted some 4 million gamers to its clutches. (This, despite the fact that it’s more or less a rip-off of the earlier Mafia Life game.) Part of the game’s success, I think, can be attributed to the fact that, unlike in games like World of Warcraft, there’s not as much of a social stigma attached to “whacking” rival mobsters—slaying dragons and whatnot is still sorta “nerdy,” something that good ol’ Cnet says, too. So we’re in good company here.

In any event, so long as we’re on the subject of Mafia games, you can actually win real life money by playing Mafia Payday. I don’t remember how it works, but the guy was on Ron and Fez last week talking about it. So, again, if you’re into that whole mob “thing,” it could be worth your while.

So, uh… Michael Owen to Manchester United. Who saw that coming?

This has to be a viral campaign of some sort, but seeing as though we’re on the cusp of a three-day weekend I’ll bite. GameStop is selling three unusual Nintendo Wii bundles that, I don’t know, belie all logic. There’s the “Take a Bath With a Buddy” bundle, the “Pirate Tattoo” bundle, and the “Summer Fun” bundle. Yeah.

Each bundle is $250, and includes a Wii, plus each bundle’s specific bonus item. The “Take a Bath With a Buddy” bundle includes a rubber duck; the “Pirate Tattoo” bundle includes pirate sleeve (for the Wii controller); and the “Summer Fun” bundle includes a water gun.

Why GameStop has, all of a sudden, a warehouse filled with rubber ducks and water guns, I don’t know.

If I had any ambition to speak of, these crazy bundles would spark a “Fun Console Bundles Throughout History” feature. But, you know, we’re about to start up the grill, so…

via Kotaku

In honor of the fourth, Sega is bestowing upon all iPhone and iPod Touch owners a free copy of Columns all weekend. That’s great and all, but at the moment it’s nowhere to be found. And it’ll probably just be a “lite” version of the deluxe version. Maybe the weekend hasn’t started. I don’t know. Don’t shoot the messenger.

In honor of July 4, SEGA is offering the spectacular puzzler Columns for free to all iPhone/iPod Touch owners. For the whole July 4th weekend, gamers can grab this gaming gem for free and enjoy addictive puzzle fun! Players return to ancient Phoenicia and behold the jeweled Columns as they strategically align falling gems across, down or diagonally - racing against the clock or taking on the computer for hours of challenging gameplay. Easy to pick up, difficult to master and fiendishly addicting, Columns features Timed, Challenge and Endless modes, as well as three levels of difficulty.

Before I go defile myself with burgers and beer I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone 3GS for you all. The process was amazingly simple. Using a Windows netbook - it doesn’t work under Windows 7 - I simply installed iTunes and ran purplera1n. It took a second to reboot then it rolled through recovery mode, rebooted, and an app called Freeze appeared. Freeze then installed Cydia and all was right with the world.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Find a Windows PC.
2. Install iTunes.
3. Download purplera1n.
4. Run purplera1n.
5. Wait.
6. Run Freeze.
7. Reboot.

Now you’re jailbroken. To run OpenSSH simply install the OpenSSH package in Cydia and ssh to your iPhone with root/alpine login/pass combination.

If you’ve ever come to Japan, and especially to Tokyo, you will have noticed this country’s love for digital signage systems. They’re practically everywhere and some of them are quite cool. Now Tokyo-based Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) has announced plans to set up a digital signage system [JP] that consists of a total of twelve 42-inch LCDs.

In 2 weeks, the aptly named “Tall Vision” will be set up in Sendai in Northern Japan and tested for efficiency until June, 2010. It will show mainly ads, but passengers will also be able to view timetables and other information on the display.

The whole thing is a whopping 3.6m wide and about 2m tall. DNP uses full HD LCD screens made by JVC for it, but the company is ready to install monitors made by other makers upon request.

The main point of this system is its price tag. DNP says the $85,000 buyers have to pay for the Tall Vision is relatively low when compared to digital signage systems of similar size. And just like the Yahoo system I blogged about back in April, the DNP version also comes with NEC’s facial recognition technology to identify passersbys.

There was a bit of chatter going around yesterday that a fourth Resident Evil film was in the works. Well, it appears that it’s all true and that the fourth installment in the Resident Evil franchise will begin shooting by the end of the year with a scheduled September 17, 2010 release.

Want to know what’s funny about this whole thing? Jovovich spilled the beans back in April when no one seemed to care or notice. Oh well.

Shocktillyoudrop via Kotaku

If you enjoy being frustrated and agitated first thing in the morning, then you’ll appreciate this DDR-style alarm clock that forces you to finger-dance various combinations on the built-in four-way pad in order to get the alarm to stop making noise.

Product description:

“If you love electronic dance mat games – the ones where you have to follow the onscreen pattern by dancing on different coloured lights - this alarm clock is a great way to get you out of bed as it incorporates a mini finger dance pad.

When the alarm sounds, it can’t be turned off unless you do a little dance with your fingers to follow the sequence shown by the lights, just like on a full sized dance game.”

Gee, sounds really great. Thankfully, it’s only available in the UK and you have to order at least six of them at £9.99 a pop so there’s no chance it’ll end up on my nightstand.

Finger Dance Alarm [ThumbsUpUK via OhGizmo!]

I’m curious to know where these are coming from. Refurbs? Stolen? Found on the road after their owners abandoned them in frustration?

Anyway, this Forearm Pain Relief Massager from Hammacher Schlemmer apparently leverages the magic power of “the Swedish arm massage technique” to roll away “inflamed, stiff extensor and flexor muscles that cause forearm pain.” It looks like it might work, too, although for $50 more than a few of us will probably have to just play through the pain.

The Forearm Pain Relief Massager [Hammacher Schlemmer via Red Ferret]

Note that it only works with phones that run Palm OS or Windows Mobile (i.e., not the Pre). Still, if you’re rocking an old-school Palm device or a Windows Mobile phone, this might be a hard deal to pass up.

Palm Wireless Keyboard [Buy.com via dealnews]

This is in the very preliminary rounds and a specific sound hasn’t been chosen, nor how to make it pedestrian-friendly while not a nuisances to everyone else. The panel is expected to wrap up everything by the end of the year.

GM has tackled this issue already in the upcoming Chevy Volt. We found out about it when we test drove an engineering mule a few months back. The driver activates the sound which is a lot more friendly than blowing the horn. This is a larger issue for the Volt than traditional hybrids who generally run on the combustion engine a lot sooner than the Volt’s generator kicks in. The Volt is totally silent for about 40 miles of travel.

The patent says objects include “items such as coffee mugs, drinking glasses, books, bottles, etc.” Clearly Sony researchers were in their cups when they wrote this.

This basically adds objects to Microsoft’s Natal. Big whoop.