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Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Coming This December TIME Get ready, Halo fans: The multiplayer beta for the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians is hitting Xbox One consoles this December, just in time for the holidays. Microsoft made the announcement Monday at E3 while unveiling The Master Chief Collection, ... E3: Xbox's 'Halo' Collection Will Feature Ridley Scott Digital SeriesHollywood Reporter Halo 5 E3 Trailer: The Master Chief Collection ConfirmedArcade Sushi Halo: The Master Chief Collection jumps to Xbox One on November 11, 2014Joystiq Engadget -VentureBeat -Side Mission all 93 news articles »

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Comic book maps. Find more at Comic Book Cartography  (including diagrams and cutaways). 

The NCAA hopes the Keller settlement will take some critical documents out of the more important case.

The O'Bannon case got off to a surprising start on Monday, as the NCAA and the plaintiffs of the Sam Keller lawsuit, which regards the use of athletes' likeness in video games, announced that they had reached a settlement. From the NCAA:

The settlement will award $20 million to certain Division I men's basketball and Division I Bowl Subdivision football student-athletes who attended certain institutions during the years the games were sold.

Electronic Arts and the Collegiate Licensing Company, who were originally involved in the case, had previously settled for $40 million, bringing the total amount of money awarded to athletes who appeared in NCAA video games to $60 million. A settlement was bound to happen at some point, since EA's testimony had pretty much destroyed any hope the NCAA had of winning that case.

However, the timing of the settlement has potentially important consequences to the O'Bannon case.

NCAA lawyer Glenn Pomerantz says he hopes the settlement allows the elimination of video game claims from O'Bannon trial #NCAAtrial

— Tom Farrey (@TomFarrey) June 9, 2014

The NCAA had previously asked Judge Claudia Wilken to deny the use of the video game documents in the O'Bannon trial, though she refused to do so. Now, because of the settlement, the NCAA seems to think it could have that request approved, though there is no word on whether it will be.

One of the NCAA's major arguments is that there is no market for college athletes. In other words, television companies are paying for the use of schools' facilities and platforms when they broadcast games, not the likenesses of the players. However, the O'Bannon plaintiffs claim to have evidence to dispute that from an EA employee.

The (plaintiffs) will present documentary evidence and testimony from Joel Linzner of EA at trial that while EA abided by the prohibition on paying college athletes for the use of their (likeness) in NCAA-lisenced videogames, it nonetheless wanted to obtain the rights for more precise likenesses and the names of every college athlete on each roster, for which EA was willing to pay more to the NCAA and the college athletes themselves.

If EA thought that its product would be improved by using the names of real players — and it was willing to pay the players to use their likenesses — that severely hurts the NCAA's claim that there is no market for players' likenesses, because it's logical to assume there is a market for television broadcasts if there is for video games. But if the NCAA gets its way, that testimony will not be admissible, meaning we could get into a situation where admissibility of evidence decides the case.

It's a good old fashioned sports brawl, but this one has chair shots.

Since it debuted in 2005, Guitar Hero has lured tens of millions of videogamers with rock ‘n’ roll fantasies. But let’s say your daydreams are less Flying V and more flying veery—you’d rather look through the binoculars of Peter Winter, once ranked the world’s top birder by the American Birding Association, than feel the weight of Tony Iommi’s or Carrie Brownstein’s guitar strap. Then Bird Song Hero, a new interactive site from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is the game for you.

Bird Song Hero helps train birders to recognize bird songs through spectrograms—visualizations of the audio frequencies of a bird’s call. Since bird songs are distinct, bird-watchers can use them to identify a species that’s out of sight. But the warbles and trills of, say, a Canyon Wren and a Field Sparrow sound awfully similar to an amateur. Spectrograms make it easier to commit them to memory by enlisting the visual side of your brain.

Bird Song Hero plays a short audio clip of a bird call and then asks you to select the corresponding spectrogram from three choices. The birdsongs start out straightforwardly enough but eventually devolve into atonal patterns that would make Schoenberg proud. Occasionally, a bit of misdirection is introduced by the inclusion of human whistling or even toy sounds.

Mya Thompson, who developed the game, points to studies showing the benefits of “multiple modes of learning that reinforce each other rather than overwhelm.” Pairing sounds with visualizations helps them sink in faster. But she told Quartz, “We’re mostly doing this because it’s fun.”

With only two levels and 50 different calls, you do go through the game pretty quickly. But maybe that’s the point—learn the basics, grab your Audubon guide, and get out there in the field.

The game’s introductory video and more screenshots are below.

Whoa, a new infinite 1-up trick for Super Mario Bros. ⊟

It’s E3 week, so expect lots of news from the bleeding edge of video game technology, like this amazing 1-up trick in Super Mario Bros., by S Haya (via Famicom no Neta). I can’t imagine the combination of virtuoso-level playing, tool-assisted replaying, and ingenuity that led someone to finally hit upon this method. Skip to 2:40 to see it in action!

Here’s how it works: start a two-player game in “hard mode,” die as Mario in 1-2, get to 5-2 as Luigi, die to a Hammer Bro while climbing a hidden vine, drop back into 1-2 as Mario, climb the bugged vine, and smack Buzzy Beetles a million times for easy 1-ups. Famicom no Neta’s Google-translated post calls this technique “violent buttocks.”

The best part is that if you have the skill to pull this thing off, you definitely don’t need any extra lives.

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First time accepted submitter Joe_NoOne (48818) writes "A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defense against fist fights. The bones most commonly broken in human punch-ups also gained the most strength in early hominin evolution. They are also the bones that show most divergence between males and females. From the article: 'Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many years, this extra strength was seen as an adaptation to a tough diet including nuts, seeds and grasses. But more recent findings, examining the wear pattern and carbon isotopes in australopith teeth, have cast some doubt on this "feeding hypothesis". "In fact, [the australopith] boisei, the 'nutcracker man', was probably eating fruit," said Prof David Carrier, the new theory's lead author and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah. Instead of diet, Prof Carrier and his co-author, physician Dr Michael Morgan, propose that violent competition demanded the development of these facial fortifications: what they call the "protective buttressing hypothesis".'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission.

Whenever you walk around a major Western city with your phone’s Wi-Fi turned on, you are broadcasting your location to government agencies, marketing companies and location analytics firms.

In shopping malls, for instance, a firm called Euclid Analytics collects, in its own words, “the presence of the device, its signal strength, its manufacturer (Apple, Samsung, etc.), and a unique identifier known as its Media Access Control (MAC) address.” In London last year, one start-up installed a dozen recycling bins that sniffed MAC addresses from passers-by, effectively tracking people through the area via their phones. Such companies go to great lengths to explain that such information in not personally identifiable—except that repeated studies have shown that this data can indeed be used to infer a great deal about your life.

At the core of such tracking is the MAC address, a unique identification number tied to each device. Devices looking for a Wi-Fi network send out their MAC address to identify themselves. Wireless routers receive the signals—and addresses—even if a connection is never made. Companies like Euclid or its peer Turnstyle Solutions use the data to track footfall in stores, how people move about in shops, how long they linger in certain sections, and how often they return. Store-owners use the information to target shoppers with offers (paywall) or to move high-value items to highly-trafficked parts of the shop, among other things.

Even though stores may not mine this data to try to identify individuals, there are plenty of legitimate privacy concerns about the data collection, especially since people tend to be unaware that it is happening. Apple’s solution, as discovered by a Swiss programmer, is for iOS 8, the new operating system for iPhones which will be out later this year, to generate a random MAC addresses while scanning for networks. That means that companies and agencies that collect such information will not necessarily know when the same device (i.e., person) visits a store twice, or that the same device pops up in stores across the country or the world, suggesting a much-travelled owner.

This is not the first time Apple has fiddled around with the way it administer MAC addresses. The current operating system for iPhones, iOS 7, prevents app developers from using MAC addresses to track how many people have installed their apps or to target ads—again, for privacy reasons. The change in iOS 8 has wider ramifications because it doesn’t just affect developers who build iOS apps, but any company that uses the nature of wireless networking to identify a device.

But while Apple’s move is good for its customers and for their privacy, it is not an invisibility cloak. If there is one thing we have learned from the past year of exposés about government snooping, it is that people are easily gulled into surrendering their online privacy. For example, stores increasingly offer customers free Wi-Fi to convince customers to linger longer, but also to extract valuable data from them, such as name and other basic personal information, browsing patterns, and more. Apple’s change to how MAC addresses are used won’t prevent that. By connecting to a Wi-Fi network, customers willingly give up such data and then some: A survey by Purple Wi-Fi, which provides tracking services for Wi-Fi networks to businesses in the UK, found that some 17% of consumers log on to internet banking from unsecured, public networks.

NEW YORK—Introducing key changes to the lottery system that governs the admissions process, the New York City Charter School Center notified potential students this week that openings will now be filled by randomly distributing white pills to applic...

Rik Mayall, the British comedian, writer and actor best known as Rick, the “pompous would-be anarchist” in the offbeat 1990′s sitcom The Young Ones, died at his home in London at the age of 56. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Rest in peace Rik. Your comic genius will be missed.

via BBC News

Finding the Lost Levels @ Polygon

Lost Levels is an attempt to make a videogame conference with as few restrictions as possible. It was formed in response to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, which is one of the world’s biggest conventions for developers. GDC is a for-profit venture and is put on by a publicly traded company whose concern is not just with videogames, but also its shareholders. Lost Levels is beholden to no one except its participants and has the freedom to be whatever they might want.

Lost Levels is “hyper-inclusive,” meaning anyone can give a talk about anything. Attendees take the invitation literally. On the second to last day of the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, a collection of developers, journalists and randoms descend on a nearby park to share insights on everything from goats to Jeff Goldblum.

“We are fostering a new sense of community,” Lee says. “Lost Levels was born out of a background of frustration, but centrally, celebration — celebration of diversity and things that weren’t being recognized.”

Such a diverse and seemingly unrelated group of talks is unusual. But after all, Lee says, “everything is interesting.”

Read the whole story here.

British Museum Curator Rosie Weetch discusses how she decodes the hidden symbols in Anglo-Saxon art on the museum’s blog here!

One of the most exquisite examples of Style I animal art is a silver-gilt square-headed brooch from a female grave on the Isle of Wight. Its surface is covered with at least 24 different beasts: a mix of birds’ heads, human masks, animals and hybrids. Some of them are quite clear, like the faces in the circular lobes projecting from the bottom of the brooch. Others are harder to spot, such as the faces in profile that only emerge when the brooch is turned upside-down. Some of the images can be read in multiple ways, and this ambiguity is central to Style I art.

Read more.

Popular stars of social media platforms like Vine and Instagram are making advertising deals with companies trying to reach their audiences.

Eclectic Method and Hungry Castle have joined forces to create “Hodor in Da House,” an electro house remix of the Game of Thrones theme song. The track is available to download in MP3 format from Soundcloud. Hodor t-shirts are available to purchase online at the Hungry Castle store.

image via Eclectic Method

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Controversial (maybe that should be “controversial”) experimental-rap outfit Death Grips has been defined as much by its image/publicity stunts—leaking its own record in order to piss off its label, putting a penis on an album cover, not showing up for Lollapalooza as some sort of statement—as its music (which is nonetheless occasionally great). Last night, the band continued its surprising, confounding schedule with the free-download release of Niggas On The Moon, the first half of a planned double album called The Powers That B. The band’s Facebook page says that this half-album features Björk on all eight tracks, but fans of the Icelandic pixie shouldn’t go in expecting big choruses—or even a terribly recognizable presence. Her voice seems to be sampled (though it may have been recorded specifically for this project), and it mostly provides color to the background: On “Black Quarterback” and “Big ...

nonomella:

Coraline is a masterfully made film, an amazing piece of art that i would never ever ever show to a child oh my god are you kidding me

With their first video a huge runaway hit (despite its vertical nature), the folks at Sunflower Farm Creamery in Cumberland Center, Maine have made two more (horizontal) videos that show their 44 baby Nigerian Dwarf goats going for an evening run.

Here’s the original video.

via Tastefully Offensive

them-witches:

#I wanna delete my whole blog and leave nothing but this