Seven Sega Saturn oddities you never played
It was 20 years ago today that Sega released the Sega Saturn, the US video game industry’s first and only surprise console release. Tom Kalinske, Sega of America’s CEO at the time, walked out onstage at E3 and announced to a theater full of game publishers, journalists and store owners that its new console was available right now for a whopping $400. If that seems like an insane business plan, it was; Saturn was so rushed to market that its scant few games didn’t even have titles printed on their case’s spines. Expensive and difficult to developer for, it was quickly buried by the popularity of Sony’s PlayStation. The sad truth is that while the Saturn wasn’t a hit here in the US, it actually enjoyed a healthy following in Japan thanks to an abundance of excellent games that only made it out in that region. Here are seven curios for Sega’s maligned machine that make it a must for fans of the obscure.
Elevator Action Returns – Taito (1997)
Elevator Action Returns encapsulates what the Sega Saturn did best in Japan: bringing weird-as-hell. arcade-style 2D action into the home. A sequel to Taito’s ’80s B-list arcade game, Elevator Action Returns turned the series into a zany cross between Starsky & Hutch and G.I. Joe. You pick one of three hair metal-ready heroes with guns to run through colorful stages full of elevators and strange terrorists.
Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari – Enix (1997)
Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari was born of Enix’s tradition for publishing deeply odd games that bucked genre conventions. Mixing the puzzle-solving adventure motifs of ’80s PC games like King’s Quest with the side-scrolling exploration of console games like Castlevania, Monogatari was like nothing else on any machine at the time. You play as a pudgy, bipedal dragon exploring a series of islands full of freaky old monsters and magic seeds. Monogatari is unusually peaceful and relaxed, a world of beautiful sights largely free of violence typical in other adventures.
Keio Flying Squadron 2 – Victor Entertainment (1996)
Games where you run from left to right, bopping on enemies, have been ubiquitous since Mario rescued Princess Peach, but there was a brief moment in the ’90s when they fell out of vogue in favor of 3D games. The Sega Saturn hosted a few truly bizarre side-scrollers like Keio Flying Squadron 2 during that drought. It is the only game to let you run around as an off-brand Playboy bunny collecting gold, hitting monsters with a giant hammer and hanging out with an adorable dragon.
Final Fight Revenge – Capcom (2000)
One of the very last games released for Sega Saturn, Final Fight Revenge is a heartbreaker. The much-loved brawling arcade series hadn’t had a proper entry since Final Fight 3 on Super Nintendo, but when it finally showed up on Saturn it was as a one-on-one fighting game. It also happened to be terrible. Final Fight Revenge‘s awfulness isn’t without its pleasures, though. The ridiculous polygonal models of awesome characters like wrestling mayor Mike Haggar and Poison, one of gaming’s first (purportedly) trans characters, make the game a lovable failure.
Dungeons & Dragons Collection – Capcom (1999)
For years, this anthology was the only way to play Capcom’s lushly animated arcade games based on the famous role-playing game series. While painstakingly accurate ports of those originals were finally brought to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U in 2013, the Sega Saturn collection remains impressive for how it translates those arcade games to a markedly less powerful machine. Plus: Playing them with the Saturn controller feels oh so right.
Princess Crown – Atlus (1997)
Vanillaware is the studio responsible for some of the most gorgeous, hand-drawn games made in the past 10 years including Odin Sphere and Dragon’s Crown. Princess Crown on Sega Saturn is the game that launched the studio, though: a gorgeous role-playing game with enormous, vivid sprite characters conceived by George Kamitani. Many of the ideas in those more recent games — including an obsession with building character stats with food — were born in this lovely game.
Bubble Symphony – Taito (1997)
Congratulations: You are now singing the Bubble Bobble theme song in your head. Made famous by the hallucinatory NES game about bubble-spitting dinosaurs destroying 99 stages of bulbous, tiny wizards and flying, purple whales, the Bubble Bobble series never got the sequel it deserved in the US. (The extremely rare Bubble Bobble 2 on NES and Rainbow Islands don’t count.) In Japan, there was Bubble Symphony. A prettier spin on the original’s action, Symphony is even more aggressively strange. How strange? The final boss is named Hyper Drunk. Seriously.
Researchers show you can be uniquely identified by your bacteria
The bacteria on and inside of your body, also known as your microbiome, could be another sort of fingerprint to identify you, according to new research out of Harvard. Researchers found that your bacterial buddies have enough unique features to be traced right back to you — at least, when compared to hundreds of other people. Using data from the Human Microbiome Project, they applied an algorithm that identified the distinguishing features of microbiomes, and they were subsequently able to identify who they came from based on followup visits. The bacterial fingerprints were stable in people for over a year, and testing of gut microbiomes managed to accurately identify people 80 percent of the time. There’s still plenty of testing to be done, naturally, but the findings show that researchers might want to be extra careful when dealing with microbiome data moving forward. Otherwise someone participating in a gut bacteria test could, for example, be outed as having a particularly embarrassing STD.
[Photo source: Getty]
Filed under: Science
Via: Phys.org
Source: PNAS
The first solar bike path is producing more energy than expected
Back in November, SolaRoad launched a test bike path that generates energy through solar cells embedded in the concrete. It sounds like an outlandish idea, but it’s apparently paying off very quickly. The company has revealed that its road has generated much more energy than expected — it produced 3,000kWh of electricity in the space of just six months, or enough to power a single person’s home for a year. That doesn’t sound like much, but SolaRoad notes that its path only covers a 230-foot stretch in a Dutch village. You’d get a lot more energy from longer, wider roads.
Things haven’t been going perfectly. The coating on the solar cells’ protective glass tends to peel off when the weather changes, for example, suggesting that the path could be expensive to maintain as-is. However, the project is going to last for another two and a half years. SolaRoad believes that it’ll have plenty of time to iron out the kinks, and it’s confident enough that it plans to test its technology on small municipal roads in the future. Between this and Solar Roadways in the US, you may soon find cycling routes that are as much about saving the environment as getting you from A to B.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: CBC, ThinkProgress
Source: SolaRoad
Want to Help Google Improve Chrome? There’s an Extension for That
Ever ready to listen to user feedback and then ponder whether or not to include said feedback in subsequent product releases, Google announced today a new Chrome User Experience Surveys extension that collects user experience data on Chrome. So it’s not just a clever name.
The tiny extension will pop up sometimes at random, or more often, when something unusual happens to Chrome, like bugs or malware warnings. Google says a user will get a maximum of two notifications per day, capped at four per week, with the average user seeing a survey once a month. Surveys are roughly 2-3 minutes in length.
Keenly aware of user trepidation when it comes to data harvesting, the third question answered in Google’s announcement of the extension (after “What?” and “Where?”) pertains to the information Google will collect from the extension. The answer: nothing personal. The only data collected will be that directly related to the extension.
Unlike Google’s awesome, if totally data-collection-obvious, Google Opinion Rewards app, which pays users a few dozen cents here and there for answering surveys, Chrome User Experience Surveys offer no remunerative benefits other than the satisfaction that comes from making everyone’s browsing experience just that much better.
Now aside from the fact that apparently Google requires an extension to fully ascertain the incredible resource drain that is Chrome on a Mac, this could be a useful and simple way for everyday users to help Google improve the world’s overwhelmingly dominant browser. (As an aside, remember when Chrome felt like this light little rebel browser up against the IE monolith?)
The feedback period only lasts 120 days, and Google dissuades you from uninstalling the extension before then. After 120 days, the extension will uninstall itself. Skynet once promised the same thing.
Source: Google
Come comment on this article: Want to Help Google Improve Chrome? There’s an Extension for That
Deal: Last chance to save 84% on a ibVPN Total Plan subscription
Having access to a VPN service is extremely important in today’s age. If you’ve ever used public Wifi, gotten your bandwidth throttled or needed to work remotely, a VPN service might be for you. The ibVPN Total Plan, which is currently 84% off in the AA Deals Store, will give you online privacy, unrestricted web browsing, faster streaming and more. But you better hurry… this deal is only available until Monday night!
Compatible with your smartphone and tablet, ibVPN will safeguard your internet privacy, bypass geo-restrictions, and keep your connection speed fast no matter what you’re streaming. Not only that, you’ll be able to choose between more than 75 VPN servers in 39 countries, take advantage of the 256-bit encrypted P2P file sharing and torrent download, and access blocked social media websites from anywhere. It’s also compatible with your Mac, Windows, Android or iOS devices.
Right now the ibVPN Total Plan, which gets you a 4-year subscription to the service, is just $59 in the Android Authority Deals Store. It can sometimes be tough to find a good deal on a quality VPN subscription, so you might want to check this one out. If you’re interested, head to the link below before this deal is over.
11 best business apps for Android
It’s true that smartphones and tablets are generally looked at as gaming and media devices. You’ll find most focus on games, music, video content, and social media but it’s also a fairly solid platform for businesses and business oriented use. It is quite difficult to run a business on mobile but you can augment systems already in place and create a more universal workflow using apps available on mobile today. Let’s take a look at the best business apps for Android.
Basecamp
[Price: Free]
Basecamp is a service that allows you to organize tasks and assign tasks to people. This is a great way to manage workflow, make sure everyone’s working on what they’re supposed to be working on, and keeping everyone communicating with one another. There are other options such as Asana but we’re talking about apps here and the Basecamp app is about as solid of a task management app as you can find right now. It is free to install and use on mobile so that’s also a plus.
Chrome Remote Desktop
[Price: Free]
Chrome Remote Desktop is a nifty application that allows you to access your computers from your mobile device. You’ll have to have Google Chrome web browser installed along with the Chrome Remote Desktop extension for the browser that you can find here. You can access your home computer from work and your work computer from home. The only downside is that you can’t really intensive tasks but grabbing files or doing light tasks is doable.
Evernote
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
Evernote is about the most powerful note taking application that you can find. You can create notebooks and work spaces to keep your notes and ideas organized. You can also share notes with other people for light collaboration, create to-do lists and task lists, and all kinds of other stuff. You can also download Evernote for your Mac, Windows, or Linux computer for cross platform support. It’s one of the best note taking apps available and has plenty of functionality for business use.
Google Drive
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Google Drive is Google’s cloud-based office and cloud storage ecosystem. Google Drive requires the use of three additional apps called Google Docs (word processing), Google Sheets (spreadsheet), and Google Slides (presentations). The service comes with 15GB of cloud storage but you can get much more for relatively cheap. The online nature of the system allows for real-time collaboration from multiple locations, easy sharing, and simple management of business files. You can even delegate which people have access to which files. It’s a great and solid option.
Google Hangouts or Skype
[Price: Free]
One of the most important things in any business is communication. Granted, it’s simple enough to stay in touch with email, phone calls, and text messages but it is easier than ever to have video and audio conference calls for free using apps like Hangouts or Skype. Both allow for multiple-party video calls (up to 10 participants) as well as voice conference calls. The apps both work very well and offer group chat (text) functionality to further help communication. They’re both free to use.
Microsoft Office and OneDrive
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
In order to keep pace with Google Drive, Microsoft has also released an office suite and cloud storage solution for Android. The cloud storage site is called One Drive and much like Google Drive, you get a little bit of free storage to start and you can buy more relatively easily. Everyone knows about Microsoft Office and the apps are free to use. Office Mobile is for phones and there are separate and far more powerful versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Android tablets. Businesses married into the Microsoft ecosystem can definitely be augmented further with their office suite.
MyStocks
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
MyStocks is a simple application that is great for keeping an eye on stocks. You can follow practically any stocks you want and get alerts, analysis, charts, and password protection. It’s more geared for personal use but these days investing is something practically everyone should be doing anyway. On top of its core functions, it also comes with DashClock support, Android Wear support, and news.
Slack
[Price: Free]
Slack is a team chat service to help people talk to one other. Moderators can create channels for various topics so others can stay on topic and the service supports the upload of practically any file type which means sending documents, presentations, and other business materials is fairly simple. You can integrate it with many other services including Hangouts, Asana, Dropbox, Twitter, ZenDesk, and others to create a more immersive experience and the application is available on the web, mobile, and PC/Mac/Linux.
Square Register
[Price: Free]
Square Register is a sales tracking app that allows you to track and view inventory numbers, sales figures, and much more. You can also send receipts if needed. Business owners in the U.S., Canada, and Japan can also pick up the Square Reader and use their smartphones as credit card readers. This comes in handy for small businesses that rely on a lot of frequent movement. It also connects to receipt printers if you need one of those.
Tax Code and Regs – TouchTax
[Price: $4.99]
It’s definitely not the most interesting app, but taxes are important for businesses. Especially small businesses that are just starting out. Knowing the tax code can help in a lot of ways and during tax season, it’s good to have an updated reference guide handy to help with those sticky tax questions. It’s not particularly useful for non-tax things, but for $5, you get all 7,700+ sections of the latest edition of the tax code. That’s not a bad investment.
Todoist
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Todoist is a task management and to-do app that helps you stay on top of your personal tasks. The app is available on computer, web, and mobile so you can manage your to-do lists cross-platform and you can set up various tags and categories so you know what you need to do, for whom, and why. You can add notes to tasks, reminders, due dates, and a lot more if you end up going the premium route ($29/year). It’s effective, quick, and efficient.
Wrap up
If we missed any great business apps for Android, let us know about them in the comments! All recommendations are welcome.
To see our complete list of Android apps and games lists, click here!
Having trouble keeping your mobile data connection on your Nexus 6? You’re not alone
If you’re the owner of a Nexus 6 and happen to be a subscriber to either T-Mobile’s or Sprint’s network, you might want to take note of a problem that’s been happening to quite a few owners of the handset. Multiple users around the web have been experiencing complete mobile data connection failure over the past week or so, with no viable explanation for the problems.
Most users explain that the problem happens sporadically throughout the day, and that their phones will randomly show an exclamation point over the signal icon, no matter if they have full bars or not. When that exclamation point shows up, the phone’s data connection is completely gone, and the Nexus 6 then requires a soft reset to work again. Unfortunately most folks are saying that a soft reset only fixes the problem for a few minutes.
The majority of these users report that the problem persists no matter if they’re rooted or non-rooted, or if their phones are running Android 5.0 or 5.1. Most complaints over on Reddit and XDA are from T-Mobile and Sprint customers, though there are also a few Verizon users reporting issues.
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If you’ve been experiencing this problem, you can try performing a soft reset, pulling the SIM card, or even calling T-Mobile or Sprint to see what the representatives have to say. As of now, there seems to be no permanent fix for the issue. Has this happened to you on your Nexus 6? If so, be sure to let us know in the comment section!
Deal: V-MODA On-Ear Headphones ($150 off), Beats Solo 2 On-Ear Headphones ($40 off) and more
In the market for a new pair of headphones? Best Buy’s Deal of the Day promotion may have a few viable options for you to consider. First up is an open box pair of Beats by Dre Solo 2 On-Ear Headphones for $109.99 ($40 off). They feature a compact, lightweight design that’s made to reduce user strain for long wear comfort. These headphones have a stylish, minimalistic look and feature much-improved sound quality over the older model. And when it comes to the open box tag, there’s little to worry about here. Most open box products from Best Buy are returned within the Best Buy’s Return & Exchange Promise, and all of the products are tested and verified to work.
Read more: Beats Solo 2 Review
Next up we have the V-MODA Crossfade M-80 On-Ear Headphones for $79.98 – a whopping $150 off. Unlike the first pair of headphones, these are brand new and come in the Black/Red variant. These headphones feature BLISS memory foam cushions that provide extra comfort for long listening sessions. They also feature 40mm dual diaphragm drivers, noise isolation, 5Hz – 30kHz frequency response and a solid steel construction.
Last but not least, we have an open box pair of Beats Studio Over-the-Ear Headphones for $159.99, which is $20 off the normal retail price. These headphones feature adaptive noise canceling that will help filter out ambient sound, as well as leatherette ear cushions and a flexible design that help to provide a comfortable fit.
Aren’t interested in the deals listed above? Head to this page to check out a number of extra bonus deals that are also available. These deals only last until tonight, so be sure to follow the links below if you’re interested.
Buy now:
- Beats by Dr. Dre Solo 2 On-Ear Headphones [open box] – $109.99
- Beats Studio Over-the-Ear Headphones [open box] – $159.99
- V-MODA Crossfade M-80 On-Ear Headphones – $79.98
Google to shut down editing in Map Maker following the peeing Android fiasco
Just a few weeks ago, a “clever” Google Maps user submitted an image of the Android mascot urinating on an Apple logo in Google Maps, forcing Google to apologize for the mishap. Most folks out there thought this stunt was childish and inappropriate, and apparently Google Maps has seen an escalated number of spam submissions, thanks to the auto-approval process in Map Maker. Because this rate has been growing so quickly, Google has suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe in Map Maker, at least until the company figures out how to more intelligently prevent these types of incidents.
Pavithra Kanakarajan, Product Manager at Google Map Maker, explains:
As some of you know already, we have been experiencing escalated attacks to spam Google Maps over the past few months. The most recent incident was particularly troubling and unfortunate – a strong user in our community chose to go and create a large scale prank on the Map. As a consequence, we suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe, till we figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanisms to prevent such incidents.
All of our edits are currently going through a manual review process.
Editing in Map Maker will be disabled starting Tuesday, May 12th, 2015 (tomorrow).
Of course, Google shutting down the auto-approval process is meant to make the program more professional and accurate. We’re not sure when a fix will be published, but we’ll be sure to let you know when the improved tool will return back online.
The LG G4 does in fact support Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0
When LG launched the G4 a few weeks ago, support for Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology was surprisingly absent from the handset. LG claimed that quick charging technology was “not a must-have feature” on a device with a removable battery, so the company ultimately opted to pass on the battery tech. However, despite initial claims, LG and Qualcomm have just officially confirmed that the G4 does in fact support Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0.
Read more: Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology explained
As it turns out, the company didn’t initially manufacturer the G4 with the intention of supporting the tech, but it will be available on consumer-ready units when the phone is released to the masses. The pre-production units charge slightly faster than other handsets thanks to the included 1.8A wall charger, though not nearly as fast as other handsets with the technology built in.
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Although LG is correct in saying that Quick Charge 2.0 isn’t as necessary on a device with a removable battery, this will likely be welcome news to many users hoping to get their hands on the device.
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