Literary horror game exceeds $125,000 Kickstarter goal in 4 hours

Literary RPG Sunless Skies received full funding on Kickstarter in just four hours. The upcoming title is a sequel to the well-reviewed indie-darling Sunless Sea.

Getting a video game fully paid for on Kickstarter in under a day is remarkable. Four hours is nowhere near the 17-seconds it took the Pebble smartwatch to hit its goal, but crowdfunding sites are positively drowning in doomed gaming campaigns.

The story-based horror game from developer Failbetter Games will focus on the skies above the same Lovecraftian London where Fallen London and Sunless Sea were set.

Check out the slick video here.

Sunless Skies will see you in control of an airship, soaring through the clouds and navigating both eldritch obstacles and enemies, but also the ambition of your competitor captains. If the previous titles are any indication, this is a deeply-written game with tons of lore, plenty of plot twists and pretty slick rogue-like mechanics.

For example, if you die when navigating the dangerous, elder-horrors in the skies above Victorian London, you’ll start again as a new captain. When you do, however, you just might be hampered by the choices you made in your first life.

The Sunless Skies Kickstarter campaign ends in a few weeks, leaving plenty of time to get your own pledge in to support the game for Mac, PC and Linux computers. Sadly there’s no release date yet, but you can check out Sunless Sea on Steam or Fallen London on iOS and Android.

Bat Bot is an autonomous drone that mimics a bat’s flight

For roboticists working in the field of biomimetics, copying a bat’s complex flight patterns has been a difficult problem to solve. Or, as Caltech professor and Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher Soon-Jo Chung put it during a press conference, “bat flight is the holy grail of aerial robotics.” And according to a new research paper published by Chung and his JPL colleagues in the journal Science Robotics this week, that holy grail has officially been discovered.

Robotic birds and winged insects are relatively easy to create, but with over 40 joints in their wings, bats offer a new level of intricacy. By simplifying that wing structure into just nine key joints covered by a flexible membrane, however, the team successfully created the first Bat Bot. Built from carbon fiber bones and 3D-printed socket joints, Bat Bot weighs just 93 grams and the silicon-based wing membrane is only 56 microns thick with a roughly one-foot wingspan. “Our work demonstrates one of the most advanced designs to date of a self-contained flapping-winged aerial robot with bat morphology that is able to perform autonomous flight,” Alireza Ramezani, one of the paper’s co-authors said.

Like a real bat, Bat Bot can move each wing independently and constantly change each wing’s shape to perform complex maneuvers that would be impossible otherwise. The flapping motion also conserves battery power, making it both quieter and more efficient than its fixed-wing or quadcopter counterparts.

Although the battery technology is still too clunky to allow for long flights, the research team believes Bat Bot’s agility would make it ideal for search and rescue operations or other applications in tight, urban environments. For now, however, the team is working on their next major milestone: teaching Bat Bot how to perch like its SCAMP cousin.

Via: CNET

Source: Science Robotics, Caltech

Instagram nabs 400 million daily active users less than a year since its previous milestone

Instagram now has 400 million daily active users. The photo-sharing app’s unabated growth has seen it add an extra 100 million new daily users to its already impressive tally in just over seven months.

The new data was casually dropped by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his company’s fourth quarter earnings call on Wednesday. Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 when it had a mere 30 million registered iOS users and had just launched on Android. By February 2013, the app reached its first major milestone of 100 million monthly active users.

More: Darkr brings the dark room feel to your smartphone photography

In mid-December 2016, Instagram announced that it had 600 million monthly users with 100 million users joining its service in the six months leading to that date. At the time, we noted that it had remained strangely silent on its daily active users — a statistic that is the crowning glory of its closest rival Snapchat (which reportedly boasted 150 million daily users at last count).

It seems Instagram’s growth has not been challenged by its competitor, although for a while there was talk of a drop in user engagement. The solution to its woes seems to have come in the form of a feature it borrowed from Snapchat: Stories. The temporal social-sharing function that allows users to post slideshows made up of images and video was copied wholesale in August from the app that pioneered it.

On Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg described the roll-out of Instagram Stories as a “standout example” in product innovation, in an interview with Forbes. The photo-sharing app itself was touting the feature as a success a mere two months after its launch and, sure enough, in January it revealed that Stories were receiving 150 million daily views. To capitalize on its growth, Instagram started inserting skippable full-screen ads in-between Stories at around the same time, in partnership with a handful of brands.

Taking into consideration that less than two years ago Instagram had 400 million monthly active users, today’s quiet announcement seems even more impressive. In the Facebook earnings call, Sandberg also revealed that Instagram business profiles (introduced in May) are now being used by 5 million users.

Nintendo’s first-ever Super Bowl ad is for the Switch, of course

When you consider the fact that Nintendo and its mustachioed mascot are household names, it’s a bit strange to realize the company has never run an advertisement during the Super Bowl. That’s about to change. A new video on the company’s YouTube channel touts itself as the extended cut of the company’s first-ever Super Bowl ad. The commercial highlights the portable and home console modes of the Nintendo Switch to an intense soundtrack — but this is more than your average peek at the company’s next game console. It’s a five million dollar investment toward the Nintendo Switch’s success.

That’s right, just 30 seconds of airtime will set advertisers back a staggering $5 million this year, making Nintendo’s advertisement a huge show of confidence in the future of the Switch. That confidence is reflected in the console’s new teaser, which hits every market Nintendo is aiming for — hardcore gamers that will reach for the console in portable mode before even getting out of bed, groups of friends who play Mario Kart or Splatoon competitively, casual gamers who want to face off in Just Dance of 1-2 Switch and, of course, families who want to bond by playing together in Nintendo’s all-ages arena.

Underscored to the tune of ‘Believer’ by Imagine Dragons, it’s as high energy as a game console advertisement can get. It’s also chock-full of easter-eggs, including a Street Fighter nod in the name of a laundromat, Super Mario themed cookies hiding in the background and a book with the title of a famous Legend of Zelda line.

All told, the extended cut on YouTube is a dense minute and a half of Nintendo Switch previews, but there’s no word on exactly how much of the advertisement will air on Sunday. Even just half a minute, however, speaks to a huge investment. Nintendo clearly believes in its console. We’ll see if the rest of the world does come March 3rd.

Source: YouTube

O2 now sells car insurance and even offers a black box for teens

O2 has launched a car insurance product that includes a black box system.

O2 is now the first mobile operator in the UK to offer a car insurance service. It is called O2 Drive and applies to new and existing O2 customers. Features include discounted car servicing and maintenance, tips on how to become a safer driver, an O2 Drive mobile app, and an optional telematics option called O2 Drive – Box on Board, which is essentially a small black box that sits next to the car battery.

O2 Drive is positioning this add-on as a way to help young car drivers get behind the wheel — without driving up your insurance premiums. The black box is able to monitor the driver’s behaviour, and in return, you may get a discount. Here is how O2 described it:

“O2 Drive’s additional Box on Board product also gives customers the potential to secure an even greater discount up front with a small telematics device alongside their car battery – great for helping young drivers (17-24) get on the road. The device gives customers access to their driving scores via the O2 Drive app, along with tips that could encourage safer driving and keep or improve their no claims discount.

The mobile operator said it will also give all O2 Drive customers exclusive perks throughout the year, such as restaurant vouchers and car accessories. You can get access to O2 Priority exclusive discounts and rewards through the O2 Drive iPhone and Android app, which also gives you access to any needed information (like emergency breakdown services, policy details, and post-accident advice, etc).

O2 is able to provide the O2 Drive service thanks to a partnership with Junction, a division of Peterborough-based insurance services provider BGL Group. In a statement, David Plumb, digital director at O2, said insuring and servicing cars has remained unchanged despite the rapid evolution of technology, so O2 is “on a mission to make customers’ lives easier through mobile,” which is why it created O2 Drive.

He added: “Based on the excellent feedback we’ve had so far for O2 Drive, the Box on Board proposition was created to further simplify the challenges of owning and driving a car safely. It unites our award-winning customer experience with our expertise in mobile to create a more personalised service – insuring people for who they are and rewarding them as they drive.”

O2, which has 10 million 4G customers, is owned by Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica. Pricing and availability details are not yet available for the mobile operator’s new car insurance and Box on Board system.

GoPro Karma drone is available again with fixed design flaw and all

Three months after recalling Karma, GoPro is selling its drone again.

The company announced in a press release that it has fixed the issue that caused the quadcopter to lose power during operation, and that you can buy Karma again at GoPro.com or via select US retailers like Best Buy, B&H, and Amazon. In the US, Karma costs $799 with no camera or $1,099 with a Hero 5 Black. GoPro is also selling a version without a stabiliser for $599. GoPro said shipments will be limited initially.

About 2,500 Karma units sold since October 23 (meaning all of them) were recalled due to a power failure issue. At the time, GoPro said there were only a “very small number of cases,” and that no injuries or property damage were reported due to the defect. GoPro attributed the problem to a design flaw in the latch that holds the drone’s battery in place. It caused loose battery connections and abrupt power-downs.

You can see a videos of some of the crazy Karma crashes here. The company said the updated Karma drone has a redesigned battery latch that went through “extensive testing”. Unfortunately, Karma won’t be internationally available until later this spring.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic games will use medals made from recycled phones

The Tokyo 2020 Games is recycling old phones for medals.

Three-time Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Kohei Uchimura has told The Japan Times that Olympic organisers decided to forge Olympic and Paralympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games using recycled mobile phones. The old phones will come from the Japanese public, which has been asked to donate them or any other small appliances so the Olympics can gather two tonnes of gold, silver, and bronze.

Members of the Olympic organising committee first introduced the idea last year, as electronics like phones and tablets contain small amounts of rare metals. About 5,000 medals will be made using the Earth metals, in an effort to promote sustainability and reduce costs. Thousands of collection boxes will be available at local offices and telecoms stores from April. They’ll be out until enough metal has been collected.

• Watch the Olympics like never before, in BBC Sport 360 VR

Discarded gadgets not only contain gold and silver, but also platinum, palladium, lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Scrap cars and home appliances like air conditioners also contain these precious metals and other base metals like iron, copper, lead, and zinc. Refining companies will need to use chemical processes to separate the metals for one another.

The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver also gave away medals built from recycled circuit boards, but Tokyo 2020 will be the first Olympic games to make every gold medal from recycled materials.

Apple’s next custom Mac chip could do a lot more

Intel processors have powered Apple’s Mac computers for over a decade now, but Apple has also found success designing its own A-series ARM-based chips for the iPhone and iPad. While the company isn’t going to dump Intel chips in the Mac any time soon, a report from Bloomberg indicates that Apple at least intends to put its foot in the water and test out designing its own silicon for the Mac.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Ian King, Apple is building an ARM-based chip that’ll offload the Mac’s “Power Nap” features from the standard Intel processor as a way to save batter life. Power Nap currently lets the Mac run software updates, download email and calendar updates, sync to iCloud, back up to Time Machine drives and a number of other features while the computer is asleep. Some of these features only work when plugged in, though — perhaps with a chip that consumers less energy, Power Nap’s capabilities could be expanded.

This could also be a first step towards a move away from Intel processors entirely, although Bloomberg says such a move would not happen in the immediate future. But Apple has invested a lot of money in its own series of chips since 2010 and could have more freedom to update the Mac without having to rely on Intel’s schedule.

It’s worth noting that this rumored Power Nap chip wouldn’t be the first Apple-designed chip to make it into a Mac. That honor would go to the T1, an ARM-based chip that showed up in the new MacBook Pro last fall. That chip controls the laptop’s Touch Bar and the Touch ID sensor but otherwise doesn’t have to do any heavy lifting. Apple has been pretty quiet about the chip, but it seems that the next MacBook Pro could have another ARM chip — maybe the T2? — that takes more tasks away from the main Intel processor. If that’s the case, we probably won’t know for a while, as Apple probably won’t update the MacBook Pro lineup again until this fall.

Developer combines HoloLens and Vive for ‘shared reality’

As fun and immersive as virtual reality is, watching your friend play around in a completely computer-generated environment doesn’t have quite the same impact when watching it on a flat monitor or TV screen. But now, thanks to the vivid augmented reality of Microsoft’s HoloLens and the developer-friendly HTC Vive, virtual and augmented reality can be easily combined so observers can share in the VR experience.

On his blog, software developer Drew Gottlieb detailed his proof of concept setup, which allows the HoloLens user to see what the Vive user is drawing in mid-air. After building a rudimentary 3D painting app similar to Tilt Brush, Gottlieb simply connected the Vive and the HoloLens over Unity’s networking service. Once the HoloLens was calibrated to track the Vive controller, the two worlds became synchronized.

While the system isn’t perfect, the “quick and dirty solution works better than expected,” Gottlieb writes, and there’s no limit to the how many HoloLens observers can join in. The VR headset also becomes unnecessary, so anyone with a HoloLens can pick up the motion controllers and start drawing shapes floating in the real world. With engineers already using the HoloLens to visualize architecture in the real world, it’s not hard to see how collaborative features like this would be extremely useful for creative industries in the future.

Source: Drew Gottlieb

Zenimax wins $500 million in Oculus suit, but jury says Rift isn’t built on stolen tech

Why it matters to you

Zenimax has emerged victorious, but the verdict stops short of dealing a mortal blow to Oculus.

For the past two and a half years, video game publisher ZeniMax — known for the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and the Doom reboot — has been embroiled in legal action against Oculus, the company behind the Rift virtual reality headset. Today, a jury in Dallas, Texas awarded ZeniMax half a billion dollars in damages.

It was decided that Palmer Luckey — and by extension Oculus, the company he co-founded — did not comply with a non-disclosure agreement that he had signed. The jury also ruled that Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets, as Zenimax had claimed, according to a report from Polygon.

Oculus will be forced to pay $200 million for breaching the non-disclosure agreement, as well as $50 million for copyright infringement. The company and Luckey will each have to pay $50 million for false designation, and its co-founder Brendan Iribe will have to pay $150 million for the same charge. While the total sum is $500 million, Oculus itself is only paying $200 million — a stiff but fine, but likely not enough to be life-threatening for the company.

Oculus is backed by Facebook, and the damages set to be paid don’t come close to equaling what the social media giant paid for the company in 2014. Facebook has shown no signs of losing faith in virtual reality’s potential for the future, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see Oculus suffer too much as a result of this ruling.

It’s worth noting that ZeniMax’s attorney, Anthony Sammi, called for the company to receive a much larger sum in his closing argument. Sammi argued that the company deserved $2 billion in compensation, and that Oculus should be subject to a further $2 billion in punitive damages.

This dispute got underway when John Carmack left his role at the ZeniMax-owned id Software to become Oculus’ CTO, having split his time between the two companies for several months. It was alleged that Carmack had taken knowledge and technology developed during his time at ZeniMax with him when he joined Oculus full-time.

More: Oculus VR vehemently denies ZeniMax’s claim that its tech is stolen

However, Oculus has long since held the position that Carmack cut ties with ZeniMax because he was eager to work with virtual reality, and wasn’t given the opportunity to do so. Attention was drawn to the fact that ZeniMax started its legal action just weeks after Oculus was bought by Facebook in a $2 billion deal.

$500 million will likely go a long way for ZeniMax, given that the company was valued at around $2.5 billion in 2016. On the other hand, it seems that Oculus got off fairly lightly, given the scope of the charges leveled against them.

What’s more, the fact that it was decided that Oculus didn’t misappropriate trade secrets will allow the company to downplay its misdeeds. The breach of a non-disclosure agreement is hardly as damning as allegations that the company stole the technology used as the basis for its flagship product, the Rift.

Oculus apparently plans to appeal the decision. “The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor,” a spokesperson for the company told Polygon shortly after the ruling. “We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred.”