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Bosch will use tiny explosions to make EVs safer in a crash
Electric vehicles have obvious benefits, but they also pose new risks. In the event of a crash, there's a chance that damaged wiring could allow current to leak from the EV's battery into the metal frame, posing a risk to occupants, rescue workers and first responders. Electric vehicles automatically turn off when a crash is detected, but to go a step further, Bosch has created an explosive device that automatically cuts off the high-voltage battery.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 28: Disconnection Notice
On this episode, managing editor Dana Wollman and senior editor Devindra Hardawar join host Terrence O'Brien on to debate the value of reviving dead products and really dig deep on the value of unplugging. First they'll look at three things primed to come back from the dead: Verizon's unlimited data plans, nudity in Playboy and the Nokia 3310. Then, fresh from a weekend reading by a fireplace and drinking whiskey in the woods, Terrence talks about the importance of unplugging -- even if only for a few hours -- every week. We're more connected than ever and that's a good thing. But even too much of a good thing can be bad for you.
Disconnects and latency issues and Patch 5.3
No one likes high latency, least of all someone playing an MMO that can demand reaction time the way World of Warcraft can, especially in raids. But even out in the world, latency can be a killer. So when people started reporting issues with connections to World of Warcraft soon after patch 5.3 launched, it got a lot of players noticing. In a six page forum thread there's been a lot of lively discussion of what's going on - whether it's on Blizzard's end, or somewhere between the computers of the affected players and the Blizzard servers. If you remember the Lagpocalypse post, you know how complicated these issues can get. MVP forum poster Lissanna posted an interesting walkthrough of her own attempts to find the culprit today, and explained why despite some forum poster dissatisfaction that it is indeed helpful to run a traceroute and pathping and post the results to the tech support forums, since it gives Blizzard an idea of who to talk to about these issues. If they don't know who's being affected, where those people are, and more importantly where the issue is physically located there's not much they can do to help. So if you're having the same problem, giving Blizzard as much information as possible is definitely helpful in terms of getting this sorted out. I've seen people in my raids disconnect on every single boss so far while I haven't had the issue at all myself, suggesting the problem isn't on Blizzard's end but is out there somewhere in the path the data takes between Blizzard and the players. Hopefully it can be solved soon.
New Blizzard Video: How to disable all your addons, hopefully solve lots of issues
Blizzard's Customer Support team have posted the latest addition to their WoW Tutorials site, this time it's a video filling you in on how to solve your WoW technical issues in 60 seconds or less! If you're suffering from high latency, low framerates, disconnections or similar issues, resetting your interface is worth trying before attempting more extreme measures. They're not talking about a simple /reload UI, which can be typed into the chat box, rather about renaming your Cache, Interface and WTF folders. Why rename them? Don't you usually delete them? Well, you can certainly do that, but if the reset doesn't fix your issues, renaming them will mean that your settings can be restored to how they were before. As the video says, exit the game, and open the containing folder of your WoW installation. Rename the Cache, WTF, and Interface folders, to whatever you like. When you next start WoW, the folders will be recreated. If this fixes your problems, reinstall your addons one by one. You could, theoretically, grab installs and profiles from your old folders, but if something has become corrupted you risk replicating the previous issues. A less extreme course of action than the one suggested in the video is to get an addon like Addon Control Panel that allows you to switch your addons on and off without logging out. Disable all your addons, then re-enable them one by one. You may find that one addon is the culprit! If this doesn't work, then your next step is the action recommended by Blizzard's team. As always, keep your addons updated, either at their own sites or via Curse, WoWInterface or WoWAce. These "big three" addon sites are where most addon creators host their work, so other sites may not necessarily have the latest updates or correct versions.
The Daily Grind: Should we be disconnected for idling too long?
Are you one of those MMO players who always seems to idle out while tending to real-life issues? I know I am, and it usually results in my finding something else to do once I discover that I've been logged out. I certainly understand why the developers add that feature, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that idling all day in TERA not only is allowed but also grants me the Full Time Job achievement, which tickled me to no end. So what's your opinion on idling out? Should you be allowed to be AFK as long as you'd like, or should idlers always be disconnected after a certain amount of time? How much time should be allowed? Let us know in the comments! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Raid Rx: 5 reasons why you're not getting healed
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. You ever reach a point in the game where you just want to throw your arms up in the air, throw in the towel and cease all casting of spells related to healing? I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been there myself on more than one occasion. Not exactly my finest moments, I'll admit. Moments of frustration aren't exactly legitimate reasons not to heal. But as a healer, you'll come across moments in your healing careers where you have to make a split-second decision. Will it be action or inaction? Choose carefully, because the well-being of the raid depends on it. Sometimes inaction (or at least, not healing) is the correct choice. Besides, you might have some druids around that can bring players back to full with Rebirth. (If you're looking for some tips on the ideal usage, here's a guest post I wrote on Rebirth procedures from the perspective of the druid, the raid leader and the player getting the resurrection.)
Xbox Live down for server maintenance June 16
Start stocking up on canned foods and survival gear, folks. One week from today, the Xbox Live service will be going down for server maintenance. According to Major Nelson's most recent blog post, Microsoft is flipping the "off" switch at 12:01 a.m. on June 16, and is expected to keep things offline for "up to 24 hours." Yes, for an entire day, the vile hatred and foul-mouthedness that consumes the online gaming universe will be freed from its fiberglass prison and released into the physical world. We humbly suggest staying indoors. [Via 1UP]
Connection problems strike WoW
There appears to be connection problems going around as multiple people are unable to log in tonight, including multiple tipsters and yours truly. It's definitely a widespread problem, as the Blizzard Tech Support team is currently asking for ISP and tracert information over on the official forums while they try to track it down. While some people are positing that this is a merged battle.net account problem, it's worth noting that we also know of many people, including a couple of our bloggers, are still able to log in fine with a battle.net account. At the same time, some posters in the aforementioned thread are saying that they can log on fine when they use an unmerged pre-battle.net account from a family member or roommate.Once we get a clearer idea of what the problem is or when it's been fixed, we'll let you know.UPDATE, 10:30 PM EST: Okay, This is Daniel again, and I can log on with a battle.net account. This is the same one that wasn't working not 10 minutes ago, for the record.UPDATE, 11 PM EST: It looks everything is working fine again. Play on!
Rolling restarts for selected realms this afternoon
Fresh from the news bulletin upon login is an announcement of rolling restarts for a handful of realms this afternoon. At 12:00 noon PDT the realms of Dreadmaul, Caelestrasz, Nagrand, Aman'Thul, Barthilas, Thaurissan, Dath'Remar, Frostmourne, Khaz'horoth, and Jube'Thos will be going down for restarts.Many people have still continued to experience connectivity issues and major lag since patch 3.0.2 dropped nearly two weeks ago. Instances seem to be a particular problem with people not being able to zone in, getting disconnected upon loading, or generally having issues with mobs and other objects appearing correctly.I wouldn't be surprised to see more realms added to this list today, and perhaps some extended maintenance (if not an outright patch) this upcoming Tuesday.
AT&T maintenance tonight to cause connection issues
A news announcement on the login screen is letting us all know that AT&T, the people who provide data center service to Blizzard, will be performing maintenance tonight from 12:00 a.m. EST until 5:00 a.m. EST. This will likely cause problems with both being able to login to the game and stay connected. This is an odd maintenance announcement, and one that I don't recall seeing before.Hopefully this will not develop into anything more serious – such as extended network outages or other such issues.
Patch postponed for AoC's US servers due to crashing issues
Since the European version of Age of Conan updates ahead of the US, they have already patched and their servers are back online... well, sort of. It turns out that today's patch has caused some server instability, leading to constant crashing and disconnects. In order to prevent this from being introduced to the US servers, the patch downtime has been postponed. It is unknown at the moment when the downtime will be able to go ahead.Update: The US servers will come down at 9AM EDT.
Five tips to minimize raiding downtime
I'm a rather avid raider, putting in a solid 20 hours a week on my Warrior. One of the major things about the time spent raiding is that it can be very precious. There is only so much time that 24 other people, plus appropriate class substitutions, can be available each week. It's critical that the time spent raiding is used well.Unfortunately, using raiding time well is about as much of a challenge as is downing Illidan. In preparation for this article, I've spent the past three weeks keeping track of the down time in raids. We raid Sunday through Thursday nights, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. We experience a downtime of about 51 minutes for each raid, which is about 20% of the time. Down time is defined as the time that my character is standing still, not attacking, not moving, and not being MDed to.Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure. Tip #1: Chain pullingPersonally, I do my best at the main tank to chain pull and push the trash through as fast as possible. This works out 99% of the time, however the 1% of the time it doesn't work out can grind the raid to a halt. Case and point: The trash to Supremus isn't too bad, and is a lot of packs where the MT, OT, and Pally tank each have some mobs to tank. There are also some ranged dragons that the Warlocks tank. These pulls can go very fast, and are very predictable. Pulling slowly we can do this in about 40 minutes, while chain pulling each group, we can push through in 15.Tip #2: Fully self buffed, all the timeIt doesn't take much to buff yourself. Every class has some buff they can apply to themselves, be it food buffs, spell buffs, or shouts. The key here is that you can find a minute or two to always buff at least yourself, if not others. Although, it might not always be possible to buff others as you're going along - and that's okay with most raid leaders for trash pulls.
Massive connection issues in raids tonight [UPDATED]
Based on my experiences, and a slew of other folks posting over at the Blizzard Customer Service Forums, it appears many Tier 6 instances are having issues with stability tonight. Half the raid or more is constantly disconnecting at seemingly random points.Several CMs GMs are looking into the issue – but it is wide spread. This means that it is almost assuredly an issue with the Blizzard servers. Based on testing I've done it is not an issue with addons. After a disconnect, all addons were turned off, and the disconnects still happened.Stay tuned to HKO Insider for the latest. Hopefully they'll hotfix this one right up.Updated 11:00 p.m. EDT: Belfaire posted "We're gathering the appropriate info now. I have no ETA on a resolution, only that it'll be [fixed] ASAP." (April Fool's text removed for readability.)Updated 12:44 a.m. EDT: Belfaire also let us know that Q.A. is working on the problem, though no fix has been announced yet. Seems they are at work on it.Updated 1:00 a.m. EDT: Potential solution from Belfaire: "Please have your entire raid delete or rename your Interface folder and let me know here if you encounter the issue again. [One] group said that they ran without mods, but if what I think's happening is actually happening, even if one person has [an addon], it can affect the raid."
68% of Americans suffer disconnection anxiety, should probably go outside
Sure, we'll admit to a certain unhealthy super-fun fascination with gadgetry, but a new study out this month by the Solutions Research Group says that overall, we're borderline obsessed -- and that 68 percent of Americans in general feel anxious when not connected in one way or another. The study used research collected on almost 5,000 people over two years, and found that feelings of "disconnect anxiety" affected people of all ages, triggering sentiments like "dazed," "disoriented," "tense," "inadequate" and even "panic." Interestingly, however, the reasons for disconnect anxiety changed as subjects got older -- teens and young adults worried about social communications being cut off, while older adults mostly fretted over work and safety issues. The study is backed up by all kinds of humorously embarrassing data like the percentage of BlackBerry users who've sent a message in the bathroom (63%) and the average number of Facebook friends a 12-24 year old has (159) but what we found most surprising is that just 37% of laptop owners frequently use their machines in the bedroom. That seems awfully low to us -- what if you miss something while you're asleep?[Warning: PDF link]
AT&T disconnecting critical users? Probably not
You may have heard the hubbub in the last 24 hours about AT&T's new Terms of Service for its DSL accounts, and its apparent hardline approach to customers who may criticize the company. For those of you not up to speed, the long and short of it is that the TOS stipulates that AT&T can and does reserve the right to disconnect any user's account if the telco believes said user is utilizing the connection to "damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." Sounds doomy and gloomy, doesn't it? Well, AT&T issued a statement in response to the backlash it's been getting, making it explicitly clear that it is not the company's policy to axe users who take it to task. Here's what they had to say:"AT&T respects its subscribers' rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from websites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation). We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T. This policy is not new and it's not unique to AT&T."So, according to The Man, you can talk all the smack you want about AT&T and its screwball policies / high prices / use of dental implants to monitor your conversations -- without the fear of having the lines snipped... or so they say.
Sprint lambasted for disconnecting whiners, notorious roamers
Recently, Sprint decided to cut its losses and give a number of CSRs a break from the nagging when it pulled the plug on nearly 1,200 of its mobile customers. Apparently, these whiners were dialing in "40 to 50 times as often" as the "average customer," and after failing to appease them, the firm chose to "terminate the relationship with those customers to allow them to pursue other options." As you'd imagine, some of these bicker-prone individuals are less than pleased with the outcome, and to make matters worse, the firm has also cut the cord with habitual roamers -- including some that are actually enlisted in our military. Can't a soldier (or sniveller) catch a break?[Thanks, John F.]Read - Sprint cancels 1,200 contracts over excessive complainingRead - Sprint cancels traveling soldiers' cellphone
Connection Woes
In addition to authentication difficulties and emergency maintenance on several servers, there are also, apparently, ISP issues that are causing players to become disconnected. Maybe this is some sort of message suggesting that we should spend more quality time watching television. Hopefully some of you are having better luck tonight than I am!
