Mobile MMORPG

Here's one for all of you with unlimited data connections on your mobile phone plans: German developer CipSoft have finally introduced a worldwide version of their Tibia MMORPG for Symbian Series 60 phones. For those of you paying per kilobyte, one hour of gameplay averages around 400kb of data transfer. Could this be a threat to the dominance of World of Warcraft? No longer will people need to closet themselves at home to get their online gaming fix!

Jesus found on Google Maps

I noticed an interesting headline in my RSS feed tonight - Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune Using Google Maps - which featured this satellite image of Peru. This led me off on a walkabout via Google where I discovered that The Register had picked this up back in July 2005.

There seems to be a suggestion that this is a man-made image, but I can't find any reliable confirmation of that, other than a tourism page which says

"At about 11.00 am we visit " perfil de Jesucristo" (Cosos) Ubicated in the village of Cosos, north of Aplao. It is a rock formation that shows the face of Jesus Christ almost perfectly."

However given that the image appears to cover about 10 square miles (the face is 2 miles wide and 4 miles long), I don't see how it is possible for ground-based tourists to see a "rock formation that shows the face of Jesus Christ almost perfectly". Update: thanks to Luis' comment below with an actual photo of the real Perfil de Christo we now know this map is of something else.

After a bit more Googling it soon became apparent that people are seeing faces all over the place, including Lenin in a shower curtain and the Virgin mary on a freeway underpass. The most famous example is probably the cheese sandwich sold for $28,000 on eBay.

Here's Jesus in the Eagle Nebula (along with the original 1995 Hubble photo).


Apparently seeing faces in otherwise random natural images is a fairly common phenomenon and is known as Pareidolia. The Rorshach Inkblot Test relies on a similar perceptual illusion. Folklorist.net has a large collection of Pareidolia images.

Here is one of my favorite images so far - the Eye of Sauron as discovered around one of our stellar neighbours, the star Fomalhaut.

iTunes 6 fixes cracked DRM

Warning to iTunes Music Store users - it appears that you will no longer be able to use JHymn to remove DRM from iTMS tracks bought using iTunes 6. Also note that once you buy a song using iTunes 6, you can no longer buy songs with earlier versions of iTunes. Via MacSlash.

Apple's one more thing

Unless you've been under a rock for the last 24 hours you've already heard the news. Let's just get this out of the way, shall we?

• New iPod - 320x240 video, H264 playback, thinner than before, available in black, US$1.99 TV episodes (US only), no firewire, improved battery life (which plummets when playing video)
• New iMac - built-in iSight, 2.1GHz, more and faster RAM, no modem
• New Apple Remote - infrared required, works with new iPod dock, magnetically sticks to iMac
• New iTunes - supports video, iTunes 5 only a month old
• Front Row - new media centre software, sceptics say it looks like CentreStage
• New Apple external USB modem - for those who must have one
• Photo Booth - special effects for iSight self-portraits

Sources: too innumerable to mention

Sony Ericsson P990 announced

Say hello to the upcoming Sony Ericsson P990! The new flagship phone from Sony Ericsson is due in early 2006, with major improvements over the current P-series including 3G, true 320x240px QVGA screen resolution (up from 320x208px), a 2 megapixel camera, 801.11b WiFi, 80MB onboard memory, included 64MB MemoryStick (expandable to 2GB), and FM radio. The new model will also apparently support Blackberry 'push' email, and includes a VPN client. The phone is very similar in size to its P-series predecessors (114x57x25mm, compared to the P800's 118x59x27mm), although the screen has been moved upwards to make room for the new keypad on the actual body of the phone (instead of inside the flip as on the P900). Given the extra horizontal resolution the new screen should be 'squarer' that previous screens, which appears to suggest a slightly reduced dot pitch in order to maintain the candybar form factor.

iWood nano, love Bill

While the recent launch of the iWood nano - a wooden iPod nano case - isn't particularly noteworthy, poking fun at the world's richest man certainly is! Via Infinite Loop.

Salling Clicker 3

Salling Software have released Clicker 3! The bluetooth-based software acts as a great remote for iTunes, DVD Player, VLC, iPhoto, Keynote, EyeTV and a host of other programs. In a move guaranteed to please huge numbers of people worldwide this fantastic software is now also available for Windows. The new version sports a snazzier phone interface as well as wifi support. The website has also undergone a slick revamp and now includes a WordPress blog by Jonas Salling himself.

Apple cracking down on 'Mac' adwords?

TidBits are reporting on a strange crackdown by Apple on the use of Apple trademarks in Google Adsense ads which target the EU. Why us Europeans are being deprived is unclear, but it looks like the end for all those MacLingerie™, MacWartRemover™ and MacShampoo™ ads I've been seeing.

On a more serious note, how will anyone know that a product is Mac-oriented if the vendors aren't allowed to advertise the fact? Just imagine: "Deal of the week - 15% off annual subscriptions for a magazine dedicated to a fruity-Cupertino-based-computer-vendor!

Mail.app single keystroke insta-quit

A headline in MacFixit's RSS feed caught my eye today. They report that pressing the control-T key combination in Mail.app's compose window (with your cursor in the message box) causes an immediate quit without any confirmation. I confirmed this on my PowerBook.

Update: MacFixit have posted a workaround

Matrix-like Ikea web advert

Largish download, but well worth the wait. There's a description of the process at the website of sto.pp, the post-production house responsible. Make sure you sit through the opening 30 seconds or so and then click-and-hold on the image.

MT SpamLookup report card

Since installing SpamLookup 104 days ago this site has been completely free of trackback spam. In that time SpamLookup has blocked 297 trackback spams. Of those there was 1 false positive (apologies to inaniloquent.com, but your ping IP didn't match your site IP). There was also one angry young man. Pretty damn good if you ask me.

Propose marriage via Search Engine

Just when you think you've seen it all, someone comes up with a truly original idea. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable has proposed marriage to his significant other via the Ask Jeeves search engine. He suggested she type in her name into the search box and the top result was a marriage proposal. What a smoothie Congratulations Barry!