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Owlcam’s new owner says it's not bricking smart dashcams
OwlCam's new owner, CallPass, denies that it's bricking its smart dashcams.
A popular immigration bill is bad news for US esports
"What makes me nervous is the fact that it just sailed through the House." Genie Doi is an immigration lawyer with Electronic Sports and Gaming Law, an esports-specific law firm in Los Angeles. She's talking about S.386, or the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which passed the House in July by 300 votes. Representatives even waived some of the voting rules with a process reserved to pass noncontroversial bills.
Owleez is the mutant offspring of a cuddly pet and a helicopter
Ask any parent of a school-aged child and they'll probably tell you nurturing toys are big now. Those are the ones where petting and feeding it are not optional activities, thanks to a series of sensors embedded under the plaything's surface. It's like a Tamagotchi on steroids. Those same parents might also say that drones are still pretty popular, before complaining about their child terrorizing the dog with one. The two product categories couldn't have been more different, until this week's Toy Fair. Spin Master's new Owleez is a cute little owl you must care for until it gains the confidence to take to the skies thanks to the rotors hidden beneath its feathered exterior.
Discord signs eSports pros to use its chat app
Discord has become something of a gaming chat-app phenomenon lately, partnering with Spotify for in-chat soundtracks, adding video chat and screensharing and bringing verified official game channels to its service. Now the company plans to expand into the eSports realm by partnering with more than 20 teams, including Team Liquid, DreamHack, and almost every Overwatch League team out there. The program launches February 22nd on the company's verified servers and will let team members and fans chat, share news and discuss upcoming matches.
Owl is a smarter spin on a dashboard camera
Owl hopes to do for the dashboard-camera market what the iPod did for portable audio players. That might seem like a tall order for a fledgling startup, but the ambition makes sense for a company led by Andy Hodge, who served as the iPod product lead at Apple for a decade. After a stint at Dropcam, he realized that there's another area where a smart security camera could be useful: inside your car. Given the ever-present threat of accidents, break-ins and mysterious parking lot dings, a cloud-connected dashcam seems like something every driver would want.
Free Realms adds new pegasus, horse, ponies, and more!
The Free Realms team has been crazy busy at work lately creating all manner of new things that players have been clamoring for. With the recent addition of dragon and dinosaur mounts came the call for horses for players to ride. As such, they introduced new horse mounts, but then added even more fun in the form of pegasus rides as well! The horses are available for members to pick up at 450 Station Cash each. The White-Nosed Mares are colored in fantasy-like style -- pink, purple, blue, pure white and more -- while the Stallion model features more traditional horse colors like gray, black, tan, and chestnut. Pegasus rides, on the other hand, are available at 550 Station Cash, and come in lilac, blue-black, gray, pink, sea-foam green, and white.
Owl's iMpc A10 UMPC just wants some respect
We've seen bulky UMPCs with hidden QWERTY keyboards and svelte ones you could almost slip in a pocket, but regardless of size they've always been comfortable with their lot in life: not being treated as full computers. Not so for Owl's iMpc A10, a plucky portable that wants you to believe it's a real machine, starting with its name, which intentionally implies "I'm a PC." So too is John Hodgman, though, and funny as he is we wouldn't say he's a very good portable computing device. The A10 should be, with a 1.2GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 16GB SSD. It also sports a 5.6-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, a webcam, 802.11b/g wireless, and a claimed 5 hours of battery life -- decent specs but nothing to really differentiate it from the crowd. A price of 2,999 yuan, or about $440, seems reasonable enough, but no availability outside of China means no respect from us.
Breakfast Topic: So what sorta pet are you gonna get?
This question is mostly for hunters, but if you are not a hunter, please feel free to pretend you are a hunter and answer accordingly.As you already know, patch 3.02, also known as "Echoes of Doom Doom do Doom Doom", will bring with it all those nifty changes to hunter pets' abilities and talents, in addition to doom. Beast Mastery hunters are even getting especially special pets in the form of Exotic Pets through their 51-talent point, called Beast Mastery. Some Beast Mastery hunters will not be getting the Beast Mastery talent, however, because they feel like the coolness of the pet plus a few extra pet talent points do not a worthy 51-talent point make. Other Beast Mastery hunters are just like, "WHOA! Did you see that friggin Core Hound?!" Still other Beast Mastery hunters find the booming sound of Exotic Pet footfalls far too loud, or for other reasons simply prefer normal pets: "Dude, I'm gonna get me a Gorilladin!" or "I've always seen myself as a Pink Flamingo Hunter, and now my hour of destiny has arrived at last!" So what sorta pet are you gonna get? And why? I'm still undecided myself. I've always enjoyed my Owl most of all, but I'm not tremendously impressed with its new disarm skill in Wrath, since its usefulness seems too limited for my taste. The exotic pets are sometimes really nice looking (like the Spirit Beasts), but sometimes have too much of that "grumpy stompy" look (like Core Hounds) -- though I admit some of those abilities they have are very tempting. I might get used to them, or I might end up going with a Beast Mastery talent build without the Beast Mastery talent, in order to have a wider selection of pets to choose from (in addition to scatter shot). In fact, while writing this post, I just realized how utterly clueless I am about which pets I'll like best. I really have to try them out. Do you have some better idea of what you'll prefer?
Scattered Shots: Why certain pet families are so popular
Scattered Shots is for Hunters. David Bowers is caught in a Freezing Trap this week, so Daniel Whitcomb -- who did not set the trap, he swears to the Light -- is substituting for him. You hear it pretty much all the time if you've ever slightly dipped into the world of Hunters. If you want to play in the big leagues, conventional wisdom says you're pretty much stuck with a select handful of pet types (also known as pet families): Ravagers, Cats, and Raptors for PvE, Scorpids for PvP. But do you know why those pet families are so desired? What it really comes down to is Hunter roles and abilities.
YA RLY: Another homemade case
Norwegian craftster Silje sewed together this charming pouch to protect her Pink DS Lite and separate her games from the clutter in her purse. It's amazing what can be done with just buttons, ribbons, a cute print, and a sewing machine! Silje picked up the owl fabric from an Etsy shop with dozens of similarly playful patterns, if you're interested in tackling a case project of your own.The back of the pouch has three cart slots that secure their contents with a button and ribbon system similar to the enclosure on the front. You can see a close-up of those pockets and another shot of the case after the break!
Name that pet
Picking a pet's name is always one of the decisions I like best in WoW. It's creative and interesting, and if done right, it can bring lots of smiles to you and your friends. Naming your own character is also fun of course, but even in light of the name-changing feature, it still feels so permanent to me. With your pets, you can name more than one, and there's always the possibility that in the future you'll get to find some new and incredibly awesome pet and get to think of a name for that one too. Excellent pet namers even have special synergy between their hunter and pet names -- a creative feat which is at once challenging and simple.Mania's Arcania has an interesting little feature: in addition to all her other hunter and pet information, she's started a sort of "contest" called "Name That Pet," where hunters can submit pics of their pets for public inspection, and we all get to help them think of names for them. The latest pet in the series presents an great opportunity for hunter-pet name synergy: an owl tamed by the tauren Hawkspirit. In her blog, Hawkspirit's player shows how her owl finally reached 70, but still doesn't have a name, and Mania is here to help her out.If you're interested in pet names, check it out and apply your naming genus.
Researchers get a hoot out of owls using cellphones
We've see cells used to trick hapless critters in the past, but this device goes a step further by actually gathering data and transmitting it back to the mother ship. The box is placed in a tree and by calling the cell an owl hoot or whistle is played through the speakers, if an owl is nearby it will reply. The reply is then transmitted back to the research group to aid in counting the owls in the area. We're thinking this device would be a "hoot" for all manner of pranks on friends and the resulting replies would make comical ringtones themselves.[Via textually.org]
Mysterious Mysteries: UFO spotted above Honor Hold
If you have been to Honor Hold recently, you may have observed a strange flying creature circling the alchemists' tower. Insatiably curious, cunningly perceptive adventurers everywhere may well wonder: What in the world is that thing doing there?Lebowski, the resident engineering trainer, teaches his classes not too far from there. "One of my students pointed to it and asked me what it was," He told Mysterious Mysteries earlier this afternoon, "and this gave me the perfect opportunity to unveil my latest invention, the Telesupernaturaspectroscope! It may seem like a mere [Ornate Spyglass], but I have fitted it with a [Super-snapper FX] and a coating of [Ghost Dye], thus allowing us to capture images of spectral creatures while observing from a safe distance!" The Telesupernaturaspectrograph Lebowski took is quite chilling indeed. "You can see here," he tells us, "the Unexplainable Freaky Owl -- or 'UFO' as I call it -- is not only blue, but it seems to have gaping holes in its wings! Yet it flies! I suspect the alchemists are up to something!" We questioned Alchemist Gribble and Magus Zabraxis inside the alchemists tower as to what they think about this strange UFO flying about their tower. Miss Zabraxis replied that she didn't know about freaky owls but offered to show us her latest experiment, while Mr. Gribble stated, "It is the obvious result of conditions and circumstances which brought about its existence! Now go away and come back when you're ready to learn Extremely Advanced Alchemy!" Rorelien, the night elven Herbalist Trainer was seen to be lurking suspiciously in the background, but she declined to comment.Have you spotted any strange or inexplicable items or creatures in your journeys around Outland? Have you any theories as to what they're there for?
