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Autonomous robosub hunts starfish with poison-tipped needles
Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are voracious coral consumers with a propensity for population explosions, which makes them very real threats to the world's coral reefs. And while they're typically held in check by fish higher in the food chain, overly aggressive human fishing has decimated these predator species. That's why a team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia has spent the past decade developing a fully autonomous COTS-hunting robotic submarine to help bring these populations back into balance.
Cyber Monday app sales: Tom Tom USA, Age of Zombies, a few more
Did you buy anything good this weekend? It's now Cyber Monday, and the App Store sales continue. I have to say, these aren't quite as good as what we saw last week (though some of those are still going on), but there are still a few solid purchases here if you're looking to load up a new iOS device. Halfbrick's original Age of Zombies dual-stick shooter is down to just 99 cents. Double puzzle game Cohabit is on sale for the low price of free. Overhead racing game Tiny Cars is free today as well. Tom Tom USA is offering its usually very expensive software for a relatively generous price: $31.99. Cordy is an "exploratory platformer" that's free to download, with an in-app price that's been lowered to 99 cents for iPhone and $2.99 for the iPad. As mentioned this morning, Hothead's Sea Stars is free for the next few days. And freemium puzzle title Monster Island is offering a sale on in-app purchases. Slim pickings on new sales today, but some of those older sales are still on. And don't worry -- the biggest sales of the year on the App Store tend to show up around Christmas, which is when all of those new iPhones and iPads purchased this past weekend actually show up in consumers' hands, and start filling up with all of these apps. Stay tuned.
SpellTower, Chickon, Superman and lots of other iOS releases today
Believe it or not, we are getting into the start of the holiday season, and that means tons of action on the App Store as people head over to buy apps for their new devices. There are a bunch of exciting new apps to check out today, so here's a quick list: Hothead Games (makers of Kard Combat and Gem King) has released a new 99 cent game called Sea Stars, featuring some Ecco the Dolphin-style jumping. As expected, Minecraft Pocket Edition is now out and available for $6.99 on iOS. EA Mobile has a new freemium title called Road Trippin', in which you tour around the United States. Adult Swim's latest is an on-rails shooter called Major Mayhem, available for just a buck. Days of Wonder has released an iPhone-specific version of its popular Ticket to Ride board game, yours for only 99 cents. Anthill: Tactical Trail Defense isn't new, but it's gotten a big new content update and it's on sale for just 99 cents as well. SpellTower is a really excellent new spelling game for iPad from the creator of the great Bit Pilot and Halcyon. The creator of Galcon has turned his real-time strategy game about planetary domination into a game about chickens called (of course) Chickon. It's available for free. To celebrate the year anniversary of its dual-stick shooter Age of Zombies, Halfbrick Studios has re-released the title in an anniversary edition, making it universal and adding new content, still at 99 cents. Chillingo has two excellent new titles out, Superman (which features the DC superhero saving a 2D Metropolis from various threats) for 99 cents, and Extraction: Project Outbreak (a well-done top-down action RPG shooter), in a universal build for also 99 cents. Superman will probably sell better, but Extraction shouldn't be missed. Com2Us has released Homerun Battle 2, a sequel to the excellent arcade baseball game Homerun Battle 3D, for $4.99. Firemint has given its rodent stealth game Spy Mouse an HD version, for $2.99. Street Fighter IV Volt has new characters and new content, and is on sale for just 99 cents. Man, that's a whole lot of great games! This isn't even all of the app releases out this week, and my guess is that we haven't even seen the biggest flood of new apps -- that usually comes around Thanksgiving, and then ramps up again right as Apple freezes the store before Christmas. It's going to be a busy holiday season in iOS gaming for sure.
