Motor City
Latest
Google asks car makers 'Ullo John, wanna self-driving motor?'
Larry Page's tenure as Googler-in-chief has heralded the death of many ambitious experiments, but even he refuses to kill the self-driving car. His project head, Anthony Levandowski, has now asked the car makers of Detroit to sign up with Mountain View for hardware testing, saying that if driverless cars are not ready by the next decade, then it's "shame on us as engineers." There's still some way to go before the tech is road-worthy, but Google is already working with insurers to work out how your car is going to handle making that call to Geico when things go wrong.
Former Rockstar cutscene director working on '1979: The Game,' about Iran Revolution
You may not know Navid Khonsari by name, but you've undoubtedly seen his work. Credited as a writer and director (and voice actor) for Rockstar between 2001–2005, Khonsari would "establish and pioneer the cinematic feel" introduced in Grand Theft Auto 3's cutscenes and evolved throughout the studio's storied run. Most recently, Khonsari directed the cutscenes in Alan Wake for Remedy, which he had worked with on the first two Max Payne titles. After leaving Rockstar, the jack of all trades established Ink Stories, a multimedia production company, which he runs with his wife in New York City. Ink Stories is working on at least one "in-house" video game, Motor City, according to its website, but in a recent interview with RT (formerly Russia Today), Khonsari discussed another project: 1979: The Game. Said to be based on the events of the Iran Revolution, and focusing on the takeover of the American Embassy, Khonsari outlined a game based on different perspectives. "We're primarily looking at about 8 to 10 different roles," he told RT about the number of characters the player might assume. "Initially, you'll start the game off as Iranian -- but American-born US State Department translator -- who's coming in with the objective of trying to free the US hostages." "I'm using truths that exist in history, so the initial alliance of the US with Saddam Hussein is one thing that we look in -- maybe you come in through the border between Iran and Iraq; or maybe you use the US alliance with the Taliban at that time (who were fighting the Russians)," Khonsari described of the open-ended, but perhaps controversial nature of 1979: The Game.
