firehose

A rare Red Panda cub was born in July at Lincoln Children's Zoo in Nebraska. Baby Lincoln, as zookeepers are calling him, is currently being hand-raised because his mother is unable to care for him. He is one of only four Red Panda cubs in the country being hand-raised. Lincoln spends his days in an incubator with around-the-clock care, and is growing stronger and healthier every day. Like his older brothers, Rusty and Wayne, he will eventually move to another zoo. Zookeepers named him Lincoln to represent the city of Lincoln and state of Nebraska when he moves to a new home in the future. 

Photo credits: Lincoln Children's Zoo

See a video of the cub in his nursery:

See and read more after the fold.

Red Pandas are not closely related to Giant Pandas; rather, they belong in their own unique group that is more closely related to weasels. They are native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. Fully grown, they are slightly larger than domestic cats. Red Pandas spend most of their time in trees, eating a variety of fruits, leaves and eggs. Their long bushy tails are excellent for balance, and also serve as a cozy wrap-around scarf for the Red Panda in cold weather. 

Although protected throughout most of their range, Red Pandas are threatened by poaching and habitat loss. They have been classified as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Species; it is estimated that there are fewer than 10,000 adult Red Pandas. When he eventually moves to a new zoo, Lincoln will be a valuable addition to the coordinated breeding effort that aids Red Panda conservation. 

An apparent bug in Apple's iOS 7 software is repeatedly logging users out of several apps like Mailbox, Snapchat, and Loom. The Verge has confirmed the issue directly with a few of the affected companies. Mailbox has said that it spent the last few days "in crisis mode" to find a solution. None of the sources we've spoken with have successfully solved the log-in problem thus far, but Mailbox submitted an update last Friday to the App Store that removes background refresh entirely in order to temporarily solve the problem.

If Apple's debut of the Touch ID fingerprint scanner is any indication, the company realizes that people hate typing in passwords over and over again. Persistent issues with log-ins are enough to dissuade some users from opening apps, say developers — especially if it isn't obvious that the issue is being worked on proactively.

App developers are more likely to have problems with their apps shortly after the release of a new version of iOS, but in this case, the issue might not lie with their code. It's telling that companies with tens of millions of users are all experiencing the same issue. Sources say that the issue lies in a new iOS 7 API that lets apps fetch data in the background without being open. Mailbox has explicitly stated that "the root cause lies in Apple's new Background Refresh feature." Turning off Background Refresh in Settings has proven to alleviate the log-in issues, but that also means your apps can't check for updates in the background — one of the most important features in iOS 7, since it keeps your apps up to date even when you're not using them.

"Honestly I don't know what the problem is," said one developer readying his app for an upcoming iOS 7 launch, "but it looks like it's Apple." The problem is a frustrating one for developers, who have little choice but to flood Twitter with support tweets, but also for Apple, since many users are blaming the company's new software for their problems.

Microsoft unveiled its new Surface 2 tablet today, but there weren't many app changes or Windows 8.1 updates beyond what the company has already announced. However, 57 seconds into a promotional video for the new Surface 2, an odd looking Windows 8 user interface can be seen. It's clearly marked as Windows 8 in the lower right, but it includes the old Start Menu and some other non-standard UI customizations. While Microsoft has continually pushed the idea of its Start Screen and "Metro" interface, whoever put together the video clearly prefers the company's legacy layout.

We reached out to Microsoft for comment and a company spokesperson says the inclusion of a Start Menu in the Surface 2 promo video was a mistake. A new copy of the video is being uploaded to replace the one with a Start Menu. If you're a Start Menu fan, then unfortunately it's not a subliminal marketing trick to hint at its return. The Start button may have made a return, but the Start Menu is truly dead.

The registration booth outside at the Boston Festival of Indie Games was still a hive of activity Saturday as the showcase floors began to clear out. Overseeing the outdoor areas of Boston FIG, Caroline Murphy, a main coordinator for the festival, returned her radio to its shoulder holster and confirmed: Nearly 7,500 attendees.

Once again an all-volunteer army had brought together thousands of gamers of all ages to celebrate the growing culture of indie gaming in the city of Boston.

Despite flying under the gaming community radar for the second year in a row, the Boston Festival of Indie Games hosted almost 130 unique independently developed games, drawing submissions mostly from New England and nearby Montreal. Veteran development teams from sponsor companies were easy to spot, with polished graphic displays and multiple machines for festival attendees. Others brought little more than their game, with nothing but a laptop and a hand drawn sign to indicate their presence. Indies invited the Boston gaming community to spend time with their untried ventures, asking for critical feedback and (hopefully) a digital vote in the Figgies Award competition in return.

In order to support the growing BFIG demand for 2013, the festival's staff turned to Kickstarter. The project asked for $15,000 to support necessities like larger space rental, and travel expenses to attract stronger keynote speakers. At the same time organizers also promised that no funds would go towards paying event staff.

Ending with $17,832 from less than 400 backers, the organizers began the process of trying to live up to expectations.

After complaints in 2012 that the cramped space and un-air conditioned classrooms detracted from the experience, festival organizers moved the showcases out of classrooms and into the MIT Athletic center. Unfortunately the new space was also not designed to support the show, and for several hours during the busy afternoon, almost half the digital showcase lost power or suffered continual power surges. Joe Maribello of Terrible Posture Games was forced to shut down one of his two popular demo stations for Tower of Guns after a power surge resulted in a smoking machine. Similarly, the Blocks of Explosive Dismemberment booth was unable to accommodate play testers for most of the morning when local area wireless networks supported by the venue failed.

Despite setbacks and frustrations, the feel in the digital showcase room was like the glee, anticipation and geekery of a high school science fair, especially with unconventional displays for games like a blanket fort for Depression Quest.

"If there's something that doesn't exist that you want to exist, make it happen."

In the MIT Stratton Student center, over 30 independently designed tabletop game submissions attracted analog game fans, and filled the space nearly to overflowing.

Prototype Castles of Carabaga consistently filled rounds with its maximum allowed four players, and at one point had a wait three games deep. Developer David Wilkinson actively solicited feedback from observers of each match, offering written surveys to players who inquired about release information, and offered up a chance to win the game's prototype in exchange for an email address.

Fighting for attention at a nearby table, colorful waterproof table lining called curious gamers to Ice Cubris, a game of stacking cubes of real ice on a precarious platform. While most tables showed copies of painstakingly hand cut cards, pieces or boards, a surprising number of titles were available for sale at the festival or included manufactured figurines and glossy machine-cut cardstock. Ideas that may never get a chance at traditional commercial publication because of their impracticality drew crowds in the Boston FIG tabletop showcase.

Surprisingly, families with children made up a large part of the crowd. Mike Flood, lead designer for Play Nimbus shared a realization the Wobbles team had early in the festival.

"We didn't design [Wobbles] for kids, I mean sure a kid could play, but the three star levels are pretty challenging. We had a four year old just walk up and get it, we definitely weren't expecting that."

This was a common theme throughout the festival, as developers took this unexpected audience to task and actively gathered feedback from children and families on games originally not developed for them. The BFIG crowd seemed to be largely compiled of families with children ages 4-9, a much different demographic than Boston's big gaming event, PAX East.

"Boston is really just independent, they did such a great job here showing the indie culture."

For many, the festival was all about the chance to hear from some of the more than 20 speakers hosting keynotes and DevTalks at BFIG. Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail recounted his surprise at how strong of a show the volunteers had put on, reveling "I never realized how many companies are here developing with no real publisher on hand. Boston is really just independent, they did such a great job here showing the indie culture."

After a last minute invite from the festival, Ismail flew in between scheduled events to host a brief DevTalk, where he advised a lecture hall of hopeful creatives with a message that the volunteer staff of the event could surely relate to: "If there's something that doesn't exist that you want to exist, make it happen."

Nicole Tompkins-Hughes is a mom moonlighting as a freelance journalist; when not working as a paralegal or behind the scenes of Polygon as a community moderator, she's a featured correspondent on GameSkinny.

No doubt capitalizing on the launch of the new iPhone 5S, NBC polled the US House of Representatives to ask a simple question: what kind of smartphone do you use? The results are that they overwhelmingly prefer the iPhone, to the tune of 58 percent. The runner-up is, unsurprisingly, BlackBerry at 23 percent, while Android is a very distant third at four percent. There's a small difference between Republicans and Democrats, with the former using iOS slightly more and the latter using BlackBerry at higher rates.

Android's very poor showing amongst House members could be due to a variety of factors — including questions about security and the cold, hard facts of congressional demographics. Whatever the reason, Congress is not in step with the rest of the country, where Android's marketshare is obviously much, much higher. Perhaps the platform will be a future beneficiary of a BlackBerry exodus given that company's recent disastrous news and subsequent decision to focus on the enterprise.

NBC says that it surveyed congress over a two-week period and received responses from 88 percent of members. Comments regarding Congress finally being able to agree on something, political bias, and whether or not House members enjoy video poker as much as their Senate counterparts are left as an exercise for the reader.