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Cross-realm Real ID grouping now available
A few months back, Blizzard teased that a new service would be hitting WoW that would allow members of the same faction to group and queue for random dungeons across servers. Players would need to be Real ID friends with the people they wanted to invite into a group and would be limited to 5-man dungeons; no raids or world content would be available to cross-server groups. The service has apparently just gone live, free, for what is probably a limited time. Blizzard had also said that this cross-realm grouping would be part of the premium package of WoW services that players can pay for monthly, and only the group leader doing the invites would have to have the service in order to invite people cross-realm. Much as the mobile guild chat feature was rolled out free to let people check it out, it appears cross-realm Real ID grouping is getting the same trial period. Check out cross-realm Real ID grouping in game, and start grouping with your friends beyond server boundaries, and hit the jump for the full announcement.
Cross-realm Dungeon Finder premium service coming soon
Blizzard has just announced a premium cross-realm Dungeon Finder feature, allowing players from the same faction to invite Real ID friends from different servers into 5-man regular and heroic dungeons. The popularity of the Dungeon Finder is well-known at this point, and expounding on the feature has been in the cards according to Blizzard for some time now. This new feature will be part of a premium package of WoW features requiring an extra fee to use. Blizzard says that only the person doing the invites and creating the cross-server party will need to have access to the premium feature for the system to work. Currently, there is no release date, and the service is being described as a complex one to develop. Blizzard is most likely getting out in front of the news sites and datamining sites now, since pieces of this new system will begin to hit the PTR soon and Blizzard doesn't want too much speculation. I personally think that this system is really cool for players who have an already-established friends base on other servers but don't want to leave their current home or don't have the money to do so and pay for a premium server transfer. For instance, Sacco and I can finally run some dungeons together. You hear that, Sacco? It's dungeon time. Premium services always receive some type of backlash in the WoW community, and this one will be no different, so for caution's sake, let's wait until pricing information is officially announced before we explode with indignation. This is, however, a feature that many players have been asking for and will be very popular.
Using your iPhone in the city? Be careful!
I've lived in big cities for almost ten years now, first in Chicago and now in Los Angeles, and I could have told you exactly what this New York Times piece does: that you've got to be careful while using your iPhone while walking the city streets. We've heard about this before with the iPod, but an iPhone offers up even more distraction while walking around -- in between checking email, jumping on Twitter, and/or playing any number of games, it's practically impossible to spend enough attention on where you're walking and what you're doing even on a relatively clear street. Think it's a joke? Over 1000 people found themselves in emergency rooms in 2008 because they were distracted while walking, says the article, which is twice the number from 2007, which itself was almost double the number from 2006 (and it's probably gotten higher in the last year). That's not to say that we need actual legislation to deal with this (although legislation has been discussed in New York, and there is already legislation on the books in many places against using your phone while driving), but it's something to keep in mind: I put my iPhone away whenever I cross a street, and just plain stop whenever I need to do anything more attention-deserving than switch a song or up the volume. And it only took me one close call with a moving truck to figure that one out. If you're walking around with your iPhone or iPod in a busy urban environment, be careful out there. Note: Clarified the statistics above; the 2008 number is approximately four times the 2006 number.
TEO MP-301 brings Jesus and the MP3 together at long last
Good lord. No, really. Good lord. The TEO MP-301 MP3 player from IceTech USA crams 1GB of media storage into -- as you can see -- a very Jesus-friendly form factor. The $49 player features a built-in microphone with voice recorder, mirrored front panel, and even a little speaker. According to reviews, the player has some serious interface issues and a weak screen, but if crucifixion is your thing, you can't go wrong with this necklace cross-cum-MP3 player. Or is that the other way around? Is this an MP3 player that's also a cross? Anyway, there you have it: the cross-shaped MP3 player, indeed.[Via Crave]
They're magically delicious!
Very early in patch 2.4's progressive development on the PTR, the ability to send raid icons over chat was implemented. The syntax is pretty simple, you place the name of the icon in those funny looking brackets, like so: {circle}, {star}, etc.Personally, I'm not too terribly excited, it's not something you'll be typing on the fly, probably. I can't really see a Mage or Warlock(or anybody) taking the extra time to type that out properly when something goes wrong(ie death), as simple as it seems to do so. However, this could be a good tool for raid leaders, not so much the raiders. A raid leader could include these in a tanking/crowd control assignment macro. "/ra Matthew, tank {skull}. Christian, sheep {square}." That sort of thing.Regardless of how often this will actually be used, it's a nice little feature, and I'm sure post-2.4 mods and addons will make good use of them, even if the players themselves don't.
Cross MP3 Player keeps the faith
Make no mistake, this isn't the first time a religious symbol has been integrated into a digital audio player, but unlike the iBelieve, this thing is actually, you know, real. Destined to be sold in bulk quantities to youth groups everywhere, the Cross MP3 Player is hardly designed by coincidence, and comes with 4GB of internal memory, a two-color LCD, built-in speaker, FM tuner, integrated mic, seven equalizer modes and a multi-language menu for those overseas mission trips. Fightin' the good fight will only cost you $48.14, but you can whittle that down even more by purchasing these things by the hundreds. Check out a couple more shots after the jump.[Via CNET]
Cross-platform Firefox on a stick
A USB stick, that is. Our pal Jordan Running over at DownloadSquad found a cross-platform version of Firefox you can install on an external drive, such as a USB flash drive, iPod shuffle, or iPod nano, that can be plugged into and run on both Windows and OS X. There's some simple file editing involved, but once you get over that minor hump you'll have one fully portable copy of Firefox - including all your search history, settings, extensions and bookmarks - ready to roll in your pocket that can run on Windows and OS X.One word of caution: I'm pretty sure that not *all* Firefox extensions are going to work between Windows and OS X. Some extensions are platform independent, others most certainly are not. Your portable Firefox should run just fine on both OS's, but the platform dependent extensions will simply be disabled.
