BehindTheScenes
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Aspirational action: How GoPro makes you want a GoPro
"We'll get about 10 feet from the beach, and it's an easy swim to the shore," the captain of our small boat chirps confidently. It looks more like 60 feet to me. My handler dives right in, so I flop belly-first behind her. I flail against the waves for what feels like a breathless eternity until I finally sense land underfoot. And then a wave crashes over me while the rest of the group -- all bronzed GoPro employees -- watch me get rolled over. And then a second one, until someone takes pity and peels me out of the shame-soup onto dry land. This is categorically not a GoPro moment, but it's about to be.
‘Game of Thrones’ season seven gets a behind-the-scenes series
It's been a long 24 hours since Game of Thrones finished its seventh season with last night's finale, but the long wait until the final episodes will be worse. To nurse your longing for Westeros' dysfunctional band of enemies and frenemies, HBO is airing a whole new behind-the-scenes series. The Game Revealed will give the premium network's viewers a seven-episode look at the season that just ended, but HBO has uploaded the first on Facebook and YouTube for all to watch.
Nintendo reveals three-part 'Breath of the Wild' documentary
(Update: The documentary series is now live!) Need a quick fix for your Zelda-love? Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will get its very own three-part making-of documentary tomorrow, March 14th, at 9AM ET.
'Hugo' director Martin Scorsese, cast explain the advantages of shooting movies in 3D (video)
We'll have to wait until this weekend to find out if Martin Scorsese's Hugo takes home any hardware from the Academy Awards, but we've got an early preview of one the Blu-ray 3D release's special features right here. Press play to hear the director explain why 3D affects the storytelling by bringing in qualities usually found in the theater to film, as well as comments from actors Christopher Lee and Sascha Baron Cohen. Scorsese explains "We see in 3D, we see in space... most of us do. Space is part of our lives. It means something. I think, for the individual person who has a vision of telling a story through images, how that person uses space -- that extra element, that extra dimension -- to tell a story is very, very important." Adapted from a book inspired by filmmaker Georges Méliès, the movie hits stores February 28th -- check out the trailer after the break.
Roll up, roll up for the magical mystery Arduino tour
If this news isn't as obvious as John Obvious: Professor of Obvious studies at Cambridge University: we love Arduino 'round these parts. Phil and Limor of Adafruit Industries took a tour of the Italian foundry's Turin factory and took a gallery of pics (and video!) on the way. It's a great insight into how the building process works for the modding tool, and you can head on down to our source link to check out the gallery in full -- we've also included a direct link to the video as the guys walk down the production line in our more coverage link. We're so good to you, you know.
How an AT&T smartphone comes to life: behind the scenes (part two)
By now, you're probably getting a pretty good idea at what goes into the development of a groundbreaking smartphone. In part one we followed the development of the Motorola Atrix 4G, discussing the process of how AT&T decided upon a design and collaborated with Moto to get the ball rolling. Now, we conclude the series by covering the intense testing process, getting the device prepared for launch and updating the phones after they're released.
Behind the scenes on Verizon's big deal with Apple for the iPhone
TechnoBuffalo's Adriana Lee has an interesting writeup that claims to go behind the scenes on Verizon's big deal with Apple to finally sell the iPhone on a second network earlier this year. Unfortunately, this information comes from an unnamed source, so we can't exactly vouch for its veracity. But it's an interesting tale anyway of what the Verizon deal may have been like. Apparently security was tight -- only those who needed to know about the deal did so officially beforehand (though, honestly, we'd heard rumor after rumor about it for a long time). And actual handsets were closely guarded, with owners being required to routinely put a special code in to guarantee things hadn't leaked out. The post also talks about the mood at CES about the "VPhone." I was at CES this year, and I can at least agree to the authenticity of that part -- the buzz around the press rooms and show floor was that it was pretty silly that Verizon was still playing dumb about an iPhone release, and when the invites finally appeared in the middle of the busiest tech show of the year, the response was more a sigh than anything. "Really?," we all asked. "Now?" Of course, that release plan worked out just fine anyway. The launch turned out to be more than a solid effort, and while lots of the buzz was undoubtedly due to the actual iPhone itself, Verizon seemed to handle things well on its side also. Thanks, Sean!
Choreographing a humanoid robot's dance routine is as easy as click and pull
You may not be able to build an HRP-4C fembot in your average garage, but the programming would practically take care of itself -- not only does the AIST humanoid sing using off-the-shelf Yamaha Vocaloid software, its dance moves are click-and-drag, too. Roboticist Dr. Kazuhito Yokoi gave IEEE Spectrum an inside look at the HRP-4C's motion trajectory software, which works much like 3D animation tools: you position the limbs where you want them to start and when you want them to end up using keyframes, and the software takes care of the rest. The system's intelligent enough to generate a 6.7 second sequence from just eight keyframes, and it compensates for hazardous instructions, too -- if your haphazard choreography would tip her over or send limbs flying, it'll automatically adjust her moves. See how it works in a video after the break and hit up our source link for the full interview.
Bringing the epic God of War to PSP
It wasn't an easy task bringing God of War to the handhelds. A brand new engine (Ready at Dawn Engine 2.0) had to be created, and the controls had to be adapted to a whole new system. Our time with the game at E3 proved that Ready at Dawn has been successful in recreating the God of War experience on the handheld ... but how did they do it? This new video documentary provided by Sony attempts to go behind the scenes of the game, and showcases tons of new gameplay footage.[Thanks, Random!] Download MP4 for PSP
Def Jam Icon demo heads to the PlayStation Store
On Thursday (tomorrow), Sony will be updating the PlayStation Store with a new playable demo that (shock!) isn't a racing game: Def Jam Icon. EA's music-inspired fighter hasn't earned the greatest critical praise, but at a price of "free," it'll probably be worthwhile to check out the demo. Also available on the store will be videos of the already-released Resistance: one trailer and three behind-the-scenes features that cover gameplay, concept art and level design. [Via 1UP]
Cheap ass media pass
David Abrams of CheapAssGamer amused the inner Beavis of everyone in Denny's last night by managing to get the word "ass" on his media badge. We wondered just how far the names could go before someone in the E3 registration process decides to create a list of dirty words. It's only a matter of time before some dude from Alaska starts a show called the "Scrotum Gaming Hour." By the way, it turns out CheapyD isn't so cheap after all. He picked up the dinner tab.
Straight from a GM's mouth
Over at Something Awful, an alleged ex-Blizzard Europe GM is answering questions from the fray on what it's really like behind the curtain. From 25-year accounts to GM Island, there are some interesting questions and answers on the front page, although you'll have to subscribe to Something Awful if you want to read the entire thread.GMs don't speak out frequently about their jobs, but it can be a thankless task. From newbie questions to insults and petty disputes, the GMs have to put up with a lot from us; but without them the world would run much less smoothly. Yesterday was France's Labour Day, meaning that no GM tickets were available, so I dread to think what they will be deluged with this morning.There's more about the life of a GM on the WoW website; Blizzard are often recruiting, if this sounds like a dream job. Of course, there are other ways of getting paid to play WoW![Via AFK Gamer]
WoW Documentary DVD Now Available
Looks like with all the other folks making documentaries about WoW, Blizzard decided there was too much action there to not get in on it themselves. Now available from the official shop is the official WoW Behind the Scenes DVD. it features commentaries by the devs, re-mastered WoW cinematics, and some other goodies.I'm a sucker for any gaming documentaries, and this one I'm sure will contain some interesting stuff, but the real bonus is that it's only ten bucks, so it can't be that bad a purchase. Or you can just wait for all the cool stuff to show up on YouTube...
