Tracks

Game developer Majesco's newly released NBA Baller Beats attempts to revive the nearly extinct rhythm video game genre -- and it doesn't involve playing a mock musical instrument, but rather bouncing a ball in front of your television.

To play Baller Beats, you merely need to bounce a basketball (or any similar-shaped ball) to the rhythm of a chosen song. A crescendo of icons float down a virtual track, instructing you to perform up to 20 different moves, such as dribbling the ball with a certain hand, or between legs, or performing a pass fake.

The game also features an eight-player multiplayer mode, as well as various difficulty settings and unlocks. The $59 Baller Beats also includes a real full-size Spalding replica NBA basketball, perfect for losing control of and destroying something breakable in the living room. … Read more

Apache, the most commonly used software to house Web sites, will ignore Microsoft's decision to disable ad-tracking technology by default in Internet Explorer 10.

Microsoft set IE10 and Windows 8 so that, by default, Web sites that observe the Do Not Track (DNT) standard won't track people's behavior. The move was made to "better protect user privacy," the company said.

But protecting user privacy turns out to be a thorny matter in practice -- at least when a standard has to be palatable to advertisers as well as browser makers and people surfing the Web. … Read more

Before the iPod and iTunes supposedly changed everything, we listened to records, CDs, tapes, and radio in our cars, on the street and in mass transit. Music was nearly as portable as it is now, but iPods and other MP3 players radically increased the quantity of music you could take with you. Looking back to the dawn of the iPod/MP3 era, sound-quality improvements weren't part of the agenda, just the quantity of music that was transportable. Apple's early ads touted the advantages of having "1,000 songs in your pocket," which struck me as an … Read more

A federal court has ruled that warrantless cell phone tracking by police is legal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit yesterday ruled (PDF) that law enforcement officials were within their legal right to track Melvin Skinner, an alleged drug trafficker, through his cell phone before his arrest in 2006. According to court documents, law enforcement officials were able to use the GPS feature on Skinner's cell phone to track his whereabouts and eventually arrest him.

According to the court, Skinner was convicted of two counts of drug trafficking and another of conspiracy to commit money … Read more

Free Video to MP3 Converter: that pretty well sums up this app from DVDVideoSoft. It can extract audio clips from movies and other videos and save them as MP3s you can play, well, just about anywhere. From ringtones to e-greetings to sound effects, the uses for extracted audio clips are many. This freeware makes it all a matter of a few easy clicks. And it just doesn't create box-standard MP3s but also WAV, WMA, AAC, APE, FLAC, OGG, and more, with several quality options for each.

This program's user interface and layout shares a family resemblance with DVDVideoSoft'… Read more

Basketball coaches have a lot to keep track of, and who's playing when in each game is one of the most critical pieces of information. Basketball Roster Organizer is a simple program that can help coaches plot the starting lineup for each quarter of each game and analyze the performance of past lineups. It's not a particularly sophisticated piece of software, but it's easy to use.

Basketball Roster Organizer has a straightforward interface. Clicking New Game Roster presented us with a series of drop-down menus containing the names of each player on the team; from these we … Read more

Microsoft is not likely to win over advertisers with its decision to turn on Internet Explorer 10's Do Not Track feature in the RTM version of Windows 8.

The Do Not Track, or DNT, feature is designed to stop third-party Web sites from tracking your online activity. Web sites that find Do Not Track turned on in your browser are supposed to back off. Most browsers leave the setting turned off, leaving it up to the user to decide whether to enable it.

But a blog post from Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch confirmed that the company is … Read more

Last month, a paralyzed man sent his first tweet using eye movements. A new technology out of France could allow him not only to type, but to draw and sign his name in cursive on a computer.

The technique, described in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, relies on a novel head-mounted display that uses a camera to track eye movements and then relays that movement data to a computer.

Discovered by a Paris scientist studying optical illusions, the technique tricks the neuromuscular machinery into overcoming a natural phenomenon known as saccadic eye movements. … Read more

When you're taking a vacation or just picking up mom at the airport, a flight tracking app can be an invaluable tool. Indeed, I've downloaded more than my share with Mobiata's FlightTrack Pro holding its place one of my top picks. Recently, though, I discovered a more comprehensive app called Flight+. Developed by International Airport Flight Track Technologies, Flight+ combines flight tracking with a trip diary and an airline/airport information hub. It's complete, slickly designed, and for an airline geek, almost perfect.

Before I get started, though, it's pretty irritating that you have to … Read more