Google announced Tuesday it was discontinuing seven products as part of an effort to streamline the company, including Google Wave, a chat-email hybrid introduced in 2009 that was supposed to revolutionize online …

After 27 Years, Tetris Still Putting The Pieces Together

There’s no question that few games - not just videogames, but games, pure and simple - have achieved the ubiquity of Tetris, the addictive falling-block puzzle videogame created in 1984 by Russian computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov in the bowels of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. It has since gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies and been ported to practically every computer system since.

But 27 years later, having arguably launched the portable and casual videogaming industries, the bitterly ironic question dogging Pajitnov and his business partner, videogames publisher Henk Rogers, CEO of the Tetris Company is this: Where does Tetris fit in among the modern gaming market? Especially alongside popular modern gaming sensations “Angry Birds,” and “Farmville.”

“You can play Tetris forever,” Rogers told TPM in a telephone interview. “It is one of the simplest looking games out there, and yet it is the deepest and most interesting. Most videogames are superficially very beautiful, but have no depth. Tetris is the opposite, it has the ability to capture your attention for years.”

Future Car Manufacturers Schooled By Fish

STEPHEN BEALE

There’s something fishy about the design of futuristic, eco-friendly cars like the Toyota Prius, Mercedes Benz concept Bionic and the Nissan concept EPORO, namely that their designs seem to be inspired by marine animals. In the case of the Bionic, one animal in particular was the model: The humble boxfish.

This is the unlikely story of how the little fish came to be seen as a symbol of technological progress and prowess by one of the world’s most prestigious automobile manufacturers.

Wind Power Gets Huge Boost With Pennsylvania Project

Another 140 megawatts of wind power, enough to power over 38,000 homes, is set to be up and running in Pennsylvania by 2013 thanks to German wind turbine company REPower Systems, which on Wednesday announced it had inked a deal with American wind developer EverPower to provide 68 wind turbines for a planned wind farm in Somerset.

“This is one of the largest single orders for REpower,” said Andreas Nauen, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of REpower Systems, in a statement. “We appreciate the confidence our US customers place in us.”

Microsoft Gets More Serious About Buying Yahoo

The Yahoo acquisition rumor mill has been sent buzzing again with the news that Microsoft signed a non-disclosure agreement with Yahoo, which would allow Microsoft to gain more detail on Yahoo’s assets but prevent Microsoft from talking to other potential bidders, according to the New York Times Dealbook.

Not only that, but in a savvy move, before it signed the non-disclosure agreement, Microsoft in October held talks with other potential bidders, including Silver Lake and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, about teaming up to buy part or all of the struggling Yahoo, Dealbook reported.

Hackers Leak Facebook Law Enforcement Guidelines

A group of hackers claiming to represent Anonymous’s Antisec movement hijacked two Gmail accounts belonging to a retired California Department of Justice cybercrimes investigator, now a private investigator, and on November 18 published 38,000 private emails and identifying contact information online.

Among the data published by the hackers in a torrent file were two versions of what appears to be Facebook’s guidelines for law enforcement agencies, according to Public Intelligence, a collaborative research website dedicated to the freedom of information.

Euro Space Agency Contacts Wayward Russian Mars Probe

Updated 11:17 am ET, Wednesday Nov. 23

Finally! The European Space Agency has made contact with Russia’s wayward Mars probe Phobos-Grunt, Russian news outlet Itar-Tass reported early Wednesday.

“We succeeded in creating relationship [sic] with the spacecraft. But till now there [has] been no information,” ESA Moscow chief Rene Pischel said, Itar-Tass reported.

“At present, we are working further with our Russian colleagues in order to decide what will do farther.”

“Unfortunately, we have no telemetric data,” said Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of the Russian Space Agency, “We simply do not understand what is going on there.”

Harvard To Manufacture Swarming ‘Kilobots’

TINY CASEY

If you’ve ever wanted to control your own swarm of tiny robots, you’re in luck: Harvard is partnering with a Swiss robotics manufacturer to bring its quarter sized, collective behavior robots, called “Kilobots,” to market.

Though the name sounds ominous, it refers to the robot’s potential for mass production and coordination. Kilobots cost only about $14 apiece and can be assembled in just a few minutes.

OSHA’s $200,000 Mobile App Criticized

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid over $200,000 for mobile versions of a “Heat Safety Tool” app that doesn’t even work, according to an Android developer who filed a Freedom of Information Request to obtain the cost of the app.

Rich Jones, the 23-year-old, Boston-based Android app developer behind Gun.io, a new site that seeks to match freelance app developers with solicitations, described how he stumbled upon the costly mistake in a post on the Gun.io blog Monday.

FCC Wants Hearing On AT&T;/T-Mobile Merger

The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is seeking an administrative hearing on the proposed $39 billion merger between AT&T; and T-Mobile, the agency told reporters on Wednesday, according to Forbes.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has circulated a draft order requesting the agency’s five commissioners to approve the hearing, which would take place before an administrative law judge, because the agency cannot find the merger to be “be in the public interest,” or it has “substantial, material questions” about it, Forbes reported.