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'Asteroids' travels to the Cold War and beyond in 'VEC9'
Asteroids is the quintessential vector arcade game, featuring a stark black background and simple, geometric images representing spaceships, bullets and floating bits of space rock. Now, that visual genre gets a modern upgrade in VEC9, a 3D vector arcade game about a cryogenically frozen USSR pilot who awakens 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union and assumes the American military violently overthrew his country's reign. The pilot's mission is to attack major American cities in a spaceship outfitted with a giant laser and a chain gun, as Motherboard describes. VEC9 creators and tech tinkerers Andrew Reitano, Michael Dooley and Todd Bailey created a big, blinking cabinet for VEC9, complete with a massive controller that Motherboard says was originally designed for an M1 Abrams tank. The whole VEC9 shebang -- including retro-styled full-motion video cutscenes -- will be on display at Chicago's Logan Arcade starting November 7th.
Chicago's mayor wants every American high school grad to know how to code
Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for the Obama administration and current mayor of Chicago, has called on the president to institute computer coding competency as a national requirement to graduate high school. "Just make it a requirement," Emanuel said during a recent Washington Post-sponsored policy event. "I am fine with Common Core. We adopted it in the city, one of the first cities to do it. I'm great. [But] you need this skill — national policy. Make it a high-school graduation requirement."
Chicago kicks in 'cloud tax' on streaming services like Netflix
Citizens of Chicago need to prepare themselves for a "cloud tax" that went into effect on July 1. The nine-percent tax to cloud services like Netflix, Spotify and Xbox Live is the result of an "amusement tax" ruling that items "delivered electronically" for entertainment purposes are subject to a tax that has traditionally been levied against the sale of concert tickets, sporting events and the like. The ruling does not affect the sales of movies, songs and games delivered electronically. So purchases from the iTunes store and Steam are not taxed. But, a subscription to Apple Music or Spotify is subject to taxation. If your streaming entertainment service of choice hasn't already started charging, you may have a few months before your bill goes up. The ruling gives companies until September 1, 2015 to comply. [Image credit: Getty/wsfurlan]
PlayStation's Vue TV streaming app hits iPad in limited release
We've known that PlayStation Vue would hit iPad sooner or later and now Sony's TV streaming service finally has. PlayStation Vue Mobile's available in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia (the same cities the service launched in earlier this year) at the moment, and it's basically the same as what's on your PS4 in terms of functionality. So, video on demand, live TV and access to your favorite shows and channels as long as you're in one of the three aforementioned cities. You still need a PS4 to sign up, of course, and blackout restrictions can occasionally block streaming, just like we've seen with Sling TV. Usually, that means sporting events blacked out for various reasons, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
Uber's food delivery service launches in four cities
Uber's experiments with food delivery in California and Spain must've been a resounding success, as the ridesharing outfit is making that on-demand dining a permanent option. UberEats has officially launched in four cities, including the Barcelona and Los Angeles trial areas as well as two new burgs, Chicago and New York City. As before, the service really just substitutes pickups for meals -- you choose from curated restaurant menus, and an Uber driver will show up with your selections in a matter of minutes. This will seem very familiar if you've tried a restaurant delivery service before, but it'll undoubtedly be handy if you already use Uber and find yourself craving sandwiches or salads.
AT&T finally brings its gigabit internet to Chicago's suburbs
Back in October of last year, we learned about AT&T's plans to launch its 1Gbps fiber network, GigaPower, in cities like Chicago. And today, more than six months after the original announcement, the company's finally flipping the switch in some areas of The Windy City -- including Elgin, Oswego, Plainfield, Skokie, Yorkville and other "surrounding communities." The U-Verse gigabit internet will be available as a standalone service and as a bundle with a cable or phone package, with prices ranging from $90 to $150 per month, depending on your selection. If you're not in any of the aforementioned zones of coverage, fret not -- AT&T says it will be expanding the service across Chicago later this summer. [Image credit: Katy Silberger/Flickr]
'Mortal Kombat X' and the comedy of violence
Mortal Kombat is synonymous with violence -- hell, it's baked into the franchise's name. But despite how increasingly gruesome the series has become with each successive release throughout its 23-year history, it hasn't lost sight of keeping the tone light as a counterbalance. Whether that's a head popping up saying, "Toasty!" in falsetto after a particularly brutal uppercut, or turning an opponent into a crying baby that slips on a puddle of frozen urine at the end of a match, humor is just as intrinsic to the game as its bloodshed. What the series delivers is cartoony, over-the-top violence akin to the B-movie horror of something like Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. Fatalities, Mortal Kombat's signature, end-of-match moves, are shockingly gory, for sure, but somehow developer NetherRealm keeps the game from feeling like torture porn. "We're not out trying to make Saw or a horror film," says NetherRealm Lead Designer John Edwards. "We don't take ourselves too seriously."
Chicago's subways are getting speedy LTE data
Just because you have cellular service in the subway doesn't mean you have good service -- in many cases, your data goes in the dumps when your train ventures underground. That won't be a problem in Chicago for much longer, though. The city has reached a deal with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon that will have the carriers paying to bring LTE data to Chi-town's subway tunnels. When the upgrade is complete sometime later this year, you should have fast internet access all the way from O'Hare Airport to the Blue and Red Lines downtown. This upgrade was ultimately necessary given that wireless networks are preparing for a future where everything goes through LTE, but it's good to know that you'll soon have an easy time streaming music on the way home from a Cubs game. [Image credit: Chris Smith, Flickr]
Chicago's getting its own Uber-like app for ordering taxis
It's basically impossible to ignore the impact that the likes of Uber and Lyft have had on the taxicab industry, and Chicago's given up trying. The city government has approved a package from the local cab-drivers union that, among other things, pushes for unified mobile dispatching apps. As proposed, it'd work a lot like the aforementioned ride-sharing services and, compared to apps like Hailo, this would link potential customers to all of the city's 7,000 taxis instead of just a handful here or there. Additionally, the Taxi Driver Fairness Reforms package would make it easier for cabbies to compete financially as well. Lease rates would drop for fuel-efficient vehicles, saving drivers, as the city notes (PDF), between 15 and 25 percent on electric, hybrid or compressed natural gas vehicle payments over three years.
Dash takes the hassle and guesswork out of barhopping
Sure, you might be able to make reservations at your favorite dinner spot (or tip your barista) via mobile app, but that won't tell you how busy it'll be once you get there. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what mobile payment outfit Dash is hoping to solve with its new trick, Venue Vibes. By meshing with a bar or restaurant's existing point of sale system, it's able to glean real-time info on just how hopping a place is based on the number of open tabs compared against its maximum capacity. Looking for a bar that isn't too crowded, but still has some life to it? Aim for a watering hole with a "relaxed" rating. Want someplace rowdy? Shoot for a "lively" venue. The app is currently only available in New York and Chicago for now, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 different bars and restaurants on board.
Someone's trying to 3D print (most of) a car in six days
You can probably get quite a bit done by yourself in six days time, but could you build an entire car from scratch and take it for a test drive? Probably not. The folks at Local Motors are pretty confident that their 3D-printed car can roll out of Chicago's McCormick Place and go for a spin this Sunday, though. Printing started a few days ago at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in The Windy City, using carbon-reinforced plastic and a Big Area Additive Manufacturing printer, according to 3DPrint. Not everything on the car can be 3D printed mind you, that'd just be crazy. The Strati still needs a battery, engine, wiring and suspension, which, as IGN notes, will be sourced from a handful of suppliers rather than being manufactured onsite. If all goes according to plan, Local Motors hopes to offer "production-level" 3D printed vehicles in the coming months. It isn't an Aston Martin, to be sure, but aside from a DB4, what is?
Libraries will lend out WiFi hotspots to foster online learning
For the less fortunate, a library may be the only reliable way to get online. But what do they do after hours, or when they can't make the trek? That's where a pair of Knight Foundation grants may prove vital. Both the Chicago Public Library and New York Public Library are starting up large-scale projects that lend WiFi hotspots to households with little to no internet access, giving them a chance to pursue internet education programs that would otherwise be off-limits. Chicago's approach will let those in six broadband-deprived neighborhoods borrow a hotspot for up to three weeks; in New York, the library will offer mobile routers for up to a year as part of existing learning initiatives.
Chicago is getting lamp posts that count people and track pollution
Apparently, Chicago is becoming even more like its Watch Dogs doppelganger than we first thought. Researchers are deploying networked, sensor-equipped lamp posts from this July onward to learn how they could help urban planning and safety. They'll collect environmental data like air quality, noise levels and wind, and they'll also measure foot traffic by counting the number of passing cellphones. If the project takes off, Chicago officials could easily tell if air pollution is on the rise, or if a narrow sidewalk is creating a choke point.
Facial recognition software helps convict a robber
Watch Dogs' vision of a super-connected Chicago may be truer than you think. A local judge has convicted Pierre Martin of armed robbery after police used facial recognition software (NEC's NeoFace) to match surveillance camera footage with an existing mugshot. While the cops still used witnesses to confirm their findings and make an arrest, the technology was vital to pinpointing Martin in the first place -- it's doubtful that investigators would have had time to sift through 4.5 million booking photos.
Take a trip across Chicago in Watch Dogs video
Some players may want to familiarize themselves with the world ahead of Watch Dogs' release tomorrow and need all the resources they can get. With that in mind, this video guides viewers through the game's map, courtesy of the YouTubers at PlayStation Access. The video does miss a few areas of the map, but generally winds its way across the game's version of Chicago. Watch Dogs will launch tomorrow for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The Ubisoft Montreal-developed open-world game will also arrive on Wii U at some point, which Ubisoft said it is "fully focused on" earlier this month. [Image: Ubisoft]
The real-life hacking behind Watch Dogs' virtual world
It starts out simply. One day, you're scrolling through the Naval Criminal Investigative Service database, identifying a perp's body when an alert flashes red on your monitor. "INTRUSION DETECTED," it screams. You're getting hacked and there's only one solution: Call your bumbling partner over and have him join you at the keyboard. The two of you frantically bang out rapid-fire key sequences as random program windows flash onscreen. The hacker's getting further and further into the system. Your partner's never seen code like this before and his usual tricks to combat it aren't working. That's when the display goes dead and your silver fox of a boss saves the day by pulling the power plug of your workstation.
Verizon admits it can't handle LTE demand in major cities
We've all seen those commercials where Verizon boasts about the breadth of its network, but what of the depth? Turns out, at least in some cities, that Big Red's LTE is so over-taxed that users are being downgraded to 3G. Executive Fran Shammo has admitted that Verizon's capacity in places like New York and San Francisco is running out, but promised that the troubles should be fixed by the end of 2013. The company has pledged an extra $500 million in investment to remedy the issue, in addition to promising that, when it comes to capacity, Verizon will be "ahead of the curve" going into next year -- presumably before holding up a sign marked AWS Band 4 and winking at an imaginary camera.
Peripheral Vision 006: Shawn Campbell on starting a radio station with a computer and microphone
"People sometimes say, 'oh, you're just like a real radio station,' " Shawn Campbell begins with a smile. "I have to say, 'we are a real radio station -- we're just one that doesn't have a broadcast signal yet.' " Campbell is seated besides a mic in studio B of what does, indeed, look like a real radio station. I might have half-jokingly made a comment along those lines when we arrived -- one-hundred-plus years of terrestrial broadcasting is enough to instill one with certain preconceived notions about what, precisely, makes a radio station. Campbell launched Chicago-based CHIRP in 2007 with terrestrial radio dreams and a team of 75 volunteers. "I'd had a couple of bad experiences in radio where I'd really poured my heart and soul into a station, only to have it thwarted by the owners," she explains. "Initially we thought that we were going to have to wait to apply for a low-power FM federal broadcast license. We thought we were going to have to lobby and change the laws to be able to do that. But we were so engaged that after about six months, we thought there [was] no reason not to start as an online station and continue our work to increase access for low-power FM and eventually apply for a license."
Johann Sebastian Joust conquers Chicago
Johann Sebastian Joust continues its steady campaign of world domination with a stop in Chicago, Illinois, where random people in parks and subways join internet denizens in some light-based, non-screen video gaming hijinks, captured on film by RedPandaGamer.
Caption contest: Luigi puts the 'L' in Chicago's public transit system
Has Nintendo of America fallen on hard times? Why else would the company make one of its most beloved characters (or, at the very least, the brother of one of its most beloved characters) take Windy City public transit? Oh, that's right, the gaming giant has decked out the "L" train with ads for its new Super Luigi U title. The mustachioed plumber is riding the Brown Line in this Twitter shot, so be sure to be on the lookout for suspicious looking dinosaurs in the area (if you see something, say something). No word on whether he'll be making house calls today.
