A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Areal developers call out journalists after allegations of being a Kickstarter scam >>> Polygon
West Games' recently stated in a campaign update that Russian president Vladimir Putin allegedly emailed the game studio about access to the game's alpha.
The saga of Areal, a Kickstarter project to build a spiritual successor to cult classic game STALKER, is weird enough. But that Putin letter cannot be real... right?
Meet your digital butler: a 'Social OS' >>> WSJ
The sum of all these contextual apps is, for now, a kind of ambient awareness of the contents of my day that I suppose more organised and less distractible people have known for years.
We've been promised this sort of awareness since the dawn of the PDA. Could it nearly be upon us? I hope so, I've already double-booked myself once this week.
Hands on: Honda Uni-Cub review >>> TechRadar
Zipping around a room of journalists and Honda execs I felt and looked a tad ridiculous. But judge me all you want, one day you'll all be doing it.
And therein lies the problem.
Latest Argos tablets to start at £80 - prices, specs >>> Wired UK
Available from 26 July, the new range will consist of tablets measuring 7 inches, 7.85 inches and 10.1 inches. In the two larger models Argos has beefed the MyTablet's processor up from a 1.6GHz dual-core processor to a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, which promises a significantly speedier performance.
Let's hope they're a little better quality than the last one.
iPhone 6: new photos could confirm light-up Apple logo notifications >>> Uswitch
Tellingly, the plastic part looks to have been made thin enough that light can easily shine through to alert you to updates and other important messages.
Another battery-sapping feature, that. Of course it could be a window for the antennae...
Cortana will hit the UK in 'less than two weeks' >>> TechRadar
Responding to someone on Twitter, Marcus Ash, Group Program Manager of Cortana, said: "Barring an unforeseen issue, down to less than 2 weeks for the developer preview."
Cortana's coming to the UK. About time too. Will she have a different accent though?
How Bungie developed Destiny for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4 and PS3 >>> Digital Trends
"I'll speak for the hypothetical player," Wolfson explains. "I have a disadvantage sniping across the map because [my opponent with a next-gen console] is only two pixels on my screen and I'm four pixels on his. You see that in the world of PC gaming, where people are always racing to the best video card to give themselves the advantage."
Damn those pixels. And those camping snipers, they're the worst. Ruining it for all us cross-platform players.
Star Citizen: Chris Roberts assures us that all the funds are used for development >>> Load The Game
Cloud Imperium Games' Star Citizen is widely known as being the most successful crowd-funded title in gaming history. The record was set back in November 2012 when the game managed to raise over 4.2 million dollars in only about a month or so. But the fund raising campaign didn't stop there however, and is still on-going to this day. As of this writing, Star Citizen managed to raise the impressive sum of almost $50 million.
Around $50m is a ludicrously high sum for a crowdfunded game to have in its coffers. For Star Citizen, that largely reflects its fairly innovative model of, essentially, F2P upgrades before the game has even launched, with some backers paying hundreds of dollars for the ability to start the game with better spaceships. But with that amount of cash behind it, the pressure for the devs to not mess up is strong. Will they be able to make it work?
UK creative industries and ISPs partner in major new initiative to promote legal online entertainment >>> BPI
The campaign will aim to inform and encourage consumers - ranging from the next generation of digital users to 'silver-surfers' - about the huge range of entertainment content that is available from legal and licensed sources; giving them greater confidence when buying and using content online and providing additional guidance about internet safety.
Of course, if they choose to ignore the four educational letters nothing will happen. No teeth to this.
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