From Ars Technica: Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition to give first two games a modern update

PC RPG game classics are about to get even cooler!!!!
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It’s been a good week for fans of old-school PC RPGs. First, a team led by Interplay’s Brian Fargo found Kickstarter funding for a sequel to post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland. Then, a months-long countdown clock on BaldursGate.com expired to reveal the existence of Enhanced Edition updates for the first two games in the popular Dungeons and Dragons-inspired Baldur’s Gate series.

The new edition is a joint effort between Atari, Wizards of the Coast, and Beamdog, which previously released an HD update for third-person shooter MDK2. Few details are available on how exactly the new editions will change the series’ classic gameplay, but the development team, headed by BioWare veteran Trent Oster and including “original Baldur’s Gate developers,” has promised “to remain true to the spirit of the game.”

Crucial details like planned platforms and a release date are still unknown, but a Beamdog rep tells Joystiq to expect “regular announcements every week” regarding the game’s development. Beamdog’s Cameron Tofer also told GameSpy that a true Baldur’s Gate 3 sequel remains a “long term goal” that might work as a future Kickstarter project, but that such a sequel is definitely not in the works yet. Way to tease us, Tofer!

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from Ars Technica

From AnandTech: Diablo III Coming on May 15

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!  There goes productivity!!!!

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After a few delays and many recitations of Blizzard’s “We’ll release it when it’s ready” mantra, Diablo III finally has a release date: May 15th. On that date, Blizzard’s click-heavy action RPG will be available on PC and Mac for $59.99 USD in almost every region. Latin American and Russian players will need to wait until June 7th.

Digital presales for Diablo III start today, World of Warcraft players interested in picking up a free copy may still do so by purchasing a WoW Annual Pass before May 1st.

For interested parties, Blizzard will also be selling a Diablo III Collector’s Edition for $99.99. The retail exclusive package includes a behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD set, a soundtrack CD, a 208-page art book, and a 4GB USB trinket carrying full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. It will also come with exclusive content for Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – most likely in-game items along the lines of a WoW minipet.

The press release touts Diablo III’s real money auction house and robust Battle.net-based matchmaking, yet it makes no mention of the planned player-versus-player arena. This is likely because Diablo III will be launching without it. “The PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards,” Blizzard’s Jay Wilson wrote on Battle.net last week. “After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content.”

Source: Blizzard

from AnandTech

From Autoblog: Video: Lada emergency is no mere fire drill

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Exploding Lada in Russia

We imagine that many a Russian Lada has been compared to a ticking time bomb – which is not to say that there aren’t any good Ladas out in the wild, of course – but the example you’ll see in the video pasted below takes the cake. It is, quite literally, an Improvised Explosive Device.

If an exploding Lada alone isn’t enough reason for you to watch, perhaps the reaction of the passengers is more of a draw. Their reaction to the impending doom is so quick that it’s almost as if the two occupants were just waiting for the engine of this poor machine to reach its glorious and destructive demise.

See what we’re talking about in the video pasted below.

Continue reading Lada emergency is no mere fire drill

 

from Autoblog

From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Video: See (and Hear) the Space Shuttle Launch Like Never Before

Shuttle Rocketcam NASA

Michael Interbartolo, a staffer on the Space Shuttle Program, has posted this video of a shuttle launch, with the cameras attached to the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB). Apparently this video will be an bonus feature on the upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of Ascent: Commemorating Shuttle (which you can watch here). The big deal here is the sound–there was some assistance from Skywalker Sound, the company that provides the sound for George Lucas’s movies. Watch (and listen) for the splash into the Atlantic in the video, embedded after the jump. [via Discover]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: GiiNii AudioBulb Review: You’ve Always Dreamed of a Speaker in Your Lightbulb

AudioBulb in Lamp Dan Nosowitz
A wireless speaker that lives inside your lampEventually, practically every conceivable pair of disparate technologies gets combined into a single package-cameras and cellphones, game consoles and e-readers, chocolate and peanut butter. The combination of speakers and lightbulbs seems like it would be one of the last ideas we’d see, but, well, the future is now. GiiNii’s on-the-nose-named AudioBulb brings these strange bedfellows together for the first time.

WHAT’S NEW

Each AudioBulb is essentially just a 10-watt-per-channel mini speaker embedded in a five-watt LED bulb (roughly the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent). You screw the lightbulb/speaker into your regular lightbulb socket, in a lamp or light fixture or whatever, and it provides light as well as sound. The system includes a docking station/router with an iPhone/iPod dock, as well as a 3.5mm jack (also known as a headphone jack) to accommodate non-Apple music players. You place the docking station somewhere around the room, place your audio player in the docking station, and it beams music to the Audiobulb.

Of course, that hardware isn’t exactly new; anyone who wants to send music wirelessly from an iPod dock to remote speakers already has a host of options available, many with a greater signal range than the Audiobulb system’s 100-foot maximum. And LEDs aren’t exactly hard to come by. The innovation is in elegantly shoehorning two very different things into one form factor that doesn’t require expensive or unusual additional equipment. The Audiobulb, shaped like a miniature version of those hats that British police officers wear, is compatible with any standard light socket. Blimey, that’s clever.

WHAT’S GOOD

Writers are taught not to use clichés like “easy as screwing in a light bulb,” but there’s really no better way to describe how easy the setup is. Plug in the dock and the bulbs pair automatically. You can also easily create separate zones within a house using the remote, so you can send audio to different rooms.

Assuming your lamp can handle the oversized bulb (more on this below), it’s a convenient and unobtrusive option for a bedside table. You can charge your iPhone and play some music, with hardly any extra room taken.

The brightness of the bulbs can be adjusted to four different levels, regardless of the lamp they’re in. The bulbs function normally when the music is off, and they’re eco-friendly-GiiNii claims that with eight hours of use per day, they’ll last for 10 years.

WHAT’S BAD

Cramming a speaker into a light bulb comes at the cost of significant additional weight and size. The adjustable neck on one small lamp I tried was unable to support the bulb’s heft, while the harp on another one could not accommodate its 3.35-inch width. And many lamps require screwing in the bulb so that the speaker faces straight up, hardly the optimal angle for projecting music into a room. The sound is a bit hollow, though not much worse than most speakers in the same size and price range.

Using the device in multiple rooms has a downside as well-if you only have one dock and you want to move to another room, you either have to bring it with you, or choose your music and room brightness in advance. (There’s a little remote control, but it has to be pointing at the dock.) Personally, I don’t always know exactly how brightly I want to light a room until I’m in it, and I want to change the music I’m listening to relatively frequently.

THE PRICE

The dock and two bulbs sell together for $300, and additional bulbs (the system can support up to eight) cost $99 apiece. It’s pretty expensive–that’s the same price as a Sonos Play:3, a wireless music system with nicer controls and a more established ecosystem (though of course it does not plug into a lamp).

THE VERDICT

Some gear succeeds by satisfying a need that the electronic-buying public didn’t know it had. That appears to be what GiiNii is attempting to do. The company wants you to feel like you can’t live without having your music come from the same place as your light-even if it’s something that had never before occurred to you to want.

I’m not sure the Audiobulb achieves that goal. It’s unquestionably a smart idea and a fairly nifty package, but there’s a good reason beyond technological limitations why nothing like it had come to market before. I appreciate the convenience of one-remote music and light setting, but setting the two separately just isn’t that onerous. No matter what kind of lamps and stereo equipment, a couple of clicks and switch flips each time is all it takes to set the mood. Even Wilt Chamberlain would have time for that.

But for the non-audiophile who has a house with multiple rooms or zones (and doesn’t mind leaving the same music and light setting on all the time) the Audiobulb does its job well. It will never be the most necessary piece of equipment you have in your house, but it will almost certainly be among the coolest.

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now