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Behold, the majesty of weird, but beautiful science!
Artist or scientist? Work of art or laboratory machine? The two pairs needn't be exclusive and we've collected a batch of real-world photos to prove it. The artistry in crafting experimental machines to explore the fabric of our world rivals that used to create futuristic movie sets or avant-garde sculptures. The closer you explore reality, the more unusual and exotic it tends to appear. With that in mind, we offer you a gallery of science-based gadget porn to dazzle your eyes and titillate your brain. [Image: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab - photo by Roy Kaltschmidt]
The Big Picture: a heat map of the 'entire' internet
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, though, let's say it's worth millions and millions of internet connections. Thanks to John Matherly, founder of Shodan, a search engine which focuses on helping companies locate internet-connected devices, we are getting a pretty detailed look at how the web looks on a map. While Matherly's tweet says the picture shows where "all devices on the internet" were located after he pinged them, that might be a bit of a stretch. Still, the image manages to give us a really good idea of the internet traffic across different parts of the world. And we reckon it's beautiful.
The Big Picture: a 3D-printed castle
Yes, people, this isn't a dream. What you see above is, indeed, a 3D-printed castle. After working on it for a few months, an architect from Minnesota has now finished building a fancy home made out of 3D printing materials. The man behind it, Andrey Rudenko, began his construction adventure back in April, when he decided he wanted to be the one to set a new bar for 3D-printed homes -- there have been some in China, but questions have been raised about the quality of them. "It has been two years since I first began toying with the idea of a 3D printer that was capable of constructing homes," Rudenko told the site 3DPrint. "When I started out, people struggled to believe this project would progress any further." Well, its very real now, and we can only imagine how dazzling it looks in person. [Image credits: 3D Print]
The Big Picture: A Robot writing the Torah in longhand
A robot arm in the Berlin Jewish Museum is hard at work, carefully inking thousands of Hebrew letters on an 80-meter (260-foot) scroll. In about three months, it will have transcribed the entire Torah "by hand," a process that normally takes Jewish scribes about a year. The robot's penmanship is delicate and exact, but its work is merely an exhibit: the completed work won't be considered holy. "In order for the Torah to be holy, it has to be written with a goose feather on parchment," explains Rabbi Reuven Yaacobov. "The process has to be filled with meaning, and I'm saying prayers while I'm writing it." Yaacobov and the Robot are part of "The Creation of the World," a new exhibit at the museum that highlights the significance of Hebrew handwriting. Yaacobov is on hand to show patrons how the Torah is written traditionally, and to explain the religious significance of the process. The human element will only be on site until August 3rd, but his robotic companion will be writing Hebrew scriptures until January of next year. [Image credit: Adam Berry, Getty Images]
Valve's Gabe Newell talks 'turnkey' living room hardware
With the recent launch of Steam Big Picture, it hasn't taken long for the words "Steam Box" to enter the collective gaming community's brain space. Valve boss Gabe Newell reignited that discussion when speaking on the red carpet at last night's Video Game Awards ceremony about the company's plans to enter the hardware business.Newell told Kotaku that he sees multiple companies entering the hardware space, and that "most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them." His reasoning is that consumers "won't have to split the world into thinking about 'why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?' So in a sense we hopefully are gonna unify those environments."The Valve boss suggested that companies would launch PC bundles in 2013 designed to run Steam in the living room and compete with next gen consoles. Newell added that Valve is one of those companies, and its efforts may not be as open-source as some might expect:"Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment. If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that's what some people are really gonna want for their living room. The nice thing about a PC is a lot of different people can try out different solutions, and customers can find the ones that work best for them."
Steam Big Picture is live, weeklong sale on controller-friendly games
Steam Big Picture, the mode that transforms Steam into a big-screen service easily controllable with a gamepad, is officially live now, following a beta that began in September. To celebrate, a range of games that fully support controllers are on sale through December 10 at 10 a.m. PT, some for up to 75 percent off.A few games on sale are Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers, Castle Crashers, Portal 2 (now with split-screen), Left 4 Dead 2, A Virus Named Tom and Mark of the Ninja. There are more than 30 games on sale, all of them featuring full controller support.Steam breaks down games into full and partial controller support: There are 41 games with full support and 387 with partial, though on the Big Picture sale page Steam lists 70 with full and 851 with partial, so there may be some hiding in the rafters. All games are accessible in Big Picture mode, though not all support gamepads, of course.
Steam Big Picture beta hands-on
Been keeping up with Steam's Big Picture interface? Then you probably know it's already in beta. The 10-foot UI hopes to help Valve's content distribution portal get comfortable in front of your couch, offering gamers access to their favorite PC titles from a gamepad-friendly interface. We piped the beta out to our own living room to take a look, and weren't surprised to find a sleek attractive UI with a heap of polish. That said, we were glad we didn't leave our mouse and keyboard at the office.
NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins Monday
Can't wait to use Steam's forthcoming Big Picture mode to game from the comfort of your couch? Well, you're in luck, because it might be ready for a test drive tomorrow. According to The New York Times, the living room-friendly user interface is getting the public beta treatment starting Monday. Gabe Newell let loose last month that both the TV-geared view and Steam for Linux betas would be "out there fairly quickly," but there's still no word on when the Ubuntu-bound preview will land. In the meantime, we'll keep busy by gawking at Valve's augmented reality headset, which the NYT got a glimpse of during a trip to the firm's headquarters, at the source link below.
New York Times: Steam Big Picture public beta starts Monday
Last August, we found out that Steam's Big Picture interface would be moving into its beta phase "soon," but we never expected it would be, like, soon. It is Valve after all, and we never figured that Big Picture's public beta would happen in our lifetimes, let alone on Monday, September 10, like the New York Times says.For those of you who haven't been following this song's bouncing ball, allow us to refresh your memory: Steam's Big Picture interface is a custom UI designed specifically to make Valve's all-encompassing digital storefront more user-friendly on televisions. It's being designed with controller-based navigation in mind and would represent Valve's first formal step into the living room. Whether Monday's testing is truly public or invitation based like its Community beta remains to be seen.
Steam to debut Big Picture beta soon, make couch potatoes of PC gamers
Early last year, Valve mentioned it was working on something called Big Picture mode for Steam, an alternative user interface with controller support designed specifically for use on televisions. According to Gabe Newell, the distribution services' couch-ready UI is almost upon us. "We should have both Linux and 10-foot betas out there fairly quickly," he told Geoff Keighley in the latest episode of GTTV, noting that the interface would be available on both the current iteration of Steam and the upcoming Linux version. Newell said that Valve has been showing the interface to hardware manufacturers, but ultimately feels that the community will decide its fate. "I think customers will say 'this is really great,' or they'll say it's another interesting but not a valuable contribution, fairly quickly." Check out the interview for yourself (and the full episode) after the break.
Steam 'Big Picture' beta coming soon
On tonight's episode of GTTV, Valve's Gabe Newell revealed that a beta for Big Picture mode would launch "soon." Big Picture mode, first announced in early 2011, will allow gamers to hook up their PC or Mac to their living room television – well, okay, it doesn't have to be in your living room, just wherever you've got a TV. Valve aims to offer "simple, easy-to-read navigation designed specifically for TV" and controller support with Big Picture mode.Tonight's episode of GTTV isn't available online yet (it's still technically on Spike TV on the east coast, if you want to catch the last few minutes) so we're going off host Geoff Keighley's Twitter account right now. We'll be sure to update as more information is made available. In the meanwhile, go grab a rag and dust off that moldy old television set!
Steam sales increase 100 percent for the seventh straight year
Steam now hosts more than 40 million accounts and 1,800 games, and its 2011 year-over-year sales increased 100 percent for the seventh year in a row, Valve announced today with a ridiculously smug grin on its face (we assume). During the Holiday Sale, Steam clocked more than 5 million simultaneous users -- in perspective, that's easily more people than the entire population of Norway, all on Steam at the same time. Steam served over 780 petabytes of data to gamers in 2011, more than doubling the amount delivered in 2010, Valve reported. More than 19 million items were traded in-game, Valve president Gabe Newell said, and he promised that more free-to-play titles will be launched in 2012 to supplement the 18 Steam already hosts. Newell hasn't forgotten about Big Picture Mode, Valve's attempt to infiltrate living rooms with a top-boxy device that will offer Steam via controller navigation on "more screens throughout the house." Newell said Valve is "preparing for the launch" of Big Picture Mode, so we're guessing we can expect to see something concrete by 2015.
Blood Sport: Staying offensive on the defensive
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 Gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in Blood Sport. We'll be taking a detour from our guide on how to make a new character for PvP to discuss something a bit different today. I get questions from time to time about a variety of PvP-related issues. I mean, I'm verbose, but I didn't think I could write over 1,000 words on one question, until Veni recently asked: C. Christian, You say that you are at your best when you are being focused in arena, and you barely let your damage slip. I play a frost mage, and have only enjoyed success up to around 2k arena rating, and one of the areas I feel weak on, is sustaining damage when being focused. I consider myself to be very strong positionally, and mechanically. Does the ability to sustain damage and remain strong while being focused yourself come from a great knowledge of your oppenents abilities? when you can and cannot get away with that extra cast? or exceptional communication with teammates, knowing when they are going to peel, allowing you to squeeze in an extra nuke. Regards, a weekly reader
Blood Sport: Seeing the big picture in PvP, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more. It's natural to observe what we're doing with our target (and maybe our focus). We all started playing WoW by having our character jog up to some oblivious animal and obliterate it with spells or steel. We watched intently as that boar flopped over after we clicked our mouse a few times (or pushed 1,1,2). We then decided we would run straight towards its corpse (shortest distance from A to B is a straight line, after all) and happily right-click to loot some sweet gray sword. Over time, boars became bandits, bandits became basilisks, basilisks became banshees and the banshees became bosses. Eventually, we're slaying dragons and throwing around high fives like they were baseballs. However, notice throughout this scenario of improving our characters that we're not looking around suspiciously at other players, trying to learn where other enemies would flee to or attack us (or, more importantly, why and how they attack us). Of course, this is to our detriment, once we step inside an arena or battleground. Side note: That sentence of alliteration took me like ten minutes to write. Do you know how hard it is to think of mythical creatures starting with B? (I came up with beholder and brownie too, but WoW doesn't have many of those).
Boston.com launches Big Picture iPad app, where it finally feels at home
No shame in saying it -- we're huge, huge fans of Boston's 'Big Picture' blog. Regardless of the subject matter, the photographs gathered there never fail to speak to something a little deeper within our souls, and now viewing them just because a wee bit easier. The portal has today launched a new version of their 'Big Picture' app that's fully compatible with the iPad, enabling Apple tablet owners to see new photographic essays on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. Unfortunately, the app costs $2.99 (where it's free to surf on over to the website), and the current crop of reviews are less than glowing. Might we suggest waiting a tick to see if those early issues are ironed out in a subsequent release?
