It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here on CounterAgent, but I’ve been busy working on this web project called the SuperLame! Comic Balloon Engine. We’ve just launched it in a public Beta. So, let me take a few moments to explain what it is that’s taken up most of my time as of late.

What is SuperLame? Well, I’m glad you asked. You may have heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. So, if a picture alone is worth that much, how much more can you say with a picture that actually has words too? I’m betting at least a few more than a thousand.

You may have noticed a number of word balloon pictures on this site, amoung others. Before the SuperLame word balloon image creator web app this was a time consuming process. Enter SuperLame and the Comic Balloon Engine. Basically, it’s a simple web tool that gives users the power to easily and quickly add word balloons, speech bubbles, thought bubbles, whatever you want to call them, to your pictures.

Best of all, the entire tool is free for anyone to use. However, if you would like to donate to the SuperLame cause, we wouldn’t turn you down, of course, and hey, it’s a tax right off, right?

The above picture is an example of what you can do at SuperLame. But, don’t take my word for it, check out the SuperLame Word Balloon Web Tool for yourself. Enjoy.

Boom!

Fox and NBC Universal little video site Hulu.com is up and running. It’s been in beta for about 4 months and went live this week. If you haven’t signed up yet what are you waiting for? It’s pretty great. I’ve spent the last couple of nights catching up on shows I’ve missed.

The site has both TV shows and movies that are free to watch. I found the TV show database to be pretty good so far and according to Jason Kilar the sites CEO it is just going to grow. It’s got everything from some great new shows like The Office and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Some old classics like Doogie Howser M.D and my favorite The A Team. Even some great cartoons like Exosquad. It’s all paid for by ads so you will have to sit through 3 commercials for a 22 minute show, which is less then a real TV show unless of course you use Tivo. The quality is really good and except for a couple of buffering incidents it runs great.

Right now there are some shows that don’t have their entire catalog up yet hopefully they will soon. The movie side of it isn’t as extensive yet but still no bad at all. Although I haven’t done it yet you can cut parts out of any show or movie and share it anywhere. If this little Hulu thing works out it could put quite dent in the DVD sales of classic TV shows.

With nothing good on actual TV right now it’s the perfect time to try Hulu and catch up on episodes you may have missed.

Check out the video after the break

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Unless you’ve been living in a nuclear bunker in fear of flying Wii-motes, you know Nintendo’s little gadget can be used for some pretty neat things.  Well owners of the big black monolith, soon you will be able to track your face too!  MTV’s Multiplayer Blog has a video and a small writeup on it.   The good news is you won’t have to strap on a Wii-mote (eww..not like that), and you won’t have to wear goofy glasses either.  All you’ll need is one all seeing Playstation Eye and your face.

So what can you DO with headtracking?  Imagine playing a game of Rainbow Six Vegas, and instead of some fancy button combination to lean around a corner, you simply tilt your head.  Looking left or right would be as simple as looking left or right in real life.  Of course, there is a downside to this - if you look left to look left on the screen…well you are no longer looking at the screen!  There’s no word yet on whether the technology will be used in any upcoming PS3 games, but as a proof of concept the potential is very high.

In other Playstation News, rumors are abound that the official Playstation Store will finally be seeing a much needed interface update. According to Kotaku, a revamped store will look more in line with the SingStore that’s already available to our friends in the European region.  Considering the existing Playstation Store looks like a 2001 AOL Web-page, this is a good thing.

VoiceThread …. Love this….I should marry it! With Voice Thread you can comment using your microphone and webcam while controlling the playback of the video. No, that’s not all…you can doodle on the video too! Just like on football games gals!

Veda!

Yeah, she is pretty hot, but control yourself or she’ll blow her rape whistle. Project Aiko is a sweet new girl android created by Trung Le. What will those crazy Canadian Asians do next? Anyway, she must have been involved in a tragic accident because she’s in a wheelchair. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s got plenty of baggage too. As demonstrated in the video, if you try to steal second base, she’s not having it.

You have to check this out. Here’s a quote from the official Project Aiko site, it sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi Original B-Movie:

With our current technology it is impossible to design software and hardware to mimic all systems of life. However, with Project Aiko, we are one step closer to designing an artificial intelligence neural network system which uses both dynamic software and hardware linked together to mimic part of human behaviour. By using Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System (aka B.R.A.I.N.S) software together with a custom designed Humanoid (aka Aiko), we hope one day we will make an android as close to a human as much as possible.

I voted it Best Acronym Lifeforms Love System (aka B.A.L.L.S), eh?

Boom!

Have you ever wanted to make your own MySpace or FaceBook? Yes, really? Well, now you can thanks to the brilliant folks over at Ning.com. This site is really an amazing piece of web 2.0. Ning let’s you, for free, create your very own social network.

Do you love dancing with cats, eating food underwater, elevator music, whatever, and think there’s a huge untapped audience that shares your passion. Well, now you can see how great your idea is without any programing knowledge whatsoever. That’s right, Ning allows you to create a social network site like MySpace without a bit of coding. Best of all, it’s yours, you get to customize it and make it about whatever your heart desires.

They’ve also got an expanding list of user created social networks that you can add to. If you’ve ever used something like MySpace and said, “I could do this better”, than you might just want to check out Ning.com. What’ve you got to lose, it’s free.

Boom!

Opera is now one of the best ways to get online and browse the world wide web. Not that this browser is new, but a lot of people are either still using Internet Explorer as their main browser or think Yahoo or Google is their browser. I’m just trying to spread the word on the stuff I use and love.

The good folks in Norway have made what I think is probably one of the best browsers out there, if not the best. These are the same people that created the web browser for the Nintendo Wii. Okay, so what makes this browser better than let’s say, oh I don’t know, Internet Explorer. Well, the simple fact that it’s not full of security holes and a complete piece of crap, just for starters. And then there’s Mozilla’s Firefox. Look, I have nothing but good to say about Firefox. I have it installed on all of my computers and use it quite frequently. It’s a very stable and capable browser, however, I find Opera a bit more fully featured.
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A new handheld unit hopes to take a small chunk out of Nintendo and Sony with it’s Linux based system. The portable gaming system sports a 320 x 240 touch screen much like Nintendo’s popular DS. The system also comes with a few games to get you started. But, don’t think you’ll find games in any local stores. This unit is designed as a “user created” content system. Meaning, you can put whatever you want on it. Transfer files from your computer, including movies, music, games, and e-books to this device using the included USB cable. The content is all stored on a removable SD card (sold separately, you can get a 1gb card for around $10 if you look). All this comes at a whopping $169, which is a pretty reasonable price considering all it’s capable of.

Casual gamers need not apply, this is a hacker’s delight, or even just a tweaker, maybe fiddler, whatever. Anyway, check it out because it’s cool and you can do a lot with it if you’re handy. Including the taboo, emulation! That means simulating other games from other systems on a system not specifically designed for them. You know, like old NES games on your computer. Not that we endorse that sort of thing, because it may or may not me legal.

Link: Gamepark Handheld Game System at Play-Asia.com

Boom!

I’ve got a site for you. The guys over at We Create Stuff have made an online flash based version of Portal. Check it out at New Grounds. The game is really done well. I played it for almost 20 minutes until I had to stop to get some real work done. It starts out pretty simple with the first few levels, but quickly gets pretty difficult when they start to add booby traps.

The game is not made by Valve and is completely a fan project, but it is really sweet. And did I mention free! Try it.

Here’s the links, Enjoy:

Portal: The Flash Version at New Grounds, the creator’s We Create Stuff, Free, and Armor Games

Boom!

Ever want to edit photos, but don’t want to learn programs like Photoshop, or drop a few hundred dollars on something you may only use once a month? Enter Picnik.com. This site makes photo manipulation simple and easy. It has pretty much all of the functionality you need for photo editing, from cropping and resizing, to changing the color levels and adding captions. All this is done quickly, and most importantly, easily from inside your web browser ie. Internet Explorer, FireFox, or my personal favorite, Opera. What does all this cost you ask? Why, absolutly nothing! That’s right, it’s all completely free and unless you want the advanced features, you don’t even have to signup.

Whether you’re a total N00B or you’ve been editing photos all your life, but just need a quick easy editing tool no matter where you are, this site is something you’ve got to check out.

If you didn’t catch that link yet, here it is again: Picnik.com

Boom!