Burger King’s Star Trek Ad Campaign is Pathetic, Yet Hilarious

In order to promote their new Star Trek glasses, Burger King has launched a new ad campaign featuring various techniques to help you defend yourself against “Kingons.” Now the Kingons (not to be confused with Klingons), are a race of evil alien mascots seeking dominion over dilithium, an element that is apparently present in BK’s new Star Trek glasses. Here’s a short video presenting the Warp Five Wedgie, one of the nine attacks Kingons use to stealthily dispossess you of your newly acquired piece of crap.

If you want to see the remaining eight, you’ll have to visit the “Kingon Defense Academy” website. If you’re in the mood for brainless, “hurts my brain just to watch” humor, it’s worth it. But a bit of advice – the massive quantities of stupid may give you a headache



Apple reconsiders policy after Trent Reznor goes on the offensive

Trent Reznor has prevailed in a row with Apple – and it could be good news for Eric Cartman.

The Nine Inch Nails frontman had reacted angrily after the company rejected an update to the official iPhone application for the band. Apple explained that it had rejected the app for inappropriate content, specifically the inclusion of the album The Downward Spiral which contains some explicit language – or as CNET’s Chris Matyszczyk poetically put it, “The Downward Spiral is a 1994 album that laces a touch of earthy nihilism into a musical screwdriver of heavy psychological meltdown.”

As is now a familiar pattern with Apple, the rejection was inconsistent on a couple of grounds. For one thing, the offending songs can be bought through iTunes and played on the phone without any problems. For another, this was merely an update and the original version of the app – complete with The Downward Spiral – had already been approved by Apple.

Whereas most developers would hire a lawyer to issue a statement urging Apple to reconsider its assessment at the earliest opportunity, Reznor had a response more appropriate to the circumstances: “Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem—as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid ****ing standards? … Come on Apple, think your policies through and for ****’s sake get your app approval scenario together.”

Reznor now reports that the app has been accepted by Apple complete with the album, posting on twitter to say: “The NIN iPhone app is unchanged, the ‘issues’ seem to have been resolved.” Apple isn’t commenting on the issue.

Fortunately for Reznor, he’s having a smoother ride elsewhere online. He’ll be receiving a special award at this year’s Webby ceremony recognizing his success in making the band’s latest album available as a free download. Winners are traditionally limited to a five word acceptance speech, which presumably means Reznor will have to leave out two terms from George Carlin’s list.

Assuming the Apple decision over the Nine Inch Nails app constitutes a firm policy rather than simply backtracking over media reports, the company should now have to revisit its decision to reject a South Park app. It turned down the app on the grounds that it contained offensive content (which is kind of the point), despite the same clips being available through the iTunes video store.



Jetpacks Go Mainstream

Capable of 30 minutes of flight at around 60 miles per hour, the Martin Jetpack can apparently go as high as 8,000 feet in the air. Naturally, its creator has equipped the device with an integrated ballistic parachute, just in case something goes wrong with its engine while you’re flying around. You certainly wouldn’t want that machine to stop working on you while you look like a minuscule dot to people on the ground.

[Via OhGizmo]

Cellphone Users Trading Phone Wires for Booze

The number of homes relying solely on cellphones has risen so rapidly that it has now overtaken the number which are landline only. The figures come from a report which also shows cellphone only householders are more likely to be binge drinkers.

During the last six months of 2008, 20.2 per cent of homes in the US were cell-phone only. That’s up from 17.5 per cent in the same period during the first half of the year. A separately produced report in 2007 put the figure then at 14.5 per cent.

The July-December 2008 report also found that just 17 per cent of homes had landlines and no cellphones.

While some of the statistics are predictable – younger people are more likely to be cellphone-only than older people – there are some surprises. Though you might imagine cellphones to something wealthier people buy, the figures show that people on lower incomes are much more likely to be cellphone-only. That could be down to cash-strapped consumers having to choose between a cellphone and a landline and deciding the former is more useful. It may also be that those on lower incomes change address more often and thus find having a landline more hassle.

The most striking figure was that 36.7 per cent of adults from cellphone only households were classed as binge drinkers (meaning they’d drunk five or more alcoholic drinks in a single day at some point in the past year), while just 19.7 per cent of people who only had a landline met that description. The most likely explanation is that landline-only people are inherently more likely to be elderly and drink less, though it’s also possible that many people without cellphones are less sociable and don’t go out to bars.

The report comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which carries out regular surveys on health issues among the public. It publicizes the cellphone/landline figures to highlight the importance of including cellphone numbers in phone surveys to make sure all parts of society are reflected in health statistics.

The 2007 report found some sparsely populated states had the highest proportion of cellphone only homes. While that might appear strange given that network coverage is often weakest in such states, one explanation was that people in rural areas with poor access to broadband services were less likely than their metropolitan counterparts to keep a landline operating solely to get internet access.

[Picture source: Flickr]

Duke Nukem (In Development) Forever Finally Nuked

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

dukeIf you “always bet on Duke,” then you’ve made a bad bet. Game developer 3D Realms, publisher of the seminal first-person shooters Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem, has closed its doors. This is bad news for FPS fans that have been looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever, the planned follow-up game, for the past twelve years that it’s been in development.

Of course, most of the gaming industry suspected that Duke Nukem Forever would never see the light of day even with 3D Realms up and running, so the news may not make a big difference in the scheme of things. And on the bright side, apparently the Duke Nukem Trilogy planned for DS and PSP is unaffected by this development and still in the works.

Though this story is hitting the web hard this morning, there are some who think it might be a rumor; 1UP suggests that it might even be a publicity stunt to get people talking about the game. Seems unlikely to me – for a game that has been in development for twelve years, the news that it’s not happening is probably less newsworthy than if it’s finally finished.

Of course, FPS fans aside, the real downer in all of this is that the company closing means more game developers out of jobs.

[Image Source: Flickr]