Oct 13
2009

Tech Tuesday #10: Is This Really A Craft?

by Ryokea in Gaming, Tech

Welcome back, everyone. Another eventful week just zipped by, and another week of me trying to teach my cat not to tug my keyboard off my desk when I am trying to work. Quick question, how many of you followed the news about NASA’s mission to slam a rocket hull into a crater? If they do end up finding water up there, that’s just one more step to a moon base. I would completely opt to live on a moon base.

According to Engadget, we may soon see tangible interfaces other than just your standard touch screen. A group in Japan has begun developing an interface that uses silica based objects and polarized light to control their tech demos. The technology works on the principle that when the silica pieces are squeezed or stretched they allow the polarized light through and a camera positioned overhead reads this change then reacts accordingly. Future designs are going to attempt to integrate the camera into the screen itself, but for now…go watch Engadget’s video and try not to laugh at the squishy face demo they start off with.

Apple is owning up to a fairly large bug in their latest operating system dubbed Snow Leopard. It seems for those who upgraded to the latest OS, you absolutely do not want to log into a guest account. What happens is if you log into your guest account, log out, and log back into your own account: your home directory is deleted. All your music, documents, and whatever was stored there is gone. Now, this bug doesn’t happen to every one who has Snow Leopard, but do you really want to try and see if your Mac is one that will be affected at the risk of your personal data being deleted? Didn’t think so. Apple has stated they are currently working on a fix for this bug. Personal recommendation from a tech head? Disable the guest account on your Mac to prevent it from being used until Apple releases a fix for this.

Now, amidst the news of President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and a woman being arrested for using the poke feature on Facebook I found something that actually intrigued me a bit. Probably caught my eye due to being a life long gamer, but still…any news of a World of Warcraft movie is something I am going to read. I have heard mentions of this before on the net and knew it was in the works, but now there is at least one confirmed name behind the writing to the script: Robert Rodat. If you don’t know who that is, he was a writer for the film “Saving Private Ryan.” Certainly have my interest, and yes I realize this bit of news is not technically a piece about technology but to be fair this is a website that is very video game oriented. 😛

The morning is still young, and I already feel worn out from battling with my cat for control of the keyboard. I think now is a good time to sign out for the week, go plop down on my couch, and turn on an episode of House M.D. before I boot up my Xbox 360 to dive into a few games. I’ll see everyone next week, and likely I’ll be sporting a copy of Borderlands by then.

 
Oct 11
2009

Screenshots Sunday #20

“crystal ninja” by HEARTLESS 117 on 06.23.2008

“Gawdly Chief” by Gawdly Sniper on 08.13.2009

“I Shadow I” by TeleKinetikZ on 06.26.2009

Want to be included in our next Screenshot Sunday?
Send an email to Screenshots@AMatchMadeInHalo.com with a link to your image or fileshare on Bungie.net

 
Oct 09
2009

Moonshot Games

Moonshot Games, a new company dedicated to downloadable games, has some not-so-new veterans of the industry working inside it.

Meet Michel Bastien, Damian Isla, and Rob Stokes; the dream team behind Moonshot Games. Do these names sound familiar? They should be! Said people are Bungie veterans who have worked on all three Halo games at various positions like AI engineering and gameplay mechanics to writing and art.

The studio’s goal is not focused on multi-million dollar titles, but small masterpieces. It’s quite the takeoff from Bungie’s reputation of huge titles. But as expected, quality will never cease to increase!

Expect amazing stuff from these guys that will fill your hard drive with ease!

Source: G4TV.com

 
Oct 07
2009

PAX Swag Contest Winner

winner

We’d like to thank all those that participated in last Wednesday’s PAX Swag contest. Stay on the look out as we hope to bring you more fun, prize filled contests in the future.

Our winner is….Sean Fitzgerald (sean) from San Jose, CA.
Congratulations sean! You won!!!

We’ll be shipping out your package at the end of the week. Thanks again for participating. We hope you enjoy your prize!

Sincerely,
Sick & Psycho

 
Oct 06
2009

Tech Tuesday #9: Quest Continues, First I Need A Map

Hello readers, Ryo back again. Last week I mentioned the possibility of a guest writer to pop in and throw down a quick little blurb to add into my article today. Well unfortunately I couldn’t find anyone immediately available so looks like that will be bumped until next week, that is unless you really want me to toss my kitten on the keyboard and let him jump around on it for awhile. Can’t really vouch for if he will stay on topic or not, or even form words for that matter. Putting away any discussion on whether or not a kitten could type actual words, lets get to this week’s Tech Tuesday.

Flash support for the iPhone’s Safari browser is still a little ways off, and Apple still seems to not care much if their smartphone is one of few that isn’t flash enabled. Adobe on the other hand is eager to slap flash on the iPhone and get their AIR apps running on the phone. Word is even out they are preparing their own AIR App Store. As of right now, it seems Adobe has found a back way into enabling flash on the iPhone with a new update coming to Creative Suite 5.

If you logged into a site using your e-mail accounts over the weekend that didn’t seem quite authentic, it is recommended you check to make sure your account has not been compromised at all. If even the slightest thing seems off, change your password. It seems there was a huge phishing attack done recently and details of all the accounts stolen were posted online for everyone to read. Just thought I’d toss a quick little mention for anyone that may have been a victim. Unfortunately I can’t post any sort of link up here for you to read over the list of login names compromised due to not having that information. Remember to pick strong passwords and never to log into sites that look even slightly off.

I’m not even certain how to describe this. Well, other than possibly a photographer’s worst nightmare…or maybe their best? No clue, but in my book this is just plain awesome. It is a program called PhotoSketch that basically lets people with poor drawing skills (me) create a photograph to illustrate whatever I want the scene to look like. I don’t think you want to sit there and read a wall of text explaining how this program literally creates photoshops for you with your basic doodles, so instead I shall link to a page that has a presentation video. Can’t wait to test this out.

You know by now I have a bit of a penchant for commercials that are unusual, or take a jab at competitors in an amusing way. Seems Verizon is doing just that to AT&T with their latest ad they have airing. Personally don’t use either phone service, but once again I love to watch companies feud. I guess it must make them feel like real people too….and yes, I’ll call my lawyer for that one. 😛

That’s a wrap for this Tech Tuesday, I’m off to grab breakfast and load up some ODST for a round or two of Firefight. I’ll see you next week.

 
Oct 04
2009

Screenshots Sunday #19

“Mug Shot” by L Hudson x on 07.28.2009

“¤~Blue-Ray~¤” by o Major Shock o on 04.10.2009

“Fork in it” by YeIIowBrickRoad on 08.03.2009

Want to be included in our next Screenshot Sunday?
Send an email to Screenshots@AMatchMadeInHalo.com with a link to your image or fileshare on Bungie.net