Month: July 2016

A California appeals court is upholding the juvenile-court conviction of a 16-year-old high school boy who uploaded a 10-second video to Snapchat of a fellow high school student who appeared to be masturbating in a bathroom stall.

"I think this dude is jacking off," read the video's caption.

The teen's misdemeanor invasion of privacy charges stem from what he said was him merely playing a joke on another student "to get a laugh." The boy on the receiving end was joking around, too, not really masturbating but pretending to, according to a juvenile witness. But in the end, that didn't matter. The boy who was filmed by the mobile phone committed suicide two weeks later, leaving a note behind: "I can't handle school anymore and I have no friends."

Enlarge (credit: SpaceX)

With a number of successful Falcon booster landings behind it, SpaceX is getting ready to try something likely to be a bit more challenging: three nearly simultaneous landings. This doesn't mean SpaceX is upping its launch schedule; instead, the three boosters will all be part of the planned Falcon Heavy vehicle.

Essentially three standard Falcons strapped together, the big rocket will be capable of lifting 54 metric tons into orbit. SpaceX is planning on the first Falcon Heavy test launch later this year. A video posted earlier this year made it clear that those plans include treating each of the three boosters as a regular Falcon once they've separated from the payload. That includes a return flight to Florida or a barge offshore.

Right, now, the company is using either the barge or an on-land site at Cape Canaveral to recover the boosters, with the choice depending on how high and far downrange they travel. And the company wants the option of returning all three to land if the opportunity arises (though two by land and one by sea might be an option). And so the company told The Orland Sentinel that it was asking the government for permission to build two more landing pads near its original facility.

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Featured

The digital debut of Emily Carmichael's short film Stryka, starring Aimee Mullins and Rupert Friend. (video link)

In just a few years, Emily Carmichael has gone from making an animated webseries for Penny Arcade to writing Pacific Rim: Maelstrom and directing Powerhouse, the next big project from Steven Spielberg. Today on Ars Technica, we’re proud to host the digital debut of Stryka, one of Carmichael’s short films that rocketed her from gamer geekdom to Hollywood. It’s the tale of a neurotic alien lizard living in Brooklyn, just trying to get by on small time heists. She has just one problem. Her partner in crime just isn’t bringing the zing anymore, and she’s been secretly doing jobs on the side with someone else.

What’s immediately apparent is that Carmichael has an uncanny ability to make a completely alien world feel familiar. Even though main character Stryka (Aimee Mullins) is covered in horns and speaks in clicks, her problems are relatable. She’s torn between two thieves, Callen (Homeland's Rupert Friend) and Peterson (John Behlmann), very different men who both want to work with her. Meanwhile her mother keeps calling to nag about what she’s doing with her life. The scenes with Stryka’s coin-op shrink give us the perfect window on the rather mundane inner life of a lizard thief.

"The counter-gamblers win." (For now.) (credit: Photo: Steam)

Valve Software, the maker of the Steam online gaming service, sent cease-and-desist notices to 23 online gambling sites on Tuesday in a move to quell complaints about the service's "marketplace" system.

"Your commercial use of Steam accounts is unlicensed and in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement," Valve general counsel Karl Quackenbush wrote in the letter. "You should immediately cease and desist further use of your Steam accounts for any commercial purpose." Quackenbush then advised the recipients that they had 10 days to comply, after which the company will pursue "all available remedies"—including account termination.

The letter began spreading on social media after it was sent to all 23 sites in question, which included CSGO Lotto and CSGO Lounge, and Valve has confirmed the letter's authenticity to Ars. These sites have racked up headlines as of late by gaming Steam's "marketplace" functionality—and turning some popular in-game items, like cosmetic "skins" for characters and weapons, into veritable casino chips. While Steam itself does not contain direct gambling mechanisms, third-party gambling sites have found simple ways to exploit how Steam works so that players can dump skins into a depository, engage in various games, and then collect more skins (which often have material value by way of eBay reselling) or so that players can trade their accumulated skins outright at these sites for direct payouts of money.

While Nintendo's Pokémon Company subsidiary has enjoyed most of the company's good-news headlines in the past two weeks, the company at large has more changes in the horizon, and another "real-world" initiative—teased back in May—is now coming to fruition: an official Nintendo restaurant.

Say hello to the Kirby Café. The Japan-only (for now) restaurant chain was teased last month, but its existence received a full, formal unveiling Wednesday morning in its home country, all revolving around the company's 26-year-old puffball character. The café's first location will open in Osaka on August 5, with another location to follow in Tokyo "soon."

Fans will be able to purchase pastries, drinks, and a mix of noodle and teriyaki menu items. Some of those merely have a character from the game stuck onto the plate as a sticker, while others are shaped to resemble characters and other game content, including Kirby-shaped custard cakes, a cup of soup that looks just like the Maxim Tomato item, and the Whispy Woods tree's face apparently being made out of bread, meat, and beans.