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The Tivizen, over-the-air TV antenna, coming to iPad
We're live at CES this week, and things are kicking off here in Vegas. The show floor itself opens tomorrow, but electronics manufacturers have already started up with all of their announcements and reveals showing off all of the new hardware for 2011. Here's one interesting gadget: the Tivizen, created by Korean company Valups, is a device that plugs into the iPad's dock connector, and along with a free app, allows for the iPad to recieve digital over-the-air broadcasts of television. That's pretty handy -- depending on standards and availability, you should be able to watch most major broadcast channels in large US metro areas directly on your iPad. The Tivizen is priced at US$99, which puts it in line with something like the EyeTV. Hopefully not for too long, though -- the device requires its own battery, which only lasts a couple of hours. If you've been looking for a way to watch a broadcast show you can't otherwise see, specifically on your iPad, the Tivizen might be just what you're looking for. Odds are there's some other way to watch that video on Apple's tablet, no?
Cowon 3D is the 1080p-playing, 4.8-inch PMP that just jumps out at you
As far as 3D goes, we can still take it or leave it, but what's really got us intrigued about Cowon's latest effort is the promise of full 1080p video playback. Ally that to a HDMI output and up to 64GB of flash storage and you've got yourself a pretty potent portable media station. The Cowon 3D PMP offers an 800 x 480 resolution on its own 4.8-inch display -- which is touted as the world's first 3D visualizer on a PMP that doesn't require glasses -- plus a battery rated to last for 10 hours of video, 45 hours of audio and up to 300 hours on standby. And, in an upgrade from the recent X7, this new device also has WiFi connectivity! Launch is scheduled for December 10th in Cowon's backyard of South Korea, with prices coming in at KRW499,000 ($431) for the 32GB-equipped 3D PMP and KRW589,000 ($509) for the 64GB version. [Thanks, Kunal]
Frozen sausage as iPhone stylus
Using an iPhone in the cold presents a quandry. You don't want to freeze your fingers, but gloves make the touchscreen difficult to use. Unless you've got Dots Gloves. Or sausages. In South Korea, CJ Corporation noticed a sharp increase in sales of their frozen sausages. Not because they're especially tasty, because cold commuters have discovered that they make an effective iPod stylus. It seems that they're electrostatically compatible with the iPod's touch screen, and nearly as effective as using a human finger. Here's a Google-translated story on the phenomenon from a Korean newspaper (the translation into English is quite poor, but you'll get the idea). I don't know about you, but i'll be buying a box of Jimmy Deans this weekend. [Via Daring Fireball]
Blueside's 'Project T' MMO also in development for Xbox 360
We'd heard before that Korean developer Blueside (of Ninety-Nine Nights and Kingdom Under Fire) was working on a sekrit massively multiplayer game called Project T for the PC, but now we've learned that it's also planning to release the game on the Xbox 360. A Korean job listing for the company says that the MMORPG is in development for both platforms, and asks for game programming skills of all kinds, including experience working on commercial MMOs. The game is supposed to be an "action RPG," so it actually sounds like a pretty good fit to try for the more action-friendly console world. The job listing specifies a contract time of one year (though that seems pretty boilerplate in these situations), and the MMO was last scheduled for a release sometime in 2011. The company's also working on some MMO-style gameplay for its upcoming Kingdom Under Fire II.
Fils Sound Film transparent speaker hands-on (video)
Korean gadgets these days are either gunning for next-to-nothing thinness or mind-boggling transparency, which is marvelous. Today we came across another Korean company (and an old friend), Fils, which does transparent "sound film" speakers in many forms: photo frame, umbrella, curtains, cap, hoodie and even model yacht (yeah, seriously), all thanks to the highly-flexible piezoelectric film. Sure, the sound quality was hardly top-notch, but apparently Fils is hooking up with a few big-name Korean electronic companies (TVs?), so we're all going to suffer soon whether you like it or not. Cheer yourself up with the video after the break. %Gallery-82503%
Massively interview with Aion's new community manager
Aion is easily one of the biggest MMOs of the year, so when a new North American community manager took over recently we decided it was the perfect time for an interview with the new team member, Andrew Beegle -- known as Tamat to community members. We asked Tamat about new methods of community interaction, the hotly anticipated experience boost patch and even some personal questions about our new community manager. You can never really know enough about the person serving as the conduit to your main MMO -- at least that's what we tell them!
Flux capacitors sidelined as surface plasmons called upon to increase OLED efficiency
The surface science geeks out there already know that surface plasmons have enjoyed use in spectroscopic fluorescence measurements, but that's about as exciting as chamomile tea at a narcolepsy convention. However, those same surface plasmons have been used by Korean researchers to increase OLED efficiency by 75-percent while also increasing intensity twofold -- and that gets our attention. Note we said "researchers," though; the results were obtained with silver nanoparticles under high vacuum conditions -- in other words, a surface science lab. Although the word is that this technique can be used for flexible OLEDs, we won't be holding our breaths. Heck, at this point, we'd settle for relatively inefficient, inflexible, affordable OLEDs somewhere north of 20-inches.
We're assured that Mythos is coming back
Mythos seems to hold a cult fan status among those who were lucky enough to play the game before last year's Flagship kerfuffle unceremoniously halted the games' production -- and with good reason. The game was a lot of fun, as all those cult fans know. Which is why we're torn about this news.It appears as though Hanbitsoft -- the Korean developer who picked up the rights to Mythos last year -- has come out and said they fully intend to bring the game back into the world. They've also said they realize the game is basically inspired fully by Diablo, and plan to, "-put in more content for more exciting multiplayer." That's great and all, but we worry that the beta that we played last year and this retooled Korean flavored version aren't going to elicit the same kind of excitement.This is also compounded by the fact that, well, the original Mythos team has already formed Runic Games and will be presenting their spiritual successor to Mythos, entitled Torchlight, at E3 in just about a month. Now, while Torchlight is only a single player RPG for the time being, Runic has clearly stated their plans to build it into an MMO down the road. So for now, with one game the closer, we'll just decide to be excited for E3 come early June.
Lord of the Rings Online launches in Korea and Russia
Turbine has issued an announcement regarding the regional availability of their number one title. Just ahead of Lord of the Rings Online's second birthday, the folks over in Russia and Korea are now able to join in the Tolkien-inspired fun with new localized versions of the game. Pictured above are the logos for the two new regions, Korean on top and Russian underneath. Noticeably, the Korean logo is in the Mines of Moria format that we've all become used to now, whereas the Russian logo takes after the original logo from vanilla LotRO (Shadows of Angmar). We aren't sure whether this means that Korea's LotRO is Moria enabled and Russia's is not. Perhaps a couple of our readers could translate the sub-headings and shed some light on the issue (and yes, they did! See the comments for info).Korean company NHN is handling their region's version following a deal from December of 2007, and IT Territory made a similar agreement to bring the game to Russia in January of 2008. Both of these companies made statements emphasizing their high expectations for the success of LotRO in their respective markets, but the real test of that begins now. .
Touchscreen calligraphy tablet concept gives linguists hope
Ah, now this is the spirit. Rather than concocting yet another handheld tablet that's good for nothing more than checking email and wowing onlookers, designers Soonkyu Jang, Chung Lee and Yonghuk Yim have come together to put linguists on the front burner once again. This here touchscreen concept is a calligraphy board that enables you to practice your stroke without ruining reams of paper and blasting through countless bottles of ink. Initially, at least, the board would only come loaded with teaching tools for the Korean language, but you know Leapfrog could hook this thing up with Lithuanian, Maltese and Slovak should it ever get involved.
Korean team H O N takes the trophy at ESL's Global Arena Tournament
The Electronic Sports League's Intel Extreme Masters Global tournament has ended, and Korean team H O N have come out on top. And according to World of Ming, they completely impressed every player at the tournament -- while they were one of four teams taking the Rogue/Mage/Priest combination to the upper brackets, they apparently played that comp in a way that just rolled on through any competitors (including having their mage, Orangemarmalade, apparently keeping a match alive even after his teammates dropped). Everyone's expecting the RMP domination by the time the next Arena season rolls around, but for now, RMP is where it's at in professional arenas.Unfortunately for us Americans, the US teams didn't put on much of a showing -- they dropped out quick, and WoM reports that their behavior after the losses was less than classy. They apparently blamed a teammate for dropping out, and it doesn't help that, unlike the Korean teams who have played the same classes and characters for a long time, the Americans apparently came up with their teams and tactics only recently. Looks like they'll have to do a little reforming and rebuilding before this year's BlizzCon.Congrats to all the teams who walked away with victories in the ESL's Arena tournament. Even from Ming's commentary, it sounds like it was an exciting few days for Arena players.
Toshiba makes progress on FeRAM, still no tangible product in sight
Phew. For a moment year or so there we reckoned that amazing FeRAM discovery had been pushed aside and forgotten entirely. Thankfully, Toshiba has picked up the ball and refined the original chainFeRAM architecture by creating a new architecture that prevents cell signal degradation -- which, as you may or may not know, is the usual tradeoff from chip scaling. In essence, this has allowed the company to design the world's highest bandwidth, highest density (128-megabit) non-volatile RAM. Unfortunately, this amazing device -- which should realize read / write speeds of 1.6 gigabytes a second and combine the fast operating characteristics of DRAM with flash memory's ability to retain data while powered off -- is still in prototype form, which probably means we're months (if not years) away from actually seeing a tangible end product hit store shelves.[Via AkihabaraNews]
A tale of geek purgatory
What's it like being stuck in the Japanese equivalence of a Korean cybercafe? Apparently, it's like hell, or at least it was for one gamer who wrote an article on Eurogamer discussing his several-hours within just such a place. We began reading the article with a twinge of inner pain as the place is described in such a way that would make anyone feel claustrophobic. Not very far into it though, you'll learn about some of the oddities of Japanese MMO players and their tendancy to be really, well, obsessive compulsive.We're not gonna lie, the typical Japanese MMO game and player scares the living daylights out of us -- mostly because they seem like machines. And we all know what happens when machines start posing as humans, right? The entire world is either bombed, or the human race is enslaved and sent back into time repeatedly until a paradox destorys time itself. Bad stuff.
Official forums bugged, displaying in Korean
There's an odd error on the official forums today. Apparently the static parts of the web page (ie: non-user entered text) are showing up in Korean. Some users are not seeing it, but that is likely due to a cached version of the page they have.Blizzard is aware of the problem and, according to Bornakk, they are working to fix the issue.We'll update this post when the issue has been corrected.
Korean geniuses invent lithium batteries with eight times the juice
Oh, what wondrous things come from the land of Korea -- dancing emotional robot humanoids, oxygen-emitting robot plants, and multiple 24-hour StarCraft channels. It's all good, and we dig robotics and televised gaming, but this latest invention could be our favorite if it pans out. Professor Cho Jae-Phil and his team at Hanyang University have replaced the graphite in lithium batteries with a certain kind of silicon, which we're told can store eight times the power. No word on what the batteries have actually been used for yet, but it stands to reason they could eventually make it to consumer electronics. Now you see why we're willing to say this might be better than 24-hour StarCraft. Say it with us: 48-hour StarCraft.
Codemasters to close US service for RF Online
If you're a fan of RF Online, you may be saddened to hear that Codemasters Online will be closing down operations of the sci-fi MMO on November 10th of this year. This closing will affect both North America and Europe. According to the official website, the game's license is set to expire shortly, and Codemasters and Korean developer CCR could not agree on any terms to keep the game alive.This game, while not wildly popular, did make history as one of the first Eastern-style MMOs to make it to the Western market. It's also the first MMO serviced by Codemasters, who has since gone on to publish such hits as Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online in Europe. For more information on the closing of RF Online, check out the game's official Closing FAQ.
NCsoft to push evolution of Korean-style MMOs through Aion
We love The Escapist over here at Massively. Take for instance Jared Rea's recent article, "Beautiful 21st Century" -- a piece about one company's attempt to overcome the stigma attached to most older Korean MMOs that make it to the western market: beautiful but grindy. Perhaps the most notable Korean title currently played in the west is NCsoft's Lineage II which, despite being a beautiful game, has drawn some flack from gamers about its steep grind (although this is becoming less of a problem). NCsoft is working to change this perception of their forthcoming Korean-developed titles, particularly in light of their upcoming MMO Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Much of the problem that NCsoft faces is similar to what all companies, game or otherwise, face when taking their brand overseas -- being recognized as a global brand rather than seen in the limited light of their offerings in a given region of the world.
Characters for iPhone updated to 2.0
The Warcraft Characters app for iPhone that we reported on a while ago has been updated to version 2.0, and with it come a host of terrific improvements. As we were told last time, gear has been added in, so your iPhone can not only show you information about your (or anyone else's) characters, but it can now also show you all of their gear, and even reputation status. And there's good news for non-US users, too: the app now supports characters from any and all realms, not just US and EU, but Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese realms as well. The only thing that's still missing is seeing individual talents -- otherwise, it's as featured an app as you can get. Sure, guild search and stats might be nice, and there's always extra features like be.imba integration, or character comparisons, but as a portable Armory, it works great as is. We're not sure if this is all Rudi's work or a result of a teamup with Omen of Clarity (who's been working on an iPhone web app for a while), but either way, great job.And there's a shiny new icon, too (and I like it a lot better). Characters is now available on the iPhone's App Store for the low, low price of free.
Nexon unveils MapleStory's Crimsonwood Keep expansion
Big news for MapleStory players: Nexon America yesterday made public Crimsonwood Keep, a big expansion for the game. The expansion 31 adds new maps -- mostly to the continent of Masteria's Phantom Forest. Also added: "11 unique enemies, 12 extensive, story-focused quests and a collection of new weapons and objects."The platformer/MMORPG hybrid (which is particularly popular with pre-teens) is updated pretty frequently, but this expansion is a bit bigger than usual. Its launch coincides also with the opening of a new server (called Yellondale) and more Summer Break Events.MapleStory -- which originated in South Korea -- is a huge success story. The expansion-related press release boasts of 5.9 million North American players and 87 million users across the globe. Keep in mind, though, that such numbers are a bit fuzzier and less conclusive with regards to a free-to-play game than they would be for a subscription-based MMO which has a financial barrier to entry for new users, and guaranteed income per user for the developer and/or publisher.
KNGT offers up Windows XP-powered icom MK1 carputer
We genuinely hope you don't value your dash very much, because a great deal of it will vanish if you opt to install KNGT's icom MK1.The full-fledged car computer wows passengers and drivers alike with its 6.95-inch 800 x 480 resolution display, on-screen QWERTY keyboard, wireless connectivity and mobile TV (T-DMB) tuner. Furthermore, you'll find a 40GB / 80GB hard drive, upwards of 2GB of RAM, a few USB 2.0 ports, a 1.6GHz Intel CPU and Windows XP running the show. You know all those threats you made when you were younger about heading out and just living in your '79 Riviera? Following through just got a whole lot easier.[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
