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Solar Impulse completes first solar-powered international flight, Captain Piccard returns to earth
We're big fans of charming, ungainly Solar Impulse, and of Captain Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg's quest to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered plane. In case you missed the live stream: the Swiss flier just got a little closer to that goal by completing its first international flight, taking off near Berne, Switzerland and landing in Brussels, Belgium, just under 13 hours later. That's half the flight time of an earlier test, in which the craft's 200-foot wingspan, covered with 12,000 photovoltaic solar cells, kept it aloft for 26 hours. Of course, a controlled test flight is one thing -- making solar-powered flight commercially viable means proving your plane can successfully navigate busy airspace. To see Solar Impulse come in for a smooth landing, peep the video after the break.
The Perfect Ten: MMO cataclysms
Today sees the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which represents a destructive "reboot" button on the world of Azeroth. The old has been made new by virtue of fiery explosions that have rent the very earth in twain, and WoW gamers will have to find their footing all over again. As you might imagine, it's made one big-ass mess, which is compounded by the fact that there are no janitor classes in the game to sweep it up (the next hero class, perhaps?). However, the notion of an in-game cataclysm is hardly the sole domain of Activision-Blizzard; on the contrary, large-scale apocalypses pop up all the time in MMOs. After all, nothing grabs the attention like the end of the world (but hey, you still feel fine)! In a list that in no way is meant to capitalize on any expansions that may or may not be on the market, we're going to strap on our Kevlar suits, slather our arms with 1000 SPF sunblock, and take a brief tour of 10 worlds that have dated cataclysms -- and lived to tell the tale.
Captain Piccard's Solar Impulse completes first full test flight, nears another frontier (video)
We've tracked this solar-powered tub from its announcement last year, through its first runway tests, past the little hop that counted as its first flight, and now we've arrived at the HB-SIA's first legitimate test flight. The Solar Impulse, brainchild of one Bertrand Piccard, took the upward plunge into the skies yesterday, successfully rising to 5,500 feet and a speed of 30 knots before gliding down gently and calling the whole thing an unqualified success. You can find video of the event after the break. A nighttime test flight is planned for later this year, after which a bulkier production model will be cobbled together with the intent of reaching the final goal of circumnavigating the globe by 2012.
Captain Piccard's Solar Impulse takes flight
They said it couldn't be done. They laughed and questioned what would happen when the sun sets, but the man whose passport reads Piccard, Bertrand, and whose bold will and bald helm match a similarly named Capitaine, has now overseen the first solar-powered flight on the Solar Impulse HB-SIA. Okay, so it was 1,150 feet flown at a meter above ground level, but that's just classic Swiss caution for you, no reason not to celebrate the fact that there's now a flying tub powered purely by solar energy and promising a future of aircraft operating indefinitely -- so long as the sun doesn't forget to rise every morning. This comes mere days after the first runway tests were carried out, leading us to believe that this is one mission with a glorious chance of success.
Captain Piccard's Solar Impulse starts runway testing
Good news, kids -- the solar-powered jet with globetrotting ambitions has started sneaking out of the hangar and onto the runway for some mild exercise in the form of landing gear and taxi testing. Captained by Bertrand Piccard -- a real person -- the Solar Impulse project is still on track for a 2012 globe circumnavigation attempt powered only by the sun's rays from above and the well-wishes from below. The humongous bird is described as having "the wingspan of an Airbus and the weight of a car," and its recent outdoorsy jaunts have done nothing to dampen spirits, making that roadmap for its first flight early next year seem entirely viable. We've got no less than three videos for you after the break, but we won't mind if you only watch one.
The Digital Continuum: Federation stands for 'fighting'
A new fragrance is out, and it smells exactly like the old one. It's the gentle waft of something I'm quite familiar with: Star Trek fandom. Let me preface this by saying I've been a fan of Star Trek ever since I saw an episode of The Next Generation back when my parents used to tape it every week so we could watch it as a family. So when I declare that people griping about Star Trek Online's emphasis on combat aren't true Trek fans, I know the amount of weight that statement carries. And you know what? They really aren't true fans.
Star Trek references in the World of Warcraft
Wait, what? Star Trek is now cool you say? What is my nerdy self going to cling to? What's going to make a geek above other geeks as I recite the Klingon alphabet backwards in the Qo'noS dialect? Oh wait, there's WoW! And what's more geeky than taking a look at all the Star Trek references in the game?Well, the answer is not much.But that's okay, because it's geek-chic, or whatever those babbling idiots on What Not To Wear say.So take a look my geeky bretheren, all the Star Trek references in the World of Warcraft after thy break.
Recession roundup: volume eleventeen zillion
We're getting rather tired of having to "roundup" the misery, loss of profits, and layoffs in this modern era of plenty and luxury, but there's seemingly no end in sight, so here we go. Texas Instruments announced plans to cut 12 percent of its workforce (apparently as a safety measure as its profits last quarter actually topped analysts' estimates). Meanwhile, Panasonic's announced some modest cuts of roughly 600 workers, in addition to closing some of its plants in Asia as it posted a net loss for the first time in six years. Moving on, Hewlett-Packard's laying off nearly 25,000 people in a "restructuring" scheme, while those IBM losses we've been hearing about (and which have been rumored to number nearly 16,000) are now quietly happening in several locales across the U.S. Finally, big boxer Best Buy's just confirmed impending cuts at their headquarters in Minneapolis, but won't release any hard numbers until February. Seriously, world: the future is disgusted with us.Read - Texas Instruments cutting jobsRead - Panasonic to cut 560 jobs, close plantsRead - IBM, HP quietly cut thousands of jobsRead - Best Buy plans layoffs at headquarters
Ritual of Summoning is actually still broken [Updated]
The article's image expresses how I, and I'm sure many others, feel about this.Ghostcrawler posted last night that Ritual of Summoning would be fixed today. Nethaera posted small, but important, patch notes saying that it had been fixed. "Ritual of Summoning no longer has a 2 minute cooldown and will now function as intended."However people are reporting that it still isn't working correctly.Ghostcrawler now comes out and says that it'll be fixed sometime later today. "We are still on target to get this fixed today (Tue, Jan 27). I did not mean to imply that it would be fixed when the servers came back up."Left hand, let me introduce you to right hand. Right hand says things like "We'll fix this today." Left hand says things like "These are the patch notes for this patch, which is now live." Right hand should tell left hand that not everything is live just yet, and update the patch notes accordingly.Now that I got my tenses all screwed up, we'll update when Ritual of Summoning actually is fixed.Update: It is now fixed, for real this time.
Nintendo UK wheels out the celebs ...
... with mixed results. But let's start with the good ones: Patrick Stewart will be back this Christmas to sell the DS and Brain Training to Brits (as he was last year), and he'll be doing it alongside Julie Walters. Hurray! The rest of Nintendo's celebrity line-up will be quite obscure to Americans, but when they produce lifestyle photography as brilliant as this, who the hell cares? They include: Girls Aloud. British girl pop group, and actually a pretty big name in Blighty. Most famous member is one Cheryl Cole, who seems lovely and sincere on X Factor, though isn't quite as pleasant if you meet her in a nightclub toilet. Fern Britton, once-cuddly, now gastric-band-wearing TV presenter, will be advertising Cooking Guide. Ronan Keating, one-fifth of Irish boyband Boyzone. Incidentally, in the process of writing this post, we discovered Boyzone were reforming. Ugh. Anyway, Ronan will be promoting Big Brain Academy. Jamie and Louise Redknapp, slightly thick but good-looking soccer pundit and his former pop star wife. Will join forces with their extended family to push Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports, and Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. That's a lot of responsibility on the Redknapps' shoulders! We hope they're up to it. And going by Nintendo's current record in the UK, they'll probably do really well. Best of luck to all of them.
Ask Cryptic explains how Star Trek Online will handle canon
The latest Ask Cryptic focusing on Star Trek Online addresses a number of questions sci-fi fans have about where the IP is heading in the MMO space. Not surprisingly, many of the questions asked of Cryptic deal with how well they'll adhere to Star Trek canon. The Cryptic Studios devs were asked about how they would handle the iconic story and characters of Star Trek, namely with voiceovers and cut scenes. The devs state that Star Trek Online avoids issues of tampering with Trekkie canon by setting the game in 2409, a good 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Voyager. So while some of the locales familiar to Star Trek fans will be present in the game, players shouldn't expect to bump into any (or many) familiar faces.
GeGeGe no Kitarou to feature jacket gliding, wang monsters
In our enthusiasm to learn more about Namco Bandai's latest 2D platformers, Kekkaishi: Kokubourou Shuurai and GeGeGe no Kitarou: Youkai Daigekisen, both based on anime licenses, we came across this screenshot for the latter (minus the picard-wtf.jpg photoshop, of course).Sure, Touch Detective introduced phallic creatures to the DS years ago, but that mushroom thing was cartoonish and nonthreatening. As for this thing? This wrinkled beast? We imagine that if Picard and crew were to ever bump heads with this walking willy, screens would be off-ed, shields would be raised, and photon torpedoes would be fired. "Ensign, get us out of here! Maximum warp!"Deformed wang monster aside, GeGeGe no Kitarou looks to be a tame platformer with some gliding portions to keep things interesting. Float past the break for a few more of the screenshots we grabbed from Famitsu.
Patrick Stewart to star in new DS ads? Make it so!
Nintendo was wise to sign Nicole Kidman up last summer for its DS advertisements across the Atlantic, pushing Brain Age to the casual market with the international movie star's image. According to Nintendo UK's marketing director, Dawn Paine, the company will further broaden its target audience by recruiting Patrick Stewart, an intergalactic movie star, for its upcoming campaign.Several other British celebrities have also been called on for Nintendo's holiday season Touch Generations commercials -- Julie Walters (Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films), Phillip Schofield, Fern Britton, Zoe Ball, and Johnny Ball -- but none of them can claim to match the starship captain's list of accolades. As Jean-Luc Picard, he facilitated first contact encounters with over a dozen alien races and saved humanity several times over during his Star Trek: The Next Generation tenure. Hopefully, Nintendo UK will be able to successfully leverage his skills as a diplomat to sell you its training games.
Trek writer encourages more storytelling in games
After Bethesda Softworks acquired the rights to make Star Trek games last year, they hired famed screenplay writer D. C. Fontana (Trek, Babylon 5, Earth: Final Conflict) and her writing partner Derek Chester to script the storylines for Star Trek Legacy and Star Trek: Tactical Assault. Fontana's participation in these projects underscores a growing trend in game development, where top writing talent is being brought in to supplement next generation production values. She believes this is healthy for the industry: "Today, the games have to have more going on in them--story, character, crisis or conflict, goals. Because of that, I believe writers will begin to see the possibilities in this form of storytelling."Fontana also penned Activision's well-received Bridge Commander, and Legacy has promising previews. However, the valuable experience that Hollywood writers and bestselling authors bring to the table doesn't always guarantee a successful game. While R. A. Salvatore's Demon Stone may have been a decent platformer, not even Chris Claremont could save X-Men: The Official Game, and Dungeons & Dragons writer Keith Baker's efforts weren't enough to overcome the uninspired gameplay of Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. Still, it's refreshing to see a focus on narrative that has served companies like BioWare so well.Star Trek Legacy will be released next week for the PC and Xbox 360, and will feature the voice talent of all five starship captains from Archer to Janeway. Hopefully, it will fare better than its handheld sibling Tactical Assault, which has suffered a Khan-like wrath from gaming critics.
