It’s not every day a new country gets formed.

The Republic of South Sudan officially separated from Sudan over the last weekend, (hopefully) bringing to an end a civil war that has raged for almost half a century between the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south. Apparently, about 99% of the region’s population voted to cecede from Sudan; a landslide’s landslide.

Not that it’s all daisies and roses for South Sudan, mind you; despite their fertile farmland and oil reserves, the country has deep and severe poverty issues, and lacks for modern infrastructure.

Apple downshifts App Store prices for Aussies.

Actually, they’ve made a bunch of price adjustments for all of their global App Store portals, raising prices in some countries and lowering them in others. But I wanted to highlight the fact that they dropped the prices for Aussies (by about 17%, it looks like), since it has occasionally been discussed in the comments forms here just how much more AUstralians pay for things like games and electronics as compared to North Americans.

Scientists punch a hole in time itself.

Actually, it would be slightly more accurate to say that the concept of a “time cloak” has been demonstrated, in which short events — from 110 nanoseconds up to a hypothetical maximum of 120 microseconds — can be hidden from the passage of time. Yes, you read that right.

Dishonored might just be the first FPS I’ve been excited about since Marathon.

Bethesda has announced the next title they’ll be releasing, a stealth-focused first-person shooter entitled Dishonored. It is being developed by — get this — none other than Arkane Studios, the masterminds behind Arx Fatalis. Also on board with the project is Harvey Smith, who was the lead designer for Deus Ex, and Viktor Antonov, who designed City 17 in Half Life 2.

Let’s review: a stealth-based FPS produced by Bethesda, headed up by Arkane, with Deus Ex’s lead designer in charge of creating the game’s atmosphere and City 17’s designer in charge of shaping the world for “an open-ended adventure title that allows players to tackle missions in a number of different ways, from stealthily completing tasks to letting loose on hordes of enemy soldiers.”

Oh, and it sounds like it’ll…you know…an actual story, too: “How players decide to deal with problems will shape Dishonored’s world.”

Can I get a “do want”?

Hard Reset also sounds interesting.

This one is being developed out of Poland by a company called Flying Wild Hog, a new studio comprised of developers who have worked with companies like People Can Fly, CD Projekt RED, and City Interactive…people who have worked on games like Bulletstorm, Painkiller, and The Witcher 2. It is touted as a post-apocalyptic FPS RPG.

Consider me tentatively interested.

Did The Longest Journey predict the coming of Twitter?

Well…kinda.

100 years of IBM in pictures.

From the first clocks and dial recorders they churned out, up to the Watson system that cleaned up royally on Jeopardy! this year, it’s a short — but fascinating — pictorial.

The Vanishing Point

Okay, here’s the thing: I have a really love for what I guess could be called “urban spelunking”, and in particular for photograpy of the deep places beneath cities. As such, I simply must recomment The Vanishing Point, the photoblog of a Toronto-based urban photographer.

Be sure to check out his photos of abandoned nuclear power plant construction projects!

Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player…are they legal?

One would hope so, but who can say these days? In theory, storing music that you own in a cloud-based medium for playback on e.g. your work computer should be perfectly fine, the same as if you brought a USB drive full of tunes to your desk. 

But never underestimate the drive and ability of the music industry to argue that people should pay yet again — as much and as often as possible — for access to music they already own.

Another day, another Internet censorship bill struck down.

This time in Alaska. 

Cheaper Hasselblad cameras?

Consider me interested.

Orson Scott Card joins the writing staff for Firefall.

I was already interested in checking out the quite obviously Starcraft-inspired, sci-fi, free-to-play team-based action game. The fact that Card — an author I have great respect for — has joined the team at Red 5 and will be working on the game’s story is just icing on the cake, and pretty much ensures that I’ll be checking the game out when it releases.

No More Heroes gets an 18-years and up edition.

Ultimately, I blame CD Projekt Red and The Witcher (and, more recently, The Witcher 2), for this.

British Secretary for Education calls for games in the classroom.

This guy’s jib…I like the cut of it:

[Michael Gove] has set his sights on video games as a way of making the British education system more engaging for children.

“When children need to solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can learn,” said Gove, speaking to the Royal Society in London regarding Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy’s Manga High system. Manga High, which allows educators to schedule online assignments that automatically reward items in accompanying flash games, represents the future of early science and math education, according to Gove: “These developments are only the beginning.”

I know for a fact that several Dragons and Dragonettes effectively learned English whilst playing the Ultima games, so I’m not at all surprised that games can serve an educative function; after all, the first education computer game I can remember playing came out over twenty years ago. I am somewhat surprised that people in positions of power are beginning to clue in to this fact, however.

It’s like Oblivion, but probably better.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Andoran is, as PC Gamer describes it, “a darker, grittier take on Oblivion with new cities, factions and creatures. The remarkable new architecture and strange environments have a whiff of Morrowind about them, but the engine upgrades make it look more like Skyrim.”

The website for the mod is currently down, but it might be something you’ll all want to check out in the near future!

The HULC: a self-supporting combat exoskeleton.

Capable of sustained running speeds of 7 miles per hour, and short sprints at up to 10 miles per hour.

Ahem: “Very formidable over short distances!”

The Practical Pyromaniac.

A guide to all things incendiary.

Skyrim developers’ open feedback interview.

And yes, the fifth The Elder Scrolls game will boast a modding kit, high-resolution textures, a refined interface…and pretty much everything else except for a natively 64-bit executable.

Oh, and…you can get married in the game as well.

Excited yet?

Tonight’s post brought to you by The Rock:

Bonus: Massive “haboob” dust storm hits Phoenix as the Arizona “monsoon” season begins!