Author: Sean Patterson

Today’s Nintendo Direct may have been all about the “Year of Luigi,” but a few non-Luigi games did slip through into the presentation. In particular, details on the release of the new Animal Crossing title were revealed.

Fans of the laid-back, whimsical fantasy life simulator have been waiting years for a new title, but won’t have to wait much longer. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was announced for a June 9 release in the U.S. The 3DS game will feature a myriad of customizable features, including clothes, furniture, and town fixtures. Players will also be able to swim and will become the mayor of their small town.

The new trailer for the game shows off most of these features, but the highlight for Animal Crossing fans is likely to be the game’s new visuals.

Today’s Nintendo Direct was almost entirely 3DS-related, and the “Year of Luigi” theme carried through most of the presentation. There was, however, an interlude in which non-Luigi games were featured and a longer look at LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins was seen.

The Chase Begins is the 3DS version of the upcoming Wii U exclusive title LEGO City Undercover. Rather than port an inferior version of the Wii U game, however, TT Games has created an entirely new game for Nintendo‘s handheld console. The Chase Begins will follow the protagonist of LEGO City Undercover, Chase McCain, as he begins journey toward undercover work as a rookie cop.

If the new trailer is any indication, the 3DS prequel had the same writing team as LEGO City Undercover did. Players can look forward to silly humor, cops-and-robbers movie cliches, and fetching donuts for the deputy.

The game is currently scheduled for an April 21 release, around one month after the Wii U LEGO title is released.

Earlier this week, developer Gas Powered Games cancelled its Wildman Kickstarter project. Though the developer is well-known for its Dungeon Siege games, the Wildman Kickstarter was only around half-funded with a few days left to go. The $1.1 million goal did not appear to match consumer demand.

It now appears that Gas Powered Games had been banking its business on the success of the Kickstarter project.

Wargaming.net, a developer known for its free-to-play World of Tanks MMO, today announced that it has acquired Gas Powered Games.

“Wargaming growth in recent years has been tremendous, and we’re looking forward to joining one of the fastest growing gaming companies in the world,” said Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games. “I’m sure our experience and expertise will help us contribute even more to Wargaming’s global success.”

In a statement, the Belarusian studio praised Gas Powered Games’ previous titles, and stated that Gas Powered Games “will further bolster Wargaming’s push into multiplatform expansion.” No other details of the sale were released.

“Gas Powered Games’ heritage and development pedigree shows us just how valuable an addition Chris and his company will make to the Wargaming family,” said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net. “Gas Powered Games has a long track record of providing incredibly engaging AAA gaming experiences and we can’t wait to start working with them.”

Researchers with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) today announced that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has reached the end of its first three-year running period.

“We have every reason to be very satisfied with the LHC’s first three years,” said Rolf Heuer, director-general of CERN. “The machine, the experiments, the computing facilities and all infrastructures behaved brilliantly, and we have a major scientific discovery in our pocket.”

During its first three years, the LHC has provided physicists with tons of data, including 100 petabytes of data in just the past few weeks. Researchers have most recently been using the LHC to collide protons and lead ions in an effort to understand the moments just after the big bang.

The LHC will now be shut down until 2015. In the meantime, data from the past three years will continue to be analyzed while LHC maintenance is performed and the machine is upgraded for higher energy running.

“There is a great deal of consolidation work to do on CERN’s whole accelerator complex, as well as the LHC itself,” said Steve Myers, director for Accelerators and Technology at CERN. “We’ll essentially be rebuilding the interconnections between LHC magnets, so when we resume running in 2015, we will be able to operate the machine at its design energy of 7TeV per beam.”

If the Batman vs. Bane and Wonder Woman vs. Harley Quinn trailers haven’t already convinced you that Injustice: Gods Among Us is a title to keep an eye on, today’s reveal is sure to put the game on your “most anticipated games of April 2013″ list.

IGN today revealed a new trailer for the fighting game that debuts Aquaman as a playable character. For those who aren’t aware, Aquaman is the King of the Seven Seas and Atlantis, as well as a founding member of the Justice League. The character can breathe underwater, swim really fast, and telepathically communicate with fish. In the trailer, though, he mostly just kicks ass with his trident.

Even if Aquaman doesn’t end up being players’ favorite character, his appearance in the game should redeem him slightly in the eyes of gamers. The Marine Marvel’s last appearance in video games was 2003′s Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis, a title widely considered to be one of the worst video games ever made.

Using the silliest press release in recent memory, Double Fine today announced that Brütal Legend will be coming to PCs soon. The title is already up for pre-order on Steam, and each pre-order comes with access to the multiplayer beta, which has already begun. Also, hats.

From the Double Fine announcement:

So powerful is the game’s raw lifeforce that even its creators cannot contain it any longer. Owners will receive immediate access to the Brütal Legend PC multiplayer beta, which is now live and already blowing souls. All preorder customers will also be granted two exclusive Team Fortress 2 items, Eddie Riggs’ hair and his guitar Clementine, all the better to spread the word of Metal throughout the virtual land.

“Adding a PC release to Brütal Legend’s list of conquests risks raising the world’s ambient Metal saturation to dangerously high levels,” said Double Fine President Tim Schafer, “which is why we’re conducting this closed beta test for preorders.”

“By purchasing this game, you are waiving your legal rights to recourse if the fire beast Ormagöden bathes the world in flame and ushers in the Age of Metal,” commented our lawyer.

“Shh,” added Mr. Schafer.

See? Silly. Come to think of it, It’s the type of humor game companies could use more of.

The PC version will be getting the upgrades that PC gamers are used to finding in games that have been well-ported by developers. High resolution support, anti-aliasing, uncapped framerates, “major improvements to latency/lag in multiplayer,” and other features will, according to Double Fine, all be implemented before the game is out of beta.

Naughty Dog today revealed that its highly anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive The Last of Us has been delayed. The release date for the title was originally May 7, but has been pushed back more than a month to June 14.

The delay was announced by Neil Druckmann, lead game designer at Naughty Dog, through a post to the PlayStation Blog. Druckmann stated that the game needs a “few extra weeks” of polishing. From the blog post:

The Last of Us is an ambitious project. In many ways it may be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious project to date – brand new universe and cast of characters, brand new tech, brand new genre, not to mention it’s easily the longest campaign Naughty Dog has ever made.

As we entered the final phase of development for The Last of Us, we came to realize just how massive Joel and Ellie’s journey is. But instead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of The Last of Us was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards.

Though game delays are always frustrating news for fans who can’t wait to get their hands on a title, The Last of Us fans can take solace in the fact that they aren’t being toyed with the way Rayman fans are. Gamers who are fans of both Naughty Dog and Rayman can feel free to vent their frustrations in the comment section below.

A new European Space Agency (ESA) study has shown that Arctic sea ice has declined significantly since 2003.

The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, has confirmed that Arctic ice volume is declining, rather than just sea ice coverage. The paper shows that the ice has declined by (36%) during the fall months and 9% during winter since 2003. The decline in sea ice during summer, though, was shown to be the greatest.

“The data reveal that thick sea ice has disappeared from a region to the north of Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and to the northeast of Svalbard,” said Katharine Giles, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) in the U.K.

The data used in the study was collected using the NASA’s ICESat satellite and the ESA’s CryoSat satellite, which uses its high-resolution radar altimeter to fire microwave pulses at the arctic. The pulses bounce off of both the surface ice and the water below, giving researchers a measurement with which to estimate volume.

“Other satellites have already shown drops in the area covered by Arctic sea ice as the climate has warmed, but CryoSat allows scientists to estimate the volume of sea ice – a much more accurate indicator of the changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat mission manager.

Tem17, the developer behind the popular Worms series, today announced that it will be rebooting the Superfrog franchise.

A new title called Superfrog HD will be released sometime in 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita consoles. The game will feature updated graphics, but no other details have been announced.

The original Superfrog was released for the Amiga in 1993. The platformer became a cult hit, but was overshadowed by the success of the Worms games.

“We’re extremely excited about bringing Superfrog HD to PS3 and PS Vita,” said Debbie Bestwick, managing director of Team17. “It’s the most requested game that our fans are always requesting to see make a return. Now, with the 20th anniversary of the original Superfrog and the recent re-release of our classic survival-horror Alien Breed, we feel the timing has never been better.”

Yesterday, Team 17 released an HD remake of its other classic Amiga title, Alien Breed, on the PlayStation Network, complete with online multiplayer. The original Alien Breed was released for the Amiga in 1991, and became a genuine hit for the system. The game spawned multiple sequels, including Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues, Alien Breed: Tower Assault, and Alien Breed: 3D.

Astronomers have found evidence that suggests the youngest black hole in the Milky Way galaxy may reside in the remnants of a rare supernova.

The remnant, named W49B, is only around 1,000 years old and only 26,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have called the object “rare” because of the way the supernova took place. Instead of explosively ejecting matter in all directions the way an supernova does, W49B is the result of a supernova that ejected material from a star’s poles at a higher speeds than other material, creating jets that shaped the remnant.

A paper on the phenomenon is to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

“W49B is the first of its kind to be discovered in the galaxy,” said Laura Lopez, lead researcher on the study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “It appears its parent star ended its life in a way that most others don’t.”

The data used in the study was obtained using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. W49B now glows brightly with X-rays, and Chandra was able to determine the distribution of elements in the remnant. The researchers found an uneven distribution of iron, matching predictions for asymmetric supernovae.

Astronomers searched for X-ray or radio pulses from the remnant, which would provide evidence for a neutron star, but found none. This suggests that a new black hole could have been formed at the core of the supernova.

“It’s a bit circumstantial, but we have intriguing evidence the W49B supernova also created a black hole,” said Daniel Castro, co-author of the paper. “If that is the case, we have a rare opportunity to study a supernova responsible for creating a young black hole.”

(Image courtesy NASA/CXC/MIT/L.Lopez et al/Palomar/NSF/NRAO/VLA)

Fans of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have been waiting nearly a decade now for The Last Guardian. It’s been almost four years since the game’s teaser trailer was released at E3 2009.

This week, fans finally got a small tease and some assurance that The Last Guardian is still in development.

Fumito Uedo, the director and lead designer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus posted a statement to his website. He makes it clear that he is still involved in the project, and that the game’s release date is up to Sony. The statement, in full:

As some of you may have heard, I left Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studio some time ago to pursue my creative passions. Nevertheless, I continue working on THE LAST GUARDIAN as a freelance contributor.

While it’s been a long time coming, THE LAST GUARDIAN remains under my creative supervision and is still in development by an incredibly talented team.

I should also mention that details regarding THE LAST GUARDIAN’s release is solely decided by Sony Computer Entertainment, not myself. Please keep an eye out for their official announcement.

Moving forward, it is my intent to continue my involvement with THE LAST GUARDIAN project, as well as pursue new creative projects with a fresh perspective. As I rekindle my passions as a creator, I look forward to seeing where it will take me, and I deeply appreciate your support during this transition.

The plead to “keep an eye out” for an announcement would seem to imply that such an announcement might be imminent. Might that mean a glimpse of the project could come alongside Sony’s announcement of the PlayStation 4 one week from today? Or is the apologetic statement that the release date is “solely decided by Sony” a warning that no preview is coming at that event? So many mysteries, but the fact that The Last Guardian is even being addressed should be good news for Team Ico fans.

With just one day left before Valentine’s Day, Virgin Mobile USA (yes, the mobile carrier) is letting everyone off the hook by declaring today, February 13, “National Breakup Day.”

Evidently, a survey by Virgin found that 59% of survey-takers, if they were going to break up with their significant other, would break up with them before Valentine’s Day to save a little cash. The survey also found that 42% of survey-takers had stayed in a bad relationship “because they were scared to make a change and try something new.” With these things in mind, the mobile carrier is actively encouraging people to gather their courage and dump their overly attached significant other.

Of course, for Virgin Mobile the fake holiday isn’t just about promoting break-ups. That would be disturbing. The company is making a comparison between people in strung-out relationships and people who are in expensive contracts with other mobile carriers. Virgin is offering $100 off a Galaxy S II smartphone during National Breakup Day.

“We want people to understand that they don’t have to be stuck in a bad relationship,” said Ron Faris, head of brand marketing for Virgin Mobile. “If you’re in a tough spot, whether it’s with your significant other or your current postpaid phone carrier, why delay the inevitable? Just break free!”

On February 15 an asteroid named 2012 DA14 will pass very close to the Earth. It will swing within just 17,200 miles of the planet’s surface, which is well within the orbit of the man-made geosynchronous satellites that orbit the Earth. By coming within just one-thirteenth the distance from the Earth to the moon, the asteroid will set a record for close approach by an object of its size.

This week Deep Space Industries (DSI), a company that wants to develop the technology to mine asteroids, made the somewhat melancholic estimate that DA14 could contain metals and propellant worth as much as $195 billion. Since the asteroid will fly by the Earth traveling at 17,400 miles per hour, however, it isn’t practical to mine.

“While this week’s visitor isn’t going the right way for us to harvest it, there will be others that are, and we want to be ready when they arrive,” said Rick Tumlinson, Chairman of DSI. “Even with conservative estimates of the potential value of any given asteroid, if we begin to utilize them in space they are all the equivalent of a space oasis for refueling and resupply.”

NASA has estimated that DA14 is only about 150 feet across, but DSI believes that is still big enough to be worth billions. DSI “experts” estimate that if 10% of the asteroid were made of minable metals, they could be worth $130 billion. If another 5% of the asteroid could be mined for water, it could be used as $65 billion worth of rocket fuel in space.

DSI is hoping to begin space mining around the year 2020. In the meantime, the company will be sending “FireFly” probes to examine asteroids, and later “DragonFly” probes that will take samples of the asteroid.

NASA will also be sending probes to investigate asteroids before 2020. In 2016, the agency will launch the OSIRIS-REx probe, which will visit the Earth-threatening asteroid 1999 RQ36.

In May 2012, LinkedIn acquired document presentation startup SlideShare. Since that time, the company has been integrating itself into LinkedIn’s carefully managed (and profitable) corporate culture.

Today, SlideShare announced a very LinkedIn-style feature for its service. The new feature, called “Send Tracker,” is an analytics tool that will allow users to gather metrics on how people use Slide Share presentations. For example, the software could report back on who viewed a presentation and how much time they spent on each slide. It can also send alerts when people click through emails or view SlideShare content.

The feature is geared toward marketers and salespeople, so that they can observe potential customers and focus their time on prospects who engaged well with a presentation. It’s a free feature for subscribers to SlideShare’s premium “SlideShare Pro” service.

As expected, SlideShare has prepared a slideshow that covers the highlights of the new feature. The SlideShare presentation is embedded below, and it probably uses Send Tracker analytics to send data back to SlideShare. I’ll leave it up to each reader to decide whether they consider their SlideShare viewing habits private, and engage with the presentation accordingly.

A new study has shown that much of the Middle East lost freshwater reserves over the past decade.

The study, to be published this week in the journal Water Resources Research, was based on data from NASA‘s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. The findings show that, starting in 2003, parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins lost 144 cubic kilometers (117 million acre feet) of stored freshwater – nearly the same about of water found in the Dead Sea.

“GRACE data show an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which currently have the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India,” said Jay Famiglietti, principle investigator of the study and a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine. “The rate was especially striking after the 2007 drought. Meanwhile, demand for freshwater continues to rise, and the region does not coordinate its water management because of different interpretations of international laws.”

The GRACE satellites measure water reserves using gravitational measurements. Since the level of water reserves alters the Earth’s mass, the satellites can precisely measure local gravitational effects to estimate a region’s change in water reserves.

The study blames around 60% of the loss to the pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs. Around another 20% was attributed to soil drying and snowpack shrinkage. The final one-fifth was attributed to the loss of surface water from lakes and reservoirs.

“The Middle East just does not have that much water to begin with, and it’s a part of the world that will be experiencing less rainfall with climate change,” said Famiglietti. “Those dry areas are getting dryer. The Middle East and the world’s other arid regions need to manage available water resources as best they can.”

Ever since Halo Reach was released in 2010, fans of developer Bungie have been waiting patiently for the next major release from the company. Today, Bungie has finally begun to talk about its new project, Destiny.

From the announcement at Bungie’s website:

In a matter of days, we’re going to give you your first glimpse into the vision and ambition that’s driving the creation of our brave new world. To make room for the resulting chatter, we’ve launched some official social media channels.

According to the new social feeds created for the game, the big reveal for Destiny will take place on February 17. The game now has Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages for fans to follow, and all of them contain the following message:

Follow @DestinyTheGame

Destiny The Game
@DestinyTheGame

You can be the first to see the reveal of #Destiny right here on Feb. 17 (T-Minus 5 days).

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
29 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

In addition, a new Destiny sub-forum has now appeared on the Bungie forums. Currently, members of the forum are deciphering a Destiny-related alternate reality game (ARG) that Bungie began this week.

Details on Destiny are sparse at this point, but leaked images last year teased that the game will be an ambitious science fiction game with spaceships.

Back in November 2012, HP announced its dismal quarterly results and blamed around $5 billion of its $8.8 billion impairment charge on “serious accounting improprieties, misrepresentations, and disclosure failures” at Autonomy prior to its purchase by HP in 2011. Autonomy founder Mike Lynch shot back at HP immediately, starting a website and issuing an open letter accusing HP of mismanagement.

Though HP did not address the criticism directly, it did cheekily reply that it “look[s] forward to hearing Dr. Lynch and other former Autonomy employees answer questions under penalty of perjury.” Since that time HP’s comment on the matter has been that the case is in the hands of authorities such as the U.K. Serious Fraud Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

This week it was revealed that the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is investigating Autonomy’s books from 2009 to 2011. The FRC investigation will take place in consultation with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Through the website created by Lynch, former Autonomy execs boldly proclaimed that they “welcome” the FRC investigation. The statement, in full:

We note the announcement by the UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) that it has begun an investigation of the financial reporting of Autonomy for the period from 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2011. As a member of the FTSE 100 the accounts of Autonomy have previously been reviewed by the FRC, including during the period in question, and no actions or changes were recommended or required.

We welcome this investigation. Autonomy received unqualified audit reports throughout its life as a public company. This includes the period in question, during which Autonomy was audited by Deloitte. We are fully confident in the financial reporting of the company and look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate this to the FRC.

Depending on what the FRC uncovers, either Lynch or HP will have some serious explaining to do. Besides embarrassment and possible criminal implications, the investigation could end up playing a large role in the lawsuits HP’s allegations have spawned.

Adidas and the Golden State Warriors this week unveiled a new uniform with “modern” short sleeves. The uniform is also the team’s lightest uniform ever – 26% lighter than current Warriors uniforms.

“Players on every court like to have a unique sense of style,” said Lawrence Norman, vice president for adidas global basketball. “We were excited to work side-by-side for the last 18 months with the Warriors, one of the NBA’s youngest and most exciting teams, to develop this unique uniform system that helps maintain peak player performance while ensuring comfort, fit and style.”

Though range-of-motion would seem to be a concern with sleeves, adidas claims its has worked with players to develop the uniforms. The sleeves include armhole insets that are made of a stretch fabric. The company claims that movement in the jersey is equal to that found in normal tank-top style uniforms.

“When adidas began working with us to develop the short sleeve jersey, I couldn’t wait to wear it in a game,” said Harrison Barnes, Warriors forward. “I love the fit and style the sleeves give me on the court.”

The new uniforms will debut on February 22 during the Warriors’ game against the San Antonio Spurs. They will also be worn during two more home games this season: on March 8 against the Houston Rockets and on March 15 against the Chicago Bulls.

NASA this week successfully launched its Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). An Atlas V rocket was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 1:02 pm EST on Monday, February 11.

The new satellite will be used, as previous Landsat satellites have, to monitor the earth’s climate and geography. It is the eighth satellite in the Landsat series that has been observing the Earth since 1972. The LDCM’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) will collect data in visible and infrared spectrums, while its Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) will collect data on the heat emitted from the surface of the Earth.

“Landsat is a centerpiece of NASA’s Earth Science program, and today’s successful launch will extend the longest continuous data record of Earth’s surface as seen from space,” said Charles Bolden, NASA administrator. “This data is a key tool for monitoring climate change and has led to the improvement of human and biodiversity health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and agriculture monitoring – all resulting in incalculable benefits to the U.S. and world economy.”

The satellite deployed its solar arrays 86 minutes after launch. It is currently powering up and will enter a sun-synchronous polar orbit within two months. During the next three months the satellite will be put through its paces during a check-out phase. After that, control of the LDCM will be transferred to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

“LDCM is the best Landsat satellite ever built,” said Jim Irons, a LDCM project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The technology will advance and improve the array of scientific investigations and resource management applications supported by Landsat images. I anticipate new knowledge and applications to emerge with an increasing demand for the data.”

The announcement of Sony’s next-generation PlayStation 4 console is less than two weeks away. Though the announcement of Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox isn’t expected until the E3 conference in June, the company this week released some numbers that show just where the company stands as the industry prepares for the next generation of consoles.

Microsoft claims it has sold more than 76 million Xbox 360 consoles. In addition, 24 million Kinect sensors have been sold to those Xbox owners.

Microsoft also released information and statements that make it clear the company is eyeing more than just video games. Expect the next Microsoft console to be a complete home multimedia device, with connectivity to multiple services and devices.

“Yes, we started with video games, but we have been on a journey to make Xbox the center of every household’s entertainment,” said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of Microsoft Interactive Entertainment.

According to Microsoft, Xbox users watched and played 18 billion hours of entertainment last year. Usage of apps on the Xbox also grew 57%, which isn’t surprising considering the number of apps that were added in 2012.

The catch is that using these services isn’t free on an Xbox – an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription is required to access multiplayer gaming, Netflix Watch Instantly, Amazon Instant Video, and more. Subscriptions to Xbox LIVE now stand at 46 million. Considering that subscriptions start at $5 per month, Microsoft is taking in over $230 million per month for things that Sony’s PlayStation 3 provides consumers with for free.

“We believe that Xbox is being used by more people in the household, during more hours in the day and for more forms of entertainment,” said Mehdi. “People are using Xbox in the morning to work out with the Kinect Nike+ Fitness program, kids are watching cartoons, families are enjoying movies, and of course people are playing blockbuster games like Halo 4.”