eclipse
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Biggest US total solar eclipse in decades happens next year
Lunar eclipses are pretty amazing, but statistically speaking, they aren't really all that rare. Catching a full solar eclipse, on the other hand? That's hard. The moon blocks our planet's view of the sun about ever year and a half -- but these eclipses can typically only be seen from extremely remote locations. Next year, things will be different. On August 21st 2017, a total solar eclipse will be viewable from 14 US States in North America -- marking the first time Americans have been able to see the phenomenon since 1979. If you're reading this from the USA, that means you're only one year and a short road trip from seeing an exclusive celestial ballet.
A supermoon lunar eclipse is a pretty rare thing, so go look at it now
If you're thinking the moon is looking particularly foreboding, don't worry. Your eyes aren't playing tricks, and nor is it the end of days, but a lunar phenomenon that happens once roughly every 30 years. If you look outside now, you'll see a supermoon lunar eclipse: a combination of a very nearby moon -- making it look up to 14 percent bigger -- and reflected orange hue from the sun, which is lined up with the moon and the Earth. Get your camera out (or hold your phone real steady), and go outside. But if you don't really like "outside", NASA's offering its own livestream right here. And if you miss it, you'll just have to wait til 2033.
Perfect World's Eclipse expansion adds new classes, race on Dec. 16
Perfect World International is getting a new expansion, its sixth, to be precise. It's called Eclipse, and you'll be able to patch it and play it on December 16th. Why might you want to? Well, the lunar-themed content drop features a new playable race (the Nightshade) along with two new classes (the Duskblade and Stormbringer, which wield sabers and scythes, respectively). There's also a new starter region called the Celestial Vale, a new endgame dungeon, a revamped skill training system, "optimized" dailies, and new 8.5 ranked gear. [Source: Perfect World press release]
A total lunar eclipse is happening tonight, and here's how you can watch
You may have a good excuse to stay up late tonight. A rare total lunar eclipse, where the Earth casts a shadow over the entire Moon, is due to start at 12:53AM Eastern. Our celestial neighbor should be completely enshrouded by 3:06AM, producing an eerie coppery glow as it's bathed in refracted light from Earth's atmosphere. And unlike a solar eclipse, there's a good chance that you'll get to see this event if you're reading this -- most of the Americas will get the full effect, while partial glimpses will be possible as far as Australia and western Africa.
Daily iPad App: Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy is a great board game adaptation
Eclipse is one of the most popular board games around right now -- it's a vast, involving epic "4X" game, where those four Xs stand for eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation (as in mining crops and resources from various planets) and eXtermination (as in finishing off your alien opponents). It was recently announced that Big Daddy's Creations would be adapting the game for iPad, and the iOS version has now arrived on the App Store, available for US$6.99. As a board game, I think Eclipse is terrific -- it's very well-balanced, and all of the various things you can do offer plenty of different strategies to play with. There are three resources (money, science and material) that you can use to exert your influence on various areas of a galaxy, research new technologies for starships or your empire or build up those ships and other various structures to combat your enemies. The game's almost endlessly flexible, in that you can try to win over the game's nine turns in any number of ways. The drawback here, however, is that all of that flexibility and complexity make the game, well, complicated. This is not a casual game by any means, and while the iOS version's interface is fairly good at converting all of the information you need into a visible, touchable form, it's not very good at actually explaining what all of that information is. So when you're confronted by 30-50 icons on screen at the same time and asked to choose one, the game can be overwhelming to say the least. Still, if you like great board games and are up for a challenge, Eclipse is excellent. And if you're already familiar with the board game, then this might end up becoming one of your favorite games on the App Store. My only other complaint is that there's no real "metagame" to it -- winning or losing the various games you play doesn't matter much in the larger picture at all. Still, Eclipse is an incredible adaptation of a brilliant board game, and it comes highly recommended. Even at the price of $6.99, it's one of the best board game apps out there.
Some excellent new games on the App Store right now
Apple traditionally releases big new apps all together on Thursday, and this week there's an exceptionally good slate of releases arriving, including some games we've been waiting on for a while. As expected, Angry Birds Friends has arrived, and it's a social take on the popular Angry Birds series. You can get it for free. Eclipse is a spectacular (if a little complicated) take on the award-winning board game, available for US$6.99. We'll have more on this one as a Daily iPad App later today. Firaxis' Haunted Hollow is now officially out, and it's just plain great. Free-to-play, deep (but accessible) strategy from one of the best game developers around. This one is a must-download. Wizard Ops Tactics is a free-to-play tactical strategy version of the Wizard Ops shooter that released a while back. The Kickstarter-fueled Star Command is now available for $2.99. It looks good, but the game has gotten some flak for not quite fulfilling all of its promises to Kickstarter backers. The interactive book/RPG that is Steve Jackson's Sorcery! has finally arrived as well. It's a nice bit of nostalgia, and you can grab it for $4.99. There are even more new releases on the App Store, but those are the big ones. Some of those, like Haunted Hollow especially, I've been waiting to play since GDC this year. And now they're all out -- go get 'em!
Two great board games headed to iOS: Talisman Prologue and Eclipse
There's some great news today about two different -- both excellent -- physical board games headed to digital versions on the App Store. First up, the game Eclipse has been submitted to the App Store as a digital app. This is a great galaxy-spanning civilization builder, and the physical component has dozens and dozens of little miniatures and pieces to play with, so it'll be nice to have an iPad-based version around. The price hasn't yet been revealed, and it's unclear just how soon the game will be out, but if Apple doesn't have any problems with the submission, we should see it later on this week. In other board-game-to-digital-app news, we'll see a version of Games Workshop's Talisman, called Talisman Prologue, on the App Store later on this week as well. Prologue will be single player only, but it will use the game card-drawing mechanics of the physical game, and the short preview trailer that developer Thumbstar Games has released makes it look like an excellent time. There's no word on price for this one either, but we'll know soon enough: The game is set to be out in the US this Thursday.
LG E970 Eclipse for AT&T cruises through FCC approval
The Eclipse, LG's rumored "superphone" heading to AT&T, has just made it through the FCC approval process and is one step closer to seeing availability in time for the holiday season. Known also as the E970, the device unsurprisingly offers the usual AT&T LTE radios (band 4 and 17) but much like we've seen in other FCC applications recently, it also tacks on an additional two next-gen radios (bands 2 and 5), likely to get ready for an impending spectrum refarm attempt. From the docs we also learn that the Eclipse will have NFC along with the expected HSPA+ / UMTS / EDGE connectivity. As a recap, the device is rumored to offer a quad-core Krait APQ8064 and a 4.67-inch display with 1,280 x 768 resolution. So it looks like this particular handset is still on course for a Halloween launch, and we'll keep our eyes peeled for additional information.
LG teases that Optimus G will have 768p gapless display, long-lifespan battery
LG must know that word of the Optimus G has been spoiled, even if it's not quite ready to put all its cards on the table. While it's only acknowledging the phone's identity under a 'G' codename, the Korean electronics giant is willing to talk a lot about what's under the hood. Among the truly new revelations: that uncommonly wide 1,280 x 768 screen, now called the G2 Touch Hybrid Display, is a 30 percent thinner gapless panel that puts the LCD right near the glass in a way that just might be familiar to HTC One X owners. We don't know for certain if it's one of those newly-shipping in-cell touch panels, but that name certainly suggests LG is setting aside a few of those cutting-edge LCDs for itself. There's also a treat in store for those who work their phones to the bone -- a newly refined battery can go through 800 full recharge cycles before it gives up the ghost, or about 60 percent more than we've seen in the past. Combine these with the quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro we already knew was coming, and the Optimus G could be quite the technology showcase for both LG's native South Korea as well as the US through a possible Sprint model.
LG teases its new quad-core superphone: Snapdragon S4 Pro is awesome, device still vague (video)
While Qualcomm let the Snapdragon out of the bag a little early, LG's now caught up and launched a (Korean-only) teaser site for its next LTE smartphone. Promising a second-generation quad-core experience, the new flagship device will offer better power management and graphics performance thanks to the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset beating away at its core. There's space on the site for another five videos, which should hopefully give us a little more detail than what we've been able to glean from FCC filings. Thumb your Korean dictionary ready and check out LG's first taster after the break.
LG Eclipse (LS970) pops up in FCC docs, ready to prop up Sprint's LTE network
Where there's smoke, there's fire and by the looks of this latest FCC filing, LG's LS970 is all but a lock for Sprint's LTE lineup. Rumored to bow on that carrier as the Eclipse, the heavyweight handset, allegedly outfitted with a quad-core Krait processor, companion Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB RAM, has already been the subject of several leaks, leaving little of its spec load to the imagination. And now with the outing of these Commission docs, we can confirm that this uberphone does indeed pack 3G/4G radios tailored for the Hesse-led operator (CDMA 820 / 850 / 1900; LTE Band 25), as well as support for NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi a/b/g/n, GPS and SVLTE (simultaneous voice and data). While we can't be exactly sure as to its actual screen size, that reported 4.67-inch figure does appear likely given its 5.2 x 2.8 inch (130.9 x 71.6mm) dimensions. That's about all we were able to glean from the spate of included tests, but if you call Big Yellow your wireless home and are itching for a GS III alternative, this could be your next.
Shifting Perspectives: Further redesigns to the Mists of Pandaria balance druid rotation
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we make ch-ch-ch-changes. A new week, a new beta patch, and a new design for the balance druid rotation (again)! There are some large changes here, as it appears the developers have scrapped a few of the new ideas that they were trying in the beta and have reverted to more of a Cataclysm-style model. All the theorycrafting on this is still being done, so some caution is in order, but I'm tentatively excited about how this is turning out. First, here's a quick list of the new changes (thanks to Elrahd): Moonfire and Sunfire are now two separate spells independent of Eclipse. Base damage of DoT component damage for both spells increased by 50% and duration reverted to 18 seconds. When Celestial Alignment is activated, casting Moonfire will apply both DoTs. Crits from Starfire and Wrath increase the duration of Moonfire and Sunfire respectively by 2 seconds. Starsurge crits increases both by 2 seconds. This effect is independent of Eclipse. Fae Empowerment no longer exists. Euphoria is no longer a proc but a passive that guarantees double energy generation from nukes outside of Eclipse. Shooting Stars proc rate now 30%, down from 40%. Astral Communion now channels 25 eclipse energy per second for 4 seconds, from 15 energy per second for 7 seconds. New PvP 4 set bonus allows Astral Communion to be channeled while moving.
Google rolls out final Jelly Bean SDK for download
Developers have been able to play with Android SDK 4.1 since it was unleashed at Google I/O, but it's now finalized and ready for prime time. New system images and platform components give devs access to the finished Jelly Bean APIs, while bugs in the Android SDK Tools revision 20.0.1, Eclipse plugin and NDK have been stomped. Follow the source link below to download the confectionary-themed OS development tools.
LG Eclipse may be coming to Sprint and AT&T by Halloween (update: more benchmarks)
After initial specs and a few decent pics bubbled up to the surface of the internet, the "superphone" known as the LG Eclipse is shedding its shyness. The device, supposedly sporting a quad-core Krait APQ8064 with Adreno 320 GPU, has been spotted with a User Agent Profile and Bluetooth 4.0 Certification. Even better, it appears to be in two distinct flavors: the LS970 for Sprint and the E970, allegedly for AT&T (according to leaked benchmarks, at least, which we'll discuss in a moment). The User Agent Profile, listed specifically for the E970, confirms the 1280 x 768 screen resolution; if the phone does indeed offer a 4.67-inch panel, this means we can expect a pixel density of a rather respectable 320ppi. Also, the Bluetooth sheet mentions that the device -- referring to both models -- "will be available on North America market around 2012.10.31." We can definitely see this as a potential winner for the holiday season, though we wouldn't be surprised if LG's upcoming superphone faces its fair share of stiff competition when it launches. In addition to the official docs, a keen-eyed tipster also spotted the device making the benchmark rounds: it was seen on GLBenchmark, AnTuTu and Nenamark2. We have to be a bit more skeptical when looking at test results, since they're pretty easy to fabricate. With that disclaimer, the Adreno scores were quite impressive on GLBench, with the LS970 notching 125fps using the offscreen Egypt test (the E970 got a score of 113fps). As for the other tests, the E970 netted an average 58.8 on NenaMark and the LS970 got 11,663 on AnTuTu -- putting it ever-so-slightly higher than the Tegra 3-powered HTC One X. Unfortunately, this test also mentioned that the LS970 uses a screen resolution of 1280 x 720. If this turns out to be true, this means that AT&T's version will offer a tad better display. Not that 720p is bad by any stretch of the imagination; it just probably won't be among the best in the market come this holiday season. The full suite of links can be found below, so have a look and see if anything else pops out. Update: Tweakers.net have fuller benchmark comparison tables, although the caveat about realiability still applies. [Thanks, Ketul]
LG LS970 'superphone' shows up again, flaunts its removable battery and NFC chip
It's only been a few days since we first heard the rumors about an upcoming, Sprint-bound LG quad-core slab, and now that same LS970 "superphone" is back for more action. Thanks to yet another snap acquired by the folks over at BriefMobile, we can now spot a couple extra details on the device, including its previously unknown NFC capabilities. Contrary to earlier beliefs, the alleged LG Eclipse also seems to offer a removable battery, which is likely to make some power users very content. Something tells us this isn't the last we're going to see of this super handset, though, so we'll keep you in the loop if any more noteworthy findings appear.
LG LS970 superphone rumored: Krait quad-core, 2GB RAM, LTE and 13MP camera
Not to be outdone by its Korean rival, LG's reportedly preparing a potent new phone with some of Qualcomm's latest SoC hardware. According to BriefMobile's leak, it'll pack an LTE-friendly MDM9615 alongside the Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM -- something LG has already announced for its Optimus LTE2. A 2,1000 mAh battery will apparently power the 4.67-inch 1280 x 768 LCD display, while a Sony-matching 13-megapixel camera will face out the back. The leak -- which includes the decidedly abstract photo above -- reckons the LTE slab will arrive on Sprint, which tallies with the LS970 model number. We're cautiously holding out for something more official soon -- perhaps once the Now Network's flipped that 4G switch.
Shifting Perspectives: An easier rotation for balance druids in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we teach our treants how to charge their lasers. Last week, we covered the issues that moonkin were having in Cataclysm. Happily, I'm able to say that the new design for Mists of Pandaria has corrected many of the glaring issues that I identified. While numbers remain fluid, of course, there's been some large quality-of-life fixes that have made moonkin much easier to play for the newcomer. I'm afraid, however, that somethings still remain that could use a tweak. A simplified rotation DoT abilities reworked First, while the mechanic of Moonfire becoming Sunfire while in a Solar Eclipse remains, both spells now have separate timers and no longer overwrite each other. This means that you can cast a Moonfire before entering Solar Eclipse, then cast Sunfire (with the same button, yay) and have two DoTs ticking for damage on the target.
Shifting Perspectives: 5 moonkin issues that need fixing
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we go fast and furry. Well, it's happened again. Once more, I intended for this week to be a first look at balance druids in Mists of Pandaria, but as I wrote the article, I felt that much of it was lacking the proper context. Since we haven't had a moonkin post around here in some time, I'd like to step back briefly and discuss some of the issues with the specialization that were identified going into the new expansion. Next week, we'll discuss the changes Blizzard is implementing on the beta and how they fix (or don't fix!) the issues I've described here. Overpowered AoE/multitarget rotation For the majority of the expansion, balance druids were one of the best AoE DPS classes in the game. This was due largely to two factors, the relative strength of the moonkin DoT abilities plus Wild Mushroom and the ability to remain in a Solar Eclipse nearly indefinitely during AoE phases to buff those two abilities (aka solarcleave). Even for non-AoE fights, it was still very easy for moonkin to supplement their damage on their primary target with DoTs on a secondary target. Heroic Morchok and Warmaster Blackhorn are excellent examples of this for this tier.
Android SDK updated with big improvements to emulator and build system
We're not sure what anniversary the 17th is but, if we had to guess, we'd say its the x86 anniversary. Google has just released Revision 17 of the Android SDK and ADT and its packing an array of improvements, most notably to the Lint build system and the emulator. While the new build rules, which check performance and guard against errors, are certainly welcome, it's the emulator that's got the headline grabbing changes. First off is the ability to run x86 system images in a virtualized environment (on Windows and OS X), and at near native speeds no less. There is also added support for webcams and sensors, as well as the experimental ability to control the emulator through a tethered android device. For more details, and to download it yourself, hit up the source link.
Develop Android apps from within Android using AIDE (video)
Replication is a necessary survival technique in nature, and now Android apps have joined the self-preservation fray with a new piece of software known as the Android Java IDE (AIDE). An integrated development environment for -- don't you know it -- Android, the package provides would-be coders with a complete set of development tools that include code completion, formatting, refactoring, real-time error checking and more. It's said to be fully compatible with Eclipse projects, and best of all, it's entirely free. So, if you can appreciate this bit of Zen and the Art of Android Development, be sure to check out AIDE today -- and get yourself a keyboard for your tablet while you're at it. Those who'd like a visual introduction will find a video after the break.[Thanks, Matt]
