Primer
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What you need to know about Hyperloop
Elon Musk has a plan for humanity that covers clean energy, electric cars and spreading out amongst the stars. The billionaire also wants to do away with the tired and slow railways of the past in favor of pushing people around like parcels in a mail tube. That's what Hyperloop is: a series of vacuum tubes that'll enable travelers to get from A to B in minutes rather than hours. But Musk himself didn't have the time to develop the concept beyond his original idea, so in 2013 he open-sourced the project for anyone to have a go. Less than three years later, the first strides toward a global network of near-supersonic travel tubes are being taken.
Tamriel Infinium: Seriously, you should craft in Elder Scrolls Online
I've come to the conclusion that Elder Scrolls Online is not a game you want run through quickly. If you fly past each town just running from quest marker to quest marker, you'll miss some of the most important things the game has to offer and burn-out comes that much faster. In the first day, we had a player reach max level in less than 18 hours. Of course, some players cry "exploit," but for me, that's not really the point. I would feel I was missing something if I rushed to the end. And because I didn't rush to the end, I can try out some parts of Elder Scrolls Online that I would not even think about trying in any other MMO, like crafting. I have a long-standing angst toward crafting in MMOs. I played Ultima Online, but I didn't really craft in that game. I didn't start to understand the importance of crafting until I played Star Wars Galaxies. As we know, crafting was central to the success of that game. But after ZeniMax announced that an auction house would not exist in ESO, I wrote off crafting as unimportant and ultimately a waste of my time. Then late in beta, a friend of mine crafted a set of armor for me. I was surprised. The armor she made was better than my looted armor. I had to find out more. I put this little primer together for those who want to get started making their own weapons and armor.
Guild Wars 2's Lost Shores content primer
We're just days away from Guild Wars 2's next big content patch and special event. So far the Lost Shores have been shrouded in mystery. Will the shores ever be found? Who lost them? Exactly how absent-minded does one have to be to misplace an entire shore? There are other, more pragmatic mysteries too. What is the content update all about? What can we expect? What sort of name do you give to a race of evil, bow-legged crustaceans? Happily, we're equipped to shed a little light on all those and more. Read on for our Lost Shores content primer!%Gallery-170657%
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2 skill points, traits, and you!
There comes a time in every Guild Wars 2 adventurer's life when her progression begins to go through certain, well, changes. These changes begin when an adventurer reaches level 5, and they get even more pronounced when she hits level 11. It might feel confusing and embarrassing; suddenly, you've got red exclamation marks on your hero panel and a nearly uncontrollable urge to allocate your skill points. Your skill bar starts to fill out. It's OK. It's totally natural. You'll have questions. Where do utility skills come from? Which skills do you take, and in what order? What if you give your first point to the wrong trait line?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Professions are like onions
We've previously talked about the fun results of interaction between Guild Wars 2's relatively simple elements. Emergent complexity is a driving force behind a lot of the depth in Guild Wars 2, as we examined in both the skill and dynamic event systems. This layered complexity also works to benefit professions: There are enough options and tools for fine-tuning your character that incredibly divergent uses of the same profession are possible. Professions have layers. The farther you progress with a given character, the more layers get added and the more you can do to specialize and fine-tune your style of play.
Steve Jobs subject of new children's book
The Loop spotted a new book over at Amazon called "Who Was Steve Jobs?" that appears to be a children's book, of all things. It's part of a series of books designed to tell kids about famous historical figures and why they're so admired or well-known. Looking inside the book shows that it talks about Steve's life and times, all the way from the garage in California, up through the NeXT days, and to "Think Different" and "Insanely Great." There's also a detailed timeline included, and even a bibliography of sources. This might be just the thing for any little ones who could use a primer on Jobs and his life.
Mad Catz/Tritton's Primer gaming headset arriving this week, we go ears-on
With these gamer cans ready to bask in their full Xbox-certified glory in stores this week, we took the chance to hit up Tritton's stand here at CES to try on its Primer. Despite the call-center employee appearance [above], the earphones are relatively comfortable, although the head band seemed a bit tight. While the Primer offers a 33 foot reception radius, we found its limits of receiving audio were closer to 40 feet. The mic arm is flexible, with the adjustable headband affording a certain degree of customization. Despite the $100 price tag, Tritton fans looking for something more subtle than recent efforts will be happy -- just don't walk around a conference hall kitted out in it. Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
Mad Catz ships the Primer wireless headset for Xbox
Mad Catz has announced that it has shipped the Primer wireless headset. Sold under the Tritton brand, the stereo headset is notable in that it is the first officially licensed wireless headset for the Xbox 360. Nearly identical in appearance to Tritton's Detonator headset -- minus the cables, plus a "base station" -- the Primer utilizes 5.8GHz wireless tech, which purportedly cuts down on interference from appliances, phones and the like. It's also worth noting that it will work only with the Xbox 360, so keep that in mind before plunking down the $100 asking price.
Mad Catz / Tritton ship 5.8 Ghz wireless headset for Xbox 360, dub it Primer
If the exclusive third-party manufacturer of wireless Xbox 360 didn't have enough options for you, Mad Catz and Tritton just unleashed another. The outfit's latest set of gaming cans, the Primer, features two 40mm drivers, separate volume controls for game and voice and proprietary 5.8 Ghz wireless digs for superior audio clarity. Sound like a good fit? They'll set you back $100. Read on for a short, but official, press release.
Get mystical with this Wizard101 combat primer
Maybe the casual friendly, Harry Potter inspired Wizard101 has caught your eye sometime in the past, but you weren't really sure what the game entailed. Well, in that case MMORPG.com has a good combat primer that'll help you get your wands in order, as it were. While the game doesn't demand deep, tactical thinking it isn't exactly a hack 'n slash title either -- so a little bit of help isn't out of the question. Plus, it's got a free-or-pay pricing structure as well.If you're wondering whether or not Wizard101 is a game worth a little investigation, we'll be the first to answer that yes, very much so! We've got both some early hands-on time with the game, as well as an interview we did shortly before it launched last September. And if you're looking for something short and sweet to convince you to take a look: turn-based card battle MMORPG.
Macro Anatomy: Primer
Have you ever lost a battle because you fumbled through a sequence of actions? Perhaps when trying to run from a rogue you dropped a Stoneclaw Totem rather than the intended Earthbind Totem. Alternatively, you may have cast Frost Nova rather than Counterspell on a Warlock casting her 1.5 second Fear. Missed clicks or keystrokes have been the bane of many players. This is where the magic of macros can save you from keyboard fumbling. Among their many uses, macros can be used to establish cast sequences, "I win" buttons and evasive action commands.Macros are something many players have heard of, but shy away from because they require some basic scripting knowledge. For the uninitiated, macros are commands built by users to execute customized actions or action sequences. A macro, known in the Computer Science world as a macro instruction, are defined as a rule that specifies how a certain input sequence should be mapped to an output sequence. Sounds horrible, I know, so let's make it easier.Macros in World of Warcraft, are really just new and simplified ways to do the same old things. For a Mage, this can be a Presence of Mind / Pyroblast button, the "I win!" macro for Fire / Arcane mages. From simple commands to eat and drink at the same time, to determining a target's status (friendly or hostile) and casting an appropriate spell, macros can be used to streamline game play and clean up your User Interface.
TR beginner's guide to the Spy
IGN's TRVault has the first part up of a new series covering the major classes of Tabula Rasa, and first up is the Spy. It's reasonably concise, as primers go. For those who don't know, Spies are TR's version of the rogue class. They're stealth armored, blade wielding killing machines that can do everything from polymorphing into an enemy soldier, to causing hostile foes to turn traitor, to calling in bombing runs.Currently, Spies are not only the most popular class in the final tier, but arguably the most powerful too. Spies are the only class that can tank, heal, resurrect, and DPS as the situation requires -- though some of these may change if Polymorph gets the rumored bug-fix in 1.4. Spies are great for experience multipliers when played properly, too.Spies are amazing at PvP as things stand, so I can see the temptation to level one built for PvP. But unless you're in a very active PvP clan, the better option is to level yourself as PvE, gather as many clone tokens as possible from Targets of Opportunity, then clone yourself a pure PvP Spy when relevant updates are implemented. Tabula Rasa Capture The Flag, anyone?
iPhone 101: Hacks Vocabulary Primer
We here at TUAW are always on the lookout to help you, our dear readers, understand what is going on in the crazy world of Apple related technology. The biggest news, as of late, has been the continued efforts to hack the iPhone. A rich language has developed around the iPhone hacking community, and we thought it might be time for a primer of sorts. Never again will you confuse your jailbreaking with your bricking. Jail. The public areas of the iPhone or iPod to which, by default, Apple allows read/write access via USB. In Unix terms, this refers to the /private/var/root/Media folder. Jailbreak. The iPhone and iPod touch hacks that allow users to gain access to the entire Unix filesystem. In Unix terms, this refers to changing the root of the directory tree to /. Activation. The process that allows you to move beyond any of the various screens that instruct you to connect your device to iTunes before it can be used. On the iPhone, you can only make emergency calls until your iPhone is activated. Bricking. To render an iPhone or iPod touch inoperable. The 1.1.1 firmware update turned many iPhones into iBricks. Users could not reactivate their iPhone to get past their "Please connect to iTunes" screens. Although the phones could still be used for emergency calls, users were locked out from all normal iPhone operations.File system. The way your iPhone or iPod touch uses its memory to store data and applications. The iPhone and iPod touch use two "disks": a smaller private file system that contains the operating system and a larger public one that contains your media (songs, videos, etc), preferences, and data.
Engadget begins iPhone litigation crash course series: part 1 - trademarks
The litigation biz is a messy and complex one, which is why I'm thankful Engadget has rounded up law student members from the Columbia Science & Technology Law Review for a primer series covering the ins and outs of the potentially ensuing Apple/Cisco litigation. This first part covers trademarks - what they're for, how to maintain them and the available courses of action when your trademark gets the rip-off treatment.Of particular interest to me is the fact that the owner of a trademark must be vigilant about maintaining control over it and defending their turf. If a company starts lying down and letting their 'mark run rampant, they can lose the reigns entirely. This series should be a great read for anyone interested in a quickie IP law education without all the student loans and all-nighters.
Found Footage: Trash Talk
I found this OS X trash primer over at YouTube in the new video listings. For many of you readers this is going to be old news--how to throw away locked or busy files--but for those of you who are new to OS X and the Macintosh, you may appreciate the basic how-to steps that the video offers. You don't actually need a third-party product to dispose of an application, but many OS X users like to keep their systems clean and tight.
Shell scripting primer
Apple has a nice document on the ADC (thats Apple Developer Connection) that gives you a good overview of shell scripting. The Shell Scripting Primer, as it is called is available online and in PDF format.If you are interested in getting a peek under the hood of your Mac, or you think you are ready to dabble on the command line, this primer is for you.
MMOs For Old Fogeys
Chances are that, if you're reading this, you're at least someone familiar with the concept of MMO's. Not everyone, however, is as on-top of things as us geeks are, so BusinessWeek Online has graciously offered a primer to the senior lunch crowd (or anyone else who's been under a rock for the last 5 years) in the form of An Old Fogey's Guide to the Online Universe.The article is an informative primer for anyone interested but unversed in the glorious new world of online gaming. Like I said, for you readers, it won't do much to enlighten you, but if you've been hankerin' to buy your aunt Millie her own copy of WoW, be sure to clip this & send it along with her. After all, you don't want anyone calling your Aunt Millie a 'dumazz newb', do ya? Do ya?
