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Samsung backs an artificial smart window that mimics natural sunlight
Samsung has backed a startup that makes realistically-lit fake windows.
Even Fall Out Boy is ripping off Flappy Bird
Once you've collaborated with everyone from Lil Wayne to Elton John where does a multiplatinum, swoopy-haired emo band like Fall Out Boy go next? The answer is apparently ripping off viral mobile hits. Today, the saddest men in rock music announced via Twitter the upcoming release of "Fall Out Bird" once the app gets approved by the App Store. rome (sic) wasn't built in a day, but this game was. in the spirit of Fall Out Boy Trail (http://bit.ly/1bPGoW9), we bring you Fall Out Bird. coming this week to Google Play and The App Store (as soon it's approved). shoutout to the OG Flappy Bird, RIP This isn't the band's first time dipping their toes in the water of tribute games. In 2009, the band released the aforementioned Fall Out Boy Trail where players reenact the famous Oregon Trail by pulling the band's van with oxen. That game was surprisingly fun, so we're crossing our fingers the band can show the same respect for Flappy Bird that they showed that classic title. Even if they don't, at least this current publicity stunt gave us this wonderful gif.
Audio pioneer Ray Dolby passes away
We've sad news to report today in the world of audio: Ray Dolby has passed on. His death comes relatively soon after losing both Dr. Fritz Sennheiser and Dr. Amar Bose, and as with those two gentlemen, Dolby's legacy will continue to impact viewers and listeners around the globe for many years to come. Dolby founded Dolby Laboratories in 1965, seeking to provide a place for like-minded engineers to "push the limits of sight and sound," as is stated on the outfit's homepage. He is perhaps best known for the Dolby noise-reduction system, and in more modern times, for his company's iconic stamp on just about every major motion picture and piece of AV equipment known to man. Dolby's surround sound magic continues to lead the industry, with Dolby 3D and Dolby Atmos as its latest contributions. Ray Dolby was 80 years old, and is survived by his wife Dagmar as well as sons Tom and David. A tribute video compiled by Dolby Labs can be found after the break.
SWTOR adding killer Ewok companion in 2.3
Ewoks may no longer be number one on the list of George Lucas' crimes against humanity -- we'll give that joint honor to Jar Jar Binks and Howard the Duck -- but they're still pretty polarizing amongst fans of a galaxy far, far away. Naturally, then, BioWare has decided to add a new Ewok combat companion to Star Wars: The Old Republic as part of the forthcoming 2.3 patch. Dulfy.net reports that you'll need to have a level 40 legacy and a million credits to unlock the cuddly little booboo, who also happens to use heavy armor and boasts a heal and tank stance. Dulfy includes plenty of stats and spoilerific cutscene video in the preview article, so click through at your own risk! [Thanks Dengar!]
Total War fan will live on as a character in Rome 2
The Creative Assembly has decided to include the likeness of one of their fans, named James, in the upcoming Total War: Rome 2. James visited the studio last year the day after the game was announced, and unfortunately passed away from a bout with liver cancer just recently. The Creative Assembly says he was the first person in the world from outside the studio to play the game, and character artist Mauro Bonelli offered to assemble a model of James from reference photos and measurements. The screenshot above is a mockup for now, as Creative Assembly community manager Craig Laycock says the company isn't sure where he'll end up. But he will be in there, according to Laycock, and the team is "determined to make it a fitting tribute" to their fan when the game is on shelves later this year.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The end of the city of heroes
"Name?" "Mr. Swift." The small man on the other end of the table sighed as if he'd heard the punchline too many times already. "Sir, I understand that you're unhappy about recent events, but this is a necessity. I don't want to keep you here longer than necessary, but I can throw you in jail for a night for obstructing this audit. I'm not asking for your moniker; I'm asking for your name, and it's only out of politeness." He tapped the side of his laptop for emphasis. "Now before I have to look it up -- your name." It was a little thing, really. But it felt huge. "Orson Herschel Siegal," Swift replied, purposely looking away from the auditor and searching for something in the stark white room to pull his attention away.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The unseen cost of closing City of Heroes
City of Heroes is leaving a lot of victims with its closure: the employees of an excellent and underrated development team, a group of players with a lot of passion and energy, and an entire world that deserves to keep going. But there are a lot of other costs along with all of those, things what we're losing out on that you might not have even considered at the time. At least, not until some writer on the internet decided to call attention to all of those things. Guilty as charged. Those of us who are adamant fans of the game have been lamenting the loss of the game that is. But one of the reasons I tied every single anniversary post with another post looking forward is that City of Heroes has always been a game that moves in both directions. It's a game where a lot of the fun is tied into what it will be. And while there are some directions I've been critical of, there's a lot about what's coming up that's never going to be realized.
Storyboard: Sadface
I have, on occasion, joked that all of my roleplaying characters are either looking for a tragedy or recovering from one. It's not an intentional thing, but for whatever reason, an awful lot of my characters tend to have a whole lot of pain and sorrow wrapped up in their heads. My attempts at making a joke character usually derail to the point that said character is even more depressing, like the mage I played who was supposed to be eccentric and wound up being desperately lonely due to her horrendous inability to focus on any one thing for too long. While it's very easy to go into the depressingly morbid side with a tragic character, we're not going into that this week. (Another week -- you know how I roll by now.) No, this week's problem is much simpler. If you're playing a character who's beset on all sides by misfortune, eventually you're just going to wind up with sadness-induced apathy. You're going to get tired of the fact that your character always fails and never wins and that things get worse every time he or she tries to fix problems. In short, you're going to not want to play the character because said character is just plain depressing.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print
It was probably inevitable, but on Tuesday, it became official: the Encyclopaedia Britannica is finally going out of print. The news was confirmed yesterday by Jorge Cauz, president of Chicago-based Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., who told the New York Times that his company has decided to completely abandon print operations, in favor of its online platform. The announcement marks the end of a remarkable 244-year run for Britannica and its leather-bound tomes, which at one point stood as a hallmark of middle class living rooms and libraries. In fact, it's been barely two decades since the company reached its high water mark, when it sold some 120,000 sets back in 1990. Once the internet came into full bloom, however, Britannica's sales soon plummeted. In 2010, the publisher sold just 8,000 sets, leaving an additional 4,000 unsold copies to gather dust in a warehouse.Tuesday's announcement may mark the end of an era, but Cauz seems to have come to terms with Britannica's decision, calling it a "rite of passage." He's also eager to devote more time to his company's website, which will look to chip away at Wikipedia's market hegemony. Cauz, however, believes the two platforms can (and must) co-exist, because they fill two different roles. "We cannot deal with every single cartoon character, we cannot deal with every love life of every celebrity," he explained. "But we need to have an alternative where facts really matter. Britannica won't be able to be as large, but it will always be factually correct."
RevoDrive Hybrid pairs HDD with SSD on PCIe
Popping up in everything from tablets to servers, plain old solid-state drives are becoming as mundane as floppy disks were in the '90s, so it's about time someone got a little creative with the soldering iron. OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid takes a HDD and puts it where it doesn't belong -- on top of an SSD. But unlike that deep fried Oreo you really shouldn't have "tasted" at the state fair, this pairing has potential to keep the juices flowing, caching reads and writes for both drives on a single PCIe card. Shipping in July, the $350 base Hybrid is expected to include a 500GB HDD and 60GB SSD, with a premium model doubling both capacities (and we assume price). With OCZ out of the memory game, we hope to see the now strictly SSD company bring innovative, affordable flash-based goodies to market, and it looks like we're off to a decent start.
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 series to be phased out, replaced by T400 this year
We're not sure what tea they're being served in the Far East these days, but the peeps at Lenovo have somehow convinced themselves to let go of the legendary 13-inch ThinkPad X301 and replace it with the 14-inch T410s by the end of the year. Ouch. While you mop up the tears pooling around your boots, here's Marketing Director Wang Lipin's reasoning: with the T400 series capable of offering more powerful CPU and GPU at a similar portability but much lower price (we're talking about a $980 difference between the T410s and X301 base models, at the time of writing), the X300 series has since lost its special place in the ultraportable category. It's tough to argue with figures like that, and hey, at least that's one less temptation for the sake of your piggy bank. Or so we're left to tell ourselves.
3D Realms bids fans a simple farewell
Capping off a week that saw the developer close its doors after 21 years of operation and its ridiculously long-in-development Duke Nukem Forever left unfinished, 3D Realms has updated its website with a group staff photo and a brief, somber goodbye to gamers. Community manager Joe Siegler made what is likely his final update to the defunct company's website, posting simply, "Thanks for being fans and for all your support." No, thank you. Thanks for all the great games -- even that one that never came out but provided us with so much gag material over the years. That said, it's time for Joystiq Publishing to begin its next project: 3D Realms Forever. It'll be out next year, promise. [Via Shacknews]
Hackers embed flashing animations on epilepsy support forum
Shortly after hearing a sad tale of a 7-year old cancer patient having his medication and PSP stolen whilst en route to treatment comes yet another story of the world's meanest preying on the innocent. This go 'round, a group of griefers (which appear to be members of Anonymous) managed to invade a support forum established by the nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation and use JavaScript code and messages littered with flashing animations to effectively assault dozens of visitors who suffer from the disorder. The Foundation managed to catch wind of the problem within 12 hours of the attack, and while the boards were closed down temporarily to purge it of offending messages, many readers (such as RyAnne Fultz, pictured) experienced headaches and seizures before rescue arrived. Let's just say we sincerely hope the culprits get what's comin' to 'em.
Flickr Find: Microsoft Amnesty Bin for iPods
From the entry way at Zune headquarters, we bring you today's Flickr Find: the iPod Amnesty Bin. Yeah sure, it's probably "art" more than it's a real "amnesty bin"--but it says something that upon seeing this picture my heart skipped a beat. It's like seeing adorable puppies in a pound. I instinctively wanted to grab those poor sweet neglected iPods into my arms and give them a proper home. Someone ought to notify the association for the prevention of iPod cruelty. As one of the posters at the Flickr page points out, this makes you wonder exactly how many of these iPods were bought by the Zune team to seed the bin and make their point--to which I add, I wonder how quickly that bin is emptying as Zune employees wave goodbye for the day.
The Ouendan experience
With only a week to go before its release in Japan, Nintendo has put up a suite of videos for Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2. In addition to the traditional commercial spot and gameplay trailer, there are five "experience" clips showing people tapping and singing along with the rhythm title's songs. We would post videos of our own experiences with Ouendan, but they'd consist of us sobbing in a corner as we played through "Over the Distance," a heart-rending ghost love story that calls for you to reunite a restless spirit with his grieving girlfriend for one last goodbye. We haven't cried that much since the last time we saw Grave of the Fireflies. Oh the humanity! Bring a tissue when you saunter past the post break for the melancholic scene from the original Ouendan game.
More ridiculous Gamecube Zelda news
Right on the heels that Nintendo of Japan will sell the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess exclusively through their online store, Nintendo of Australia sends yet another blow to our poor, left-handed Link: The GC Zelda will be only be distributed though that prodigal retailer, EB Games. While this in itself isn't quite as bad as an solely online offering, further rumors persist that there will be one shipment and one shipment only, delivered in January (the Australian release date of the GC version).Nintendo appears to be doing everything in their power to discourage the purchase of discs smaller than a standard DVD. They're not technically breaking their promise, but ... dammit. Any Aussies care to speak their mind?[Check out those mad Photoshop skillz!]
Nothing quite as SAD as a phone without LEDs
As anyone who's visited Seattle or Portland or portions of northwest Europe can tell you, all the clouds and gloom can get a little depressing. Those head doctors, they have a term for the effect a lack of sunshine has on your physiology: SAD, or seasonal affective disorder. There's a light at the end of the tunnel for sufferers, however -- one that doesn't require light-box therapy (see: right) or moving to Bermuda. According to the mysteriously unavailable US patent application US 2006/0183516, it would appear someone intends to whip up a phone with 370-450nm LEDs on its face that would light up when the phone is active, providing its user with happy-making simulated light that would ease the symptoms of SADness. (Think of it as the anti-Sergeyphone.) Bonus: LEDs on the 370-450nm wavelength supposedly also supposedly reduce the effects of acne -- a one-two knockout for teenagers living with SAD, zits, and growing up in particularly depressing regions of this island Earth.[Via Textually]
