That’s where Print A Forest comes in.

So how does it work? Well, first you need to download a piece of software so you can start “printing forests.” Each document that you will print via the program will include a small sponsored ad at the bottom of each page you print. Print 100 pages, and you will have donated enough money to plant a tree. How about that?

The problem is, of course, on people’s willingness to have ads printed on their documents. It’s one thing to click on ads on a certain site to donate a few grains (or was it cups?) of rice to impoverished people in need (now that I think about it, were those sites for real? Or were they just scam sites to get people to click on ads?), but it’s another to have ads printed right on your documents.

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If you don’t mind and want to get in on the green movement, learn more about Print A Forest, or get the program, head on over to their site to get started.

[via PSFK via Oh Gizmo!]

This is a mod of Ben’s Instant Elevator Music program, which automatically plays music whenever a process requires the user to wait, e.g. loading, downloading or transferring files. Still think it’s too good to be true? Here it is in action:

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Nyan nyan nyan nyanyanyanyan! Sorry. Ben has only successfully tested the Nyan Cat progress bar on Windows 7, and says outright that it won’t work properly on Windows XP. I just know there’s someone out there who will upgrade from XP to 7 just to get this to work. Ben also says that the cat may only play nicely with the Windows File Explorer progress bar. You can download the Nyan Cat progress bar for free from Ben’s website.

[via Gamefreaks]

NEC claims that their technology has an astounding 96% average detection rate, and can even detect 2-second clips, yet generates a relatively small amount of data and can be operated by a lowly 3GHz single-core-equipped PC . From what I understand the program can’t snuff out torrents; I think it’s primarily aimed at videos hosted online in sites like YouTube or Megavideo. Check out NEC’s press release at Akihabara News. If you can explain in simple terms how the app works and what this means in the larger scheme of things, feel free to drop us a line (or ten) in the comments.

[Picture above contains original art by Roboworks]

Looks like that poor dog is confused by the feeds. I can’t test the program myself since I’m on a Mac (without Parallels), but I think that you’ll need to sweep your icons off of your desktop and use an application launcher instead if you want to use Feedling, otherwise you might have a hard time selecting both feeds and icons.

Feedling has been tested on Windows XP, Vista and 7, and is available at SourceForge. Check out MakeUseOf for detailed instructions on setting up Feedling.

[via Channel 10]

The same guys who sent me the picture of the new Mac Pro sent me the picture above. They swear it’s a screenshot of eSmart.

[via GoNintendo]

As TechCrunch‘s Jason Kincaid said, you’ll only need three things to run the OS in your system. First you’ll need a Google Account ID, e.g. a Gmail account. Second, you’ll need the disk image itself, which you can either download via torrent (clicking that link will download the torrent file) or at gadget site gdgt. Finally, you’ll need VirtualBox, a free cross-platform virtualization program, although I see no reason why commercial alternatives like VMWare Fusion wouldn’t work.

If you’ve tried creating virtual machines before, the steps for installing Chrome OS are pretty straightforward. Just select Linux as the operating system and Ubuntu as the version, then choose “use existing hard disk” when asked which boot hard disk to use, next, next, next… and voila! You just installed the Chrome browser the hard way. Check out the full article at TechCrunch if you want a more detailed walkthrough.

The images section will surely be a hit, because it’s basically a treasure trove of cool and free wallpapers for you iPhone. There are two galleries available – the NASA image of the day and the Astronomy picture of the day. Is there any difference between the image of the day and the picture of the day?

The videos and updates sections offer more content, with YouTube clips in the former and twitter feeds in the latter.

Check out the app’s official page for more info. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download it here (iTunes link). Do you think the other government agencies should come up with their own apps? I wonder what the IRS app would offer.

[via MethodShop]

ClearView makes a list of rules based on a program’s “normal” behavior. When something causes the program to deviate from those rules, ClearView “comes up with several potential patches designed to force the software to follow the violated rules… If additional rules are violated, or if a patch causes the system to crash, ClearView rejects it and tries another.” And it does all of that without any human intervention. As a test, ClearView was tasked to babysit Firefox while the browser was attacked via ten different methods. On average, ClearView came up with a patch within 5 minutes of exposure to an attack. How’s that for customer service. If you’re tired of having programs die on you, read the full article at Technology Review. It may just make your day.

[via Slashdot]

The image above is an actual result from Photosketch. This shit is magical. The crucial thing about Photosketch of course is the algorithm that selects the images that best fit a given sketch. Instead of pretending to understand these things, I’ll just let Tao Chen, one of the students behind the program, explain it to you:

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Photosketch is so awesome that the webpage it was on had to be taken down, most likely due to the massive hits that it got. Although personally I think that the program can still be improved – for example, it seems that you can’t look for a specific entity, say “Cheney” to go along with “rifle” and “face” – this is definitely truly really mind blowing technology. Nerd Powah!

[via The Presurfer]

The picture you see above is a shot from an “early build” of the browser. My question is, isn’t everything that’s described above already possible via other browsers? Why would Facebook risk annoying its users by forcing them to use a separate browser in order to get this ultra special friend bonding feature? In other words, instead of making a Facebook-integrated browser, why not integrate the browser within Facebook? On the other hand, Wired’s Fred Vogelstein asserts that Facebook is out to create – or has already created – a second Internet, one where your references and resources are your (Facebook) friends, their recommendations, their lives. If RockMelt is the only browser that can tap into this second Internet, then that would be a huge advantage for Facebook. This could be Google Headache in beta.

But unlike any emulator I have ever heard of, OpenEmu treats these video game systems as plugins. Not only that, you can play with several ROMs at the same time, as shown in the picture above. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of awesome that is OpenEmu.

The window on the left is where you insert, activate and connect plugins. If you’re a fan of DAWs, think of Reason; OpenEmu’s kinda like that. If you’ve never used Reason, you’re missing out on a lot. And watch this video to get an idea of how OpenEmu works (and so to a small extent, Reason as well):

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I know right? WTF and FTW mashed into one. It’s kinda like a retro and trippy LittleBigPlanet, where you can fiddle around with what you’re given and create something else entirely. You can synchronize music with the effects and make a video out of a NES game in real time with just a press of a button. No meddling with video software needed.

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If you’re not into multimedia and you just wanna fiddle with games, OpenEmu can help you with that too.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Who knows what else you can do with this thing? I mean we certainly didn’t expect what 2 girls can do with just 1 cup. Check out Peter Kirn’s article at Create Digital Motion for more details on OpenEmu, vade and Dan Winckler‘s Vimeo accounts for more vids, or just wing it, download the emulator, and mess games up right frakkin now! *ahem* currently Mac only.

[via Retro Thing]

Yes, Microsoft is willing to pay you to use their browser. That’s all there is to it. Of course you could say that IE 8 isn’t necessarily as bad as the previous versions; it’s just that the browser’s reputation is so tarnished that people have to be given a little encouragement to try the latest spawn. Also, the ad that The Gadget Blog took a shot of must be an earlier version, as it is slightly more specific in terms of identifying who the IE 8′s archenemy is:

So how about it? Are you willing to join the hunt? Start here if you’re game. What? You want some tips? Let’s see: the instructions say that the prize in hidden is “a cleverly concealed webpage that only Internet Explorer 8 can view.” Hmmm. Well then I bet the prize is hidden in something like this. Either that or a page within the Windows Update site.

One more thing: wouldn’t it be funny though if someone using the IE Tab extension on Firefox found the hidden webpage? Or if we find out that Windows 7 will be sold for $10,001? Or…nah I’m all out.

As you can see, the stencil has all of the icons, arrows, buttons and boxes present in the iPhone UI. And yes, the pencil is included with every purchase. Also included in the kit are 2 Design Commission stickers, so when you hit it big with an app, you won’t forget who helped you make it.

In case you didn’t notice, the stainless steel stencil is actually bigger than an iPhone. Fortunately, Design Commission have a downloadable PDF template that matches the size of the stencil, so you won’t have to trace out the iPhone’s outline.

Of course, you can always use the stencil for other purposes, like making greeting cards or graffiti. Scratch that last one. Get the iPhone stencil kit for only $16.95 (USD) at Design Commission.

[via Josh Spear]

As you can see, the website still requires you to know how and where to download torrents because it doesn’t have a search engine; you’ll have to either link to the torrent file’s URL or upload the torrent file itself before you get the downloader. But once you’ve done either of the two, all you have to do is click start download, and the downloader is created; run the program and it will start downloading the torrent. Torrent2exe also creates a URL that you can share with others so they can also download the same torrent in the same manner.

Now I don’t have Windows on my MacBook so I can’t say how well the service works. Still, it really is a simplified method for downloading torrents. But there’s no point in using the website if you’re already comfortable with torrent clients. First of all, I don’t see any option to set download/upload speeds, which is a really handy feature in clients. Also, the program can only seed the torrent a mere 2 hours after the download has completed. That’s fine if you have a speedy Internet connection and/or the file you’re downloading is small, but if neither is the case then you won’t be worth much as a seeder.

Torrent2exe is a free service, and of course it’s Windows only.

[via InventorSpot]

But we can’t say the same about “realistic” peripherals. Imagine playing Need for Speed using a guitar controller, or Guitar Hero using a steering wheel peripheral. These specialized controllers are too specialized for their own good; it doesn’t help that they’re quite pricey. So how will the gamepad-less revolution succeed? Israel-based Cam-Trax technologies has a simple answer: let’s just make it so we can use anything as a controller.

Cam-Trax is currently developing CamSpace, a computer program that allows users to use pretty much anything as a controller for PC games. The best way to understand how CamSpace works is to see it in action:

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As you can see, users first “show” CamSpace the object that they want to use as a controller; once CamSpace remembers the object, you can customize the controls depending on the motion or gesture that you’ll make. Unfortunately there’s no detailed explanation on CamSpace’s interface so I can’t tell you more about that.

I’m guessing that the object has to be brightly and evenly colored; I think CamSpace uses the object’s color to distinguish it from its background.

But the important thing is that Cam-Trax’ technology has the advantages of both a “realistic” peripheral and a gamepad: it’s versatile, yet you can use an object that’s more appropriately shaped or structured for the game you want to play. It’s also cost-effective: instead of buying a different controller for every game, all you need is CamSpace and a webcam.

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I don’t think I can play an FPS that way; my arm would probably cramp up after 5 minutes. Anyway, I hope CamSpace becomes integrated not only in future PC games but in future console games as well. It won’t totally kill off companies that create third party peripherals because there will always be gamers who want a more sophisticated controller. But if you ask me, I’m down with using a cardboard wheel if it means saving myself a hundred bucks. Maybe in the future we can even use real instruments to play Rock Band.

CamSpace is currently Windows only; you can download it for free at their website. Remember it’s in beta, so don’t expect it to be problem-free.

[via gizmo watch]