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Comedic Legend Robin Williams To Be Memorialized In WoW

Posted: 18 Aug 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Robin Williams Change Petition WoW image

An online petition sparks the initiative to memorialize the comedian and Oscar-winning film star in the virtual planes of Azeroth.

The immediate death of Robin Williams on Monday was a painful shock, and the vast outpouring of love for the popular comedian and Oscar-winning film star over social media in the days after only proves how truly loved he was to people of all ages. Especially, for fans of Blizzard Entertainment's popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

Days after his untimely passing, an online petition on Change.org was made to ask Blizzard to "create an NPC within the game that memorializes the actor/creator." Williams was a huge WoW compatriot himself and even admitted as much in frequent interviews.

World of Warcraft, which has a player base of about 6.8 million people, has been known to build the kind of tight-knit communities that mirror large, loving families, and like they would for one of their own, the turnout to support the online petition was very successful. In mere hours the petition reached over 10,000 signatures, gaining the attention of media outlets across the web.

Awesome for sure, but without the blessing of Blizzard themselves, no amount of signatures or Kotaku blogs could magically make their collective request become true. Thankfully, in this age of social accessibility, someone on Twitter managed to ask a technical game designer on World of Warcraft if they had seen the petition, and their response confirms - while not outright – that their wish will be granted.

Again, not an official commitment, but creating an in-game memorial to a person has never been out of the question for Blizzard.

In the past, the developer has posthumously honored many people of importance, e.g., the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior, an in-game memorial dedicated to nineteen-year-old Michel Koiter, who was a World of Warcraft illustrator at Blizzard and died of heart failure during the game's development in 2004.

Here's hoping Blizzard comes along and shares their plans for a Robin Williams memorial NPC quite soon – one Blizzard employee, lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas, has confirmed to the Assoicated Press that memorial ideas are being considered as we speak.

If done, it would be an amazing gesture for an amazing person who brought so much laughter and happiness to people across this blue little orb we call Earth. Be sure to follow the Robin Williams WoW memorial Change.org petition through this link, and we'll be sure to keep you in the loop on any further news on this story.

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The 25 best Android games of all time

Posted: 18 Aug 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Deus-Ex-The-Fall

It’s not like the Android platform is anywhere close to dying, as it keeps growing every year, but these are our picks for the best games up until August 2014.

We’ve all been there, you just go looking for something to play on your new Android phone, and end frustrated at the lack of depth in most mobile games, or even worse, finding a decent game only to find out it is plagued by intrusive micro-transactions. Lucky for you, along we come to find games that, more simple or more complex, offer a whole experience and can be enjoyed from start to end without your wallet having to suffer other than the initial entry cost if you don’t want to.

What you see here are our picks for the best Android games of all time… up to August 2014. Now you know our criteria, and know what we’re all about, so how about we jump straight into those recommendations? And no, you already know about Angry Birds, we don’t need to mention it.

 

3D-Printed Food Could Soon Feed the Planet

Posted: 18 Aug 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Pizza

As meal makers look for more ways to make food that's both nutritious and incapable of spoiling, 3D printers could be the chefs of the future.

How do you like your eggs in the morning? Freeze dried and completely unlike the delicious runny yolks you'd usually find in any diner worth its salt? Well me too! I jest, but that sort of God awful meal plan is what many soldiers around the globe are subject to. As it stands, a lot of the meat they eat is imitation and the dough and cheese and other products that you'd expect to be 'fresh' are made in such a way that they're incapable of going mouldy. It would be disastrous if an entire platoon of soldiers suddenly got sick because someone didn't realise that a loaf of bread was a couple of days past its use by date. Food like this also means that soldiers get the nutrition they need to do their country defending duty – the problem is, it's probably the most unappetising thing that you could imagine. So roll on 3D printed food then, which the US Army is considering to expand its diet.

The plan, according to Army Magazine, is to use something called "ultrasonic agglomeration" to fuse particles with ultrasonic waves in an effort to provide more meal options. Not only would that make 'imitation pork ribs' a thing of the past (these are genuinely a real thing) it would also mean that specific meals could be put together for specific tastes and dietary needs. Got a bit of scurvy? 3D print something with citrus fruit in it to get the feeling in your gums back. Need to bulk up for a special operation? 3D printed carbohydrates for your diet!

Part of the US Army's project involves a compact unit that would be capable of turning foraged items (tree bark, berries, you name it) into actual meals. As well as that being incredibly useful for soldiers, if they were rolled out to countries that typically suffer from famine, or just to us non-military people in general it could genuinely change the lives who usually go hungry because they cannot afford food of have no way of accessing proper nutrition. It's unclear if the US Military would be willing to share its nutritional trade secrets with the rest of us, but it's a nice thought regardless.

Source: Army Magazine

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Facebook Tests “Satire” Tag, Ruins All Humor

Posted: 17 Aug 2014 01:40 PM PDT

Facebook Satire Tag

The social network is concerned that some people can’t tell real news from the ones published on sites like The Onion, fact that determined it to implement a new tag: “Satire.”

If I’m not mistaken, a news network picked up at some point some information that had been published on The Onion and passed it to its audience as real data. Such cases gave the rest of us a good laugh, but Facebook means to put an end to that, in a move that suggests that the social network thinks its users are stupid. The new “Satire” tag will precede the titles of articles from The Onion and other (currently unknown) websites.

In a statement issued to Ars Technica, a Facebook spokesperson mentioned that “We are running a small test which shows the text "[Satire]" in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units.”

Statements like this one make you wonder who gives this kind of feedback to Facebook. It’s good to know that the Satire tag won’t be slapped to The Onion articles by default, though. It’ll only appear on related articles, after visiting a The Onion article that has been previously shared by one of your friends. While this means that for the time being the tag isn’t very intrusive, it also gives the world an idea about how low of an IQ the world has in Facebook’s eyes.

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