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Foot Locker wants to reinvent itself with a dedicated app for streetwear
Whenever you think of Foot Locker, what probably comes to mind are its thousands of brick-and-mortar stores, because chances are you've visited at least one in your lifetime. But, as important as physical retail locations are to the company's business, Foot Locker is also having to quickly adapt to the new ways people are shopping for sneakers, apparel and other types of gear. That's why back in February it invested $100 million in GOAT, one of the most popular apps for buying shoes on the resale market. And now, it is creating its own incubator called Greenhouse, which has just launched an app that Foot Locker says will feature carefully curated partnerships that are going to "contribute to [its] modern resurgence."
22 states join California to sue the Trump admin over emissions standards
A group of 22 states have joined California in suing the Trump administration, which revoked that state's right to set its own emissions standards. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a plan for national vehicle emissions rules. The One National Program Rule would set federal standards on fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, aligning with the administration's aim to scale back Obama-era targets.
EPA pushes national fuel economy standard in face off with California
The Trump administration has announced plans to create a national vehicle emissions standard. The new "One National Program Rule" would allow the federal government to set uniform fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards. The move, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is the latest in the Trump administration's feud with California.
These robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete
Climate change is killing our planet. The excess production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are filling the atmosphere and warming the Earth faster than natural processes can effectively negate them. Since 1951, the surface temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees C, with no sign of slowing. So now it's time for humans to step in and rectify the problem they created -- by using technology to suck excess CO2 straight from the air.
SwiftKey's latest keyboard is powered by a neural network
A new SwiftKey keyboard hopes to serve you better typing suggestions by utilizing a miniaturized neural network. SwiftKey Neural does away with the company's tried-and-tested prediction engine in favor of a method that mimics the way the brain processes information. It's a model that's typically deployed on a grand scale for things like spam and phishing prevention in Gmail or image recognition, but very recent advancements have seen neural networks creep into phones through Google Translate, which uses one for offline text recognition. According to SwiftKey, this is the first time it's been used on a phone keyboard.
Tiny house uses light to put you in the middle of a thunderstorm
Standing in a greenhouse and listening to the rain thunder against the roof can be strangely relaxing and therapeutic. Now, imagine if the same experience was recreated artificially. For the Triennale Der Photographie exhibition in Hamburg, designer Leigh Sachwitz has constructed a miniature house covered with semi-transparent projection screens. Once you step inside and turn off the hanging bulb, a series of projectors spring to life and batter you with heavy weather, including tornadoes and tropical thunderstorms. The dynamic sounds are recreated with speakers, but it's the projectors -- four on the inside, with another two cutting through a haze machine on the outside -- that really bring the installation to life. Circles quickly appear and disappear to recreate raindrops, while streaks of diagonal light imitate heavier downpours. It's not a particularly accurate art piece, but in terms of capturing atmosphere and mood, "INSIDE OUT" feels pretty spot on.
Teenager builds browser plugin to show you where politicians get their funding
The murky world of lobby groups bankrolling politicians is garnering more attention, but is there a way to find out which representatives are in the pocket without a lot of tedious research? A 16-year-old programmer has developed a browser plugin that, when you mouse-over the name of a US lawmaker, will serve up a list of which parties have donated to their campaign funds, and the quantities. Greenhouse (geddit?) is currently available for Chrome, Firefox and Safari -- although our lawyers have (probably) asked us to point out that the data is from the 2012 elections, so they may not be entirely up to date.
NASA wants its next rover to bring a greenhouse to Mars
Any long-term human presence on Mars is going to require renewable food sources, and that likely involves plants. But how do we know that they'll flourish in the Red Planet's higher radiation and lower gravity? NASA may find out in the next several years. One of the proposed modules on its next Martian rover is the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), a tiny greenhouse that would study plant growth. The experiment would use Earth air and water to keep a batch of flowering plants alive for 15 days and see how they're affected by otherworldly conditions.
Amazon misses the rainforest, seeks to build a giant greenhouse in Seattle
You can take Amazon out of the jungle, but it'll just create one elsewhere -- at least that's what the company is planning for its inner-city Seattle office complex. A tweaked proposal for Amazon's three-block development, named "Rufus 2.0," was run by Seattle's Design Review Board yesterday, and it now includes a huge biodome structure with the notion that a "plant-rich environment has many positive qualities that are not often found in a typical office setting." It's five floors feature places to get work done, "dining, meeting and lounge spaces," a pair of shops serving the general public and, of course, lots of plants and trees. We've included a few more renders of the multi-bubble glass house after the break, and you'll find even more eye-candy in the source PDF. Forget the platform wars -- the competition for the coolest next-gen campus is on.
Daily iPhone App: Spellcraft School of Magic
I'll be honest: I have come down with a pretty bad case of freemium ADD. Pocket Frogs was my first real freemium hookup on the iPhone (and it's still pretty great), but since then, I've made my way through a train of freemium games, including We Rule, Tiny Tower, Battle Nations, We Farm, more Tiny Tower, DragonVale, and now all the way over to Spellcraft School of Magic. If you've played any of these before, you probably know how it goes: The game is completely free to download, and free to play, though you can spend money on in-app convenience items if you want to save time or level yourself up more quickly. But Spellcraft has caught my attention for quite a while this time, because it's a little more "game"-y than some of the other games. Instead of just managing a farm or building a city, you're actually delving through a dungeon, casting spells against bad guys and uncovering various treasures. The idea is that you're a magical student who needs to delve the dungeons to find your professors, and you can cast spells to fight bad guys from scrolls that you can carry and make. Scrolls are created from spell ingredients that at first you just find, but you can also grow them in the greenhouse, which is where the "freemium" cycle comes in: plants can be planted, and then you need to wait real time to let them grow. The gameplay itself is actually pretty well done -- the graphics are nice and polished, and there's a fun arcade-y element to casting spells that allows you to do better or worse depending on how you time your casts. Unfortunately, the in-app purchases aren't quite as "nice" as, say Tiny Tower -- your plants can die on the vine, losing you lots of money, and later in the game, you can also get pets that won't necessarily die, but will get very pitifully sad if you don't feed them (shame on Appy Entertainment for tying the sadness of a hungry animal to an in-app purchase -- that's a little below the belt if you ask me). But the game is definitely playable even without the in-app purchases, and the fact that you can lose plants does at least provide a little encouragement to log in to the game and play it. If freemium isn't your thing, you won't find much new here. This game runs about like a Facebook game, and while there is some nice polish, especially on the iPad, there's not a lot here that you won't find in, say, DragonVale or We Rule. But as is always the case with freemium, the price is right, and it's at least a game that will hold your attention and scratch that freemium obsession itch -- at least until the next fun candidate comes along.
Sony Ericsson enlists hippies to unleash the flower power of the Xperia Arc
Is the screen of Sony Ericsson's Xperia Arc really bright enough to make a flower bloom? Not something we considered while reviewing SE's flagship, yet the company's gone and answered that question anyway. Helping settle the score are a group of swank euro-hippies, who apparently have free access to building materials and dwell in a post-apocalyptic greenhouse. Using a metal contraption that hoisted eight arcs, the team of mavericks was indeed able to get the flowers to flourish under the gizmos' potent white light. Don't believe us? Espy that and the ensuing tears of joy after the break.
Tesla Roadster 2.5 gets 119 MPGe rating from EPA, still as expensive as ever (updated)
Move over, Nissan, because there's a new MPGe king in town. Yesterday, the EPA anointed Tesla scored its Roadster 2.5 with an MPGe rating of 119, which would make it the most fuel-efficient car on the market. That places the plug-in ahead of both the Nissan Leaf (99 MPGe) and Chevy Volt (93 MPGe). According to the government-approved mock-up window sticker, Tesla's EV can last for up to 245 miles on a single, eight-hour charge, while getting the equivalent of 112 miles per gallon on the highway and 124 in the city. The original Roadster, meanwhile, received an MPGe score of 111 yesterday, with ratings of 105 on the open road and 116 in the city. Both models scored a perfect 10 for their greenhouse gas and smog emissions, though those ratings probably didn't factor in all the cash you'd have to burn to actually buy one. Update: We just heard from the EPA, which clarified that this is not their official rating for the Roadster 2.5. These numbers are Tesla's, and the window sticker itself is a mockup - not a legitimate sticker from the EPA. Still, if you'd like to see it, it's down after the break.
Green House reveals its first 15.6-inch USB monitor, lives large on small charge
Just when MMT's 15.4-inch Monitor2Go was getting excited about its big USB display on campus title, Greenhouse Japan has strutted in and ruined the party with its 15.6-inch GH-USD16K USB secondary monitor. True, a resolution of 1366 x 768 won't give the screen bragging rights over Apple's 27-inch Cinema Display, but it should suffice for those on the move in desperate need of some quick dual-screen action. Especially since the accessory weighs less than 3 pounds, produces 18bit color depth and has a brightness of 220 nits while sipping just 5 watts of Serial Bus power. Speaking of dual-action, the monitor can also be set to clone or extend the connected computer's screen depending on user preference. Look for it to start shipping early next month to Japan for an estimated price of $214, glancing over its shoulder until an inevitable 15.8-inch newbie lopes onto the block.
ISS gets a greenhouse for experiments, comforting homesick astronauts
"Caring for plants is a good way to maintain memories of Earth." You know, because anything can happen.
Greenhouse implementing InstantAction streaming tech
InstantAction, which provides the neat embeddable player for games like The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, has teamed up with Greenhouse, Penny-Arcade's indie digital distribution store. The good news is that Greenhouse will employ InstantAction's streaming technology on its site, allowing you immediate access to selections from its catalog. "Indie devs think the same way we think about it," Penny-Arcade's Robert Khoo told Big Download, "which is that since they have the option to embed the games into pretty much anywhere, it's a win-win for everyone involved." The bad news is that you'll have to ... wait for that immediate access. The Greenhouse site is currently down while the new InstantAction stuff is being implemented. Khoo said that it would be back up before PAX, which starts September 3.
Green House delivers USB 3.0-friendly PCI Express interface card
Like it or not (and honestly, why would you not?), USB 3.0 is upon us, and we're guessing it's just a matter of time before every single USB peripheral in the entire world is equipped with SuperSpeed support. Exaggerations aside, there's still a good chance that you'll snap up an item or two over the course of your life that could benefit from hastier transfer rates, and that's where Green House comes in. The Japanese-based outfit has just revealed a USB 3.0-compatible PCI Express interface card, enabling mildly ancient desktops to gain USB 3.0 support by simply slapping a card into a free PCIe slot. The company claims that you'll see maximum data transfer rates of 5Gbps, but you'll have to wait a few more months to snag it for ¥3,780 ($42).
GameStop details three-point plan for digital distro future
GameStop doesn't really have to worry about digital distribution devices like the PSP Go right now -- in the Go's case, it's because there's pretty much nothing on it -- but, in the future, the company may need to consider adapting to a less physical media-dependent market. Though some say that day won't come until 2017 (others say digital distribution will endanger the company), Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian recently attended an analyst-only GameStop meeting at the NYSE (via IndustryGamers) where the company actually detailed its plans to prepare for the rise of the machines digital distribution.GameStop's three main goals to adapt included increasing in-store sales of point cards for online purchases, expanding its digital distribution of PC and casual titles via its website and making a strategic investment in the space or acquiring an online entity specializing in digital distribution. The first two are pretty cut and dry, but that last item really gives one food for thought.There are certainly a plethora of online distributors that GameStop could own; Steam, Greenhouse, Impulse, GoG and Direct2Drive are all established and popular digital distribution services, though we think GameStop may have some trouble should it pursue Steam or Direct2Drive -- which are owned by Valve and IGN (News Corp.), respectively. And, hey, if GameStop decides to purchase any one of these and doesn't like it, there's always the option to trade it back in for ... ah, forget it.
Le Petit Prince roving greenhouse robot is overwhelmingly cute, useful
Something about Le Petit Prince, the mobile, plant-loving greenhouse robot makes us indescribably sad. Is it his one, massive adorable eye? Or merely the fact that he's named after one of the most depressing books ever written? Either way, we can't really argue with his usefulness -- the concept can carry about plants and care for them, all the while ravaging the terrain for further specimens. He's also designed to learn about the optimal growing conditions of the plants he collects, which really makes us want one to care for a certain, finicky houseplant we won't call out by name (but we're looking at you, Venus Flytrap). Check out the darling video after the break.
PSA: Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 3 still in development
It's been quite a while since we last got to command Penny Arcade's Gabe and Tycho around New Arcadia, pugilizin' giant fruit f###ers and sweepin' the boardwalk clear of barbershop quartets. So long, in fact, that we nearly forgot the series was intended to be episodic (we've been told that means every four to six months in PAA's case), which resulted in a call to series developer Hothead Games.We were told by a Hothead rep this morning that, while no release date or information has yet been revealed about the game, "It [Episode 3] is still in development." Would it be fair to say we'll hear more about the game in the upcoming weeks leading up to PAX 2009? From the conversation we had this morning, we'd say that sounds mighty likely. With PAX 2009 just six short weeks away, we may not be waiting too much longer before we hear something more official.
Braid comes to the Mac
You have to admit: for all of the gaming woes that the Mac faithful has suffered, there's fortunately never been a shortage of great indie games for us to play. Aquaria made it to our platform, World of Goo appeared pretty early on, and now Braid, Jonathan Blow's terrific deconstruction of Super Mario Bros., has appeared on OS X thanks to the kind folks over at Hothead Games. The game has won more awards than you can count, but I can personally tell you it's great, as I played the XBLA release when it first arrived. It's a classic 2D platformer in the vein of Mario with a very important twist: you can reverse, slow, and replay time throughout the various levels. That twist results in an extremely artistic game that takes apart the original Mario story and ends up with something very much more beautiful and sad."Artistic"? "Beautiful"? "Sad"? Can I say these things about a videogame? Of course I can -- Braid stands in a class of its own as an experience that uses art and gameplay together to tell quite a story. If you're a fan of innovative games or just great interactive experiences, and haven't played through it yet (it's fairly short, maybe six hours at the most), it's definitely worth a look. The Greenhouse is selling the Mac or PC versions for $14.95.
