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Cakewalk3D lets your regular 3D printer decorate food
You’d have to be a real foodie to drop a few thousand dollars on a dedicated food printer, but what if you could transform a regular 3D printer into one for a fraction of that? That’s the premise behind Cakewalk3D, a new Kickstarter project that promises to let you print designs on cakes, appetizers and more on the cheap.
Heroes of the Storm is now in closed beta
If you've paid attention to the people in the early testing for Heroes of the Storm, you likely saw a lot of feedback that amounted to surprise that the game was just in alpha. Of course, a game that feels polished and fun in alpha testing is in a good spot, which is why it should come as no huge surprise that the title moved into closed beta yesterday. Players who wish to test and have not already opted in should be sure to do so, as beta invitations are being sent out regularly. The team behind the game also took a moment to explain a bit more going on behind the scenes with character design by looking at Thrall -- specifically, looking at top-down design for Thrall as he exists within Heroes of the Storm and bottom-up design using Thrall's Warcraft III abilities as a starting point. It's an interesting look at how the same basic character could wind up inspiring two different designs in the end and well worth a glance if you're crossing your fingers for that closed invitation. [Thanks, Dengar.]
RIFT concept art contest tainted by copycat design [Updated with Trion's investigation]
The winners of RIFT's Concept Weapons and Cloaks contest were announced this weekend with prizes going out to the best designs in the Swords, Staves, and Cloaks categories. But one particular sword entry (the second place winner) caught the keen eye of a few RIFT fans. As it turns out, the impressive golden sword that won second place is actually copied from Deviant Art user Wen-M, who uploaded the original version in 2004. "LOL, thanks," Wen-M said when a fan congratulated him on his entry. "Unfortunately I did not enter, someone lacking honesty used my work without permission. some friends informed me about it. XD ah...people." You can read more on the other contest entries on the official forum thread. [Thanks to all who sent this in!] Update: Trion has responded with an explanation of its investigation of the accusations. In an email to Massively, the studio wrote, "Thanks to our users we were able to verify that this image was indeed appropriated from another artist. We of course disqualified the entry, and did a more thorough search to make sure that no other entries were also inappropriately submitted. We've reached out to the artist (who does absolutely amazing work, and is definitely worth checking out) both publicly and privately apologizing for this use of his art. We've adjusted the list of winners (viewable here), and congratulate all of the incredibly talented folks who participated in this contest." Congratulations to all of the legitimate winners!
EVE Evolved: Rubicon 1.3 and repainting ships
EVE Online's recently released Rubicon expansion was an important first step toward a truly player-run universe for everyone, allowing corporations to wage empire wars over planetary customs offices and introducing a series of new personal deployable structures. The initial release was a little light on content, but developers have since expanded on it significantly with three major point releases. Rubicon 1.3 went live this week, and the changes seem pretty good all around. This release overhauled the directional scanner, buffed the SoE Nestor battleship's capacitor recharge rate and remote repair range, and nerfed remote sensor dampeners into the ground. Large corporations like EVE University were pleased to hear that the limit on the size of corporations has been increased to 12,600 thanks to changes to the corporation management skills. And in response to an emerging trend in fleet warfare involving hordes of drone ships assigning their drones to an interceptor, developers have also limited the number of drones that can be assigned to another ship to 50. The 1.29 GB patch also included several overhauled ship models and new ship shaders, but the new feature I see the most potential in is the ability to finally repaint our ships. This could eventually help corporations establish their own visual identities and might even link into gameplay or EVE's spying metagame. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at some of the Rubicon 1.3 changes and how repainting your ship could become more than simply a cosmetic upgrade.
Cygnett's ICON case contains the story behind the artists and art
Perusing the many, many iPhone cases on display at CES is always a daunting proposition: Not only does every case manufacturer appear at the show with hundreds if not thousands of cases to show off, but even when all of the cases on display are finally out on store shelves, customers tend to fall right into standard patterns when purchasing a new iPhone case. People who buy cases usually don't do a lot of shopping around or feature comparing -- usually they just go to a store near them, look through all of the cases there, and just buy the one that looks like what they want and has an agreeable price. Plus, while manufacturers always bring a rainbow of colored cases (and lots of popular licensed brands) to the CES floor every year, we invariably get told time and time again by manufacturers that only one kind of case routinely tops the charts: Simple, clean, black. For all of the fashion trends and choices out there, black always seems to sell the best. Still, there are always a few cases worth pointing out every year, and this year the honor goes to Cygnett's ICON Art Series of iPhone cases. Cygnett is an Australian company, and the ICON series is a group of iPhone cases that boasts some amazing art from around the world, including Aborigine artist Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, graffiti artists Tats Cru and Scarygirl creator Nathan Jurevicius. In addition to offering iPhone cases with these artists' works on the back of them, the ICON line also provides a writeup inside each case, that informs you about the work and the artist. It's a little thing (and when your iPhone is actually inside the case, you can't read the writeup anyway), but I definitely like that the company is aiming to use this art for something other than to just make your case look good. The money raised from the cases (each is available for US$29.99) goes partly to the artists as well, so wrapping your iPhone in this way is a nice way of respecting some really great work. When it comes down to choosing an iPhone case, the choice is more or less up to you -- obviously there are more heavy duty options if you're looking for protection, or more practical options if you want a wallet-style case or some extra gadgets on it like a battery pack or a stand. But cosmetic cases are all pretty plain, and it's cool to see Cygnett pushing not only the art on the back of the case, but the story behind it as well.
XBLA Minecraft's 'Skin Pack 3' features Half-Life and Awesomenauts skins
In addition to the recent 1.8.2 update for the Xbox Live version of Minecraft, there's even more content showing up soon. Specifically, a third character skin pack is set to come to the popular sandbox game. Like the first two packs, this one will contain quite a few new skins for Minecraft characters from other media, including content based on the Half-Life series and Awesomenauts. Sure, you could dig a hole as a dwarf, but why do that when you could do the same thing as a headcrab zombie?There's no information yet, unfortunately, on when the update or the skin pack are coming out; both still need to finish going through Microsoft's certification system. But we'll expect to hear from Mojang and Microsoft as soon as the skins are ready for purchase -- probably in just a few days from now.
Inside Susan Kare's 'iconic' sketchbooks
We've mentioned Susan Kare and her work on the site before, but it's a story that's always worth repeating: She's the woman behind some of Apple's most iconic, well, icon designs. Kare was working as a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco when her friend Andy Hertzfeld asked her to think about some graphical icons to be used in a computer interface, and as you can see on this great PLoS blog post, she jumped right into the project. In these great images from her sketchbooks, you can see her working on the first proportionally spaced digital fonts used, and then progress up into bitmaps of both famous Mac icons like the Trash Can, the Cmd key, and the smiling Mac. There are even some really great but not used icons like a symbol for "Auto Indent" that actually shows an automobile leaving an indentation in a tree. What amazing work. She has published a book of her work, and you can even get it signed if you buy it directly from her website. Don't forget, too, that not only was Kare designing these icons for the Mac, but this was for the first major computer graphic interface, which means many of the standard icons we know today (the little speaker for audio controls, or the hand on screen for moving things around or even clicking through Internet links, were first originated by Kare and her peers. Really amazing stuff. [via The Mary Sue]
eBoy Engadget t-shirts are now shipping, get yours right here!
Great news for people who wear clothes: eBoy's first full collection of Engadget t-shirts has started to ship all over the world. For those that pre-ordered between September 16th and yesterday, you should be receiving a shipment in the coming days. For everyone else? There's no better time to start stocking up on stocking stuffers, as the entire pack of new designs are in stock and ready to ship right now. We'd like to thank eBoy (read our introduction here) and the folks that pre-ordered for their awesomeness, and if you'd like to join the crowd, the two source links just below are waiting for your click. As a reminder, we'll be giving 50 percent of the proceeds received to Child's Play Charity, which provides games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world.
The Engadget / eBoy t-shirt shop is officially open, pre-orders start today!
Woo, boy. We've been bursting at the seams to share this one, and it's finally time -- Engadget is teaming up with the one and only eBoy (read our introduction here) in order to open up our very own t-shirt shop! We've worked with eBoy over the years, and we've never been let down by their mind-blowing work. Every so often, we've offered up a stash of shirts for our dear readers to snap up, and every time, they were gone before sundown. That's just not right. To remedy said quandary, we've worked up a beautiful arrangement that'll have one of our favorite artists whipping out t-shirt designs for us, and they'll be handling the orders and logistics as they've been doing for years. Pre-orders are live worldwide right now, and initial shipments should start flowing around mid-October. Our first five designs are showcased in the gallery below, and if you're interested, surf on down to the source link below to grab one (or two!). They're priced at $24 (US / Canada), or €20 elsewhere, and if you're curious about sizing, have a look at American Apparel's size chart right here. We hope you love 'em as much as we do, and we'll be giving 50 percent of the proceeds received to Child's Play Charity, which provides games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world. %Gallery-134010%
Apple is tops in retail dollars per square foot across US stores
A site called RetailSails has done an analysis of the top global moneymaking retailers per square feet of store space, and guess who comes out on top? That's right, it's Apple, who reportedly picks up over $5600 a year per every square foot of retail store space. There is some confusion and estimation here -- Apple is opening and closing stores all the time, and the company only releases sales numbers for retail on a worldwide level, not just the United States. RetailSails has done its best to get the numbers right, but even they admit this is designed to give more of a general insight on the scene rather than specific figures. All that said, there's no question at all that Apple is doing an amazing job with its retail divisions, designing impressive stores in all the right places and making sure that those stores deliver on sales and revenue expectations. Even a store like Tiffany and Co., which tends to be smaller but sell relatively more expensive items in general, can't keep up with the revenue Apple has flowing in. It's no wonder, then, that Apple keeps posting record sales, and opening new stores as fast as it can. If there's a ceiling to demand for these products in these spaces, Apple hasn't hit it yet.
Fruit Ninja shirts appearing at Hot Topic
Halfbrick Studios' iOS game Fruit Ninja continues to grow -- the Australian company announced that it has inked a deal to sell Fruit Ninja-flavored apparel in Hot Topic (the clothing store at the mall that's about as tacky as it gets). The deal was put together with licensing agent HAP Consulting, and there are four shirts available now (featuring slogans like "slicing fruit like a boss!" and "Fruit Ninja addict!"), with more on the way. It's cool to see a big iOS property do well, but do they have to be that ... obvious? I'd like to see a more subtle kind of t-shirt, maybe just a few splotches on the front, or just a sliced watermelon emblem over the pocket. Maybe I'm just getting old -- I don't really want a T-shirt that's louder than, you know, my own voice. If you don't share my concerns and want to show off a little Fruit Ninja love, the shirts can be picked up in stores, we're told, or on the website.
Will we pay more for magazines on the iPad?
Business Insider has a post up from AdAge about magazine pricing on the iPad, and they've got bad news for anyone planning to transfer all of their magazine subscriptions to Apple's magical device: It'll cost ya. While a year's worth of Popular Mechanics goes for $12 from the publication's website (or even cheaper if you can pick it up from Amazon or that random kid wandering your subdivision selling subscriptions), the iPad subscription will cost $29.95; that's over twice as much. You can buy a year's worth of Wired on Amazon for just $10, but one issue on the iPad costs you half of that. Why? At first, the cost seems like a ripoff; publishers don't have to pay for paper, ink, or postage, so you'd think the content should actually be cheaper. Then you calculate in the cost of interactive designs and features, researching new technologies, and creating new workflows, and creating an iPad version of the magazine starts to get more expensive. Throw in that publishers are wary of pricing their content too low, and you get a higher price than a print subscription -- which plenty of readers will probably pay anyway. That's a pretty fragile pricing state, though; e-books are already cheaper than their print versions, and while comic books are the same price in the store as they are on something like the Marvel application, you have to think that those prices will drop too. As usual, early adopters will pay the most, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the price of "e-magazines" drop as publishers and consumers alike even out the rough edges of the transaction.
Masthead Studios explains crafting and mass production in Earthrise
Earthrise is an upcoming sandbox MMO that will have strong emphasis on guild-vs.-guild conflicts and PvP. The game will also have a deep crafting system, something that may interest players looking for more than PvP in a sci-fi MMO. Earthrise developer Masthead Studios has stated in the past that it'll be possible for players to craft unique, customized items and perhaps even establish a reputation for producing certain wares. The latest Question of the Week answered by the Earthrise developers sheds a little more light on how crafting and mass production will work in the game. Specifically, Masthead Studios explains how mass production will apply to some of the game's rarest craftable items. Moll, Earthrise's Community Manager, explains how a blueprinting process creates Designs which are used by crafters; these are essentially templates combined with ingredients/materials to create items. Each Design will have a finite property called Edge which gets burned off over time through the manufacturing process. The limited use of Design Edges mean that the game's rarest or most elite items can't be created in large production runs, in other words keeping them rare and elite in a game where mass production is possible.
Earthrise PvE gameplay to give competitive edge in PvP
For a game that's still in closed beta, the team at Masthead Studios has been communicating with Earthrise fans quite regularly about the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO. Their "Question of the Week" forum always dishes out new info about Earthrise. This week is no different and the devs explain how PvE gameplay can give Earthrise players a competitive edge in PvP. Players will be able to progress through storyline quest chains, alternately focusing on combat, crafting, and exploration. Although Earthrise will have a player-driven economy, Masthead Studios writes, "At its foundation, however, it is dependent on the constant supply of resources that are directly connected to PvE gameplay. Many of the missions will be built around the constant competition around resources."
Jewelcrafting's flawed design
I don't know about you, but I think Jewelcrafting is the absolute worst Profession in the game right now. Back in The Burning Crusade, Blizzard made the awful mistake of having key leveling recipes as BoE world drops, making it extremely expensive to purchase the necessary designs just to level the Profession. In Wrath of the Lich King, they avoided the same mistake by making virtually all designs purchasable through a vendor.Great news, right? Not really. Actually, it downright sucks. Why? Because most patterns, sold by the cleverly named Tiffany Cartier, aren't purchasable with Gold. Jewelcrafters use Dalaran Jewelcrafter's Tokens to purchase designs. The trouble is, the tokens are soulbound and are a reward from doing the Jewelcrafting daily quest. Unfortunately, you can only do the daily once per day. With designs going anywhere from 2-6 Jewelcrafter's Tokens apiece, it takes at least two days to pick up a new design. While Jewelcrafters won't need to purchase all the designs -- some are BoP gems that don't benefit the player's class -- it will take over 170 days just to purchase all 62 patterns that she sells. There's something seriously wrong there.
Insider Trader: Faction recipes for jewelcrafters, part one
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.With all of the Wrath news flying around lately, it is a welcome break to be covering live content. For the past few weeks, Insider Trader has been delving into the recipes that each trade can acquire from factions by earning reputation. So far, we've covered: Plans for blacksmiths. Recipes for alchemists. Patterns for leatherworkers. Patterns for tailors. This week, we'll be looking into faction-supplied designs for jewelcrafters, and because of the sheer number of them, this will continue into next week as well. Here's a breakdown of the factions to which you'll be paying a fair amount of attention: (Note that the bold entries will be covered in this week's edition). Violet Eye, honored. (Karazhan) Thrallmar or Honor Hold, revered. Lower City, revered. Aldor or Scryers, revered. Sha'tar, revered. Keepers of Time, revered. Scale of the Sands, revered. (Mount Hyjal) Cenarion Expedition, exalted. Consortium, exalted. Shattered Sun Offensive, exalted.
Insider Trader: Jewelcrafting, the final stretch part 1
Despite the overwhelming support from our readers during our brief but flower-tastic adventures as HKO-Insider, I will be unable to delve any further into the professions of the Flower Kingdom. That's okay; they were prejudiced against jewelcrafters anyway.Two weeks ago, I posted Insider Trader's guide to the final stretch of Alchemy, and Runstadrey posted the following comment in response: Excellent article, very in depth and thorough. I'm eagerly awaiting the same treatment for my stalled JC.How could I resist a request preceded by flattery? I might have even produced this last week, had patch 2.4 not have dropped; after all, we can't have all of our jewelcrafters stalled mid-level. I am looking forward to reading the comment section for this guide, as the cheapest way on paper always varies because of unique server economies.For the first part of the guide, which will show you how to reach 355 jewelcrafting in the cheapest manner possible, pass on through the break. Each week, Insider Trader takes you behind the scenes of the bustling sub-culture of professional craftsmen, examining the profitable, the tragically lacking, and the methods behind the madness. For more guides to maximizing your chosen profession, check out the final stretches for Leatherworkers and Alchemists alike. For a complete list of profession guides, feel free to peruse our directory.
iColours for Apple notebooks
If the white glow of the Apple logo in your notebook isn't touching your heart the same way anymore, iColours might be just the touch-up you need to rekindle your love of all Apple things that glow (of which there aren't many). These 'high quality' filters come in a wide range of colors, and as you can see from our screenshot - they're customizable. They have a decent gallery of custom designs, and they offer installation instructions for iBooks, PowerBooks and even MBs and MBPs [Update: turns out MacBook/Pro instructions are still brewing. Take a look before you place an order if you're an MB/MBP owner.]Base price for a solid color is $3.99, including worldwide shipping. While custom designs are available, they ask that you contact them before ordering. Needless to say, installing these most likely blows any warranty you might have out of the water, but that hasn't stopped you before, right?Thanks Jason P
Widget Watch: destroy your productivity with the Threadless Vote widget
I have to admit: I'm a nut for Threadless. The t-shirt design submissions that actually go to print after voting can certainly be hit or miss sometimes, but they crank out enough to keep me coming back for more. As if combing their site for new threads isn't enough of a time-waster, someone decided to curse my productivity by creating a Threadless Vote widget that allows you to browse and rate submissions. You need to have a free account already created with Threadless, but after that minor step, you can go nuts with tossing in your two cents on which designs make it into their catalog.
