Best Cyborgs

Credit: Square Enix

11	Barrett Wallace

The Final Fantasy games had always been set in an atmosphere of - well, of fantasy. Sure, there were some brief moments of weird science, but for the most part it was kings and magicians and elves and Moogles. Final Fantasy VII changed all that, plunging the player into a post-apocalyptic world run by a giant evil corporation. One of your first allies was Barrett Wallace, a tough-talking bar owner slash resistance movement leader equipped with a Gatling gun where his right hand should be. Where he kept his ammunition is anybody's guess, but he was a solid bro to have at your back.

Robocop Credit: Orion Pictures

10

RoboCop

Officer Alex Murphy is a damn fine cop, and amputating most of his body isn't going to change that. Paul Verhoeven's dystopian classic RoboCop looks more and more prescient each day, and it's only a matter of time before OCP takes over Detroit for real. One of the most chilling scenes in the movie comes when Murphy's doctors tell OCP's Bob Morton that they've managed to save one of Murphy's arms, only for Morton to command them to take it off to make Robo more efficient. From the baby food diet to the crook-wrecking hand cannon, Robocop is one of the best cyborgs of all time.

Credit: Marvel Comics

9

Deathlok

Let's be frank: a lot of the time, being a cyborg kind of sucks. Case in point: Deathlok the Demolisher. Colonel Luther Manning was fatally injured in the line of duty, but for some crazy-ass reason his body was preserved and brought back to life in the future tricked out with a panoply of mechanical parts. Nobody actually ever asked him if this was cool, so naturally he has some problems adjusting to the whole deal. Later on, he travels back in time to team up with Spider-Man and winds up brainwashed and turned into a living bomb. While he was functioning, though, he kicked a lot of ass - massive strength, computer-quick reflexes and a damn laser gun. All awesome.

Seven of Nine

8	Seven Of Nine

We like to think of the process of cyborgification as simply adding non-sentient metal parts to be controlled by our human consciousness. But what if the robot bits were the consciousness? Ergo, the Borg, one of the longest-running Star Trek foes. Probably the most interesting example of the Borg is Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager. Rescued by the crew and severed from the Borg collective, the bodacious Seven had to re-adjust to those pesky human feelings while using her advanced capabilities to help the ship.

Credit: Warner Brothers

7

Kano

Choosing a favorite cyborg from the Mortal Kombat series is like choosing a favorite pallette-swapped ninja from the Mortal Kombat series: just about impossible. After much deliberation, we decided to go with Kano. Not only was he represented in the very first game, he also has some of the nastiest fatalities in the whole series. As the leader of the Black Dragon, he came into contact with Jackson "Jax" Biggs early in his career. Fist-to-face contact, that is, as Jax smashed his skull and eye socket, forcing him to get fitted for a cyborg prosthetic that can shoot lasers.

Credit: Universal Pictures

6	Ash Williams

Most of the cyborgs on this list have been created through pretty high-tech means. Unfortunately, sometimes you don't have the best and brightest scientists on call and you have to wing it. Ash Williams, the protagonist of the Evil Dead series, gets his machine parts the hard way. After seeing his hand possessed by a "deadite," he cuts it off with his trusty chainsaw and mounts the machine to his stump, transforming him into a gore-spouting murder machine of the highest caliber. Eventually he makes a metal hand to take its place, but the chainsaw is really the pimp gear.

Credit: Marvel Comics

5

Rom

Probably the best toy tie-in comic of all time, Rom: Spaceknight took a doomed Hasbro action figure and spun a world of star-spanning adventure around it. The planet Galador was under attack by the rapacious Dire Wraiths, so brave Galadorians chose to be transformed into Spaceknights, cold steel warriors built to combat the powerful foes. Rom was sent to Earth to continue the fight, where us dumb-ass humans treated him like he was the bad guy - mainly because the Wraiths could shapeshift to human form. Alas, because of copyrights the series will never be reprinted.

Credit: Mattel

4

Trap Jaw

If you look back objectively, He-Man was kind of a tool. Prancing around in his furry underwear and bondage gear, riding a cat into battle - it's all a little suspect. In contrast, Skeletor and his henchmen seem pretty awesome. Case in point: Trap Jaw. A villain from another dimension, he hooks up with Skeletor early in his career and makes a name for himself with his metal jaw that can bite through anything. The more metal he eats, the stronger he becomes, which makes him a great role model for the kids out there.

Credit: Konami

3

Gray Fox

One of the most badass characters in the Metal Gear Solid series is Gray Fox. When we meet him in the first game, he's in the guise of a cyborg ninja who appears at helpful intervals to wreck stuff - but is he friend or foe? His real name is Frank Jaeger, and he was once one of Solid Snake's compatriots in FOXHOUND. He comes to a particularly grisly end, but his trademark battle armor shows up on a few other characters throughout the series. The ninja really hammered home the fact that Snake wasn't a superhuman protagonist in his own game, but a vulnerable meatbag who needed to be smart to survive.

Credit: UPN

2

Adam

One of my favorite Buffy big bads was Adam, the final product of the demon-hunting group known as the Initiative. Created by Maggie Walsh as an attempt to build the perfect organism, Adam is half human, half demon and half machine. Yes, I realize that that's three halves. He's just that much of a badass. After his first act - killing his creator - he set out into the world to make more creatures like himself. Despite having a built-in grenade launcher among other armaments, Adam's greatest weapon is his computerized intelligence and demonic charisma. Buffy and crew barely manage to stop him, and that's pretty tough.

Darth Vader

1	Darth Vader

Easily the most awesome man-machine to ever walk the earth, Darth Vader is such a tremendous badass that even three prequel movies couldn't dampen his swag. Born Anakin Skywalker, the Sith Lord slowly went over to the Dark Side, but that's not why he got all droided up. No, it was falling into an active volcano after a vicious fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi that did it. Even before the volcano dive, Anakin had already lost all of his arms and legs to lightsaber attacks. Rescued by the evil Emperor Palpatine, Vader is reconstructed as a heavy breathing juggernaut of pure evil.

Sony's Latest PR Blunder Buried in New PSN Terms of Service

As a newly minted PS3 owner after the recent price drop, I get to experience the joy of a host of exclusive titles I’ve been missing before.

Unfortunately, I now also get to share in the plight of the users subjected to Sony’s persistent foolishness, rather than gloating from the comfort of my Xbox.

Thankfully, I missed the whole PSN hacking debacle and my newly created account is (allegedly) safe and sound, but sure enough, days after I pick up the system, there’s a new controversy getting users hot and bothered.

It has to do with a new clause in the Terms of Service of the PSN which now says the following:

“Any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action.”

And goes on to say “unless both you and the Sony entity with which you have a dispute specifically agree to do so in writing following initiation of the arbitration.”

The non-lawyer version of this passage? You can’t file a class action lawsuit against Sony unless Sony itself allows you to.

It’s a slap in the face to consumers already weary of the company’s practices, as they’re essentially saying they could have another privacy breaching screw-up like the hack, and you wouldn’t have recourse against them in the form of a class action lawsuit. There’s currently a lawsuit filed against Sony for the hacking breach by the Rothken law firm on behalf of the 77 million customers affected, but this does not fall under these new terms of service, and will be going forward.

It’s a big PR goof for Sony, but when you really examine the actual consequences, class-action lawsuits aren’t exactly the great legal weapon consumers might think they are, at least not in the case of the video game industry. Gamasutra points out what the results have been for notable class-actions in the medium previously:

· The Hot Coffee class action suit against Take-Two Interactive Software? Members of the class ultimately got $5.
· Take-Two shareholders who sued over the company’s failure to consider a takeover offer from EA? They got nothing.
· The class action suit against The9 for allegedly misrepresenting facts? Dismissed.
· That class led by the former Rutgers QB who alleged his publicity rights were infringed by NCAA Football? Also kicked.

So in short, we’re not exactly suffering from cancer caused by a chemical plant and Erin Brockovich isn’t going to be getting us a million dollars each.

Still though, Sony should know better than to try to sneak something in there like that. Obviously someone was going to read the fine print, and now there’s another PR headache for a company that doesn’t need one.

Five ways Apple will never be the same without Jobs as CEO

As Steve Jobs permanently steps down as CEO, Apple is on top of the world. It has redefined the smartphone and the tablet in an era when those two devices are destined to dominate the next stage of computing. It has become the most valuable and most profitable technology company in world and one of the planet’s most powerful and recognizable brands. For a brief time when the stock market was going through its recent gyrations, Apple even passed Exxon Mobile to become the most valuable company in the world.

But, for those of us who have been around the tech industry for the past three decades, the most eye-popping thing Apple has accomplished in the past 14 years since Jobs returned to Apple was to turn the tables on its old rival Microsoft. Apple used to argue that it made higher quality products and out-innovated Microsoft, even if Microsoft made a lot more money by selling tasteless products to the masses, according to Jobs. In 2011, Apple now makes even more money than Microsoft (which still makes a lot in its own right).

But, Steve Jobs stepping down as CEO will inevitably put Apple’s future at risk. You’re going to read a lot of articles in the coming days where people are going to tell you all of the reasons that Apple is going to be fine and that the legacy of Steve Jobs will be enough to sustain the company for decades, and that Apple will be like Disney after Walt Disney’s departure. Here’s the bottom line — there’s simply no scenario in which Apple can be better without Steve Jobs as CEO than they were with him there.

Sure, Jobs will still be around as Chairman, but that’s a lot different than being in the trenches with engineers and designers every day. Few tech CEOs have ever been as hands-on as Jobs, and without him in the mix there’s going to be a gaping hole in Apple’s company culture and collective psyche.

Here are five big questions that Apple will have to face without Jobs involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. None of them have good answers, and that’s why Apple will be hard-pressed to continue its unbroken run of successes as Jobs exits the front of the stage.

5. Who will ignore what the public wants?

A few years ago, Jobs said, ”You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” That was his approach to product development throughout his career. He never tried to keep up with what the masses wanted, but tried to give them something new to fall in love with. Very few people in history have been as good as Jobs at judging what large numbers of people will want before they know they want it. Even fewer have ever had the guts to place big bets on those things. It’s unlikely Apple will ever find another leader who can do that like Jobs, and that more than anything else has been the key to Apple’s recent success.

4. Who will shame people into greatness?

The Steve Jobs management style is not normal in corporate America. He was notoriously abrasive, confrontational, and borderline-inappropriate. He got in people’s faces. He called them names. He demeaned their humanity. And yet, plenty of Apple employees will say that he pushed them to create the greatest work of their careers. As a people manager, he was the Bobby Knight of tech. From the outside, a lot of people were appalled by the stories of Jobs’ behavior toward his employees, but insiders will tell you that he could also be extremely generous, enthusiastic, and charming. And, when he praised an employee, it was like they just hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. Jobs could get away with this behavior — which gets most CEOs despised or fired — because he was Steve Jobs. Apple probably won’t ever have another leader with this decidedly old school management approach — much more in the Vince Lombardi tradition than the modern Ken Blanchard mode. But, the main reason Apple’s products are so polished is a result of Jobs’ ferocious perfectionism.

3. Who will take the big risks?

It’s easy to forget that when Apple first announced the iPhone, there were a lot of people in the technology industry who scoffed or snickered. CIOs called it a “toy.” Research in Motion openly mocked the iPhone for a couple years and completely dismissed it as a competitor to the BlackBerry (we see how well that worked out for them). Most of the telecom carriers even ignored the iPhone for years before they weren’t willing to deal with Apple’s demands. The point is that Apple had a lot to overcome to create a successful mobile phone. It took years. It took a lot of money. It took a lot of relationship-building. And, there was never any guarantee of success. In fact, in 2007 when Apple first launched the iPhone, it was probably more likely that the carriers would find a way to lock out the iPhone or cripple it. The whole thing could have turned into a major distraction and a money pit. Instead, because the public loved the device, it pushed the entire smartphone industry in a different direction. It was a huge risk, but when it was successful, it came with a huge reward. Jobs took a similar risk with the iPad three years later, and got a similar result. Will new CEO Tim Cook be willing to take those kinds of risks? Or, more importantly, will he be smart enough to take the right kinds of huge risks? It’s hard to imagine anyone doing it better than Jobs has done over the past decade — even Jobs himself would have had a hard time emulating his success over the next decade.

2. Who will say “No”?

Jobs once said, ”I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things [we] have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to a 1,000 things.” I recently wrote an entire piece about this topic: White iPhone debacle shows why Apple is winning. That article is about the fact that Apple promised a white version of the iPhone 4, but had to delay it multiple times (after several more “coming soon” promises). The product wasn’t right and Apple refused to release a White iPhone 4 to the public until it was right. Most companies would have just released it earlier. Trust me. I see a ton of tech products come across my desk every month that still need to be finished and should have never been released. This is another example of where Jobs’ relentless perfectionism has powered Apple’s string of successes. Saying “no” is hard. It disappoints people. It can make your company look bad in the short term. It can put a lot of heat on you. Most companies say “yes” way too often. Apple will have to institutionalize and internalize the kind of discipline that Jobs repeatedly demonstrated. That’s a tall order.

1. Who will conjure the “magic”?

Lots of leaders use hyperbole to promote their products, but only Steve Jobs can actually get a lot of people to believe it. I’ve been puzzling over this for years. Why do so many of the same people who turn cynical when most CEOs go into their sales pitches perk up when Jobs unleashes his bold claims about Apple products? Is it because Jobs has led so many successful projects in the past? Is it because he’s more persuasive? Is it because he has a great team that has repeatedly delivered quality products? It’s probably a little bit of all those things, but more than anything else, it has to do with Jobs’ charisma and communication style (which aren’t easily emulated). Jobs is generally pretty low-key and subtle, but then all of the sudden he’ll fire off a big hyperbole or an enthusiastic flare. The contrast of the two styles seems to have the effect of making people say to themselves, “Whoa, if he thinks it’s big and is getting excited about it, then it must be important.” That’s why people fall for it when Jobs dubs a tablet computer as a “magical and revolutionary” thing. It’s not just Job’s discipline and knack for taking the right risks that has made Apple successful, it’s his own ability to promote Apple’s products and get millions of people excited about them. That’s worth more than millions of dollars of marketing, and it’s the one thing that is almost completely irreplaceable.

Batman in happier times

Anti-Virus Pioneer Evgeny Kaspersky

SPIEGEL: Mr. Kaspersky, when was the last time that a virus hunter like you fell victim to a cyber attack?

Evgeny Kaspersky: My computer was almost infected twice recently. When someone returned my flash card to me at a conference, it was infected with a virus. But then our own virus program helped me. The second time, the website of a hotel in Cyprus was infected. These kinds of things can happen to anyone, no matter how careful you are. I need protection just like anyone else. After all, a specialist on sexually transmitted diseases also relies on condoms for protection.

SPIEGEL: Virologists sometimes rave about the deadly perfection of the viruses they study. Do you still ever get excited yourself about the technology of a computer virus?

Kaspersky: The more sophisticated a virus is, the more exciting it is to crack its algorithm. I'm happy if I can do it. Okay, sometimes there's a little professional respect involved, too. But it has nothing to do with enthusiasm. Every virus is a crime. Hackers do bad things. I would never hire one.

SPIEGEL: You and your company are the winners of a new era in warfare.

Kaspersky: No, because this war can't be won; it only has perpetrators and victims. Out there, all we can do is prevent everything from spinning out of control. Only two things could solve this for good, and both of them are undesirable: to ban computers -- or people.

SPIEGEL: Although your company Kaspersky Lab now employs more than 2,000 employees, it's a small business compared with antivirus software makers like McAfee and Symantec. Can you ever catch up with them?

Kaspersky: We're certainly trying. Russia is our most important competitive advantage. Moscow produces the world's best programmers. It has a large number of outstanding technical universities. And although Russians can't build cars the way you Germans can, they do write brilliant software.

SPIEGEL: You were once trained as a cryptologist by the KGB. Does that at all hinder your expansion in the West?

Kaspersky: No, but the fact that we are a company with Russian roots does. We occasionally sense a certain amount of suspicion. Nevertheless, we are now No. 1 in Germany, are growing rapidly in the United States and even have customers within NATO.

SPIEGEL: Who?

Kaspersky: A defense ministry. I won't reveal the name of the country.

SPIEGEL: Which countries do most viruses come from?

Kaspersky: It's hard to say because viruses unfortunately don't carry ID cards. We can at least usually identify the originator's language, and that's at the moment the inventor communicates with his virus and gives it a command.

SPIEGEL: Russian programmers don't only do good things. We assume that they also dominate the virus business.

Kaspersky: Based on the number of programmed viruses, we are in third place behind China and Latin America. Unfortunately, Russians are also among the most sophisticated and advanced players in criminal cyber activity. These days, they invent viruses and complex Trojan programs on demand. They launder money through the Internet. However, the largest number of harmful programs are written in Chinese. This means that they can be coming directly from the People's Republic, but also from Singapore, Malaysia and even California, where there are Mandarin-speaking hackers.

SPIEGEL: Surprisingly enough, very few viruses seem to be coming from India even though it's a rising star in the IT world.

Kaspersky: In general, the crime level in India is low. It's probably a matter of the mentality. India and China have roughly the same population, the same computer density, a similar standard of living and similar religious roots. But China spits out viruses like they were coming off an assembly line.

Part 2: Amateurs and Professionals

SPIEGEL: Why is Russia producing some of the most dangerous hacker rings but very few world-class software companies like your own?

Kaspersky: There are a few, but I see a basic problem: In Russia, the level of technical training has traditionally been high, and it has been transferred from teachers to students for generations. But there are no teachers who know how to build a business with this training because, over seven decades of communism, doing business was never allowed to be the focus. Most of today's business leaders are around 50, which means they were born during the Soviet era. They often have a type of Iron Curtain in their minds. They like to go abroad for vacation; but when they do business, they limit themselves to countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union because that's where people speak their language and understand them culturally. I hope to see a new generation that is no longer afraid of other cultures and that speaks English.

SPIEGEL: The Russian search engine Yandex recently raised $1.3 billion (€912 million) in its initial public offering in New York, which was the highest IPO figure in the industry since Google…

Kaspersky: …which is an unbelievably important signal for many people here. A Russian company has shown that it can be successful with the power of our brains rather than with our natural resources. There is an American dream, and now there is a Russian dream, as well: to make money without oil and gas.

SPIEGEL: You once described yourself as an extremely paranoid person. What is the worst possible disaster that a computer viruses could cause?

Kaspersky: In the Soviet days, we used to joke that an optimist learns English because he is hoping that the country will open up, that a pessimist learns Chinese because he's afraid that the Chinese will conquer us, and that the realist learns to use a Kalashnikov. These days, the optimist learns Chinese, the pessimist learns Arabic…

SPIEGEL: …and the realist?

Kaspersky: …keeps practicing with his Kalashnikov. Seriously. Even the Americans are now openly saying that they would respond to a large-scale, destructive Internet attack with a classic military strike. But what will they do if the cyber attack is launched against the United States from within their own country? Everything depends on computers these days: the energy supply, airplanes, trains. I'm worried that the Net will soon become a war zone, a platform for professional attacks on critical infrastructure.

SPIEGEL: When will that happen?

Kaspersky: Yesterday. Such attacks have already occurred.

SPIEGEL: You're referring to Stuxnet, the so-called "super virus" that was allegedly programmed to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities.

Kaspersky: Israeli intelligence unfortunately doesn't send us any reports. There was a lot of talk -- on the Internet and in the media -- that Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli project. I think that's probably the most likely scenario. It was highly professional work, by the way, and one that commands a lot of respect from me. It cost several million dollars and had to be orchestrated by a team of highly trained engineers over several months. These were no amateurs; these were total professionals who have to be taken very seriously. You don't get in a fight with them; they don't mess around.

SPIEGEL: What kind of damage can a super virus like this inflict?

Kaspersky: Do you remember the total power outage in large parts of North America in August 2003? Today, I'm pretty sure that a virus triggered that catastrophe. And that was eight years ago.

SPIEGEL: Firemen tend to describe the dangers of fire in particularly dramatic terms because they make their money fighting fires. Aren't you just trying to scare people about viruses because that's your bread and butter?

Kaspersky: If I were only interested in the money, my company would have gone public by now. Believe it or not, my primary concern is making the world a cleaner place. Money is important; but if I do my job well, that will take care of itself.

SPIEGEL: Hackers have recently been taking aim at companies like Lockheed Martin, Google and Sony…

Kaspersky: …simply because they can now infiltrate their well-protected security systems to access secret information. This puts companies at risk, but it also jeopardizes entire nations. It's a matter of private industrial espionage, but countries are also involved.

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that governments are behind many of the attacks?

Kaspersky: I don't rule it out.

SPIEGEL: Google has claimed that the attack on its e-mail services was traced back to China.

Kaspersky: I have no information pointing toward China as the actual originator. Professionals do their work through proxy servers. They can be located in China but controlled from the United States. Perhaps it was just competitors -- but people then pointed the finger at China. Anything can happen in our business.

Part 3: Sources of Future Threats

SPIEGEL: In 2007, Estonia provoked the Russians when it moved a Soviet-era war memorial. Do you think the Kremlin was behind the subsequent cyber attackon the small country?

Kaspersky: Not the government, but enraged Russian spammers who directed special computer networks known as "botnets" against Estonia. It became the prototype of a belligerent cyber attack on a country. The attackers didn't just cripple government websites; they also sent so many spam e-mails that the entire Internet channel to Estonia quickly collapsed. The country was cut off from the world. The banking system, trade, transportation -- everything ground to a halt.

SPIEGEL: Could Russian hackers figuratively "checkmate" Germany?

Kaspersky: (laughing) We won't do that. If we did, who would buy our natural gas?

SPIEGEL: A number of computer geeks and hackers have banded together into an elusive online group known as "Anonymous," which is constantly staging fresh guerilla cyber campaigns. What are your thoughts about it?

Kaspersky: I don't think Anonymous has done any major damage yet. But I also don't support this group. Some of these people have good intentions and are merely trying to draw attention to security loopholes. But there are also those with bad intentions. Imagine you left the key in your front door. Some would call to let your know, whereas others would spread the news throughout the entire city that your front door is open. That's Anonymous; it's unpredictable.

SPIEGEL: In the future, terrorist organizations like al-Qaida could also wage cyber wars.

Kaspersky: Terrorists primarily use the Internet for communication, propaganda and recruiting new members and funding sources. So far, highly qualified cyber criminals have had enough sense to not get involved with terrorists. But, in the future, we should count on seeing cyber attacks on factories, airplanes and power plants. Just think of Die Hard 4…

SPIEGEL: …in which Bruce Willis had to fight his way through an army of young hackers.

Kaspersky: Half of the film is Hollywood fiction, but the other half is quite realistic. That really worries me.

SPIEGEL: Your 20-year-old son Ivan was recently kidnapped by a gang but liberated unharmed a few days later. How dangerous is it to be rich in Russia?

Kaspersky: More dangerous than it is in Munich, but not as dangerous as it is in Colombia, where I usually traveled in an armored car when I was there on vacation. The children of successful entrepreneurs are kidnapped in other countries, too. Thank God the Russian authorities and my security service were able to rescue Ivan. My son was partly to blame for his kidnapping: He had broadcast his address on Facebook even though I'd been warning him for years not to reveal any personal information on the Internet. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter make it easier for criminals to do their work.

SPIEGEL: Your son is studying mathematics and works as a programmer. Do you expect him to take over your company one day?

Kaspersky: If he's good, maybe so.

SPIEGEL: Silicon Valley is teeming with Russian scientists. Didn't you ever want to emigrate to America?

Kaspersky: Once, in 1992. I had just returned to Moscow from Hanover, from my first trip to the West. At the time, I could do nothing but shake my head in disgust over my country. The prosperity gap was enormous. It's become significantly smaller today. And because I travel so much, I know there are pros and cons everywhere -- whether social, economic or political.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Kaspersky, thank you for this interview.

Interview conducted by Matthias Schepp and Thomas Tuma