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Macworld 2010: What is it? Apple Campus edition
While we were walking around the Apple Campus yesterday, we spotted this strange device planted in the ground. The picture above is the only one we took, but we'll give you a few hints: the two holes in the metal box are upside down trapezoids, and inside of them, you can see a metal grating just bigger than the holes themselves. The device stood right next to the Apple visitor parking lot (and in fact, that shadow on the right side is of a parked car just outside the frame -- the box itself is planted in grass, with no other wires or connections on it). Our query to you: What is this thing? We have our own ideas -- we joked it was some kind of electric car charger, or perhaps an iPod nano dispensary. It almost seems like the leftover parts of a parking meter, but it was the only such box in the lot, and it was facing away from the cars parked there. Give us your guesses below: what is this strange box on the Apple Campus parking lot? We'll update this post with your best answers, and maybe even the right one, if you can figure it out. Update: Well that makes sense. Commenters guessed right away that it was a cigarette bin. Interesting, considering that, as you can see in the gallery in the link above, there's no smoking on Apple's campus. Drop your butts before entering, please!
3.1 hitting this week? Wryxian drops some hints
EU Blue Wryxian is once again patrolling the forums, dropping hints that patch 3.1 "is coming ... soo ... er ... promptly."Through crystal-ball gazing, the application of logic and, in some cases, sheer desperation, the general consensus has been that the Secrets of Ulduar patch will be dropping this week. Europe's favourite Blue appeared on the forums this morning and left a carefully worded comment:"The patch is definitely coming ... shortly."The 'severe lack of info' might simply be because we announced it, gave further details about it, put it up on the PTR for testing and now we are basically on the verge of releasing it."We certainly haven't been quiet about it. It is coming. And it is coming ... soo ... er ... promptly."Regardless, we should know one way or another in less than twenty four hours. So cross your fingers (and toes) for some extended downtime tomorrow!
Guessing on the patch 3.1 release
bridges_squares wants to know, and we're getting really, really close, so let's finally go out on that limb, shaky as it may be: when's the patch coming out? Turpster predicted it would be this past Tuesday on the WoW Insider Show last week (since Noblegarden and the equipment manager got delayed, he figured they wanted to hurry for a release), but obviously no dice on that one. And on the other end of things, April 26th is the date we're told Noblegarden will start, so it's a pretty good guess we'll see the patch by then.If you follow that line of reasoning, that just leaves the next two Tuesdays, April 14th and 21st. And since we had rolling restarts last week, it seems like maintenance this week will bring us the patch on Tuesday, the 14th. But of course there are other factors in here: the PTR should go down before the patch comes up, and since the PTR it still up, we be waiting until the 21st. Also, just because Blizzard said Noblegarden on the 26th doesn't mean they won't delay it again, so we may still see the patch on the 28th or after that. And Tuesdays are usually when the live realms get patched (Fridays are usually when the patch the PTR, in my experience), but technically they could do it anytime, right?So let's do a poll. I'm going to go with Tuesday the 21st (since there's no sign of the PTR going down yet), but when do you think patch 3.1 will drop? And no, "when it's ready" is not an option -- we'll just assume (hopefully correctly) Blizzard will make sure of that anyway.%Poll-28913%
Predicting the MMO landscape in 2008
It's that time of year again-- before 2008 starts, everyone and their brother is going to throw out some predictions about what will happen with MMOs this year. So here's a Massively roundup, and a little meta-analysis of what might happen in this Year of the Potato. Let's start with our own Zenke-- he says Wrath won't make it out in 2008, The Agency and Warhammer will hit big, and Dark Age of Camelot and Vanguard are on their way out. He's also got Tabula Rasa sticking it out for the year, and claims that a major MMO (Age of Conan?) will be delayed past 2008. Ancient Gaming Noob is next: he also says Wrath is shipping late, but goes against popular notions to say that Star Trek Online will be released to cheers from fans on all sides. He also says the biggest story of the year will be Age of Conan's "titties," and that will throw a scare into the "adult" MMO market. He also says, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that Bioware is not actually making an MMO, and the announcement of that will "only spur greater excitement and speculation as to what kind of MMO BioWare is making." Funny. Keen of Keen and Graev expects Warhammer to go gangbusters, but also says Funcom will have trouble with the nudity in AoC, causing them to patch it out. He has Wrath "bombing," but at least he thinks it'll make it out. Lots more predictions for 2008 (including our own) after the jump.
Forbes guesses wildly at Macworld
Forbes is playing it safe with the Macworld predictions this year. Everything you've ever heard rumored about Apple in the last five years? Yeah, it's all here in their Macworld speculation guide. From the sub-notebook, to the iTablet, all the way to the Beatles, an Apple car, and even the old Apple gaming device, they cover pretty much all the bases.In a way, it's good, because at least it means that Forbes has exactly no idea what's coming at the big event. Don't get me wrong-- I'm sure we'll still see it leaked a few days ahead of time by the Washington Post or the New York Times. But at least now, before the holidays, they're as clueless as everybody else.So what is coming to Macworld? At this point, I would be surprised not to see the sub-notebook, and as we said in last week's Talkcast, it would be nice to see an update to the mini and/or the Apple TV. But let's face it: we won't know what Steve is going to talk about until he actually stands on stage and talks about it.
Reasoning out 2.3 patch timing
Saupak has done about a good a job as I've ever seen of breaking down exactly when patch 2.3 might actually appear. There's a bumpy future ahead for the next two months-- it's full of holidays, vacations, and events, and so it'll be very interesting to see when Blizzard decides to insert Zul'Aman into Azeroth. Of course, the last patch dropped right when I was meant to be playing the just-released Halo 3, so there probably are no sacred cows-- Blizzard patches when they want to.However, there are a few hits. We know the patch isn't going live today. The 13th and the 20th are out, because Blizz wants to give us notice, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. That leaves the last week of November, and the first three weeks of December (very unlikely that Blizzard would drop a patch on Christmas or New Year's, because they've got to take a break sometime). Other than that, we're looking at the 8th, 15th, or 22nd of January.Saupak's big bit of reasoning is that there were 168 days between 2.0 and 2.1, and 126 days between 2.1 and 2.2, so his guess is January 15th for the patch-- 105 days between 2.2 and 2.3. But remember that 2.2 was delayed so long because of the sound engine problems, and we don't have that with 2.3. And Zul'Aman is more or less done. So if I had to guess, I'd say we're looking at an early December patch-- either the 4th or the 11th (we've got to see an update sometime then anyway, for Feast of Winter's Veil). If we don't see it by then, then yes, my guess is that we're looking at January. Blizzard may try to squeeze it out before Thanksgiving, but I don't think that's likely. I do think they want to release it before Christmas, though-- and leave 2008 for the year of the Lich King.
Guessbots navigate by making informed predictions
A new system of robotic navigation being developed at Purdue University enhances a bot's ability to get around unfamiliar environments by allowing it to "guess" what unknown areas look like. Unlike the traditional method of "simulataneous localization and mapping" (hilariously nicknamed SLAM), in which bots take detailed measurements of an area to generate maps, the guessbots divide an area into cells and make predictions about "frontier cells," or areas adjacent to cells which have already been mapped. Each frontier cell is then assigned a "confidence score" -- cells with low scores need further investigation, while those with high scores can be added to the map. Initial computer simulations of the system resulted in virtual guessbots needing to map less than 33% of a building to navigate successfully, and while real-life prototyping already underway doesn't seem to have gotten quite as good, it's produced higher-quality maps in shorter amounts of time than SLAM, according to the developers. The guessbots do have limitations, however: they system only works well in highly-structured environments like buildings -- outdoors is probably out -- and like all robotic navigation systems, small measurement errors add up fast. Even still, let's hope this filters down to the consumer level fast -- a navigation system that's able to predict what's coming up next instead of blindly following a map just might keep us from wrecking all those cars.
