Recommended Reading: The story behind Google’s new logo

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.

Evolving the Google Identity
by Alex Cook, Jonathan Jarvis and Jonathan Lee
Google Design

Google grabbed the internet’s attention earlier this week with a brand-new logo. With a design that’s quite a departure from the previous mark, the company has its eye on the future in more ways than one. Here’s a look behind the scenes at the finer details of the new logotype.

[Image credit: Carl Court/Getty Images]

Filed under:
Misc, Gaming

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Tags: design, gamestop, google, logo, narcos, nextbit, recommendedreading, recreading, stephencolbert

‘Halo,’ ‘Destiny’ composer Marty O’Donnell wins lawsuit against Bungie

Developer Bungie’s former in-house composer Marty O’Donnell had his day in court and it’s time for Bungie to pay the piper. In addition to the initial payout of $142,500 he’s owed as a profit-sharing program, O’Donnell also gets to hold onto what VentureBeat describes as a “considerable” amount of stock in the company responsible first for Halo and now Destiny. As part of the terms, apparently unless O’Donnell gets permission he can’t publish any music from Destiny as his own without Bungie’s blessing. In June, O’Donnell revealed that he was starting a new studio with other game-industry vets, Highwire Games.

[Image credit: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP]

The bad blood between Bungie and O’Donnell started when O’Donnell composed all of the music for the Destiny series up front, and publisher Activision chose to not release it as standalone pieces. Previous Halo soundtracks, music scored by O’Donnell, have all been released for purchase in the past, and have been featured heavily in those games’ advertising and marketing. When Activision replaced the music for the game’s debut E3 2013 trailer with something other than O’Donnell’s, he was understandably miffed — something that lead to where we are today. There’s much, much more to this story and VentureBeat‘s write-up of the entire situation is incredibly comprehensive; you should definitely go check it out. If anything, this reveal clears up why Bungie’s strangely been leaning so heavily on classic Led Zeppelin tracks for its TV spots.

Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

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Via:
NeoGAF

Source:
VentureBeat

Tags: bungie, composer, destiny, gaming, halo, hd, hdpostcross, lawsuit, martyodonnell, music

‘Halo,’ ‘Surgeon Simulator’ devs join the War Child game jam

War Child, a London-based charity that aims to improve the lives of children affected by war, is collaborating with influential developers to create a collection of games titled HELP: Real War is Not a Game. Participating developers include 343 Industries (Halo 5: Guardians), Bossa Studios (Surgeon Simulator), Creative Assembly (Alien: Isolation), Team 17 (Worms) and Hinterland (The Long Dark), all of which will participate in a six-day game jam organized by War Child. This means the studios will have just six days to create the games for HELP, and the full compilation will be sold digitally in late March 2016. Proceeds will go toward funding War Child’s efforts in global conflict zones.

War Child has done something like this before. In 1995, it collaborated with a handful of popular musicians for the Help album, which raised more than £1.5 million for the charity’s efforts. That album featured Oasis, Radiohead, Portishead, Blur, The Stone Roses, Sinead O’Connor and other famous artists, and it led to a handful of follow-up releases.

“Now, two decades on, a star-studded line-up of game developers have announced their intention to follow in those musicians’ footsteps by uniting in a unique ‘studio game jam’ designed to help fund War Child’s ongoing activities in conflict-affected countries,” War Child writes.

For HELP: Real War is Not a Game, Unreal, Gamemaker and Unity are all providing tools to participating developers on a no-cost and royalty-free basis.

In July, War Child released Duty of Care: Protecting Children in War, an evocative Call of Duty-style video that highlights the trials facing children in war zones.

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Misc, Gaming, HD

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Via:
GamesIndustry

Source:
War Child

Tags: CallOfDuty, charity, children, hdpostcross, help, helprealwarisnotagame, Warchild

‘Bedtime Stories for Awful Children,’ a free ebook from ‘Year Walk’ devs

The dark, freezing woods of Sweden are the perfect breeding ground for terrifying tales of naughty children who get what they deserve. This week, Simogo — the developer of beautifully macabre game Year Walk, and mysterious narrative experiences Device 6 and The Sailor’s Dream — released a free, illustrated ebook collecting a handful of five re-tooled, scary Swedish folk tales. It’s called Year Walk Bedtime Stories for Awful Children, and it’s available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. “We think obnoxious children all over the world deserve dark nightmares,” Simogo writes.

Bedtime Stories for Awful Children includes creatures from Year Walk and illustrations by Johanna Meijer. Its release is in part a celebration of Year Walk‘s launch on Wii U back in July.

“Inspired by the stories told in the past in our cold side of the world and the grim cautionary storybook Der Struwwelpeter, we give you Year Walk Bedtime Stories for Awful Children,” Simogo writes. “In this collection of stories designed to haunt both children and their parents, we have revisited all the creatures from Year Walk and given them one story each.”

Whether you have, know or are a naughty, mischievous child, definitely give Bedtime Stories for Awful Children a read. There’s a story about a boy who can’t keep his hands to himself and a man with a horse head who watches a young girl explode after eating soup, among other creepy tales.

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Misc, Gaming, HD

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Via:
Boing Boing

Source:
Simogo

Tags: device6, eBook, FolkTales, hdpostcross, horror, scary, simogo, sweden, thesailorsdream, YearWalk

OSVR’s open-source VR headset is slowly taking shape

The Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) headset will get a significant upgrade soon. Gaming peripheral company Razer announced the OSVR program back in January, but the first prototype headset was an underwhelming affair with uncomfortable ergonomics and a so-so display. That wasn’t really the point, though. Rather than a single company aiming to dominate the VR market, OSVR is a loose band of hardware and software companies hoping to do for virtual reality “what Android did for mobile.” Since then, OSVR has continued to work on improving the system, adding features like positional tracking and, aptly, Android support. The idea is to perfect the basics, open-source the hardware and software, and let anyone build on and improve it.

The latest generation, version 1.3, will be up for pre-order next month. It uses the same IR camera and low-persistance 5.5-inch 1080p OLED display as introduced in 1.2, but improves the optics significantly. A reworked lens system with a larger eye box will make it easier for those with uneven eyesight to use the headset without glasses.

There’s also a big software upgrade on the way, with the bulk of the improvements coming from Nvidia’s Gameworks VR package. Included is some dull-sounding but useful tech like Front Rendering Buffering and Context Priority, which help with latency and potentially reduce GPU load, as well an improved driver that lets Nvidia graphics cards see the OSVR as a headset rather than an a display, allowing for more of a plug-and-play experience. Replicating this advanced support for other graphics architectures is still a work in progress. There’s also an improved content discovery system that will hopefully let early adopters find something to do with their VR headsets.

Pre-orders start October 1st at $299.99, with the first shipments due later that month. That’s the same price as version 1.2, but still a $100 bump from the original system. This being OSVR, those with older headsets should be able to upgrade by buying the parts separately. The latest improvements aren’t available separately in the OSVR store just yet, but given the 1.2 upgrades are, it shouldn’t be too long before you can pick up the improved optics in the store.

The OSVR headset has a long way to go before one of the partner companies could produce anything resembling a consumer product. The current model is still known as a “Hacker Development Kit” (HDK), indicating its nascent position in the VR market. It’s come a fair way in less than a year though, and has some big names on board. With hardware companies like Intel and Leap Motion, software houses like Ubisoft and Gearbox, and universities around the world signed up to help, there’s a good chance that OSVR can create a platform to rival the likes the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Sony Project Morpheus.

Filed under:
Gaming, Intel

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Source:
OSVR

Tags: headset, intel, oled, osvr, razer, VirtualReality, vr

‘Batman: Arkham Knight’ for PC should be less broken now

Batman: Arkham Knight was supposed to be the perfect swansong for Rocksteady’s Dark Knight trilogy. While the game was received positively on PS4 and Xbox One, the PC version was a mess — so bad, in fact, that Warner Bros. eventually pulled it completely. That was in June and only now, six weeks later, are PC players getting a patch that should fix the most glaring issues. The new update claims to solve the game’s fluctuating frame rate, while also improving its overall performance on all GPUs. Warner Bros. says it’ll also remedy any low resolution textures and add a deeper set of in-game settings for you to play with. If you were hoping to buy the game now that’s in a better state, bad news — Arkham Knight is still unavailable to purchase on Steam. Perhaps that’s an indication of where the game now stands — better than before, but still a little way from what PC players deserve.

Filed under:
Gaming

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Via:
VG247

Source:
Steam

Tags: arkhamknight, batman, batmanarkhamknight, BrokenGame, patch, pc, PcGaming, rocksteady, steam, WarnerBros

‘Borderlands’ is the latest backwards compatible game on Xbox One

Even if you spent $399 on the ultra-crazy edition of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection there was a pretty gaping hole in it. No, I’m not talking about what that purchase did to your bank account, I mean the anthology’s distinct lack of the series’ first game. Well, for Xbox One owners that’s changing because the Vault Hunters’ first trip to Pandora was recently added to the list of Xbox 360 games playable on Microsoft’s newest console — something that was teased back at E3 this year. Folks in the Dashboard Preview Program can start playing right now, of course, but everyone else who got stuck on Dr. Ned’s zombie island (Microsoft says all save files, add-on content and achievements will transfer over) have to wait until the feature launches to the public this November. You still had a few lunar side-quests left to finish for Handsome Jack in the meantime anyhow, right?

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Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

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Source:
Xbox Wire

Tags: 2kgames, backwardscompatibility, borderlands, borderlandsthehandsomecollection, claptrap, gaming, gearboxsoftware, handsomejack, hd, hdpostcross, xbox, xbox360

‘Borderlands’ is the latest backwards compatible game on Xbox One

Even if you spent $399 on the ultra-crazy edition of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection there was a pretty gaping hole in it. No, I’m not talking about what that purchase did to your bank account, I mean the anthology’s distinct lack of the series’ first game. Well, for Xbox One owners that’s changing because the Vault Hunters’ first trip to Pandora was recently added to the list of Xbox 360 games playable on Microsoft’s newest console — something that was teased back at E3 this year. Folks in the Dashboard Preview Program can start playing right now, of course, but everyone else who got stuck on Dr. Ned’s zombie island (Microsoft says all save files, add-on content and achievements will transfer over) have to wait until the feature launches to the public this November. You still had a few lunar side-quests left to finish for Handsome Jack in the meantime anyhow, right?

Filed under:
Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

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Source:
Xbox Wire

Tags: 2kgames, backwardscompatibility, borderlands, borderlandsthehandsomecollection, claptrap, gaming, gearboxsoftware, handsomejack, hd, hdpostcross, xbox, xbox360