YouTube has added a slow motion (‘slomo’) feature to its Enhancements and YouTube editor tools. It allows you to add a smooth slow motion effect to your video, and it will look like it was filmed with a high speed camera.
The effects are surprisingly good, as you can see in the Times Square example video below. Even when video is slowed down to 1/8 speed, it still looks smooth. Open the YouTube editor, and drag one of your videos into a new project. Hover the mouse over the video and click on the magic wand to open the effects tool. Here you can add ‘slomo’ to your videos.
The YouTube editor is a really simple tool, which can really improve your uploaded videos if you spend a little time with it. As well as slow motion, you can alter the brightness and contrast, pan and zoom, stabilize and toggle Black and White mode. You can also add text, as well as audio really easily.
Free Minecraft account users won’t be able to guarantee keeping their user names unless they the game by June 3rd. Mojang Support Manager Marc Watson tweeted the news today.
If you’re sitting on an unpaid Minecraft username, upgrade before June 3rd or you may not be able to upgrade it later help.mojang.com/customer/porta…
Originally, you signed up to Minecraft with a free or paid ‘Minecraft account’. With this, you logged in with a username and password. Mojang is migrating people to newer ‘Mojang accounts’, which require you to log in with an email address and password.
If you have a free account, you could lose your username if you don’t migrate to a Mojang account before June 3rd. You can not get a free Mojang account – you only get one if you buy Minecraft. Paid accounts will also have to migrate, but there is no chance of losing their usernames. After June 3rd, if someone buys Minecraft they will be able to register with your free account username, meaning you won’t be able to have it when you buy the full game.
One of the most common complaints fired at Apple is that its operating systems are closed, and don’t allow as much customization as others like Android. While it’s not a cut and dry issue, at All Things D’s D11 conference, CEO Tim Cook hinted that Apple may open up some of its APIs in future.
He didn’t expand much on the issue, but this suggests that developers could make apps better integrated into iOS in the future. Siri might be able to control more 3rd party apps, for example, and it could open the door to features like Facebook’s Chat Heads being available outside of the app.
It’s unlikely iOS will ever be as customizable as Android though. Cook made the point that people pay Apple to ‘make choices on their behalf.’ Tightly controlling the iOS experience is what makes it so stable and reliable. Nevertheless, a little more openness might boost innovation in iOS apps.
At D11, Cook also confirmed that Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple has been key to changes coming in iOS 7. This adds further weight to all the rumors that the next version of iOS will have a flatter, more minimal design.
New screenshots have emerged for The Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda and ZeniMax Online’s highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game. We expect to see much more of the game at this year’s E3 in Los Angeles.
The new images show more of the variety we’ll see on the vast continent of Tamriel. There’s the beautiful deserts of Hammerfall, the port of Daggerfall, as well as Aldcroft and Stormhaven. The screenshots also show a battle with two giant snakes.
We don’t know a great deal about the story in The Elder Scrolls Online, but it’s set around a 1000 years before the events of Skyrim, and chronicles three factions fighting for control of Cyrodil, the capital of the empire. The game will feature both third and first person views.
Google+ for Android received the photo and profile updates announced at Google I/O last week. Now iOS users are receiving a new update for Google+ that brings it to the same level as the Android app.
New Google+ Photos features keep photos organized and looking their best
Make your photos look even better with Auto Enhance
Browse highlights from all your photos
Share short animations, panoramas, and more
Hangouts has moved to it’s own app for messaging and video calls
Discover interesting content via related hashtags
Ability to edit more profile fields and upload a cover photo
New interactive Google Offer posts in the stream
Control how often What’s Hot posts appear in your stream
Support for displaying strikethrough text
Ability to edit comments
Ability to copy the post’s permalink
The iOS app also includes the redirect to the Hangouts app for iOS to allow Google contacts to communicate with each other on either operating system.
While the name Techland may not be familiar, games they’ve developed, like the Dead Island series and Call of Juarez, should be more recognizable. Its newest in-development title, Hellraid, is described as a “first person co-op slasher”. This is a very similar description to Dead Island, but it goes into a different direction with a blending of “classic hack & slash” with a “more advanced combat system based on timing and precision”.
That’s a lofty goal and sounds very much like a continuation of the gameplay seen in Dead Island. Since not much detail about Hellraid is known, Techland released a question and answer about the game. With a planned 2013 release on current generation consoles and PC, there isn’t a lot of time before it’s out, especially as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are due to hit shelves at the end of the year.
Based on the new screens and teaser trailer, it’s safe to assume that Hellraid will be a game for a more mature audience.
What is Hellraid?
We’re calling Hellraid a first-person co-op slasher. We invented this genre to capture the idea behind our game, which blends elements of classic hack & slash titles with a more advanced combat system based on timing and precision, RPG’s, shooters and multiplayer games into one unique experience seen in very immersive, first-person perspective.
Will gamers experience Hellraid only in co-op? What is the main difference between playing solo and in co-op?
Hellraid can be experienced both in single-player and in co-operation. While playing solo you explore the world, complete quests, gather loot and develop your character. In co-operation tension rises when you struggle to achieve mission goals while competing with your friends for points granted for each kill, team-plays and automatically generated challenges throughout the game.
What does the gameplay in Hellraid look like?
In Hellraid you travel between levels using a web of magic portals. Each level can be played an unlimited number of times to complete the story campaign, side quests and to defeat forces of evil with friends while competing for experience, points, rewards and places on leaderboards. During the game players can use a variety of melee, ranged and magical weapons. Combat is expanded with a set of unique active skills for each character class which gives the team additional tactical capabilities while searching for treasure, completing objectives, avoiding deadly traps, fighting the hordes of enemies and boss battles.
Will gamers be able to develop their characters, or customize the weapons and armor?
Each of the four character classes available in Hellraid (Warrior, Mage, Paladin and Rogue) will have their own skill tree that can be developed during the game. Along with that players can customize their weapons using an advanced crafting system or change their combat capabilities and appearance with armor that can be bought in shops, traded between the players or found during the game.
Who or what is Game Master?
Game Master is a complex system inspired by pen and paper role-playing games that makes each play through of Hellraid a different, completely new experience. In co-operation mode, Game Master carefully selects competitive challenges for players and awards the best ones at the end of each level. It changes where and how you and your friends complete quests, placement, numbers and types of enemies you encounter as well as deploying treasure chests and loot.
Will Game Master work in single-player as well?
Yes, Game Master will alter the experience in single-player the same way it does in co-op but without the competitive challenges which are unique for playing with your friends.
How long is Hellraid and when it will be released?
Thanks to Game Master and the varied experiences that it provides, Hellraid will give players hundreds of hours of pure fun. The game will be released in 2013 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Opera has announced the release of Opera Next 15, available for Windows and Mac. Despite not mentioning it in its blog post, the biggest news is the abandonment of the rendering engine Presto, in favor of WebKit, the engine of Chrome and Safari.
For better or worse, Opera Next 15 now looks closer to Chrome than ever before. There’s a unified search and address bar, which is quickly becoming the standard among browsers. There are also new configuration options. The Opera Mail client has been split off from the desktop browser, and can now be downloaded as a standalone app, again for Windows or Mac.
The move to WebKit will be short-lived, as shortly after Opera announced the change, Google itself announced the development of its own web browser engine Blink. This will be used in future versions of Chrome and Opera too.
Opera Next 15 has some other improvements. Speed Dial has been cleaned up, and now looks much brighter. There is a new feature called Stash, where you can store pages temporarily. Opera describes this as a ‘back pocket for your browser.’ Discover is like an Opera home page delivering curated content from a single place, with 13 categories and 30 languages.
SCS Software has released new screenshots for the first Euro Truck Simulator 2 downloadable extension pack, which promises a big map expansion, covering the rest of Poland, plus Slovakia and parts of Hungary.
The eastward expansion of the game, according to the developer blog, is out of respect for the incredible popularity of the game in Poland. SCS says it will look at other parts of Europe like Spain, Russia or Scandinavia once this DLC is completed. There is still no release date for this Euro Truck Simulator 2 expansion pack, but it will be announced ‘soon’.
As well as an expanded map, the expansion pack will feature ‘more objects, new objects, improved forests with larger density,’ and improve game speed on average machines. The original Euro Truck Simulator 2 will still be patched and updated too, so you will not be forced to buy the DLC pack to get the game running as well as possible.
Check below the break for a full gallery of Euro Truck Simulator 2 DLC screenshots.
One of the things we liked most about Google Hangouts, Google’s new messaging app, are the emoticons and emojis. They’re unique, cute and well-designed, so it’s easy to find and recognize them.
Just like in Whatsapp, Google Hangouts’ emoticons are divided into categories: classic emoticons and gestures, special occasions and activities, the natural world, the urban world and abstract icons.
If you want to check them all out – and there are lots! – have a look at the following tables we’ve made up for you. Since we’re on the subject, though, we want to know – what app do you think has the nicest emoticons? Continue reading “New emoji and emoticons for Google Hangouts”
Mojang, the developer of indie phenomenon Minecraft has announced the open beta of its next game, Scrolls. On June 3rd, you will be able to buy access to the game on Windows and Mac for $20. Like Minecraft, it will be fully playable at launch, and regularly updated with new features.
Watch the trailer for Scrolls below. It is a fantasy strategy role playing game. It combines trading card gaming (like Magic: the Gathering) with board game ideas, and looks like an interesting attempt to make a strategy card game that’s accessible.
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Scrolls is Mojang’s third game, after Minecraft and the still in development side scrolling action game Cobalt. It almost wasn’t called Scrolls, after the The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda claimed copyright over the word ‘scrolls’. Thankfully they managed to reach an agreement allowing Mojang to continue using the name in 2012.
Card trading games have a huge following, but haven’t really crossed over to the mainstream. Can Notch’s touch make Scrolls the next Minecraft?
