Did you know that the Xbox could have been compatible with Dreamcast games? Sega offered Microsoft the opportunity. That, and more gaming stories you cannot miss:

How Xbox Could Have Helped The Dreamcast Survive
I didn't know this story—it's heartbreaking on several levels.

Star Trek Online Boldly Enters Open Beta
Jason Chen and I just got our invites, anyone else playing?

Heaven Shakes: New God Of War III Screens
Equally horrifying: Blood and manboobs.

And The Nominees For Best Video Game Writing Are...
The WGA should be ashamed of the nominations. There is some real shit writing on this list.

Most People Are Still Buying Boxed Copies Of Games
Interesting stats.

Tim Gunn Lives Up To His Name, Goes Buck Wild
There's a "make it work" joke here, somewhere.

Mass Effect 2's Soldier: The Shooter Class
I don't think I'll play the soldier, but the berserker mode is definitely my play style.

Senior Citizen Rolls 40 Perfectos in Wii Bowling
Please, someone, get these seniors something more entertaining to do.

Mass Effect 2 Sets Its Sights on the Modern Warfare Crowd
Yeah, another link for Mass Effect 2. Read it!

Halo: Reach Boasts New Tech, Bigger Battles
I could talk shit about yet another Halo game, but sadly, I know I'll still be playing it.

Look, we know there are just as many cockbag customers as there are dickhead customer service reps. So, Geniuses, tell us about your most ridiculously asinine customers ever, and we'll give you free pizza. (Don't worry, we'll keep it anonymous.)

The most horrific true story wins free pizza as a consolation to sponge up your rage. Leave 'em in the comments (if you're brave or have already left the hive) or email me with the subject "Genius Bar Customer Cockbag."

Windows Mobile 7 may not be coming anytime this year, but HALLELUJAH WinMo 6.6 will be debuting next month according to Digitimes. Don't hold your breath on it being your phone's savior, folks. [Digitimes]

Mere days after Google stuck it to the man and refused to continue censoring search results in China, the country has put IMDb.com on its list of inaccessible sites. [The Reg via TechRadar]

Google may not be too interested in giving their US market native app multitouch in the Nexus One, but Motorola aims to please, with CEO Sanjay Jha promising to "deliver multitouch in the majority of our devices."

Going on, he told Laptop Mag "There's a complex set of factors, not all of them technical," which makes us wonder is he's referring to Google's thoughts on multitouch Androids. Google's motto may be "don't be evil," but giving European Nexus One owners native multitouch and ignoring other countries is frankly baffling. [Laptop Mag via Phone Arena via Engadget]

Science visualization doesn't get much awesomerer and old school than this, really. We should put a bunch of these together near the North Pole, to keep the Russians from stealing it. [Thanks David Keyes]

This trailer is unbelievable, you guys. IMAX Hubble 3D is the story of the Hubble repair, and the visuals are stunning beyond any teal fantasy jungle you could imagine. Just watch it. [YouTube]

Back in November, former TBWA\Chiat\Day creative Ken Segal said that Steve Jobs' original name for the iMac would "curdle your blood." I guessed Macternet, but according to this account, that wasn't blood-curdling enough. Jobs' alleged proposal was a lot worse:

Our sources claim that the name that Steve Jobs wanted was... MacMan. At the time, the name was being used by another company, called Midiman. They manufactured the MacMan, a serial-to-MIDI adapter with one input, three outputs, a serial passthrough switch, and MIDI indicator LEDs. According to this account, Apple came to them with an offer for the name, but Midiman's owner thought they didn't offered enough ruby rupees. He declined Apple's offer.

If this is true—and it rings real to me—I'm glad the owner declined. Just imagine if they called that bondi blob the MacMan. We would still be hearing the echoes of the worldwide laughter.

For the same reasons, I hope they don't go with Apple iSlate (Apple Is Late?). It's not as bad as MacMan, but it's almost there.

A Canadian woman trapped under rubble after the recent earthquake in Haiti managed to send out a text message to the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa, a place nearly 3,000 miles away. And it saved her life.

Once received, the text message was "relayed to Canadian diplomats back in Haiti" who then provided aid in the search for the woman. There's not much more information beyond that, but it's simply good to hear even the tiniest bit of encouraging and happy news in regards to this devastating event—particularly when it shows that a gadget and solid communication between diplomats can save a life.

Also, we've mentioned it before, but a reminder doesn't hurt: If you'd like to donate to an organization that can help in this situation, here are some ways to do so:

• MSF/Doctors Without Borders
• The American Red Cross International Response Fund
• Texting "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross International Response FUnd
• Online tech store SmallDog, who is matching any MSF/DWB donations up to $200

[ABC—Photo by Telegraph.co.uk]

I like the sleep suit, because can't not like anything that allows me to sleep anywhere I want, and has holes for people to poke their hands inside.

The suit is designed for siestas—four 30 minutes ones taken over 24 hours periods—, with holes that allow "human contact." I don't know about the contact, but I can tell you that people from any country who actually practice siestas, would just prefer a sofa and a boring nature TV program to fall sleep for an hour or two. [Blogitecture via Presurfer via New Launches]

OLEDs are known for having a kind of clinical coldness to the color gamut (read: "blue-ish"), but a Taiwanese researcher has worked out a way to up the temperature to the point where it comes very close to simulating sunlight.

Basically, he adjusted the voltage on a certain type of OLED, which produces a light very similar to natural sunlight. This is great for photographers, if they can get the wattage up enough to illuminate properly. It's just an experiment, for now, but we could definitely see it coming to market either for photographers or even as a natural light simulator for those suffering from seasonal affective disorder. [OLED-Display via Crunchgear]

I'm not sure this story is true, but if it is, I'm going to go buy a hat just so I can take it off in this guy's honor. Is there anything duct tape can't do (besides repair ducts)?

So this pilot was flying out in the Alaskan backcountry (is there a frontcountry in Alaska?) for a fishing trip and mistakenly left some fresh bait in his plane. That was a big mistake, since there are probably more bears than people in those parts. One of the local bears ravaged his plane while looking for the bait, leaving it in a condition unfit for flight. That picture:

After the attack, our noble pilot called in a buddy to deliver some new tires, sheet plastic and a whopping three cases of duct tape. After using those materials, his newly patched-up plane looked like this:

Apparently the repairs were sturdy enough that the pilot was able to fly his duct-taped plane home safely (not sure how far—maybe he was from Dawson City or something). There are definitely reasons to be skeptical of the story, but I'm going to choose to ignore all of them, and instead salute both this man and duct tape. [CNET]

OK, so you might feel weird about those naked-o-vision scanners they're installing at the airport. Here's a nice alternative: chemical noses that can sniff out explosives and precisely track them through crowded areas.

Researchers from Germany's Fraunhofer Gesellschaft have created a network of these chemical noses that can do just that. First, the sensors pick up the explosives as the person carrying them move through an area.

This is where the Hazardous Material Localization and Person Tracking (HAMLeT for short) system gets smarter than your average sensor network. HAMLeT's data fusion process puts complex algorithms to work meshing security camera and chemical sensor data to ferret out the offending individuals. The more sensors an offender triggers, the more data the system crunches and the closer it gets to picking out the particular individual traveling along that path. In a trial with the German Armed Forces, the system accurately zeroed in on five "terrorists" carrying hidden explosives, no civilian heroics or emergency landings necessary.

It's not a perfect system yet, but they hope to iron out the kinks and have this deployed in places like airports and stadiums in the near future. [PopSci]

Camera stabilization rig maker Steadicam-Tiffen is making its first anti-shake mounts for cellphones and pocket cameras, including the iPhone, Droid, and Flip. I say it's about damn time for it because I'm tired of shaky cellphone spy videos.

No pricing or release information is available for these small scale rigs at this time, but I hope that I can get one soon so I can finally become a real iPhone videographer. [Oh Gizmo! via Electronista]

I know there is a tradition to uphold, and I enjoyed the movie, but groundhog texting? Do they even have thumbs?

Of course, the idea is to get the word out to the millions of crazy people out there that rely on a talking groundhog to predict the weather. If you are one of those people, text "Groundhog" to 247365. You will receive a reply on February 2nd. And, the good news is that Phil is fluent in both "groundhog-ese" and English, so you will have no problem absorbing his wisdom. [Yahoo via Fark]

We've teased that Apple Geniuses might not be the brightest in the bunch, but now Apple itself might make them feel stupid. The company is supposedly adding "experts" who'll roam retail stores and answer support questions without need for appointments.

From the sounds of it, this new job position translates as a sales floor roaming Genius who'll "serve as a resource that answers questions for customers." These boys and gals will also have a "general knowledge of the whole product range." In essence, they seem like some kind of combination of sales and Genius Bar staff, and their positions are supposedly very coveted. According to Apple Insider, we should see these folks crowding Red Zones—Apple retail store sales floors—within the next few weeks.

I still don't understand how the term "expert" itself ranks above a "genius," but that's all job titles and semantics until someone gets called a dunce again. [Apple Insider]

Update: According to an Apple retail employee, the Experts are considered something closer to "super salesmen" than to super Geniuses. Guess the Geniuses won't feel to slighted then.

I never really cared for the classic look of Linkysis routers to be perfectly honest. The solution: dress it up with Lego.

That's just what Luke Anderson did with an old WRT54GL. He noticed that the guts fit nicely with the dimensions of Lego bricks, so he set about making a new case. The entire build can be seen in the video and is detailed on his blog. [Luke Anderson via Crunchgear]

D-Link's diminutive MyPocket 3G, which takes a 3G connection and outputs it as Wi-Fi, just got approved and poorly photographed by the FCC. It's definitely destined for North America, since it uses our local 3G GSM bands.

We don't have much more information on the MyPocket just yet—we know it can handle up to 7.2Mbps signals, and the GSM bands used (850 and 1900MHz) mean it could hit either AT&T or T-Mobile. The FCC is one of the last stops to full-on production, so we should be seeing more of it pretty soon. [FCC via Engadget]

CL!CK is a short film made by Lego about how Legos can inspire you to come up with great ideas. It's a fancy ad, to be sure, but a truly lovely one. [YouTube via NotCot]

Using a Peek lowers your intelligence by 3, and wearing three T-Shirts only gives you +1 to defense, but +20% cold resistance. [Dog House Diaries]