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Wizard 101 to include voice overs, shared bank feature
The team over at Kingsisle Entertainment isn't sitting on their hands while Wizard 101 racks up over 1 million accounts. The most recent update to the game will be bringing a voice to the many characters of the Ravenwood School, as well as a new utility for those who play multiple characters.Voice overs for all of the characters in Wizard City and Krokotopia have been added as of March 16th, and the other areas of Marleybone, Moo Shu, and Dragonspyre will be soon to follow. These voice overs will be added to all of the quests, NPCs, cinematics, and boss encounters in the game, making everything a little bit more colorful.Players who play multiple characters will also love the new shared bank feature, which allows you to share one dorm room space amongst all of your characters. So, if you find something that would benefit one of your other five characters, worry no longer!
MIT student hacks his dorm room door lock
Dheera Venkatraman, a crafty MIT student, has just completed the latest iteration in a series of upgrades to his dorm room door lock. Now because MIT's administration doesn't like it if you hack the door locks or the strike plates, Dheera needed an innovative way to enter his own room without using a key. He's gone through a series of various door-opening mechanisms over the last couple of years -- our favorite one required scanning a barcode on a box of EZ Mac to gain entry -- but he's finally settled on the simplest design, a computer-less setup that involves a microcontroller, a motor, and a PS/2 (waterproof) keyboard. (He's got a much more technical explanation, including a circuit diagram and drivers on his website, in case your SO / parents / kids also have rules about messing with your house). We're now taking bets on how long it takes his MIT classmates to crack his password.[Via MAKE: Blog]
MIT students automate dorm room, add "party mode"
Even though they may have somewhat of a geeky reputation, MIT students party just as hard as the white hatters at your local state school, and probably graduate in larger percentages to boot. It should be no surprise, then, that a couple of dorm-dwelling party animals at the university decided to use their copious electronics skillz to convert their room into the ultimate cramped disco -- and because this is MIT we're talking about, everything goes live at the push of a single button. Using an X-10 control system, Zack Anderson and his roommate RJ Ryan hooked up strobe lights, black lights, a fog machine, laser light show, scrolling LED sign, disco ball, and an LCD projector to their computers so that all the effects would sync with whatever music was playing, and even retrofitted their window blind with a motor so it can drop down and act as a projection screen for some trippy visualization action. Calling their setup MIDAS (Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System), the pair also included a security alarm and camera for remotely monitoring their now-famous room, and situated small VFDs throughout the interior to deliver system status updates or other types of infoswag. Hey guys, if you don't land some hotshot jobs after college with your MIT degrees, we always have room for clever DIYers right here at Engadget.[Via MAKE: Blog]
