Lifestyle hut with built-in toilet steps up World of Warcraft game

As if World of Warcrafters needed another way to isolate themselves from the world, the WoW Pod, as described by its creators at MIT, is "an immersive architectural solution for the advanced WoW (World of Warcraft) player that provides and anticipates all life needs." Translation: It's an individual bungalow simulating the look and feel of an authentic hut within the Azeroth universe, and if you think the outside is scary, wait until you open the door.

Once inside the tiny space, you'll notice that it's entirely self-contained, and that's to discourage the player from ever leaving. Almost all basic human needs are provided, including a throne that doubles as a toilet (gross), a cookpot, stovetop, and, of course, a computer and monitor for WoWing.

Most importantly, the hut solves one of WoW's biggest pitfalls: Breaks. See, a quick pause of the game to take a break can be catastrophic to a player's avatar. Even a bathroom run or a simple snack can result in death, or worse, banishment from one's guild, so anything a player can do to restrict distraction is good. And here's where it gets scary.
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Apple patent hints at volume controls in Safari

Apple Insider has spotted a a newly released patent filed by Apple back in late 2007 that shows volume controls that can be integrated into various Web browsers. Described as a way to control "audio signals which may or may not be welcomed by the user", the patent depicts a new panel that sits in the top, right-hand corner of a user's browser and allows per-site controls over incoming audio signals. There's also a mute button that can cut out just the sounds from the browser entirely while leaving sound from other desktop applications untouched.

According to the patent, the key goal is to add a volume control overlay over sites that do not provide it, as well as a system that will remember the user's preferences between browsing sessions. This would be useful in Flash-heavy sites where the controls may be hidden away, or entirely absent. It would also let users create custom sound profiles, so you could have YouTube videos on your computer at work always start out at a low volume level, or your Internet alarm clock site always play at 100 percent.
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AMD introduces faster Phenom II X4 chips

AMD's new quad-core Phenom II X4 945 and 955 Black Edition desktop chips has hit retail stores and enthusiast review sites. With higher clock speeds than previous models, aggressive pricing, and support for fast DDR3 memory, these chips compete with Intel's Core 2 Quad CPUs as mainstream performance processors.

Each chip has the same architecture as the original Phenom II X4's that came out a few months ago at CES. The 945 has a 3.0GHz clock speed, and the 955 Black Edition comes in at 3.2GHZ, but with an unlocked clock multiplier that makes it overclocking-friendly.
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Face recognition comes to Flickr

Without any big fuss, a face-recognition feature has been added to Flickr.

The new feature was launched recently by Swedish startup Polar Rose. It lets users import all their photos from a Flickr account to an account on Polar Rose, where the images are then automatically assembled into groups dedicated to various individuals.

As with similar features in Google Picasa and Apple iPhoto, names eventually show up next to faces in the photos once the user has identified the faces. The labels then get sent back to the Flickr account. Polar Rose, founded by Swedish mathematician Jan Erik Solem in 2004, intends to license its technology to numerous Web sites.
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Google tries jump-starting 3D Web with O3D

Google on Tuesday released software called O3D to bring accelerated 3D graphics to browsers, a significant effort but not the only one to try to endow Web applications with some of the computing muscle that PC programs can use.

O3D is a browser plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome that works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, but Google hopes that eventually, the technology will be built directly into browsers. It provides an interface that lets developers' Web-based JavaScript programs tap directly into a computer's graphics chip, which could mean better games and other applications.

Google touted the technology in a blog post. It includes a video demonstration, complete with a soothing voice-over and a spacey ambient-music soundtrack, for those who don't want to install the plug-in.
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