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Scientists create ultra-thin membrane that turns eyes into lasers
It will still be a while before scientists are able to harness Superman-like laser vision, but the technology is now closer than ever before thanks to a new development from the University of St Andrews. The team there have created an ultra-thin membrane laser using organic semiconductors, which is for the first time compatible with the requirements for safe operation in the human eye. Even though the membrane is super thin and flexible, it's durable, and will retain its optical properties even after several months spent attached to another object, such as a bank note or, more excitingly, a contact lens.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Smart bike locks, lighters, cat toys, and more
Every week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Bicyclists are going to love this idea. Skylock does for bicycles what the Kwikset Kevo does for your home, providing a solar-powered smartphone-linked Bluetooth U-lock that uses encrypted electronic keys to let you (and others that you send keys to) unlock your bike. It's actually available for pre-order from the Skylock website for just $159, so get one now. And watch the video here while you're at it... Here's one from Indiegogo this week that got our attention. GOkey is billed as "charger, cable, locater, memory -- all on your key chain", and that's exactly what it does. The project is 883 percent funded with two weeks to go, so it looks like GOkey is cleared for launch. This week the rest of the interesting crowdfunding is all happening at Kickstarter. There are a ton of Apple-related projects that are all vying for your support. Let's get started! It's a wallet! It's an easel! It's a WEZEL wallet easel! Designed by Utah-based Copper Urban, WEZEL is designed to protect your cards and money with luxurious leather while turning into a little easel stand when you want to look at your iPhone's display. With a little over four days to go, WEZEL has received funding so you know you'll be getting one soon. And hey, the WEZEL looks great! Just watch the video, which by the way should win some sort of award for best crowdfunding plea: Take one part plastic Fisher Price camera, one part Raspberry Pi, and tack on an iPhone for settings, and what do you have? OTTO, the hackable and ridiculously overpriced GIF camera. Let's see, for a $199 pledge you can get one that actually comes with the Raspberry Pi built-in. Sorry, but I just don't get this one -- why not just use the really good camera that you already have in your smartphone to shoot GIFs? Maybe you can figure it out. About 50 percent funded with 24 days to go. Sigh. If you have been intrigued by Google's idea of a modular smartphone (Project Ara) but don't want to be tied to Google and Android, well, there's hope -- at least for something that looks as blocky and LEGO-like as possible. It's Augment -- whoops, I mean AUGMENT, since the project guys had to get all upper-case on me -- a really sharp-cornered, rectangular-in-a-2001-monolith-kind-of-way case and battery pack. Other than being extremely rectangular, I still don't see what's so different about AUGMENT than any of the thousands of plug-on chargers for iPhone. But apparently somebody likes the look of the case and charger, as it is funded with about a month to go. Now, finally, here's a project I can really get behind and may have to back. MBLOK (what is with the all-caps names, people?) is a tiny 128 GB or 256 GB Bluetooth-and-USB-equipped block that serves as storage for your favorite tablet or smartphone as well as providing a way to transfer stuff to and from your "real computers". There are a limited number of 128 GB pledges available at CAD$189 (about US$173). At this point MBLOK is 58 percent funded with just under a month to go. Let's get this one going, folks! Friends of mine know that I love cats, probably more than I love most people. While my dear old 19+-year-old cat no longer has the spark to play, the next-generation cats are going to need a way for me to amuse them even when I'm away from home. That's the idea behind Kittyo, an Internet-connected device that will let you play with your cats via a steerable laser, provide snacks, and even talk to your furry buddies, all while watching them on your iPhone's screen. It's definitely funded -- almost 800 percent funded -- with just over two days to go. There's still a chance to get a slight discount on a Kittyo, so get out there now. The cats demand it. You may not be a lumberjack, and that's OK. You can get Timbrr, a cedar wood stylus for your iPad! It has a copper core for some heft and of course a capacitive tip that works with your iPad. But it won't work unless you back the Timbrr project, which is only about 26 percent funded with just over a month to go. We're almost done, folks. Thanks for sticking with us this far... Now, for those of you who are trying to kick the nicotine habit, you're going to love Quitbit, billed as the first smart lighter and app to track your smoking habits and hopefully give you the information you need to quit. Linked to an iPhone app, Quitbit tells you just when and how often you're lighting up, hopefully pointing out addiction habits you weren't previously aware of. It's almost 77 percent funded with about three weeks to go. Stand-up desks are all the rage -- hey, even I have one that I use to force me to get off my butt every once in a while. But what happens when you're not at home or your office? Pillar is a very lightweight (150 grams) portable and foldable computer stand that you can take anywhere for that stand-up work you need to do. Pillar is about 45 percent funded with just over three weeks to go. I'm personally holding out for the one wrapped in Icelandic reindeer leather... While my personal experience with the Narrative Clip lifelogging camera wasn't that great, others may find that logging every little bit of their life in video or high-resolution photography is more rewarding. Lifelogger is a wearable point-of-view camera that sits aside your head offering exactly the view that you normally see. It's loaded with 32 GB of storage, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, H.264 encoding, and a good-sized battery. It will come with a companion app, naturally, to let you view the video you're shooting. Only one issue -- it makes people look even more Borg-like than Google Glass does. And now we're at the last project for this week; thanks for sticking with it, folks! STAGE 5 is a smart dock for your iPhone or whatever phone you happen to use. Yes, it's app-controlled and does more than just charge your device, including a big-ass vibration speaker in the base. They're even thinking of a tablet version. It's already funded with over three weeks to go, so join the fun! Many thanks to reader Hal Sherman for providing tips on the Quitbit, Mblok, Augment, Otto and Skylock projects. Be sure to join us next week for even more great projects that could use your funding dollars. If you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site. Just make sure that they actually have a valid reason for existing, OK?
The Secret World explains details on the new Augment system
There's already a lot of flexibility for players in The Secret World's ability system, but there's room for more customization. Sure, you've got your eight active and eight passive abilities, but what if you could have eight more slots to customize your behavior? That's the core idea behind the new Augment system, a marriage of new skills, loot, and abilities that allows you to turn your existing build and fine-tune it even more carefully. Augments come in four categories: Assault, Healing, Support, and Survivability, roughly analogous to the roles currently present in the game. Each active ability can have an Augment slotted into it depending on its type, and each Augment requires the leveling of a skill related to the Augment, the AP necessary to learn the new Augment, and the loot necessary to make one. Take a look at the full rundown for a more detailed explanation on how you can take your gun-wielding punch artist to the next level of mastery.
Infinite Crisis amplifier set preview lands with October update
October's Infinite Crisis update brings a small preview of big changes. Turbine is adding an "early version" of the game's augmentation system, an addition that should help players to learn the basics of character enhancement before the full system goes live. Augmentation is accomplished via amplifier sets, which are collections of items designed to enhance champions in a variety of ways depending on role and play style. Each amplifier set is composed of four augments and three mods. Augments enhance stats, while mods enhance artifacts. Every amplifier item will be associated with a brand; each brand benefits specific champion roles. While the complete amplifier system will allow players to build their own sets from scratch, the sets introduced this month are package deals. Turbine has plans to release hundreds of augments and mods as Infinite Crisis grows. Check out the video after the jump for a quick look at amplifiers, or hit up the official post for a detailed breakdown.
The Secret World looks forward to scenarios and augmentation
One of the downsides of The Secret World's advancement system is that if your build works early on you can wind up with loads of AP and nothing to spend it on. That's part of what Augments are designed to fix. The latest game director's letter discusses the Augment system, explaining that Augments are collected via Scenarios and can be used at significant AP cost to learn new skills. Players attach those skills to active abilities, some of which enhance a specific ability and some of which enhance your character overall. That's hardly the only thing in development at the moment, however. Issue #8's exploration of Venice and Issue #9's Tokyo adventure are both well on the way to completion, both replete with new challenges for players to explore. There are also plans for a new event starting tomorrow that pits players against one of Gaia's natural defense mechanisms rampaging across the globe. Whether you prefer the high-end challenges of The Secret World or prefer more casual play, there's plenty on the table for anyone.
Star Wars: The Old Republic talks adaptive gear, augment tables
Star Wars: The Old Republic's upcoming patch 1.3 looks like it's going to be bringing a bunch of fun goodies for the crafters in its playerbase. BioWare has posted a new update on the SWTOR official site to give players a look at some of the changes coming in the patch. For starters, we have the new adaptive gear weight system. When a character or companion is equipped with a piece of social armor with the adaptive armor weight, that character will automatically "use it to maximum effect, gaining the benefits of the highest armor weight [the character] can equip." The big crafting-related feature hitting in 1.3, however, is the addition of augment tables. BioWare has noticed that crafted items with augment slots (which are created only through a critical crafting success) are almost disproportionately powerful due to their "exceptional stat potential", which the devs say is "indicative of a systemic inequity between different types of items." Augment tables, which will be accessible through the current item modification stations, aim to fix this by allowing players to add augment slots to existing items without having to rely on a critical crafting success. Players can acquire additional slots by paying a flat cost of credits at an item modification station or by using an augment kit crafted by Armormechs, Synthweavers, and Armstechs. The full system is a little too complex to delve into in this post, however, so if the idea of augment tables piqued your interest, head on over to the full post to read more.
Hyperspace Beacon: The crew skills story
Forgive my fanboy-ism a bit, please. Update 1.2: Legacy excites me. My friends on the Star Wars: The Old Republic live server wonder where I've got off to since the patch hit the test server. Not to worry, guys. I'm still in game; I'm just playing with the new UI and character builds. We know that the major part of this update is the Legacy system. In a system that is rarely seen across MMOs, BioWare has created a tangible connection between alts. Now, Aaron Shaddoe can be the brother of Maacus Shaddoe and the son of Ryctur Shaddoe, and the game will reward me for doing that. Aaron could be a Smuggler, Maacus a Jedi Consular, and Ryctur a Bounty Hunter, all with interconnecting abilities between them. It's an interesting concept, but I'm curious how many people are going to seriously use it for its intended purpose. Update 1.2 holds a couple of other changes that interest me more -- namely, crew skills and story content. Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller and Writer Charles Boyd spoke about the changes to crew skills and the story update in two developer blogs last week. And despite the legacy system's being the biggest part of this update, it's these two areas that will impact the greater game. [Warning: Some minor spoilers are contained within. It's been three months, so I hope they are not spoilers any more, but I should warn you just in case.]
Raid Rx: Healing Ulduar and what to expect
Raid Rx has returned from retirement! Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Ulduar is almost here! Are you prepared? The patch for Ulduar is imminent. There's no release date yet. Personally I believe it will land sometime this month. Healing assignments has just gotten more complicated. Incoming damage is more than what's currently in the game. To cap it all off, mana regen's been slightly nerfed. So here's a quick summary of what to expect and how to counteract for it. I've participated in some of the normal mode Ulduar raids and a few heroic mode Ulduar raids. It's tough. The level of complexity and effort required is somewhere along the pre-nerf Hyjal and Black Temple days.
