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Facebook is enabling a new generation of touchy-feely robots
Facebook announced on Monday that it has developed a suite of tactile technologies that will impart a sense of touch into robots.
HTC Sense coming to Windows Phone 7, after all
Some cried and some cheered when Microsoft revealed that handset manufacturers couldn't reskin Windows Phone 7 devices wholesale. But as it turns out, at least one major OEM is still banking on software to help differentiate its phones. HTC's Drew Bamford told Forbes that Sense UI will still appear in the company's Windows Phone 7 creations, and believes it will live on in Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) as well. "Microsoft has taken firmer control of the core experience," acknowledged Bamford, who added that Sense wouldn't be fully integrated into WP7 phones, but that HTC would "augment" the Microsoft experience with as-yet-undisclosed functionality of its own. As long as it doesn't eat up too much memory and processor time, right?
New armor set skins are coming to WAR
It seems Mythic is ignoring any and all naysayers as it's steadily ploughing ahead with improvements to Warhammer Online. Patch 1.3.1 just introduced a bunch of tweaks to the endgame and Jeff Skalski's producer's letter mentions a number of cool features coming ahead in 1.3.2. A new post on the WAR Herald is now telling us that the Art team has been busy redesigning all the tier 4 armor set skins.Part one of this reskinning series shows off new concepts for six different classes, including the Blackguard, Squig Herder, and Zealot for Destruction and the Bright Wizard, Engineer, and Swordmaster for Order. The new armor sets are looking pretty amazing if we do say so ourselves, however, there's one minor sticking point. In terms of comparison, some players don't feel that the old sets are being fairly represented. Each of the old sets are shown in-game at what appear to be extremely low screenshot resolutions, while the new sets are richly detailed and colored 3D renders or screenshots from a game client with maxed graphics. Nonetheless, Mythic is looking for your feedback on the new designs, so make sure you give it to them on the official forums.[Thanks to JP]
The Five Rs of Character Revitalization
So I've talked recently about life as an RPer, and how we seem to interact with our characters just a bit differently. Sometimes, whether we like it or not, a certain character and their back story just grab hold and won't let go, and we find ourselves coming back again and again, just to see where the story leads. Of course, sometimes the character goes just the opposite way, and no matter what you do, your stories fall flat and you don't feel enthusiastic about logging on. It may be because you can't stand the character's personality anymore, it may be because your normal group of friends has hit an RP rut or even taken a break for a while themselves, it may be a variety of other things. Recently, Anna of Too Many Annas wrote a pretty awesome article about how to refresh a flagging RP character using 5 Rs: Relax and Rest, Reintegrate, Refresh the Character, Retcon, and Reroll/Reskin.What's sort of cool about this list is that you can even apply a lot of the principles to characters in general, even if you're a non-RPer. Anna's covered the RP angle pretty well, so I'll mostly focus on this other angle.
Bring back the Warlord's Battlegear model
This is absolute bias on my part, and one of the few times I'll cop to preferring Horde over Alliance or favoring them. 99% of the time, I love both equally and play both equally, but I have to state this honestly and let the chips fall where they may: the Horde PvP gear at level 60 (with one exception) looked much better than the Alliance gear, and it deserves a return in some fashion or another.It's true for just about every set, too, but I'll focus on the plate armor because that's what I was going for. I had just gotten my tauren to 60 before Burning Crusade was about to launch, the PvP system changed and honor became a currency instead of a ladder system. As a result, I really only had the time and interest to get the epic 2h sword, as you can see in the picture accompanying my first post here at WoWinsider. I was happy with that sword because it was the first really good weapon I'd ever PvP'd for. Well, the pig on a stick doesn't really count. I just got that to tide me over until I could get the sword. I did love it, though, you kind of had to, it was a big spiky pig head on a stick.
