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Netflix chooses Mark Millar's 'Prodigy' as its second comic book
Netflix already has a second comic book lined up mere weeks after its first one hit stores. The service has unveiled Prodigy, a Mark Millar-penned comic book due in both digital and paper forms on December 5th. The series revolves around Edison Crane, the "world's smartest man," who has virtually everything he could want but is fueled by an endless drive that leads him to solve problems for governments around the planet. As the artwork from Batman visualizer Rafael Albuquerque suggests, Crane will have to rely on both his mind and some firepower to get things done.
Crowdfund Bookie, April 2014: Wallets open once again
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the month and produces pretty charts for you to look at. While not a return to crowdfunding's previous glory, April was a bounce-back month for video game Kickstarter projects, which raised $1,920,268 for 35 games, the most games put up in a month since December's 40. Nearly double the number of backers showed up to support these games compared to last month (50,525 versus 28,460) as well, so the funding space may be in renewed form. April bears other similarities to the month of December in crowdfunding: Both months saw a decreased amount of funding pledged beyond initial goals in addition to a decreased pledge per backer and boosted number of successful projects. This trend has generally held strong since December, and may shape our new understanding of the gaming section of Kickstarter. Whereas a popular funding month like September featured a generous average pledges per person amount of $54.35, April's backers offered just $38.01 each. That number shrinks further to $34.26 after removing three projects that sported average funding amounts of $175 or greater. April also saw eight separate projects receive over $100,000 in support, the most since October. Six of these projects featured initial reward tiers between $15 and $17 that granted backers a copy of their respective games. Aside from each project having gradually-increasing reward tiers that offered bonus in-game content as well as goods like soundtracks and art books, four of the projects also included tiers ranging from $20 to $40 that promised beta and alpha access to games. Providing this continues on with other successful projects, developers looking to add attractive and pricier buy-in levels for their Kickstarters may want to note: Players appear to be willing to pay to get their hands on a game sooner. Head past the break for the month's top five grossing projects as well as breakdowns by genre.
Prodigy blends tabletop and PC gaming, clears funding in 3 days
Fan of games like the Skylanders series and Disney Infinity, but hoping for something a bit less cartoony? Or maybe you just really need some new 60mm scale figures for your tabletop warchest? Prodigy from Hanakai Studio might be able to help you out. The game, which combines small-form figures with an electronic board and PC, was successfully funded on Kickstarter today, reaching its $100,000 goal in fewer than three days. Prodigy takes place in a darker world than similar games, and is squarely focused on turn-based squad battles. Players place the figure of their choice onto a grid-like surface, which registers the character and displays it onscreen. You attack by placing a card onto the surface, or combine cards for special attacks or abilities. A piercing attack, for example, is activated when a player lays down an Attack and Focus card. You can see the game in action by checking out the pitch video above, or checking out the Prodigy Kickstarter page. Hanakai has not announced any stretch goals for the funding campaign, but there are still plenty of higher reward tiers available. Got a spare $5,000 lying around? You can design your own character to be placed into the game. For $10,000, you can design the character, help conceptualize its figure, and meet the development team in Paris. Ah, Paris. The city of Sorcerer Kings. Prodigy is expected to finish development by the end of 2015. [Image: Hanakai Studio]
High school senior kills cancer with nanotech, still can't legally drink
Ever ask yourself, "What am I doing with my life?" No? Well, a little existential crisis is in order then. Because while you and the rest of Team teen America were busy dressing like Gaga, dancing to the Bieber and playing Angry Birds, high school senior Angela Zhang was killing cancer. Yes, this 17-year old medical prodigy from Cupertino was just awarded the Siemens Foundation grand prize -- a $100,000 payday -- for her work "Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells." It's certainly a mouthful, but this nanotech is what one fellow researcher's calling the "Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment," as her gold and iron-oxide nanoparticle does double duty delivering the drug salinomycin to a tumor site, in addition to aiding MRI and photoacoustic imaging. If that's not impressive enough, this real-life lady Doogie Howser's also won Intel's ISEF grand award in both 2010 and 2011 for other health science-related work. Sure, Angela might inadvertently fall into the overachiever category, but girlfriend definitely deserves to win that Prom Queen crown.
Xtreamer Ultra HTPC hands-on -- and Prodigy eyes-on
First, the good news: Xtreamer has its lovely little Ultra HTPC out and hooked up here at CeBIT. Now, the bad: the considerably more beautiful Prodigy streamer is under lock and key, and they won't be doing any demos. Ah, well -- may as well make the best of the situation, right? In brief, the Ultra might be the baddest little HTPC we've seen here at the show -- Xtreamer seems to have nailed the equation with the small size and the price point. It doesn't look cheap, either; we imagine it's a little overbuilt-looking with those faux heat sink fins for some living rooms, but you can plug in an IR extender and bury the actual box in a cabinet if you like. The company's staying very media platform-agnostic, shipping with Boxee and XBMC among others on a 2GB USB flash drive that houses the entire operating system. And at a shipping price of €200 (about $277), it puts the hurt on the Boxee Box. Look for it in early April. Turning our attention to the Prodigy, this thing is seriously gorgeous for one reason: a large curved sheet of metal covering the top and sides. Functionality is another matter entirely, though, and as we mentioned before, Xtreamer isn't demoing it here. On paper, at least, it should take care of business thanks to USB 3.0 and AirPlay support along with an internal 3.5-inch hard drive bay -- and the company is currently taking pre-orders for €50 (about $69), which seems dirt cheap for what you're getting. Like the Ultra, Xtreamer expects to ship it in early April. %Gallery-117922%
Xtreamer Prodigy features AirPlay support, USB 3, and a GUI that will delight fans of Flash (and fans of GUIs)
Looks like the folks at Xtreamer have a few tricks up their sleeves! Following hot on the heels of the company's Ultra HTPC comes Xtreamer Prodigy, a Realtek 1185-based media player and streamer that sports USB 3.0 connectivity, 256MB RAM, 512MB NAND flash, HDMI, an integral IR remote control, a multi-card reader and a 3.5-inch HDD bay. But the real fun here (or so we've heard) is the Adobe Flash GUI, as well as support for such services as Apple AirPlay, Mediafly, Google Talk, Last FM, Pandora, Facebook, and more. The rumored price is €119, which will have to suffice until we find something more concrete (which should be about five days from now). Get a closer look below. %Gallery-117529%
Crestron's Prodigy Home Control System gets prices, specs
Heads up, home automation fanatics: It seems that the CEDIA folks have got the inside scoop on Crestron's new Prodigy Home Control System -- and have been kind enough to share their hard won knowledge with us. A lower-cost system aimed at the mass market, this guy features a ZigBee-compatible controller with remote, a SideShow-combatible in-wall touch panel for all of your fave widgets, and the usual control switches, dimmers, and thermostats. The system starts at around $825 for the PMC2 controller (up to 100 wireless devices), PLX2 remote, and P-MNETGW wireless gateway. Or you can just bite the bullet and go for the sample system which includes the above, four zones of audio, one thermostat, 15 wireless light dimmers/switches, and the in-wall touchscreen for about $5,500. Or, if none of the above appeal to you, you can just turn off your own lights. Be sure to check out those glamor shots in the gallery below.
IAC Prodigy e-reader does EV-DO, HSPA, WiMAX and WiFi
While you might say Amazon's Kindle is lucky to have a single CDMA / EV-DO radio built-in, IAC would likely venture to disagree. Over at Computex, said firm was showcasing its Prodigy e-reader, which just so happens to pack every major wireless radio we can think of. EV-DO Rev. A? Check. WCDMA / HSPA? Check. WiMAX? Oh, definitely. 802.11b/g WiFi? For sure, dudes. And the fun doesn't stop there -- it's packing a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-paper touchscreen, 256MB of NAND Flash memory, 128MB of DDR memory, 2GB of NAND storage and a Marvell PXA310 processor. If all goes well, this little bugger will ship in Q4 over in Taiwan, but it'll be a cold day in Hades before it arrives on US soil. Video's after the break.
'Prince of Persia Prodigy' trademarked by Jordan Mechner
Trademork brings us word that Jordan Mechner, creator of wall-running time reverser, Prince of Persia, has filed to protect a new trademark. "Prince of Persia Prodigy" is now listed in relation to "game software and electronic game programs; electronic game software for mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and handheld computers." With Ubisoft suggesting that a new entry in the franchise is due to PoP up on modern consoles, one could speculate that "Prodigy" will serve as a subtitle to the royal acrobat's next adventure. One could also speculate that it implies a tie-in with the electropunk group of the same name, taking us back to the dark and angst-ridden tone of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. That being the case, one should hope that one counts the number of people seriously considering such a project.A second paragraph of speculation might also draw a connection between the trademark and next year's "not a video game movie" adaptation of Prince of Persia. How could anybody resist a game based on a movie based on a game?
