Phoenix
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A piracy lawsuit is tearing Kodi's add-on community apart
Some of the biggest third-party Kodi streaming addons are no longer available. TorrentFreak reports that ZemTV and Phoenix have recently closed following a lawsuit from US satellite broadcaster Dish Network, with other streaming add-ons following suit. The add-ons, which offer on-demand and live streamed content free of charge, are accused of direct copyright infringement of various TV channels.
Waymo is ready to offer public rides in its self-driving minivans
While Alphabet's legal battle with Uber continues to rumble on, its Waymo self-driving initiative is going from strength to strength. Its laser-mounted white minivans are consistently proving their reliability on the roads and besting their rivals, so much so that the company now wants humans to get involved. In a blog post, the company today announced that it's expanding its test program in Phoenix by allowing families to register for its early rider program.
Teen arrested for sharing exploit that almost brought down 911
An Arizona teen is discovering why you should think very carefully about sharing exploits online: you don't know what people will do with them... or in some cases, that you're sharing the right exploits. Phoenix police have arrested 18-year-old Meetkumar Hitesbhai Desai on computer tampering charges after he publicly posted a version of iOS-based JavaScript attack that he thought would only deliver annoying pop-ups, but actually made bogus 911 calls. In the Phoenix region, there were so many hang-up calls (there were 1,849 link clicks in total) that there was the "potential danger" of emergency phone services going down, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says. California and Texas police saw call spikes, too.
Google's self-driving cars to face their toughest test yet
Google is taking its self-driving cars to a fourth city in an expansion of its ongoing development. The latest location for testing is Phoenix, Arizona, which is significantly more arid than any city previously used as a proving ground. Speaking to Reuters, Jennifer Haroon, Google's head of business operations for the self-driving car project, noted that the desert conditions will further the company's understanding of "how our sensors and cars handle extreme temperatures and dust in the air." Modified Lexus SUVs have already begun to map the Phoenix area, checking for street layouts, lane markers, traffic signals and curb heights.
suitX launches lightweight and affordable exoskeleton
suitX, the robotics company out of University of California, Berkeley's Human Engineering Lab has launched its first exoskeleton after years of development. It's called Phoenix, a relatively lightweight and affordable device that can help people with mobility disorders walk again. The wearable robot is adjustable according to size and can be put on and removed piece by piece. Its battery can power four hours of continuous walking (at a max speed of 1.1 mph) and up to eight hours of intermittent movement. Best of all, the Phoenix weighs only 27 pounds and costs $40,000.
AZ town hides license plate readers in dozens of fake cacti
City officials from Paradise Valley, Arizona have reportedly set up an array of license plate readers, hidden within fake cacti no less, throughout the wealthy Phoenix suburb. Problem is, officials can't seem to explain if the devices are currently in use or why they even need the privacy-invading technology ion the first place. Fox 10 News broke the story earlier this week after residents began noticing that many of the town's cell-phone towers (disguised as cacti to blend into the surrounding scenery) were suddenly sporting the new plate readers. These readers scan the license plates of passing vehicles and compare them against a database of stolen and missing vehicles. If the plate matches an entry in the database, the device alerts authorities who then investigate.
Dota 2's New Bloom update introduces new heroes and more
Valve's Dota 2 is about to receive another huge update, this one bringing two new heroes and a bevy of other features to the most played game on Steam. The New Bloom festival, which launches tomorrow for all Dota 2 players, includes a new beast to slay, the ability to "offer" unwanted items in the hopes of earning rare armor, and another map aesthetic variant centered on spring themes with East Asian influences. Most importantly, New Bloom marks the introduction of Terrorblade, the demon marauder, and Phoenix, the, ermm...phoenix, both brand-new heroes in Dota's world. Also new with the update: the ability to jump into any downloaded replay and take control of a character within it, changing it from a replay to a live game in which you can attempt to turn the tides of a loss or find a smarter path toward victory. Dota fans should consult the Day One, Day Two, and Day Three announcement posts for full details, as New Bloom includes quite a few other new features and tweaks.
Phoenix Art Museum hosts indie game showcase on Sept. 21
The Phoenix Art Museum will be overrun with 20 indie games from local developers on September 21 from 10AM to 4PM, the final weekend of the museum's The Art of Video Games exhibition. The Arizona Indie Game Showcase is hosted by the Phoenix IGDA and Game CoLab, a productive collective of developers in the city. Scheduled for display at the showcase is a slew of high-profile indies, including Indie Megabooth participants Gravity Ghost from Ivy Games, Scale from CubeHeart Games and Aztez from Team Colorblind. Other developers include Kyle Pulver (Offspring Fling), Corey Nolan (Growing) and Abstrakt Games (Protein Pirates), with music madness in the hands of Adventureface. Connect with the Game CoLab and RSVP for the Arizona Indie Game Showcase on Meetup.
Insert Coin: Beacon Audio Blazar Bluetooth speaker brings back Play 360 memories (hands-on)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. We called Beacon Audio's Phoenix "our new favorite portable speaker" just over a year ago. Today, the company's taking to Kickstarter to fund the production of its followup: the Blazar. The speaker features a grown-up design wrapped in aluminum (the Phoenix was plastic), with a softball-sized, cube-esque design. The slightly bulky shape allows for 12 hours of battery life, aside from promising big and clean multi-directional sound thanks to two 50mm drivers and a 65mm bass radiator. Beacon's also loaded the speaker with a microphone, NFC and a dual pairing mode for completely wire-free stereo sound between two units -- like Nokia's Play 360. On top you'll find rubber playback controls, while one side of the unit houses a microUSB input, 3.5mm input and output jacks, power switch and a pairing / mode button. Early-bird pledges of $99 dollars will be available for the first 198 units (split between silver and graphite), followed by an additional 600 priced at $124. Beacon's counting on its artist collaboration editions, however, offering three more colors (500 pieces each) at $134 with Neon Trees, AWOLNATION and Halestorm. If you're up for the risk, Beacon plans to ship all orders by December 1st. Join us past the break for some impressions with pre-release units.%Gallery-194431%
Made in Phoenix: Indie Game Demo Night starts the party on Saturday
Phoenicians can get down with some independent games, a live DJ, food and drinks this Saturday with Made in Phoenix: Indie Game Demo Night, from 7PM - 10PM PT at the Game CoLab headquarters. Game CoLab is a collaborative (get it?) workspace for indie developers in Phoenix, and founders Joseph Darnell and Ben Reichert just opened its doors on May 1. Indie Game Demo Night is Game CoLab's opportunity to introduce local game developers to the public, while providing feedback to the game creators and having a bit of fun, Darnell tells Joystiq. Game CoLab so far has 20 members, 12 of whom work out of the space downtown, and it's closely aligned with the local IGDA chapter, Darnell says. "They want to see the CoLab succeed, since the idea behind it is to provide a more constant support for the game dev community here in the Valley," he says. Indie Game Demo Night will feature music by Adventureface, and it's open for RSVPs on Meetup. The party and Game CoLab offer fresh examples of an expanding, public indie scene across the nation, joining established groups in Boston, Massachusetts, Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, to name a few. [Image credit: Sam Mort]
HP adds five new towers to its desktop lineup, Haswell offered across the board
If you think HP's new battery-powered all-in-one is a gimmick, fear not: the company's still churning out all manner of traditional desktop towers. In fact, the outfit just refreshed its lineup with five new models, ranging from a space-saving mini to a high-end gaming rig. There's a lot to digest in the way of specs and pricing, so to keep things simple we laid out a neat list just after the break. Read on for the full break-down.%Gallery-188878%
T-Mobile's 4G LTE goes live in Phoenix, San Jose
T-Mobile has started to roll out 4G services in the Phoenix and San Jose ahead of a press gathering today, according to our tipsters. Screen grabs show the service alive and kicking out speeds in the 20-30Mbps range, though we've yet to verify it for ourselves. The company already outed its "UnCarrier" plans on its site earlier featuring non-subsidized smartphones -- including LTE models -- along with unlimited voice, text and basic data plans. We should be able to color in the rest of the details later this morning. [Thanks Nick, Dustin]
NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)
NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately the chipset maker brought the product to Barcelona embedded in a reference phone known as "Phoenix." The 8mm-thick handset, which will find a home in the labs of manufacturers and carriers (as well as the desks of many third-party devs), sports a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear-facing camera, PRISM 2, Chimera, DirectTouch and LTE (we're told that most major bands are included for testing purposes). As it's not geared for general consumer use, so it's not the thinnest, sleekest or best-looking device, and the back doesn't even seem to snap completely shut. Units are being sampled as we speak, and we should expect to see devices hit the market in nine to twelve months. Since it's still pretty early in the process, we weren't able to turn on the phone or benchmark the chipset; the only exception to this rule, as you'll see in the video, was when a rep showed a gaming demo on his particular unit. While the 4i is the smaller brother of the Tegra 4 family, it's still expected to be quite powerful. The chip, which is designed specifically for smartphones (tablets will take advantage of Tegra 4 instead), features four 28nm Cortex-A9 r4 (beefed-up from the standard A9) cores that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz, 60 GPU cores (compared to 72 on the T4) and an integrated i500 LTE baseband modem. For additional comparison, NVIDIA showed us the two sibling boards side-by-side. Head below to check out our galleries of Phoenix and the two chipsets, as well as a brief video that shows off the graphics prowess of the 4i.
NVIDIA intros Tegra 4i with built-in LTE, details Chimera camera tech with HDR
Did NVIDIA say it would stick to one new mobile processor design per year? If so, it's not worried about its own rules: meet the Tegra 4i. The 4-plus-1 chip formerly known as Project Grey is a Tegra 4 mostly in name, and goes for integration rather than raw power. It sheds the newer Cortex-A15 architecture of the Tegra 4 for a spruced-up 2.3GHz Cortex-A9 with the i500 LTE modem built directly into the chip die -- a move that cuts the surface area in half and simplifies the hardware, even as it supposedly outruns equivalent competition. The design is more than just an overclocked Tegra 3 with 4G inside, though. The 4i touts 60 graphics cores versus the 12 of its ancestor, and inherits the high dynamic range photography and video engine of the Tegra 4. NVIDIA is demonstrating the 4i's chops through the Phoenix (pictured above), a 5-inch, 1080p reference Android smartphone that builders can use as a starting point. There's no immediate customers mentioned for the CPU, although we suspect those are coming soon. Speaking of that camera technology, NVIDIA has also given it a name. Chimera, as it's now called, isn't just about making HDR available for every photo and video. The mix of CPU and GPU processing can capture HDR panorama shots without requiring a single-direction sweep, letting a would-be Ansel Adams 'paint' the panorama out of order. The autofocusing engine is also smart enough to include subject tracking with an exposure lock. Both 8-megapixel Aptina and 13-megapixel Sony camera sensors can already support Chimera, which gives us a clue as to just what imaging we can expect with the first batch of Tegra 4 and 4i devices.
DARPA touts progress on Phoenix program to salvage dead satellites
DARPA made some bold promises last summer when it announced its Phoenix program to harvest dead satellites for still-valuable parts, but it didn't have much more than some concept videos to show at the time. It looks like the agency has been making some steady progress since then, though, and has today released a new video showing some of the work it's done up through November of last year. As you can see after the break, that work is all still being doing in the lab, but it covers quite a few of the components that DARPA ultimately hopes to use in space, including robotic arms and gripping mechanisms. Those tests will remain Earth-bound for the next few years, but a demonstration mission is slated for 2016 to see how the system fares on an actual satellite in orbit.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter Extra: Interviews with Champions Online and The Phoenix Project
I promised you that we would be doing interviews next time, but astute readers would note that I did not say "next week." So welcome to our special extra installment of the column looking at two different sides following the City of Heroes shutdown. We've already seen two projects coming from the ashes of CoH; The Phoenix Project and Heroes and Villains are both currently being assembled by passionate fans of the now-departed game. But we'd be remiss if we failed to note the impact that the game's closure has had on existing games like Champions Online and DC Universe Online. Rather than just speculating on any of this, we decided to just ask. So today you've got two interviews. One is with Brad Stokan, Executive Producer at Cryptic Studios, about how the City of Heroes shutdown has affected Champions Online and the studio that helped bring the game to life in the first place. The other is with the lead staff at Missing Worlds Media, the team behind The Phoenix Project. So let's take a look behind the scenes, yes?
The Phoenix Project aims to give a new home to City of Heroes expats
In the wake of City of Heroes' closure, one group of fans has decided that it's not enough to move on to a new game. The Phoenix Project aims to become a spiritual sequel and recreation of the game for players and by players, with a new trailer showcasing concept art as well as serving as a statement of purpose. Formed by several regulars of the Save CoH movement, The Phoenix Project is the work of Missing Worlds Media, a studio composed of several independent designers, programmers, and artists united by their love of the lost game. The game is still very early in the concept stages, but the studio has already announced that it will be built using the powerful CryENGINE 3. If you're looking forward to the prospect of running around in Titan City, check out the trailer past the break, and keep your eyes peeled for an interview with the staff from our regular superheroic column, A Mild-Mannered Reporter.
Avengers: Battle for Earth features favorites, familiar faces
Ubisoft has named all twenty characters appearing in Avengers: Battle for Earth, the upcoming fighter for Kinect (and then Wii U). You'll be able to spin off some psy-force as the Phoenix, embodied by the X-Man Jean Grey, and take command of the Skrull queen Veranke, among others. It's not surprising to see a big "Secret Invasion" influence, given the game's initial trailer. See the full list after the break.Avengers: Battle for Earth will have you and your friends jumping around and debating the correct time for clobberin' on November 9. If you want to see some of these heroes throwing down right away, there's a demo available for download in the meantime.
NYCC 2012: New Marvel Heroes characters and trailer debut
What better place to learn more about a game based on comic books than a comic book convention? Marvel Heroes had its own panel earlier today at the New York Comic Con, where devs not only shared a new trailer but announced three new playable heroes. And luckily for folks who missed the chance to see the panel live, Gazillion Entertainment has been sharing the announcements via Twitter! Along with such iconic heroes as The Hulk, Wolverine, and the Human Torch, players will also have the choice to play as Phoenix (Jean Grey), Luke Cage, and NOVA. Although fairly brief, the new features trailer shows off different abilities, a variety of costumes, a quick peek at some multiplayer zones, and a glimpse of a few iconic villains. Check it all out after the break.
Beacon Audio Phoenix review: our new favorite portable speaker
We'll admit it: we're jaded. There is so much bad, middling and just okay stuff floating around in the portable speaker universe that we're tired of even thinking about it. We've had our distinct favorite -- the Tivoli iPal -- for almost 10 years now, and it takes a lot to knock it off its unglamorous, but distinctive, pedestal. And we predict that it will continue to stay there. But newcomer Beacon has a hot little number in a soft-touch red dress that we're willing to put right next to it on a slightly more diminutive pedestal. The $99, baseball-sized, Bluetooth-packing Phoenix has gotten under our collective skins, and we'd like to tell you why.
