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Engadget and JetBlue will beam you to Expand!
We're sending one lucky Engadget reader (and a guest of choice) to Engadget Expand in New York City on November 7-8, thanks to our friends at JetBlue Airways and our sponsors. What's more, if you're one of the 10 runners-up, Suitable Technologies will give you a block of time to mosey around the Expand floor remotely with its BeamPro device.
Hallowtide begins in ArcheAge today
Trion Worlds will update ArcheAge's western servers today with a new patch reverently named Version 1.2 Build 4.13. Notably, it ushers in Hallowtide, ArcheAge's autumn event, which runs until November 4th, when the Conquest of Auroria patch launches. Today's update also includes several gameplay and bug fixes, including bugs relating to trial account chat. The studio has promised a full reveal of Hallowtide later today. In other ArcheAge news, numerous players and Massively readers report that the free subscription time promised by Trion in compensation for launch issues is not properly triggering on their accounts. [Thanks, dirtyklingon.]
RIFT brings back a trio of fan favorite events
Trion Worlds is hosting a reprise of three popular RIFT events that are running from now through October 15th. Currently running is the Temporal Flux event through the 11th, followed by Budgie Madness from the 11th through the 13th; the events conclude with Unicornalia from the 13th through the 15th. Players can earn special rewards during these events, in particular bizarre and fun mounts. RIFT is also running a 25% bonus to XP and various goodies from now through the release of the expansion on October 22nd.
Here's what you need to know about Engadget Expand, so far
We've talked a lot about Engadget Expand so far (you know, that free event we're holding at the Javits Center in NYC on November 7th and 8th). It's time we got you caught up on who's speaking (and when), who's exhibiting on the show floor, what's up with Insert Coin and finally, the winner of our 'In The City' sweepstakes. Let's get started.
This weekend's golden in The Secret World
Got MMO plans for your weekend yet? If not, you might want to check in with The Secret World, since Funcom is hosting what it calls a Golden Weekend with "massive bonuses" and a "gilded rage event." Yes, you can hunt down that rampaging golden Guardian of Gaia, and you can also enjoy double AP as well as 30 percent extra Funcom points on every purchase. Get all the event details via the links below!
Engadget Live L.A. was all about that bass (and some treble)
We've had a great run this year with all our Engadget Live events, taking us to Austin, Seattle, Boston and finally Los Angeles. We packed into the Belasco Theatre in downtown L.A. along with some amazing people and exhibitors -- one who was all about that bass and some...bananas.
Engadget Live hits Los Angeles this Friday!
As we told you last time, there's lots going on in Los Angeles on Friday nights, but we still think our event trumps anything else you could possibly have planned. Our final Engadget Live event of the year kicks off at 7PM this Friday (October 3rd) at the Belasco Theatre.
More to expect at our free Engadget Expand event in NYC!
If you're keeping score, we've announced a bunch of great speakers heading to this year's Engadget Expand (such as RJD2 and the head of DARPA, Arati Prabhakar). Of course there's plenty more where that came from and we're excited to announce what else you'll see at the Javits Center on November 7-8 in New York City!
The hottest party in Los Angeles on October 3rd is...ours
Friday nights in Los Angeles aren't snoozers, especially October 3rd. That night, some celebrity will be caught mid-wardrobe malfunction boozing it up at Club Area by TMZ -- or it could be the night Bruce Jenner holds his epic "freedom" party. While we're thrilled for his escape from Kardashian Prison, we'd like to think that our final Engadget Live event of the year at the Belasco Theatre will be much more exciting -- and a lot less flammable.
We're taking over Los Angeles on October 3rd!
Austin, Seattle and Boston welcomed our Engadget Live tour this year with open arms and before we gear up for Engadget Expand, we're heading to one more city: Los Angeles. Grab your free tickets and join us at the Belasco Theater on October 3rd at 7PM.
Destiny combines arms in the Crucible this weekend
The next two community events for Bungie's Destiny will start this weekend. We had names for the two events before, Combined Arms and The Queen's Wrath, and now we have dates and descriptions for them as well. The Combined Arms event is an "all out war on a massive scale" in the Crucible multiplayer section. Players form fireteams of up to six, driving across the map and making use of increased heavy weapon ammo drops. The event starts today and lasts through the weekend. Next up is The Queen's Wrath, a set of bounty missions that begin on Tuesday, September 23 and runs through Monday, October 6. By completing the mission, players earn unique rare and legendary gear. The following two Destiny events are September's Salvage mission and October's Iron Banner mission. This week's Vault of Glass quest was first conquered roughly 11 hours after it opened. Bungie opted to double its well-broadcasted shooter's public events for players to encounter while patrolling areas in the game. [Image: Bungie]
Bruce Lee comes to Conquer Online... sort of
Conquer Online is co-opting one of martial arts cinema's greatest stars to be a playable character in its game. The team announced that it is bringing in a Bruce Lee "tribute" character called Lee-Long in a future update. "Many companies have put him in games to salute him, but there was no one putting his elements into an MMORPG," said the team. "As a popular oriental fantasy MMORPG in North America, and with the elements of martial arts and the Dragon combined, Conquer Online has the responsibility to create a character to show our respect to Bruce Lee." The creation of Lee-Long took a full year of work and involved motion capture and close examination of Bruce Lee's films. Bruce Lee died in 1973, but has remained a pop culture icon ever since. The team is being coy about the connection between Bruce Lee and Lee-Long, but said "more details" about be given soon. You can watch a making of video for Lee-Long after the break. [Source: 99.com press release]
This weekend's Destiny event goes 3-vs-3 in the Crucible
Bungie's freshly-launched Destiny is more than just a first-person shooter, it's an MMO-like game with planned community events for players to pepper with bullets. The developer unveiled the next set of missions in a blog today, starting with the 3-vs-3 Crucible event, Salvage. The playlist spans this weekend and has players fighting to "claim and salvage relics on small to medium sized maps." Players earn Crucible reputation, marks and gear by taking other teams of three on in the mode. Then starting on September 16, the Vault of Glass level 26 raid opens. Set in a mysterious area beneath Venus, players take on "your greatest challenge yet," which happens to be long division for us. Vault of Glass champions receive raid set gear and ascendant materials. The last three sets of challenges are without description at the moment. Two of them, Combined Arms and Queen's Wrath, are planned for September, with the Iron Banner event set for October. These online events are playable as long as Destiny's servers are stable, which are in good shape as of our initial State of Service update. [Image: Bungie]
Wings Over Atreia: The spoils of Aion's fifth anniversary
Another year has flown by! Aion is turning five years old, and that means it's time for Daevas to enjoy cake and presents during the nearly month-long birthday bash. What goodies are in store during this year's North American festivities? Associate Product Manager Sean Orlikowski has shared with us the schedule of events that span from today until October 8th; it includes contests, buffs, double drop rates, and a special anniversary-day GM hosted event. There's also a special new Daevonian armor set for only 1 NCoin (which is practically free) that even new players can use.
Summarizing Apple's iPhone 6 / Watch event
Despite glitches during Apple's livestream of today's event, most of us here at TUAW were able to pick up enough of what was going on to realize immediately just how significant most of the announcements were. Here's a quick summary of some of the topics we found to be the most important: iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus The Apple team spent no time warming up, jumping right into the announcement of the two new iPhone models immediately. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will both be available on September 19, with pre-ordering starting this Friday, September 12. Prices start at US$199 for the 16GB iPhone 6 (64GB and 128GB versions available for $299 and $399 respectively), while the 16GB iPhone 6 Plus starts at $299 (64 GB for $399 and 128GB for $499). Both phones feature a new CPU -- the Apple-designed A8 -- and a new motion coprocessor called the M8. The M8 builds upon the motion-sensing and capturing capabilities of the M7 in the iPhone 5 family by adding a barometer sensitive enough to tell the relative height changes you take climbing a hill or even just going up and down stairs. The A8 features 2 billion transistors, but is 13 percent smaller than the A7 that featured just 1 billion. The company says that the CPU power of the iPhone 6 is about 50 times that of the original iPhone introduced in 2007. The design of the new phones includes ion-strengthened glass, an improved polarizer, a photo-aligned IPS liquid crystal display, and an ultra-thin backlight. The screen size of the iPhone 5 family is 4 inches measured diagonally -- for the iPhone 6, that number is increased to 4.7 inches, and for the iPhone 6 Plus it's 5.5 inches. While the iPhone 5 currently features an 1136 x 640 display at 326 pixels per inch (ppi), the iPhone 6 boosts that number to 1334 x 750 at 326 ppi and the iPhone 6 Plus to 1920 x 1080 -- at 401 pixels per inch. One of the other big changes to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is battery life. The iPhone 6 can do Wi-Fi browsing for up to 11 hours (compared to 10 for the iPhone 5s), while the larger battery pack of the iPhone 6 Plus gives it a 12-hour life. If you just use your phone for plain old 3G network voice service, you'll be thrilled to know that you can talk for 14 hours on the iPhone 6, and a full day with the iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 family supports over 200 LTE carriers worldwide, and these are the first phones Apple has offered to support VoLTE -- Voice over LTE. This allows for simultaneous data and voice access over LTE, rather than either shutting off browsing while you talk or moving your voice calls to 3G. Wi-FI speed has been increased -- the company says it's now 3 times faster than that available on the iPhone 5 and 5s. Speaking of Wi-Fi, the phones also support Wi-Fi calling, meaning that in certain cases your calls will be routed to the Wi-FI network you're connected to, making for crystal-clear voice quality. The camera on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus got pumped up as well. While the total number of pixels hasn't increased -- it's still 8 MP -- the camera now has larger pixels (1.5 microns), a f/2.2 lens (fast) and has faster autofocusing. Other fun things include a new "burst selfie" mode, high dynamic range (HDR) videos, and improved panoramas that can be up to 43 megapixels big. The iPhone 6 Plus also adds optical image stabilization to reduce camera shake. Videos can be full 1080p at 60 frames per second, and you can shoot up to 240 fps slo-mo at 720p. While plenty of third-party companies have announced their own cases for the iPhone 6 family, Apple is also introducing silicone and leather cases for both phones, including PRODUCT(RED) models. Apple Pay (AKA Pay) Apple announced that the new phones also have near-field communications (NFC) built in, and that they'll be introducing a new financial transaction system in October called Apple Pay. The system combines Touch ID and NFC to make secure payment a reality. How secure? The number provided to the credit card pay station and the CVV code are both different each time you use the system. To add credit cards to Passbook and hence to Apple Pay, you just need to take a photo of the card and the information is added. To pay, hold the iPhone near the pay station with your finger on the Touch ID pad, and a sound indicates that payment has been made. All transactions are not only time-stamped, but also tagged with your location as well. If your iPhone is lost or stolen, just putting it into Lost Mode using Find My iPhone will block additional transactions from being made. At launch, Apple Pay will support credit and debit cards from Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo. Soon, Barclays, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, USAA and USBank cards will also be added. At this point, over 220,000 retailers and restaurants around the US can take Apple Pay, including Bloomingdales, Macy's, McDonalds, Petco, Subway, Walgreens, Whole Foods Market, and even Disney Parks. Many apps will also allow Apple Pay to work. You'll be able to use OpenTable to pay for meals at selected restaurants, the MLB AtBat app to buy baseball tickets, and the Target app to buy ... well, a lot of things. Apple Watch (AKA Watch) It's been a while since we've had a "one more thing" moment at an Apple event, and this year the anticipation was high for Apple's rumored "iWatch". It's no longer a rumor -- the Apple Watch, or just "Watch" -- will be out in early 2015, and it's an amazing set of devices. There are three main "lines" of Apple Watch; Watch, Watch Sport, and Watch Edition. Think of the Watch as the "Timex" of the line, Watch Sport as a cool sports watch, and Watch Edition as a high-end fashion watch. Straps for the Watch run from "durable" plastic-like straps for the Watch Sport to high-end "Milanese Loop" straps for the Watch Edition. Many of the straps use magnets to automatically fit the Watch to your wrist. There's too much about these devices to write about here, so I suggest that you use the link in the previous paragraph and go out and read about it for yourself. Also, be sure to watch Apple's video describing the device as "Our most personal device yet." The Watches require an iPhone 5 or 6 to work, but provide some amazing capabilities. Sensors on the back can track your heart rate, and apps will let you "touch" another person with that information. There are adjustable emoji for sending personal messages, and incoming messages that ask you a selection of answers can be automatically answered with a tap. There's a Maps app built in as well. Using haptic responses, you can get walking instructions and the Watch will provide a right or left tap on your wrist to tell you which way to turn. Those same capabilities provide simple taps on your wrist for notification instead of annoying vibrations. Want to look at photos? There's a Photos app for viewing your library in the cloud. You can use Siri to dictate responses to emails or other messages, ask questions, or even find movies or restaurants. But one of the biggest features of the Watch is its health and fitness capabilities. It's more than just a fitness tracker, providing input to the Health app in iOS 8 and then motivating your activity in a number of ways through a Fitness app. It will tell you how often you should stand up to prevent sitting-related diseases and injuries, slowly goad you to build your walking and stair climbing, and so on. The UI of the Watch is incredible, using what's called the Digital Crown to scroll through items or zoom in/out. There's a touch screen to select and tap on apps, and a button that provides functionality in certain apps. And of course, developers will be able to use WatchKit to create apps to push the functionality even further. U2 There was even more! U2 came on stage to perform a song from their new album Songs of Innocence, and then Apple CEO Tim Cook and Bono announced that the album is going to be free to every iTunes customer -- that's 500 million people worldwide. While the album still hasn't shown up in iTunes for many users, it will. Conclusion As an Apple watcher since 1984, this was one of the most incredible events I've watched. That includes the 2007 intro of the iPhone, the 2010 iPad introduction, and some pretty amazing announcements and "Stevenotes" over the years. I don't think people will really understand the implications of Apple Pay and Apple Watch for many years, but they're set -- along with the new iPhones and all other Apple products -- to take us into a very interesting future.
The entire Apple event in just 84 seconds
Hey, you're busy and you don't have time to watch a multi-hour Apple livestream video. No problem! We've done the hard work for you. Here's the entire September 9, 2014 Apple event in just 84 seconds. Have fun!
New iPhones boost LTE specs and add WiFi calling
The 2 new iPhones have rather dramatically enhanced cellular capabilities. The LTE connectivity is 150 Mbps, up from the 100 in previous Apple phones. The new phones offer 20 LTE bands, which tops any smartphone in the world. The new phones work on more than 200 carriers around the world. The iPhones also add Voice over LTE, allowing clearer calls and voice and data at the same time, a feature not currently offered by some carriers. Apple has also added Calls over WiFi, but if you leave the Wi-Fi hotspot you will be seamlessly handed off to the normal cell network. These capabilities are only for the iPhone and iPhone 6 Plus, so it should encourage some aggressive upgrading when they are released. Not to rest on those connectivity improvements, Apple has also added 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It's 3x faster than 802.11n.
The Think Tank: The best of PAX Prime 2014
This year's PAX Prime has drawn to a close, as has our coverage, but how did it fare, on the whole, for MMO players? I polled the Massively writers for their favorite announcements and showings from the con. Here's what we think was the best and most interesting MMO news to come out of PAX Prime.
Massively's PAX Prime 2014 roundup
Massively's Justin Olivetti soloed the PAX Prime boss for us this year, and he kicked its butt! His loot drop? A whole week of well-earned relaxation on the Massively golden yacht. Just kidding! Back to work, Olivetti! We've rounded up all of his awesome PAX coverage below. What did he think of ArcheAge, Warlords of Draenor, and H1Z1? How many parties did he crash? Did he really cosplay as an angry Chua? Read on to find out!
PAX Prime 2014: World of Warships balances historical accuracy with big boat fun
A warship is understandably larger and more complicated than a tank or plane, which is why Wargaming is diverging slightly with its third online title. At PAX Prime, I sat down with the dev team for World of Warships to see how the alpha is progressing and what a fleet of ships looks like with all guns blazing. There are four types of ships from which players can choose when they step into a match. Destroyers are smaller and faster with torpedoes, battleships are hulking gun platforms, and cruisers are straddling the line between the two. Then there are carriers (which we did not get to see) that eschew big guns for a squadron of planes to send out. Unfortunately, submarines aren't part of the mix, as the team decided that they wouldn't be fun for this type of game. Each ship is as historically accurate in its looks and is hideously detailed, with up to 500 parts and 270,000 polygons. This detail comes into play when ships are damaged in certain sections, disabling features and abilities. The team is planning on launching with around 75 ships between the starting nations of the United States and Japan.
