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Apple debuts two Holiday Get a Mac Ads
Apple released two new Get a Mac ads, just in time for the holiday season. The two ads, entitled "I Can Do Anything," and "Tree Trimming," are animated, and very amusing. In the I Can Do Anything ad [direct video link], PC shows off what he can do because he is animated. He then talks to a rabbit that is on its way to the Apple Store.In the Tree Trimming ad [direct video link], Mac and PC are decorating a tree. When PC plugs in the tree, Mac discovers that the lights actually say... well, we don't want to spoil it (sorry!).You can watch both of the ads by visiting the Get a Mac ad website.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Sharp fires up 43 LCD tree for the ho-ho-HOPE Program
New Yorkers passing through Grand Central Terminal will be treated to a 26-foot high holiday bush ensconced in, you guessed it, 43 Sharp LCD panels -- 52-inch behemoths at the base and 19-inch models way at the tip-top. Oohs, ahs and festive lighting aside, the display is meant to raise donations for the HOPE program's "Green Collar Project" that will help students find a green-collar job related to environmental work. Snicker all you want about the heat pumped out by those 52-inch LCDs, but it the tree as a whole beats its plasma counterpart and it's a good cause to boot. Enter to win one of the 43 deciduous panels and $1 will be donated to the program, up to $100,000 (and with a minimum of $50,000). Good on you, Sharp!
MIT gurus dream up self-sustaining sensor network for preventing forest fires
Thanks, MIT. Why don't you just make the rest of the world feel a little more useless. Every week or so, we're forced to stare at yet another amazing invention coming from your doors; to be frank, it's just downright unfair. All childish angst aside, the latest idea to come from the institution is one that could certainly be put to good use: a self-sustaining sensor network that taps into trees for power in order to continuously monitor forests for threats of fire. Moreover, the concept could be applied in other scenarios as well -- to detect potential threats such as smuggled contraband along a nation's borders, perhaps. Testing of the wireless sensor network (developed by the appropriately named Voltree Power) is scheduled to begin next spring, and we're hearing that pot-sniffing turtles may even be brought in to create a completely natural self-policing environment.[Via Inhabitat]
Barrens Chat: Encore
I don't get to play World of Warcraft very often anymore. Real life comes up and gets in the way all the time, and then you have to sit back and listen to your friends talk about how much fun they've had in the past few weeks you've been away. So you sit, and you wait, and eventually you get time to log on again, run around, and have a jolly old time. Especially when you get to hang out with good people.I've never had Ventrilo or any other sort of microphone attachment that would broadcast my voice across the Internet. For one point, I'd have to break down and buy a headset of some sort. Knowing me I'd likely break it within a week, so I'd actually need to buy two, but that's alright. The other reason is, I'm not entirely sure I want the ability to hear other absent minded people like me babbling to themselves, forgetting the rest of the world can hear them. %Gallery-22361%
Illusionary Tactics: Tree's Company
Illusionary Tactics documents my perfectly reasonable preoccupation with items and quests that change your appearance. After all, how long can you really look at one character's back before you start getting tired of it? So much better to turn into a tree periodically. (No, I'm not talking about you, Druids; your column is that way.) Blizzard must have really had a good time designing the Draenei and Blood Elf starting areas for Burning Crusade; there are a lot of great and frequently hilarious quests there, and this is one of them. The reason I'm talking about it here is because it's one of them that happens to turn you into a tree. Although I find it unlikely that anyone would want to avoid spoilers for a level 8 quest chain, I'll put the rest of the discussion behind a cut just in case.
Arena Tournament: Tales from day one
Last night, the WoW Insider arena team stepped into battle for the first time on the arena tournament realms, and it was immediately apparent that things were going to be quite different from our experiences on the tournament test realms. For starters, there were way fewer people. I also noticed that, contrary to my expectations that everyone shelling out an extra $20 to play here would be a hardcore arena-goer, there were many people on just to have fun. General chat was full of people who didn't know where to go, how to allocate their talent points, and even people who hadn't formed teams yet!Still, despite the fact the vendor areas had a drastically reduced population, the queues were amazingly short, as Adam points out. Often, I was reading that my team had joined the queue at the same time I was clicking to enter the battle.
Around Azeroth: Hungry Devilsaurs need their fiber too
Player Ariochlee of the Ghostland realm was questing in Un'goro Crater when he came across this tree. And as anyone who spent any time in that jungle oasis in the desert knows, this is a sign that something large and prehistoric is sneaking up behind you to send you on a one way trip to the graveyard. Boy, I don't miss that place.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. This means you. I'm not kidding, yours is not the exception. No, really. Sigh.%Gallery-1816%
The Solar Trees of Vienna: a Lovegrove, if you will
Behold the Solar Trees of Vienna, set to be unveiled in front of the MAK Museum on October 8th. It's just the latest from Ross Lovegrove who's already graced our pages with his Muon speaker and System X lighting system. Developed in coordination with Italian lighting Co. Artemide and solar cell Co. Sharp Solar, the installation could help wash away the godless hellscape of urban decay in the sweet bouquet of luminescent Lilies. Or not, depending upon its practical application. So if anyone happens to be in the area during the unveiling at 20.30 local time, by all means, send us some pictures and your thoughts -- Detroit awaits your response.[Via Inhabitat]
Shifting Perspectives: How to group with a Druid part 3
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by David Bowers and Dan O'Halloran. This it the last in a series of features talking about How To Group With A Druid. I've already covered bear tanks, cat druids and Moonkin. Today, I will be exploring what Restoration druids bring to a 5 man group as well as what they don't do. If you feel I've left out any important points, be sure to leave a comment below! We love comments like healers love aggro control. WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A RESTORATION DRUID HEALING: Druids are built to be solid healers in both regular and heroic 5 man instances. They don't have to drop 40+ talent points to be good at it. Don't be surprised if you're druid healer is actually specced 31 points in Balance and 30 points in Restoration. That's more than enough for them to get you through alive. On the other hand, don't be screaming for healing non-stop if you are not the main tank. It's your job to control your aggro, not the healers job to blow half his mana on non-tanks. I understand mistakes happen, wandering mobs appear out of nowhere, the MT gets overwhelmed and loses control of an add or two. But if the healer is dumping more healing on you than the MT for every encounter, you need to scale back your dps or talk to your tank about their taunt tactics.
A failed real life attempt at a WoW quest
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/A_failed_real_life_attempt_at_a_WoW_quest'; Any readers in the audience who have played through the Draenei starting area (and you should -- it's a fun zone) must remember the Tree's Company quest, in which you are asked to disguise yourself as a tree in order to overhear a secret meeting. Well, while there's no suggestion that World of Warcraft was involved, this weekend a man in Manchester, New Hampshire robbed a bank while disguised as a tree. (He made off with less than $1000 and was later caught.) Obviously, the tree disguise idea doesn't work nearly as well in real life as it did in the game -- as you can see in the security footage to the right, the disguise just isn't working.[via Boing Boing]
Virtually Overlooked: Spiritual Warfare
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative. Saying that Spiritual Warfare is the best game Wisdom Tree ever made doesn't really encourage anyone to give it a look. Wisdom Tree doesn't exactly have a reputation for excellence, and most unlicensed NES games in general were spectacularly bad. So, to put a finer point on our meaning, here's a controversial statement: Spiritual Warfare is mostly not terrible.
Nintendo Power shutting down?
We attempted to think of something witty and clever to start the post off with a bang, but in the end, it would just be inappropriate. For at least one of us here on staff, Nintendo Power delivered the very first experience to the concept of gaming journalism.Recent reports, however, have indicated that massive layoffs have been implemented at the publication. This is by no means an official announcement, but certainly either a massive downsizing or outright cancellation. NP has been putting out their pages for nineteen whole years, and it would be a great loss to the gaming community to see such a mainstay eliminated.That said, our brilliant coverage of all things Wii and DS have probably helped in some small way to facilitate this grim news. Oops. Also, will this affect the tentative plans to bring legacy NP content to the Virtual Console? If they have to die, let their memory at least by memorialized in style.
EnergyTree PC concept ransoms a tree to make you conserve energy
Taking a much more, um, direct approach to educating consumers about the need to conserve energy, the EnergyTree concept PC presents a simple proposition to the user: use energy efficiently, and the tree contained within the case will be cared for. Get greedy with the juice (by joining the Engadget Folding@home team, for example), and the tree will be straight-up poisoned and killed. The concept, by UK evil genius designer Ben Arent, was recently picked as one of the 34 finalists in the 2007 Microsoft StartSomething design competition. The tree PC (treeputer?) contains a host of sensors and interfaces to monitor energy usage in an entire house, and can even turn ancillary devices on and off to keep your energy usage low (and that tree alive). While it's interesting to see an explicit attempt to turn energy consumption into an emotional experience, we think we're going to stick with those EnergyStar stickers -- they never threaten to kill anything.[Via Crave]
Put down that gamepad and climb a bloody tree!
British paper Daily Mail complains that kids aren't climbing trees anymore -- because they're playing video games. The story, which mentions trees and the climbing thereof no fewer than 13 times, reports that while the number of kids diagnosed with RSI (repetitive strain injury) has risen over the last seven years, "the number of children treated for falling out of trees" has dropped. Seriously. This is the basis for a newspaper article.The piece is a wistful reminiscence of days gone by -- the dewy-eyed headline is "PlayStation generation that will never climb a tree." More like, "Daily Mail longs for the time when 472 kids fell from trees every hour." Now that's a headline!We here at Joystiq are eagerly anticipating the year 3267, when Daily Mail will run a piece entitled "Zyfnort generation that will never hold a SixAxis." (The Zyfnort is a game console you control not with your hands, but, ironically enough, by repeatedly falling out of trees.)
DS Daily: Headphones?
The DS Lite's speakers are certainly nothing to be ashamed of. They deliver fairly crisp sound (Elite Beat Agents is a wonderful example) at a decent volume. Still, is this enough in public places? Or are you simply too embarrassed for some games' vibrational happiness to be transmitted to the people around you?Certainly, headphones can offer a more immersive experience in a game. However, the inconvenience of having to carry around an extra device may outweigh the benefits for some. Do you use headphones, and if you do, are they a quality set? How often do you use them? Let's hear it, people.And if a tree falls in the woods, it totally makes a sound. That question is ridiculous.
Breeze: because robotic trees are better
As any mad scientist can tell you, all things natural can be improved upon through robotics. In homage to this axiom we bring you the robotic tree, Breeze, the horrific robotonous embodiment of juvenescent nightmares. Described as an ambient robot inhabiting the body of a Japanese Maple, Breeze can "visually sense" and react "allowing her to reach out to you and others whenever you are near." Its "subtle and artistic" movement is created through Nitinol wires which flex like muscles when electrical current is applied. Of course, it's only a matter of time until DARPA advances the technology into a forest of seemingly passive attack trees with razor sharp leaves and poisonous needles. Lorax, can you look into this... Lorax?[Via Robot Gossip]
Apples grow on trees
The Cult of Mac is pointing to the above photo from Badtech.org. Who knew iMacs and Powermacs would come from the same tree? There's no explanation for the photo, so it's pretty much a mystery. If you're familiar with this display, let us know!
