Ron Gilbert and Double Fine Show Off The Cave
Double Fine has a new game it is showing off, but no, it is not the Kickstarter game. This game has Ron Gilbert at the helm and it is called The Cave, which is a downloadable game set to release early next year for the PC, PS3, and 360. You may look at The Cave and go "hey, that looks like Trine!" That is a pretty good guess, but when you get down to it, this game is all Ron Gilbert. The characters and game mechanics show off his style quite well, and should bring some classic feel to the gaming landscape. The Cave is set entirely inside a cave (shocking) that is filled with all manner of traps, puzzles, and monsters waiting for you. There will be seven adventurers for you to form a party of three in order to overcome the obstacles, and each character has a unique story to tell and special ability that is showcased at some point in The Cave. Those abillities should only be showcased during that character's specific level, so you will not be shoehorned into using a certain set at all times.
The Cave is similar to Trine in relation to style, but there are some old school adventure game puzzles you will have to overcome. There will be typical ones where you have to pull a level to open a door to let your other characters through, but there will also be more complex ones that require you to think before acting. The Cave has support for three players both locally and online, but right now Ron Gilbert and the folks at Double Fine are not telling too much more. We just have to wait until later this year to see of The Cave.
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Mass Effect 3 Rebellion DLC Arrives Next Week - Free Content to Expand Multiplayer
It was not all that long ago that rumors of a new Mass Effect 3 DLC surfaced, but then BioWare quickly shot it down. The studio said the details of it were not true, but now it sounds like only the release date was false. BioWare has announced the new Rebellion DLC for Mass Effect 3 will arrive next week to expand the multiplayer portion of the RPG. The DLC will be free to every PC, PS3, and 360 Mass Effect 3 owner on May 29th, and includes two new maps, three new weapons, and six new classes to play. The two maps, Firebase Jade and Firebase Goddess, will be available right from the get go, however the weapons and classes will have to be unlocked via Reinforcement Packs. You will be able to play as the Vorcha Soldier or Sentinel, Quarian Engineer or Infiltrator, and Ex-Cerberus Adept or Vanguard. The three new weapons are the Reegar Carbine Shotgun (a larger version of the arc pistol), the Cerberus Harrier Assault Rifle (a fully automatic Mattock rifle), and the Krysae Sniper Rifle (a Turian-designed anti-material rifle). There are also new in-mission objectives and an extra gear slot in the Rebellion DLC, so be sure to get it downloaded on May 29th!
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Combining Metamaterials and Quantum Dots for Nanophotonic Devices
Many properties of a material are determined by its molecular structure, including how it interacts with light. Metamaterials have special structures which control how something moves through them, like light. Whenever light enters a material, it is refracted because it travels at a different speed through the new material, compared to the last material it was travelling through. Natural materials will always refract light in the same direction (though different materials refract to different angles) but metamaterials will refract light in the opposite direction.
Quantum dots also have special interactions with light. Materials can generally be identified based on the light they admit due to the photoelectric effect. This limits LEDs and lasers because to get a specific frequency of light from them may require a rare material. Quantum dots however can be designed to produce or absorb any specific frequency of light.
Researchers at Purdue University, Queens and City Colleges of City University of New York, and University of Alberta have combined these two devices, metamaterials and quantum dots, and found that they may be able to use this combination to enhance solar cells, LEDs, and quantum information processing. The metamaterial causes the quantum dots to emit hyperbolic light, which can be done more efficiently than regular light. These hyperbolic photons could potentially be used as entangled particles in a quantum computer, or just as a source of light for nanophotonic devices. The increased efficiency will also affect the absorption of light by the quantum dots, which opens the door to enhanced solar panels.
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Metro: Last Light Short Film Debuts
Last week, THQ revealed a Metro: Last Light short film would appear on May 24th. The day has finally arrived and you can check out the Metro: Last Light short film titled Enter the Metro. The film is live action and tells the story of how the Russian Metro system was designed to be used in case of a nuclear war. Not many people remembered this detail in the years after the Metro was built, but a few did and were waiting for the day when the doors were to open and society had to survive. I will not spoil too much of the short film other than to saw you are in for a treat. THQ and 4A Games have captured the world of Metro 2033 in video game form and this film captures it in reality. As for Metro: Last Light, the game will arrive next year for the PC, PS3, and 360, and you can already pre-order your copy from THQ.
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Counterintuitive Compound Created
Throughout life we learn that certain actions and situations cause certain reactions, but occasionally we find exceptions. With enough thrust what goes up need not come down, and under the proper circumstances, water can be made to flow up hill. Researchers at Northwestern University have made a new exception by creating a metamaterial that expands when compressed and contracts when tensioned.
Every natural material acts like a rubber band in that when you pull on the band, it stretches out and becomes longer. A band made out of this material will do the opposite though, as it will shorten as you pull on it. If you try to squeeze it into a smaller shape though, it will actually expand in response. Also, it does not take much energy to get this to happen as it exhibits force amplification, where a small deformation triggers a larger response.
Obviously the question is, "how?" It turns out the physics involved does not say a material cannot contract when you pull on it, just that the effect cannot be continuous. The researchers decided to use phase transitions to make the seemingly opposite response occur discontinuously. The result is what the researchers call 'negative compressibility transitions,' and there are potential uses for this. Actuators and potentially some protective devices may be able to take advantage of the negative compressibility while micromechanical devices and ratchets can utilize the force amplification property.
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Corsair to Offer SSD Upgrade Kit for Laptops
Corsair has announced that an upgrade kit for laptops is now available for the Force Series 3 SSD. The kits will come in capacities of 120GB and 240GB and should provide an easy performance upgrade for users that currently have a mechanical hard drive. The kit comes with a USB to SATA cable and migration software to provide a very simple way to transfer data from one drive to another. VP of Memory Products, Thi La, stated "The new Force Series 3 SSD Notebook Upgrade Kits simplify the data migration process, making upgrading to an SSD easier than ever." The 120GB kit will be available for $139.99 and the 240GB will cost $259.99.
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38 Studios Issues Company-wide Layoffs
We reported last week that 38 Studios, the company behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, was in a bit of trouble after missing a loan payment to the state of Rhode Island. The situation has now hit rock bottom, with 38 Studios having laid off all employees at both Big Huge Games and 38 Studios. Early in the day it was rumored that only Big Huge Games would be affected, but a now former employee confirmed that all 38 Studios employees were also laid off.
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Advanced Plasma Nozzle for Coating Everyday Items
You might not realize it, but there is a good chance something you recently touched has a coating on it. Scratch-proof displays are one example, and anti-bacterial surfaces for refrigerators are another. Perhaps the best known coatings are those on metals, which act as a barrier to rust and other kinds of corrosion. Despite how common coatings are, actually putting them on something is not very easy as there are only two methods; wet chemical processes and vacuum plasma processes. Researchers at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft decided to change that and developed a plasma nozzle that is considerably more versatile and easier to use.
Unlike the vacuum plasma method, this nozzle is able to operate at regular atmospheric pressure. This is a major improvement over requiring a vacuum, but it introduces the problem of potential contaminants in the coating. This is what the researchers had to overcome for this technology to be possible. Fortunately they did though because this method has many advantages going for it, such as the ability to be incorporated into production lines.
The plasma nozzle itself is about the same size as a spray can, which allows it to be easily integrated into production systems, and even be automated by a robot. This should enable it to be much more cheaply used than the current system in place, which should allow more devices to have special coatings.
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