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Thursday, August 27, 2015

What the Heck Is a Road Diet?

You might have heard the term “road diet” which sounds like the dining habits of some asphalt-chomping ogre. And it kind of is! But what does it really mean? Here are four videos that explain exactly what transportation planners are doing when they turn space for cars into space for walkers and bikers—and why it’s good for your commute.

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An interesting read via Gizmodo

Windsurfer Tackles Tasmania’s Most Dangerous Wave

Windsurfer Alastair McLeod recently went where no other windsurfer had gone before. In an almost unimaginable feat, he was able to conquer Tasmania’s Pedra Branca, which is notorious for making a mockery of even the most seasoned big-wave…

The post Windsurfer Tackles Tasmania’s Most Dangerous Wave appeared first on Highsnobiety.

An interesting read via Highsnobiety

Say Hello To Windows 10 Build 10532

windows10 If you are part of the Windows Insider program, Microsoft’s tool to get new code into the hands of its hardcore users ahead of the general public, you get a treat today: Windows 10 build 10532. Yes, another Windows 10 build. So, what’s new? Core to the new build are improved menus, which should provide a bit more harmonic fit. Also up is the ability to share notes from the… Read More

An interesting read via TechCrunch

Geronimo, a free email app built by ex-Apple, Google, and Path developers, released for iOS; uses gestures like flicks, swipes to make organizing inbox easier (Sarah Mitroff/CNET)

Sarah Mitroff / CNET:
Geronimo, a free email app built by ex-Apple, Google, and Path developers, released for iOS; uses gestures like flicks, swipes to make organizing inbox easier  —  Three ways Geronimo will change how you deal with your email  —  This new email app uses swipes, taps and flicks of the wrist to turn clearing your inbox into a game.

An interesting read via Techmeme

Destiny Nightfalls Are Getting A Total Overhaul

Destiny Nightfalls Are Getting A Total Overhaul

Destiny, a video game about crushing the hopes and dreams of Peter Dinklage, is changing in just about every possible way when the next expansion launches this September. Even Nightfall strikes will be totally different.

When The Taken King comes out on September 15, dying in a Nightfall will no longer kick your party back to orbit. Those weekly Nightfall experience boosts are going away, too. Instead, it sounds like Nightfalls will be more like level 40 weekly heroic strikes.

Writes Luke Smith on the Bungie blog:

Our desired Nightfall experience is the weekly ritual where you get together with your friends for a test of thumbskill and allow players to optimize for gear.

Burn skulls motivate weapon rotation and now the Burn resist talents found on chest pieces will rotate armor.

The death penalty of being kicked to orbit often leads to players feeling forced to play too safe, rather than running through the world as a monster killing machine.

Another thing we didn’t like about the Year 1 Nightfall was how players could feel forced to play Nightfall as early as possible in the week to maximize the benefit from the Nightfall buff. So, we’ve shelved that buff until we can reform it into something closer to its original intent - a mark of prestige for having achieved something challenging. We’ve adjusted sources of XP and Reputation up to account for its absence.

  • Now requires Level 40
  • Wiping no longer returns Fireteams to Orbit

  • Now uses 30 second time-out penalty for Death (same as Raid Normal)

Crazy. Since Nightfalls will basically be weekly heroics now, Smith also says they’re replacing those strikes with something called the Weekly Heroic Playlist. Read up:

We’ve removed a dedicated Weekly Heroic Strike from the game this Fall. In its place we’ve added a new playlist: the Vanguard Heroic Playlist.

Each week players receive bonus Legendary Marks from the Weekly Heroic Playlist. These awards are received at the Account level rather than the character level - as was the case with Year One Weekly Heroic Rewards.

We made this change to enable players to focus on a single character more, or feel less pressure to gear three characters at once for Legendary Marks.

  • Requires Level 40
  • Removed the Weekly Heroic Strikes

  • Instead, accounts receive Legendary Marks for completing the first three Weekly Strikes

  • Removed the Weekly Cap on how many Legendary Marks can be earned.

  • Guarantee a Legendary Engram drop from a character’s first clear of a Weekly Heroic Strike

The Daily Heroic and Daily PVP missions will now be based on account completion, so you won’t have to do them once on each character per day. They’ll have better rewards, too. And...

Did we mention that you’ll need to confront the immediate threat first? Oryx lies between you and these challenges. You’ll need to survive his wrath to partake in the new endgame.

Safe to say I can’t wait for this damn “expansion pack”—aka the end of the year-one beta and the beginning of Real Destiny.

You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.

An interesting read via Kotaku

Why Doesn't Instagram Allow Me to Manage Multiple Accounts Like Twitter Does?

The other day I wanted to post a photo to Gizmodo’s Instagram account. I had to log all the way out of my personal account, dig up the password for Gizmodo’s account, log back in as Gizmodo, and post the photo. It made me wonder: Why doesn’t Instagram make it as easy as Twitter to move between accounts?

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An interesting read via Gizmodo

Making bubble tea is totally therapeutic

Bubble tea or boba or pearl milk tea or tapioca milk tea or whatever the hell you call the milky tea deliciousness with those chewy balls and that giant straw is deliciousness in a plastic cup. It’s also really relaxing and therapeutic to make at home. Or at least, it’s really relaxing and therapeutic to watch Peaceful Cuisine make it at home.

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An interesting read via Gizmodo

Bioshock 4K gallery

Is a monitor not entitled to the sweat of its PC? I tried.

An interesting read via PC Gamer latest stories

What Smash Bros. Pros Are Doing With Their Fingers When They Play

What Smash Bros. Pros Are Doing With Their Fingers When They Play

This is what it looks like when expert Smash Bros. players are at the helm.

There’s a lot going on when someone’s playing a game at a high level, and it’s unlikely that you’re going to spend much time watching everything that’s happening with their hands.

YouTube channel Beefy Smash Doods, however, has made visualizing this very easy. They’ve gone ahead and mapped the inputs for the final match at this year’s EVO tournament.

If you’re a Smash aficionado and are wondering why it seems like there aren’t more inputs, it’s because they very specifically didn’t include things like DI (directional influence). What’s that, exactly? I’ll let the Smashpedia explain it for you.

Directional Influence, or DI for short, is a technique that allows a player to control where they are launched or where they move around in a combo, such as a Smart Bomb or Meta Knight’s Mach Tornado. It can help characters live to ridiculously high percentages.

You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.

An interesting read via Kotaku

Flexible phone concept bends to control apps

This phone has a bendable screen, and it isn't just for show: it's equipped with a bending sensor and can actually be used as a form of input, like a stylus or your fingers on touchscreen displays. Our colleagues at Engadget Chinese got a chance to check the concept out at Touch Taiwan 2015, where it was being showcased by local manufacturer AUO. The company claims the device and its 5-inch, 1,280 x 720 AMOLED screen is unbreakable -- true or not, it does look a lot more pliable than, say, the LG G Flex 2, as you can see in the GIF after the break.

In the animation below, it's clear how bending the phone itself can control the Google Earth app: AUO says the device has six degrees of freedom for bending input. The company also told Engadget Chinese that the technology can easily be scaled up and used for phones with higher resolution or even bigger devices. Incorporated into tablets, the technology could allow users, for instance, to twist one of the sides to turn to the next page while reading ebooks.

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Source: Engadget Chinese

Tags: AMOLED, AUO, bendable, flexible, LgGFlex, LGGFlex2, mobilepostcross

An interesting read via Engadget Full RSS Feed

EA shares first details for Star Wars Battlefront's new planet

An interesting read via destructoid

Bow Down to the Beauty of These New Godzilla Posters, Out Friday

Who wouldn’t want to see the King of the Monsters, bursting out of the water and screeching on their wall, every single day? We all would, and that’s what these brand new Godzilla posters by artist Laurent Durieux will do, if you can snag one.

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An interesting read via io9

Peach vs Zelda Fight Is Not For Children's Eyes

Peach vs Zelda Fight Is Not For Children's Eyes

This is not how Nintendo handles fight scenes.

I mean, for one, Nintendo would have written a better set-up than “golfing mishap”. But they also would have eased up on the “brutal action movie kicks to the face”.

Zelda is Olivia Wells, Peach is Raven Duda.

An interesting read via Kotaku

Who causes more destruction in superhero movies, heroes or villains?

Lost in all those superhero comic book flicks that hijack too many screens in movie theaters is how in preventing a villain from let’s say, world destruction or universe domination, the superhero becomes responsible for a lot of damage to a city. Like seriously, cities get messed up. Imagine being a citizen of a world that has superheroes and like Superman just destroyed your apartment building. That would suck.

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An interesting read via Gizmodo

Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter funded in half a day

An interesting read via destructoid

Expect a 'limited number' of HTC Vive VR headsets this year

According to HTC, reports that the commercial launch of its Vive virtual reality headset is delayed until next year aren't telling the whole story. The company provided a statement to Engadget saying "We'll have a limited number of units by the end of the year, with more to come in Q1 2016." It seems unlikely there will be enough to satisfy all potential buyers of the "first complete VR system" it's making with Valve's help, but there's still a chance you could get one, and developers have had access for a while. The Vive headset is coming to PAX Prime in Seattle with demos like Fantastic Contraption -- once we know more about when you can have one we'll let you know.

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Tags: hdpostcross, headset, htc, PAXPrime2015, valve, VirtualReality, Vive, vr

An interesting read via Engadget Full RSS Feed

Vine can now put perfectly looping music over your videos

An interesting read via The Verge - All Posts

Become the king of junk mail in Papers, Please creator's new game

An interesting read via destructoid

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

When a company like Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft designs a console (or handheld), they have a few things to worry about, like keeping prices as low as possible while ensuring everything still works. But what if that wasn’t an obstacle for games hardware? What if they could be as beautiful as any other piece of hand-crafted art, price be damned?

That’s where Love Hulten comes in. The Swedish designer and craftsman (who we’ve actually featured here before) specialises in exquisite, one-of-a-kind pieces of electronics:

Hultén carefully selects the finest local materials to provide strength and durability. The unique collectible objects breathe through time, rather than get suffocated by it. Specializing in creating one-of-a-kind exclusive items, Hulten offers the buyer a genuine and personal experience.

Just look at this stuff. It’s gorgeous. This little handheld, for example, is made from solid American walnut, wrapped around a Raspberry Pi A+ that’s running an emulator. You can even adjust the tension of the friction hinge.

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

Here are some more examples of Hulten’s work:

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

The Most Beautiful Consoles Are Made By Hand

(via claw marks in the frozen peas)

An interesting read via Kotaku