future-tech
Latest
MMO Mechanics: Procedural generation is the future
MMOs are infamous for the exorbitant amount of both time and money that is required to make a fantastic end product. Much of this effort and expenditure goes into producing very specific content such as leveling zones, quest chains, and dungeons. The classic themepark MMO in which all the rides are carefully engineered and maintained is compelling for a time, but the content therein tends to take longer to create than it does to exhaust. This invariably leads to redundant content that ends up on the scrapheap once it has been enjoyed for a time. Procedural generation corrects much of this redundancy by providing essentially limitless variations of content, adding replayability and variety to the usual MMO repertoire. It also opens up some unique mechanics, like Elite: Dangerous' planned procedurally generated galaxy that is a full-scale replica of the Milky Way. In this week's MMO Mechanics, I will look at how the genre is evolving because of how accessible procedural generation techniques have become to developers. I'll also explore how this might affect the future of MMOs by examining the mechanics that upcoming titles will incorporate.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: flying bicycle, tattooed fruits and a wireless EV-charging system
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week, the MS Tûranor PlanetSolar -- the world's largest solar-powered boat -- docked in downtown Manhattan, and Inhabitat was on the scene to tour the 115-foot Swiss catamaran and learn about its latest trans-Atlantic voyage. The PlanetSolar team isn't the only one pioneering new technologies, though. Google announced plans to deploy fleets of solar-powered balloons to bring the internet to remote locations around the world. A pair of British men debuted the world's first flying bicycle, which combines a bike with a fan-powered paraglider. A 16-year-old developed a cleaner, more efficient way to create biofuel from algae, and Coca-Cola produced a classic Coke bottle that's made entirely from ice that melts away when you're finished with it.
Airbus imagines 'smarter skies' by 2050: reduced emissions and shorter flight times
Airbus has been crafting its plane of the future for some time now, and while earlier visualizations focus on see-through aircraft with shapeshifting seats, the aviation company's latest ideas have the environment -- and passengers' precious time -- in mind. Airbus just unveiled its "Smarter Skies" conceptualization of what air travel will look like in 2050, and all signs point to shorter flights and less energy consumption. For one, the aircraft manufacturer imagines an assisted takeoff, dubbed "eco-climb" mode, where smaller, lighter airplanes would depart from shorter runways and reach cruising altitude faster. Once in the air, planes could pinpoint the most direct route and travel en masse -- a la a flock of birds -- along "express skyways" to reduce emissions and arrive at their destinations sooner. (That idea's totally gonna fly, right?) And when it comes time to land, aircraft could descend into airports with engines running in idle, allowing for reduced noise and emissions. Take a look at all five concepts in action in the video below the break.
Ultra HDTV technical standards agreed on, more pixels is a good thing
The high-definition pride of your living room may not want to hear it, but it looks like ultra high-definition TV (or UHDTV) has now taken another step towards reality. While shop-floor products remain years away, experts in the ITU Study Group on Broadcasting Service have made several agreements on technical standards for your (next?) next TV purchase. Increasing pixel count in future sets is also expected to improve viewing angles on glasses-free 3D, which needs more dots to work its lenticular magic. 33 megapixels sounds like it should be enough to work with.
Alex Dodge's 'Generative' depicts the wearable sci-fi tech of your dreams, literally
In an upcoming gallery show dubbed Generative, artist Alex Dodge (in collaboration with tech start-up called... Generative) will be sucking you into an awesome near-future where shoes generate electricity, the "Sleep Talker" cap lets you transmit your dreams into other's, and a shirt becomes a touch-sensitive input device. As the show's press release puts it, "Dodge's objects fetishize the technological imperative, or the inevitable hybridization of man and machine, as something worthy of appreciation in itself." The works will be shown off at the Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in Brooklyn next week, but you can get a peek at tech just out of reach right now by perusing the accompanying catalog for the show and browsing the handful of images below.
Could a closed Mac be in Apple's future?
By all accounts, and despite the groans of inconvenienced developers, iPhone OS has been a smashing success. In the second quarter of 2010, Apple sold roughly 20 million iPhone and iPods, compared to about 3 million Macs. The iPad alone has already sold its millionth unit. That means there are a lot of iPhone OS installations out there on Apple-branded equipment. Under the hood, iPhone OS is virtually the same as the OS X that runs on Mac desktops. Steve Jobs announced this back in 2007, and it has been confirmed by any number of jailbreaks that allow third parties to explore the iPhone OS from the command line. It may be closed but iPhone OS is still basically OS X. What differentiates iPhone OS from Mac OS has been the openness of the platform. Developers must go through Apple's review process to deploy software to the vast audience of iPhone OS device owners. Apple sets the rules, ensures the quality, polices the system. It's a new way of computing, closer to the TiVo or Wii experience than, say, the Windows or Linux experience. Could it be the future of a new Macintosh line?
