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The latest 'Fortnite' weapon lets you drop heavy stuff on opponents’ heads
Epic has another way to battle Fortnite's hated newcomer, giant mechs. Sure, the two-player B.R.U.T.E. mechs have 1,000 health, can travel hundreds of in-game meters in a few seconds and can blast you with rockets or stomp on you. But now, regular players can strike back by dropping something heavy -- like a dinosaur -- on giant mechs and other opponents.
BigDog four-legged robot adds an arm, throws for the scouts (video)
Of all the robots we fear will one day rise up and subjugate humanity to an unyielding reign of terror, none is closer to our hearts than Boston Dynamic's awesome -- and terrifying, as seen in its 2008 video -- BigDog. This Army Research Laboratory-funded project that aims to navigate uneven terrain for up to 24 hours while carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment is showing off an all-new ability: throwing. In a tryout video (embedded after the break) that comes just a little too late for the NFL Combine, Boston Dynamics demonstrates how BigDog uses its arm to not only pick up an unsuspecting cinder block, but coordinate the strength of the legs and torso to step into a toss. The robot isn't throwing 100mph heat just yet, but after previously displaying its horns, even this short teaser is adding a fresh twist to our nightmares.
Encrypted Text: The rise of the ranged rogue
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. The original Shuriken Toss never made sense. Why would rogues, a purely melee class, want a single ranged attack? We don't have the supporting toolbox to make the transition into a ranged DPS spec. Melee uptime is our top priority. Because of our reliance on our melee attacks, mobility is our most requested feature. Why would a class want Shuriken Toss when they can have Shadowstep? Patch 5.2 is turning a one-off ranged ability into everything a rogue needs to attack targets from range. If you use Shuriken Toss on a target that is farther than 10 yards away, your auto-attacks gain a 30-yard range for 10 seconds. The auto-attacks turn into tiny shuriken that you throw at your target. These shuriken have several special properties, but the extended range is obviously the most important aspect of the ability. With Shuriken Toss, ranged auto-attacks, and Deadly Throw, rogues suddenly have a ranged repertoire.
Encrypted Text: Shuriken Toss breaks all the rules
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Raise your hand if you remember fighting against Shazzrah. I'm not talking about our recent bout with Shannox or even our old fights against Mother Shahraz. Shazzrah goes way back, to WoW's very first raid instance, Molten Core. Due to the frequent AoE explosions that Shazzrah unleashed, rogues couldn't engage him without being slaughtered immediately. While the rest of the raid fought the boss, I joined the other rogues in my group crushing Blindweed and making some food next to the Cooking Fire. As a melee class, our biggest weakness for years has been that we can only deal damage to nearby targets. It's limited our ability to swap targets effectively, our ability to avoid point-blank AoE attacks, and our ability to attack any target that's not on the ground. Rogues, along with other melee classes, have actually been benched because of these limitations. These shackles and restrictions have bound our class since its inception. Shuriken Toss has the chance to change all that. The new level 90 rogue talent slated for Mists of Pandaria might redefine what it means to play a rogue.
Rollin' Justin learns to throw like a robot
Our pal Rollin' Justin proved the old adage about teaching old robots new robo tricks wrong back in April, when he learned to catch balls by tracking moving objects, calculating their flight paths and then snapping shut his cold metal claws at the moment of impact. Now he's besting himself, thanks to a handful of improvements imparted upon him by way of his fleshy masters at the German Aerospace Agency. Among the upgrades are are an improvement to old Justin's dynamic performance -- he's now 1.5 times faster in his arms, thanks to new gear ratios, helping to make his game of robo catch two-sided, with the ability to actually throw. He's also adopted the more flattering moniker Agile Justin and likes to play catch with his older, similarly named sibling. Video evidence of his new-found skills after the jump.
Samsung pushes SwipeIt media sharing app, AirPlay competitor to Smart TVs
According to a blog post by entrepreneur Amit Kumar, a new app called Samsung SwipeIt has started popping up on that company's smart TVs, and may be positioned as competition for Apple's AirPlay media sharing technology. Kumar mentions the app started rolling out to TVs at the beginning of the year, while the companion app for Android appeared on the Market around the same time (nothing on iTunes yet, despite a listing for an iOS app on Samsung's Korean site), promising easy sharing of photos and videos to Samsung's connected TVs. It's built by last year's Free The TV Apps competition winner MOVL and is based on that company's Connect platform, which as seen in the diagram after the break is all about pulling together media across screens and platforms.
Sony Walkman Mobile Entertainment Player hands-on (video)
You may well have missed it in today's deluge of Sony product announcements, but the company showed off the latest device to carry its age-old Walkman brand. The 4.3-inch handset device runs Android Gingerbread, and is still in its early stages at the moment, carrying the fairly uninspired Walkman Mobile Entertainment Player moniker. The device has an HDMI port that can be used to play things like mobile games on an HDTV. Sony seemed far less interested in that functionality than its Throw feature, however, which offers up wireless transfers to devices like the company's Bravia TV line. We gave it a whirl, and the whole thing was rather painless, even in a setting like Sony's booth, where the place is lousy with Bravia sets. The device, it seems, isn't quite ready for primetime, so we don't have any word on pricing or available yet. Check out a video of the Walkman in action, after the break.%Gallery-132199%
New BattleBlock Theater video throws a little surprise party
It's been a while since we last saw The Behemoth's Battleblock Theater in action, so if you're forgetting all of the pertinent deets, let us remind you: The game, by the creators of XBLA superhit Castle Crashers, throws a few players with strangely-shaped heads into a theater run by cats and tasks them with navigating a maze of traps and troubles for the cats' presumed entertainment. You can see some of that entertainment in this brand-new video, which features Prisoner 10321 and the game's co-op "throwing" mechanic, which allows players to launch their frienemies across gaps, into portal-like devices ... or into spikes and pits, if they happen to not be so fond of them at a given moment. The official Behemoth blog says there's complexity here, too: you'll go farther when both characters are facing the same way, or not as far if they're facing apart. And while players can slide tackle each other while fighting, the throw move can cancel that out, blocking the slide and instead sending the slider into danger. We tell you that now so that when it happens in the game, you're not actually thrown for the proverbial loop.
Ball-throwing robot seal has a talent for basketball, embarrassing humans (video)
You pick up your first tan leather roundball at the age of 9, you practice religiously for a decade before you can even feel worthy of calling yourself a basketball player, and then you find a video online of a robotic seal that can shoot better than you after just a few weeks in the lab. Yep, some Taiwanese know-it-alls have put together a robo-seal that converts 99 percent of shots (admittedly with a toy ball launched at a toy hoop) within a three-meter range. It's basically just an articulating arm with stereo vision for some good old depth perception, but it's sophisticated enough to maintain its killer accuracy even if the target is moved from its spot. That's more lethal that Shaq or Karl Malone's elbows ever were. Video's after the break, skip to the 1:05 mark if you don't care about the details of how it's done.
Today's hottest game video: Wii-mote plus sweaty hands = SMASH
The top slot on YouTube is occupied by the DIY-erless Wii sensor bar video that we've already covered today, so we're sliding down to number two. Although the video tells us something we already know -- Wii-motes love to fly out of hands due to shoddy wrist straps and break things -- we love their Zapruder film-esque replay of the alleged event over and over. While people haven't started duct-taping these to their wrists yet, Nintendo can expect a brisk business in replacement straps sales. That's where the real money lies in these consoles, and we've finally uncovered the bitter truth. Check out the video after the jump while you scrounge for strap change.
Video Sandwich: October 17, 2006
It's been a while. It's time for another Video Sandwich. We love looking at PSP ads here, and I would have to say that this "viral" ad is pretty effective. It tells you that you can play your PSP anywhere, any place... but would the PSP function in a low-grav, no-oxygen environment? Something tells me no. MISLEADING AD!!! (Okay, maybe it's just puffery.)Below, you'll see a fan-made parody of one of the earliest PSP ads: you know, the ones where they threw them around, from friend to friend. I was always horrified by that ad, just because I asked: what would you do if you dropped it??? That's $250 down the drain! Well, thankfully, these kids find out so you don't have to.
