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LG's latest Bluetooth speakers have passive radiators for extra bass
LG has released the XBoom Go PL lineup that may give you pause for your next Bluetooth speaker buying decision.
LG's latest sound bars feature Dolby Atmos and Google Assistant
LG sells a lot of TVs, so if you're not into a full, eight-speaker home theater system, it wants to sell you a sound bar to go along with it. The problem is, sound bars are kind of boring, so with CES 2019, LG is trying to sex them up. For its three latest sound bars, it has integrated Google Assistant for voice control, offered Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support, teamed up with Meridian Audio for simulated multi-speaker sound and unveiled an all-new, more modern design.
The Art of Wushu: Understanding the Meridian System
Age of Wushu is not the most accessible game. It is full of confusing systems that are hard to decipher, and a large part of the "skill" in the game is being able to wade through the mess of gameplay elements and produce an optimized character. Meridians are one more extremely confusing system to handle. There are nine meridian lines, advanced characters can activate four of them, and even training them at all is pretty confusing. Training the correct ones adds another layer of complexity to an already confusing game. I'm not a huge fan of the system -- it causes a number of metagame problems, particularly due to the increased HP inherent to everyone who trains a meridian line. However, it's there and we have to make the best use of it. How do we do that? Read on!
The Art of Wushu: Launching into Age of Wushu
Age of Wushu just launched publicly today, and as you read this, thousands of players are getting into the game for the very first time. For a lot of you first-time readers, you might be wondering what the heck is this game, why should you play it, and what are some of the community resources for the game? Age of Wushu is an open-world PvP sandbox set in a fictional Ming Dynasty China where traditional MMO elements like sorcery and character levels are eschewed for martial arts and proficiency in a wide variety of different skills. I'm fond of saying that Wushu is "like EVE in China." Many of AoW's features are similar to EVE's systems, including an emphasis on leveling breadth versus depth, a true player economy, and social maneuvering and backstabbing. At the same time, Wushu is a fundamentally different creature, with skill-based gameplay and a much clunkier interface. It's also a bit simpler than EVE, but the barrier of entry is still pretty high. The Art of Wushu column is about lowering that bar a bit, and I'm simultaneously proud and sad to say that the English fan-made wiki still currently provides much less in-depth information than this column does. If you're already playing the game, check out some of the previous articles as they are pretty useful things that I link people to regularly. If you're not a new player yet, well... this one's for you.
Age of Wushu introduces the Meridian system
What do needles and MMOs have to do with each other? Hopefully, normally, thankfully nothing. However, Age of Wushu has drawn inspiration from the Chinese technique and philosophy of acupuncture to draw up its character-building Meridian system. Meridians are sort of like talent trees that can be charged up with "chi," a resource that's accumulated through battles. Each of the nine meridians offers ways to boost abilities, lower skill cooldowns, and change skills. All but one meridian are tied to one of the game's combat schools. Snail Games says that it is possible with a lot of hard work for players to master all nine meridians on a single character.
Meridian Explorer combines headphone amp, portable DAC and $299 price tag
Feel that? If you're an audio purist, the sensation of your wallet tingling is probably a familiar experience. This time, you have Meridian to thank, which is aiming to help you get the most from your nice headphones. The company just debuted the Explorer: a portable, USB-powered DAC and headphone amplifier that's priced at $299. Like all external DACs, the unit promises better sound quality than typical onboard solutions can deliver, and as a high-end touch, the Explorer offers asynchronous USB audio for greater timing precision and reduced jitter. Alongside the 3.5mm amplified headphone output, you'll also find another 3.5mm jack that supports both analog and mini Toslink connections. Each Explorer is built in the UK and measures approximately 4.0 x 1.25 x 0.7 inches. Perhaps most importantly, though, its design doesn't reek of something that was cobbled together in the garage.
Meridian launches indoor GPS SDK, Macy's first to launch with it embedded
Meridian's indoor GPS technology has been the sole preserve of companies prepared to build their apps from inside Meridian's custom editor. Now, however, it's opened up the platform, introducing a pair of SDKs that let use anyone use its coveted Nav Kit and Blue Dot know-how to help people get around cavernous public spaces. Tested in locations like Miami Children's Hospital, Sydney Airport and Macy's, users will be able to get turn-by-turn directions to help them find their gate, offspring or this season's must-have look -- with the latter the first to launch a mobile app built with the technology.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Tackling the question of which is better
From the first day that RIFT launched, an endless debate has erupted around one central issue. Players have chosen their sides and dug in deep defending them. It's led to countless arguments and a six-month battle that gets worse with each passing day. For this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I've decided to tackle this debate head on and really look at what divides the two sides. That's right -- the time has come to finally decide which is better: Guardian or Defiant.
An iOS developer's take on Android development
iOS developers who create successful products for Apple's mobile platforms are often faced with feedback from potential users asking "When are you going to move XYZ over to the Android platform?" Developer Nick Farina is the co-founder of Meridian Apps, a company that develops a platform for creating location-based apps. Yesterday Farina published a long, detailed treatise on the differences between iOS and Android development, both good and bad. Some of his findings? Apple has made it easy to start writing iOS Apps -- you download the free Xcode installer from the Mac App Store and go. For Android, you need to download the SDK, set up Eclipse (a Java IDE), and then install the Google ADT plugin. Eclipse is slow and bloated, but once you become familiar with it, "it'll basically write your code for you." The Objective C code for iOS and the Java code for Android ended up "looking strikingly similar." The Android Emulator is horribly slow. He suggests buying several Android devices for debugging instead, since it's actually quicker to deploy and test the app on a device, and you'll want to test against fragmentation caused by different devices and OS versions. It's very easy to make Android UI layouts that automatically resize for different device screen sizes and orientations. Animation on iOS devices, dependent on OpenGL, is "hopelessly fast." Android didn't place a requirement for a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on device manufacturers, so animation is limited by the software-based compositing system. Farina notes that Android is actually the third platform they've created Meridian for. The first was Windows Mobile, with iOS being the second. All in all, Farina takes a pragmatic point of view about developing for different platforms -- "There will always be new platforms and new paradigms to learn. The best we can do is to understand where each one came from, and to embrace the positives and overcome the negatives as quickly as possible so we can ship some awesome features before everything changes again." [via DaringFireball]
Enter at Your Own Rift: Sightseeing in Sanctum
One of the things I love about RIFT is its smaller, more intimate feel. Don't get me wrong -- there's still plenty of space to explore and get lost in, but the space that is present is used to great effect and isn't just there to make it seem bigger for bigger's sake. This is echoed in the two capital cities of the game, Sanctum (Guardian) and Meridian (Defiant). Both are gorgeously detailed and impressive in their own way, yet they're comfortable and accessible instead of sprawling and vast. If one thinks of the quest hubs, camps and villages dotting the world as mom and pop stores, then the capital cities are the Walmarts of RIFT: one-stop shops for all your character's needs. They're both fairly compact, although I found myself preferring Sanctum's beachfront atmosphere and circular layout over Meridian's underground labyrinth. Because all players will be traveling to and extensively using capital cities during the course of their in-game careers, I figured we might as well take a look at what capital cities -- Sanctum specifically -- have to offer. Jump on our people-mover as we wind our way through the sights and sounds of civilization!
Make your travel plans to visit Rift's majestic Meridian city!
If your tastes run more to the technological terrors of Rift: Planes of Telera's Defiant, then prepare to get to know Meridian, the faction's capital, quite well. Spitting in the eye of the old gods, Meridian is a cutting-edge metropolis full of harnessed magics, steampunk wonders and rogue water elementals. Although it is on the front lines of the great world war, Meridian still prides itself on its beauty and elegance, as evidenced by soaring towers and technomagic constructs. The city will offer players a quick travel system via portals, which allows a character to instantly zip to any portal he or she has already discovered. There are secret places to uncover, colorful characters such as Sparky the potion-mixing automaton to meet, and plenty of places to drop your coin in exchange for goods and services. You can read a guided tour of the city and watch the quick one-minute flyby of Meridian after the jump.
Meridian launches M80 high-end compact entertainment system, we yawn
If you'd have asked us back in 2008 to predict what new features a successor to Meridian's Ferrari co-branded F80 compact entertainment system would have, things like HD video playback in the form of an HD DVD or Blu-ray player, an HDMI connection and iPod integration would have been no-brainers. So forgive us if we're less than impressed now that the M80 has arrived, sporting what appears to be only a minor exterior make-over and the companion i80 iPod Dock packaged in as a bonus. Is it nice to get both products for less than its Italian sports car-taxed predecessor? Sure. But we'd really like to see more from Meridian than a few pieces of hand-tooled English leather supporting its still bankruptcy-inspiring $2,995 MSRP. %Gallery-98939%
Meridian fires up its CES party with Sooloos whole-home audio
It's been about a year since Meridian picked up Sooloos, and the fruits of the acquisition are coming at you, whole-home style. The new ID40 Sooloos Card can be dropped into select Meridian 800-series components to open up network audio streaming and play queue control. The new 808.3 Signature Reference CD player gets an ID40 bundled, and it's an option on the 861 Reference Digital Surround Controller (now in its sixth version and ready to gobble up 8-channels of audio from a HD621 HDMI Audio Processor). Just in case a $9,900 $5,000 Control 10 qualifies as a handy remote to you, there's also an iPhone / iPod touch app as well. Full details in the press releases, but those with mortal budgets might feel more at home with something like Sonos or Logitech. EDIT: The $9,900 Control 10 package includes an Ensemble server unit.
Near Death Studios closes down
If 2009 hadn't claimed quite enough lives for your tastes quite yet -- in terms of companies, jobs, and games -- you might have a bit of a morbid approach to things. We're just over the border into the new year, but it looks like there was one last item on the chopping block. Near Death Studios, the team behind Meridian 59, is no longer simply "near" death, but over the line into pining for the fjords. Brian 'Psychochild' Green broke the news on his blog yesterday, announcing that while the game wouldn't be going anywhere, it would no longer be a commercial venture run by the now-defunct company. So what went wrong? As Green puts it, while Near Death Studios was able to raise the money and the operational talent to get the game running and keep it in maintenance mode, the game never really grew -- the one shot it might have had at attracting new players was unfortunately timed right around the launch of World of Warcraft. He's not bitter about the experience, however, and he's glad that he had the chance to keep Meridian 59 running for such a long time and help shape something people really enjoyed. It's a sad announcement for a venerable game, though, and we can only hope that this is the last of the fallout we see from the closing-filled year.
MeridianSooloos produce first jointly developed touchpanel: Control 10
Given just how zany the past few months have been in the HD world, you probably forgot all about Meridian and Sooloos' little tie-up back in December. Lo and behold, the newly conjoined company has just released its first jointly developed product, the Control 10 touchscreen. The device integrates Meridian's proprietary connectivity with a Sooloos touchscreen in order to create what's called the "most user-friendly media-access solution yet." For those with lots of Meridian equipment, it'll be hard to let this one pass given just how well it'll integrate, and there's also RS-232 for more widespread control. Hop on past the break for the nitty-gritty, but only after you've grown comfortable with the $5,000 asking price.
Sooloos delivers RackMount media server models at no extra cost
So far as we can tell, this is the first major product introduction from Sooloos since it was acquired by Meridian Audio Limited in December 2008. For those who've already plunked down for one of the company's music management devices, you'd be better off holding your ears and scrolling down with haste. For everyone else, you should know that Sooloos's Source, Twinstore and Ensemble units will now be available in a 2U rackmount enclosure for -- get this -- no additional cost. The mountable iterations will include internal fans for heat dispersion and a front-panel power switch, though functionally everything will remain the same. Pays to wait sometimes, huh? The full release (prices included) is after the break.
Meridian's HD621 HDMI Audio Processor breaks out the audio, but keeps it in-house
A 6:1 HDMI switch with audio breakouts is something we'd normally look to Gefen for, but we're not surprised to see that Meridian has introduced its own wrinkle to the formula in its HD621 HDMI Audio Processor. In addition to routing one of the six HDMI sources to the output, the $3000 box will separate out the audio signal (up to 8 channels) on a single RJ45 connection in the Meridian Multichannel High Resolution or four RCA jacks, each carrying two channels of Meridian High Resolution data. It's all nice and proprietary, but c'mon -- did you expect anything else from a company that has never shied away from creating its own standards? Needless to say, only those interested in an all-Meridian system need apply.
Splurge on some Meridian gear this holiday, score two extra years of warranty
Honestly, we picture the typical Meridian customer as the "if it breaks, I'll just buy a new one" type, but we honestly don't know any Meridian owners who we can hit up for hand-me-downs. More importantly, everyone is looking for a value-add these days, so Meridian is offering an extra two years of warranty coverage for purchases made between now and February of next year. So if you've been on the fence about that $35,000 DSP7200 speaker setup, now is a great time to jump in; if you're looking for a way to pitch the $185,000 Reference Video System to your "finance committee," this could be the deal-closer. Heck, even if you're just curious to dose your kitchen countertop with a little Ferrari-approved luxe, you can do so now with the assurance that the "flawless craftsmanship" will hold up an extra couple of years. Kind of puts Bryston's long-standing 20-year warranty in perspective, doesn't it?
Meridian picks up Sooloos, and isn't telling anything more
In tough economic times, it's not unusual to see consolidation among companies as big fish gobble up smaller ones. We didn't really see Meridian's acquisition of Sooloos in our crystal ball, but there's some definite synergy going on here; with Meridian's adoption of SpeakerLink for ethernet distribution of control and data and Sooloos' 17-inch Control:One touchscreen, there's some interesting possibilities. One thing's for sure, the two companies are targeting the same affluent, tech-lifestyle crowd; but we're all left to speculate. Meridian didn't disclose any immediate plans, let alone terms of the deal -- we're guessing some number of $3000 F80s was involved.
Meridian spreads its SpeakerLink all-in-one connection up and down the line
Meridian's SpeakerLink all-digital, single cable solution for moving audio, communications and control bits between components has major appeal for going with an all-Meridian system -- higher performance and more integrated control are always good things in entertainment devices. Pity is, the active digital speakers and associated components cost a pretty penny; but if you're shopping Meridian, we're guessing cost is no barrier to entry. If you spring for the company's flagship DSP8000 speaker, you'll get a nice RJ-45 jack right onboard for a SpeakerLink connection; if your means are more modest (relatively speaking), then you'll need an AC11 hub that breaks a SpeakerLink connection out to a Meridian Comms port (DIN or BNC) and S/PDIF audio. The AC11 goes for $995, the DSP8000 are safely in the "if you have to ask" realm north of $40,000 per pair.
