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Hanu Labs' Stone vaporizer hits like a ton of bricks
It's not hard for us to guess what the oil vape in your pocket looks like. If it's a 510, chances are it looks pretty much like every other 510 in existence. Even the new generation of vapes with specialized pods all tend to look reasonably the same. But the Stone from Hanu Labs doesn't look like any that's come before it.
At some point in life, you'll want a marble iPhone case
Wood and leather are so yesterday. What you really want is some genuine marble on your precious gadgets. At least that's the pitch from Native Union, which recently announced its Clic Marble iPhone 6 case, available in matte black or glossy white -- the latter consisting of the nice Carrara white marble from Italy. Don't be fooled by its simple look, as the company took a year and a half to figure out how to carefully slice marble at just 0.8mm thick, and then reinforce it with fiberglass to keep it flexible and shatter-resistant. The case does add 2mm of bulk onto your device, and it does ask for $80 in the US or £70 in the UK, but these are the kinds of sacrifices that some are willing to make in return for that cold luxurious feel.
DC Universe Online explains how the Earth powerset rocks out
DC Universe Online players have known that the next major powerset has been set in stone for some time now. The Earth powerset is rolling along, and in the latest developer blog the team explains just how the set works for all sorts of players. At its foundation, the powerset is split into the Geokinesis and Seismic trees, with the former allowing players to shape weapons of stone and the latter projecting earthquakes and similar eruptions. Mastery of Geokinesis allows players to summon earth golems to fight alongside them, solidifying a defensive strategy with transferred damage and special stone totems. On the other hand, mastery of the Seismic tree lets you summon localized epicenters and yank pillars of stone from the ground, flinging enemies around and knocking them off their feet. While it doesn't seem like the new set will be kind to property values, players will probably have more than a few new tricks to use like a stone-cold killer.
Construction to begin on Apple Store in Bologna, Italy
Above is a street view shot of the site where Apple will be breaking ground on an all new Apple Store. It's right smack dab in the middle of Bologna, Italy, a place where I'd imagine you probably shouldn't believe anything you hear. According to the Italian La Repubblica, the store will take up two levels making up 5300 square feet, with one more level on top for Apple offices and meeting rooms. The store may open as soon as spring of 2011. There's another interesting twist here -- Apple tends to get most of its "pietra serena sandstone" floors from one specific quarry in Italy, which just happens to be about 38 miles from this location. Apple apparently makes up 20 percent of the revenue of the Il Casone stone quarry, located in the small Italian town of Firenzuola. No word on if the family that owns the quarry is doing anything different for this Apple Store, but it's nice that they'll have a place nearby to, you know, go buy an iPad and give some of that money back. [via ifoapplestore]
One Shots: From the clouds
Ever wondered what it might look like if you could get high above some of the various parts of your favorite MMO? Well, if you're today's rather resourceful contributor, Stone, you might well find a way! Not content to simply run around in Guild Wars and enjoy the various locales, he found a way to get today's eye-catching overview that he calls "Canthan boat." Stone writes in to explain it a bit further: "Because most people only redo the Shing Jea tutorial to get a little more of the map uncovered for the Canthan Cartographer title, they tend to miss the beautiful scenery in the area. Even on my fifth time through the tutorial, I still find little niceties that the ArenaNet team put in." Have you found a new perspective on an area you may have seen many, many times? If so, why not share it with us! We love to see what our readers are doing, and One Shots can always use more screenshot love. Just email your images in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. You never know -- yours could be the next one we post here on Massively! %Gallery-85937%
Jabra Stone goes exclusive in white for AT&T
Jabra's Stone is still one of the more stylish Bluetooth headsets ever to take on the market, but you know what makes anything more stylish? Painting it white. Sure enough, the white Stone looks pretty sweet in pictures, and it's an AT&T exclusive starting today for $129 in stores. That's a little steep for a headset, sure, but one small bonus is that buyers who complete a survey after picking it up will receive a $30 card good toward other products in the AT&T store -- so that takes the edge off the pocketbook sting, we suppose.
Cranberry DiamonDisc: the $35 DVD that'll last longer than your ghost
We've seen outfit after outfit trumpet their long-lasting optical storage wares before, but Cranberry seems different. Rather than promising that whatever miracle they've just unearthed will be available "in the very near future," this company is selling its wonder product right now. The so-called DiamonDisc -- which is reportedly constructed from "diamond-hard stone" -- is designed to store precious memories for 1,000 years or more, and it's even built to withstand "temperatures extending up to 176 degrees Fahrenheit as well as UV rays that would destroy conventional DVD discs." Unfortunately, each disc holds just 4.7GB of information, and each one will run you $34.95 if purchased individually. Oh, and it's only playable on "most" regular DVD drives, so across-the-board compatibility seems less than likely. The more we think about it, the more sense that whole "just carve it into stone for future generations to see" mantra makes. Kudos, cavemen.
Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review
Finally, the teaser's over. The latest delivery to Engadget's UK penthouse is the Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset due out in the US on 8th November, and we took no time to extract the pebble from the transparent cylinder. In front of us are the two parts of the STONE: an earpiece of a breakthrough form factor that instantly makes you pity its rivals, and behind it is the accompanying portable charging base which serves as an external battery. The latter is equipped with a micro-USB port and an LED indicator -- simply green or red -- to show whether there's enough battery juice for one full charge. It's a pretty neat idea as this is the only feasible way to fit eight hours of talk time (or twelve days of standby time) into such tiny package: two on the earpiece and an extra six from the surprisingly light battery base -- our scale reckons it is just under one ounce. We also dig the auto-off function when you dock the earpiece and vice versa. Docking and undocking are pretty straight forward too: just snap in for the former, and poke your thumb through the bottom hole of the base to push the earpiece out. The generic click button hidden under the Jabra badge is easy to access and responds well. Above that is the invisible vertical touch strip for volume control and similarly it responded nicely to our strokes. What's left on the earpiece are the two LED indicators on the underside for Bluetooth connectivity and battery. So far so good, but what really matters is the ear-on experience and the audio quality -- listen for yourself after the break.
Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset brings extreme noise blocking, $130 price tag
Okay, so this thing is way more "traditional Bluetooth headset" than "a round object that looks nothing like a Bluetooth headset," but we'll give the marketing team credit -- STONE sure got us looking. Jabra's newest Bluetooth headset has just become official, bringing with it a behind-the-ear design, a wireless portable charger (which doubles as a carrying case) and Noise Blackout Extreme technology to keep things quiet when your yammering. There's also a "nearly invisible touch-controlled volume pad" on the outside of the headset, a battery good for 8 hours of talk time (or 12 days in standby), dual BT pairing support and A2DP compatibility. Unfortunately, you'll have to waltz into an AT&T retail store starting on November 8th to get one, and worse still, you'll walk out $129.99 poorer. But hey, you'll leave Stoned. (Sorry.)
Jabra Stone to bring 'new shape' to Bluetooth headset field
C'mon, cut us some slack here. We're suckers for teasers, and our intuition says that you are too. Jabra, who has definitely done a thing or two for the Bluetooth headset realm, is apparently looking to reveal a "new shape" on October 20th, though it'll only be sold through AT&T (at least initially). Heck, there's even a countdown timer over on the outfit's teaser page for those who'd like to watch every second from now till then tick away, not to mention a brief video that tersely details the forthcoming excellence. So, got any bright ideas about what this thing could be? The second coming of the BT headset? Just another tchotchke?[Via Electricpig]
Anti-Aliased: The Daze of Darkfall pt. 2
Capturing the city After running halfway across the main continent, I finally found myself in my new home. Albeit my new home is a broken wasteland of stone and rocks at the moment. My clan was very successful in grinding out the 10,000 gold to capture a city in under six hours, leaving us with a brand new piece of real estate in a suitable location. This is the part where things in my Darkfall experience began to get dicey. A city does not just fall into one's hands and just magically work. Construction needs to occur and buildings need to be built. Things like keeps and houses allow more clan members to bind their souls to the citystone, our new respawn point. But to get those, we need stone, and wood to start constructing. And to get stone and wood, you need resource harvesters. Or as I like to call us -- peons. No, honestly, I'm not tripping out and recalling a game of Warcraft or any other real-time strategy game. This is all still very much Darkfall. My job for a few play sessions was going out with a pick axe or wood axe and working to harvest resources for construction. You wouldn't believe how ungodly boring hitting a rock is. Or, well, maybe you could. And, commenters, I know what you're saying. You're saying that I should be out getting some PvP l33tsauce right now. Well, guess what, PvP l33tsauce does not build a city. Sure, I could go shoot and kill other people harvesting. But stone and harvest materials weigh you down and people to kill aren't exactly close to where I am. No, you can just go right outside the darn walls and start hitting trees/rocks. It's faster, it's more productive, you can move resources quickly, and it's not PvP. Sorry. Clan's current plans are to do some more harvesting and production as a group, then we're going to begin "training for PvP." Right now, training consists of beating the crap out of one another to raise defenses and attack skill. Not exactly what I think Aventurine had in mind to raise combat skills, but I don't see them stepping in to stop my entire clan. Beyond that though, I really am looking forward to raiding and doing some real combat. The thought of raiding another city is exciting, although it will take some time. End of part one Well, those are my experiences so far. More of my Darkfall experiences are coming next week, during week two of this month long in-depth look. Personally, Darkfall is a mixed bag right now. The menus still annoy me, the combat still intrigues me, the questing still sucks, the city building feels like a giant real-time strategy game (I enjoy being a commander more than a peon, but I think that's something everyone would agree on), but nothing's really happening. Darkfall's billed as one of the great PvP games, and so far I've seen one instance of PvP in the three days I've been playing. Granted, I could throw myself into PvP, but that just seems like a waste of my money, armor, and weapons at this point. Why PvP when it will cost you more than it will let you gain? Maybe things will turn around. Tune in next time, dear readers, to find out if they do.Hey, want to do the time warp? Check out week 2 and week 3 of The Daze of Darkfall! Colin Seraphina Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who thinks three hours of third-person harvesting is the bomb. When she's not writing here for Massively, she's rambling on her personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message her, send her an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow her on Twitter through Massively, or through her personal feed, @sera_brennan.
Stone Neo 101 drops into the netbook pond, doesn't cause a ripple
We haven't heard much from Stone since it fulfilled its destiny and bought Rock Computers last year, but it looks like the company is now finally having a go at a netbook of its own, and blending right in with the masses with its just-announced Neo 101 model. As you can no doubt guess, this one packs a standard issue 10.1-inch 1,024 x 600 display and an unspecified Atom processor, along with built-in WiFi and optional 3G, a pair of USB ports and, somewhat notably, an ExpressCard slot for a bit of expansion. You'll also get a slightly better than usual three-year warranty, which apparently doesn't add much of a premium to the netbook's £275 price tag (or about $400). Look for this one to be available in the UK starting May 1st.
Stone buys Rock -- could this be any more perfect?
When Rock fell under administration earlier this month, we honestly had no idea if we'd ever see that swank Pegasus 210 hit the market. Today, we still have no clue about the latter, but we do know that the failed company has been caught by the most impeccably named suitor Planet Earth has to offer: Stone. Reportedly, Stone Group will dish out "an undisclosed sum" for Rock, after which the two will meld together and form an all-powerful, completely unstoppable boulder. Watch out Mount Rushmore, you've got some serious competition now.[Via vnunet]
Need one more at meeting stone
Elizabeth put a good post up the other day about lazy folks who don't take the time to run back into an instance after a wipe, and this forum post by Eleutheria on EU Earthen Ring points out the other side of instance group laziness: Meeting stone standoffs.Here's how it should work: if there aren't yet two people in your group standing by the meeting stone, everyone in the group should be running, riding, or flying to get there. But of course that's not what really happens-- what happens is that the leader of the group makes it there first, and everyone else continues grinding, or goes to check the AH one more time, or has to run repair, or finish a BG, or any number of things that don't involve getting to the meeting stone and summoning. Worst case scenario is that people start trying to convince others to go for them, and one guy is left at the meeting stone shaking his head.Now, some people say that whoever made the group should be summoning, and in most cases, that seems like a good idea. But there are always exceptions. Even if I'm the last to enter a group, I usually start making my way towards the instance anyway-- the trip is never that long, no matter which instance you're going to, and it's better to be nice and use the flight to get another beer/soda then to sit around demanding a summon.Unfortunately, there's no real way to fix this except to call out people for just plain being lazy. I guess it would be cool if Blizzard gave a nice timed buff to the first two people in a group to use a meeting stone summon, except then you'd probably have tons of people hanging around the RFC meeting stone in Org before they queued up for the battleground. As a few people point out in the thread, probably the best way to deal with it is just to give up on the group. Maybe next time they'll be ready to work together outside the portal as well as inside.
Creative's next DAP: the Zen Stone?
Honestly, not a whole lot of Zennin' has been going on since we witnessed Creative's mammoth display at CES, but according to Eipzenenter, the next one is just a stone's throw away. The presumably small, flash-based DAP should be dubbed the Zen Stone, and while it hasn't been confirmed, we can probably expect a roundish motif. Unsurprisingly, Creative will likely be giving us a plethora of colors to choose from, including black, red, pink, white, dark blue, and lime, and you won't have to look far to find the corresponding armband, skin, or keychain attachment. Word on the street is that this one will demand a mere $50 for the 1GB rendition, and while curiosity may be keeping you up at night, the official release date should happen sometime next month.
The mouse for the modern caveman
Not everyone feels comfortable using a mouse made out of modern materials like plastic or, y'know, mammoth skin. Fortunately for office cavemen everywhere, a Russian designer called Neko has filled this market niche by making a mouse out of stone -- or, more likely, made a plastic mouse with polished stones stuck on top. The beige scroll wheel and cable ruin the appeal slightly, although that wouldn't stop us from freaking out the Engadget interns by turning up to work with what appears to be a hunk of rock.[Via MAKE]
