The Enemies of Rage have Personality
One of the games I am most looking forward to this year happens to come from id Software. Maybe you've heard of its latest title, Rage, and have even seen some of the news and videos we've had posted. There is a reason for it, as Rage is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated games to come out this year, along with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City. Rage is a first-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and unlike past games from id, you get to explore wide open outdoor environments and even drive a dune buggy-like vehicle. Sure, Rage still has the indoor areas that past id games like Doom and Quake are famous for, but the outdoor areas look to be stunning. There are a variety of people you'll encounter in the game, friendly ones in various towns and then the mutants, bandits, and government-type ones who only want to kill you. There is a new video out now that showcases the different enemies in Rage and what kind of personalities each type have. Some of the mutants, especially the large one, look like they'll put up a challenge, but it is the bandits and Authority troops that will really test your skills. The video makes me want to play the game right this instant, but we all have to wait until it releases on October 4th. Rage will be available for the PC, PS3, and 360.
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Doping Nanocrystals for Conduction
The electronics industry is working not only to make their products faster and more efficient, but also smaller. As the products get smaller and smaller though, the developers start running into the issue of not having conducting materials they can control the electronic properties of. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered a way to dope semiconductor nanocrystals so they can be controlled. Previous efforts were troubled by the crystals’ ability to cleanse themselves of the dopants, the dopants impairing the crystals’ absorption capabilities, and that the crystals could not always withstand the doping procedure. The researchers’ new procedure uses room temperature diffusion to allow the dopants to enter the crystal. The results included crystals doped with both n-type and p-type dopants, making them useful as a pn junction, like what is used in solar panels, LEDs and more. This development may allow for those products to be made more efficient and at less cost, as well as shrink electronics down in size.
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Superconducting Theory Verified by Experiment
Superconductivity is a state that allows an electric current to exist with no resistance and has been observed with several materials. Unfortunately all those materials have been cooled to temperatures near absolute zero. High temperature superconductors exhibit this property at as much as 150C above absolute zero, but that is still -123C. Scientists across the world are trying to understand why this phenomenon occurs to potentially create room temperature superconductors, but are not there yet. A team at Cornell University has made a significant finding in the area though. For over two decades scientists have been unable to explain how cuprate superconductors work, but have created several theories in their attempts. Experiment has verified one theory and could have an impact on all superconductors, and not just cuprate superconductors. Here comes the science stuff.
A current explanation for how superconductivity works is the electrons flowing along the surface are in pairs, called Cooper pairs. The interactions the particles have with each other cause very little energy to be lost as they travel. In all high temperature superconductors some energy states appear to be missing, which means the electrons that should be occupying them are also missing. Those missing electrons are believed to have gone off to form Cooper pairs. This energy gap is not well understood though, especially as cuprate superconductors maintain the gap even at temperatures high enough to have lost superconductivity. This pseudogap is observed in other materials too, at temperatures as high as room temperature. What the team found was the pseudogaps vary across the cuprate material in a wave like pattern, and occasionally are malformed at singularities. Those singularities effect the pattern in different ways, depending on how the team observed them; going north to south or east to west.
A member of the team does point out that while this discovery may not directly lead to room temperature superconductors, it is a way to quantify the pseudogap, which may act to enable or interfere with superconductivity.
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AT&T Confirms Plans For Throttling
Networks seem to be getting more congested as technology advances, especially in the mobile market where 3G and 4G plans rule the majority of the worlds network usage. AT&T has noticed network congestion not only with their land lines, where they have been capping DSL plans for a few months now, but also in their mobile plans. Though not a permanent fix, AT&T has been proposing, and is now confirming, that it will throttle select users of their unlimited plan once they download a certain amount of data. Luckily the throttling will stop on the new billing cycle, but if a said user hits the invisible cap half way through their billing cycle, it seems like it will be a rough scenario between the consumer and the wireless company. Eventually, AT&T plans for the spectrum issue ot be resolved once the T-Mobile merger is fully integrated, though for now, their throttling plan will have to do until that day comes around.
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New Metro: Last Light Trailer Shows Off Some Gameplay
One of gaming's surprise hits last year was Metro 2033. The game is based on a Russian novel that is set in the future about groups of humans surviving in the Russian Metro tunnels. The world is going through a nuclear winter and there are mutants roaming above ground, and even inside the tunnels. It is up to your character, Artyom, to destroy the Dark Ones, a special breed of mutant, that are terrorizing the tunnels. The game has some twists and turns, and even a different ending depending on choices you make. It is a survival-horror game but also a first-person shooter where bullets are both a form of currency and ammo for your weapons. The sequel, Metro: Last Light, is due out next year and there is a new trailer showing off a couple minutes of gameplay. Artyom returns and you and another character are trying to sneak your way through the Reich outpost when it all goes wrong. There are some NSFW moments in it, though some of the language spoken is Russian. The trailer looks interesting and definitely makes me look forward to the release of Metro: Last Light.
NSFW
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