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Google Trekker goes to the Grand Canyon, takes Street View souvenirs back home
You might remember Google's unveiling this spring of the Street View Trekker, a seeming cross between a backpack and Van de Graaff generator that lets the mapping team produce 360-degree imagery where even trikes dare not tread. The portable camera ball is just going on its first trip, and Google has chosen the most natural destination for a novice tourist -- the Grand Canyon, of course. Staffers with Trekkers are currently walking trails along the South Rim of the canyon to provide both eye-level points of reference for wayward hikers as well as some breathtaking, controllable panoramas for those who can't (or won't) make it to Arizona. Once the photos make it to Street View sometime in the undefined near future, it'll be that much easier to turn down Aunt Matilda's 3-hour vacation slideshow.
Ex-Fallen Earth designer compares in-game locations to real life
Fallen Earth fans probably know that the post-apocalyptic MMO is one of the few massive titles to feature a real-world location. Despite its bombed-out futuristic stylings, the game takes place in the American southwest, or more specifically, the Grand Canyon and surrounding territories. According to former Icarus Studios designer Joshua Peery, Fallen Earth's Grand Canyon isn't too far removed from the real thing. For starters, the devs used USGS satellite imaging as their world-building blueprint. Peery's latest personal blog entry says that driving through the real-world location leads to further appreciation for the work done by the game's artists and builders. "Driving through the 'real' Sector Three's Kaibab Forest was like deja vu, with the only difference being I was in my SUV rather than in an interceptor, dirt-bike, horse, etc.," Peery writes. Peery's game tourism odyssey was part of a cross-country trek to a new job at Carbine Studios, for which Massively offers a hearty congrats.
Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video)
Why would you want to leap out of a perfectly good aircraft? To fly a winged jetpack over the city of Rio de Janeiro, of course. It sounds nuts, but it's just a day in the life for Yves Rossy, the self proclaimed "Jetman" who flew over the Grand Canyon last year. Since soaring over the Rio Grande, Rossy has pitted his carbon-fiber wings against a rally car on Top Gear, taken to the skies over Abu Dhabi and, most recently, buzzed Brazil's famous Christ the Redeemer statue. Jetman rocketed past the monument on an 11 minute flight earlier this week, beginning his journey by dropping out of a helicopter over Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Rossy pulled his Rocketeer trick and eventually parachuted to safety on Copacabana beach. Sound fun? Head past the break to see the man in action. Us? We'll keep our feet planted on terra firma, thanks.
National Parks Street View-style trails goes live, avoids the Google cars (video)
After tooling up a team of hikers with an impressive camera tripod and unleashing them on the likes of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone Park, Nature Valley has published its fully rotational Trail Views online. You'll be able to effortlessly follow several routes across the great American countryside and for those too lazy to even click the forward arrow, there's an autoplay mode. Three different locations -- with multiple trails -- are online now and you can check out how the granola-grinding company captured it all right after the break.
Nature Valley creating Street View-style tour of National Parks, chews through countless granola bars to do so
"There's a good reason why Street View is done in cars." That's a quote from Mat Bisher, associate creative director at McCann, who is teaming up with granola connoisseur Nature Valley in order to deliver a "Street View-style tour" of America's National Parks. Fast Company reports that the two have embarked on quite the ambitious initiative (dubbed Trail View), sending a cadre of well-trained hikers to some of America's most gorgeous locales with specially-rigged camera setups in tow. The goal? To capture views from near-limitless hiking trails, and bring them to your web browser starting in February 2012. Sadly, it won't be integrated into any of the platforms already in existence; it'll be its own standalone thing, but hopefully the likes of Microsoft or Google will take notice and either contribute or convert it. We're told that "layers for user-generated content, social networking and mobility, and perhaps form partnerships with travel sites" are on tap, and yes, Woodrow Wilson's ghost has purportedly approved. Update: We've added a few shots of the actual capturing in the gallery below. %Gallery-137745%
Swiss rocketeer jetpacks above Grand Canyon, lives to tell the tale (video)
There's "crazy" and then there's "craaazy." Crazy is going swimming five minutes after eating, or wearing white after Labor Day. Craaazy, on the other hand, is Yves "Jetman" Rossy -- a Swiss flight fanatic who jetpacked across the Grand Canyon at 190-mph yesterday morning. Rossy's suicide mission began inside a helicopter hovering some 8,000 feet above the canyon's floor. After hurling himself out of the chopper, Jetman ignited his four-motor jetpack and, using his body as a rudder, gently steered himself across the abyss. The daredevil proceeded to coast for a full eight minutes at just 200 feet above the canyon ridge before he presumably realized that he was flying above the Grand Canyon and decided to parachute down to the bottom. Rossy completed the flight with his physical health fully intact, though his mental condition remains up for debate. Blast past the break for a video that'll throw your acrophobia into overdrive.
Fallen Earth developers want you to be their valentine
Assuming the Prairie Chickens, scavengers, and warring factions don't get you, the Grand Canyon of Fallen Earth is a pretty romantic place. And the wide open spaces give a real sense of of inspiration, even if they just inspire you to get down behind cover before you test your clone's survival ratio against buckshot. So it makes perfect sense to compose a poem in the vein of Valentine's Day, and send it to some of the people closest to your heart in the wasteland... the game's developers. From now until the end of February 14th, there's a thread on the official Fallen Earth forums for players to submit their most original and interesting wasteland-inspired love poetry. Three winners will be chosen on the 15th, based on the quality and originality of each entry, and will be rewarded with a t-shirt and special valentines directly from the development team. But even if that doesn't warm your heart, they've even given out an early gift of affection through a special discount when you purchase the game in the official store. Ain't love grand?
Fallen Earth rolls out the second part of their graphical enhancements
When the entire world has come crashing down around your ears, and you're doing your best to survive in the Grand Canyon with only your wits, your skills, and a bucket of shotgun shells... well, you'd like things to at least look pretty. Fallen Earth has been working hard on its graphical engine recently, having just rolled out a shiny new update to improve clouds, textures, and the general state of vegetation in the area. Now they've completed a second pass, with the newest updates improving light and shadow as well as several shader effects. Aside from going through and improving existing player shadows, the designers have tightened up all of the shadows in the game, giving things a far more crisp and realistic look. According to project manager Colin Dwan, the result has both improved the look of the environments and actually boosted its performance slightly. If you have Shader 3.0 hardware and the Advanced Post FX setting on, the new shadows should be immediately visible upon entrance to the game. While it's not a sweeping change, it's a subtle and thorough one, and should make the life of a clone a bit more vibrant.
The Daily Grind: Are you down with the apocalypse?
Fallen Earth is getting a lot of traction recently, especially with their August 17th open beta sneaking up ever so quickly. We here at Massively have been following the game extensively, and we'll have more information for you on Fallen Earth as soon as the NDA is finally released on the game.But while we wait for that day to come, what have you guys thought about Fallen Earth so far? Now don't go breaking the NDA or anything for us. We're looking for your general thoughts on the game at large, not about any gameplay specific things. Is it your style of game, or is it something you're just not that interested in? Will you be pre-ordering and grabbing yourself one of those sweet, sweet Wasteland Runner mounts, or are you more interested in the five day head start that the pre-order customers will be getting?We're interested people here at Massively -- interested in your thoughts! Speak to us, and more importantly, speak to your fellow commenters. Discuss at will! Go!
