Russian official claims sea plankton was found clinging to ISS windows
There are plenty of places you’d expect to find plankton — lakes, oceans, reruns of SpongeBob Squarepants — but the external hull of the International Space Station probably wouldn’t make your list. And yet, that’s exactly where Russian cosmonauts claim to have found some, according to Russian news agency ITAR-TASS. As it happens, you may want to take that report with a grain of salt: We reached out to NASA for comment and spokesperson Dan Huot said the organization has received “zero official data” from Russia’s Roscosmos space agency to corroborate these claims. Looks like it’ll be a while before we actually get to the bottom of this.
Let’s say for the sake of argument, though, that cosmonauts collecting residue samples from the space station’s windows (sorry, illuminators) really did find tiny sea organisms clinging to them. How on earth did they get there? A few theories are floating around right now: Russian ISS mission chief Vladimir Solovyev wondered if air currents lifting plankton up through the atmosphere were to blame, while NASA scientist Lynn Rothschild told Space.com that the tiny organisms could’ve hitched a ride on a space station module as it blasted into orbit. If this all pans out, it may just mean that those little water-dwellers — like bacteria and tardigrades — are hardier than we gave them credit for.
Via: PhysOrg
Source: ITAR-TASS
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Acer’s Chromebox CXI ships next month for $180
Have a spare display sitting around that you want to turn into an (albeit limited) PC? You might consider picking up a Chromebox. The tiny low-powered machines, which run Google’s Chrome OS, are best for basic productivity apps and content consumption, but if you don’t need to do any complex processing, they might be a solid fit — especially if you’re on a very tight budget. Today, Acer announced a new model of its own, the Chromebox CXI. There’s an Intel Celeron (Haswell) processor, a 16GB SSD, plenty of connectivity and support for two displays. One version includes 2GB of RAM and ships next month for $180, while a model with 4 gigs of RAM will run you $220. Both include a keyboard, mouse and mounting kit in the box.
Filed under: Desktops, Google, Acer
Source: PRWeb
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Beep is a documentary about the history of sound in video games
Every successive generation of video games is hailed for its massive improvements in graphics performance, but what about sound? That too has come a long way — and soon there may be a documentary chronicling the history video game audio. It’s more than a video game music documentary: Beep (an appropriate title, no?) promises to follow the history of gaming sound from Victorian arcade machines all the way to today’s modern blockbusters. This includes not only interviews with experts and sound designers, but behind the scene looks at how industry professionals record and mix samples as well.
The project’s Kickstarter campaign also promises to look into the community of chiptune musicians inspired by the gaming industry and even the psychology of game sound — but film production is wildly expensive. The team is asking for $40,000 (CAD) to complete the film. The team also says it’s the perfect time to document gaming sound: many of the progenitor of industry are still alive and available for interviews, the Kickstarter explains, that opportunity won’t last forever. Slightly morbid? Maybe a little. Want to help preserve the history of video game sound design? Well, the Kickstarter page is right here.
Filed under: Gaming
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Apple Updates iWork for iOS/Mac, iMovie With Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements [Mac Blog]
Apple today released a series of minor updates for its suite of iWork apps for both iOS and Mac, adding stability improvements and fixing bugs. iMovie for Mac and iOS were also given a minor update, adding iCloud compatibility improvements for iMovie Theater.
Today’s minor update for the iWork apps follows a more significant update that was first released in April, adding several new features and improvements to return functionality that was removed when the new iWork apps were introduced in first September of 2013.
Apple’s line of iWork apps are available for free to users who have recently purchased a new Mac or iOS device. The iWork apps for iOS are otherwise available for $9.99 from the App Store, while the Mac versions are available from the Mac App Store for $19.99. iMovie for iOS is available for $4.99, while iMovie for Mac is available for $14.99.
Pages for Mac – [Mac App Store]
Numbers for Mac – [Mac App Store]
Keynote for Mac [Mac App Store]
iMovie for Mac [Mac App Store]
Pages for iOS – [App Store]
Numbers for iOS – [App Store]
Keynote for iOS – [App Store]
iMovie for iOS [App Store]
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SNK Playmore KOF 20th Anniversary sale drops nine games to $0.99
SNK PLaymore is in the process of celebrating a pretty great milestone in their career. On August 25th King of Fighters will turn 20. The first King of Fighter debuted back in 1994 with, you guessed it, King of Fighter ’94. A small history lesson from the SNK Wiki tells us that the first King of Fighters was designed to be a dream match of characters from the company’s various other popular arcade titles. Those would be Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warrior and Psycho Soldier. The title was a hit and SNK kept moving forward.
Now we have King of Fighters ’97, ’98 and King of Fighters-A 2012 available on Android and the tradition continues strong for past and present gamers. To celebrate the history of the title SNK Playmore is offering up a limited time sale on all their titles in the Play Store. That drops the above three King of Fighter games down to $0.99 along with Metal Slug 1 -3, Metal Slug X, Samurai Showdown II and Blazing Star. All are totally worth having installed on your phone or tablet. I know I was partial to the Metal Slug series and Samurai Showdown a bit more than King of Fighters, but I’ll probably grab a few of each just to have them. Hit the links below for a specific title, or just check out the SNK Playmore deve page.
- Metal Slug
- Metal Slug 2
- Metal Slug 3
- Metal Slug X
- THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’97
- THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’98
- THE KING OF FIGHTERS-A 2012
- SAMURAI SHODOWN II
- BLAZING STAR
You best hustle on the deal. SNK Playmore says it will only be up until August 26th of 2014 where everything will go back to regular price tags.
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