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Acer reveals 'Pawbo' pet accessories
Acer is branching into pet accessories with a recent acquisition called Pawbo, and has revealed at IFA 2016 that it'll soon release a bunch of dog- and cat-centric products. The first one, the Pawbo+ interactive pet camera, lets you keep an eye on or even chat with with Fluffy or Bowser, in case they're traumatized by your absence. Equipped with a microphone and speaker, it lets you see them and carry on a two-way "conversation."
The Summoner's Guidebook: Getting out of Elo hell
"Elo hell" is a term that gets thrown around a lot in League of Legends. If you're actively working to improve your skill at the game, either you've been in Elo hell or you are still there. The term comes from the Elo rating system that League of Legends uses for its matchmaking. Because matchmaking has to deal with three or five players on each side, there's a lot of potential for a bad match. In Elo hell, this is exacerbated by players who have inflated ratings due to wins they probably didn't deserve. At the higher ratings, matches tend to improve in overall quality despite the smaller pool of players. It is virtually impossible to maintain 1600 Elo or above (top 10%) without being somewhat decent at the game. While weaker players can occur in any matchmaking level, they are still two advanced players who know the game. At 1300 Elo (top 50%), there's a very large chance that a matchup inequality is an intermediate player battling an opponent who has no clue what he is doing. Elo hell is extremely frustrating because nothing worse is having your chance at winning taken out of your hands and put in the hands of a terrible player.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Gotta catch 'em all
What an incredible expansion Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms is turning out to be! In addition to the awesomeness of the new two-seated mounts and the new instance, Runes of Magic also received surprisingly large new gameplay features. Yes, I'm talking about the new pet system that seemed to be overshadowed during the advertising of The Warnorken Castle, but is no less exciting than Warnorken Arena, for which the patch was named. The pet system is so large in scope that it renewed the initial wonder and excitement I had when I first logged in to RoM and saw all the uniquely deep elements it began with. Finding, naming, and caring for pets is an entire game unto itself that bleeds into -- and feeds -- other aspects of RoM as well. It's Pokemon meets Digimon meets MMO, and it's delivered to you by the Easter Bunny. Hop past the jump to reveal all the inner workings of this awesome new system.
DIY'er makes a pet access control system
If you're looking for a way to get your pups eating what you want, when you want, you might want to check into one DIY'ers clever solution for an RFID feeding scheme. The trouble all began when a gentleman named Mike Larsen needed to feed one of his dogs a special diet even though food had to be out constantly for his canines -- thus making that goal quite difficult to achieve. After discovering no commercial products to suit his needs (likely due to an apparent patent-hoarder), he decided to put his own solution together, using some RFID key fobs, a small proximity card access kit, a Radio Shack AC adapter, some loud buzzers... and a little bit of elbow grease. The system works by essentially "scaring" the special-diet-dog away from the food by the use of a loud buzzing sound, which isn't subtle, but certainly effective. Check the video after the break to see the system in action.[Via Make]
Tamed pets will stay for 30 minutes
Mania's Arcania has been doing some experimenting with tamed pets on the PTR, and she's got a few great tips for all you hunters picking up new pets. First and foremost, apparently any pet you tame, no matter how happy it is or how often its fed, will stick around with you for at least 30 minutes, so if you tame a new pet and don't have food for it, you've got that long to find some. Dismissing a pet or having it die actually stops that timer, too, so if you don't have food and the time is about to run out, you can dismiss the pet, and then recall it when you have food to feed it.She's also looked at some more technical information on how quickly pet health returns after various kinds of dismissals-- in most cases, it looks like your pet actually comes back with a lower percentage of health, which then ticks back up to full in just a second. Probably won't affect most Hunters, although a few of the situation she goes through sound like battleground PvP to me, and it could be that Hunters there are using their pets so quickly that it might make a difference. More testing is on the way, she says.But at least the taming schedule will probably help Hunters who end up grabbing a rare spawn as a pet and then realize they don't have the food to feed them. We've got more breathing room than we knew we had.
Disabled inventor crafts DinnerUp pet feeder
After a solid four-mile run on the Doggy Treadmill, it's not too tough to understand why Fido is famished, but for folks who are disabled in ways that make bending down or moving around in general difficult, getting the pet food from the pantry to the bowl has been a serious chore. Thanks to a retired engineer (who was stricken by cerebral palsy) that figured he better solve his own problem rather than wait for someone else, the DinnerUp apparatus was concocted, and now it's on the brink of commercialization. The device mounts onto a kitchen counter or door and relies on a hand crank / clutching system in order to lift the attached bowls to a level that's easy to reach, after which it's lowered back down to the anxious pets below. Currently, Ray Dinham is assembling the units himself and offloading them to "satisfied customers" for £70 ($140) apiece, but it shouldn't be long before the manufacturing is "outsourced to a UK-based firm" and these gain some serious worldwide traction.[Via BBC]
