Intel says the release is still “rough around the edges

The Asus Transformer AiO will be launching soon, and it looks like the company may need to thank Intel for some code contributions. That’s because Intel has just released its code for Android 4.2.2, and one of the key additions is support for dual-booting Android alongside Windows 8 on systems that utilize UEFI instead of BIOS. The new release actually doesn’t support booting using BIOS at all.

Intel says the release is still “rough around the edges,” and that it’s not the kind of OS you want to install on any device that contains mission-critical data or treasured family photos. Right now it’s pre-alpha software — the kind you might throw on a spare laptop or desktop or boot in a virtual machine so that you can take a sneak peek. There’s still a lot of work to be done before the Android 4.2.2 code is stable and optimized for use on Intel’s chips.

On non-UEFI systems, it has been possible to boot both Windows and Android for quite some time. Using a current Android-x86 image, you can install Google’s OS alongside Windows and then use the GRUB loader to enable boot-time switching. Intel’s work is welcome, though, since we haven’t seen a ton of touchscreen Windows hardware until the advent of Windows 8 — which has also contributed to the rise of UEFI on mainboards.

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Motorola has planted a substantial leak on the eve of the Samsung Galaxy S4

Either Motorola has planted a substantial leak on the eve of the Samsung Galaxy S4 launch, or this Vietnamese hardware vlogger is in trouble. Whatever the case may be, we can see a new Motorola phone on the horizon, and it’s looking pretty sweet.

Motorola hopefuls have been waiting and waiting for the often whispered X Phone. As Google approaches the end of the 18 month pipeline of hardware that was inherited at the time of purchasing the company, fans of what is to come are hoping for a spectacular new phone that may even be worthy of Nexus branding.

There’s never been any hard evidence of a Motorola phone in production yet, but there’s more than enough speculation to keep people talking as Moto’s competitors play their hands. If this video is any indication, even if this isn’t the X Phone, Motorola is clearly headed deeper into Stock Android territory.

The phone on display is a Snapdragon S4 Pro powered device that is all but Stock Android, running at least Android 4.2. The phone is packing 2GB of RAM under its 4.65″ 720p AMOLED display at 320ppi. In terms of hardware specs alone, the phone seems to very closely emulate the Nexus 4. The design shown here is pretty different from Motorola’s current design schema, opting for soft curves and a matte backing over the highly industrial look of the current RAZR line. The phone is obviously running on a GSM carrier, which could mean that it would be available to more than just Verizon Wireless customers if it is meant to hit the states.

The phone is briefly compared to an iPhone 5 in the video, and you can clearly see how nice and thin it is. The curved backing is a new design choice for Motorola, but it allows the camera and flash to lay flush with the phone. There doesn’t appear to be a volume rocker in the casing, which raises some questions about how you would do things like take screenshots or quickly mute the handset when a call was coming in. It’s possible that what we see here in this video is an unfinished product or a casing over the real phone, as it is clear the screen cover is hiding the front facing camera and the user in this video was never touching the actual glass.

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We all know that there is both good and bad bacteria

We all know that there is both good and bad bacteria, and there are many ways to take down the bad guys. Normally, we resort to applying some sort of material to ourselves — soap, medicine, antibacterial lotion, and so on. Now, though, scientists have discovered a new way to kill bacteria, and it doesn’t involve some sort of third-party material. The very structure of cicada wings traps bacteria, and slowly rips it apart.

At a microscopic level, the clanger cicada’s wing contains many tiny spikes. So, when some bacteria gets on the wing, the little guys essentially get impaled, then slowly slide down the spikes, being ripped apart until they die. The bacteria doesn’t instantly become impaled, though, as if it fell from a high ledge and landed square on a pole; it lands, and its own weight eventually pulls it down on to the spike, impaling it. As it slides, its skin becomes pulled apart, stretching the bacteria until it does, reminding us of a particular video game.

However, the scientists tested what they felt appeared to be happening. In a microwave, they cooked various bacteria at different degrees, which in turn made some bacteria skin more elastic than other skin. The bacteria with the more elastic skin succumbed to the slow, skin-being-ripped-apart death, while the bacteria with the harder skin did not. This confirmed that the cicada wing spikes are, in fact, killing bacteria.

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EA is continuing to wrestle with server issues and frustrated gamers attempting

EA is continuing to wrestle with server issues and frustrated gamers attempting to play the newly released and always-connected SimCity. But a post on the SimCity forums by developer Maxis has promised things will get better very soon.

Maxis has stated it is upset by what has happened during the first few days of the game’s launch due to there being too much demand for the servers EA allocated for the game. But the situation has been made worse because of a number of unexpected server architecture problems. This is why bugs such as save games being reverted back to earlier versions are probably occurring.

The solution is to add a lot more servers, which is happening over the next couple of days. Maxis is also fixing bugs as they get reported, with several major updates already deployed. If the additional servers come online, then hopefully the game will be a lot more stable before Saturday is over.

With all the problems you’d think nobody was playing the game, but that’s not the case according to the stats Maxis is collecting. Taking a single 24 hour period of game time, players managed to create over 38 million buildings, 7.5km of roads, and started 18 million fires. What’s a little worrying is they also know that 40 million pipes full of “poop” exist in the world.

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We’ve finally reached a point where it looks like all four major

We’ve finally reached a point where it looks like all four major US carriers have decided to push LTE to their entire network over the next few years. Now that the data part has been sorted out, the next step is Voice over LTE. Verizon’s aggressive push to LTE for data seems to be matched only by their new desire to ditch CDMA, but it’s going to take them a little while to get there.

There are a lot of significant benefits to VoLTE on any carrier, but especially for Verizon. This is a promise Verizon has been making for a couple of years now, and users are eager to make the switch. By removing the CDMA radio entirely, you not only save on battery life but you remove the complicated handoff method currently being deployed on Verizon. Verizon phones work really hard to gracefully slide from LTE to CDMA and back to LTE for streaming data, and the benefit in battery life alone when that is gone could be significant for some users.

In their rush to get LTE out to the US before anyone else, Verizon put themselves in a difficult situation when it comes to an upgrade path for their LTE network. Switching to an all LTE environment will mean upgrading each and every one of their LTE towers, which will more than likely result in a staged rollout where only parts of the LTE network are VoLTE ready for a significant period of time.

When Verizon was first rolling out their LTE network, it wasn’t even referred to as a 4G network by the ITU. The definition of 4G was altered to support the networks created by US carriers, who had already begun branding their networks. Unlike Sprint, whose towers were built to switch elegantly (just insert a new network card) between the existing LTE r9 and the not yet deployed LTE r10 (also called LTE Advanced), the Verizon towers are exclusively LTE r9. While VoLTE is supported in LTE r9, there’s a performance hit in both voice quality and data throughput when compared to LTE r10.

Verizon’s announcement that VoLTE will be rolling out in 2014 makes it sound like you’ll be able to ditch CDMA altogether and enjoy the high quality audio provided by your new VoLTE phone on January 1. Verizon’s rollout will be regional, just like the initial LTE rollout was, and it won’t be functional to have a CDMA free phone on Verizon for at least a year. Once you leave the comforts of your VoLTE network, you’d only be able to make calls if Verizon adopted a VoIP-like alternative for when you were off network.
Details surrounding the actual LTE rollout are sparse still, but based on what we know about Verizon’s network right now it is unlikely that the transition will be a simple, network-wide switch to this new platform. When considering Verizon’s current resources, and understanding that each and every LTE tower would need to be updated physically and individually, bringing their entire LTE network up to VoLTE before 2015 is likely cost prohibitive.

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EA is continuing to try and solve the server woes that are facing players attempting

EA is continuing to try and solve the server woes that are facing players attempting to access their newly purchased copies of SimCity. And yet, we have no real explanation as to why EA wasn’t prepared for the launch. It also doesn’t help that Kip Katsarelis, senior producer on SimCity, has partly blamed players for the problems simply by not leaving the game and rendering it too popular.

In a post on the SimCity forums, Katsarelis attempted to give an update on the situation regarding player access to servers. He said it only took a few hours for the North American servers to reach capacity on launch day because “players were having such a good time they didn’t want to leave.”

Normally that would be cause for celebration by a publisher and developer as it means the game you created is very popular. But not in this case. Katsarelis went on to say that because of this, it “made it difficult for new players to join.” It doesn’t matter if he meant that to be a positive thing or not, it’s not the right thing to say when your gamer base is totally frustrated with the situation.

A forum post by Maxis yesterday said that new servers would be online by Saturday, but Katsarelis suggests it’s going to take up 3 days to have them installed. He also said EA has prepared for Australian, Japanese, and gamers across Europe by rolling out more servers for each territory. We’ll find out soon enough if the extra capacity is enough to cope as the game launches across Europe today.

If you have managed to get on the servers be aware that SimCity is not functioning with all its features enabled at the moment. As a way of dealing with the server load, achievements, leaderboards, and Cheetah Speed (speeds up time in the game) have all been disabled temporarily. Maxis and EA haven’t stated when they will be turned back on yet.

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Are you an avid collector of all things Lego?

Are you an avid collector of all things Lego? Are you a fan of science, or perhaps just a fan of genius in general? Maybe you’re just a collector of very odd esoterica and like to show off all the weird stuff you have? If you fall into any of these categories, then Amazon seller The Living Brick has just the item for you: A Stephen Hawking Lego kit.

The item, which is selling on Amazon for $39.99, comes complete with every piece you’ll need to recreate the venerable physicist, as well as a detailed instruction manual — you know, in case you aren’t the Stephen Hawking of Lego-building and need some guidance. Only 100 of the kits were made, and according to the Amazon page as of this writing, only eight remain. The kit comes with brand-new parts, and ones that are official Lego bricks, rather than some knock-off brand.

Checking some of the product reviews, there are reports of the finished model being a little flimsy, with pieces not being sturdy enough to stay together. However sturdy the model is, it’s actually quite impressive that some small, solid-color Lego pieces were able to represent something so complex and make it instantly recognizable.

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When Google’s Eric Schmidt introduced “The New Motorola”

When Google’s Eric Schmidt introduced “The New Motorola” on stage last year, after appointing Googler Dennis Woodside CEO of Motorola, it was made clear that the company would undergo some serious restructuring to fit in more with Google’s corporate values. What was unclear at the time was the volume of jobs the company would be shaving in order to bring the mobile manufacturer to profitability.

Google inherited quite a mess when they purchased Motorola. 18 months of products that weren’t likely to sell particularly well, a relationship with Verizon Wireless that promoted things like locked bootloader and bloatware, and a corporate ecosystem that was too large to succeed in the market today.

Since the announcement of “The New Motorola” there’s been a lot of changes made to try and right the ship. Google employees were put in key leadership positions, rumors of a powerful X Phone coupled with UI changes to make their phones look more like Stock Android, and now two different workforce adjustments. The company has confirmed today that 1,200 jobs have been cut on top of the 4,000 jobs that were cut back in August, with no confirmation as to whether or not more will come after this.

It’s not all layoffs in Motorola land. Recently the company hired Guy Kawasaki to advise on the next steps for the company. Guy made a name for himself as an Apple evangelist early on, but has since moved to support the Android platform as well as Google’s social network. The hope is that Guy’s influence alongside other Google transplants will work to fix the existing pipeline of products and set up a business model moving forward that leaves the company more able to compete with Samsung and Apple in the next year.

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One of the major benefits of using OLED technology is the very low levels of power they require

One of the major benefits of using OLED technology is the very low levels of power they require. Toshiba has combined that fact with another technology that’s becoming more popular–wireless power transmission.

Typically, we see wireless power used to charge smartphones without the need to plug a cable into them directly. But what Toshiba has done is to integrate the inductive power system into the back of a small OLED panel. The result is a working light that requires no wires.

Toshiba decided the best way to show this system off during Lighting Fair 2013 in Tokyo this week was to create an configurable light unit. It takes the form of a square frame that can be filled with up to 9 wireless OLED panels. The frame provides power to any of the panels inserted into it, and as there’s no physical connection, you can reconfigure the shape of the light whenever you want.

The wireless power system wasn’t the only bit of tech Toshiba was showing off during the fair, though. The Japanese company has also managed to cut the amount of light a transparent OLED panel emits out the back significantly. Typically this is over 30 percent, but Toshiba has got that down to around 10 percent light bleed.

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Having an Xbox 360 under your TV allows entertainment to be accessible by all the family

Having an Xbox 360 under your TV allows entertainment to be accessible by all the family. But that usually means you want an Xbox Live account for each person rather than trying to share one. It also inevitably means paying for multiple Gold accounts every year.

Microsoft eased that burden back in 2010 by introducing the Xbox Live Gold Family Pack. For $100 you got four Gold accounts that could be shared on a single console or split across multiple machines if you so wished. It offered a significant saving over the typical $40 per Gold account annual subscription. Other benefits included being able to monitor activity, restrict access for kids, and allocate Microsoft Points to each account. All invaluable features for parents.

Unfortunately, the option of a Family Pack has now disappeared all of a sudden. For some reason Microsoft has decided to stop offering it, literally overnight, and without warning. Anyone trying to sign up for a new account or renew an existing Family Pack is being denied the option, and Microsoft is so far offering no explanation as to why this decision has been taken.

Were the Family Pack accounts not popular enough? Or does this point to a big change coming to the Xbox Live system when the Xbox 720 is launched? Maybe these family controls will be built into the new Xbox Live, and maybe Microsoft has a new way it wants to handle family accounts that the old way of doing things didn’t support?

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The serious perils of making cocktails at home cannot be understated

The serious perils of making cocktails at home cannot be understated. Who hasn’t spent an evening cleaning up spilled mixers, coping with an eyeful of lime juice, and thinking there must be a better way? According to the guys behind Party Robotics, the answer is an open source robotic drink mixer called the Bartendro. It’s on Kickstarter right now, and is hurtling toward full funding.

Bartendro uses peristaltic pumps (dispensers) to mete out accurate volumes of liquid to make the perfect drink in any size you want. If you only want to try a tiny bit of some complicated beverage, Bartendro can make that happen. The dispensers actually use a modified Arduino controller, and are are connected to a router board paired with a Raspberry Pi computer.

The Raspberry Pi is used to deploy a wireless network that you can connect to with a tablet or smartphone. A web interface is used to easily select drinks, which Bartendo mixes up. The router board can handle upto 15 Bartendo dispensers, each drawing liquid from a different bottle as needed. The team claims it is accurate to within one milliliter.

If you want in on Bartendro, there are a few cheaper levels that offer some swag, but no robot. Spend $99-129 and you can get a single dispenser without the Raspberry Pi or router. Be aware, the cheaper option is an early bird special, and it’s nearly sold out as of this writing. The dispenser-only tier is good for hobbyists that want to play with the pumps.

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If you have ever played Portal, you’re probably a fan of automated turrets

If you have ever played Portal, you’re probably a fan of automated turrets. If you use the internet in 2013, you probably either have a Twitter account, or at least encounter tweets from various people in your daily news cycle. iStrategyLabs, essentially a social media and digital ad agency, created an automated turret that fires paintballs when you tweet at it. It doesn’t sing in soothing tones like the turrets from Portal, but it allows you to shoot a gun from across the internet, if you’re so inclined.

Dubbed PaintBot, the gun (perhaps unfortunately) is set up in the office of iStrategyLabs, rather than placed in the bedroom of that jerk who doesn’t stop tweeting obnoxious retorts to everything you send over Twitter. The paintball gun is mounted on a tripod and shoved between some steadying wood, and hooked up to an Arduino. When someone tweets with the hashtag “#ISLPaint” the rig responds by firing a paintball at a canvas.

Sadly, though, there is much interactivity left to be desired. You can’t aim the gun, so you can’t potentially draw something on the canvas using paintball pellets as your brush, and there also isn’t a livestream, so you can’t watch your tweet shoot a gun. In fact, there’s really no way to tell if your tweet was even registered and did anything. iStrategyLabs does state that it is working on making improvements to the gun, so hopefully some aiming features and a livestream will be added in the future.

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Rather than having to repaint a room numerous times in order to change the color

Rather than having to repaint a room numerous times in order to change the color, a new robotic lighting system called Lighty could get the job done in a matter of seconds.

Lighty uses a tablet-and-stylus interface to control a room that is equipped with an array of robotic lights in the ceiling. A camera embedded in the ceiling displays the image of the room on screen, and the user draws on the image, shading in dark or light areas as if they were coloring in a book. As the user shades in the areas, the robotic lights in the ceiling respond in kind, lightening or darkening the corresponding areas of the room.

The computer does all of the calculations, so all the user has to focus on is coloring, and can even blend light and dark areas for a moody effect. The lights in the ceiling are able to swivel around and aim at specific areas of the room, so for example, if you want to be a little suggestive, the room can be made completely dark except for the bed area.

The tablet interface, though simple, is reminiscent of a graphical design or art program, like Photoshop. The user chooses different brushes from a menu, then paints the displayed image of the room. The demo shows different intensities of light, as well as a few tools, such as a standard brush, one called “squirt,” as well as an eraser and undo button. Though the demo didn’t make mention of it, it’s entirely conceivable that the lighting system can replace the standard white lights with lights of a different color, allowing users to paint a room in many shades.

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The SimCity launch earlier this week was a complete disaster

The SimCity launch earlier this week was a complete disaster. Single player games that require an Internet connection to enable forced multiplayer features (as well as acting as a form of DRM) is bad enough, but then to not be prepared for the demand such a popular franchise has, well, that’s just dumb, and Lucy Bradshaw, EA’s general manager for the Maxis Label, has admitted exactly that.

She’s stated that EA simply didn’t realize how much demand there would be for the game, and based their predicted server loads on what happened during the beta period. What followed was a lot of anger and frustration, and EA desperately trying to increase the amount of servers supporting the game while Maxis fixed bugs.

Bradshaw says the pain is coming to an end. Server capacity has increased 120 percent over the past few days, and “disrupted experiences” have decreased by 80 percent. That means there’s still some way to go, but chances are you’ll be able to play the game now rather than sitting waiting to play.

EA also thinks, quite rightly, that they need to apologize to players. So, anyone who activates a copy of SimCity by March 18 will be entitled to a free game from EA’s portfolio. There’s no detail yet on what that game will be, or if there will even be a choice, but if you’ve picked up the game and have been waiting to install and play it, now’s the time to get it activated so you don’t miss out.

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After your first session of Minecraft

 After your first session of Minecraft, where you inevitably began playing while it was light out and then realized it had gotten dark out and was close to sunrise again, you probably noticed the game is highly immersive. Though it sports blocky, pixelated graphics and often times adheres to a set of physics that is more closely related to magic than science, Mojang’s construct-’em-up sucks you into the world. Now, though, thanks to Jim Rutherford wanting to make a cool mod for his son, the immersion of Minecraft is leaking out into the real world, right into your bedroom.

Jim and son noticed a commercial for Philip’s Hue, an ambient light bulb that can be controlled through a wireless connection, and were inspired to hook the lights up to Minecraft to have the lights follow the game’s day-night cycle. The goal was to have the lights fade between bright daytime colors, warm sunset colors, then finally shut off during nighttime. Jim purchased a Hue Starter Set, which ran him $199 at an Apple Store, and included 3 LED bulbs, as well as the hub that controls them. If you’re wondering, extra bulbs cost $59. Philips offers a free app that can be downloaded from the App Store, which not only provides controls for the system, but comes with lighting presets as well.

Jim then created his own iPad app to provide central controls for the ambient game lighting. He made the app easy-to-use, making the HUD a visual representation of the Minecraft sun and moon traveling along in the sky. You can drag your finger across the sky in the app, effectively using the sun and moon as a scrubber, changing the time in the game world. This, as is the whole point of the project, changes the lighting coming from the Hue bulbs as well. If you leave the app alone, the lights will simply automatically change as the time cycles in the game.

If you’re a curious developer and want to tinker with Jim’s app, it is open source and available on GitHub. If you’d rather just get right into the ambient lighting goodness, Jim submitted the app to the App Store, and it will hopefully get approved and become available (for free) soon.

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Marvel has been making a big push into selling digital comics for a few years now

Marvel has been making a big push into selling digital comics for a few years now, but for the next two days you can pick up some fantastic Marvel first issues absolutely free.

Announced during SXSW 2013, yesterday Marvel launched the Marvel #1 promotion. Until 11pm ET on March 12, you can download over 700 first issues of Marvel comics. Those digital issues can be acquired using either the Marvel Comics Digital Comics Shop or the Marvel Comics app (available for iOS and Android).

The biggest problem you’ll have with this offer is actually managing to download anything. As you’d expect, it’s very popular and Marvel’s servers are struggling to cope. As the offer only runs until tomorrow I doubt that’s going to change, so you’ll just have to keep trying.

The savings on offer are worth the effort, as typically an issue can cost between $2-$4. Marvel’s thinking is the money they are losing on making the first issues free will be more than compensated for by all the new readers who want to continue reading the issues that follow and will be willing to pay for them.

So, if you do manage to gain access to the store today, you can download free editions of the Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Thanos, X-Men, and many more.

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Google is in the business of extracting as much information as possible

Google is in the business of extracting as much information as possible from the world so they can better target ads for their customers. Many of their ideas for doing this, like Android, are not only great but terribly effective. This talking shoe concept, which was shown off at SXSWi recently, goes a little too far.

Imagine sneakers that could connect to your phone via Bluetooth and feed apps information about how your run is going. They maybe they will pull in GPS data and create some nice graphs about your run. Maybe this information is exciting enough to you that Google will wrap it up in a format that can be easily posted to Google+. It’s even possible that, after a certain number of steps at a certain speed, your phone polls your GPS and Google Local for a good place to stop and get a drink or an energy bar. Sound like ideas that a lot of people would enjoy, right? What’s the one thing that could ruin that entire experience? When your phone uses all of that information to talk to you.

It’s no shock that Google’s Bluetooth-enabled shoe prototypes are all about collecting information and presenting it for both the users and the advertisers. It’s really unlikely that Google is going to get into the shoe business anytime soon — this is more a proof-of-concept. And as far as tech demos go, this isn’t so bad. When you look at how personal area networks and the “internet of things” comes together to grab tons of little bits of data from all over and turn it into useful personal add-ons, shoes that could help you out like this would be great.

The problem with this concept comes in right at the end, where the shoes feel the need to let you know when they are bored, or to congratulate you when you are really active. It could just be me, but I’ve got a feeling that there’s not many people out there who want their robotic shoes to cheer them on.

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Few things in our world engage the desire to do something like being told you can’t do that very thing

Few things in our world engage the desire to do something like being told you can’t do that very thing. The recent talk about banning 3D-printed guns across the US has lead to explosive popularity on one site in particular, and now Defense Distributed is wielding that new-found popularity to create a 3D print repository that is free of takedowns and regulation.

While the gun control conversation in the US continues to escalate, one aspect in particular continues to receive special attention. The idea that someone with a 3D printer could build much of what they would need to create their own firearm isn’t leading to any productive conversation right now. One side of the discussion focuses on regulating this ability, making sure that the same laws that apply to purchasing a gun apply to making one yourself. The other side of the conversation sees this as a combination of information suppression and market domination, as well as a violation of civil liberties.

The two sides are never going to come together at the middle, partly because they stopped talking about the same thing a while back. A video released by Defense Distributed, the team responsible for DEFCAD.org, makes it clear that this conversation isn’t going to end anytime soon.

DEFCAD is dedicated to continued growth, and with that new features are being rolled out to the site. Search may seem like a simple thing to implement, but the thing being announced here really has nothing to do with search. The thing being announced here is a plan to grow at any cost, and that means a completely contained website with its own structure that doesn’t rely on anything that could be taken from them. Anything can be posted of DEFCAD, and no one will take it down. You can search by weapon, and since the search is controlled by the site you don’t have to worry about results being hidden from you.

Implementing a search engine like this means paying people who actually know how to build a search engine, so the homepage for DEFCAD now shows you a Kickstarter-like page asking to crowdfund their search service. You can contribute anything from $25 to $10,000 to the cause, and each level grants you special access to the DEFCAD service and features. Like I said, this is way more than a search engine you’re helping to build. The end goal is a service that is capable of competing with Thingiverse, only you’ll have access to everything from weapons to windmills under the warm light of open source. You can even use Bitcoins on the site, just to drive home how radically open and free they are.

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Obviously, losing an arm creates significant hurdles for everyday life

Obviously, losing an arm creates significant hurdles for everyday life. From complex tasks like playing instruments, to simple things like tying a shoe or even holding a cup of coffee while trying to open a door, the use of one hand makes day-to-day tasks a challenge. If we lived in the world of Skynet and sentient robotic limbs, people who suffered a grievous limb injury could get right back in the game (not counting the robot war against all humankind of course). Fortunately, it turns out we do live in a world where a robotic arm is attainable, but we thankfully don’t have to be enslaved by machine overlords.

53-year-old Nigel Ackland was involved in an accident six years ago that resulted in the loss of his arm. In November of last year, he was given the carbon fiber arm and the Bebionic 3 myoelectric hand. Now, using the pair, he can perform some complex actions. The video highlights two actions that, though they are merely afterthoughts to people that have the use of two hands and all of their digits, actually require a significant amount of dexterity. These everyday tasks are tying a shoe and dealing a deck of cards.

Ackland can control the robotic arm via movements from his upper arm. The Bebionic 3 hand’s response to muscle twitches is so precise, that not only can a wearer tie shoelaces and deal cards, but can actually type on a keyboard, and perform the small, exact actions that dressing yourself requires.

Though the Bebionic 3 is precise, it still isn’t a real arm, and thus doesn’t offer the maneuverability and dexterity your own limb does. To alleviate this issue, the arm’s wrist can spin around and face the other direction, making it much easier to maneuver and grab objects — in theory, sometimes even easier than a person’s own arm and wrist.

Now, we don’t quite know if this bionic arm makes Ackland a cyborg like you might initially think, as the robotic bits in a cyborg need to provide a person with superhuman powers. However, the arm certainly provides Ackland with the ability to perform two-handed tasks once again, and it doesn’t seem to be too much of a hassle at that.

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To say that the Oculus Rift Kickstarter was a success last year is a bit of an understatement

To say that the Oculus Rift Kickstarter was a success last year is a bit of an understatement. The team asked for $250,000, but ended up raising $2,437,429. However, an update posted over the weekend has informed backers that one of the promised deliverables with the dev kits can no longer be included.

Originally, anyone pledging enough money to receive an Oculus Rift dev kit would also get a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition thrown is as a way of saying thanks. But Doom 3 will no longer be shipped, simply because it won’t be ready in time.

In order for any game to work with the Oculus Rift headset it needs to include support. As Doom 3 is already available to buy, it meant going back into the source code and updating the game to make it compatible with the VR headset. That process is taking longer than expected and will not be completed in time for the launch of the Rift dev kits. It’s also worth noting that this doesn’t seem to be a fault of the Oculus VR team, but whoever is updating the game internally at id Software/Bethesda.

If you are one of the backers affected by this, don’t worry, alternatives are being offered. To make up for the lack of Doom 3 you can choose to have $20 of Steam Wallet credit, $25 of Oculus Store credit, or if you are really upset a complete refund is available.

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Missile Command was released in arcades in 1980 as well as on the Atari 2600

Missile Command was released in arcades in 1980 as well as on the Atari 2600. Just two years later a high score was set that hasn’t been bettered in the last 31 years. However, over the weekend, one dedicated player finally managed to beat it.

The 1982 record was set by Victor Ali who played the arcade version for 56 hours and set a score of 80,364,995. The reason it has stood so long is probably down to the time required to even get close to such a score. Who has 56 hours to spare?

Yesterday, another Victor, Victor Sandberg from Sweden, live streamed a single coin game of Missile Command that lasted 56 hours, 5 minutes, and 53 seconds. While not obliterating the record, he most certainly beat it by posting a final score of 81,796,035.

Will it be another 30 years before that record falls? I doubt it. This record has certainly drawn a lot of interest and it’s likely more people will attempt to beat it now if they have access to a Missile Command arcade board. Anyone who wants their record to stand for any length of time needs to game for a lot longer and maybe break the 100,000,000 points barrier if that’s even possible.

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There’s a lot of individual services that work well connecting your smartphone to your car

There’s a lot of individual services that work well connecting your smartphone to your car. Automatic hopes to create a unifying experience, by adding features that improve both the person driving the car and the services attached to the car.

The data port on most vehicles is capable of much more than what most people realize. Using a simple Bluetooth adapter for that data port, you can pair your smartphone to your car and access the information that is provided by the onboard computer. This information is useful in certain, specific situations. If you have an app that can turn that information into an app-driven instrument panel, you can access a ton of information. There aren’t many apps out there that do more with the information, which is important in order to be useful to anyone who isn’t just a data addict. Automatic is taking the information and adding context alongside location and mobile data to offer a new user experience.

The Automatic system is pretty simple in concept. The app takes information from you as you drive, and applies logic to determine how you are completing basic tasks. If you accelerate too quickly from the start or slam on the brakes for no reason, the information is collected and analyzed. If Automatic thinks you would get better gas mileage or better performance by driving in a different manner, the app will give you simple notification tones while you are driving. As you continue to drive and adjust how you drive, the idea is that your mileage and performance will improve over time. Combined with external data collection, like how much you pay at the pump each time, you’re provided with a timeline of how well your vehicle is performing.

On top of this performance data, Automatic is aware of emergency situations and responds accordingly. In the event that you are in an accident, the app will send emergency messages to contacts you have setup, as well as any emergency responders. Since the app runs on iOS, your location is sent to everyone so you are easy to find. Outside of emergency situations, Automatic is aware of where you have parked and allows you to share that information with your contacts. The team behind automatic has plans for an Android version of the service, but right now is only developing for iOS. Android is expected to be available in the fall, though only for specific handsets.

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As far as technology has come in 2013, advertising hasn’t made too many noticeable advances

As far as technology has come in 2013, advertising hasn’t made too many noticeable advances. It has made leaps to different platforms, but aside from being able to scrape your browser history to see which category of products you’re most interested in, ads tend to stick to videos, product placement, or still imagery.

Perhaps the biggest technological advancement an old advertising staple, the billboard, has made is that LED and LCD units can change ads on a timer. Even though this doesn’t seem like the most futuristic advancement, it allows billboards to be tampered with in such a way that isn’t simply spray painting some graffiti over the ad. Case in point, an electronic billboard in Serbia was hacked to display The Pirate Bay logo.

The billboard was located in a prominent location, Republic Square in the center of Belgrade, which is not only Serbia’s capital, but also the country’s largest city. The hacked billboard displayed The Pirate Bay logo alongside Ghandi’s quote, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

A group of computer science students performed the hack simply to show that people should pay more attention to IT security. They said that in a world like ours where information is so readily available, one can easily learn simple hacking protocols, so higher security should be a focus. They said they feel that The Pirate Bay is the closest thing we have to an “apolitical independent worldwide organization” that believes in free speech and is against any kind of censorship.

Aside from The Pirate Bay advertisement, the students also played some Space Invaders on the billboard (using a smartphone as the controller), as well as displaying a banner that read “hacking4fun.”

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Facebook’s “Like”

Facebook’s “Like” button may not seem like something you really have to think about and commit yourself to before utilizing, but that’s not always the case. The US Food and Drug Administration wants companies to think twice before throwing the might of their social network behind any statement, even a simple thumbs up.

Poly-MVAAMARC Enterprises, a supplement maker, advertises the benefits of its product — a drug called Poly-MVA — through using supposed customer claims about it. The item isn’t approved by the FDA, so the company most likely thought this method was a clever way to advertise the product without having to present any sort of actual evidence as to its claims. This didn’t please the FDA, which sent a warning letter to AMARC, stating that since Poly-MVA isn’t FDA-approved, the customer testimonials essentially falsify the product as approved.

In the FDA’s warning, it mentions one of these customer testimonials posted on Facebook, but notes that the company Liked it. Interestingly, the FDA implied that AMARC endorsed the claim by Liking it, which is grounds for a warning.

AMARC’s warning seems to be the only instance in which the FDA included a Facebook Like in a warning, as well as specifically citing a Like as part of a problem.

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It’s no secret that Bram Cohen thinks that most peoples

It’s no secret that Bram Cohen thinks that most peoples’ perception of BitTorrent is far too narrow. He’s got to be thrilled, then, about the fact that his company’s new peer-to-peer live streaming app is now ready to show the world the kind of content delivery torrent technology is really capable of handling.

After a four-month closed testing period with several key partners (like the Internet Archive), the BitTorrent Live open beta was announced this week at SXSW. It works how you’d expect torrent-based broadcasting to work. One person (the broadcaster) puts up the initial stream. As additional viewers join in, they become seeds and help distribute the load across the network.

For smaller broadcasters looking for a way to reach a bigger audience without impacting their in-house bandwidth too much, BT Live may be a good alternative to other streaming options. Perhaps not so much for individuals who can live stream with apps like uStream and YouTube, but certainly for indie broadcasters that might otherwise have considered using something like Brightcove’s cloud service.

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Whether it has been driven by the science fiction aspect of entertainment in our lives today

Whether it has been driven by the science fiction aspect of entertainment in our lives today, or a general interest about our neighboring planets, we’ve always wanted to know if there is life on other planets. According to NASA, fueled by the research with by the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, there was a time when Mars was capable of supporting life.

A resent NASA conference (available below) explored the results of experiments conducted during the exploration of Mars with Curiosity and Opportunity, two of the rovers that have been sent to the Red Planet for remote analysis. The most recent rover, Curiosity, was sent with what is essentially chemistry lab on wheels, as well as a massive laser for more in-depth experiments on the surface of Mars. The discovery of an ancient streambed by the Curiosity team has allowed them to state definitively that there was a time when microbial life could have thrived on the surface of Mars.

Curiosity’s SAM and CheMin instruments have been working with sampled picked up from the streambed, and have discovered what are considered key chemical ingredients needed to support life. The Gale Crater sediment was found to contain hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and sulfur among other necessary ingredients. This information leads scientists to believe that there was a time where the surface of Mars was wet, and these materials would have existed in clay that lay under the water. At some point, a dramatic change led to the harshly acidic and salty surface that covers Mars today.

NASA scientists are now able to picture an ancient Mars that would have been grey with life instead of the red that exists now. The Mars Science Laboratory notes that these discoveries are just the beginning to reveal the history of this planet, and what may have existed on the surface well before we started looking up and wondering if we were alone in the Universe. Curiosity has everything on-board needed to continue researching the surface for years to come.

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Around four years ago, geologists that were part of a survey team took a look at some water well drill-cuttings

Around four years ago, geologists that were part of a survey team took a look at some water well drill-cuttings, and found a unit of shale that was seen to be unique. The shale — a type of sedimentary rock composed of mud made of quartz, clay, and other tiny fragments of minerals — was located only underneath and around the city of Decorah, Iowa, and formed a circular basin with a width of around 3.4 miles. After some examination, shocked quartz — essentially a type of quartz with a different microscopic structure than regular quartz — was found in samples from the crater located below the shale. Shocked quartz is considered to be a likely result of an extraterrestrial impact. It’s nothing like Roswell, if that’s what you were thinking, but rather is a meteorite impact.

Now, a new geological survey to examine mineral and water resources of the region have provided geologists with a chance to take a peek at the impact crater, which is estimated to be around 470 million years old.

The airborne survey used an electromagnetic system that can detect the level of electricity rocks are capable of conducting, as well as a system that can detect changes in rock density. With their powers combined, the survey systems were able to detect an area that is reported to be almost circular, that is unlike the surrounding region. The crater lies a few hundred meters below ground. Geologists will use this recently gathered data, combine it with drill samples, and attempt to suss out the meteorite’s impact energy and geometry.

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Activision’s Skylanders is both very popular and highly profitable due to the combination of game purchases and the need to buy figures. That clever tie-in hasn’t gone unnoticed by Nintendo, which is now set to take full advantage of its Pokemon franchise to offer up a Skylanders competitor on Wii U.

The Wii U GamePad has NFC built-in, so Nintendo has decided to develop a new game, called Pokemon Scramble U (or Pokemon Rumble U in the US), and link it with the sale of a new range of Pokemon figures. Each figure can be positioned near the GamePad and will trigger effects and allow the Pokemon to appear in-game.

The downloadable title will be available on April 24 in Japan for just $19 and will include all 649 Pokemon as well as allowing up to four friends to play together. But that’s not the end of the purchases. Kids will also be demanding you buy them the seven Pokemon figures that can be used alongside the game. They cost around $2 each, taking the total expenditure up to $33 as you’ve gotta catch ‘em all, right?

If popular, and I see no reason why it won’t be, there’s huge potential for Nintendo to expand the Pokemon Rumble U line-up in the near future. Nintendo has hundreds of Pokemon that could be produced as figures, and we may even see Pokemon cards tied in somehow to squeeze even more cash out of parents.

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If you haven’t installed Ubuntu on something in a little while, you may be in for a bit of a surprise when you see the Unity interface. Canonical has done quite a bit to make things user friendly, but some adventurous Linux fans may be interested in exploring new options. If that’s the case know this: there’s no need to uninstall Ubuntu, you can change the environment to suit your needs.

The desktop environment on Ubuntu may not be your cup of tea, and that’s alright. Ubuntu has been used as the base for a ton of other desktop environments, which offer you several choices for how you think the desktop should look. These changes will alter the look and feel of the operating system, without affecting applications or content stored on your computer. This way, if you’ve been using the OS for a while you can make these UI changes without needed to uninstall Ubuntu or even back up (though backing up is a good idea before doing any major work).

The first thing you will need to do is choose which desktop environment you want to change to. This walkthrough will demonstrate changing to the Gnome UI for Ubuntu, as well as the KDE Plasma UI for Ubuntu.

Previous versions of Ubuntu had always relied on Gnome to handle the user experience. Gnome is a powerful desktop environment, but offered a relatively poor out-of-the-box experience and little visual flourish. The move to Unity offered a significant UI update to Ubuntu without dramatically changing the workflow for most people.

If you prefer the minimal Gnome experience to the glossy and perhaps bloated feeling Unity, reverting back is pretty simple. Start off by closing all of your currently running applications and opening a terminal, which you can quickly do by pressing CTRL-ALT-T.

Start off by updating APT:

Sudo ap-get update

Next, install the Gnome Classic packages

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Once this installation is complete, log out of your current Ubuntu session. From here, click Ubuntu icon in the top right corner of the login screen. You’ll be presented with options for all currently installed desktop environments. The latest addition to this list will be Gnome Classic. Click this option, and select OK to be prompted for your login credentials. When you have logged in, the Unity interface will be gone and you’ll be back to the way Ubuntu used to be. You’ll have a new Ubuntu without needing uninstall your old Ubuntu.

KDE Plasma or Kubuntu

If you’re interested in an entirely new experience, one that offers a more traditional desktop Linux experience but still has some nice visual appeal, you could always give KDE a try. KDE Linux does things a little differently if you are installing it from scratch, but if you’d rather not uninstall Ubuntu you can create what is commonly referred to as “Kubuntu” and just replace the desktop functionality. This can be done without affecting data or applications on your computer. All you need to start is your currently running applications closed an a new terminal window open.

In the terminal, enter the following

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Once this has finished installing, log out of your current session. The Ubuntu icon at your login screen will have a new option, labeled “KDE Plasma”. Once you’ve logged in you will see the iconic blue tones and soft glossy icons with transparencies all over the place.

If you’ve never used KDE before, there’s a lot to explore. For example, the icon in the bottom left hand corner of the UI functions similarly to a Windows Start Menu only with a little more visual appeal. There are still virtual desktops through the icon right next to the horizontal stoplight, which is used to quickly take you to active applications.

Uninstall Ubuntu’s Unity when you are ready

Once you have decided on a new desktop environment, you can get rid of Unity altogether if you like. You don’t have to, but if you’re positive that you would never be interested in using the graphical environment again it’s just as simple to remove as the others are to install.

When removing Unity, you’ll need a terminal open and all of your other applications closed.

sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-music unity-lens-applications unity-greeter unity-common unity-asset-pool unity-2d-launcher unity-2d libunity-misc4 libunity-2d-private0 gir1.2-unity-4.0

You’ll need to logout when you are finished, but when you log back in the Ubuntu option will be removed from the list of available desktop environments. Unity can be re-installed at any time, as it is treated just like any other desktop environment. The flexibility you have here is significant, but in no way specific to Ubuntu. There’s a lot of options available to you without having to uninstall Ubuntu base, which in the end offers you the widest rage of support for hardware.

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The printer paper we all typically use is relatively high grade

The printer paper we all typically use is relatively high grade, due partly to its need to hold ink without blotching. Recycled printer paper is also not as common as you’d think, meaning most printer paper isn’t exactly eco-friendly. Japanese chemical and pharmaceutical company Teijin aims to change that, though, by removing paper from the printing equation completely.

PETE 1 codeTeijin and Nisshinbo Postal Chemical Co. have worked together to create ECOPET paper. It’s created from recycled polyester fiber, which is taken from used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. The new eco-friendly paper is the same thickness as a typical sheet of printer paper, but cannot be easily torn, and as it’s plastic, doesn’t fall to pieces when wet.

ECOPET paper is suitable for use in laser printers, but can also be drawn on directly with pens and pencils. It does not have a glossy or film coating, so can be glued and cut just like normal paper. And as it is just a sheet of plastic, there’s nothing to stop it being recycled over and over again.

As well as potentially replacing paper in offices, Teijin sees ECOPET paper having a range of uses conventional paper isn’t viable for. Most notably, when paper is required in an outdoor setting (posters, maps), or in more hostile environments (labeling and packaging of frozen goods).

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Before the recent SimCity reboot

Before the recent SimCity reboot, none of the previous five SimCity games released on the PC have required an Internet connection in order to function. However, the new SimCity can’t be played without one, and due to EA being plain dumb, that fact resulted in one of the worst game launches in recent memory.

All along, the official line from EA and Maxis has been that the game requires an Internet connection to function. That’s due to the forced multiplayer/social aspects and the way gamers can impact each other’s cities, but also, and according to Maxis studio head Lucy Bradshaw, because the game “offload[s] a significant amount of the calculations to our servers.”

It sounds backwards to offload calculations to a server when gamers have a powerful desktop CPU and GPU sitting on their desk, and that claim has now been called into question by a developer who actually works at Maxis and is/was involved with SimCity directly.

Talking to Rock, Paper Shotgun, and understandably wanting to remain anonymous, the developer claims that SimCity’s requirement for servers to run is actually false, as are the claims that significant calculations are done on the servers. All the servers are used for is to handle saves in the cloud and message routing. The core game doesn’t actually need a server connection to function.

The developer went on to say that removing the features that require a server “wouldn’t take very much engineering” to achieve, and in fact people are managing to play offline for short periods of time already (19 minutes in Kotaku’s tests), backing up these claims and showing how offline the game really is.

So what does this actually mean? On the face of it this looks like EA is making the features that require a server look far more important than they actually are. In reality, the main purpose of that server link is to ensure the game isn’t subject to piracy and remains linked to EA’s Origin system until such a time as they don’t want to pay for the servers required to run SimCity anymore.

The irony in all of this is that the compulsory server connection and terrible launch has meant there’s an even greater desire for the game to be cracked and an offline mode introduced.

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As Android’s market share grows and software like Chrome OS become more popular

As Android’s market share grows and software like Chrome OS become more popular, so does the desire to attend Google’s main event. This means every year the registration process for Google’s I/O developer conference gets more difficult and the competition to get a ticket ramps up. This year Google seemed to have everything under control, but it looks like many users feel the search giant tripped at the finish line.

The I/O registration process was entirely Google-centric this year. You needed a Google+ account, with your payment information pre-loaded into Google Wallet. After that everyone was told that if you followed the instructions you’d have a fair shot getting in.

The instructions were simple, though mildly akin to being told not to look down when standing somewhere very high. If you parked yourself at the I/O registration page a few minutes before 10AM ET, you’d be put in line to get a ticket. Registrants were warned: Don’t refresh, don’t mess with the site, and don’t have multiple tabs open if you want things to go smoothly and to ensure your place in line. Google gave people plenty of warning and explained everything clearly, but smooth is about the furthest thing from how most would describe today’s registration.

If you were waiting well in advance, the website shifted at 9:30 to a countdown for the registration to be open. As the count drew closer to zero, the color changed to a bright red, just in case you weren’t starting at the ticking clock. When the virtual doors opened, a loading ring GIF sat and informed you that Google was searching for a ticket to give you.

If this didn’t timeout and offer you an Error 500 page, you were to confirm your information and head to checkout. Google placed a five minute timer on registration, and at the end of that period your ticket was put back in the general access pile. Five minutes would be more than enough time to checkout under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, Google’s own checkout service hung for many, leaving them unable to complete the transaction in time.

Google Wallet offered users a different loading ring, this time in an attempt to pull the records for their payment information. Given Google’s stern warnings regarding refreshing or tampering with the site, users were left with little option but to sit and watch as the clock counted down on the registration. When it did inevitably time out, they had to start the process over and hope that they would not suffer the same fate as before. After 45 minutes of the process, social networks finally began to populate with users who had gotten tickets to the conference. Minutes later, the website announced that tickets were sold out.

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While some browsers fell fast at CanSecWest’s hacking competition, Google’s Chrome fared pretty well

While some browsers fell fast at CanSecWest’s hacking competition, Google’s Chrome fared pretty well. In fact, it has yet to have a zero day exploit emerge in the wild during its four years on the market. No doubt this invincibility comes from the efforts Google put in to securing its web browser, a browser Chaouki Bekrar, chief researcher at French cyber security contractor VUPEN, sings the praises of for its security measures.

Chris Evans is the Googler in charge of security for Chrome. We had the opportunity to chat with him at CanSecWest in Vancouver about browser security.

Geek.com: Security contractors at this conference have usually ranked Chrome as the most secure browser. Why is this? What’s the key to Chrome’s security?

Chris Evans: Chrome was designed from the start with security in mind, including integrated sandboxing and Safe Browsing malware protection. We have a large Chrome security team who engage in proactive hardening measures, fuzzing at scale and fast patching of bugs.

And beyond our team we make it a priority to engage with the wider community–one of our core security principles — via our Chromium Vulnerability Rewards Program and Pwnium competitions. Securing a browser takes a lot of effort, but it’s important work as it’s often a user’s first line of defense against bad actors on the web.

What’s the process between discovery of a threat in the wild and rolling out a patch?

There is an important distinction between controlled and responsible (“white hat”) exploit discovery, and threats “in the wild” or zero days. We proactively seek the former to allow us to better manage in the event we experience the latter.

In Chrome’s four years we haven’t had an zero-day situation, but we feel we’re battle ready if the situation arises. Through our three prior Pwnium competitions we’ve demonstrated two 24-hour turnarounds and one 12-hour turnaround. It is important to have a well-practiced incident response process and team.

Our process involves convening a war room of engineers, reviewers, and release managers. We’ve also built a fantastic thorough and automated testing infrastructure that gives fast confidence in any proposed patches. The most important part of course is our ability to quickly push updates to our users, which is possible thanks to Chrome’s seamless auto-update feature. The auto-update approach is now used by most other browser makers, validating its effectiveness.

Over the last year, what trends in malicious code and exploits have you noticed emerge in the wild?

There’s been a continued focus on browser plug-ins. The most interesting thing I’ve seen is some in-the-wild attacks (and escapes) against plug-in sandboxes. As sandboxes are recognized as a best practice they are becoming more prevalent. Still, escaping a sandbox is hard work so this gives an idea of the resources attackers are willing to invest.

What’s the biggest threat vector for web browsers? What constantly gives you the most headaches?

Plug-ins continue to be a big security issue. They add extra exploit real-estate for online threats and since they’re separate software they require separate updates, which most often requires action on the part of the user. So oftentimes plugins on users’ machines are out-of-date, which compounds their vulnerability.

In Chrome we’ve bundled Flash and a PDF reader and placed them inside a separate sandbox that’s as strong as Chrome’s native sandbox to help protect users. Because they’re packaged these plugins are auto-updated with Chrome, which significantly improves the likelihood of users being up-to-date. Chrome also blocks out-of-date plugins from running. Chrome even blocks up-to-date plug-ins from running until the user indicates permission, if that plug-in has a history of zero-day attacks against it.

Are there different threats with the mobile edition of Chrome? Or is the malware experience the same?

We build Chrome for Android to the same standards of security we have for desktop Chrome. This includes an integrated sandbox, various security hardening features, and fast  regular patches.

Firefox seems to fare poorly at events like Pwn2Own. If you could be Mozilla for a day, what would you do?

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When it comes to value for money

When it comes to value for money, nothing can really beat the Kindle as an e-reading device at the moment. At $69 it offers a great screen, storage for over a 1,000 books, and a battery life of about a month. But everyone can be tempted by a bargain, and that’s what the txtr Beagle priced at $13 promised to be.

There were a few caveats and compromises to make to pick one up at that price, though. The Beagle doesn’t have any way to load books on to its very limited storage other than through a Bluetooth connection. It also has no rechargeable battery and relies on two AAA batteries for power. It only has a 5-inch 800 x 600 display, and can only hold 5 books at a time. If you want to purchase or transfer books, you need to use your smartphone.

Still, $13 is a bargain, right? Well, there’s some bad news. That price point is only being offered across Europe, and only as part of a phone subsidy package. The Beagle will be available to buy in the US, but txtr thinks you’ll be happy to pay $69.99.

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When Blizzard appeared on stage during the PlayStation 4 reveal last month

When Blizzard appeared on stage during the PlayStation 4 reveal last month, I honestly thought they were going to announce World of Warcraft was coming to PS4. I, like many others, was a bit disappointed when it turned out to be Diablo III.

Blizzard actually making games for consoles is a good start, though, so can we expect a WoW port in the future? Or even the inevitable next game in the series appearing on Sony’s hardware? The answer, according to Blizzard’s lead system designer Greg Street, is no (sort of).

It’s not that Blizzard don’t want to release World of Warcraft on consoles, it’s more that doing so would form too big of a challenge. Street made this clear while talking to NowGamer, pointing to the very large hard drive requirement the game has, coupled with an interface that relies heavily on keyboard and mouse use.

Apparently, the PS4 is only getting Diablo III after the team went back and changed “the very fundamentals of the game.” Doing the same for World of Warcraft looks to be too big of a job to make it worthwhile, so while Blizzard still hasn’t given a definitive yes/no answer, I think we can take this as confirmation: World of Warcraft won’t be coming to consoles.

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There are two groups of young adult television audiences

There are two groups of young adult television audiences: People that watched Veronica Mars, and people that never saw it but had friends who watched it and wouldn’t shut up about how good it was despite its limited amount of seasons and subsequent cancellation. That audience formula is essentially the only variable when discussing what makes a cult show, and Mars was quite the cult phenomenon. Now, through the magic of Kickstarter, you can help Kristen Bell privately investigate her way back into your heart. Yes, a Veronica Mars movie is up for some crowd-sourced funding.

After the show was canned, creator Rob Thomas wrote a script for a film, but Warner Bros. wasn’t having it, and decided not to pursue its development. Now, with a minimum goal of two million bucks, you’ll have your chance at more Mars. The Kickstarter campaign was only launched today, and is already nearing the halfway point of one million dollars. Both Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell are on-board, so the movie will be sure to capture the same feel of the show.

The rewards for funding this project are on par with standard Kickstarter rewards. A minimum pledge of $10 will get you a copy of the shooting script of the movie, while a maximum pledge of $10,000 will net you a speaking role in the movie. Unfortunately, that pledge — limited to one backer — has already been filled. The pledger, whose identity will at least be revealed when we see him or her in the movie, will play the role of a waiter or waitress, and will speak the illustrious line of “Your check, sir.” We can only imagine that, after the movie releases, said waiter or waitress will be discovered and experience a meteoric rise to top-tier Hollywood fame.

Considering the best reward is gone, you might enjoy the next tier down. For $8,000, you’ll get to name a character in the movie. The name will be said out loud at least once, but will have to be authorized by the legal department first. We assume you’ll only be allowed to offer up names that aren’t ridiculous, because this is a Hollywood film and not your 17th MMO alt. You’ll also get to be an extra in the film.

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