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Miffed cell suscriber goes on tower-destroying rampage in APC
We'll take our warfare small-sized and mobile-friendly any day of the week, thank you very much. Seems an angry cell subscriber likely had the ride of his life wiped all trace of frustration from his soul by rampaging through Sydney destroying six cell towers in an Armored Personnel Carrier. Charged with malicious damage, break and enter, predatory driving, and driving in a dangerous manner, the mad driver was arrested on his way to a seventh appointment. The driver's name and carrier in question aren't mentioned, but we can assume he won't be worrying about cell reception where he's likely to end up -- unless, of course, it was all just an accident.
Gaming while driving laws coming soon
As states pass legislation to curb the distractions of drivers, we can't help but agree with one bit of anti-gaming legislation: gaming and driving laws. Considering the number of people that have either come close to, or have fully experienced, the fun of somebody hitting your car because they are on their cell phone -- we're cool with many states attempting to pass gaming and driving laws. If they try to pass coffee drinking and gaming laws there'll be some drama though.Approximately 12 states are trying to forbid drivers from playing video games or using computers and/or fax machines while they drive. Pity the person who still faxes and fear the fool who does it driving. The New York Senate, although having a slew of crazy video game bills, did recently pass S634-C, which should stop gaming and driving. But having a law and enforcing it are two separate worlds. It is expected to be finalized when the Assembly Codes Committee comes back from summer recess.[Via GamePolitics]
Crash of the Titans gameplay montage
Maybe we're crazy, but watching the embedded video (past the post break) has gotten us kind of excited for the game. The on-rail segments of the video look especially interesting to us. But, you know, we're realists, so we know to hold on to our large amounts of skepticism involving the game and will wait until the final product releases before passing any kind of real judgment.Do you think it looks promising, based on the gameplay montage video?%Gallery-3294%
Today's potential franchise relaunch video: Crash Bandicoot
Gameplay footage from Crash of the Titans held our interest for today's video pick. The upcoming Bandacoot adventure for all current platforms besides PS3 will be out this fall, and Crash fans may find a new title to love. (We're not talking about you, Action Pack.) Or is Crash looking a little too like The King for his own good?See the new video after the break, and watch a longer GameTrailers developer interview, too.
New games this week: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree edition
Sure to be an ironic favorite of Joseph Merrick, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree is set to reach the U.S. this week. If you're anything like us, you're also excited about the Crash Bandicoot Action Pack, or, at least, you were until you realized it consisted of Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash Twinsanity and Crash Nitro Kart. Isn't that like releasing Meatloaf's Greatest Hits with just an endless loop of "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are" and a puppy getting kicked down some stairs? You might find something you like more right after the jump.Nintendo Wii: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Scarface Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer The Sims 2: Pets %Gallery-3847%
Continental telematics safety system alerts drivers of impending hazards
It's fairly safe to say that Continental Automotive Systems isn't the only company out there conjuring up an in-car safety system to alert motorists of impending hazards, and while a certain sect (we jest, we jest) would likely ignore whatever great advice it's sure to give, we can still admire the effort here. Dubbed a "car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure telematics application," the system's goal is to alert drivers in advance of potential perils such as poor traction conditions, an approaching ambulance / emergency vehicle, or a road-block ahead that could induce fits of frustration. The developments are reportedly right in line with the US government's Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) Initiative, and we're sure officials are mighty proud of the E-Flare, which provides optical and acoustic warnings coupled with a force-feedback gas pedal, and E-Horn, which accepts incoming warning signals from emergency vehicles and alerts the driver via (presumably distracting) in-cabin lights and sounds. No word just yet on when our next whip will sport a few extra senses, but rather than make things easier on us to control, why not jump straight to autopilot?[Photo courtesy of Continental]
Reinvented Crash Bandicoot coming to PSP
The original Crash Bandicoot may already be playable on our system, but the first real PSP entry in the series is still on its way. Set to be another reinvention of the series, this new game will be titled Crash of the Titans. The main new feature of the game has Crash hijacking the minds of enemies. He'll also have expanded combat moves, and the game will have multiplayer elements. Radical Entertainment is helming this series reboot, which may be good,since they have a history of making enjoyable licensed games (Scarface, Hulk). Maybe this Crash will be worth getting excited over. Any long time Crash fans looking forward to this entry? [Via Games Radar]
Another Brit puts complete faith in GPS system, nearly perishes
Alright Britain, we've given you quite enough passes on this whole "blind faith in GPS" thing, but now we're going to need an explanation. In yet another case of a British individual nearly losing their life thanks to a complete and utter lack of common sense, a 20-year old Birmingham University student was following a GPS' directions to Carmarthenshire for the first time, only to have her vehicle destroyed by a speeding train while she watched. Oddly enough, the dame followed the route onto an "unmarked" (saywah?) railroad crossing, but rather than actually contemplating the situation, she proceeded to lift the nearest gate, drive her vehicle squarely onto the tracks, and then went to lift the far gate in order to cross what she reportedly thought was "a normal farmers' gate." In the meantime, a train made its way in her direction, and while she admitted that she considered getting back into the vehicle in an attempt to move it, thankfully she didn't follow through on any more unbelievably bad decisions. Needless to say, the car was trashed along with the GPS, but perhaps the most comical part is the fact that the lady has vowed to never use a navigation system again in protest for it nearly killing her -- we'd suggest staying off the roads altogether.[Via El Reg]
Lexus LS600hL's face detection camera, warning system get spied
Face detection on your average digicam may not seem that special, but strapping the feature atop your steering column can certainly make for a more enjoyable (and safer) driving experience. Lexus' new LS600hL sports a Driver Monitoring System, which places a detection device in front of the driver's seat that keeps a close eye on the orientation of the his / her face, and if it sees that you're peering off at the continually changing MINI billboard or checking out the overhead wind energy producer, it kicks into action. The system will send audible and visual alerts at first in an attempt to get your attention back, and can eventually "apply the brakes on its own" if the previous warnings prove futile. Moreover, it can reportedly "reprogram the steering ratio and amplify the intensity and quickness of the steering response" to keep motorists safe, but there's no word on whether or not a retinal scanner add-on will be available to automatically adjust user preferences depending on which driver hops in the seat. Click on through for another snapshot.
Automatically restart crashed programs
Over at Macworld Rob Griffiths has a great column on automatically restarting a program after a crash. Although it is much more stable these days, for a while last year Quicksilver was constantly crashing on me and often I wouldn't notice until ??? + space was strangely unavailing. If there's any program for you, like Quicksilver for me, that simply must be running all the times (but which unexpectedly crashes sometimes), Rob's hint is potentially very handy. It basically involves using Lingon to create a launchd daemon that watches for a crash log and then restarts the application when it sees one. Full instructions are available at Macworld. I'm now going to go see if I can get this set up for Quicksilver.
'Crash' of the Titans headed to Nintendo systems
We weren't too impressed with Crash Boom Bang!, Crash Bandicoot's minigame-filled debut on the Nintendo DS. Crash Tag Team Racing DS couldn't even manage to drive itself out of the studio before the project was scrapped. Third time's the charm, maybe?Crash of the Titans brings the series to not only the DS, but the GBA and Wii. Screenshots of the Wii title indicate that the blue-jeaned marsupial will be thrown back into his natural, platforming/adventure-gaming habitat, freeing him from the wacky genres that've watered down the franchise. Players will be able to unlock extra elements in the Wii version with a DS copy of the game.We're much too cautious to let another Crash Bandicoot title get our hopes up, but we wish Radical Entertainment all the best with its development. Though the Spanish magazine that unveiled Crash of the Titans mentioned an October release, the game isn't guaranteed to arrive in the US at the same date. [Via NeoGAF]
Amateur pilot demolishes homebrew plane, dubs attempt "partly successful"
C'mon folks, it shouldn't take an aeronautical engineer to figure out that flying an aircraft isn't exactly a cakewalk, and as we've seen time and time again, "amateur pilots" just aren't likely to land in a safe fashion. China's Li Xianfeng has become the latest daredevil to risk life and limb to satisfy his "lifelong dream" of flying, but he wasn't fortunate enough to complete "perfect landing" addendum. His self-built aluminum-framed plane was demolished after he spent a whopping 120-seconds "hovering about 50-feet above the ground," as his pilot instruction manuals clearly didn't provide the kind of in-depth training one would expect at, say, flight school. Amazingly, Li somehow felt that his hospitalizing crash was "partly successful," and he even spoke of his desire to try it once more when his current wounds healed. We'd respectfully advise a virtual flight next time, Mr. Xianfeng.[Via Fark]
Mac OS X kernel panic screensaver - let the pranks begin
What's better than a Dashboard widget that can display a Mac OS X kernel panic? A full-on screensaver that can simulate one, of course! Mark Johns of Doomlaser has built an eerily realistic kernel panic screensaver, right down to the slowly dropping grey shade of despair, that will surely induce panic in the hearts of its victims in the way that only the haunting question of "oh crap, did I save?!" can. For a nice touch of style, it can even pause iTunes to really stop the show.Watch a demo of the screensaver here in this post, or head over to YouTube for the original. Finally, you can snag your own pranktastic copy from Doomlaser.
Australian LG plasma / LCD TV owners forced to "reboot" frozen sets
It's not exactly unheard of for DVR, PC, and PPC-6700 owners to have legitimate complaints about "freezing" issues with their gizmos, but we can't say the average television was on our list of devices we look forward to "rebooting" every day hour or so. Apparently, a horde of Aussies are facing such a quandary, as the digital TV tuner in a myriad of LG LCD HDTVs and plasmas (hit the read link for the full list) is going on the fritz whilst tuned in to broadcasts on the Nine Network. Currently, the only answers irate owners are getting revolve around "reception issues with digital transmissions in Sydney and Melbourne," but LG has also stated that it expects to rollout a "way forward" for customers quite soon. Currently, the only way to solve the seizures is to unplug the set from the wall, give it "two to three minutes to reboot," and flip the power back on, which can quickly erode any meaning found in your average half-hour drama. Regardless of how irritating we're sure this is, at least a (promised) fix is supposedly on the way, and trust us, things could be much, much worse.Update: Oh man, what a disaster this is turning out to be. LG has now admitted that the problem affects 17 different models sold nationwide and stems from certain "digital TV processors and decoders had difficulty dealing with the way that the data signal is packaged." Even worse, the company is going to have to deploy hundreds of technicians to make tens of thousands of house calls, as an in-home repair is the only way to upgrade the components. Sorry, Aussies, until you can make an appointment, it seems like you're gonna be stuck with this annoyance for awhile -- and not only on Nine, as LG claims the bug could affect other OTA channels as well.[Via Core77]
Infamous MacBook WiFi hack demonstrated, dubious code to go public
This on-again / off-again storyline surrounding the infamous MacBook WiFi hack has us all in a bit of a whirlwind, but it looks like the responsible party is finally coming clean. David Maynor, who is now the CTO at Errata Security, broke the silence regarding the questionable WiFi vulnerability that he claimed existed in Apple's MacBook by actually demonstrating his findings in front of the crowds at the Black Hat DC event. The meddlesome duo elicited all sorts of backlash from Apple after the story surfaced, and a showing at the ToorCon hacker convention in San Diego was actually axed after Cupertino threatened to sue Maynor's now-former employer, SecureWorks. Yesterday, however, Maynor streamed rogue code from a Toshiba laptop while his MacBook (running OS X 10.4.6) scanned for wireless networks; sure enough, the laptop crashed, and he insinuated that the code could actually be used to do far worse things, such as control functions of the computer -- but interestingly enough, it wasn't noted whether the MacBook's WiFi adapter was Apple's own or of the third-party variety. The angst still felt by Maynor primarily stems from Apple's outright denial of his claims, only to provide an elusive patch that fixed the issue in OS X 10.4.8, essentially making its operating system more secure without giving David his due credit. Mr. Maynor also said that he would no longer attempt to work with Apple and wouldn't report any further findings to them, and while most Macs have certainly done their duty and upgraded to the latest version of OS X, users can reportedly expect a public release of the rogue code to hit the web soon.
Server stability one month later
So, how are the servers treating everyone a month after the expansion release? Alleria's actually gotten (knock on wood) significantly better, with only one hard server disconnect last weekend. It seems that all of our instabilities are on weekends, last weekend's was Saturday, the weekend previous was on Sunday. There have also been no queues for the last two weeks, even during prime times, lag has been "acceptable" for me anyway. How are your servers treating you?
SET readies in-car black box / crash recorder for release
Although Sindan Electrical Trading (SET) prefers to draw similarities between its forthcoming RoadBOX Driving Recorder and the infamous black box contraptions that are finding their way into vehicles everywhere, this accident recorder actually relates more closely to the DREC1000 and TS-1L. Slated to hit the Dubai market in mid-March, this in-car recording device is mounted atop and inside the vehicle's windshield where it continuously captures video of whatever's happening in front of the car. If an impact is detected, or if the driver slams on brakes, the machine stores the video, as well as acceleration data, 14 seconds before the incident and 6 seconds after. As expected, the video file and speed data can be transferred to a computer via USB (if the box isn't too mangled, that is), and specialized software creates charts to match the acceleration / braking data and get closer to the "truth" behind an accident. Interestingly, it seems the company is actually marketing these to corporations who rely on employee-driven vehicles as a way to accurately place (or remove) blame on peon screw-ups while behind the wheel of a company car. Nevertheless, those of you interested in making any future traffic cases a bit easier on a lawyer (be it yours or the other guy's) can snap this up in about six weeks for Dh1,500, or around $176.[Thanks, Paul S.]
The Burning Crusade: Lag and Instability
The vast amount of coverage I have seen on The Burning Crusade rollout has been positive. I'm having very negative experiences. For the first time since I started playing Warcraft I got to bed early last night. Not because a raid got cancelled, or because I was tired, but because I couldn't actually do anything.Every quest spawn in Outlands was camped. As a warlock, I'd typically get a couple DoT's on a mob, and some warrior would charge it. DoT's don't tag mobs until they do damage. It was taking, oh, 20-30 seconds for DoT's to tick because of the breathtaking lag. So I'd do about half the damage on the mob, the warrior would do the other half and get all the quest credit. Excellent. At least I was still out mana for the cast.So I rolled a new Draeni. Every quest spawn in the Draeni starting zone was camped. As a mage, I'd typically get 8 seconds into a 10 second frostbolt cast (did I mention it was laggy?) and a shaman would earth shock the mob, and I'd kill it half and get no credit. Nobody wanted to group, because of the XP penalty. The Outlands and the new starting zones are all on the same server. How do I know that? They all crash together. So I went back to my warlock, back to Outlands, and decided to get a guild group together to try the Ramparts. We zone in, the server crashes. Twice. Before the first pull.Then I get clever. I go to bed early, use flextime for the early in-early out and get home at 4. That would give me 3 hours of playtime before prime time. And they rebooted the servers this afternoon. I got 20 minutes in before the waves of crashes started again. I'm moving one of my level 60's over to a different server. A server that isn't crashing the outlands over and over and over again. Maybe I'll hit 70 there. Because it's not happening on my main server. So far this patch has been a uniformly horrible experience for me. Anyone else having bad experiences? Vent (but keep it civil) below.
Volvo's "City Safety" detects collisions, can steer out of the way
Volvo has just come out with its own version of collision detection technology, calling it "City Safety," and aims to release this new feature on some models within two years. The technology works via an optical radar in the upper windshield that calculates the distance and speed of the car immediately ahead of you (and it does it 50 times per second), then engages the brakes accordingly if the system detects that a crash is imminent. Of course, Toyota came out with a similar setup that was announced back in August, but Volvo's apparently has the added benefit of being able to "steer away from a potential collision" as well. We weren't really into the idea of turning over braking control to computers at first, either, but steering? We'll stick to walking, thanks.[Via Gizmag]
3.01 update? Blame Jeanne d'Arc!
According to Game Watch, the impressive-looking Jeanne d'Arc may be responsible for the insanely quick 3.01 firmware turnaround. 3.0 seems to have a glitch where the UMD load times were significantly increased for that game. Apparently, some users were experiencing game crashes, where players would be stuck at Loading screens. Strange. Could any other games be afflicted by strange 3.0 firmware glitchiness? [Via PSP-Vault]
