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A&E, History and Lifetime arrive on Sling TV this month
If you're still on the fence about committing $20 a month to Sling TV's "Best of Live TV," the streaming option is adding a few more channels. Before the end of March, A&E, History, H2 and Lifetime will be available on the service that's hoping you'll ditch cable. That handful of channels will be part of the core live TV package, which will tally 20 networks once those arrive. Of course, this means shows like Vikings, Bates Motel, Duck Dynasty and Project Runway are all joining the streaming lineup. In addition to the new channels, Sling TV is adding two new add-on packs that expand the basic channel library. "Lifestyle Extra" includes things like truTV, Cooking Channel and DIY, while the new "World News Extra" provides access to Bloomberg, HLN, and other news networks around the world. If you'll recall, the additional bundles cost $5 per month, and will be offered alongside the "Sports Extra," "Hollywood Extra" and "Kids Extra" packages, bringing the total "Extras" to five. [Image credit: History Channel/Bernard Walsh]
Daily Roundup: NASA engineer Annie Easley, a new View-Master and more!
Get caught up on today's news in the latest edition of the Daily Roundup. Learn about Annie Easley, an African-American woman who helped make early spaceflight possible, go hands-on with us as we take Mattel's View-Master for a spin and find out how the UK plans to test autonomous vehicles. All that and more can be found past the break.
Neil Armstrong kept the original moon landing camera in his closet
If you were the first to set foot on a celestial body, wouldn't you keep a few mementos from the trip? The great Neil Armstrong certainly did -- including one of the most important gadgets in recent history. The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum has revealed that the astronaut stored numerous items from the Apollo 11 moon landing in a closet at home, the highlight of which is undoubtedly the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera used to record the iconic moment he reached the lunar surface. Armstrong apparently held onto the camera and other "odds and ends" (as he told Mission Control) on the way back to Earth, and never mentioned them when he returned. Thankfully, you won't have much trouble seeing some of these artifacts in the near future. They're part of an exhibit at the museum, so you only have to book a trip to Washington, DC, by June 8th to see some of the technology that defined early space travel. [Image credit: Dane Penland, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution]
EVE Evolved: The end of EVE Evolved
By now, you will have heard that Massively is being shut down along with Joystiq and countless other blogs run by AOL. That unfortunately means this will be my final article for Massively and marks an end to the nearly seven-year run of the EVE Evolved column, which now holds over 350 articles on topics ranging from ship fittings and opinion pieces to guides and expansion breakdowns. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your readership and to express just how much playing EVE Online and writing for you really have impacted my life. I've been asked by so many people over the years for tips on breaking into the games industry as a journalist or MMO blogger, but the truth is that I lucked into this gig. When a post on the EVE Online news page said that some site called Massively was hiring an EVE Online columnist, I almost didn't bother applying. I was a prolific forumgoer back then and had written some guides for EON Magazine and my own blog, but I wanted to get into game development and had very little confidence in my writing ability. What I didn't know then was that writing for Massively would help improve my writing skills immeasurably and even help give me the confidence to launch my own game development studio. Massively gave me a platform on which to talk about EVE Online and an eager audience to share my game experiences with, but it turned into something much more profound. There have been low points dealing with trolls and organised harassment and tough times with budget cuts, but there have also some incredible experiences like attending the EVE Online Fanfest, investigating monoclegate, watching CCP redeem itself in the eyes of players, and collaborating with some of the best writers in the games industry. In this final edition of EVE Evolved, I look back at the start of the EVE Evolved column, break down my top ten column articles of all time, and try to put into words how much this column has meant to me over the years.
The Game Archaeologist travels to Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds
I confess that I have a particular fascination for MMOs that came into existence in the 1990s. It's not only the fact that I was oblivious to them at the time (er, wild college days?) but that practically each and every one of them were true pioneers in their own fashion. And while your standard MMO fan might think that there were only three such games in that decade (four, if they are gracious and include Meridian 59), the truth is that there were far more of them. Today we are going to look at one of the most important MMOs to emerge from that time period, Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, although its influence was primarily located in Korea while being vastly downplayed in North America. Still, here's a successful MMO that not only beat Ultima Online out of the door by a year but has since won a Guinness World Record for longevity!
Landfill copy of Atari's Centipede donated to university
University of North Dakota's Special Collections department now houses a cartridge of the Atari 2600 game Centipede, dug up from a landfill in New Mexico last year. Assistant professor of history Bill Caraher participated in the dig and threw down $60 to buy the cartridge on eBay. "While I usually would not condone purchasing archaeological artifacts of any kind, these artifacts are somewhat different because they represent our very recent past," Caraher told the AP. "When I saw that the Smithsonian had received a game and several other major cultural institutions as well, I had to acquire one for UND to commemorate the university's participation in this unusual excavation." The Centipede cartridge marks an important moment in video game history – the crash of the industry in 1983. That year, Atari reportedly dumped truckloads of unsold copies of ET, Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede and other games in the New Mexico landfill, and in 2014 a documentary team set about excavating the old, dirty games. Microsoft helped finance the excavation and the documentary Atari: Game Over, which explores the 1983 crash and subsequent landfill dig. Atari: Game Over premiered on Xbox in November. Once on eBay, the games sold individually for $50 to $1,500. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, picked up a copy of ET last year for its video game history collection. The University of North Dakota plans to invite people who participated in the excavation to a showing of Atari: Game Over in the spring, for a discussion of archaeology, media and video games as artifacts.
A new World of Warcraft comic book series is on the way
Lore doesn't just have to come at you via in-game text boxes; there are other mediums, such as comic books, that can help you understand a particular fantasy world. For example, Dark Horse Comics is preparing a new World of Warcraft series to explore the ancient history of Azeroth. World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 will be the first of several issues that trace the backstory of the world in a time before the Horde and Alliance. Blizzard COO Paul Sams says that it's being done to sate fan curiosity: "We often get questions from players who want to know more about the origins of the Warcraft universe, and the rise and fall of their favorite characters. This new series digs deeply into all of that -- we can't wait for players to read it." Unlike most comic books, Chronicle Volume 1 will be a hardbound edition. The series will go on sale this November in comic shops and book stores.
Happy 12th Birthday, Safari!
Kids just grow up so quickly... On January 7, 2003, Steve Jobs announced at Macworld San Francisco that Apple had developed its own web browser called Safari. On that day, the first beta version was released. Apple based Safari 1 on its internal fork of the KHTML rendering engine known as WebKit. Four years later, almost to the day on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced the iPhone and noted that it would use a mobile version of the Safari browser. Six months later, at the 2007 WorldWide Developers Conference, Jobs announced Safari 3 for Mac OS X v10.5, Windows XP and Windows Vista. At the time, Safari 3 was the fastest web browser for Windows. Of course, the company has since dropped support for Windows. The latest iteration of OS X Safari is version 8, released with OS X 10.10 Yosemite. It includes WebGL support for native 3D browser experiences; IndexedDB, which allows structured data to be cached client side and store data for web applications; JavaScript Promises, which lets JavaScript authors to work with asynchronous programming patterns more easily; CSS Shapes and Compositing, which means that websites can flow text around images and geometry shapes; SPDY, an open protocol websites can adopt for speeding up page loads and improving security; and HTML5 Premium Video, to deliver encrypted and energy-efficient video to the browser. We can't wait to see what happens to Safari when it becomes a teenager next year... Meanwhile, here's the announcement of Safari at Macworld in 2003.
Your search history's got nothing on this
In addition to dealing with symmetrical book stacking and full-torso apparitions in basements, New York's librarians have had to field some pretty crazy questions in their day. Case in point: "What percentage of all bathtubs in the world are in the US?" As Gothamist tells it, the book-lender recently found a box full of reference questions ranging in origin from the 1940s to the 1980s, and has started posting pictures of them to its Instagram account. What's more, the answers are coming too. You know, just in case you wanted to know if black widow spiders were more harmful dead or alive. Seriously, someone actually asked that. Each Monday, the New York Public Library will post a new question but if you're feeling impatient Gothamist has a handful of them in advance. We're guessing at least a few librarians are happy there's a program in place enabling people to Google stuff for themselves now. [Image credit: Associated Press]
The Game Archaeologist: The complete history of classic MMOs
Since this is my final Game Archeologist post of 2014, I want to indulge in a personal project that's been pulling at my shirt-tails for a little while now. I've been writing this column for years and have yet to create a proper guide to all of the games and subjects that I've covered. So that's what you're getting today: a "complete" (thus far) history of classic, obscure, and dead MMOs, arranged by decade. Ever wonder where MMOs began? Wanted to know what online gamers played back in the '90s and '80s? Trying to remember which games never made it to launch? Curious whether I've covered that little-known gem that was your doorway to a larger virtual world? Then take my hand and come with me!
Carbine's Chad Moore on WildStar's fresh focus on lore
There's a big focus on WildStar's lore recently. Aside from the big lore drops, dubbed "Loremageddon" by Carbine Studios, the game's official site has begun releasing a series of short stories detailing important moments in the game's history, from the first space voyage of the Cassian people to dealing with the Genesis Prime now. That's a lot of storytelling, the sort that should be continuing on well into next year. We had a chance to sit down and ask a few questions of creative director Chad Moore regarding what we've seen thus far for the game and what the goals are with this renewed focus on the game's setting and story. If you'd like to know a little more about the setting and what players can expect from the ongoing history lesson, check out the interview just past the break. There's also a new story available today detailing the first contact between the Cassians and the Eldan.
Big cats take center stage in this illustrated history of OS X
OS X Mavericks and Yosemite broke the mold with their naming conventions, referencing California landmarks instead of the big cats that dominated the previous OS X titles. To celebrate OS X and last month's big Yosemite launch, Git-Tower has created an infosite that features fantastic illustrations of OS X and its line of lovely cats. The information included for each version of OS X is pretty standard stuff, but it's the illustrations that stand out in this pictorial history. Check out all eleven versions of OS X in Git-Tower's blog post and let us know what you think in the comments. [Via Dave Mark]
One of the first true computers is finally on public display
Seeing ENIAC, one of the first true programmable computers, has been tricky; the giant mainframe was partly restored in 2007, but it was only visible in an office building. At last, though, you now have a (relatively) easy way to witness this piece of computing history first-hand. The US Army's Field Artillery Museum in Fort Sill, Oklahoma recently put several of ENIAC's revived panels on public display, giving you a chance to see a significant chunk of the very early mainframe in person.
The Daily Grind: Would you play a historical MMORPG?
One of these days I'd like to play a historical MMORPG with triple-A production values. Maybe something set in the American old west, or the Renaissance, or maybe even something prehistoric (and preferably sandboxy). Some of gaming's most successful franchises have certainly mined historical periods with great success, whether we're talking about Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, or Red Dead Redemption. Why not MMORPGs, then? Why does almost every title have to be fantasy or sci-fi? What about you, Massively readers? Would you play a a game without wizards or ray-guns? Would you play a historical MMORPG? 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!
Twitter makes every public tweet searchable
Remember your first tweet? Neither do I, but it was probably something along the lines of "first tweet," or an equally terrible first impression. Twitter has been working on a way to let you sift through every 140-character message sent publicly over its social network, and now the full backlog of short messages is ready for your queries. To make this possible, the company had to scale its tools -- like the real-time index -- during a multi-year project, accommodating not only the existing library, but properly sorting the billions added each week. Of course, this is a gold mine for businesses, sports teams and others who want to see what audiences were discussing at any given time. "We built a search service that efficiently indexes roughly half a trillion documents and serves queries with an average latency of under 100ms," Twitter's Yi Zhuang explains in a blog post. The ability to hunt through the massive index is rolling out to users over the next few days. Inside mobile apps and on the web, the "All" tab of search results will display that full gamut of tweets.
ET and other exhumed Atari games hit eBay
Want to buy some literal garbage? An eBay seller is auctioning off a collection of Atari 2600 cartridges recovered from a recent excavation of a New Mexico landfill, including several crushed copies of the infamous dud ET. An excavation team headed out to Alamogordo, New Mexico, earlier this year in the hopes of discovering the truth behind a reported landfill stuffed with video games and consoles in the months leading up to the video game industry crash of 1983. The venture yielded many shrinkwrapped copies of ET, among other decades-old merchandise abandoned by Atari. A documentary film covering the dig, Atari: Game Over, will launch exclusively for Xbox consoles later this month. Bidding starts at $50 for the unearthed games, which vary in condition but are otherwise remarkably well-preserved, considering they've been sitting in a landfill for more than three decades. Many ET cartridges are already going for hundreds of dollars, but if you're looking to snag a stinky piece of history for yourself, you might be able to pick up a cheap copy of Asteroids, Centipede, Defender or Swordquest EarthWorld. [Image: tbhs575]
This Apple 3.0 poster is a must-have for every Apple fan
When I spotted the Insanely Great History of Apple 3.0 poster over at Pop Chart Lab, it jumped out at me as being the best gift ever for the Apple fan, especially for one who already has every Apple gadget under the sun. The 28" x 42" print includes every computer, tablet, phone, software package and other miscellaneous devices Apple has released since 1976. This mini history has been updated for 2014 with the new iPad Air 2, the 5K iMac and even Apple's upcoming Watch. You can view the Apple 3.0 poster and zoom in on its contents over at Pop Chart Lab's website. The print is available for pre-order now with an introductory price of US$64. Orders will being shipping next week starting Wednesday, November 5.
CERN hopes you know what these things are, cause it has no idea
Scientists, we're told, need to be very good at record keeping in order to make sure that others can follow their logic. It's just a shame that whoever was running the photography archive at CERN wasn't paying attention during that lesson. The European research outfit is digitizing its archive of around 120,000 photos taken between 1955 and 1985. Unfortunately, some of the images aren't labelled, which makes it hard to identify the scientists in the pictures, or the equipment that they're using. That's why CERN is asking that if anyone does know the people or hardware, that they email in and help get the database up to date. In order to help, we've had a go ourselves, although we're sure that you out there can do a much better job. [Image Credit: CERN]
Hear the space age unfold on NASA's historic SoundCloud account
If you've ever wanted to cobble together a really wicked EDM track comprised mostly of sound bites from NASA's Mercury missions, well, now's your chance. Everyone's favorite beleaguered space agency has been posting a treasure trove of audio clips that span the space age to its SoundCloud account (just in time to post them in form of Twitter's new Audio Cards), and they're really worth a listen.
YouTube Find: History of Apple's brand in under three minutes
FastCompany's BrandEvolution series takes a look some the most popular brands in world and how they have changed over the years. A recent episode explores Apple, showcasing the company's advertising campaigns starting with the original Apple I and ending with the unveiling of the Watch.
