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'Timberscrapers' could soon dominate urban skylines
They just don't make 'em like the Sakyamuni Pagoda anymore. Built from wood in 1056 in the Shanxi province of China, the building has remained standing to this day, despite seven earthquakes rattling the region within its first 50 years of existence. Since then, it's held up against a slew of seismic events, even when more-modern structures have failed. Now, thanks to recent advancements in timber technology, modern architects are rediscovering the benefits of working with wood.
Tesla's 'Tiny House' roadshow demystifies its energy tech
Renewable energy is good for the planet, but it can be great for consumers -- depending on your location, you can actually make a profit using solar panels and backup battery storage. Those benefits can be hard for consumers to grok, however, so Tesla has launched the "Tiny House" tour in Australia with all of its latest technology in tow (literally).
'The Artful Escape' is what happens when rock stars make a game
The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti is a psychedelic hipster dream disguised as a narrative-driven adventure game. It stars Francis Vendetti, the fictional nephew of the late, great musical icon Johnson Vendetti. In this alternate universe, Johnson was the David Bowie of his time, legendary and untouchable. Francis is a young musician himself, struggling to find his own voice and separate himself from his uncle's legacy. On his quest of self-discovery, Francis connects with a laser artist named Violetta, and he traverses a multidimensional highway packed with neon lights and tentacled aliens. The Artful Escape presents the kind of world that burgeoning musicians might fantasize about, the ultimate rock star dream of conquering new, exciting dimensions with the power of music alone. It's the kind of dream that the game's creator, Johnny Galvatron, once had -- before he signed a record deal with Warner Bros. right out of college and discovered what the true rock star life was really all about. "You feel like those sort of record deals will unlock these magical doors to worlds of wonder to explore that you imagine when you're young," Galvatron says. "And then you realize very quickly that's not what it is, and you live in a hotel room with six really smelly dudes. I guess The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti is informed by my teenage imaginings of what the music industry would be."
Trees with email addresses get into strange conversations
Think you get into some oddball email threads with your coworkers? That's nothing next to what's happening in Melbourne, Australia's green spaces. The city gave email addresses to trees in 2013 to help deal with broken branches and other issues, but it now finds that many people are striking up conversations with these leafy residents about everything from their looks to the weather. In some cases, the trees (okay, city staff) reply back. Want to know what a cedar thinks of the Greek debt crisis? Ask it -- you might just get an answer.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Colour Bind
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Melbourne developer Finn Morgan discusses the affects of color-coded gravity in Colour Bind, out today on Steam. What's your game called and what's it about?It's called Colour Bind (easy to misread, I know - it's "Bind" with no "l"), and it's a world where objects of a different colour fall in a different direction. Maybe red objects fall down as normal, but green objects fall up and blue objects fall sideways. You control a car thing that has to drive to the goal of each level, overcoming various obstacles and puzzles that are made possible by the weird outcomes of the fact that gravity is pulling different objects in different directions.What inspired you to make Colour Bind?It's kind of a silly story. I was walking through Melbourne during a traffic jam, and it occurred to me that, viewed from above, the shapes of the long lines of cars moving and stopping in streams would make interesting shapes for a 2D platformer. The cars in this scenario would have to have gravity pulling them away from the camera, but the character in this hypothetical platformer would need to fall "down" relative to the camera.Thinking about this situation, of different bodies being pulled by gravity in different directions depending on their "type," distracted me from that game and eventually turned into Colour Bind.%Gallery-162103%
EA joins Iron Monkey and Firemint mobile studios to create Firemonkeys
EA has announced that it's consolidating its two biggest mobile studios. Firemint is the developer behind Flight Control and Spy Mouse (and was acquired by EA last year), and Iron Monkey is the developer behind EA's iOS hits like Mass Effect Infiltrator and Dead Space. Those two Melbourne, Australia-based studios are now joining up to become FireMonkeys, serving as a big internal mobile studio for EA. Between the two studios, Firemonkeys now claims over 85 million downloads on the App Store, as well as 15 number one hits between them. EA says the teams will now be collaborating on current projects, as well as creating some new ones out of the new combined studio as well. As a Firemint fan, this has me a little more worried about that company's popular properties. Rob Murray, Firemint's CEO, and a few original team members still remain working on the company's products. But Flight Control Rocket was a very different game than the high quality Flight Control, released before EA's takeover, and EA doesn't say what has happened to Infinite Interactive's properties, including the popular Puzzle Quest series. An interview with MCV says the restructuring was "more of a formality" than anything else, and that the number of employees will generally be split and may even grown in the next few months. But still, I haven't seen the same quality or polish come out of Firemint since it was independent, and it seems unlikely that combining it together with Iron Monkey will do much to change that. Show full PR text EA is Proud to Announce the Merger of Two Renowned Mobile Studios IronMonkey and Firemint become Firemonkeys EA is bringing together two of the world's leading mobile development studios - IronMonkey and Firemint - to form Firemonkeys. These two studios have entertained over 50 million players in 2012 alone with stellar titles including Flight Control, SPY mouse and Real Racing from Firemint, and Mass Effect Infiltrator, Dead Space and The Sims FreePlay from IronMonkey. Based in Melbourne, Australia, both studios have been developing mobile games for over a decade and combining the two teams makes Firemonkeys Australia's largest game development studio. Both teams look forward to the unification with Rob Murray, Executive Producer of Firemint commenting, "IronMonkey and Firemint have solid reputations for producing well-known games and we are excited to have the opportunity to share best practices, technology and resources." By aligning the strategy of IronMonkey and Firemint, EA is able to create an even more focused team of passionate individuals who are dedicated to developing high-quality mobile game experiences. This merge in the mobile space is resulting in positive overall growth for the Firemonkeys team, as the studio is now hiring for several positions. Fans should expect to see progressive development efforts with upcoming launch and project announcements in 2012. "Both of these studios have produced award-winning games and we believe combining the incredible talent pool in Melbourne, as well as leveraging the EA brand, sets us up for further success in the mobile arena," adds Tony Lay, GM of IronMonkey. Firemonkeys will continue to work on separate products in addition to collaborating on new ones out of the EA Melbourne office. With the added synergy this partnership creates, fans can expect unique features and new experiences in the brands they have come to know and love.
Ex-Visceral team's first iOS title, Catch the Ark, is suspiciously happy
Some of the folks who worked on Dead Space and Dante's Inferno now have a mobile studio, PlaySide, and unless the above image is hiding a dark secret, its first game is a drastic departure from its violent, intense past. Catch the Ark is an endless runner starring "three lovable characters that weren't allowed on to Noah's Ark," and who are doomed to raft down raging rapids and floods to survive. Actually, that does sound pretty dark after all.Catch the Ark is in development for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and is set to launch in Q3 2012. PlaySide promises "console-quality" graphics, unlockable elements, multiplayer modes and social features, alongside those three adorable almost-animals doomed to drown in an ancient apocalypse. Or something less sinister, but we're banking on doom and gloom for this one.
This dude can control a pipe organ using Kinect [Update]
Last year Chris Vik modded a Kinect to play the Melbourne Town Hall Organ, and he did it with way more style than any of those sweet Dance Central moves we've attempted to throw down in front of our own little camera boxes. The Melbourne Town Hall Organ is four stories tall, but Vik used his own software, Kinectar, with the organ's MIDI connection to play the whole thing from one moodily lit spot on the stage.Vik and vocalist Elise Richards composed Carpe Zythum and performed it in November, and finally the full video will be available next week, according to Kinect Hacks. The above teaser plays a clip of the performance and reveals the madness behind the music, waving arms and invisible instruments included.Update: As a few of you have mentioned below, the full performance is available now on YouTube. Enjoy!
This electric wire is four atoms thick, and you thought speaker cable was fiddly (video)
This should come as a great relief to anyone planning a quantum computer self-build: wires still conduct electricity and obey key laws of classical physics even when they're built at the nanoscale. Researchers at Purdue and Melbourne universities used chains of phosphorus atoms inside a silicon crystal to create a wire that's just four atoms wide and a single atom high -- 20 times smaller than the previous record-holder and infinitely narrower than anything you'd find at Newegg. The video after the break almost explains how they did it.
Telstra opens 'Androidland' store in Australia with a little help from Google
No, that's not the latest addition to Google's Mountain View campus. That is Telstra's brand new Androidland store, which has just opened its doors in Melbourne, Australia. The store was built with some degree of co-operation from both Google and Android handset makers (including Google-trained experts that are available to help customers), and it offers a whole range of different Android products for sale, along with other Google-related attractions like a giant, multi-screen display for exploring Google Earth. Telstra also claims that it's the "world's first" Android store, although there's no word on any plans for additional stores (either from Telstra or other carriers). Head on past the break for a quick video tour. [Thanks, Hayden]
23-foot-high theremin appears in Melbourne, begins to freak out passersby
It appeared out of nowhere. And it makes semi-disturbing, 50s era sci-fi movie sounds when you approach it. Over in Melbourne, artist Robin Fox has installed a seven meter (23 foot) high theremin instrument. Like the classic theremin design, the user doesn't have to physically touch it but just has to be within a certain range to activate it. Once initiated, you can expect to be aurally bombarded with retro movie sounds -- a cacophony of rubber monsters beating each other within an inch of their lives. The theremin will be present on the waterfront for the next three months as part of Melbourne Music Week, and you can click on through to hear its sounds as well as wonder when the ghost of Vincent Price will be showing up in the near future.
Iced-out diamond planet catches astronomers' eyes
If you thought Kim Kardashian's engagement ring was a ridiculous rock, you haven't seen the ludicrously large diamond planet, J1719-1438. Scientists at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne recently spotted this celestial body that's so dense, it's believed to be crystalline carbon -- i.e. a ginormous diamond similar in size to Jupiter. Since the '60s, astrophysicists like Marc Kuchner have theorized that carbon-heavy stars can burn out, crystallize and form diamonds under the right pressure. Supporting the idea, a white dwarf star spotted in 1992, BPM 37093, had cooled and crystallized over the course of 12 years -- even copping the nickname "Lucy" after the Beatles jam. Although astronomers in Australia, Britain and Hawaii have all identified the newly spotted precious planet J1719-1438, they are still unsure if the crystallized carbon rock will be all sparkly mountains up close -- dashing the hopes and dreams of material girls everywhere.
Time Out offering free iPhone city travel guides until May 2
Time Out is offering a selection of its popular city guides for iPhone for free until May 2. Cities the guides cover include Melborne, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Sydney and Zagreb. Each guide allows you to navigate a city's tourist spots, nightlife and restaurants easily. As with all Time Out guides, they are written by locals so that you're sure to get the best information available. Grab the guides while they're free. Normal pricing is US$4.99 per app. You can download them all here. Thanks to reader Greg for the tip.
The iPhone user's Down Under travel guide
If you own an iPhone and you're traveling to Australia or New Zealand, you might be wondering how your handset will work Down Under. The good news: as long as you have a GSM-model iPhone (i.e., not the Verizon iPhone), and as long as it's unlocked, your iPhone will work just fine down here. But there are still some tips you'll need to get the most out of your iPhone on our corner of Earth. First of all, if you want to use your iPhone's voice and data features overseas without hunting for WiFi hotspots, you have two options. First, you can stick with your current SIM and pay your carrier's international roaming fees, but these are usually extortionately expensive, especially for data. For instance, with AT&T you'll pay over a dollar per megabyte for data on a DataConnect Pass-Global plan. Things are even worse with many international carriers; my carrier, Vodafone NZ, charges NZ$5 per megabyte to roam in Australia, and $10 per megabyte in most other countries. Given the high cost of international roaming, even very light overseas usage can add up to more than your monthly bill; heavy usage (and poor planning) can lead to charges in the thousands of dollars. A much cheaper alternative is to unlock your iPhone and buy a pre-pay SIM from an overseas carrier, then switch back to your normal SIM when you return to your home country. Ask your local telco nicely if they'll unlock your iPhone for international travel; if you're with AT&T, well, good luck with that. Alternatively, just jailbreak the thing and unlock it that way. You can always revert to standard firmware when you return home. It's important to note again that the Verizon iPhone is completely incompatible with all networks in Australia and New Zealand, and it will basically be nothing more than an expensive iPod touch for the duration of your stay. Click "Read More" for some country-specific tips on getting the most out of your iPhone in Oceania.
Firemint acquires Puzzle Quest dev Infinite Interactive
You'd think after selling a billion iPhone games, the Firemint crew, makers of those Flight Control and Real Racing games on your phone, would go buy a boat or something. But, oh no, they had to be "smart" with their money, acquiring Puzzle Quest developer Infinite Interactive to form an even stronger, more independent operation, which "works exclusively on self-published original games." Who do these guys think they are ... PopCap? It would seem that Firemint starter Rob Murray and Infinite Interactive founder Steve Fawkner, both Aussies, have been casually strategizing for years now. "Steve and I have been talking about working together for a long time, and I remember him showing me an early version of Puzzle Quest," Murray recalled. "This inspired me to make a game during my own holidays two years later, which was Flight Control -- and now, another two years later, we've finally found a way to work together!" (The financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed.) Infinite Interactive will merge into Firemint's "recently expanded" (how convenient!) offices in Melbourne and continue work on some kind of infectious game that could endanger world health at a bargain price. And then, they'll all probably buy a fleet of boats and retire into Port Phillip Bay. [Image credit: Firemint]
Tron: Legacy gets its very own interactive halfpipe (video)
Look, y'all know that Tron: Legacy comes out in just a few painful hours. You've probably seen those Daft Punk headphones, a blue-glowy Razer mouse, and the obligatory armchair, among other insane promotional items. But those earthly objects definitely weren't enough to fulfill the geeky capacity of the branding opportunities that such a cinematic event -- nay, spectacle -- creates. Melbourne-based interactive design company Eness went ahead and built an interactive projection-mapped skate ramp to commemorate the premiere. The Aussies who got to shred in this thing created and destroyed light trails, exploded through galaxies of color and shapes piped straight from the Grid, and had their airtime measured in real time and projected onto the ramp. It's not quite a real-life light cycle battle, but we'll take it. Must-see video after the jump.
Melbourne residents ride 25th Anniversary Mario trains
As a celebration of the franchise's newfound ability to rent an automobile, Nintendo recently sprang for a somewhat unfitting present in the city of Melbourne, Australia: A Super Mario-themed train. Certain public trams recently received a bright red paint job, and now detail the timeline of the plumber's major console appearances over the past 25 years. Note the use of the word "major" in that last sentence -- we sincerely doubt Hotel Mario made it on board. Upon further examination of the image above, the front of the train actually kind of looks like Mario's face, which is ... upsetting. Like, Mario's supposed to be short and squat -- seeing him stretched long and thin, like delicious, mustachioed taffy, is a truly haunting sight. [Thanks, Dhiram]
Melbourne's decommissioned Observation Wheel re-imagined as energy-making windmill
A Melbourne icon was shut down recently due to damages that were apparently too severe to bother fixing, but thankfully for the otherwise stunning Southern Star Observation Wheel, a few good men and women have their gears going about what to do next. Designer Büro North, who also dreamed up the VEIL Solar Shades, has a most splendorous idea of how to turn a broken ride into something that actually benefits local citizens. Obviously everything's still a pipe dream for now, but said dream involves strapping solar sails onto the sides and creating a wind-driven energy generation machine that pulls juice from two renewable sources. And let's be honest, you'd totally ride this -- risks be darned.
Realm Championships and a 2010 preview for the TCG
The WoW TCG has just finished up their year with the World Championships, but apparently they're not sitting back on their laurels -- they've just sent word that their Realm Championships will be going down November 14-15, 2009, in cities around the world like "San Diego, Philadelphia, Helsinki, Manchester (England), Singapore and Melbourne." These are invite-only tournaments, but they're always accompanied by events that are open to the public, including lots and lots of TCG playing, giveaways and door prizes, and sometimes even special realms of the online game set up for players to join. If you've never seen a TCG event and one is headed to your city, it's worth checking out. Additionally, the TCG folks have outlined their plans for 2010 over on their website, and it sounds like it'll be a busy year. They're kicking things off with the Scourgewar release, including the TCG loot of the mini-mounts (finally, a pony!), the Tuskarr Kite, and a Spectral Tiger Cub. And later in the year, you can look forward to a Naxxramas dungeon deck, another expansion called Wrathgate (with likely more in-game loot to go after), and finally, an Icecrown Citadel raid deck release. Should be an exciting 2010 for the trading card game -- we'll definitely be watching for that new expansion and the loot items due out with it.
New Aussie, Swiss Apple Store openings
We've been inundated with emails today talking about the two international Apple Store openings.The first new store is in Zurich, Switzerland. Reader Greg sent us a link to his Flickr gallery with plenty of documentation of the new Bahnhofstrasse store. Here's a pic of part of the huge crowd just before the opening: Dang, Greg -- looking at those photos makes me want to go back to Zurich again, especially now that there are two Apple Stores!Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, another Apple Store will be opening in a few short hours in Melbourne, Australia. The new Doncaster store appears to be a wide-body layout in a mall, and is the second Melbourne store. We're hoping to get pictures from our friends down under as soon as the opening occurs. Here's a photo taken on Friday (yesterday in Melbourne) of the store prior to the opening: We'd love to hear comments from readers who attended either of the openings, just to see how many Macs, iPods, and iPhones were flying out the doors. Were there any cool freebies or giveaways?
