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EVE Evolved: Alliance Tournament XI Grudge Match
The largest alliance war in EVE Online's history is currently underway, with the latest battle to hit the news reaching over 4,000 players and shattering the world record for players involved in a single PvP battle. While massive battles like are becoming a regular occurrence in EVE and have dominated the news lately, the strategy of just throwing thousands of ships at the enemy and seeing if it works doesn't work in every corner of New Eden. Wormholes, for example, limit the mass of ships entering a hidden Sleeper star system at once, promoting smaller-scale conflicts that are more about deep strategy and execution than scale. So it is for EVE Online's annual alliance tournament, a fairly matched drawing that attempts to simulate what would happen if small squads of ships from opposing alliances met on equal terms. Teams are drawn randomly against each other and put together squads of ships within the bounds of an imposed point limit. This year's tournament involved only 64 teams and had no elimination stage but still managed to pump out 128 action-packed matches with full commentary and studio coverage. The grand final even played host to the biggest grudge match in Alliance Tournament history as Pandemic Legion faced off against Hydra Reloaded. In this week's EVE Evolved, I round up all the matches in this year's massive Alliance Tournament and discuss the explosive final that saw old tournament rivals face off for glory and huge in-game prizes.
Helping autistic children with iOS devices
Autism is a developmental brain disorder that, in some manner, plagues one out of every 110 children (according to the Centers for Disease Control). It's usually discovered by the time the child is three years old. Varying medical and scientific authorities characterize the condition in different ways, but scientists generally agree that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) manifest themselves in social, communication, and behavioral challenges. The SF Weekly recently wrote about a number of families with autistic children and how the iPad is proving to be quite useful in helping them. A number of studies have been done on the use of iPhones and iPods as aids for the autistic. One such study was titled iPod Therefore I Can: Enhancing the Learning of Children with Intellectual Disabilities Through Emerging Technologies, and it tracked the progress of 10 autistic children who were using iPod touches in Australia. The results were quite encouraging. In one case, a child who could not wash his hands was exposed to photos (combined with voice-overs) of a child doing it successfully. Through this method, the correct behavior was reinforced, and in short order, the child was able to wash his hands by himself. About 60 percent of the goals of the study were achieved. The results of this and other studies have been encouraging, but a major problem for 60 to 80 percent of autistic children is poor motor skills, including poor motor planning, which makes using the small buttons on an iPhone or iPod touch quite difficult. Because of the larger size of an iPad, it can be much more accessible to a larger number of autistic children.
Digit-Eyes identfies everything for the blind without breaking the bank
The Digit-Eyes Audio Scanner and Labeler (US$29.95) from Digital Miracles is a remarkable Assistive Technology (AT) app for the iPhone and iPod touch geared to the blind and visually impaired community. What it does is fairly straightforward once you get the big idea, but the implications of its uses are fairly mind-boggling. The app does three things. The first and simplest is, using the built in camera, scanning UPC and EAN codes found on most everything. Taking advantage of the VoiceOver accessibility capability built into the iPhone/IPod touch, it searches a database, brings back the results and reads it to you. There is also a button to search Google for more information. That's really no big deal since a variety of barcode scanning apps such as Red Laser can do roughly the same thing. You need an Internet connection for this since you are referencing the Digit-Eyes database. The second thing it does, is more compelling. Once you register for a free account on their site, you can create text labels for printing on over 50 sizes of standard Avery labels. Select a type of label and a template page is displayed full of empty boxes representing labels. In each box, type in up to 100 characters of anything you want the label to say. Once done, all your text is transformed into a .pdf page of QR (quick recognition) codes like the one shown in the upper right corner of this post. Print the page on the Avery label stock, and stick each on whatever you wanted the label to say. For example, if you typed in "Blueberries bought on July 31st", you would stick that corresponding label on a container of blueberries. Then using the Digit-Eyes app, scan the label on the container and the screen will display and a voice will read back "Digit-Eyes label read: Blueberries bought on July 31st". The database of what's behind each label is stored on your iPhone so you won't need an Internet connection to access the information. %Gallery-98575%
Breakfast Topic: The ardent Argent
Just in case you hadn't realized already, the news we got last week about patch 3.2 made it clear that the Argent Tournament is going to play a sizable role in our future Wrath of the Lich King activities, so if you, like me, have been lazy about completing all of the various tasks the tournament offers, now might be the time to change that outlook and get to work over there. By the time 3.2 rolls around, there will be even more rewards to be attained by champions of the various cities, so if having a squire of your own hasn't been temptation enough, maybe the promise of future content has helped.And speaking of help, in case you need some, we've got you covered as always, from guides to the various dailies to a review of the rewards available. The question today is: have you been convinced yet? A good number of you have probably been rolling in the AT since 3.1 dropped, and probably have a whole stack of Seals already (if not the Hippogryph mount itself). But for those of you who've been lagging behind, has the promise of new AT-related content in 3.2 lit a fire under your Stabled Quel'dorei Steed? Or are you meh on on the idea of grinding out daily quests just to get more PvE content to grind out?%Gallery-45851%
