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China implements tech that can detect people by the way they walk
A Chinese surveillance company, Watrix, has developed a new system for "gait recognition" that can identify people up to 165 feet away based on how they walk. This means that if a person is wearing a mask or is at an awkward angle, the software can use existing footage to detect them. CEO of Watrix, Huang Yongzhen, told the Associated Press in an interview that the software can't be fooled by limping or other out-of-the-ordinary stances because it analyzes a person's entire body.
Karlie Kloss' coding camp covers more cities and languages this year
Kode with Klossy, Karlie Kloss' coding camp for girls, is expanding this year. Last year, the program offered 15 camps in 12 cities, but this summer, it's running 50 camps in 25 cities and will teach 1,000 young women between the ages of 13 and 18 about coding. Founded by Kloss in 2015, the free, two-week camp instructs attendees on front-end and back-end software engineering and covers Ruby, Javascript, HTML and CSS coding languages. This year, the camp is also adding Swift to its curriculum. "This year, we've also got a really exciting new track on Swift, so the girls at our camps not only learn the ABCs of code, but real-world examples of tech that touches our lives today," Kloss told Mashable. "They're learning what a loop is or how to interpolate using concepts or ideas that touch their lives, like Instagram, Twitter or Postmates."
Google's latest science camp for kids starts on July 13th
If you want your kids to learn something while they're out of school but would rather not ship them to some distant summer camp, Google is about to come to your rescue. It's kicking off the latest edition of its annual Camp Google on July 13th, and this year's virtual educational event promises themed weeks that might just sate your young ones' curiosity on big scientific subjects. They'll learn what the ocean is like through underwater panoramas, for example, and watch live video chats with astronauts. The whole shebang is free, so it won't hurt to tune in if you want your children to go back to school knowing more than they did when they left.
EVE Evolved: The top five most dangerous solar systems
EVE Online is a PvP game at its core, with conflict built in at a fundamental level. Pirates lurk around key trade routes and stand ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims, while vast nullsec alliances protect their territories with watchful vigilance and never-ending bloodlust. Wander into the wrong solar system as a new player and your precious ship and cargo will be turned into molten slag and a few points on a killboard quicker than you can say, "Hello, new friend, and what does that red square on your ship mean?" The original map of EVE was generated one evening by an Icelandic developer who could scarcely have known he was deciding the fates of thousands of gamers for years to come. New systems have been added to the game over the years, and a few manual changes have been made to the stargate network, but most of the universe has remained the same for over a decade. In all that time, a few solar systems have stood out as brazen bastions of bastardly behaviour and made their marks on EVE's history. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down a list of the top five most dangerous solar systems in EVE's long history and delve into why each has earned its reputation as a no-fly-zone for newbies.
Seen@GDC: The 'camp' poster that led a Pomeranian to PlayStation
During a GDC panel covering the early formation of Tokyo Jungle, Yohei Kataoka, president of developer Crispy's Inc, shared a poster that caught his eye and – eventually – put a Pomeranian on PlayStation.Sony's Creator Audition Mashup Project – or C.A.M.P – called on new Japanese talent to submit innovative game ideas in need of funding. In the absence of longterm financial support, and with no desire to work for someone else, Kataoka and his newly formed studio submitted several game ideas for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. "I only created what I wanted to create from the bottom of my heart," he said. (Those ideas are worth their own story, which we'll have for you later.)Kataoka didn't settle on his "action survival" game of Tokyo Jungle at first. In 2008 his seven-person team released MyStylist, a clothing database and style advice game for PSP. It would presumably frown upon a C.A.M.P. Elvis impersonator.
Cooperative reality: Hands-on with Box! Open Me for PS Vita
Augmented reality games are nothing new. Over the past several years, we've seen them pop up on virtually every platform, from the Xbox and PS3 to Vita and 3DS to mobile phones. Box! Open Me for the PlayStation Vita is a little different, however, in that it challenges players to work together to solve puzzles.It's a very simple concept – two players coordinate to open puzzle boxes – but the simple act of cooperating in an augmented reality game is intriguing to say the least.
EVE Evolved: A game of cat and mouse
Outside of the annual Alliance Tournament, it's rare to find a fair fight in EVE Online with both sides being evenly matched in numbers or odds of success. On the actual battlefields of EVE, lone pilots and fleets alike hunt for fights they can win and tend to shy away from fights that aren't stacked in their favour. A bold few will intentionally engage when they're outmatched or outgunned in the hopes of getting a lucky and impressive-looking kill, but most of the time, that kind of fight is the result of a poor judgment call or misreading the situation. Something new EVE players tend to have trouble accepting is that the outcome of a fight is often decided before the guns even start firing. EVE PvP is a massive game of tactics in which the goal is to catch weaker enemies at a disadvantage, so the fight could already be lost the moment you're caught by a superior foe. A lot of PvP is psychological; you trick enemies into thinking they have the upper hand, and you hide your true intentions and abilities until it's too late. Fleets of all sizes roam around EVE appraising the smaller fish while avoiding the sharks, and I wouldn't trade that cat-and-mouse gameplay for any level of pre-arranged fairness. But what motivates people to fight or flee, and how can we win the psychological battle to gain an upper hand? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three tricks you can use to catch targets off-guard.
Gamescom 2011 opens travel and accommodations service
Gamescom, the world's single largest games event, is gearing up for another great show from August 17th through the 21st in Cologne, Germany -- and the organizers are doing all they can to get you there. Today the official website has opened up its service portal to help attendees make travel and lodging arrangements. If you're planning on attending, it might behoove you to check out some of the deals that are being offered for the early birds. There are plane tickets starting from 30 euros, train tickets from 79 euros, and hotel rooms from 90 euros. Especially frugal travelers could pitch a tent in the Gamescom campgrounds for just 29.50 euros a night. The service portal will help you with flying, train travel, driving directions, lodging, the Gamescom camp, travel packages, day trips, and general information about Cologne. This will be Gamescom's third year. Last year, the event was host to 254,000 people and 505 exhibitors from 33 countries.
Garmin's Foretrex 301 and 401 navigators are like pixelated breadcrumbs
Get lost easy do ya? Then you'll find Garmin's new Foretrex 301 and Foretrex 401 navigators more handy on the switchbacks than a sack full of Wonder "bread." These wrist-worn GPS navigators feature a rugged, waterproof design and the ability to store up to 500 waypoints and 20 routes that'll help keep you from getting lost in the great outdoors. See, each Foretrex can remember up to 10,000 points of your journey displayed as a dotted trail on the screen. When you've reached your limits, just turn on the TracBak mode and easily double-back to camp or to your vehicle. Both devices are powered by a pair of AAA batteries for about 18-hours of use -- a bit less on the 401 which needs the extra go-juice to power the electronic compass, barometric altimeter, and wireless link back to compatible Garmin devices including heart-rate monitors and cadence sensors. Both incorporate a trip computer, sunrise/sunset and hunting and fishing information with USB tethering to PC or Mac. No word on pricing or release yet but we'll update you when we get it. Foretrex 401 and full press release after the break.
Conceptual self-heating Vertigo container makes Philmont infinitely more bearable
We won't say precisely which Engadget staffer can speak from experience, but suffice to say, having the Vertigo whilst out and about in the New Mexico mountains would've made the epic Philmont adventure a much, much more delectable trek. Dreamed up by Nicolas Bernal, this self-heating container is theoretically constructed from Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) and features a high performance dynamo that heats up food within minutes. Naturally, there's a LED on board that lights up when the contents are ready for consumption, but sadly, we highly doubt this will land in your local R.E.I. / Camping World within the next few years.[Via Engadget German]
PlayStation goes to CAMP: Creator Audition Mash Up Project
Have you ever wanted to make games? For many, it's just a pipe dream. However, PlayStation has just launched a new search for talent in its Creator Audition Mash Up Project, or CAMP for short. They're looking for enthusiastic innovators to bring forth more unique games to the PS3/PSP. The audition is open to people of all ages and races ... so long as they live in Japan.The application is rather flexible, but it must effectively show your skills and your unique, innovative idea. Do what Dylan Cuthbert and Q-Games did with the PixelJunk series: use graphics to help convey what's bubbling in your brain.Check out the PlayStation CAMP website for more information. Who knows -- you may become the creator of the next innovative PlayStation project![Thanks, chocito!]
Register now for iPhoneDevCamp 2!
Good Morning, Campers! Registration for iPhoneDevCamp 2 opened yesterday, so if you want to attend this non-profit working event for iPhone / iPod Touch developers, head on over to the registration page and sign up. Spokesperson Raven Zachary told TUAW that the organizers are expecting all 500 spaces for the event to fill quickly this year due to the hype surrounding the iPhone SDK and the sellout crowd at WWDC 2008. This year's camp will be held at Adobe Systems in San Francisco August 1-3, 2008. You'll be able to create iPhone and iPod Touch apps with a group of the brightest and best developers, designers, and testers. We haven't yet heard if there will be singalongs, canoe races, or lanyard weaving, and you're on your own for making s'mores over the warmth of a MacBook Pro.Will I be going to camp this year? Unfortunately, I won't, but I am looking forward to seeing the innovative apps that will emerge from this long weekend.Thanks to Raven for the heads-up
Vote for the best piece of advice!
Last week I asked you to leave a comment with tips of anti-advice you could give to players. Things like "Be sure to move in the flame wreath so you're not cold when the blizzard hits!" or "Just walk up to Archimonde, he won't agro until you hit him." You all responded in force and gave lots of good tips and pieces of advice. Now for fame and no-fortune, lets vote for the best one!I'll close the voting next weekend and announce the winner on Monday April 21st. Vote now! I did! %Poll-12641%
Do summoning stones need neutral guards?
I play on RP servers only, but when they first came out, I tried an RP-PvP server for a while. I kept plugging away at it till I got to my mid thirties and finally gave up. Ever since then it's seemed to me that players on PvP servers are people who like their game to be extra difficult, and they don't mind if that means they have to suffer through the kind of situations that would submerge a "normal" gamer in intolerable frustration. They just accept that leveling up means doing lots and lots and lots of ghost runs, because other high-level characters will gank you and they will camp your corpse, and there's not much you can do about it. That's just the cost of being elite, to them -- having gone through it, it's as though they feel baptized by fire.That's why I'm always surprised when a player from a PvP server asks for some sort of help from Blizzard with such frustrating situations. A blood elf hunter named Arkdemon is asking for neutral guards at all summoning stones -- apparently he's had trouble getting to his instance when there's a bunch of PvP going on there. But isn't that the whole point? Isn't PvP on a PvP server supposed to get in the way of PvE stuff, just like all the other struggles these players go through leveling up? The fact that you can effectively conquer a summoning stone, raid entrance or otherwise important spot on a PvP server is the whole reason people play there. If you take away this sort of challenge, or nerf it until it's not so serious a problem for people who just wanna PvE that night, then what's the point of even having a PvP server to begin with? (Zul'Aman is a possible exception to this rule, since it's so much more accessible to the Horde than the Alliance, but even in that case, a number of hardcore PvPers cried out how much they hate the addition of guards there.)Bornakk seems to agree with me for the most part, but he mentions that Blizzard will indeed add guards (or indeed do whatever they want) if they feel it is necessary. What's your opinion?
AT&T launches iPhone store finder for the planners
We know the pencil pushers, er, Excel gurus out there are already crunching numbers, mapping out routes, calculating the opportunity risk in ditching work entirely on Friday, and figuring if you'd rather wait for the next iteration, so here's one more asset to help you wrap your mind around an attack plan. AT&T's "Find a Store" feature now boasts a selection that enables users to find retail outlets nearby that will definitively stock iPhones, meaning that your strategy of misguiding your local "friends" to an empty store is likely to backfire. Additionally, an anonymous tipster has noted that current Cingular / AT&T customers who aren't yet eligible for a new contract can still purchase an iPhone, but it sounds like an extension to their current contract will be tacked if this does prove true. Enough chatter -- now, get back to your scheming.[Thanks, Anonymous, image courtesy of Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Satmap's Active 10 handheld GPS / mapping system
If you're planning on roughing it out in the woods anytime soon, there's already a plethora of rugged GPS options to keep you (somewhat) on track, but Satmap Systems' Active 10 handheld puts a new spin on trekking. The device is being dubbed the "world's first to offer fully integrated digital maps and GPS hardware," meaning that users can purchase additional map cards that include detailed imagery of counties, regions, national trails, and national parks. Additionally, the unit sports a 3.5-inch backlit color display, integrated patch antenna, Windows CE operating system, a multitude of power options, USB 2.0 connectivity, an SD card reader, ARM 9 processor, 128MB of RAM, SiRF Star III receiver, integrated media player, and an impact resistant waterproof enclosure to boot. Initially, the company will be offering maps of popular UK locales, but additional maps (including "international" zones) will purportedly be available in SD cards or potentially as internet downloads in the not too distant future. Satmap is currently accepting pre-orders for the Active 10, and while the unit is set to ship sometime this month, you can get on the waiting list now for £299.99 ($594).[Thanks, Simon]
Outwit, outlast, and outcamp your way to a Wii
Planning to camp out this weekend in search of a Wii? We understand. Promises of plenty of consoles for everyone be damned -- when it's launch day, it's time to get your camp on. But there's a problem, see. There will probably be other people camping, too, and when it comes to a console launch, anything goes. We don't advocate violence ... but if someone tries to get between us and a Wii, well, we might have to kill them in front of their momma (apologies for quote bastardization). But no worries, fanfolk -- the crew at Gaming Out Loud did a little research* for you and they have some tips for outcamping all the other console-crazed individuals.We favor tip #3 (check out the original article for the rest): Nothing gives you more insta-cred than whipping out a DS lite while waiting for the sun to rise. Not only does it validate your nerdocity, but it can be a great way to spark conversations with others. "Hey, is that DS lite?" "Yes." Isn't that amazing? That right there has bonded you two for life. Though now it's going to seem like copying if we take a DS. Thanks, Alec. Thanks a lot. *They read a wiki. Not the Wiki, just a wiki.[Thanks, izzyb412!]
Toys R' Us nonsense [update 1]
I ntrepid, daring reporter than I am, I decided to brave the intense, soul-freezing cold that is Central Florida in October. My destination? Toys R' Us ... which I had heretofore not even known existed in my tiny town of Gainesville, Florida ... to check out the line. Reports were coming in of many TRU stores giving raffle tickets to everyone there, and having a lottery to determine the winners ... poppycock! The most devoted should get the system, and devoted there were. The first couple folks were out there at 8:45 AM on Saturday morning, bravely camping out for ... wait, a PS3? [update 1 -- fixed a small typo]
AppleScripts to set startup disk between Windows and Mac OS X
If you're living in a Boot Camp world and have a need for changing your startup disk from time to time, enterprising TUAW reader David B. has written a couple of AppleScript apps with your name on them. Boot (Camp) Sargent beta 0.1 is actually two scripts: the first to set your startup disk to Windows (*shudder*), while the other resets to Mac OS X. In this fast-paced, multiple OS world we live in, little apps that save a few clicks can make all the difference.Boot (Camp) Sargent is available at the first Google Pages site that I've ever seen used to promote or offer anything like this. Extra points for the tag line, "because holding down the Option key during startup is too hard", since I've actually heard people say that on the job in the past.
An easier method to get Windows Vista to run with Boot Camp
Yes, before you fire off a flaming comment, we know this is The Unofficial Apple Weblog, but we thought it might be nice to post a tip for those of you who either want or need to play with the next generation of Microsoft Windows, reportedly due out within the decade (hey, it was originally due in 2003 - by its present 2007 date they'll be almost half a decade late already). This Apple Discussions forum thread details a slightly more appealing trick for getting Vista, now in a public beta (but overloaded with download requests as of this writing), to install and run with Boot Camp. Basically, you need to have Boot Camp already set up and installed with Windows XP. Then, burn a DVD of the Vista beta you just downloaded. And before you ask: no, unfortunately, Vista won't run on Parallels Desktop - yet. Parallels has publicly mentioned making this work with a future version, but there is no ETA for when this support will land.Now - and this is the 'at your own risk' part - you need to use some kind of partition manager (the forum poster used one from within XP, but I've heard you can use one that starts up from within the Vista installer when booting from the DVD) to delete an ambiguous partition that Boot Camp creates that is around 180-200 MB in size. Again, we can't stress this enough: this is done at your own risk - you are messing with your boot record and after this step, Boot Camp won't be able to adjust your partitions or blow away and reclaim your Windows partition anymore. Mac OS X and Windows will still boot just fine, but this isn't an ideal setup for the faint-of-heart Boot Camp user.if you take the plunge and nuke that partition, however, you should now be able to boot from the Vista DVD and use it to upgrade your copy of Windows XP - which in and of itself could spark a discussion as to whether one should upgrade or install clean new versions of Windows; it usually isn't recommended with Mac OS X, who wants to take bets on Windows' ability to have a smooth OS upgrade ride?If you try any of this stuff out, feel free to post your thoughts on the experience, and then go wash your hands of one of the dirtiest things you can do to a Mac.
