arrows
Latest
Robot sea turtle will map shipwrecks that humans can't reach (video)
Some shipwrecks are too costly or dangerous for humans to explore, but many underwater robots are too disruptive and unwieldy to serve as substitutes. The Tallinn Institute of Technology's new U-CAT mapping robot solves that dilemma by imitating one of the ocean's more graceful creatures: the sea turtle. The small machine uses flippers to get around instead of propellers, preventing it from kicking up silt (which would obscure its camera) and letting it turn on a dime. It's also autonomous, which helps it venture deep into a wreck without worrying about cables. It's sure to have a big impact on underwater archaeology, and you can see it in person if you swing by the London Science Museum between November 28th and December 1st. However, It will eventually map shipwrecks in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas as part of the EU's ARROWS Project, providing more detail than any diver could manage. [Image credit: Tallin University of Technology, Flickr]
The Daily Grind: Do you want to worry about ammunition?
Despite the fact that my thief in Guild Wars 2 carries pistols which appear to be capable of holding one shot at a time, I don't recall her ever reloading. Nor do I recall ever having to buy the oxcarts full of ammunition that she apparently has at all times, because it has to come from somewhere. Like many games, Guild Wars 2 does away with worries about ammunition and focuses instead on just giving you weapons that fire when you want. On the one hand, this makes sense -- ammunition in World of Warcraft was such a hassle that the designers eventually did away with it altogether. It's a break in verisimilitude for ease of play. On the other hand, removing the need for ammunition removes the possibility of special types of ammunition, and the ease of play issues could be addressed in other ways. So do you want ammunition in your game? Or would you prefer to just have an infinite quiver and focus on shooting arrows? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
NTT DoCoMo launching 19 new devices this summer, brings Galaxy S III to Japan
If you aren't already accustomed to Japan's regular deluge of device announcements, brace yourself: NTT DoCoMo just stepped forward with 17 new phones, as well as a mobile WiFi hotspot and a tablet. Throw a stone at the pile of hardware, and you're likely to strike something running Ice Cream Sandwich -- with the exception of the WiFi hotspot and a single handset designed for kids, every device on the list is running Android 4.0. Among the hodgepodge of handsets, DoCoMo is offering ten dual-core devices with screens ranging from 3.7 to 5-inches, a 10.1-inch 1.2Ghz dual-core slate, camera sensors of all sizes (from 8 megapixels to 13, that is) and a curious "Raku-Raku smartphone" that promises the "sensation of pressing actual keys" to smartphone newbies. The lineup's superstars, however, can all be found in DoCoMo's "NEXT" series of smartphones, bolstering the carrier's Xi LTE service with heavy hitters like the Galaxy S III, the Optimus Vu, Sony's Xperia GX and the Tegra 3 touting Arrows X. Hit the source links to check out the smartphone smorgasbord for yourself, or read on for our list of the never-before-seen ICS devices (they're all waterproof!) as well as DoCoMo's official press release.
KDDI reveals its Summer 2012 collection: Android smartphones are still hot
It's that time of the season again, as Japan's mobile carriers unveil more alternate-universe models that we'll probably never see elsewhere. Leading the pack is the final version of Fujitsu's long-time-coming quad-core Android phone, arriving as the Arrows Z ISW13F. With NVIDIA's Tegra 3, WiMAX connectivity, 16GB of built-in storage and a 4.6-inch 1280 x 720 display, Fujitsu's somehow jammed it all into less than 11mm of smartphone. The 13-megapixel camera includes an Exmor R sensor, while a microSD slot can add up to 32GB of space. The AQUOS Serie is another belle of KDDI's spring ball, with a 4.6-inch 1280 x 720 display, 1-seg TV tuner and a 12-megapixel camera on the back. It's also the first phone to pack both NFC and Felica mobile payment hardware into the same device, mobile wallet fans. The collection is also joined by the HTC J and the final retail version of Kyocera and KDDI's "Smart Sonic Receiver" in the Urbano Progresso -- a phone that transmits sound through vibration. Any ex-pats in the mood for a new keitai can take a closer look at the rest of the new family at the source below. Update: Kyocera has confirmed to us that the Smart Sonic Receiver used in the Urbano Progresso is indeed the same tissue conduction technology Kyocera demonstrated last week at CTIA Wireless.
Fujitsu readies its 'final model' quad-core smartphone for reveal next week
We laid our hands on Fujitsu's quad-core prototype at the start of the year, it now looks like the phone's now ready to show itself outside the confines of a perspex box. Wielding a Tegra 3 chipset, there's still no official name for the incoming handset, but we're promised admirable battery life and those increasingly typical (for Japan, at least) water resistant credentials. We've also been told that this will be close to -- if not the -- final model of the handset, so we should get to test out that fingerprint sensor in person. Sure, it's not the only quad-core device we're expecting to see at MWC, but we'll welcome it with open arms -- if it does make the journey outside of Japan.
Fujitsu's super-slim, super-powerful phones could come to Europe
We've been enviously eyeing Fujitsu's super-thin, super-powerful phones for a very long while. At CES, we were able to swing an early look at its unnamed Tegra 3 Arrows prototype and the question we asked, over and over, was if we'd ever see these devices in the west. A knowing smile followed with the response that it would "depend on the carriers involved." A report in the Financial Times seems to confirm that the company's planning to take Europe by storm as it unveils the finished model at next week's Mobile World Congress -- albeit with the same caveat that carriers are still yet to sign on. The report adds that Fujitsu will include biometric security, NFC and LTE in all future handsets: just more teasing for those nations still to adopt the standard.
Fujitsu leaks quad-core Tegra 3 smartphone, unwraps Ice Cream Sandwich
Did the performance chops of the Transformer Prime whet your appetite for quad-core Android? Perhaps the UI of Ice Cream Sandwich is almost enough to push you over from your iPhone. Well, Fujitsu may be the surprising choice for your next phone. Pushing the envelope way beyond the Arrows μ F-07D, Fujitsu's let slip that it has another phone up its sleeve. In a leaflet distributed at CES Unveiled, the brief specification reads like a wish list: a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) right out of the gates. Now, whether we'll see it in the flesh as CES unfolds this week, well, only Fujitsu knows.
Fujitsu's Arrows ES IS12F has the light stuff, baby, heads to KDDI January 7th
A little junk in the mobile trunk never hurt nobody, but don't tell that to Fujitsu, where thin is clearly in. The company's gone all out on its latest handset -- the Arrows ES IS12F -- for Japanese carrier KDDI, hitting marks for both svelteness and ruggedness: pairing a 6.7mm profile with a Gorilla Glass and scratch-resistant body coating (think: the Brawny Man as a phone covered in Teflon on a Master Cleanse). This 4-incher's outfitted with an 800 x 480 AMOLED display, single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor running Android 2.3, 5.11 megapixel rear shooter and, in keeping with the Arrows tradition, it's also waterproof. If you're living in the Land of the Rising Sun, you can snag this slight smartphone in Ruby Red and Gloss Black starting January 7th. Sorry, chubby phone chasers, you're gonna have to sit this one out.
Fujitsu Arrows Kiss F-03D ladyphone tells you sit up straight, eat your greens
Here in the US, a ladyphone is bit of a hard sell as we saw with the HTC Rhyme but in Japan it's a different story. Fujitsu is trying to woo girls with the Arrows Kiss F-03D, which comes with apps designed to get users into shape -- or bully them to tears. Beauty Body Clinic monitors your posture and orders you to stand up straighter, Sukkiri Alarm wakes you when it thinks you're ready and Karada Life is a pedometer app offering "health maintenance" advice -- probably suggesting a salad the next time you're at KFC. If that hasn't put you off, you'll want to know it's running a single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255, a 3.7-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display and an 8.1 megapixel camera 'round back. If you can stand the nannying, you'll also notice it can handle OneSeg broadcasts, mobile wallet payments and the Okudake-Juden wireless charging system. It'll make its way into the purses of unsuspecting NTT DoCoMo victims customers at an as-yet-unspecified price on November 25th.
Fujitsu Arrows Tab LTE F-01D with gesture control hands-on (video)
NEC's waterproof MEDIAS N-06C to get a sprinkle of Gingerbread and 1GHz power Wireless, Tablet PCs Sony's Tablet S and P get 3G in Japan NTT DoCoMo begins testing automated Japanese / English translation app that actually works (video) We'll probably never match Japan's obsession with waterproof gadgets, but anyone would appreciate how the local manufacturers also manage to keep them thin and light at the same time. The Fujitsu Arrows Tab LTE F-01D we fiddled with here at CEATEC is one such example: while it's thicker than Samsung's 10.1-inch counterpart by almost 3mm, we were surprised that Fujitsu's latest Android tablet also weighs just under 600g -- not bad considering it's suitable for use in the shower. What's more, the F-01D comes with a rather unique feature that's great for use in the bathroom or the kitchen: camera-based gesture control, which works in the browser (to scroll pages or go back and forth) as well as the 1seg or DLNA TV viewer (to change the channel and volume). You'll see in our video after the break that the gestures worked liked a charm for us, though initially we had to make sure that the tablet wasn't facing any strong light behind us (a typical problem in large conventions). Anyhow, if you're up for grabbing an F-01D, it'll be available on NTT DoCoMo in Japan next week. %Gallery-135783%
Fujitsu-Toshiba unveils waterproof Arrows Z ISW11F handset with 13 megapixel CMOS sensor
Toshiba may be bowing out of its mobile joint venture with Fujitsu, but not without bestowing this Gingerbread-munching flamingo upon the Japanese market. The Wimax-enabled Arrows Z ISW11F, unveiled today by Japan's KDDI au, is juiced by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, sports a 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 LCD and, most notably, rocks a 13 megapixel CMOS sensor. It also features a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera and supports 1080p video, along with your standard suite of 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities. Oh, and to top it all off, it's waterproof, too. No word yet on pricing, but KDDI plans to bring this bubblegum to the Japanese market sometime in November. Doggie paddle past the break for more information in the translated presser.
Ghostcrawler on hunter ammo replacement
As you may recall, Blizzard announced their intent to get rid of consumable ammo in Patch 3.1, only to withdraw the change a short time later, with the promise of reimplementing it at a nebulous later date. Now, it's been more or less assumed that said later date is Cataclysm itself, or at least Patch 4.0. In a general forum post created to discuss ammo replacements, Ghostcrawler piped in to remind us that the only change announced for Cataclysm was the removal of ammo, with nothing else yet decided (or, more accurately, announced). While he did acknowledge the possibility of adding in new situational ammo, he did observe that the hassle of collecting and swapping different ammo types might grow old pretty quickly, especially for a class like the hunter that already needs to push a lot of buttons to play at peak potential, in addition to already having a pet to manage.
Ammo controversy in 3.3 already
Patch 3.3 is only barely out on the live realms, and already, there's a controversy with the new epic ammo recipes. Lassirra says that hunters are concerned that the requirements to make the ammo are just too high. Blizzard had promised to make getting epic ammo easier, and this still has the requirement of having a high level engineer, with the extra charge of requiring a Goblin engie for the bullets, and a Gnomish engie for the arrows. And even after you find a 450 Engineer in the right spec, you still have to get a couple of Crystallized Shadow or Earth together. That doesn't sound "easier" to me, either. Let's not forget, however, that this is cutting edge (no pun intended) ammo -- this isn't the kind of vendor junk you just fire while leveling. It's a 30 point DPS gain from the previous high level ammo, and that kind of increase probably does justify a little tougher requirement to make. Of course, it'll probably work out so that other classes get that increase normally through their itemization, but that's just the way it works for hunters. If you want the new ammo, you'll have to find an friendly engie of the right spec with the right skill Honored with the new Ashen Verdict faction, and then keep them supplied with as much Crystallized Earth and Shadow as you can find.
Ammo stacks in 1000, sells in 200
Whoo, boy. When the news came out that ammo was changing big time in the game, Hunters everywhere pretty much praised it -- no longer would we have to worry about carrying around tons of ammo, with one bag slot spent on just one consumable. But since then, things haven't been so peachy. First, we heard that consumable ammunition wasn't going anywhere, and then we noticed that none of the other changes were happening either. Then, ammo stacks were fixed to 1000 in a recent hotfix on the PTR, but now there's a whole other issue: while it stacks in 1000, it still only sells in stacks of 200. Which means you have to buy, and buy, and buy, and buy, and buy just to fill one slot. And what's more, Dresorull says it's not a bug -- we'll likely see this on the live realms.And as BRK points out, the "1000" stacks aren't even labeled on the PTR yet. He says you can fill your quiver with 28,000 rounds of ammo (of course, you'd have to hit buy 140 times just to do that), but what happened to the quiver changes? Aren't Hunters supposed to get that bag slot back in 3.1 anyway?It's all very confusing, and this smacks of a missed followthrough: the original Hunter changes as suggested were popular, but we're guessing something came up in their way (either the team was needed on another task, or some flaw in the system as designed kept them from turning consumable ammunition into a permanent item). Either way, we hope this gets fixed -- we know this is the PTR and everything is subject to change, but as it stands, it looks like we're getting a half-finished ammo system when patch 3.1 goes live.
Breaking: Consumable ammunition will not be removed in patch 3.1
Ancilorn, a new blue community team member over on the EU forums, just posted that despite the recent announcement, patch 3.1 will not remove consumable ammunition.According to Ancilorn, they "still fully intend to move forward with this change when the additional functionality becomes available." To me that means Blizzard needs to do some serious recoding to make the change work, and it's cool that they're letting us know they're still going to do it.Ancilorn also lets us know the following points: Patch 3.1 will remove the need for pouches/quivers Arrows and Bullets will have their stack size greatly increased. Haste bonuses from pouches/quivers will be preserved in another fashion. We have no additional information other than what's been said above, but we're anxiously on the lookout now for the patch 3.1 PTR.Angry baby called. He wants his change back! Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Scattered Shots: Wrath of the Hunter
Welcome to Scattered Shots, where Daniel Whitcomb is totally making plans to walk with rhythm so that he can attract the worm.So with Wrath less than a week away, we got our work cut out for us, so to speak. Luckily, 3.0's early release has given us time to learn to handle our pets and respec to take advantage of new talents, but now the big push is upon, as 10 levels and a whole slew of new zones opens up for us. When you step off the boat or zeppelin in Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, where will you go? What will you do? Here's a few quick Hunter specific tips to getting started in the Wrath of the Lich King.
Terminal Tips: Modify iTunes arrow links
Do you know those little arrows that appear in iTunes when you have a song selected? You know, the ones that appear just after the title of the song, artist, and album and link to the iTunes Store when clicked? Yeah, those! Well, if you want the arrows to link to your iTunes library instead of Apple's induced store (and another impulse purchase), then just type the following command into Terminal (found in Applications > Utilities): defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YESTo change things back to normal, just replace the YES in the above command with NO. As some commenters have pointed out, you can temporarily reverse this hack by pressing option and clicking on the arrow. Want to see more tips like this? Visit TUAW's Terminal Tips and TUAW Tips sections.
PTR Notes: New reputation ammo
MMO Champion has reported that new "Specialty Ammunition Vendors" have been discovered on the PTR in patch 2.3. These vendors, Archer Delvinar and Marksman Bova, can be found in once empty structures in the Scryer and Aldor areas, respectively, in Shattrath City. Not only do they sell the best types of normal vendor ammunition outside of Halaa, but they also stock ammunition that has reputation requirements. Instead of running over to the Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh every time you need to stock up on Warden's Arrows, you can now buy the same ammo in Shattrath. The same vendors also carry ammunition that is currently only available from vendors in Honor Hold/Thrallmar and the Caverns of Time. Currently the cost of all the ammunition sold by these vendors appears to be tied to Aldor/Scryer reputation level, but still requires the specified faction requirement to actually purchase and use.Of course, the best news is that these vendors also carry a new type of ammunition. The Mysterious Arrows and Mysterious Shells require revered reputation with the Violet Eye and provide 46.5 additional damage per second. A stack of 200 costs 1 gold without any price reductions from reputation. Clearly these new items are meant to fill the gap between Adamantite and Timeless ammunition and help hunters that are tackling Magtheridon, Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep increase their damage output. With the new Adamantite Stingers also being added 2.3, hunters will have more options than ever before when choosing a type of ammunition.
