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Razer's Blade 15 adds a base model and 'Mercury White' Limited Edition
Along with an updated version of its high-powered, gaming focused phone and assorted accessories, Razer made some updates to its line of gaming laptops. This year's 15-inch Blade laptop has gotten so good that we called it "almost" perfect, and now gamers can get one for a little bit less.
Stir now sells just the bases for its sit-stand desks
Every time we write about Stir's kinetic standing desks, we always point out how damn expensive the things are. In a world where you can buy a manually-operated standing desk from Ikea for a couple of bucks, spending three grand on a smart one can seem excessive. Thankfully, Stir knows this and is now offering a way for folks to just buy the legs without spending big on the top. The Base L1 is, as you can guess, a height-adjustable desk base that'll let you attach any topper of your choosing. Should you want to get in on the action, it'll set you back between $1,000 and $1,500 depending on what you can haggle with your local dealer. Plus, obviously, the price of a base on top.
Scientists find a way to make concrete on Mars
If humans are ever going to have a long-term presence on Mars, they'll need to make their own buildings -- they can't count on timely shipments from Earth. But how do they do that when the resources they have will share little in common with what they knew back home? Northwestern University researchers have an idea. They've developed a concrete that uses Mars' native materials. You only have to heat sulphur until it melts, mix it with an equal part of Martian soil and let it cool. The finished concrete is very strong, easy to work with and recyclable -- you just have to reheat it to get some building supplies back.
Alt-week 7.21.12: Outer space, flying hotels and federal trolls
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Whether you've got your head in the clouds, or your feet firmly locked on terra firma (or is that terrorist firma?) the last seven days in Alt have something for you. We look at a massive aircraft, that could revolutionize air travel as we know it, as well as look back at a real-world project that heralded a significant shift even further up in the sky. There's the NASA logo that never came to be, and lastly, for those less fond of heights, we hear how a US government department is heading in the other direction -- albeit culturally -- all in the fight against terror. This is alt-week.
Satarii Star camera base follows your every move, might exist if the money's raised
Looking a bit like a universal Sony Party-shot, the Satarii Star is up on fundraising site IndieGoGo right now with a simple goal: finding enough people who are willing to pay for an action-tracking base for their camera to get the thing produced. The concept is simple enough -- use the included iPhone and standard tripod mounts to insert the camera of your choice, grab the remote sensor and attach it to the object, animal, or human you want to track, and let 'er rip -- as long as you stay within 8 meters (roughly 26 feet), the base station with camera attached will rotate up to 180 degrees to keep the action in the frame. As of this writing they're about halfway to their goal to $20 grand -- and they've already slapped together a functional prototype, so you know you're not funding pure vaporware. Follow the break for a demo, and while you're at it, go ahead and tell off all your friends -- you won't need 'em to hold your camera while you film magic tricks for YouTube anymore. Score!
Pikachu is really, really excited to charge your Nintendo DSi
The last time we plugged in our Nintendo DSi to recharge it all we got as thanks was a little light. It turned on, the electrons flowed, and we continued our humble existence. Just think how much more exciting that menial act could have been if only we had this sucker. Hori's Pikachu charger accepts a DSi or DSi XL into its faux-poké ball slot and, presumably, jumps up and down excitedly as lightning bolts dance from its maniacal little fingertips to juice up your dead cell. Or, maybe it just pulls power from an AC adapter and sends it through the connector. Either way, it's certainly more exciting than most other simple charging stands we've seen but, at 3,981 yen (just shy of $50), it's also rather more expensive. %Gallery-100562%
Archetype nets 160,000 players in first week, promises updates and features soon
We posted about Archetype the other day -- it's an impressively solid multiplayer first-person shooter for the iPhone that brings some hardcore gameplay to Apple's touchscreen platform. And apparently there are a lot of hardcore players out there -- in just one week of release, Archetype has picked up 160,000 players. There have been over 320,000 matches played so far, with over 2 million player kills between them -- that's over 20,000 an hour. Publisher Villian says that it's obviously thrilled with the response, and that "future updates, offerings and new game features" are being worked on. This is interesting for a few reasons: first, most iPhone offerings tend towards the casual. Little pick-up-and-play games often seem to be the norm on the iPhone, as the vast majority of developers seem to be searching for one little interesting gameplay idea and running with it. But Archetype seems to hint that if the experience is done well enough, there's definitely a large audience of "hardcore" gamers on the iPhone. And it's worth mentioning that Archetype doesn't have a lite version and sells for $2.99. Before this game, the most high profile FPS on the store was probably Ngmoco's Eliminate, which went with a free-to-play model in the hopes of garnering a larger audience. But Archetype's success seems to show that (again, if the experience is good enough), there's room at higher price points for a solid player base. We'll have to see where Villian goes with this in the future -- we've heard from other developers that quick and free updates can really make an app grow even bigger, so if they can pull that off with Archetype, they'll really have an iOS juggernaut.
Behind the scenes with the iRetrofone's creator
I really enjoyed seeing this retro handset base for the iPhone (even if I did mistake the shipping charge for the price -- sorry about that). Now, iPhone Savior has a nice piece up about the base's designer, Florida artist Scott Freeland. Since news about the set went live, he's apparently been bombarded by requests, and he's actually been working on making it easier to make them and deliver them to customers; he's currently working with two resin molds and has tweaked his process a bit. It sounds like the iRetrofone is already a successful product. When you hear what he has to say about the handset, it's not hard to determine why. The model is based on a 1937 phone, and Freeland says it hit him in the same nostalgic way it does most of us: "As a sculptor, when I need something in my life I make it ... That was the phone I had as a kid. I looked online until I saw a phone that looked like what I had, and then I made it." He's making more, too. As you can see above, he's got pink and clear models being made already, and he says he wants to make about six to eight more versions, including crazy ideas like "a skull with the iPhone in it." That one doesn't sound quite as, ahem, nostalgic, but it's still interesting. The iRetrofone is available on Etsy for US $195, and while it's on back order right now, the page says it'll be available in about two weeks.
Tabula Rasa's shutdown salute schedule
Listen up, soldiers! We're going to post this once and only once, so I want all eyes and ears on this blog post! Do you get me!?*Waits to hear the chorus of "We get you, sir!" coming from the computer monitor.*We have gotten word from AFS High Command that the Bane are preparing for an all out attack against the Allied Free Sentients in Tabula Rasa. This will be the single largest troop movement that the battlefields have seen to date. This is why all soldiers are being asked to fortify all AFS bases in preparation of an attack on Saturday at 8 PM GMT for the Centarus (EU) server and again at 8 PM CST for the Hydra server.These attacks will be lead by the infamous Neph, cousin race to the benevolent Eloh. Neph are the most intelligent commanders that the Bane has to throw against us, but we will fight them back!The attacks are expected to last until midnight GMT and midnight CST. If we are unsuccessful with our defense, and should we be overrun, then we will make sure that their victory will cost them everything! The Penumbra Division has been ordered to ready the last resort weapon and only fire it should we still be under attack at midnight. If we're going down, we're taking them, and the server, with us!Hoo-rah, soldiers!
CoX Issue 13: All your base are belong to us?
Bizarre as it may sound, that's the title by which the NCSoft developers have taken to calling City of Heroes Issue 13. Or so players learned while listening in to the Dyyno test over on mmorpg.com, in which lead developer Matt 'Positron' Miller took viewers on a tour of Cimerora and talked them through the highlights of Issue 12: Midnight Hour. Players are always eager for snippets of information on new issues, however trivial, and when Matt let slip the in-house joke title for Issue 13 along with the reason for it, it was quickly noted.Matt's comment allegedly reflected the huge number of base changes and fixes that will be coming in the next Issue. Well, it's not as if there isn't plenty to fix. The base raid system has never worked properly, the Cathedral of Pain trial proved broken and had to be put on indefinite hold, and despite all the excitement building up to their initial release, bases themselves have not seen much use beyond acting as a teleport hub, crafting spot and resource storage area for supergroups, with temporary buffs available from Empowerment Stations if you own any; convenient, but falling short of their potential. Jack 'Statesman' Emmert, former lead developer for CoX, even said of the base design system that '... players hated it. It's the most underused facet of the game.'
Put your Wii on a new pedestal
We showed you Cyber Gadget's slick hat for the Wii earlier this week, so we felt compelled to also feature some new kicks for the console. That's what you kids are calling shoes now, right? Kicks? Unlike the standard gray stand, Talismoon's Wii bases come in a variety of colors -- Pink Chrome, Blue Chrome, Red Chrome, Green Chrome, Silver Chrome, Black Chrome, Clear, and Clear Blue, the last two of which seem perfect for LED modding, if that's what you're into. We heard that's what you're into.Online shop Divineo already has Talismoon's stands up for sale for $12.99 each. What should you do with your old base once you've bought one of these, you ask? We suggest throwing it at children you race coins against each other to see which ones roll down the ramp the fastest. Slide past the break for more images of the colorful stands.
Brando stars in A Wii Stand Named Desire
Though not as psychedelically colorful as PEGA's Wii stand and remote charger, Brando's Crystal Cooler isn't without its own glitz. The USB-powered base has a built-in "high-velocity" fan to keep your console's temperature low and an LED glow that'll color your living room walls an electric blue. If you squint and straddle one of your couch's arms like a bike, it'll almost feel like you're riding through Tron on a lightcycle.We're still not convinced that the Wii needs a cooling fan, but some gamers will look for any excuse to light up their hardware. Priced at nineteen dollars though, the product doesn't even automatically turn on after detecting high temperatures. Instead, users have to manually hit an unmarked switch behind the stand. That's some ol' malarkey right there. Speed through the post break for more glamour shots of the Crystal Cooler.
Bose launches Acoustic Wave Music System II and Companion 5
We know how much peeps love Bose; it remains one of the highest rated brands in consumer tech despite the availability of higher quality audio components at comparable prices, so hey there, check out the new Acoustic Wave Music System II, a CD / AM / FM all-in-one with aux-ins for using whichever other music devices you may have, iPod or not (though they'd be happy to sell you a $129 iPod connection kit or $299 five CD changer), and will set you back $1079. They also announced their new Companion 5 2.1 speaker system, which will hit you for $399 (pictured after the break). Both ship September 7th.[Via GizmoWatch]
Cheaper PS3 loses HDMI, slots, Wi-Fi, 40GB
As you can see above, there are a few things different between the two PS3 SKUs planned. (Hint: the obvious alterations concern high-def output and wireless connectivity -- though Bluetooth controllers should work just fine with both, with or without any chrome case highlighting.)So what's HDMI, built-in multimedia card-reader slots, wireless internet connectivity, and an extra 40 gigabytes' hard disk space worth to you? $100? Now that Sony's gone with the 2-SKU approach with its next-gen hardware (a la the Xbox 360's premium and "Core" systems), we can expect some tough consumer choices after six months -- with console shortages possibly for another six months after that -- as $100 separates the base $499 and premium $599 versions of Sony's "Clear Black" hope.HDMI is important to those who want to take full advantage of Blu-ray high def and have the new screens to use it; MemoryStick, SD, and CompactFlash slots would be nice for the PS3 memory-card users and those will run multimedia on the system; Wi-Fi's the only way to avoid stringing ethernet cables for online access; and 360 owners might appreciate the full 60GB available to potential buyers of the premium PS3 model. Neither model comes with a second HDMI port; thankfully, one should hopefully be all most users need. The details are laid out in a feature-comparison table at the end of Sony's official PS3 hardware press release, available in both Adobe Reader and Microsoft Word formats. Determine what's most important to your PS3 ambitions there.[Image pieced together from the PlayStation.com forums; thanks, Guru]
