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The more things change...
Most of us have heard by now that the next expansion will bring the ability to change your appearance somewhat, and some people out there may be thinking "What was I thinking when I created my character, Uglybub? Finally, with Wrath of the Lich King, I will at last be able to get rid of this electrfied hair and frowny face! Then I'll change his name to PrettySmoochCakeLove too!" As much as we might love to dream, it's not yet clear how much of your character's appearance you'll be able to change. Should Blizzard enable you to change everything about your character's appearance any time you might wish to?According to Blizzard's current thinking, you will be able to go to the local barbershop and have your hairstyle changed -- probably facial hair and earrings too. You will be able to go to the local dance studio -- yes that's right, a Dance Studio in the World of Warcraft -- and learn new dances. But the devs believe that plastic surgeons just haven't caught on in Azeroth or Outland yet. "Plastic surgeons?" You cry out, "Who said anything about plastic surgeons? I just want to be able to change my facial expression! What's the big deal?" And yes, of course you are right, but your facial expression is tied to eyecolor, nose shape, and everything else about your face. Those things shouldn't be changeable ... or should they?Is Blizzard right or wrong on this issue? Now that we've got name changes and we're getting hairstyle changes, it's got me wondering, where do you draw the line? Redoing your hair, or turning that frown upside down is one thing, but going from dark skin and brown eyes to pale skin and blue eyes (with lots of wrinkles) makes your character look like someone else altogether. Is infinite customizability something we really want? Does a certain degree of consistency offer any other advantages?
Found Footage: $2 multitouch screen, made with iSight
Multitouch is all the rage lately, but one of the drawbacks is that it's still pretty expensive. Enter this ingenious device-- it's a bag with dye colored water in it. That bag is then laid flat on a glass table, an iSight camera is placed underneath, the computer is coded (it appears, anyway) to look for fingertips pressing through the dye, and just like that, you've got a multitouch interface.Really incredible. Of course, it's hard to figure out how this could be used for something like the iPhone-- instead of a camera, you'd have to have some kind of light sensors behind the dye, and you'd have to figure out a way to have the dye-colored water stay spread even throughout the bag. In fact, come to think of it, I'm not really sure how most multitouch interfaces work-- maybe this is closer to the real thing than I imagine. Even if not, very cool idea, and I'm almost surprised to see it really works so well.[via Waxy]Update: Looks like the video is a little old-- this was posted back in early June, even before the iPhone was released. But it is still really cool, and it's the first I've seen it.
What would you like to see in the next expansion?
In WoW's first expansion we got many new toys: flying mounts of every variety, new races, new profession, arena pvp and a higher level cap along with those 41pt talents. It didn't take us long to start imagineering the next expansion, but now that many of us have hit level 70 with our mains, toyed with Dranei and Blood Elf alts and are hip deep in reputation grinds, it's worth revisiting the question: What would we like to see next?Blizzard is keeping tight lipped on the subject, probably holding back until Blizzcon 2007 at the beginning of August, but that hasn't stopped players from rolling out wish lists on the official forums. Some of the suggestions make sense. Others are ... on their own planet.
New Zealand peeps imitate plants to do solar on the cheap
Obviously, scientists didn't exactly originate the idea of harvesting energy from the sun when they started slapping together solar cells -- plants have been up on this whole photosynthesis mojo for a good long while. Now some researchers at Massey University in New Zealand have developed a range of synthetic dyes from organic compounds that closely mimic the light harvesting that goes on in nature. Other scientists have been pursuing similar solar techniques, but there's a major difficulty in getting the dyes to pass the energy on for actual use. After 10 years of research, the Massey scientists claim to have "the most efficient porphyrin dye in the world." Benefits of the dyes over traditional silicon-based solar panels include the ability to operate in low light, 10x cheaper production, and flexible application -- starting with canvassing roofs, walls and windows, but eventually moving on to wearable items that can charge your electronics stash. A working prototype for "real applications" should be ready in a couple years.[Via The Raw Feed]
Researchers claim dye key to faster Internet
The CBC is reporting that a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science, Washington State University, and the University of Leuven in Belgium have devised a synthesized organic dye molecule that could potentially be used to make the Internet considerably speedier, not to mention more fashionable (on a molecular level, at least) than it is in its current undyed state. Supposedly, the molecule reacts more strongly to light than any others tested -- some fifty percent better, specifically, which could apparently translate to a direct increase in data transmission rates if applied to optical fibers or computer circuits. Of course, this is all strictly confined to the lab for the time being, with no indication given as to when we might actually see the dye coating the sides of the Internet's tubes.[Via The Inquirer]
