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Obtrusive ads, lackluster design limit Bear Hunt's potential
Bear Hunt is a simple time killer in which you're given a slingshot to target bears nearby in the forest. As they walk by or potentially attack, pull the sling back to hit them with a boulder. The game features a few modes like classic and time race, plus online multiplayer. The goal is to reach each level's target score and best it in the next level. It also has a few other tricks up its sleeve too like a secret rocket launcher. Bear Hunt is completely free and available for iPhone and iPad. I don't like to start off on a bad note, but in this case it's completely warranted. Just about everything with this game's design is cringeworthy. The animations and graphics are amateur, navigation is inconsistent and the number of pop-up ads is just shameful. It's even more frustrating tapping the "X" and accidentally tapping the ad and getting yanked out of the app. This seriously hinders the usability of the game and deserves attention. Moving along after that brief rant, let's get to the meat of Bear Hunt. Starting off in single player mode, you have Classic mode, Time Race and Practice to choose from. Classic starts out with just walking bears, but eventually the attack setting unlocks where they get a bit more aggressive. Regardless, you get one minute and 30 seconds to reach the target score. Achieve this by using your slingshot on the bears. The farther away the bear, the more points you score for hitting it. Hit the same bear up to three times to completely destroy it and gain points each time. In Time Race, the target score becomes not a matter of if you get there, but rather a matter of when. A stopwatch begins when you press Play and you have to race to reach your target score and beat the record each level in seconds and minutes. At any point a bunny might appear out of the ground for a few seconds. If you successfully take a shot at the bunny, your slingshot turns into a rocket launcher which automatically targets and destroys all bears within your field of vision for the next few shots or so, granting you the chance to quickly rack up points. Multiplayer mode uses a third-party service to set up matches between Facebook friends or other online players, but it doesn't always work and it's ultimately pretty forgettable. Bear Hunt doesn't have any in-app purchases, but wow for once do I absolutely wish there was. I can't make it through a single round without up to three ads appearing all at once. Even just a US$0.99 upgrade to get rid of the ads that haunt me once and for all would suffice. Fun to play in practice, but Bear Hunt lacks solid design and stability. I can't possibly overstate how annoying those ads are, too. You might get some enjoyment out of it if you need to kill a few minutes of time, but you won't miss out on much by passing up on this download. Bear Hunt is free for iOS in the App Store.
Researchers want to make tech more accessible for animals, too
Studying human-computer interaction is certainly nothing new. With a growing trend of using gadgets to work with animals,though, a new conference aims to further research into our furry (and not so furry) friends' tech tendencies. In November, scientists will attend the International Congress on Animal Human Computer Interaction for presentations on how the use of cellphones, tablets and more can further research, becoming more useful for creatures of all kinds. As Popular Science points out, many of the uses we've seen so far are touch-based, so it'll be interesting to see what new methods of interaction attendees can devise. For now, here's an orangutan using an iPad to decide on lunch. [Photo credit: Aaron Davidson/Getty Images]
A sheep dog's herding instinct may teach robots a lesson in crowd control
Here's a noodle-scratcher to occupy yourself with for a few moments: what makes a sheep dog so darned good at rounding up the woolly ruminants they're named after? A possible answer - according to The Telegraph, researchers at Swansea University believe those dogs are constantly searching for and minimizing the gaps between the sheep before it herds them all forward. What's the big deal? Well, those very same researchers think that behavior can be boiled down into an algorithm that could be used to (among other things) program robots to replace those savvy canines. Sure, some old-school shepherds may scoff, but using awkward-looking machines to round up livestock isn't exactly new territory. And if a robot can "understand" how to steer some relatively dumb animals around a field, it stands to reason that logic could be used to guide other organisms around... like humans trying to escape a burning building, for instance. No, really! Swansea University's Dr. Andrew King says there's a whole host of ways to adapt that animal knowledge into robotic know-how, like "crowd control, cleaning up the environment, herding of livestock, [and] keeping animals away from sensitive areas".
Incredible photo of a Snow Monkey using an iPhone
Forget Photoshop, what you're looking at is the real deal -- a Japanese Snow Monkey just chllin' in some water using an iPhone. The photo above (used with permission) was taken by the talented and award winning Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten at the Jigokudani Monkey Park in Japan. As you might imagine, there's an interesting story behind this incredible photo of a Snow Monkey, which are otherwise known as Japanese macaques. Writing for 500px, Klassy Goldberg caught up with van Oosten who detailed how the shot came to be. While visiting the park earlier this year, van Oosten was joined by a group of tourists who put the cameras on their iPhones and iPads in overdrive taking photos of the unique and beautiful creatures. We were standing close to the edge of the hot spring, when one of the tourists started taking shots with her iPhone, moving the phone closer to the macaque after each shot. Suddenly, the macaque grabbed the iPhone from her hands-and quickly moved away towards the middle of the hot spring! The owner screamed in agony, but the macaque was too fascinated by its new toy to notice. The minutes that followed were downright hilarious. Monkeys already resemble humans in so many ways, but when they're holding an iPhone, the similarities are almost scary. At some point, it even managed to let the built-in flash of the iPhone go off. When the macaque decided to do some serious underwater testing, the owner of the phone almost fainted. Meanwhile, I was fully aware that this would result in some of the most original snow monkey shots ever. Can't argue with that. van Oosten already has a few wildlife photography awards under his belt and the shot above of a Snow Monkey -- perhaps using Facebook or checking up on World Cup scores -- might net him another. Make sure to check out the photo on the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year competition website. The photo is in the running for the People's Choice Award where you can give it a vote. Hell, maybe the Snow Monkey already voted himself! As an addendum to the story, van Oosten told me that the iPhone was eventually recovered but was no longer working.
Album of inaudible animal sounds puts you inside the head of a bat
Even with fancy Hi-Fi equipment, the weak link is often our ears and their limited 20Hz-20,000Hz hearing range. As pointed out by Motherboard, artist Jane Winderen wants you to get a feeling for what it's like to be a whale or bat with her "Out of Range" album. To do that, she used special equipment to record bat echolocation signals, marine vocalizing and other sub- and ultrasonic sounds from glaciers, oceans, and forests. From there, she slowed frequencies as high as 100KHz until they became audible, then mixed them with other exotic sounds that are within our hearing range. The end result (below) is hypnotic 40 minute recording of sounds that normally pass you right by.
PS Vita Pets plays fetch on June 3
PlayStation Vita Pets, the pet simulation-meets-adventure game from Spiral House, will launch June 3 in North America and June 4 in Europe. In the game, players choose from four different dogs, care for them, then explore Castlewood Island to "uncover the long lost legend of a king and his dog." Sony's answer to Nintendogs was announced in August, at which point it was revealed that the animals in the game talked like humans. PlayStation Blog noted today that the game features roughly 10,000 lines of spoken dialogue, which is around 10,000 more lines than you'd expect to hear out of any animal. [Image: SCEE]
Total War: Rome 2 DLC adds scorpion bombs, angry dogs
Thanks to the Beasts of War DLC pack for historical strategy hit Total War: Rome 2, now you too can cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war - alongside the elephants of war, bees of war, camels of war, snakes of war and scorpions of war.
Endangered species get helping hand from Microsoft, Zoo Tycoon
Community challenges for Zoo Tycoon players will benefit more than just virtual animals, thanks to donations from Microsoft. Each month, a new challenge will be issued by Zoo Tycoon developer Frontier. When the challenge has been completed, Microsoft will donate $10,000 to whichever nonprofit organization the players have voted for. Each challenge is focused on a different endangered species, with the first round of voting underway. Players can vote for one of the three following challenges from the in-game community page: Adopt 1,000 komodo dragons in Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft and AZA will donate $10,000 to support the Komodo Survival Program's work with the Indonesian Government to protect this species. Release 1,000 rhinos to the wild in Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft and Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) will donate $10,000 to help protect and deter further poaching of rhino horns in Africa. Release 1,000 sumatran tigers into the wild in Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft and AZA will donate $10,000 to the Tiger Species Survival Program to help reduce the number of sumatran tigers killed, displaced or caught in snares. When voting closes on December 31, the winning challenge will begin.
We now live in a world with two pet-based social networking apps
I love my cats, and I take photos of them frequently and with reckless abandon. That said, I'm not entirely sure I need more than one specialized app just for sharing photos of Nibbler and Cinnamon (don't judge me). Regardless, a couple of months after the iOS version of Peterest hit the scene, we now have Petigram. OK, so pet photo apps clearly still need to work on original naming schemes, but we'll ignore that for the moment. Petigram offers the ability to share photos, follow other users, and post comments. Its main selling point, however, is the built-in photo editing tools that let you add borders, text and other obnoxious graphics. At the moment, the app is quite buggy (you can post blank comments, buttons are sometimes unresponsive, etc.) but for a 1.XX version, it's not terrible. If you really want to share photos of your furry friends somewhere other than Facebook or Twitter, I'd still recommend Peterest as your first stop -- it simply has a better layout and more-polished features -- though Petigram may also be worth checking up on down the road.
Google adds zoos to Street View, heroically avoids calling it 'Street Zoo'
Granted, the name "Street View" doesn't really apply like it used to, but who's going to argue with a feature like this? Google announced today that it's added imagery from zoos all over the world to the Maps feature, meaning that you can check out lions, tigers and red pandas in their unnatural habits and avoid the long lines at the monkey house. Google's got links to the zoo shots in the source link below, including locations in Singapore, Germany, Spain, the UK and China -- sadly there are no dog lions, however, so far as we can tell.
Take a tour of Final Fantasy XIV's monsters
It's no secret that Final Fantasy XIV will host quite a number of monsters. Some of those are already familiar to players from both the beta weekends and from the original game, but there are a lot of monsters even after you count those. The team behind the game has put together a new trailer showing off the various monsters and humanoid enemies that players will encounter on the fields of Eorzea. Some of these will be familiar, such as spriggans and coblyns. Some will be unfamiliar in Eorzea but familiar to fans of the series, such as the behemoth and the tonberry. And others are imported from other games or are completely novel. So whether it runs, flies, crawls, swims, or portals through the void, you can see it in the video embedded just past the break. And then you can spend the next week before testing guessing at how you're going to kill it.
Daily iPad App: Peterest is Pinterest for your pets
What do people most use the internet for? Corresponding with loved ones? Reading news? Buying useless things on eBay? None of the above. The correct answer, of course, is to look at pictures of adorable animals. The creators of the website Peterest -- and its new iOS companion app - have clearly stumbled upon this fact long ago, using the knowledge to create an app with the sole purpose of letting people share photos of their pets. As the name suggests, Peterest is very much a Pinterest clone with added furry flavor, letting users favorite photos from other users and create a collection of cute pets pics. You can save and store the names of your pets within the app and use that info to tag each photo you submit. All of your submitted pictures are linked to either your Peterest account (which you can sign up for within the app) or your Facebook account. When browsing the photos other users have submitted, you can sort via date or popularity, but sadly there is no option to sort via pet type. Personally, I'd stay in the "Cat" section permanently. Unfortunately, that's not the only area where the app falls short of its potential. At the moment, Peterest is very, very basic. Aside from submitting and browsing photos, there is little else you can do. There is no comment feature, which is a real letdown. There is no ability to follow other users, and there's not even the option to see who favorited your own submitted pictures. On top of that, there's not even an option to add an avatar to your account unless you link with Facebook, leaving you with the default blank face icon. Peterest could really be a fantastic time killer -- and in some ways it's already a fine way to kill a lunch break -- but it definitely needs to be fleshed out before it approaches greatness. The app is free, so there's no harm in downloading it now and waiting for the much-needed features to eventually appear, if they ever do. For now, I'll just keep submitting photos of my cats and pretending everyone loves them.
Daily iPhone App: Solara stands out from the clash of clones
Clash of Clans is one of the freemium sim titles making lots of money on the App Store, and so it's no surprise that the market has been flooded with clones lately; games where you build up a town Farmville-style, and then send troops from that town out into the world to complete quests. Solara is one of these: You use gold earned by building shops in town to create more buildings and unlock heroes, and then you can use those heroes to defeat monsters and earn more gold. But what sets Solara off from the rest of games like this on the App Store is its design and charm. This isn't just a generic freemium title. First time iOS developer Esper Labs has put plenty of heart into the different facilities you build and the heroes you level up, and that extra effort makes the game's familiar cycle shine. Unfortunately, Solara still leans a bit too much towards the casual side for some hardcore fans -- personally, I'd like a little more action in the battles. As it is now, they essentially just play out without any input from the player, which can be frustrating when you've made a mistake lining up your team. Most of the depth comes from choosing your heroes to fight, which all have different skills and strengths. But it'd be nice to see a developer try to really make the periodic fights in these games actual tests of skill or game knowledge, rather than just animations (which are skippable, even) playing out as they go. Still, Esper Labs is looking for that huge Clash of Clans audience, and that audience is completely fine with just letting the game play itself. If you haven't tried one of these games yet, or maybe have gotten tired of just playing CoC all the time, Solara's worth a look. It's a well-made game with a cycle that's just as addictive as always, and of course it's free to play. I do wish, however, that instead of just adding its design talent to the standard formula, Esper Labs had tried to add a little bit more.
Animal Planet critter livestreams arrive on Samsung Smart TVs, coming to Roku and Xbox Live
Say goodbye to the passé virtual aquarium. Animal Planet has launched a collection of 11 HD 24/7 Ustream-powered live streams under the banner Animal Planet L!VE, which feature animals ranging from beluga whales to cockroaches. The free critter footage is already being piped to APL.tv and Samsung Smart TVs Viewers can choose between watching ants, calves, chicks, cockroaches, beluga whales, fish swimming about in a pacific coral reef, kittens, penguins, puppies, sea nettles and wild birds. In case catching them on your smart TV or browser weren't enough, the cable channel's creature casts are coming to Roku and Xbox Live "in the coming months."
Looking at the wildlife of WildStar's Galeras region
If the pirates, bandits, ancient machines, and military forces in WildStar weren't bad enough, players are going to be contending with a lot of the native wildlife. Last week's WildStar Wednesday focused on the top-level overview of the Galeras region, but this week is focused on the local flora and fauna, which are just as dangerous as the invading armies with gunships. More so, in some ways, as a stemdragon doesn't care why you're on its land, just that you are. Stemdragons have been seen by fans before, having starred as the antagonist in the game's first trailer. Buzzbings and Scrabs are new, however -- the former is an insect the size of a small car that traps its enemies with honey, the latter is a cross between a beetle and a crab with thick armor and a propensity for burrowing. Read more on the tactics of these monsters and the lore surrounding them in the full article.
Minecraft's latest snapshot has a witchy woman
Minecraft is getting a Halloween-related update in October, and among a slew of other changes (including updated sounds) a new creature is being added to the game. She's a witch! Mojang developer Nathan "Dinnerbone" Adams said the witch will be a ranged attacker, and will use the "Testificate" humanoid model, along with a polygonal nose that will wiggle and twitch.Dinnerbone also hinted at a new animal type, while YouTuber Martyn (aka InTheLittleWood) posted a new video, which shows NPC bats are on their way to Minecraft. They'll spawn not only outside at night, but in any area, under or above ground, if there's a big enough space. They'll also hang upside down, rather creepily.The new update should be out next month, so get your candy bags ready for then.
Hampture underwater colony established for science, leads the way for future hamster space exploration
Animals have had a rough time of it, when it comes to scientific exploration. Look no further than Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth, soon becoming the first animal to die in orbit, not too long after achieving that earlier distinction. The dwarf hamsters that occupy Hampture seem to be considerably happier in their own scientific explorations than the Soviet mutt, at the moment. Bob Averill brought the project to our attention last week on our visit to Portland, Oregon. According to the official blog, the project is an attempt to "learn firsthand what is involved in designing and constructing a complete underwater habitat capable of sustaining complex organisms." It also may well be a gateway to sending the hamsternauts into space via Skystation Mk1. Averill is also looking to turn Hampture into a salable product, though Kickstarter, for one, has apparently balked at the idea. In the meantime, you can check out a streaming feed of the habitat after the break and read up on the making of the project in the source links below.
Microsoft brings Kinectimals to Android, is both warm and fuzzy
Catching up with its fellow iOS and Windows Phone platforms, Kinectimals has arrived on Android. It'll set you back three bucks, but for that you'll get the chance to play with five different balls of exotic fluff -- if you tie it into your Xbox 360 version. Like the other versions, you can to pet them, play with them and generally gaze enraptured at their squishy paws. The integration to Xbox 360 isn't the deepest we've seen, but we're never going to say no to a bit of inter-platform love. The download's waiting below.
Researchers say crab-based computing possible, lobsters throw up claws in disbelief
IBM's Holey Optochip? Yawn. Fujitsu's K supercomputer? Yesterday's news. Forget about boring old conventional computing stuff, the future of computer technology lies in crabs -- lots and lots of crabs. Researchers at Kobe University and the University of the West of England's Unconventional Computing Centre have discovered that properly herded crabs can signal the AND, OR and NOT arguments essential to computers, not to mention those crucial 1s and 0s. Forcing two swarms of crabs into one, for instance, represents the OR gate -- a trick the computational crustaceans pulled off fairly reliably. Not every operation was pincer perfect, however, as the crabs tended to stumble a bit through attempts at signaling the AND function. At least guiding a group of crabs isn't as tough as herding cats -- researchers used a shadow to imitate a predatory bird and direct the hapless creatures accordingly. Sure, it may not be the first biological computer, but it just might be the first fear-based computer.
Google dives deep to bring underwater photos of the Great Barrier Reef this September
Your next trip to the Great Barrier Reef could be from the comfort of your home now that Google's partnered with Catlin SeaView Survey, the University of Queensland's Global Change Institute and the Underwater Earth organization to document this amazing ecosystem. Equipped with a special underwater camera capable of withstanding depths of 328 feet, the survey aims to photograph 50,000 shots in 360-degree panoramic view and incorporate them into Google Earth and Google Maps. Dubbed "Google SeaView," it seeks to open opportunities for increased conservation as well as a free look for wanna-be world travelers who can't afford a plane ticket down under. As an added perk, the collected data may also be used to help future ship captains navigate through the treachery of the intricate coral highways. Check past the break for more info on the survey and plenty of footage teeming with aquatic wildlife.
