firehose

In the world of software, it's not unusual for things to get delayed. But for a project called Xanadu from Ted Nelson (who created the term for hypertext), that delay has spanned five decades, and could have led to the underpinnings of a very different internet if it had been completed sooner, or at all.

The project was originally created to help links sources within documents, embedding them alongside the work you're looking at. In Nelson's working example, which went live in April and was spotted by The Guardian, you can go down a page and see the eight other documents where sections are sourced from. Clicking on any will take you there without leaving the main document. What may seem like a very fancy bibliography was conceptualized as a way to organize vast troves of information and media from disparate sources, as well as keep it from breaking when links were changed.

"We screwed up in the 1980s."

"We foresaw in 1960 that all document work would migrate to the interactive computer screen, so we could write in new ways," the project's page says. "We screwed up in the 1980s, and missed our chance to be world wide hypertext (the Web got that niche). However, we can still compete with PDF, which simulates paper, by showing text connections." But there's still more work to be done before that can happen, including server integration that will let other people create their own "xanadocs," as well as support for media like photos and audio files.

Up until this working page, Project Xanadu was (and still is) considered the most-delayed software ever. In a 1995 feature story, Wired referred to it as "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing," adding that Nelson and his fellow developers had "set a record of futility that will be difficult for other companies to surpass." That claim could very well be right, but we won't know for sure until Xanadu is fully-baked. Whenever that is.

Signs from a net neutrality rally in Washington, DC, on May 15, 2014.

Photo by Joe SIlver

Cable companies that stand to benefit the most from an end to net neutrality have been bankrolling so-called “consumer advocacy” groups that aim to kill it.

Such non-profits like Broadband for America and the American Consumer Institute (ACI), both of which claim to be “independent consumer advocacy groups” and have been fighting against classifying ISPs as a utility (a move that would make it easier to enact net neutrality rules in the future), have been shown to be heavily funded by the cable industry.

According to a disclosure obtained by Vice from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), an ISP-supported trade group, most of Broadband for America’s recent $3.5 million budget comes from a $2 million donation from NCTA. Vice further uncovered that, based on its tax return filings, Broadband for America has retained the DCI Group, an "infamous lobbying firm," that Vice argues specializes in building fake consumer interest groups that actually serve corporate interests.

Flickr's redesign focused the site on big photos, clean layouts, and its apps.

Flickr

After vaguely announcing changes a few months ago, Yahoo has decided that it will stop accepting Facebook and Google logins at Flickr as of June 30. The move is part of Yahoo's emphasis on getting rid of its reliance on its competitors and trying to draw customers directly into its user base.

Yahoo started accepting other services' logins at Flickr three years ago after the photo-hosting platform had been in decline for some time. Two years ago, Mat Honan at Gizmodo wrote about how social media sites like Twitter and Instagram were eating Flickr's photo-sharing lunch, and even its utility as a photo archive was dwarfed by dedicated cloud-storage and syncing services like Dropbox. Flickr has since had a redesign, and Yahoo is ready for the site to stand on its own.

The move partially mirrors one of Google's initiatives to bring YouTube more firmly into the Google network by getting rid of the site's own logins, encouraging users to use their Google+ info. Fallout and shenanigans involving ASCII penises ensued.

Japanese pigeon dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend is coming to Windows PC and Mac this summer from Amateur Surgeon developer Mediatonic and publisher Devolver Digital.

The visual novel first launched as a limited release in 2011 before drawing in a loyal following of fans. Hatoful Boyfriend players take on the role of the only human in St. PigeoNation's prestigious school for birds where they can find a bird love interest while managing elective school classes.

"Our research shows that consumer fatigue for space marines and dragons is at an all-time high — gamers are ready for something new and fresh," said Devolver Digital CFO Fork Parker. "Semi-realistic pigeon dating simulations are the next great frontier in video games."

Marty O'Donnell, the composer of the Halo series and Destiny, is reportedly suing Bungie and chief executive Harold Ryan for unpaid benefits, including unpaid vacation time and time off, VentureBeat reports.

The suit, filed on May 1, claims that Bungie violated its agreement to pay employees for "unused vacation, paid time off, sabbatical time and other benefits." The document states that there are other, separate grievances against Ryan "that are being pursued in arbitration."

A response from Bungie was filed on May 27 denying all allegations.

The composer was let go on April 11 "without cause," according to a tweet he posted at the time and the original lawsuit.

O'Donnell joined the company in 2000 as an audio director. Most recently, he served as the audio director for Destiny. In an official statement on Bungie's website, the company confirmed O'Donnell's termination.

"Today, as friends, we say goodbye," the post reads. "We know that wherever his journey takes him, he will always have a bright and hopeful future.

"We wish him luck in all his future endeavors."

We've reached out to Bungie for comment and will update accordingly.

A sixth-generation iPod Nano, embedded in a watch band.

Aaron Muszalski

Apple is aiming to unveil its long-awaited wearable device this October, according to "people familiar with the plans" speaking to Re/code. Those sources also reaffirm rumors from this year that the gadget will include numerous sensors and other features that tie into iOS 8's new Health app and the HealthKit API that Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week.

Re/code (née AllThingsD) is typically a reliable source when it comes to Apple's timing—for example, it knew about Apple's last iPhone and iPad announcement dates several weeks before the company made them official. Apple has a history of giving access to the publication—Steve Jobs once referred to Co-Executive Editor Walt Mossberg as "[Apple's] friend" and Apple executives often speak at the publication's annual conference. All of this is to say that while "iWatch" rumors have come and gone over the years, Re/code is in a position to know.

The fall is shaping up to be pretty busy for Apple, which has announced no truly new hardware refreshes so far this year (reanimating the fourth-generation iPad and giving the 2013 MacBook Air a bump in speed don't really count). Intel will release new Broadwell CPUs this fall; Apple has already said that iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite will come out in the fall; new iPhones and iPads typically come out in the fall; and so far this decade the iPod lineup has gotten a makeover every two years or so. Our advice to Apple fans, especially since the company is apparently throwing a wearable on top of that pile: start saving your money now.

By Nathan Grayson on June 5th, 2014 at 7:00 pm.

Northern Shadow has the potential to be utterly immense. The plan? Fuse a Skyrim-like open-world RPG with a Banished-like city builder. Explore, build, interact with an AI-driven sandbox, go on quests, construct cities as you please – all of it. Oh, and it’s being developed by only two people. I’d say it sounds entirely impossible if not for the fact that the fantasy I’m-not-even-sure-what-you-call-this-er’s first trailer looked rather spiffy. I wanted to know more about the game’s inner workings, though, so I got in touch with developer Arda Güneş to find out how big the world will be, whether the game will be a true sandbox ala Mount and Blade, how city building and adventuring will fit together, how combat will work, what this summer’s Early Access release will contain, and tons more. It’s all below.

RPS: Northern Shadow looks positively massive. How big will it be, though? How big of a world are you making? Both above and underground?

Güneş: The world is divided between continental zones. We haven’t made a real life scale comparison, but each zone takes around 10 minutes between the farthest point to traverse by flying at player speed, and up to 20 minutes by running on foot. We are planning to have around 3 overworld zones like this. There is also an Underworld, which is divided into smaller chunks, but its total size is comparable to an overworld zone.

RPS: What will the underground world be like? Is it just a bunch of caves for mining, or is there more to it than that?

Güneş: Underground world is a sprawling complex of caves, underground cities, castles, ruins, and (literal) mazes.

RPS: It’s just you and one other person making the game, right? How do you do that? What is your work process like?

Güneş: I’m the programmer of our team. Taner is the level designer. Assets wise, we create some of the art assets ourselves, but try to handle most of it externally.

RPS: How long have you been at it? I guess for lack of a better way of phrasing it, how is this even possible, especially when there are only two people working on it? Have either of you ever done anything like this before?

Since our switch to Unity3D around Q4 of 2013, we’ve been prototyping with it. Full production started at the beginning of the year.

We’ve been working on different kinds of games for the past 3 years, but had to take breaks from time to time due to personal reasons. Some of the games were similar to this in scope, so we got experience as to what to expect, what would work and what would not.

RPS: You said you had to take breaks on other games due to personal reasons. Is that or has that ever been a possibility on Northern Shadow? Have there been any moments where you thought you might give up from the enormity of it all?

Güneş: Due to our previous experience, we know that to expect from the scope of the game, this allowed us to focus our development efforts and prevented us from biting more than we can chew. This has been an evolving idea for us, it is what we always wanted to make, so we never thought about giving up.

RPS: How will the gameplay work on a moment-to-moment level? What will players be doing? How will adventuring/exploring tie into rebuilding the kingdom?

Güneş: Players will be able to choose what to do to their liking. They can stay at a city and manage it, and their kingdom. When an event occurs, players can try to solve it by sending emissaries or soldiers. If they wish, they can take the matter into their own hands, and travel to different cities to negotiate agreements in person, or protect their realm by personally dealing with whatever threat that comes in their way. These could be anything from a damned soul putting a curse on your crops, to a rival kingdom increasing the cost of their food shipments to benefit from the situation at your expense.

RPS: How do you fit those systems together? I mean, the biggest fear I have after reading about your game is that building and adventuring might not work well together, or one/both might end up clunky. How are you avoiding that?

Güneş: How you build your cities will affect how you react to later situations. We put emphasis on solving problems by either staying at your kingdom, or by going adventuring yourself. One affects the other. Balance and harmony between those two is decided by the players themselves.

RPS: How much variety will there be in constructing cities? Will I be bringing back pre-made cities, or will I be able to arrange them as I please? Can I put buildings wherever I want?

Güneş: Different cities can have different focus. Some may focus on mining, some on production, some on producing food, depending on the cities surroundings or the players’ decisions.

You will be able to take pre-made cities for your own. Kingdom capitals won’t have the same layout flexibility of normal cities, but you will be able to change/improve the buildings in them.

Currently, we are using a slot zone system, but working on moving towards to a grid system, which will give players ability to build roads and buildings wherever they want within the city limits.

RPS: Will there be a set path through the story (quests, etc), or is this more of an open, evolving world ala Mount and Blade?

Güneş: In addition to the evolving sandbox world type of story experience, there is also going to be a main story, that will have different effects on the world with different arcs. It will be up to the player to decide if they want to follow the story or not.

RPS: Will I be able to play as a rat person? Or any race aside from human, for that matter? Also just to be certain, will I be able to play as a woman?

Güneş: You can only play as a human character. Yes, you will be able to play as a woman.

RPS: Are structures destructible at all? Does fire spread realistically, ala Far Cry?

Güneş: Buildings are completely destructible. Fire spreads realistically within the confines of a city. Outside of cities however, spreading is limited.

RPS: You mention a living world. What does that mean? Do NPCs have goals and priorities? If I, say, kill the owner of the bar that they go to, will they keep going to that bar, or will they be smart enough to find something else to do?

Güneş: NPCs can to adapt to their situations. They have basic needs in order to survive, like food, water and shelter. Once these needs are met, they require other things, such as jobs, happiness or social interaction. Since the cities players are going to build are dynamic, they will be able to recognize these changes.

Kingdoms can recognize the changing circumstances, and change their prioritizations. Invasion of a key iron mining operation can trigger a reaction from the big stockpilers to increase their prices, or stop trading them at all. This in turn, influences the effectiveness of the soldiers – which you can use to liberate the mines by sending them on special missions.

RPS: The battles toward the end of the trailer looked pretty large scale. Will I have control over those? Will I be able to issue orders and stuff? Or will my character just be one among many NPC-controlled combatants in those moments?

Güneş: Players can give variety of orders to their troops before a battle. These can be deployment orders, or orders on when to attack, what to attack. Once the battle starts, orders become harder to give and follow. You’ll have to depend on your messengers to give the orders, or step in yourself [to] order soldiers personally. How well they respond to the orders while in a battle depends on their level of training.

RPS: What will ground combat be like? How complex will it be? It looked kinda like Skyrim in the trailer, but Skyrim’s combat was pretty so-so, I thought. Are you trying to make yours better?

Güneş: In ground combat you will be able to use spells, and/or variety of weapons. For melee, there will be a number of different attacks and defending options. Timing and planning will be crucial, rather than spamming same attacks over and over again.

RPS: You say you have classic RPG systems, but then you also say combat will depend on skills – not statistics. Those things seem very contradictory. How does that work?

Güneş: This is a miscommunication from us. We wanted to emphasize that it is the players’ skill that will win the fights, rather than the raw amount of strength/stats that the characters will have. Player character and the weapons will have stats, and they will affect the combat, but the deciding factor will be the player. Your character will also have non-combat related skills and abilities, like speechcraft or herb lore.

RPS: How will character progression work? Are there set classes, or can I evolve my character as I please?

Güneş: Your character will have a variety of skills. You can improve those skills by performing actions associated to them. For example, your skill with different kinds of weapons will increase as you use those weapons in combat. Smithing skill will increase as you forge weapons or armor. There won’t be any set classes, you are free to use any skill, anytime you want. These skills can be affected by the city’s equipment and craftsmen.

RPS: How much of the game will be included in the early access release this summer?

Güneş: Early access will have the core gameplay. Different continental zones and sections of the underworld will be opened up to gameplay with updates. Character creation and the main story will be added in time as well.

RPS: Thank you for your time.