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Garmin announces new dog collars, talks up 'Bark Odometer'
Garmin's not content with just a spot on your dashboard -- the company's also hoping to help you out with your pet problems. The GPS-maker's got a couple of new additions to its line of dog collars, including the BarkLimiter series, which offers up an accelerometer-powered bark identification system and a Bark Odometer to help you keep track of your canine's woof mileage. The collar is lightweight and waterproof and promises to increase "stimulation" as barking continues. The collar'll run you $80 for standard and $100 for the deluxe edition. You can also get the BarkLimiter technology in the company's Delta series of collars, which let you set a virtual leash up to three-quarters of a mile. That line runs $200 without the bark limiting and $250 with.
Blizzard's Cinder Kitten raises over $2.3 million in Sandy relief
Warcraft players around the world showed their generosity by purchasing the Cinder Kitten pet from the Blizzard store. Blizzard announced in November that every Cinder Kitten purchased by the end of December 21, 2012, would have the profits from the sale go straight to the victims of Superstorm Sandy. They managed to raise a cool $2.3 million dollars! Cinder Kitten Raises More Than $2.3 Million Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of World of Warcraft players around the world who purchased the Cinder Kitten pet, we've raised a total of more than $2.3 million USD to support the American Red Cross's ongoing Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. In December, we announced that for every Cinder Kitten purchased by December 31, 2012, 100% of the adoption fee would be going to assist victims of this disaster -- and the community embraced this fiery feline in droves, helping out a great cause in the process. Thanks again to everyone who helped make a difference. source What a great move by Blizzard to help out in disaster relief. It's not the first time they've done so either as players will remember back in 2011 when they donated 100% of the proceeds earned from the Cenarion Hatchling to Japan's Earthquake and Tsunami relief efforts!
Tractive uses GPS to track your pets
Most dogs and outdoor cats like to wander when they are left outside. Cats, especially, will disappear for the day on some adventure in your neighborhood. If you are concerned or curious about their travels, an upcoming product called Tractive will let you see where they go when they meander The device is a small GPS module that attaches to your pet's collar. It has a cellular radio that sends location data from the module to Tractive's servers. Owners can then track their pets in real time using a web app or an iOS app. As shown on their website, the iOS app will include a trace feature that allows users to plot their pets entire route. Tractive is an Austrian-based company and its pet-tracking product uses a GSM radio to transmit location data. It'll debut in a handful of European countries when it starts shipping in March 2013. In those areas where it is available, customers will pay for the service and Tractive will pay for all cellular data fees. The Tractive module will cost €249 (US$330) and service plans will start at €4.99 ($6.60) per month Customers in the US who are in the market for a similar product should look at Tagg, a GPS-based pet tracking service that runs on Verizon Wireless' CDMA network.
GamersFirst dropping Sword 2, title picked up by T3Fun
GamersFirst is out of the Sword 2 business, it seems. The publisher announced that it will be dropping its contract to publish and host the title at the end of the year. Fans of the game have no reason to fret that they're about to lose their world, however; HanbitSoft's subsidiary T3Fun will take up the slack come January 1st. Due to the transfer between companies, players will need to expressly consent to allow their game data to be transferred over. The announcement post contains instructions how to do just that. Also, Sword 2 players won't be able to transfer their GamersFirst store currency, so spending it now is highly recommended. There are a lot of details to go over, so if this affects you, be sure to read the whole post very carefully. [Thanks to William for the tip!]
Cinder kitten now on sale in Blizzard store
If you've been eagerly awaiting Blizzard's release of the fiery little furball pictured above, your wait is over. The Cinder Kitten is now available for purchase on the Blizzard Pet Store for $10. As mentioned last month, 100% of the proceeds from any Cinder Kitten purchased between now and December 31, 2012 will go towards the American Red Cross's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. The kitten is available in both the US and European Pet Stores. Purchasing the kitten will give you a code that can be redeemed on any North American (or European, for kittens purchased through the Europe Pet Store) account. This code can either be redeemed for your account, or emailed to friends as a gift. After all, nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like a flaming ball of fiery purring death. If you're looking for a good present for that special someone, the Cinder Kitten is a cool in-game item, you can use it for pet battles, and the proceeds go to the Red Cross. What's not to love?
How to get started in pet battles
Are you ready to waste a bunch of time enjoy the fulfilling life as a pet collector and battler, like me? We'll get you ready to be pet-obsessed in no time. Get Trained Before you can do anything with pet battles, you have to be at least level 5 and have up to 10g, depending on whatever discount you may have. Now travel to your capital city and chat with the Battle Pet Trainer there. Varzok is located near the flightmaster in Orgrimmar, and Audrey Burnhep hangs out near the Cataclysm portals in Stormwind City. You only need to train on one of your characters, as all of the training, quests, and battle pets are account-wide. This means that if you train with your main character in Stormwind, your level 1 blood elf can start collecting pets for you in Silvermoon. But wait! There's more!
100% of WoW's Cinder Kitten sales to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief
Blizzard is making a habit out of using its cash shop to benefit the victims of various natural disasters. On the heels of the Cenarion Hatchling pet that raised $1.9 million for Japanese earthquake relief efforts in 2011 comes a new Cinder Kitten critter, the proceeds from which will assist those displaced by Hurricane Sandy. The cuteling isn't for sale in World of Warcraft quite yet, but our sister site WoW Insider says that it will go for $10. Blizzard will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds to the relief effort.
Cinder Kitten pet sales to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief charity
As with the Cenarion Hatchling of years past and the tsunami that devastated coastal Japan, 100% of proceeds from the sales of the oddly late Cinder Kitten will be given to the Red Cross' Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. Blizzard will be updating us with info on when the $10 gato en fuego will be available for sale in the weeks ahead. Classy move, Blizzard. On the other hand ... look, this might sound crazy, but have you noticed that whenever there's a big natural disaster, Blizzard just happens to be ready with a Pet Store pet to sell for charity? I'm sure intelligence will prove that Blizzard owns HAARP, the weather-controlling device array used by the Illuminati to maintain the New World Order. Clearly Blizzard stands to benefit from this by *incoherent mumbling* and *something about chemtrails*. Wake up, sheeple.
DeskPets' CarBot is a little iOS-controlled car
The Parrot Quadricopter is probably the coolest thing you can control with your iPhone, but not all of us are willing to shell out $300 for a fully equipped airborne vehicle. For the rest of us, however, a company named DeskPets has released CarBot, a much more affordable (under $30) little four-wheeled vehicle, easily controlled with a free iPhone app. The company kindly sent TUAW a unit to test, and I ran the little robot through its paces, using my iPhone 5 to control the little guy around my Los Angeles apartment. Setup is a little overwhelming when you first get the car's plastic packaging open, just because it seems like there are more than a few different working parts involved. But once you figure it all out, it's actually pretty simple. The car comes all ready to go, green and translucent and packed with circuitry and gears. There's a little adapter that plugs into the headphone slot on your iDevice (I plugged it into the bottom of my iPhone 5 and into the top of my iPad without having to even remove either one's case). Both the adapter and the car need to be switched on (by holding down the car's only button for a few seconds, and then flipping the switch on the adapter), and then you simply pull up the free iPhone app and you're ready to go. The car has four different modes. The first is the standard driving mode, where you can use onscreen controls to move the car forwards and backwards, blow an on-board (digital) horn, or turn the car left or right. There's a small switch underneath the car with three frequency settings, so if you're using multiple cars, you can set up each iPhone to control separate frequencies. But on the first mode, you can simply drive the car around. On my carpet floors, the car drove just fine, though not as well as on linoleum or tile, obviously. The second mode is a multiplayer battle, for use only when you have more than one car. I didn't get to try this mode out, but it sounds fun: You can use a "Fire" button on the iPhone to "fire" an infrared shot from the car. Hitting another car will decrease its life meter. There's also a "Boost" button, which the manual says will give you a quick burst of speed (though given how small these cars are, that might be hard to tell). The third mode is called "obstacle detection" mode, and is designed to be used with another add-on called the MazeBot, which is yet to be released and presumably will let you build a maze for the car to navigate by itself. The last mode was almost the most interesting one for me. It's an "Autonomous Personality Mode", and it allows the car to navigate around by itself, free-roaming around whatever environment it's in. I had fun just watching the little car try to navigate my apartment like a Roomba, but this mode is really designed to be used with the multiplayer mode, basically to give you a non-player opponent to battle against. Unfortunately, the CarBot's worst quality is that it's far from accurate -- not only is the car rather clumsy (though I was impressed with how well it was able to navigate and move around the various environments I placed it in), but the iPhone's touchscreen controls are completely binary, in that you're either turning left, turning right or not turning at all. Likewise, you either are moving forward, backward or not moving, so if you're looking to make precision turns or drive at a dynamic speed, you're out of luck. The other big issue is that the car isn't controlled with Bluetooth -- instead, the controls are passed to the car completely through an IR port on the adapter. This means that it requires line of sight to operate, so if your hand blocks the signal or the car happens to pass out of the room at any time, you'll lose the connection. It's definitely weird that DeskPets didn't choose to go with Bluetooth, given how easily Apple has made using that protocol for app developers, but for whatever reason, it's all IR, with all of the issues that entails. Still, for $30 the CarBot seems like a great present, and it definitely does what it says on the box: Gives you a small remote-controlled car that you can drive around with your iPhone. There are some minor issues, like that choice to use IR and a generally terribly designed app. However, driving around this little car is so much fun, and the price is so easy to handle, that I ended up shrugging most of those issues off and just having a great time. If you're putting your Christmas lists together this year already, the CarBot might be a nice addition for the iPhone user in your family.
Fire kitten seeks loving home!
Last night Blizzard posted this adorable kitten's picture on their Facebook page. It was accompanied by this not-so-cryptic message: "This adorable, fired up little kitty is seeking a new caretaker. Adoption details coming soon!" What does it all mean? I have a sneaking suspicion that this fiery kitty might be a new Blizzard Pet Store pet, that is to say, one you can buy with real money. I'm saying this based purely on my own personal intuition, not on any hard evidence whatsoever. Perhaps I'm totally wrong, and it is in fact a pet you can get through some other means, such as reputation, or maybe even a drop or a very, very rare wild pet. All I know for sure is that this little fiery thing is adorable. Look at its little hat and collar, and those sweet, glowing, fiery eyes... Like a gnome fire druid. If he's a battle pet, which I suspect he might be, what do you think his moves would be? I'm going for fiery headbutt, and weaving between opponents' legs. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
SWTOR expands free-to-play rewards
With the days until Star Wars: The Old Republic's conversion to free-to-play ticking down, BioWare is rounding out its reward system for current and former players. The studio announced that the players voted for the Party Jawa as a special reward that all current and previous subscribers will receive when the title goes F2P. The Party Jawa is an item that unleashes a fun-loving native of Tatooine who has nothing better to do than bring the festivities to you. BioWare's also expanded its reward chart to include purchasers of SWTOR's digital deluxe edition. Those players will receive 250 cartel coins to spend on rewards this fall.
Pets join the battle in new Vindictus video
What's better than forging into battle against demons and dragons in Vindictus? How about forging in with your very own death-dealing pet fighting right by your side? The latest addition to the free-to-play fantasy MMORPG is the Gremlin pet: a ferocious companion that aids in battle and helps loot the spoils afterwards. So what fearsome visage to do these fierce fighters have? Nexon's video reveals Gremlins as furry little floppy-eared bunny/birds (or is it a bird/bunnies?). But don't let the cuteness fool you; they are killers! And every player can have one, regardless of class. Gremlins come in three types, each with its own attitude: Tiny Gremlin, Punk Gremlin, and Armor Gremlin. Check out the new cuddly, kiester-kicking companions in the video after the break. [Source: Nexon press release]
No Spirit of Competition reward this year
Zarhym broke the news to us via his usual gentle tweeting: There's no Spirit of Competition for this year's Olympics. It's understandable that pretty much all companion pet development time has gone into things like Mists of Pandaria's pet battles, a whole host of new tameable pets for said system, and so on. It's understandable that people would be bummed, as the Gold Medallion is no longer available within the game -- and thus, if you don't have the Spirit of Competition, you won't be getting one. Perhaps the Spirit of Competition can be brought back as a prize for being the very best, which up to this point no one ever was. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Mists of Pandaria: Wild pets will not be tradable
Cory Stockton, aka Mumper, has announced that pets caught in the wild will no longer be tradable and that this will be the case when Mists of Pandaria launches. Mumper We just finished a pass making all pets that are caught via pet battles in the world non-tradeable. This means these pets cannot be put in cages for trading or posting on the AH. We felt that the option to buy these pets on the AH would take away from the exploration/collection gameplay of the system. This could always change in a future patch, but this is how it will go out with MoP. You should see the change in our next build. source In pet battles, tradable pets can be sold on the AH. Training and caging wild pets looked to be a lucrative endeavor, since the catchable pets spawn in various qualities such as poor and rare. Many buyers would have been happy to shell out their gold for a high-quality pet that they didn't have to grind for. As of right now on the beta, pet spawning locations tend to be heavily camped. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in cross-realm zones. [via alt:ternative] It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Team Matticus takes on the updated Pet Battle system
With the official green light for Pet Battles on the beta servers for Mists of Pandaria, I dedicated an evening solely to critter cage matches. I want to be the best that no one ever was, so I figured I may as well start training now. How much has Pet Battles changed since the first time it was inadvertently released? The UI has improved tremendously. Mechanics, animations, and the whole works are much smoother. So how does one get started? First things first. Your character needs to gain the ability to engage mini-pets out in the world. In order to that, you'll need to find your local battle pet trainer. In my case, I booked it straight to Stormwind and asked a guard where the nearest trainer was. You'll find Audrey Burnhep just northeast of the Dwarven District next to the Eastern Earthshrine where all the Cataclysm portal zones are. I ended up forking over 80 pieces of my hard-earned gold to earn the right to use my pets. (Note: This was with the faction discount, otherwise it's 100g.)
Blizzard unveils Pet Battles on the official MoP site -- and beta
Pet Battles are one of Mists of Pandaria's most anticipated features, and Blizzard's been taking their time implementing these furry free-for-alls to get the quality just right. Today the devs have unveiled a new Pet Battle system section on the MoP website highlighting the ins and outs of the system, including how you can get new pets in the wild, what Pet Battle stats mean, and more. The devs have stated in the past that pet battling is meant to be a mostly stress-free affair. You won't see the names of the people whose pets you battle, and the game will only keep track of your wins, not your losses. Don't expect to find bleeding-edge Pet Battle progression groups any time soon. That's the right call, though -- the game needs more fun, casual stuff to do, not less. Check out the Pet Battle guide, and if you have an MoP beta account, patch it today -- Pet Battles are playable! It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
i-SODOG robot unveiled, dares you to resist its LED-puppy dog eyes
Takara Tomy's i-SODOG might not be as intimidating as other robotic quadrupeds, but it sure is a charmer. Freshly unveiled at the Tokyo International Toy Show, the puppy comes laden with touch sensors, 15 custom servos and a microphone, letting its master command it with up to 50 unique voice cues. The mechanical mutt's mind packs some basic artificial intelligence as well, allowing it to learn and modify its behavior based on the user's commands. If the pup flunks out of digital dog training, however, its owner can always assume control directly with the i-SODOG iOS / Android app or from a dedicated controller. Fido's chasing a Spring 2013 release for 31,500 yen ($400), but there's no word on a release outside of Japan. In the meantime, a video of the plastic pooch in action awaits you after the break.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Pet Battle Music is a blast from the past
In what will be heralded as one of the more austere, kickass features coming with Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has finally added in the music for Pet Battles, which is a mix of a little new/little old MIDI tunes that sound more at home on a Super Nintendo. But what's that I hear? Is it ... the original Warcraft and Warcraft II renditions of the faction songs? For Pet Battles? For serious? I guess I have to go install Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition again. Great. What do you all think about the old Warcraft music's making an appearance in WoW? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Rusty Hearts unleashes the Month of the Dragon
It's the Month of the Dragon in Perfect World Entertainment's free-to-play beat-'em-up, Rusty Hearts. Throughout the month, players will have the opportunity to snag the rare three-piece Dragon Armor costume set and a unique Mini-Bone Dragon pet. The first piece of Dragon Armor up for grabs is a dashing pair of boots styled after the claws of a dragon. So what are the folks at PWE asking for this new finery? They want players to head over to the official Rusty Hearts Facebook page and share it with their friends. After the page has reached the goal share-count, "the items will be inserted and [players] will be able to wear the most bone-chilling costume pieces ever seen in Bramunez." If the Facebook page manages to reach 100,000 Likes during the Month of the Dragon, PWE will also be rewarding 1,000 lucky players with the Mini-Bone Dragon pet. So get to it, social-media people, and earn yourself some new threads.
The OverAchiever: Are pet achievements disappearing in Mists of Pandaria?
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's myth-explodin' time. Last week in the comment thread for OverAchiever: Achievements to do before it's too late, there were a few notes from readers who were worried that noncombat pet achievements were going to disappear in Mists of Pandaria. This shocked me, because I could have sworn I saw pet achievements flash across the screen during the spam I always get when I copy my main to a beta or PTR, and I hadn't been aware that these achievements were actually missing from the General category. I was also sure there would have been some pretty high-profile news about it if developers were planning to axe them. Especially with the introduction of Pet Battles, it seemed like a very strange time for Blizzard to get rid of related achievements. Then again, these are also the people who put the Aldor Rise elevator and Warsong Gulch rep in the game, so we already know they're capable of real cruelty. OverAchiever's pretty much pointless if I don't use it to investigate stuff that I could have warned readers about well in advance, and pets are serious business. So, another character copy onto the beta later, I have an answer for you about what's going on.
