A report from a Cornell University research team has revealed that across the world, a standardized emotional rhythm runs our daily lives. So what kind of methodology did they use? Tweets, lots and lots of tweets. Like somewhere in the neighborhood of two million people across several dozen countries. The end result was published in the journal Science.

Thanks to the social media revolution, scientists engrossed with the study of human behavior have veritable gold mines at the tip of their fingers. This was exactly the case at Cornell, where the findings were used to analyse a person’s behaviour throughout the week. The broad analysis necessary included harnessing words deemed positive and even the use of emoticons. So this means the more : ) there are, the happier the person.

Several familiar patterns e ... Read more »

Apparently you don’t always need to be a huge developer with a string of AAA franchises to your name to secure the rights to an amazing IP. A gleam in your eye, a song in your heart and a happy-go-lucky attitude could serve in good stead, as first it did Chair Entertainment in 2010  with their Orson Scott Card collaboration and now Cyanide with not one, but two Game Of Thrones games.

The RTS under development at Cyanide  is common knowledge by now, but it’s the lesser known Planescape Torment-inspired RPG that has our complete attention. The RPG’s story unfolds in parallel to the books, though none of the protagonists are playable. George R. R. Martin is reportedly keeping a watchful eye on the narrative and from the looks of it, the gameplay side of things is being lovingly looked after as well. "You pause the game to give orders, but it doesn’t ... Read more »

The truth is it’s not exactly a carpet that’s floating around a lab at Princeton. More like a plastic sheet that has an electric current running through it. The creation of a grad student inspired by a paper he read by some MIT prof, the footage of the experiment has since gone viral. Innovation at its best, ladies and gentlemen. Below is a fantasy stock image of a flying carpet, because the real footage (after the jump!)  looks awful.

It took graduate student Noah Jafferis two years and a lot of painstaking labor to finally get his sheet to, uh, hover. To what end? Vindicating some paper he read that was authored by an MIT prof. Of course, when the prof heard about Jafferis’ work, he was mighty proud.

The ‘carpet’ is actually a thin plastic sheet and if it does prove useful in any applications, it could make an impact on VTOL technology. Quite exciting, s ... Read more »