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Google's new web gallery helps you find public map data
A number of organizations offer public map data through Google Maps, but finding it can be tricky -- if you even know it exists. That may not be an issue now that Google has just launched its Maps Gallery. The web portal showcases location info from both Google and a slew of its Maps Engine partners, ranging from the World Bank's internet usage stats to National Geographic's historical overlays. This is really just the start of the search firm's map discovery efforts, though. Google tells TechCrunch that it wants to surface public maps in regular search results, and it would also like to draw attention to Maps Engine Lite data created by amateur cartographers.
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Titanfall beta to open to public on Xbox One 'later today,' PC soon
Did you win the Titanfall beta lottery? No, you're just pretending to build a crazy kill-death ratio from the innards of a Titan? Well, it's your lucky day - Major Nelson has announced that Titanfall's Xbox One beta will begin opening to the public "later today." That's right, you won't need a code to join in! In order to enter the beta, sign into your console and look for the download in the "New Game Demos" section of the Game Store. It isn't up just yet, mind you - Major Nelson's post states that the download may "take some time" to appear to all Xbox One users, noting that some users may say it appear before others. Twitter activity from Respawn Entertainment's Vince Zampella reflects the beta plans, while also noting that the PC beta will also open its gates to the public, "maybe tomorrow."
Ask Engadget: best online photo album with public contributions?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Jeff, who wants to crowdsource his wedding photography without any mess. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "As part of my wedding plans, we're expecting plenty of our friends to take pictures of the big day on their smartphones and cameras. I'd like to create a public online photo album to let everyone upload the pictures to one place, and then I can download them later. I'd really rather not have anyone set up an account anywhere (so Flickr won't work) and, ideally, I'd like those who shoot in .RAW to be able to upload the full sized files. Any ideas and suggestions of places would be great, thanks!" Well, actually, your humble narrator has this same problem early last year. My solution, which won't work for you, was to sign up with a Flickr Pro account and set up a new group. As you can email in images to a specific group email address, we sent this address out on our invitations. That way, anyone who took pictures could just email them straight to the site. As you've said, that's not going to work with .RAW images, so let's turn this question over to the community and see what they can come up with.
EVE University public classes begin next week
Are you interested in checking out EVE Online, but don't feel like being thrown to the dogs on day one? Luckily there's a training corp in game called EVE University and classes are starting up on July 15th. This is the first time EVE U's classes will be open to the public, and with courses such as Trading 101, Aggression and Engagement, and Drones 101, you know why they say internet spaceships are serious business. And if you're an old hat at the game and feel like donning an ascot and pipe and lecturing to a bunch of noobs, EVE U is also looking for teachers and lecturers.
PlayStation All-Stars public beta now accepting applications
The PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale public beta starts on September 11, lasting one week to September 18. Anyone interested in being a part of the frantic action can sign up on the PSN beta site right now.Players chosen will be notified via email, get a voucher code for the download on either PS3 or the PS Vita, and receive "test night information." Presumably, developer SuperBot will aim to test specific heroes, modes, or stages, so it'll direct players that way.If you don't make this early cut, you'll have to wait until the full game arrives on November 20.
Play Black Ops 2, God of War: Ascension, Dead Space 3 and more at GameStop Expo
GameStop has posted some more details about its upcoming GameStop "EXPO." Usually, this event is reserved just for store managers and associates, but this year the US games retailer is opening it up to the public (the public, in this case, meaning PowerUp Rewards members willing to pay $35, or a $100 VIP fee).The Expo runs from 11am-4pm on August 29 in San Antonio, Texas, and during that time attendees will be able to play games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, God of War: Ascension, and Dead Space 3, among others. Devs will also be on hand for a number of games, Nintendo will show off the Wii U, and there will be giveaways, autograph signings, and lots more.Sounds like a fun afternoon in San Antonio. Though if it's anything like our local GameStop, look out for the mom trying to get her kid to leave without a game, the salesperson selling magazine subscriptions, and that guy in the corner who really, really wants to talk about how great Jak 2 was.
iOS 6 beta 3 available to developers
The third beta version of iOS 6 has been handed out to developers running the new mobile OS as an over-the-air update this morning. The new versions of Xcode haven't quite made their way out into the world yet, but they should soon, giving iOS and Mac developers the option to test and build their apps on the upcoming operating system. Unfortunately, for those of us not using the latest and greatest developer builds, this only means that iOS 6 is still in progress, and there's still some work to do on it before the release to the public later on this fall. We're going to have to be satisfied with the upcoming version of Mac OS X instead -- Mountain Lion's gold master was just handed out to devs recently, which means it's closer than ever for us. Update: The Xcode updates have just dropped, and should be available in Software Update right now. The Xcode 4.5 developer preview will allow developers to put apps together for the latest beta of iOS 6, so they can be ready to go on release day.
NASA opens up Launch Control Center for public tours
The NASA control center, responsible for a huge chunk of space-faring history, will open its doors to tour groups for the first time in over 30 years, celebrating the Kennedy Space Center's 50th anniversary. Starting this Friday, a "limited number" of tours will take bright-eyed enthusiasts into the Launch Control Center, where all 152 launches were counted down -- visitors will even get to peer at the very same clock. NASA has also granted access to the "bubble room", which is surrounded by windows showing what went on in the firing room just below. The daily tour also throws in a drive-by viewing of one of the shuttle launch pads. The tours will run through the end of 2012 -- adults will need to fork out an extra $25, while kids will cost $19 on top of the typical entrance fee. [Image Credit: Britannica Online, 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com]
The Daily Grind: Can there be too much community interaction in public?
There are varying schools of thought on interacting with your community in public, but the two main ones consist of either answering every question or giving the silent treatment. Blizzard was notorious at one time for not responding to any community feedback in public, presumably to keep the trolls at bay, but that studio's opened up considerably in the last few years. On the other end of that spectrum is ArenaNet, whose reps answer just about every single question they get on Twitter. This makes for an open line of communication with fans but seems to be ineffective when the same questions are being asked and answered multiple times a day. So where do you stand on the issue? Do you think a simple FAQ on the website should be referenced and a support team should answer questions privately, or do you think something like Twitter, Facebook, or even a Reddit Ask Me Anything is the best place to answer questions and address concerns from the community? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Facebook IPO is official: $38 per share, on sale tomorrow under ticker symbol 'FB'
We largely steer clear of companies going public here at Engadget, but Facebook and its zillions of users warrants an atypical tip of the hat. The outfit has announced that starting tomorrow, 421,233,615 shares of its common stock will be up for grabs at a price to the public of $38 per share. It'll trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol "FB," with the outfit offering 180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on May 22nd, subject to "customary closing conditions." And with that, we'd like to congratulate a plethora of new billionaires on... well, being billionaires. Don't work too hard, guys and girls. Celebratory video is after the break.
EA: lack of official Battlefield 3 servers due to rentals
Battlefield 3 players recently noticed that all of DICE's official servers for the game appeared to be unavailable, and they wondered: What's up with that? What's up with that, EA says, is that the game was too popular. DICE runs a number of official servers, but those servers can also be rented by players, and if too many players rent official servers, they can appear to be unavailable. But EA and DICE say they want what's best for players, so DICE will keep an eye on the policy, and "will reserve a percentage of servers for players who prefer to connect through DICE-hosted servers."The publisher hopes that will answer player concerns. And if not ... free XP? Starting tomorrow through Sunday, Battlefield 3 is hosting another double XP weekend for all ranked servers and matches, with players earning twice as much experience as usual. This special weekend isn't a direct response to the server concerns, but hey, free points are free points.
Trion Worlds may go public following RIFT's success
Want to own a piece of your favorite MMO studio? If you're a fan of Trion Worlds, then you may yet get your chance. The company announced that it is mulling over a decision to put the company on the market with an IPO. CEO Lars Buttler says that it's just a matter of time at this point: "As we build scale and become more profitable, [an IPO] is clearly on our horizon at some point. We've had a lot of bankers coming to us recently. We keep all of our options open at this point. We definitely have enough substance and enough skill to be a public company at the right time." Trion has been doing well for itself lately, as it's doubled its staff in 2011 and raised $100 million from investments since 2007. RIFT's success has helped to convince the company that an IPO is a solid move. "RIFT is vastly profitable. It is profitable every single week and every single month," Buttler said. RIFT isn't Trion's only project, as the company is working on End of Nations, Defiance, and the Red Door publishing platform.
Google's Photovine goes live with its photo sharing app
Photovine is Google's latest iOS app and it's best described as a photo-sharing app with a public twist. Unlike Instagram which lets you share your stylized mobile photos with your friends and followers, Photovine ditches the filters and has a much more public slant. You publish your photo with a theme, caption or category and it becomes a vine. Your vine can be as simple as "photographs of ice cream" to as abstract as "the color orange." Once you create a vine, other people can contribute to that vine and you can watch it grow. Likewise, you can browse other vines and add your own photo. Once your photo is attached to a vine, it becomes public and can be seen on that vine and on your profile. Photovine was developed by Slide, a company Google acquired last August. The app is available for free from the App Store. And yes, it does resemble Piictu. [Via ReadWriteWeb]
Vection Field controls traffic at SIGGRAPH, fictional cities from the future (video)
So, let's set the stage. You're walking down a semi-busy street in a semi-foreign city. You're curiously hanging close to the middle of the sidewalk. You bust out your smartphone and figure out that your so-called engagement just got "Complicated." Your gait has an irregularity. You look up and spot what appears to be a local, eerily perturbed and somewhat flummoxed by your current position. You dodge left. So does he. You dodge right, knowing full well that it'll only complicate matters when he follows suit. Before long, you're tiptoeing around a stranger while a full-on traffic jam builds up behind you. You've just ruined the universe, and that's not doing anyone any good. The solution? The University of Electro-Communications's Vection Field, which hones in on large moving visual cues that "induce a sense of self-movement." Funny enough, the lenticular lenses pathway here at SIGGRAPH actually worked -- we never expected an optical illusion to solve such a monumental issue, but we'll take it. Vid's past the break, per usual.
Strawberry Tree brings free, solar-powered charging to Belgrade's BlackBerrys, more (video)
Dead battery in Belgrade? Head to the city's Obrenovac district, where a group of students has developed the world's first public charging station powered entirely by solar energy. Known as the Strawberry Tree, the structure's 16 ports support a variety of handhelds, allowing pedestrians to juice up their cell phones in just ten to 15 minutes, at no charge. Its built-in batteries can also store up to a month's worth of back-up energy, enabling the station to hum along at night, or even during Serbia's less sunny seasons. In the first 40 days following its November launch, the Strawberry Tree logged some 10,000 charging sessions -- or about ten charges per hour. Creator Miloš Milisavljevic was just 17 years old when he came up with the idea, and now, at the ripe old age of 22, is looking to plant new stations across other Serbian cities, through his Strawberry Energy NGO. He says these installations won't generate much revenue from consumers, but that's not really the idea: "Energy from the sun is free, and it would be unethical to charge people to use the Strawberry Tree...We are trying to inspire young people to think about the source of the energy they use, and behave and act responsibly." You can check out the Strawberry Tree in the video below, or find out more about Milisavljevic's ideal-driven endeavors in the full PR.
Visualized: Google charts the rise and fall of United States revenues
Where would we be without Google? Well, we wouldn't have pretty charts to gawk at, for starters! The Mountain View squad has pulled 10 years' worth of fiscal data from the US Census Bureau and compiled it into some gorgeous, infinitely sortable, and re-organizable graphs. They inspire both our admiration and apprehension, as their lines illustrate most starkly the shrinkage that replaced US economic growth over the latter half of the last decade. We've only picked out a few of the big states here, but all 50 are in Google's public database -- why not hit the source link and check up on your local governors' pecuniary (mis)management skills, eh?
Gamescom 2011 advance tickets on sale now
Advanced ticket sales for the upcoming Gamescom 2011 convention in Cologne, Germany are now on sale, so if you're planning to be in the area then (or have the money and time to flit over to the continent whenever you want -- lucky duck), you can see the sights for just a few Euros. The cheapest day passes, at just €6 ($9), are for students and senior citizens, while standard passes are around €10-15 ($14-21). Note that these tickets are for the public -- they'll let you in the "entertainment area" of the show, but the business side of the event is only for trade and media attendees. But that's no problem. You can still go over there and have yourself a big ol' partyzeit anyway. The convention kicks off on August 17, 2011.
Fusion-io IPO filing discloses list of prestigious clients, led by Facebook
Before last week, we'd gone well over a year without discussing solid state storage purveyors Fusion-io -- and their extremely expensive and expeditious flash drives -- but things seem to have been ticking along just fine behind the scenes. While the company's unlikely to have sold many ioDrives to good old Joe Consumer, its upcoming IPO application features an impressive list of corporate clients, highlighted by Facebook, its biggest customer, IBM, HP, and Credit Suisse -- the latter using Fusion-io technology to speed up the mathematical alchemy of making money where there was none before. Taken together with strategic investments from Samsung and Dell, these deals paint a rosy outlook for the Woz-employing startup, however it's worth noting that profitability is still a decent way away. Fusion-io's rapid growth is costing it more than it's making at the moment, which is most likely to have catalyzed its current decision to go public and collect its biggest round of investments yet. Let's hope the investor prospectus includes a forecast for when things like the ioXtreme might actually become affordable to non-millionaires, eh?
Windows 7 SP1 public beta now ready for download
Slightly ahead of schedule, Microsoft has dished out Service Pack numero uno for Windows 7. The hot-selling OS has been a revelation since its release and it's therefore no surprise that this update pack does nothing remarkably new or important. It collates all of Microsoft's patches since launch into a neat little (well, not really, it's 1.2GB in size) package and throws in a few other hotfixes to boot. Microsoft treats its betas rather unceremoniously, however, so don't expect any support with this thing until it goes final -- which we're hearing might not be until early 2011. We'd say that's a long way out but it's not like Windows 7 isn't treating us well enough already. Hit the source to obtain the download, if you must. [Thanks, JagsLive]
Panasonic's CTO takes your 3D questions live via Ustream tomorrow at 3 p.m.
Panasonic should be living the easy life, the newest iteration of its acclaimed V-series plasma HDTVs have been touted as having the best looking 2D and 3D available, the first 24-hour US 3D channel launches this week, and there's even at least one Blu-ray 3D movie is on retail shelves. But even with all that, there's a lot of confusion and questions about whether or not 3D is a good thing and what consumers should expect, so it's taking the unusual step of putting Chief Technology Officer Eisuke Tsuyuzaki on a live Ustream webcast taking questions from you, the public. Whether you're wondering if any focus has been taken away from 2D image quality, what can be done about cross manufacturer 3D glasses compatibility or anything else, show up at 3 p.m. EST tomorrow, June 30 and see what Panasonic has to say in response. Check the read link for the Ustream channel or just pop right back here, it's embedded after the break.
