Nintendo 3DS hits 5 Million Units Faster Than DS

While it had a rocky moment in the middle, some heavy price-cutting and top-drawer games helped the system sell five million within a year in its native homeland. According to Nintendo, these are legitimate sell-through figures and as predicted, make the 3D-capable console Nintendo's fastest selling console to date.

Eating Dessert for Breakfast Can Make You Skinny

Your mother, doctors and life lied to you. According to scientists (science, people!), combining a low-calorie diet that includes dessert for breakfast will help you lose weight. Sweets, cookies, creme brulee, cake. ALL OF IT will help you lose weight if you start your day off like that. I love breakfast now.

According to the study, scientists put 144 obese people on a low carb, low calorie diet (1,400 calories for women, 1,600 calories for men) that were exactly identical except that one of the diets included "a high-carbohydrate, protein-enriched breakfast with a choice of cookies, chocolate, cake or ice cream for dessert."

What's interesting is that during the first 16-week period, the average weight loss was the same—both groups lost 32 pounds on average. Where it got suuuper interesting was the 16 week followup, people with the dessert for breakfast diet lost 13 more pounds while the other group gained back all but 3.5 pounds of the weight they lost. WHAT. IS. THIS. MADNESS. (It's supposedly something that deals with satisfying your cravings or something after a diet)

The full study is in the March 10 issue of the journal Steroids. I don't care, all I know is, get to eating dessert before 10 in the mornin' kids. It's good for you. More here.

Intel Launching New Atom-Based Processors With Digital Wi-Fi

If you thought Intel's Atom processor line was dead, think again: the company is launching a new version of the silicon, code named Rosepoint. Don't be too quick to dismiss it, either, because it sounds like the new mobile processor could mean business.

Wired reports that the new line of chips should bring significant reductions in power, cost, and size to Intel-powered smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Perhaps most interestingly, the chip has Wi-Fi built in as part of the digital chip. Current Wi-Fi chips tend to be analog, and a digital version should in theory be easier—and cheaper—to scale down. Indeed, Intel Chief Technical Officer Justin Rattner told Wired that the digital Wi-Fi chip should scale with Moore's law and has "state of the art power efficiency."

Even though Intel is officially announcing the chip in San Francisco this week, it won't be commercially available for at least two years. Given that it currently supports just 2.4GHz and Wi-Fi, that seems a little odd—though apparently versions with cellular data and built-in radio antennas are in development. More here.

New 8GB Nook Tablet Launching February 22nd?

According to leaked documents seen by The Verge, Barnes & Noble is launching an 8GB version of its Nook Tablet this week. That drop in capacity means one thing: it's planning to match, or undercut, the Kindle Fire.

The news comes from a leaked Walmart document. From The Verge:

"All we know for sure is that Walmart plans to launch this new device at 12:01AM on Wednesday, February the 22nd, and deliveries of the 8GB Tablet should be arriving in stores already."

Currently the 16GB Nook Tablet retails at $249, which is $50 more than the Kindle Fire. If a drop in capacity means that Barnes & Noble can match—or,even better, undercut—the Fire on price, it can expect to sell a whole heap more.

Microsoft reveals Windows 8's new logo: 'It's a window not a flag'

Microsoft is making plenty of big changes with its Windows 8 operating system, and that has now also extended to a new logo. As explained by Microsoft's Sam Moreau in a post on the official Windows blog, the logo was created with the help of the design agency Pentagram, which posed a simple question when it began on the project: "your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?"

That discussion eventually led to the four-paned window you see above, which not only looks more like a window than the previous logos, but clearly echoes the company's new Metro design language. Microsoft also notes that the logo is "authentically digital," and says it will welcome you with a slight tilt and change color based on your desktop. More here.

Goats Have Accents!

Not only do pygmy goats have accents, but they tend to pick up the characteristic "BAAAAAAAAAAA" of the locals bleating around them.

Scientists already knew that bats, whales and, of course, humans tend to pick up the vocal mannerisms they're surrounded by. Now, researchers at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at the University of London have added goats to the list. They published their work in journal Animal Behavior.

They tested the goats when they were five weeks old, because that's when they become social. They found goats that hung out together started to sound the same, and they became more alike as they grew older. The scientists think the evolutionary benefit might be that different accents help the animals identify strangers. More here.

They also say the findings could lead to better understand of how humans became verbal beings. And maybe it explains how Philadelphia and Pittsburgh accents can be so different and entertaining.

iOS 2011 sales smoke 28 years of Mac

Love it or hate it, Apple had a pretty stellar 2011. According to crunched numbers from Asymco, between its iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the Cupertino outfit sold some 156 million iOS devices in 2011, marking a grand total of 316 million in the mobile OS' short history. 

What's most interesting here, however, is the fact that last year's digits alone have completely blown past the 122 million units daddy Mac has managed in its 28 years of existence. It's no wonder the company borrowed a few tricks from iOS for its latest desktop operating system.

OS X Never Coming on a USB Drive Ever Again

We hope you aren't too averse to the Mac App Store, because it's going to be the only way to upgrade your computer from now on. That's right—no more USB option, Pocket-Lint reports. Forever.

After a bit of hand-wringing and whining last time around, Apple reluctantly offered a disgustingly-overpriced thumb drive copy of Lion for those unprepared for the download-only route. Tough shit, Mountain Lions! Says Apple:

"It was an interesting test, but it turns out the App Store was just fine for getting the new OS."

You hear that? It's just fine. And if you don't live in an area with suitable internet access, you'll just have to go to your local public library like some sort of street urchin and beg for the Wi-Fi password. Then again, if you're out in the boonies without decent internet access, what do you need a top of the line laptop for anyway? Good riddance, disks and drives and things.

Adding Mini Paper Plates To Pizza Boxes Is Unadulterated Genius

Winner of a much-deserved Red Dot Design Award, the Paper Dish replaces the greaseproof sheet found between a pizza and a cardboard box with an improved design that easily tears apart creating a miniature paper plate for each slice.

Mind = blown.

Created by Yu Kyung Ha, Won Min Jung, and Kwon Young Hee, the clever design helps keep your fingers clean, while also eliminating the stack of napkins usually required to share a pizza. Now if they find a way to incorporate red Solo plastic cups for soda as well, their design could very well revolutionize the fast food industry. More here.

Scientists Find the Bare Minimum Exercise You Need to Get Fit

We all know we need to exercise to stay fit and healthy, but sometimes it's difficult to find the time. Don't worry: scientists have worked out the minimum amount of exercise you can get away with in order to get fit.

The New York Times reports that a group of researchers are turning health and fitness studies on its head, by investigating just how little exercise we really need. Turns out, as long as you're willing to work hard during your exercise, you probably don't need as much as you think.

Most world-class athletes do intervals: short, sharp bursts of strenuous activity, interspersed with rest. Inspired by that, researchers at McMaster University developed a version of high-intensity interval training that involves one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person's maximum heart rate, followed by one minute of easy recovery. Their version sees that process repeated ten times, meaning a total exercise times of 20 minutes, and is supposed to be carried out just twice a week.

But can two interval sessions a week really get you fit? Well, despite the infrequent nature of the exercise, the researchers have shown that, after several weeks of practicing it, both unfit volunteers and cardiac patients taking part in the study showed significant improvements in their health and fitness. In the words of the researchers:

"A growing body of evidence demonstrates that high-intensity interval training can serve as an effective alternate to traditional endurance-based training, inducing similar or even superior physiological adaptations in healthy individuals and diseased populations, at least when compared on a matched-work basis."

So, if anybody says that when it comes to exercise you need to do a little and often, tell them where to shove it. A better maxim might be hard and fast.

Why Horses Make Good Glue

If you ever drive through Northern France, you'll see a lot of butchers that sell horse meat. You'll also see a lot of glue factories. The two are very definitely linked — but why is it that horses make good glue?

One word: collagen. Over at Slate, there's a great explanation about the long, and oddly fascinating, history of glue-making. But what it all boils down to is that one protein, collagen. You find it in cartilage and tendons, and lurking inside bones. If you boil enough of those body parts down with some water, you get a gelatin.

Yep: that's the stuff that makes Jell-O set and Gummy bears chewy. And it makes damn good glue, too. But it's not that horse glue is actually better than any other animal glue; it's just that historically horses were plentiful, so it made sense to use them. More here.

Sleeping Better Now Helps Prevent Memory Loss When You’re Old

If you're one of those people who battles through all-nighters, parties hard only to rise early, or has plain old insomnia, I have some bad news for you. Scientists have shown that sleep deprivation in early adult life is linked to memory problems when you're old.

According to a report by Science Daily, the amount and quality of sleep you get at night may have a profound effect on your memory in later life. The research, carried out by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans in April.

The team of researchers has shown that disrupted sleep appears to be associated with the build-up of amyloid plaques—a hallmark indicator of Alzheimer's disease. Their study showed that people who spend less than 85 percent of their time in bed actually sleeping, or those who wake up more than five times per hour, were significantly more likely to have the markers of early stage Alzheimer's disease. So, if you're not sleeping well at the moment, it might be a good idea to change it. More here.

Firefox on Windows 8: Metro Build is in The Works

We all know that Windows 8 will have a split personality, with a Windows 7 style "Classic" desktop environment working hand-in-hand with a finger-friendly Metro UI. Given that Firefox has a significant market share in the PC web browsing market, it's only natural for Mozilla to accommodate both parts of Microsoft's new OS. 

According to its 2012 Strategy & Roadmap, the company has plans for a proof-of-concept Win8 Firefox release in Q2 of this year. In that document, Mozilla reveals that a "simple evolution" of its existing browser will work with the "Classic" environment, but brand new new front-end and integration code is needed for Firefox to play nice with Metro.

The plan is to build a Gecko-basedbrowser that brings full Firefox capabilities and can handle Windows 8's unique requirements like being suspended by the OS when it's not being viewed and supporting multiple "snap" states to ensure a good browsing experience when multiple apps are open. Looks like Mozilla's crew of coders has their work cut out for them, and you can peep for more here.

Raw Beef Bouquet: How to Land a Meat-Lover Lover

A box of chocolates? Yeah, that might be fine for omnivores, but what about that special carnivorous someone? How's about a dozen beef sirloin roses from this British butcher? Nothing says "Let's get carnal!" like a bouquet of carnage. More here.

Your Heartbeat Could Be Your Password

A technology in the works might soon allow you to unlock your hard drive by simply touching your keyboard. Your unique heartbeat, emitted through your fingertip, would be your password.

Chun-Liang Lin and his team at the National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan translated a human heartbeat into an encryption key using an electrocardiograph reading from an individual's palm. Their unique series of thump-thumpa generated a secret key.

The part that blows my mind is that your heartbeat is so unique that that pattern never actually repeats. You will never get the same exact timing of beats twice. So the encryption scheme is based on the math behind chaos theory, which dictates that outcomes are highly sensitive to initial conditions, leading to widely divergent outcomes (it's sometimes referred to as the butterfly effect). The research will appear in an upcoming issue of Information Sciences. If they're going to create a product, they better hurry up if they want to beat Apple, where engineers seem to have been working on something similar since at least 2010. More here.

I had no idea heartbeats could be so unique! Somehow the whole idea has awoken the romantic in me. Happy Valentines Day everybody!

A Ghastly Cloud Tsunami Creeps Up on the Beach

Earlier this week, Panama City Beach, Florida was overwhelmed with a sweeping wave of fog that was not unlike a cloud tsunami. It creeped onto the beach and rolled right over buildings, giving off an almost supernatural aura.

Meteorologist Dan Satterfield explains how the cloud tsunami phenomenon works:

Cool air offshore was very nearly at the saturation point, with a temperature near 20ºC and a dew point of about 19.5ºC. The air at this temperature can only hold a certain amount of water vapor, and how much it can hold depends heavily on the temperature. If you add more water into the air, a cloud will form, but you can also get a cloud to form by cooling the air. Drop the temperature, and it can no long hold as much water vapor, so some of it will condense out and a cloud will form.

The pictures were taken by Helicopter pilot Mike Schaeffer and JR Hott of Panhandle Helicopter. It seriously looks like ghosts sweeping over Florida. Or dementors looking for Harry Potter. Or a gigantic spiderweb covering the beach. Either way, it's so spectacular it gives me the heebie jeebies. More here.

Lot of People Thought Oprah Was Whitney Houston on Facebook

Whitney Houston, the diva of divas, passed away yesterday at the too young age of 48. It's a depressing end to her story of galaxy bending talent, sun magnifying limelight and cursed frailty. Anyone who has ever heard Whitney in her prime will always remember the singular power of her voice. I mean, we all have our own 'oh damn' Whitney-moment we hold dear, right?

The 19th Century Version of Facebook

Looks like Mr. Zuckerberg has some explaining to do—he clearly stole the entire idea for Facebook from this 19th century girl's "friend urn"—or, if you will, Vasebook.

The eBay seller says the vase is likely "a graduation present for the young lady in the center." Yeah, you see her? That's her profile picture, with a non-traditional circular Facebook wall surrounding her. Circles were in mode back then, before being briefly banned during WWI for rationing purposes. But there's something very sweet and sad about this! She carried this vase around, labeled "My Friends," as reminder of 50 people who presumably meant the most to her at that point in her life. It was indelible—sealed in ceramic. And now that she's been dead for a very long time, this is all that there is to prove she ever had any friends at all. Will you be able to say the same about your Timeline, Dr. 21st century fancy pants?

Why Updates for Your Android Phone Take So Long

Many of us point to custom UI skins as one of the main reasons Android updates take so long to reach certain phones. But according a Motorola exec, that's not really the case. It's the hardware itself.

PC Mag's Sascha Segan spoke with Moto Senior Vice President Christy Wyatt, who launched a full scale explanation.

"When Google does a release of the software ... they do a version of the software for whatever phone they just shipped," she said. "The rest of the ecosystem doesn't see it until you see it. Hardware is by far the long pole in the tent, with multiple chipsets and multiple radio bands for multiple countries. It's a big machine to churn."

Motorola understands that consumers want their Android upgrades sooner, but the process is complicated, she said. First there's hardware support, then the layering in of custom software from manufacturers like Motorola, and finally, phones must be re-certified by carriers, taking more time.

Long story short, handset manufacturers struggle have to code the drivers for all the different components themselves, and because there are very few hardware limitations on Android once it's gone public, there is a ridiculous amount of variation in devices, even if made by the same company.

Another interesting little aside from the piece is that from the sounds of it, it's possible that Motorola's future webtops (the ones which use phones like the Atrix to power them), will run straight-up Android instead of some other version of Linux. That could be interesting.

DIY Furniture Made Extra Easy With Foam Building Blocks

Since most of us are far handier with a pile of Legos than tools, lumber, and raw upholstery, Japanese design studio Torafu Architects has created these large scale foam building blocks that making assembling furniture easier than an Ikea bookshelf.

The Soft Blocks are designed to look like concrete cinderblocks, but they're actually made from a felt material packed with dense foam so they're comfortable to sit on while still being sturdy enough to support someone's weight.

Sadly, the Soft Blocks are unfortunately still just a design concept, but imagine how easy moving would be if all of your furniture was assembled from these blocks? Filling the U-Haul would be like playing a game of Tetris. More here.