death-ray
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League of Legends' Viktor wields science for evil
Meet Viktor. He's your basic nice-guy scientist who has one teeny, tiny bad experience and decides to turn his entire life into comic book villainy. Feel sorry for him or don't, he's going to rend you limb from limb either way. Viktor is the latest champion on League of Legends' drawing board, and Riot Games has given us a sneak peek at the awe and terror that he will bring to the game. Viktor is written as the creator of fellow champion Blitzcrank, but is a wee bit upset that his work got stolen from under his nose. Instead of joining a therapy group, Viktor turned his body into a robotic slaughter apparatus and is out for some good ol' fashioned revenging. Viktor's passive ability, Evolving Technology, allows players to purchase an item from the store to modify his bonus to suit the players' needs. He can also shoot a beam that bounces back to him as a shield, set up a Graviton Field to slow and stun enemies in his immediate vicinity, and fire a massive Death Ray that cuts through multiple foes. His Chaos Storm is neat as well, allowing Viktor to send out a cloud that silences and damages enemies caught within it.
Senate denies Navy's missile-destroying laser funding, puts the kibosh on annoying Dr. Evil impressions
Leave it to the Senate to crush the military's fragile dreams. All the Navy ever really wanted was a giant ship-based laser that could be used to shoot down missiles. Despite some record breaking stats, however, the latest defense authorization bill handed down from the Senate Armed Services Committee throws a giant congressional wet blanket on the free-electron laser. The project, it seems, has simply proven too expensive -- among other things, the laser's researchers haven't found the ideal method for powering the weapon from a ship. According to the current timeline, the project was not likely to have been completed before 2020, and as such the Navy's request for further funding was, somewhat ironically, ultimately shot down.
US Navy's free-electron laser breaks another record, takes aim at missiles next
The US Navy's free-electron laser has broken a few records already, but it's just plowed through another fairly big one -- one that its creators say could put it on the fast track to actually being used to shoot down missiles. That particular record involved running the system for eight hours at 500 kilovolts, which is a level they've been trying to achieve for the past six years and, according to the researchers, "definitely shortens" the time frame for getting to their ultimate goal of 100 kilowatts. What's more, while this particular test didn't actually involve blowing anything up, the Navy seems confident that the laser will eventually be able to do just that, as it's just recently awarded Boeing a $163 million contract to package the laser in a weapons system that would be deployed on ships and be able to detect, track, and destroy missiles (or presumably anything else ). According the Office of Naval Research, the Navy hopes to meet that goal by 2015. [Image: Wired / Danger Room]
Vdara hotel 'death ray' claiming victims in the Las Vegas Strip
"Death ray" is probably one of the most tantalizing phrases in the blogger's vocabulary, so our ears perked up when we heard talk of one out there in the Las Vegas Strip. A totally unforeseen and unpredictable consequence of building a 57-foot curved mirror in the desert, the Vdara Death Ray is the affectionate nickname given to a phenomenon that's been plaguing poolside loungers staying at the hotel / spa. Among the victims is one Bill Pintas, whose tale of woe was recently printed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: [A]fter a brief dip in the hotel pool, he was sunning on a recliner. He was on his stomach, relaxed, eyes closed. But suddenly, the lawyer became so uncomfortably hot that he leaped up to move. He tried to put on his flip-flop sandals but, inexplicably, they were too hot to touch. So he ran barefoot to the shade. "I was effectively being cooked," Pintas said. "I started running as fast as I could without looking like a lunatic." Then he smelled an odor, and realized it was coming from his head, where a bit of hair had been scorched. A spokesman for MGM Resorts International (which owns Vdara) claims that it is working to fix the problem. In the meantime, if you're going to be in town for any random tech shows that might pop up, we suggest that you either get a trailer or barricade yourself into your suite at Circus Circus. Both have worked for us in the past.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Engineer
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-fifth in a series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay various aspects of the lore and gaming elements of WoW. Engineering has been my favorite profession in WoW, both in terms of its usefulness in the game, as well as its status as an awesome profession for roleplaying. Maybe it's just because I'm a huge fan of steampunk, but I find that those gadgets and funny things you can make with engineering have a certain style that goes beyond simple utility -- You just look at an engineer with his goggles, his mechanical mount, and maybe even some sort of robot or machine trailing along after him, and you immediately get the feeling that this is a character with character. No other profession can give you such a distinct characterization: you're not just a rogue, for example -- you're a scientist rogue!In addition to that, most other professions feel like "crafting" jobs added on to the regular game, which they are -- they may give you better stats in one area or another but otherwise don't add many new abilities. Engineering, on the other hand, gives you a lot of special abilities and buttons to push, all of which can start to feel like a special sub-class for your character, underneath whatever class he or she already has. In fact, as roleplayers, many of us play up our status as engineers as much or even more than our status as a hunter, warlock, rogue, or whatever. That engineering style is so persistent that it can define our characters more than anything else -- our own Palehoof practically defined this style in the column devoted to engineering that he used to write every week, before he lost his horns and his hooves in a bizzare scientific experiment (and decided thereafter to spend more time with his family). His commentaries on practical and theoretical engineering serve as excellent inspiration for all roleplayers who would call their characters engineers.
Weekly World News reports Macworld Expo threatened by death ray app
Here at TUAW, we feel that it's our duty to bring you important, fast-breaking Apple news. That paragon of excellence in journalistic integrity, the Weekly World News, reported today that Macworld Expo 2009 is threatened by a death ray application for the iPhone. The app (we are unsure at press time whether or not it's available in the App Store) was created by Dr. Michael Heinous of Colorado State University. Dr. Heinous has also apparently moved CSU, normally found in Fort Collins, CO, to Boulder, home of the University of Colorado.Steve Jobs is reported to have taken time out from constructing an android body that will allow his consciousness to live forever to condemn the rogue app. He's quoted as saying "Apple does not approve of this application. Death ray technology and open source software are dangerous when released to the general public and are not in keeping with our corporate policy."The report was later updated to note that "Specialized Apple gear, like an iPod equipped gas mask or the iLive full body armor with wifi, is will be available at the convention. Apple's executives will attend the convention via telecom from the iFallout Shelter."Stay tuned to TUAW for more breaking news about this important, and obviously true, story.[via Weekly World News]
Brrzzap: The requirements, regulations, and rigamarole of ray guns
Or"Oh no, I've debigulated us all!"The arsenal of the Engineer holds an array of combat gear for use at range, close up, or even on a time delay. The Engineer's toolbox might produce explosives, or decoys, or rockets, or snares. Some Engineers have even used their talents to convert themselves into high altitude bombs, though the result is often as bad for the Engineer as for his target.However, an old standby of the Engineer cannot be overlooked. Pushing the envelope of our technical prowess, Engineer designers have produced a family of weapons which have been considered at times our signature pieces: the ray guns. Herein we will discuss the creation and use of the ray emitters available to all Engineers, with particular attention on what has long been a prize piece of the Mechanical Engineering Guild, Associated: the Gnomish Death Ray.
Inventors claim to turn 300 microwaves into megawatt energy weapon
If you happen to have say, 300 microwaves kicking around between you and your friends, it turns out that you'd have a large part of the ingredients necessary for a pretty substantial weapon. That is, according to two New Mexican inventors, who recently filed a patent for a "high-power microwave system employing a phase-locked array of inexpensive commercial magnetrons." Translated into English that basically means that these guys claim you can combine the magnetrons (the bits that generate the actual microwave that cooks your popcorn) from a bunch of consumer-grade microwaves and tweak 'em a bit to develop a megawatt-level death ray, or in military/legal parlance, a "directed energy weapon system." Yeah, we've seen energy weapons (or tools, if you prefer) before, but this is probably one of the first times that we've seen ordinary kitchen technology more complicated than a knife turn into a seriously lethal weapon. [Via New Scientist]
Researchers create microwave drill/death ray
If any of our peeps at Tel Aviv University have been noticing some suspicious holes around the campus lately, here's your culprit. It seems some researchers at the university have created a microwave drill that can easily bore holes through concrete, glass and other materials without leaving so much as a trace of dust left behind. It works by heating up the material to a toasty 2,000 degrees Celsius (over 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit), which softens the material enough for a metal rod to be pushed through it. Like any good death ray, however, the microwave drill has its weaknesses. For starters, the beam is unable to penetrate steel or sapphire, and there's also the small issue of microwave radiation, which could have some nasty consequences for the poor soul stuck operating the drill. According to the researchers, however, a simple shielding plate should be enough to protect anyone in the vicinity of the monstrosity -- maybe, but are there enough steel plates to protect us all if the device falls into the wrong hands? Like ours?[Via Core77]
Starfire Optical Range -- a death ray for science's sake
We're rather impressed with the US Air Force and their Starfire project. It's not every day you get to build a death ray on a desert hill in New Mexico and write it off as a scientific endeavor. The premise is that since the atmosphere diffracts light, messing up the view of ground-based optical telescopes, the Starfire shoots a laser 56 miles into the mesosphere and measures the distortion to adjust the telescope optics. Images from the Starfire are 40 times more accurate than regular, but the laser technology is coincidentally multi-purpose: "We don't hide the fact that it could help build an anti-satellite weapon," says the installation's chief, "if you choose to do it." Our thoughts exactly.
