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Alaska Airlines fires up in-flight WiFi between Anchorage and Fairbanks, promises more in 2011
It's hard to say if Alaska Airlines' relationship with Row44 has fizzled, but unlike that WiFi'd route between San Jose and Seattle, the aforesaid airline is relying on Aircell to provide in-flight WiFi on flights between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Reportedly, Gogo service is live today for customers flying between those two locales, with it being completely gratis until the remainder of Aircell's network in the state of Alaska goes live over the next few months. Best of all, Aircell has promised to "expand its network to include Southeast Alaska by the end of the year," ensuring that it's not The Last Frontier in absolutely every possible way.
More of Motorola's 2009 Verizon lineup leaked
Apparently the Motorola leak-fest begun yesterday hasn't come to a halt. After witnessing some compelling renders of smartphones the company has headed to Verizon, we're now privy to a set of featurephone / dumbphone mockups -- all courtesy of the Boy Genius Report. The new images show off a device supposedly called the "Niagra" (pictured), a slider in the vein of yesterday's "Calgary" QWERTY phone, a dowdy looking number called the "Fairbanks" (a PTT device), and a clamshell called the "Harmony." The latter two phones could hardly stoke much excitement, but the Niagra definitely gives us some hope for Moto's big comeback. Now -- these will all be powered by Android, right?
Know Your Lore: The Ashbringer
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? E-mail us! Or, if you have a question for our sister column Ask a Lore Nerd, e-mail us those, too! There are very few things through all of Warcraft, in-game and out, that almost every WoW player would recognize upon hearing its name. Even if you don't know its story or origins, the name holds some weight. This is one of those things.The Ashbringer...The Ashbringer is (supposedly) going to play a pretty large role in Wrath of the Lich King, and what we've seen so far supports that. In addition, in mid-September Blizzard will be releasing a comic to fill in some of the gaps in the story of the Ashbringer. In preparation of all of that, we're going to do a rundown of all we know.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Babies babies babies
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Let's jump right in with Tom's trio of questions... We know what happens when a human and orc cross-breed, but what about elf/human intermingling? Is it possible for the other races on Azeroth to breed and are there any such results of that union? Elf/Human crossbreeds are definitely supported by lore, as well as a whole mess of other combinations. Arator the Redeemer in Hellfire Peninsula is a Human/Elf Hybrid, for example, and there are plenty more around. Other combinations are valid as well. Rexxar is an Orc/Ogre Hybrid. Gross, I know, but oh well. There are a lot more examples you can add to those that are scattered around the world(s). There are no hard rules in place dictating who can and cannot interbreed, but it's pretty safe to assume the races similar to one another are compatible. I would bet Dwarves and Gnomes can shack up and spawn, for example, but probably not a Gnome and a Tauren. That's just me talking, though. I could be wrong. Let's pray very, very hard that I'm not wrong.
Know Your Lore: The Scarlet Crusade
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Elizabeth Wachowski and Alex Ziebart bring you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm.This week on Know Your Lore, we're going to talk about the faction that manages to be one of the most beloved organizations in the game while also being one of the most hated. Whether you love them or hate them, the Scarlet Crusade remains one of the most interesting factions in WoW, and they're attached to the Ashbringer that the WoW community is so fascinated with. Better yet, they return in Wrath of the Lich King.The Scarlet Crusade was founded during the fall of Lordaeron, shortly after the Knights of the Silver Hand had been decimated by the Scourge and largely disbanded. Though its founders did not necessarily have the most sane or noble intentions, many of the men and women who joined their ranks did have only one primary goal in mind. They wished to free Lordaeron of the Scourge in the name of the Light, and crush the undead utterly. Considering those undead brought their homeland (one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world at the time) to its knees and blighted it beyond belief, that was a pretty noble cause.
No joke: Qualcomm's Snapdragon prototypes don't use Snapdragon
We seriously have no idea what Qualcomm was thinking here, but it turns out that those two so-called "Snapdragon prototypes" being shown at CES this year... wait for it... don't use the Snapdragon platform. Now, that would've been just fine with us had Qualcomm made it clear that they were built using its existing chipsets, but they didn't. Here's the best part: Qualcomm actually contacted us with a minor correction on our original story (they wanted us to point out that their ARM-based cores are highly customized) without bothering to mention that our "Snapdragon-powered" statement was not accurate. Anyway, it turns out that the Anchorage and Fairbanks prototypes are merely meant to demonstrate "examples of what Snapdragon-enabled devices will feature," which begs the question: if the current MSM series chipsets are capable of the same functionality, aren't those probably the wrong features to be demonstrating? That behavior walks a fine line between poorly executed PR and outright deception, Qualcomm, and we'd ask that you not let it happen again.[Thanks, Sascha]
Qualcomm shows off new mobile reference designs
Let's put aside Qualcomm's legal woes for just a moment and turn our attention to something a little more interesting and heartwarming: awesome-looking prototype devices. The company is showing off a pair of reference designs showcasing its new Snapdragon chipset, a heap of silicon said to offer one of the best power to performance ratios in the mobile world. First up, the "Fairbanks" is Qualcomm's idea of what a next-gen dedicated GPS unit might look like, rocking a 3 megapixel still / video camera, TV tuner, and microSD expansion on some sort of custom Windows CE base. Next up, the "Anchorage" (pictured) does the typical slide-out QWERTY smartphone concept in pure style with one critical difference -- this one is humming along at a staggering 1GHz. It's got pretty much every kind of radio one could want or need and apparently has enough horsepower to hoist a full OS, which only serves to further our deep, dark depression that they're not-for-retail concepts.
