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Formula E breaks indoor land speed world record in 'unlocked' Gen3 car
The indoor land speed world record now belongs to Formula E and NEOM McLaren driver Jake Hughes.
Researchers break world record for quantum-encrypted communications
Researchers in Beijing have set a new quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) world record of 102.2 km (64 miles).
Genesis broke a world record for the most drones in the sky
Hyundai's Genesis brand just broke a world record for the most drones airborne at the same time, putting 3,281 UAVs in the air for a publicity stunt.
Watch a Porsche Taycan break the Guinness World Record for an EV drift
Porsche driving instructor Dennis Retera drifted a Porsche Taycan EV for 55 minutes and 26.2 miles, setting a new Guinness world record.
Bugatti's record-breaking speed run required special wheels and nerves of steel
Speed kills. That had to be on the minds of Bugatti and Michelin engineers (and driver Andy Wallace), when together they pushed a modified Chiron to 304.77 miles an hour. As you would expect, driving a production car that fast involves more than just finding a straight path, strapping in and hoping for the best. Instead, it required adjustments to the car, the wheels and nerves of steel.
Wisconsin firms hope to make radioactive isotopes for nuclear medicine (updated)
Certain cardiac stress tests and other nuclear medicine diagnostics depend on molybdenum-99, or Mo-99, a radioactive isotope that decays into the diagnostic imaging agent technetium 99m, or Tc-99m. The latter is used in more than 40 million medical imaging procedures each year, but Mo-99 is costly and difficult to make. Now, two Wisconsin firms say they've found a more efficient way to make the critical material.
French hoverboard pilot will retry jet-powered flight to England
Inventor of the jet-powered Flyboard Air, Franky Zapata, had his dream of becoming the first person to cross the English Channel by hoverboard dashed last week, after he misjudged the landing for a refuelling stop. But he remains undeterred in his quest, and will be making another attempt this weekend.
PlanetSide 2 smashes world record for biggest FPS battle
Those of you who turned out to help PlanetSide 2 set a world record this past Saturday now have the satisfaction of knowing that you're officially a part of gaming history. The Guinness World Records title for "Most Players Online in a Single FPS Battle" was set by the combined efforts of three factions and 1,158 players on January 24th in the game. The immense fight took place in a single instance and surpassed the previous record holder of Man vs. Machine, which reached only 999 players in 2012. The title will be included in the Gamer's Edition of the World Records. PlanetSide 2 Producer David Carey wanted to thank those who participated, adding that this put the title right back where it belonged: "PlanetSide held the original record for this achievement and we're thrilled to have officially taken it back with PlanetSide 2." [Source: SOE press release]
PlanetSide 2 players planning world record attempt for Jan. 24
PlanetSide 2 players are trying to beat the Guinness world record for the largest number of gamers simultaneously in a single instance of an online FPS. That's kind of a mouthful, isn't it? In any event, organizers have taken to the PS2 forums and are planning to pull 1,100 players together on the Jaeger server on January 24th.
On like Donkey Kong; new champion crowned with record score
In 2011, surgeon Hank Chien broke the then-record score for Donkey Kong, and became - for the second time - the world champion of the classic game. But all kings of Kong eventually fall from the Empire State Building their throne, and so it was with Chien, whose title has now passed to a man named Robbie Lakeman. The Donkey Kong Blog, a website dedicated to following the Donkey Kong competitive scene, reports Lakeman's score as 1,141,800 - a relatively narrow victory over Chien's score of 1,138,600. Interestingly, while Lakeman typically streamed his attempts at beating the record, the run that resulted in his new title was instead uploaded after the fact. However, you can watch the whole four-hour ordeal by checking out the video after the break.
Germany wins again, this time it's a world record Spelunky run
Spelunky has once again been mastered, with a new world record speedrun set over the weekend. YouTube user Pibonacci waltzed through the devious action game with a final time of 1:55:343. The previously established world record for any percentage game completion was clocked at two minutes and one second, Eurogamer reports. "What a day for Germany, I guess," Pibonacci said after passing through the game's final door, in a run that occurred soon after his homeland took home the FIFA World Cup. The German YouTuber's phenomenal run was due in part to a few lucky breaks, including the good fortune to nab a few key items early in his run. His masterful use of the deadly teleporter, which when misused can lead to immediate death, was integral to his quick finish. You can watch Pibonacci's outstanding feat after the break. [Image: Derek Yu]
Researchers get record broadband speeds out of old-school copper wire
While telecoms companies around the world are investing millions into the development of fiber-optic networks, the standard copper telephone line may still have some life in it yet. Experts at Alcatel Lucent's Bell Labs research division are claiming a new world record by achieving super-fast speeds through the aging technology. Researchers were able to achieve 10Gbps speeds with the same cables you'd find under many residential streets.
The world's largest video game collection just went up for auction
Meet Michael Thomasson. He's a 41-year-old video game historian who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest video game archive. Now he wants someone else to have it. Thomasson admits that he'd rather not sell his 11,000+ game collection, which includes full catalogues for platforms including Dreamcast, Saturn, Virtual Boy and Lynx, but due to family commitments he's decided to offer it up to the highest bidder. It went up on auction site Game Gavel a couple of days ago with a starting bid of $1, and it's already reached $50,000 ahead of the June 15th deadline. If you're dying to become a world record holder and have the necessary space to store it all, the collection is said to be worth somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000. We wonder if he'll accept installments.
Watch the Spelunky run that set a new high score record
On February 21, Twitch user Bananasaurus_Rex (the gaming community really does have the best handles) set a new high-score record in developer Mossmouth's much-loved roguelike, Spelunky. The history-making run took seven and a half hours to complete, with a final tally of $3,105,850. Bananasaurus is known in the Spelunky community for being the first recorded player to beat the game's final boss using an eggplant in single-player mode, as well as being the first recorded player to have killed the game's ghost monster. You can watch the $3.1 million run above. [Image: Mossmouth]
World of Tanks sets new concurrency record of 1.1 million tanks tanking
Wargaming.net's World of Tanks has again broken its own world record for player concurrency, hosting 1.1 million players simultaneously on the game's Russian cluster. This new total handily defeats the previously reported record of 190,541 online players set in March of 2013, though Wargaming.net did note in its press release that average concurrency has been hovering near the 900,000 mark "for the past few months." According to the studio, which now boasts offices in Chicago, Baltimore, Seattle, Austin, Paris, Kiev, Tokyo, and more, World of Tanks has over 75 million players. The press release was not specific on whether these are active players or simply registered accounts. [Source: Wargaming.net press release]
Symphony of the Night world record speedrun will break your brain
How fast can you complete Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? Even if you have every nook and cranny of the labyrinthine PSOne-era platformer committed to memory, your quickest playthrough isn't nearly as fast as this world record speedrun set yesterday by Speed Demos Archive member romscout. This brisk trip through the Xbox Live Arcade version of SotN follows "any %" rules (reach the end of the game by any means necessary, glitches included), and zooms through both the normal and inverted castles in an astounding 18 minutes and 20 seconds. Things to look for: lots of back-dashing, item-duplicating, and an unexpected use of the Heart Refresh item at the end of the game. Poor Dracula didn't stand a chance.
EVE Evolved: Does EVE Online have the world's largest MMO map?
MMO game worlds seem to be getting larger every year, and the debate over which is biggest frequently appears on forums and blogs. It usually starts with people breaking out infographics comparing the size of the various islands and continents in their favourite fantasy MMOs, and it escalates from there. World of Warcraft's Azeroth turns out to be surprisingly small at an estimated 80 square miles, while World War II Online claims to have the largest MMO game map in the world with over 300,000 square kilometers (115,831 square miles) of playable space modeled as a half scale map of Western Europe. Someone in the discussion will inevitably mention EVE Online, and that's when things get complicated. The New Eden star cluster is lightyears across, and its 7,699 accessible solar systems have earned it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, but can EVE's map even be compared to accessible landmass in a fantasy MMO? All of the space between stars is currently empty and inaccessible, and players warp between points of interest within a solar system without interacting with any of the space in between. With that and the relative difference in scale between EVE and land-based games, it isn't immediately clear whether EVE Online still has the world's largest playable MMO map. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how empty space works under the hood in EVE Online and crunch some numbers to find out whether it really does have the biggest playable game world.
World of Tanks sets world record for most players concurrently online on a single server
Wargaming has made its mark in gaming history. World of Tanks has staked out a place as the Guinness World Record holder for most players logged onto an MMO server, with 190,541 players simultaneously logged in on one of the game's Russian servers. This blasts the game's previous record of 91,311 players to smithereens. Andrei Yarantsau, VP of Global Operations at Wargaming, calls this "an important and exciting milestone for the company," adding that, "if World of Tanks keeps growing at the rate it is, the game will soon top the current total and secure another world record." [Source: Wargaming press release]
Bird poop and Big Screens: Attempting a multiplayer world record
There's no category in the Guinness World Records for the most players in a single-screen multiplayer game. However, that's likely to change soon thanks to a group of New York University graduate students who created SPLAT, a multiplayer game designed for the 120-foot video wall installed in the lobby of the IAC building on the west side of Manhattan. The screen is a Prysm laser phosphor display and sports a whopping resolution of 11,520 x 1,080 pixels. The game was debuted at a packed showcase event last Friday night, along with the work of other students from an NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program class appropriately called Big Screens.
Nerthfu and Bouleau: Mauling the challenge mode record charts
That dude's a beast. If ever you were to use the above phrase to refer to a fellow WoW player, these are the guys that should inspire it. Nerthfu and Bouleau of Haven (Lethon-US) have manhandled WoW's challenge modes into submission, setting scalding instance completion times across the board. As of this writing, the duo from Canada holds all but one American region record, with the rest mere seconds behind the EU's world records. As you can well imagine, a conversation with such high-performance monsters plunges into the realm of the specific almost immediately. That's why we're dividing their perspectives into a two-part interview over the next two weeks. We'll look at both tanking and healing at warp speed and find out what kind of play it takes to defend the top spot on the charts week after week. WoW Insider: How does one become addicted to speed on this level, guys? Are speed runs something you guys have always enjoyed doing in WoW, or did the addition of challenge modes mark a new way to play for you? Nerthfu: As far as I can remember, I always loved running dungeons as fast as humanly possible in WoW, but it wasn't really organized or a goal but rather just my way of doing things. It started in vanilla WoW, where I would constantly get aggro on my rogue and had to use Feint and Vanish almost on cooldown to wipe my threat. Then came Burning Crusade, and I switched to a fury warrior. That's where things started changing a lot. I started playing much more often with Bouleau and had even more issues than before with my threat -- so much in fact that I would end up always getting aggro off the tank and die in most heroic dungeons and raids. ... That was how most of our heroic dungeon went until we were so overgeared that Bouleau could heal just heal me while I was tanking entire packs of trash in heroic dungeons, and that's where we really started running dungeons as fast as we could, which most of the time meant four DPS and one healer.
