#That's not even getting into the wider robotics community this kind of character would be a part of

[mathewryf]

That would be HILARIOUS

finding out how competitive the scientific field is is so funny. i wish there were more scientist characters in sonic. i wish there was one scientist in particular who hated eggman's guts and just wanted to be better than him. who submitted all his findings for peer review, went thru the legit avenues, and got all the recognition in the field of robotics. not out of genuine love for the science but out of spite. he sees eggman committing all these ethical transgressions and just goes "man, fuck this guy. i'm gonna show him how it's done." and ends up winning a nobel prize. and eggman is SO mad. he's furious. this isn't like starline who sucks up to eggman. no. this guy wants eggman's credibility to burn. "can he REALLY be a genius if he's never gotten a paper published in a reputable journal? :/c" type shit. it's so petty. i think that would be SO FUNNY

[rei-ismyname]

Uncanny X-Men #11 review

X-Manhunt is upon us, as everyone drops what they're doing to pay attention to almost everyone's least favourite mutant - Charles Xavier. The team dynamic is getting stranger as Rogue puts the 'danger' in Danger Room, Logan grows ever wider, and The Podcaster asks the X-Men for help.

Maybe the Podcaster is a mutant who can sense plot points

Yet another X-Book introduces a confusing dose of Space Bullshit, as Xandra, Xavier's Shi'Ar Empress daughter, is attacked by rebels. That's pretty much a Tuesday for her and it's the only kind of plot she's ever used for. Chuck's terrible parenting is the last motivation I expected for his escape, but cosmic Marvel is experiencing upheaval of late so I guess it's as good a reason as any. I'd think that Jean/Phoenix could and would solve the issue instantly, but as we'll see Xavier is not thinking clearly. Or maybe he is and this is all a trick - the narrative is not interested in answering these questions right now. It doesn't really matter that Xavier has only met his daughter once, nor is it explained why she cries to him for help. Deathbird, as usual, fails at everything she attempts. Strange that she's her only guard.

I wouldn't think prisoners crying would be a noteworthy occurrence in this hellhole, but Chuck having a heart attack would remove Graymalkin's reason for existing. I assume he's feeling the strain of telepathic communication across the galaxy plus watching his daughter's attack in real time. The Podcaster's character continues to be baffling - in a better book I'd speculate on the implications of her flat, cackling villainy.

The whole reason Xavier is locked up in the first place is because he won't keep his brain to himself. Scurvy usually keeps him locked down, but Scurvy is recovering from the thrashing Chuck gave him during the Raid. If they have the ability to sedate him/use power dampeners, why don't they use them all the time? Obviously the plot couldn't happen without it but it makes these clowns look even more incompetent than usual. He casually freed himself during the Raid and chose to stay and they've been letting him use his powers this whole time?

The imaginatively named Secret Alliance has succeeded in capturing Xandra, and she's a powerful enough telepath to contact Chuck across the galaxy but that's her best shot. Sure, he's not getting there very quickly though, unless Lila Cheney is around. Charles Xavier IS a terrible father, no doubt about it, and he admits it every so often. He never actually does anything different though, so I guess this is growth? Maybe.

Checking in with the team whose book this is ... hold up, that is the thickest Logan I've ever seen. A secondary mutation perhaps? Anyway, it looks like we're doing the makeshift Danger Room thing with the kids again. I'd love for the events of the last two issues to be discussed in some way, but that's not really how Uncanny rolls. Sure, the kids need training since they want to be doing this X-Men thing but they've just had a protracted fight to the death with killer robot dogs. Deathdream nearly died. Rogue is thinking they need to be hurt more for unexplained reasons, and I strongly doubt anyone has ever thought the Danger Room is fun. Maybe Scott.

Moonbeam orders Gambit to blow Jitter up, knocking her down and bringing fun time to an end. Really not selling Rogue as a leader here - WTF is this meant to teach anyone? Poor thing starts crying and at last a member of this team calls Rogue out, briefly. Rogue explains herself by rattling off a wiki entry on 'X-men villains' including Omega Red - who really shouldn't be there.

Sometimes, when I'm playing an RPG like Fallout or Elder Scrolls and I'm bored I'll save the game then just go to town blowing shit up and killing people. Or if I'm looking for exploits/messing with engine physics I'll just interact with objects in odd ways. That's kinda what this feels like, a random act of violence just to see some explosions. Rogue exists in a narrative and genre where suspension of disbelief is required, but I can't suspend it for this. Is Gail Simone the RPG player, maybe? It's her world. I have no idea, but it's incredibly jarring.

Ember is definitely side-eying Rogue

Training is over and nobody learned anything. Jubilee calls it and uses Cyclops as an insult. Oookay. I'm not going to bother dissecting that. This lot hate Cyclops for reasons unknown and if it hasn't been explained by now it never will. I accept it, I just think it's weak characterisation. Jubes and Kurt's disapproval is overshadowed by Ground Bear and Gambit agreeing that it was a good idea. I have to laugh at this - it's just so ridiculous. The X-Men aren't the same characters from issue to issue, let alone any kind of continuity with previous runs. They do things for reasons and everything works out fine.

No time for any character exploration - The Podcaster has sent a plane to pick them up and calls requesting help like the friends they're not. Why not? I'm not taking any of these characters seriously anyway, may as well have the X-Men collaborate with someone who threatened to blow up their town. Someone who enslaves and tortures mutants in what used to be their house.

Also, this is a thing that happens. A guard at Graymalkin just blows his family away. Not sure why a Graymalkin jackboot would shoot Sentinels, but it makes as much sense as anything else. Sure it's probably linked to the 'virus' that's going around, that's probably linked to Xavier. Or maybe it's something else entirely. This book doesn't exactly reward or incentivise speculation, so I'll just wait until they beat me over the head with it.

I was just thinking this issue could do with Sarah Gaunt in it. She's been quiet for an entire arc. Xavier asks her to free him and while she still hates him she does it anyway. I guess those comically large chains she was bound with in Raid on Graymalkin do nothing, as she can come and go as she pleases - or destroy all his restraints without moving. Doesn't matter, Chuck is out of his chains now. Nothing new about either character here and Sarah went from 'fuck you' to 'sure, I'll help you' very quickly.

Xavier opens his door to find his X-Men there to help him. It's the Uncanny team but he sees them as a warped version of the O5. They're here for ... I don't know why they're here tbh. The tumor mentioned by Scurvy is apparently a thing, I'm just not sure what these folks are meant to do about that. That he's hallucinating is new. I feel like the sedative would have been enough to sell it, though I have been saying that Xavier is going to die for a while now. Rehabilitation through death, it's a Xavier classic. Tumours are already mutations so I don't know what a mutant tumour is meant to be. Maybe The Avians are related to The Shi'Ar after all.

Chuck starts barking orders like the good old days, listening to no-one and blasting Rogue when she tries to reason with him. Not sure what the X-Men's motivation is here.

'Goblin?' Really? Xavier is acting very differently to how he does in NYX or Storm. I mean, he's imperious and manipulative but he seems lucid in those books. Rogue lampshades her previous desire to free him at all costs while thinking that they're here to keep him in prison. Again, it's bizarre that Graymalkin has no other means of dealing with this guy, and The Podcaster called the team least aligned with her goals. Maybe she doesn't have Cyclops' number.

Xavier certainly has the Uncanny team's number, thrashing them easily and bailing. He's not concerned about the tumor right now (in fact he doesn't believe it despite already knowing) - he's all in on Xandra. That the tumor is eating his telepathic control comes out of nowhere and isn't explained. This mystery box approach is very on brand, but at the end of the issue not much has actually happened.

'With a terminal tumor sending his telepathy haywire, Charles Xavier has escaped Graymalkin! Answering a psychic distress call from his Shi'Ar daughter, the X-Men will have to grapple with blah blah blah, nothing will be the same again.' There's all the context you need to read the next part of X-Manhunt, and the Uncanny X-Men weren't a big part of the book. What little did happen will surely be forgotten, making issue #11 very skippable. From The Ashes was very committed to keeping the individual books separate from each other, yet the second crossover has just begun.

Feels like trying to have it both ways and just resulting in neither getting enough page time. I've accepted that this book is not trying to be more than a fun time, but I have to wonder how sustainable it is. As other, better books are getting cancelled it's difficult to not be a little disappointed. Hopefully when this Xavier nonsense is wrapped up we can get back to The Outliers being arbitrarily blown up. In the meantime, at least it looks good - wide Logan and all. :)

[rpgsandbox]

In the all-too-near future, the world slides into the Greater Depression, the United States affected most dramatically. Nationalism surges, and the social safety net is in tatters. Corporations control governments openly, corruption is commonplace, and the citizenry is starkly divided between those who have and those who go without. Urban sprawl runs amok, and great metroplexes connect the great cities into teeming, soulless metropolises, their lights shining across the countryside.

The heartland of America is largely abandoned, the bread basket now empty. Law enforcement and the government have given up on these regions, and utilities are scarce and unreliable. Few can survive within these outlaw areas. Few humans, that is.

For in these forgotten and empty places in the rust belt, the tissue of reality tears wide, and energy from nightmare dimensions and planes of utter terror seep into this world. These places, called demongrounds, grow more substantial, expanding each day, and creatures from these hell-places walk freely there, and from the demongrounds they infiltrate the metroplexes to feed their inhuman hungers and bring ruin to all.

Some of these strange and terrible creatures are remembered through folklore and legend — monsters such as vampires, demons, ghouls, and their like — while others are utterly fantastic, extradimensional and alien beings from beyond time and space. Together, these minions of darkness are opposed to all life, and they struggle to extinguish the last lights of human civilization.

Some few stand against them, humans banded together and armed against these dreadful forces of darkness. These minion hunters stalk them in the cities and even in the demongrounds, but the greatest challenge they face is the realization that these monsters do not work alone: they are aided by humans who have made terrible pacts with the forces of darkness, selling out their own kind for power and survival.

This is the world of DARK CONSPIRACY.

In 1990, Game Designers Workshop first brought Dark Conspiracy to life. It was a robust and acclaimed roleplaying game series, far ahead of its time with canny predictions about the shape of things to come.

In 2019, Clockwork Publishing brings it back. For the first time in more than 20 years, Dark Conspiracy will be available in print in a deluxe new version of the acclaimed roleplaying game, with an updated system and setting, featuring all-new art and content.

The relaunch will begin with the release of the Dark Conspiracy quickstart adventure, the Dark Conspiracy core rulebook, accompanied by the Dark Conspiracy Gamemaster Screen and Resource, and more. Future supplements will include sourcebooks detailing gear, psychic powers, minions, and will further explore the world of Dark Conspiracy.

The Rules

Our version of DARK CONSPIRACY uses and updated and streamlines version of the original rules. The resulting system is straightforward, runs quickly in play, and players can grasp it easily.

The basic chance of success is equal to the relevant skill of the task being attempted plus the associated attribute that skill belongs to: Skill Rank + Attribute = Skill Value.

All actions a character (whether minion hunter or nonplayer character) attempts are handled on a single d20, attempting to roll equal to or below the Skill Value. The d20 result itself is not modified, just the Skill Value being attempted.

The Skill Value may be modified by the general difficulty of the task being attempted, such as due to environmental factors, conditions, how injured the character is, or other factors. The Difficulty Modifiers range from +6 for a Routine task to –9 for an Impossible one.

A roll of 1 is always a success and a 20 is a failure, no matter what the modified Skill Value is.

A roll of 10 lower than the modified Skill Value is an outstanding success (like a critical in other games), and a roll of 10 higher than the modified skill value is an outstanding failure (a fumble in other games).

Initiative is based on a combination of a character’s relevant combat skill rank plus their Agility attribute plus a roll of 1d6.

Each combat turn is broken into six five-second combat phases. In each combat phase, characters can perform a minor action and a combat action, as well as multiple reactions and/or free actions.

Minor actions include things like bracing, moving at a walk or trot, switching gear, and standing from being prone.

Major actions include aiming, firing, attacking in melee, readying a weapon for later use, reloading, running, using an object, throwing something, and disengaging.

Reactions include blocking (parrying) and reactive attacks. The more you attempt in a round, the harder it gets.

Free actions are things like dropping items, going prone, and brief talking.

If you are a veteran player and would like to know more about specific changes, consult the section "What has Changed?" below.

Here’s what stands out with this new edition:

This version of Dark Conspiracy is aimed specifically at a modern audience and modern gamers. The system is an updated version of the popular alternate rules system presented in The Empathic Sourcebook and has been optimized for rapid resolution of action sequences and conflicts. Unnecessarily complicated system elements are now resolved using the standard dice mechanic.

Character generation has been streamlined, and the overwhelming superiority of military-based careers has been re-balanced in favor of allowing players to choose a wider variety of background options.

The original game was cannily accurate about the shape of things to come when it first appeared, but some background elements have not aged well. The setting has been revised and updated, modernized but still in the original flavor and keeping many core concepts intact.

One of the core aspects of this game are in its title: the conspiracy itself. The dark invaders are powerful and malignant, but they are being aided and abetted by humans, trading members of their own kind for temporary power or survival.

Many classic fantasy or folklore-based monsters and dark races from the original game — the fey, vampires, harpies, mummies, ogres, living skeletons, manticores — have been replaced with creatures and entities more suitable to an audience jaded by decades of exposure to horror films and games, or are modified into something more terrifying to the modern audience. Some are intact, but are not what they seem.

Indianapolis is presented as the default setting for the core book, and the game’s scope has been expanded to include demongrounds in other locales around the world, including Berlin.

These are only some of the changes, but veteran fans of the game will find that this new edition is still recognizably Dark Conspiracy, and newcomers will enjoy a strong and distinct game with a unique flavor, unlike anything else.

The initial plan for the Dark Conspiracy line includes five books, a gamemaster screen, a quickstart adventure, and three card decks. These are described below:

DARK CONSPIRACY QUICKSTART ADVENTURE

Decades ago, the town of Lakeview, Wyoming was depopulated and submerged when the nearby Cedar Mountain Dam was built. Now in a single night, the lake has unexpectedly drained, exposing the town and its terrible secrets. A team has been sent to investigate, and what they discover may destroy them. This 48-page quickstart adventure contains all the rules you need to play Dark Conspiracy, including a group of pre-generated hunter characters.

DARK CONSPIRACY CORE RULEBOOK

This full-color 256+ page hardcover core rulebook contains everything you need to create characters, play, and gamemaster the world of Dark Conspiracy. Here's an overview of the contents:

Introduction – World Background, How to Use this Book, Intro to Roleplaying, etc.

Characters – Background, Picking Roles, Campaign Type, Attributes, Age, Initial Experience, Education, Careers (Civilian, Criminal, Government, Military, Outsider, Special), Skills & Skill Descriptions, Empathic Abilities, Skills and Secondary Attributes, Secondary Activities, Contacts, Starting Money and Equipment, Character Generation Example, Sample Characters

Between Investigations – Healing, Maintenance Activities, Training/Education, New Opportunities, Skill Improvement (Experience and Training)

Dark Times | World Overview – Intro and Background/History, Life in the Dark Times, Urban Sprawl, Government Collapse, Environmental Collapse, Rise of Fascism/Xenophobia, Collaboration, Major Demongrounds Worldwide

System – Basic System, Empathic Success Sidebar, Combat, Movement, Time/Turns, Initiative, Panic, Ranged Combat, Melee Combat, Unarmed Combat, Combat Special Rules, Aimed Attacks, Autofire, Movement While Attacking, Ammo, Secondary Fire, Explosions, Fire, Falls, Poison, Radiation, Environmental Damage, Damage, Wounds, Stun, Knockdown, Hit Locations, Healing, First Aid, Medical Treatment, Vehicles and Vehicle Combat

Equipment – Personal Gear, Tools, Spy Gear, Medical Supplies, Other Equipment, Weapons, Guns, Ammunition, Explosives, Hand-to-hand Weapons, Body Armor, Electronics & Computers, Communications Equipment, Surveillance Equipment, Analysis Equipment, Robots, Artificial Intelligence, Personal Cybernetics, Vehicles, Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Scooters, Small Boats, Fliers

Referee Section – Duties of the Referee, Bringing the World to Life, The World of Dark Conspiracy, Secret History, The World as It Is, The Dark Ones, Empathy, Running Games, Character Creation, Adventure Creation, Campaign Creation, Scene Setting, Continuity, Handling NPCs, Character Arcs, Handling Success/Failure, Handling Empathic Abilities in Play, Handling Communication/Information Equipment and Maintaining Horror, Institutional Conspiracies, Dealing with the Police/Govt/Authorities, Dealing with the Press, Reward, Experience, Aftermaths

Encounters – Handling NPCs and Monsters, Urban Encounters, Corporate Encounters, Govt. Encounters, Rural Encounters, Demonground Encounters, Human NPCs, Handling Human NPCs, Stock NPCs (Average/Generic, Cops, Bikers, Cultists, Derelicts, Gangers, Government Agents, Guards, Soldiers), Animals, Handling Animals, Animals (Ant Swarms, Bears, Bee Swarms, Great Cats, Dogs, Horses, Snakes, Wolves), Minions, Handling Minions, Minions (Bloats, Blood Vultures, Cerberoids, Chimeras, Giant Roaches, Slithers, Spongies), Designing Your Own Dark Minions, Dark Races | Darklings, Handling Dark Races, Dark Races (Animated Objects, Bloodkin, Trolls, Vampires, Changelings, Daemons, Extraterrestrials [Energy, Humanoid, Insectoid, Tentacular], Ghosts, Morlocks, Nukids, Undead [Mummies, Zombies])

Paranormal Technology – Dark Tech, Overview of Dark Tech, Dimensional Travel, Biotech, Animator Generators, Cyborgs, Nanotech, Quantum Physics and the Dark World, Cybernetics, Dark Tech Experiments, Weapons, Alien Tech, Overview of Alien Tech, Cybernetics, Human Augmentation, Weapons

The World / Locations – Intro, Indianapolis, The Indianapolis/Cloverdale Demonground, Berlin, The Berlin/Brandenburg Demonground

Reference Sheets – Skills, Combat Summary, etc.

Character Creation Worksheet, Character Sheet, Index

DARK CONSPIRACY GAMEMASTER SCREEN RESOURCE

This three-panel sturdy cardboard screen protects the referee's secrets from prying eyes, and provides a variety of useful tables for quick reference. This package also contains a booklet containing a ready-to-play adventure and other resources.

DARK CONSPIRACY: THE UNNATURAL

This full-color 128-page bestiary vastly expands the roster of unnatural and extranormal entities that plague the world of Dark Conspiracy, including story notes and potential rumors about each.

DARK CONSPIRACY: THE PARANORMAL

This full-color 128-page sourcebook provides further information about the paranormal in the world of Dark Conspiracy, including additional empathic powers and abilities, and more about the Demongrounds and their effects upon reality.

DARK CONSPIRACY: ARMORY

This full-color 128-page sourcebook contains a variety of additional weapons, gear, technology, vehicles, and rules for customizing them, as well as more esoteric tools that hunters might bear against the Dark Ones and the Minions, or used against the hunters themselves!

DARK CONSPIRACY: ACCESS DENIED

This full-color 128-page adventure anthology contains a variety of short and mid-length adventures and locations for use in any Dark Conspiracy campaign.

DARK CONSPIRACY: MONSTER CARD DECK

This 55-card deck describes many of the creatures of the world of Dark Conspiracy, including physical descriptions, their statistics, their motives, and their tactics. Indispensible for any referee's use!

DARK CONSPIRACY: ARMORY CARD DECK

This 55-card set includes a variety of guns, explosives, hand-to-hand weapons, and other equipment usable for any Dark Conspiracy characters or non-player characters.

DARK CONSPIRACY: RUMOR CARD DECK

This 55-card set includes rumors, conspiracy theories, and secret societies and can be used to flesh out rumors the investigators stumble upon during play or to quickly generate adventure plots.

Crowdfunding campaign ends: Wed, May 8 2019 4:00 AM (GMT +1)

Website: [Clockwork Publishing] [facebook]

[jennaschererwrites]

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.

[bigmoodword]

11/11/11 Tag

tagged by @silver-wields-a-pen -- thanks a bunch! this was so thought-provoking.

1. Who is your favourite oc? 

probably a toss-up between the two oldest:

a werewolf who hides his cold-burning hate behind a sweet smile and endless offers to make bitchin’ cups of tea/coffee/poison/cocoa

an immortal with unhealthy escapist tendencies, livin’ that long life as if EXTRA is their personal motto

at this point, they’ve run through several names each. here’s hoping i finally set 'em in stone sooner rather than later.

2. What themes do you struggle writing? 

healthy, established romance. i can do flirtation and doomed relationships, but actually solid relationships are a whole different beast. it’s kind of funny, because although there are plenty of problems to work through even in the best relationship, i have a tendency to tidy them with too nice a bow. lucky me, that’s my life experience, but it doesn’t make for the most engaging story.

3. What’s been the best thing about writing your wip?

striking creative oil. it’s wonderful to be so enamored with an idea that all my doubts dissipate and the words just... flow. it’s a feeling i remember from childhood, and it’s a relief to know it can still strike.

4. What themes has your favourite story included? 

survivor’s guilt. betrayal. missed opportunities. miscommunication. learning to let go. learning how to love oneself. abuse. wearing a mask. class struggles. systemic oppression. the importance of hope--whatever that ultimately means for you.

honestly, these tend to pop up in all my stories to varying degrees.

5. What time of day do you prefer writing?

i tend to switch between the night owl and early bird approaches. the former pops up when i’m on a serious roll, the latter when i’ve hit a rhythm of jotting down a few hundred words over coffee.

6. What’s your favourite relationship trope to write? 

a very specific kind of unrequited love. like the two are this 👌 close to actually coming together--they’d honestly be pretty great!--except they fail to communicate mutual interest so each assumes the other isn’t. or maybe they’re too preoccupied with their own issues to have a good relationship, so temptations aside, one or both decide it’s better to pass. it’s the idea of “maybe in another life” or “if only we’d met x years ago or y years from now.” can’t get enough of it!

7. What detail about your ocs has surprised you? 

they’re all so messed up. i mean. granted, most of them are born by taking a personality flaw (whether my own or one i struggle to understand) to a certain extreme, but even those that start on an even keel inevitably hit a significant low point. i think it’s an extension of the idea “everybody’s got something” but i hope someday i can manage to have a character that’s both interesting and well-adjusted throughout.

8. Thoughts on including romance in other genres? 

i’m ace, so romance often misses the mark for me. the fact my favorite romantic trope is two people not ending up together probably says a lot on its own. more specifically, unless the romance really adds to the wider story, i prefer it in the background. i think of certain characters flirting and growing closer as sprinkles atop the main plot’s cupcake.

9. Favourite writing snack? 

coffee! i don’t tend to snack much in general, especially not when writing, but i’m always game to break out the bean juice.

10. Favourite villain trope? 

the anti-villain. as a huge “fan” of gray morality, i guess that’s pretty darn predictable. while obviously i’m not here to root for villains, i like to understand them. i think it’s important to recognize how an otherwise good person becomes villainous, and i also have a certain affection for reformed villains. j/s

11. Best scene you’ve written? 

oooo. that’s a good one. i’m not comfortable calling anything my “best” scene, but i tend to favor those where major plot points finally intersect. here’s one i still quite like--

background: urban fantasy, slayer organization, investigation into a recently caught perp

trigger warning: implied sexual abuse

Sven didn’t bother returning Nina’s call until he was in the werewolf’s ritzy apartment, and when she picked up, she immediately reported how the guy had copped to lying throughout his first interview.

As he examined the titles in the bookcases, Sven figured that meant his perp was smart enough to recognize a boon. The asshole who’d put him in a wheelchair had also thrown him a softball cover story, and if he played along, his pack wouldn’t get hurt. Lucky puppy.

Yet Nina remained skeptical. She specified how Nate—that beacon of truth—had caught the werewolf talking on the sly about a little friend. He wouldn’t just make that up, so of course she expected him to search high and low for any proof. Just in case.

He promised he’d do his best then sat cross-legged before the shelves. He put the phone on speaker, set it on a dizzyingly ornate rug, and began pulling books out. One by one, he’d flip robotically through the pages, looking for anything of note.

Meanwhile, Nina’s voice lost its authoritarian edge, “What was up before?”

“Nothing important. Just a guy. Lonely. Works at the hotel.” Having said the words, he tried not to picture her growing smirk. “One thing led to another and…”

“Good for you.” A pause. “Hey. Hey, Sven. Was he cute?”

“Quite.”

“'Quite.’” He could hear her rolling her eyes. “And? Did you, well, have a good time?”

“Debatably.”

“Huh.” Nina thought aloud, “See, you were awfully mad at me when I called you before. That would imply that you were, in fact, having a good time. Otherwise, you would’ve appreciated the excuse, right? Right. But you didn’t. Since we’re talking about you, that means something.”

He snorted.

“Really! It does, and I hope you didn’t just run this poor guy off, you know? You should try meeting up again. Do a little wine and dine. Something nice. Classy. You have that red sweater that looks nice; you should wear that.”

Sven looked down at said sweater. “… Right. Well, I gave him my number, so we’ll—”

“Damn, Sven! He must’ve been really cute!”

He remembered Drake’s anxious wiggling and cracked a smile. “Yeah, he was pretty damn cute.”

Bit by bit, he shared details, and Nina nearly blew out his phone’s speaker with a squeal. She insisted others would give up their firstborn for the kind of porno romance he apparently lived, and her office chair creaked as she huffed a triumphant sigh. She was so animated about the whole thing, as if it’d happened to her instead of him, and however briefly, he thought maybe he felt a fluttering of that same enthusiasm. He wanted to, anyway. 

Even after hanging up, something twisted in his gut every time he thought about Drake calling or, hell, simply sending a three-letter text. But realistically, that was as likely to be dread as giddiness.

With pen and pad, Sven made notes about bookmarked passages as well as the odd comment in the margins, then restored each book to its original slot. Likewise, he compiled the contents of drawers, filing cabinets, and closets. He’d come prepared to scrub the evidence, but apparently, the evidence already suggested the werewolf lived alone. 

There were no articles of clothing that deviated from the rest of his wardrobe. The master bath featured a single toothbrush, and the kitchen just enough rotting food to feed a particularly voracious adult male. He couldn’t even find a hair that wasn’t deep brown and short.

He bagged a phone and tablet for further examination, then muttered to himself about how he really should’ve done at least that much beforehand. That is, the first time he visited the apartment, but no. He’d made his catch, handed the perp off, and disappeared for a long run in the Boston fog like a coward.

To be fair, the place still gave him the creeps. It bothered him that the overturned furniture, smashed vase, and cracked mirror were all exactly where he’d left them. There were blood stains too. Deep brown and foul.

In a small safe, he found jewelry, yellowed woodcuts, and a first edition copy of Leaves of Grass. Extraordinary, sure. Cataloged, absolutely. Yet, save for the werewolf’s budding psych profile, such finds were also woefully meaningless.

He moved on to the lockbox dug out from under the king-sized bed. As with the safe, he was able to pop it open without too much difficulty, but unlike the safe, its contents raised eyebrows. 

Polaroids. Hundreds of them aggressively rubber-banded into tidy stacks, all meticulously sorted. He held his breath as he unwrapped the first only to exhale a bitter “of course” at the revealed photos.

The shots lacked faces. Just bodies. All slender. All male. All dubiously legal. Twisted. Bound. Violated. Every single one manipulated with an escalating ingenuity. Clearly, the werewolf considered it an art-form. 

After that first stack, Sven quickly flipped through the others. He was convinced the whole stash was worthless. None of the subjects had tattoos, piercings, or any significant scarring. No one depicted could be reasonably identified. He was wasting his time.

But he had to make sure, and the deeper he waded, the more his shoulders tensed, the more he felt walls close in. He caught himself listening for heavy footsteps outside the door.

Childish. At its heart, it was all so childish. 

And pointless.

Then he found a stack with a face. He found Drake.

My questions

1. Who was your first OC? 2. What was the first story you ever wrote? 3. What book (or other piece of media) has most inspired you? 4. How do you fight writer’s block? 5. What is your favorite genre to write in and why? 6. How would you describe your writing style? 7. In general, do you think you’d get along with your protagonists? 8. What do you love most about your WIPs? 9. What is your favorite character trope? 10. What is your least favorite character trope? 11. What’s an upcoming scene you’re excited to write? Tagging: @mvcreates ; @whataremetaphor ; @phloxxiing ; @gaytivity ; @jessica-shouldbewriting ; @oyef ; @blurrywhitelies ; @savannahscripts ; @imaghostwriter ; @quilloftheclouds ; @maabon

[myfriendpokey]

zine thoughts pt 2

where do you sell videogames? zine fairs, children's book stores, used record marts, from the trunk of a car like rudy ray moore, on etsy or on craiglist, with flyers on the wall of the local chip shop or library. through awkwardly hammered-together handmade electronic systems or the reverse, turning your game into a jumbled set of paper text and graphical fragments which can be sold in boardgame stores as some kind of reconstruct-the-narrative puzzle. you could make one-off bespoke games or game simulacra for movies that want to depict some kind of videogame being played onscreen without having to go through the licensing rights. you could ghost-develop games for wealthy people to put their names on ("american mcgee presents my life with princess diana by donald duck"). you could develop training games for the military-industrial complex, ha ha ha ha. you could get funded by the CIA to ensure the medium of videogames remains sufficiently arty and rehabilitated to function as propaganda for capitalism... i mean we already know they were involved with the paris review and iowa writer's workshop and all that jazz so they gotta have least a couple people on the payroll already, right, and we will all be treated to some very entertaining revelations following the inevitable freedom of information act request 15 years down the line. you could try connecting with the little self-contained fan communities for things like touhou, fnaf, undertale, m-minecraft, like those renaissance artists who had to drop their patron's face in the background of some religious scene except in this case it would be one of the homestuck guys. you could make "trainers" for more popular games, or demos that could show how they "feel" without a $60 investment. you could sell small games as assets for larger ones that want to have some kind of in-universe  playable arcade system without having to invent a whole new game from scratch. you could just make extremely specific forms of pornography, maybe not the worst option even, just make sure the very artistic sequences of the protagonist remembering his dead wife are broken up every now and then with scenes of him unhinging his jaw to swallow and slowly digest another, smaller sad games protagonist whole (with rumble function for controllers!!!). you could make games for all the people who are still on windows xp or earlier or have some kind of arcane video card setup that prevents them playing anything other than that one preinstalled pinball game. you could try selling them at street vendors. you could try learning another language and making games for non-anglophones that don't sound like an english-written game that was localised without much thought after the fact.   you could make games for kids in the hopes that they sexually imprint on them enough to support your erotic oil paintings of the characters 10 years later, just like nintendo. you could make an extremely interesting and thoughtful videogame and then offer not to release it if the donation threshold is met, thus sparing people the emotional obligation of having yet another thing on their should-play-this-eventually list. you could develop games with some bewildering system of in-game and real-world currency interactions and then sell it to the mob as a way to launder money. you could make videogames that robots record themselves playing to upload en masse which are then watched by other robots as part of some weird, ungraspably abstract SEO economy, or better yet make robots to make the videogames as well. you could make virtual cemetary plots either private (downloadable exe) or public (hosted on the server) with their own customisable mood-themes and weather settings (dark, stormy, remember-you-will-die; sunny, quiet, circle-of-life etc). you could make prosperity orbs. you could make games for office workers or call center staff which resemble excel documents or phone system frontends from a distance. you could make games which really ARE excel files, some dense collection of interlocking hidden formulas that change to display text and ascii characters as you tab your way through. you could probably talk your way into "adapting" any of those old IPs that still float around long after anyone stopped having any particular thought or feeling about them at all, like the flintstones or ziggy or something, maybe do like those 1960s superhero cartoons where they just filmed panels from the comics - just break a 2d flintstones cartoon into constituent elements and have them hover around in a little cutout diorama that you fly thru, possibly explained in-universe as representing the 4-d vision of the great gazoo. you could make games that play themselves, for the depressed. you could become a ghastly serial m**derer where after each crime you upload a new game to itchio which will reveal the  name of your next victim, and costs only $9.99, and of course everyone buys and plays it because the police have put up a reward for solving the crime because they can't get past the dinosaur on level three, and all seems lost until some plucky young computer student who found the game on a friend's hard drive manages to solve the riddle hidden within the game's structure, following the clues, to an old castle, she knocks on the door, it's opened by, yes, it's will wright, wearing a wizard outfit, who tells her that by dint of solving all the puzzles she is now invited to join that mysterious organization known as "The Elect" which is assembled from the finest minds in all game design with a view to secretly controlling the world economy (via "werewolf blood", somehow), that she need only complete the ceremony by sacrificing one untutored soul, he holds out an ornate knife, she hesitates........

the question is where to sell videogames rather than how because for the most part we already know how - there are a million more or less instructive articles out there about hitting up conventions or talking to the press, and it's not that they're wrong, exactly, more that they expect to be applied in an environment that no longer exists. but what should preface and qualify the idea of sheer volume swamping the indie games market is that, outside of a few small pockets, there never really was an "indie games market" to begin with - indie games drew and mostly still draw on the existing videogames market, rather than constituting a new one. it's telling that the glory days of indie games were just the ones where they were able to draw upon some of the same privileges larger titles already had in the ability to access that same audience - being frontpaged by steam, say, or making it onto a comparatively closed console platform, or generating earnest thinkpieces... you could say that they were tapping into structures the industry had already built but had not yet occupied to full capacity.

of course there are exceptions and various efforts to set up new economies for small weird interactive things (like patreon, or game bundles), and some efforts to reach outside the existing games audience likely were successful - but when we think of indie games "functioning" economically, whether that means supporting a small team, a single person, or just hitting minimum wage per hours spent, i believe we're mostly still talking about ones which are built around the existing games economy. which is fine, but i think it's also intrinsically precarious in ways which maybe get glossed over in discussions of the "indiepocalypse" - are all those new steam releases really causing a problem or are they just exacerbating a structural limitation which was already always there, a reliance within the indie game economy on a certain lucky-few-ism which just became grossly more noticeable the more disproportionate it got?

of course it's easier to be dismissive after the fact, and my fantasy about "where" to sell videogames is partly a fantasy of them having a location to begin with - of attaining something of the grounded and immutable appearance of the non-digital, as though brick and mortar stores  don't have a relationship to the likes of amazon as basically precarious as any online storefront. and there are also real and obvious reasons why the various videogame audiences all tend to clump together - similarities in terms of the hardware required, the inputs allowed, of visual and cultural reference points, to say nothing of the personal / professional histories of the people involved in each. we are all contained within "the medium"...

so maybe it's also a fantasy of starting to pick apart that conception of the medium. i think small game developers already have more in common with artists or musicians working on the fringes of their respective industries than they do with even moderately successful teams within the same format, and use similar language, engage in similar forms of practice - particularly as near everything  comes increasingly mediated by the digital these days. i think they already ARE working in similar spaces to some extent, whether it's social media sites or digital storefronts or meatspace stores pushed by necessity not to specialise. and without wanting to be paranoid (or moreso than the CIA thing, at least) i think we should be cautious of the way a certain focus on mediumicity can obscure these overlaps.  a "new medium" is one which inherently pushes against the image of one as grouded ahistorically in some eternal human verity or other (where each medium supposedly embodies some different mode of perception / medieval humour / ninja turtle etc) - it is to see firsthand the way in which supposedly eternal, neutral qualities are materially constructed, which includes seeing forms of social organisation and usage become mystified into extrahuman conditions.  and given their basis in technology that includes drawing from wider trends in the use of that technology as a whole - which specifically, in tech circles, can mean more and more tightly interlocking systems of proprietary knowledge and speculative capital, as well as "new mediums" constructed so as to be inseperable from some storefront, website or monitoring technology. i don't think anybody will necessarily break even taking their games to a zine fair (not that they're breaking even now). but i do feel like trying to build networks across those medium boundaries could be more valuable in the effort to build some sustainable environment for these things than any amount of reform within the house that tech built.

[PS: it occurs to me that you could plausibly argue that the very bagginess of medium-centric formulations is what makes them valuable, in forcing many different groups to butt against each other on one platform rather than just disperse into echo chambers. but i think exactly the reverse is the case: nobody really engages with each other's work in artgames because the stakes are simultaneously too small and too large. they're too small in that however much i might be picky about another person's work - and i think it's this vague pickiness or sense of not-quite-right-ness that drives the most searching critiques - it still feels pointless to pursue that instead of the glaring, omnipresent faults of the big AAA players, which means more complaining about far cry for all eternity. and they're too large in that most small game development is so precarious that it's not really worth the risk of knocking someone out of the circle over penny-ante shit. only with both economic security and broad similarity of outlook can a truly vital,  human culture of spiteful cattiness begin... our day will come]

(image credits: Eco Fighter, World Heroes 2 ,The Space Adventure, Nancy)

[fnlrndcllctv]

REVIEW: Blade Strangers (2018)

Crossovers are a huge part of fighting game history, and have been wildly popular since the early heydays of the genre.

Capcom had faced off with Marvel, Tatsunoko and SNK to name a few, and even Mortal Kombat had beef with the DC superhero universe at one point.

So what happens when you get a crossover title that's made up of lesser known games?

The mass appeal that comes from a company or franchise's fanbase spurs these games on, but there's been a handful of games in recent times that collects together some more "niche" titles and forces them against each other in combat.

One of these games is 2018's Blade Strangers.

Gameplay

Upon first glance, Blade Strangers looks and feels like your standard anime fighting game, such as the Blazblue series and even the Under Night In-Birth games.

However, once you start playing matches, it's very clear that the difficulty of executing moves is much easier than most games of this type, and actively encourages newer players to get involved with the game. 

Instead of relying on complex command inputs to pull off special moves, players can instead just hold the directional analogue stick in a specific direction and press a single button to execute certain attacks. It’s a simplified method that isn’t too different from the one we see in games such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

The four button layout is simple to make use of, and feels pretty responsive most of the time, outside of some slip ups here and there. 

The game also feels noticeably slower and weightier to play than many of the other fighting games of this kind, which makes things feel a lot less daunting for newbies to get the hang of.

Story

Blade Strangers revolves around the concept that every universe is one of many simulations being generated by an interdimensional network of servers known as "motes".

A cybernetic being known as Lina appears and begins consuming the servers' data, wiping out entire worlds and defeating all of the Blade Strangers, the warriors who are sworn to protect them.

To protect the universe, the motes summon heroes from worlds Lina has not yet reached, altering their memories to make them believe they are participating in a fighting tournament.

The one left standing will be named the new Blade Stranger in the hopes of awakening their power and allowing them to defeat Lina.

The game's story mode is a pretty dull affair, opting for the visual novel approach of dialogue between fighters. I understand that this makes it easier for the writing team to successfully make sure that all the characters in the game can effectively and uniquely communicate with each other, but when the script is so weak that it resorts to talking about the characters breasts (on more than one occasion, I hasten to add), it just not very engaging.

I will admit though, Isaac's only line of dialogue being repeated everywhere in the game (i.e constant wailing AND NOTHING ELSE) did get a chuckle out of me more than once.

Roster

Blade Strangers’ roster is made up of characters from a number of different franchises in both Nicalis and Studio Siazansen’s back catalogues;

From the action RPG Code of Princess, we get Ali, Liongate, Solange and Master T.

From the Umihara Kawase platform games, we get Kawase, Emiko, Noko and a “Summer” version of Kawase as a separate character.

From the Metroidvania game Cave Story, we get Quote and Curly Brace.

From the platform game 1001 Spikes, we get Aban.

From the platformer Shovel Knight, we get (you guessed it) Shovel Knight.

From the roguelike dungeon-crawler The Binding Of Isaac, we get Isaac.

From the action platformer Azure Striker Gunvolt, we get Gunvolt.

From the RPG Doki Doki Poyacchio, we get Piaa.

We also get Helen and Lina as the game's original fighters.

It's a pretty wacky cast, and a memorable one at that, ranging from an Indiana Jones type character, a permanently crying child and a happy go lucky sushi chef to a buxom princess, a little girl with her giant fluffy pet cat and a series of robots. 

There’s a reason why I have specifically highlighted the genres of each of the roster’s respective game series, and that’s down to the fact that none of these games are actually related to the fighting game genre whatsoever. 

This is one of the game’s main draws, and makes it clear that the game isn’t particularly aimed at a wider, more casual audience.

It’s fun to see these indie darlings and obscure characters reimagined in a traditional 2D versus fighting game, and much like many other crossover fighting games, made me want to learn more about each of the characters and the games that they originally came from. 

This aspect of Blade Strangers kept me feeling invested in the game, and almost makes up for how bad the story mode is.

Graphics

Each of the characters in Blade Strangers were originally created in 3D then subsequently rendered back into the game for 2D gameplay, much like games such as the Guilty Gear Xrd series, and as a result, look fantastic.

Seeing traditionally 2D characters such as Isaac and Shovel Knight being redone in this style is a delight to witness, and the action during fights is suitably flashy, with colourful explosions and anime-style cut ins from each of the characters sprinkled into it. It feels very Arcana Heart in the way it presents itself, which is never necessarily a bad thing.

Stages

As the game is a crossover between several games, each of the game’s stages is a reimagining of each game franchise’s locations. 

From the creaking, dark basements of The Binding Of Isaac to the surreal, quirky sea creature-populated Umihara Kawase, there’s plenty of variety presented here.

The stages do feel a little bit lifeless though, apart from some instances of crumbling architecture once a fight is over. It’s a shame when you consider the amount of source material on offer from the roster, and disappointingly feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Replayability

Outside of the game’s story mode and regular versus modes, there isn’t much to do here outside of unlocking some extra icons and titles for displaying in the game’s online mode.

I mean sure, there's a tournament mode, some challenges and a survival gauntlet, but these all feel very similar, and don't offer much reason to grind away at them other than for the sake of completing everything. 

The game’s lack of incentives really lets it down, and doesn’t offer many reasons for players to stick around when they’re done fighting.

As the game’s roster is based on so many obscure games, it would definitely have benefitted from the inclusion of a gallery and maybe even some basic information about each of the characters’ respective game series.

Final thoughts & overall score

Blade Strangers is full of character and an interesting way to bring together a slew of non-fighting game franchises into the genre.

What the game lacks in replay value and poor story dialogue is more than made up for by its easy to learn gameplay and just how nice the graphics are.

The game works perfectly as an entry-level title for beginners to learn the ropes, but for experienced fighting game fans, things may run dry somewhat quickly.

Do you agree with our review of Blade Strangers?

Let us know in the comments section below!

[gigageekmag]

Comic Book Review: Calico

CALICO ISSUE #1

Welcome back GiGa Community; as you all know, at fifteen years old, in 1992, I had an opportunity and pleasure of interning at Marvel Comics in Manhattan, New York; Spider-man office to be exact.  It was during that year that I had delved into the comic book industry, soaking it all in, down to my very fabric of my soul.  I loved all of the intellectual properties, their stories, and the craft; I knew I wanted Comics to be a part of my future life story.   I was a fan of some characters, and ambivalent to others, but never the less, just like family I loved them all (Some more than others of course); the environment moved my soul.  To this day, I still find being an artist to be one of my first loves, and comic books satisfied that yearning.  The culmination of efforts between a writer, penciler, inker, letterer, colorist, and editor was to me, an amalgamation of geniuses at work.  I love and respect the craft.

Sigma Comics

GiGa: GeekMagazine was contacted by Sigma Comics asking for an honest review of their newly released comic series, Calico.  I was unsure of who this new IP was that was entering the competitive arena, so I did superficial research, watched an interview, and a review; it seemed to be worth the read.   The first complimentary comic came and as busy as I am, I opened it and felt the cover art seemed acceptable for a comic book in 2021, but I didn’t have a peaceful undisturbed moment to read it, so I left it on my desk to be ready for the day I found a free opportunity to read it, then write a review.  My family and I left the house for a few hours, and when I returned I went straight to my office and hadn’t realized the comic was no longer on my desk.  A few seconds after I sat down, my daughter calls me, “Papi, look what Ivi did”!

Ivi Snow knew She really did it this time.

Ivi Snow is one of my two white German Shepherds, she is 1½ years old, so I am accustomed to finding “surprises” when we come back home; I thought it was poop again. A minute later my daughter comes to my office holding my complimentary issue of Calico in shreds.  Needless to say I was peeved and Ivi knew it. Then I remembered what the premise of the comic was.  “NYC HAS A NEW ANTI–HERO. Every day millions of animals are abused and killed. Animal rights groups and charities try to help, yet the savagery continues.”  Sigma Comics appears to be committed to fighting animal abuse. I laughed at the irony of this moment and took a picture of her with the destroyed comic, apparently, she enjoyed the comic.  I couldn’t read it, as a substantial part of the first few pages were now gone.  With that above picture attached to an email to Sigma comics, I humbly apologized and requested another review copy, I was willing to pay for it at this point, but the great people at Sigma found humor in the event as well and sent me another. When the next copy arrived I kept it in my safe this time, and that night when I was done with work, I read it before I went to bed.  I opened the cover and this time, I was able to really absorb the content.   I applauded the first impression, it was transparent in showing their allegiance to the cause, “American Humane”, as a parent to two German Shepherds, I was sold. 

The first page was gripping, showing an example of the atrocities committed upon animals and the visualization was almost too tough to bear, but I was roped in, I had to read on.  We get our first glimpse into the soul of our Anti-Hero on page two, with tears running from angry eyes, the penciler, inker, and colorist nailed the conviction this character was driven by, and we’re then introduced to Calico “A one-man arsenal of destruction in constant pursuit of justice for the smallest and weakest among us…” 

In his apartment he works his frustration on a double end bag, his thoughts speak poignant commentary as to the nature of life being nothing but conflict in every facet of existence and we see where his psychological state dwells; he’s scared and/or resentful of life and bitterly expresses this in his own twisted way.  The Boxing Gym advertisement on page 5 could easily be dismissed as fictitious until a little research clarified that it is indeed a real business; as an ex-fighter boxer, martial artist, and ex-body guard myself, I respected that blurring between fantasy and reality as it was perfectly in line with the tale that I was uploading to my brain.

The writer then takes the reader on a journey through the life of Calico, recalling childhood memories of being bullied.  This alludes to post traumatic damage; he hates bullies and had long since made the decision to suffer them no longer.  We next accompany the protagonist from his apartment to a local boxing gym where he trains and prepares for an upcoming tournament, and while there, he loses himself in the art of combat.  His thoughts become louder than spoken words; he’s a fighter with unfortunate luck, struggling skill, and lots of animosity.  Here is where the reader learns this character has no reservation about the thought of condemning the abuser to death and that animals were his only friends since his youth.

Page 8 we’re given a full frontal nude of the hero in the shower after leaving the gym, even in the shower he’s consumed by antipathy as conveyed by more flashbacks of the same bully from his youth; he’s never recovered from those years.  This memory was different, ironically, it was in this recollection where he was impressed by an alley-cat that scared off the bully and his dog, which serves as a perfect transition into revealing his super-hero outfit emblazoned with a black cat’s profile in front of what appears to be a moon.  He also has a flying robotic AI assistant named Bumble that is a metallic sphere with one camera eye. Then, we’re back to his childhood memories, this time he evokes the very first time he inflicted pain by punching that bully in the face before fleeing the scene.  Page 13 is where things escalate quickly, so I won’t spoil it for interested readers.

So here’s my honest review and rating:

Comic book Production:   I feel the writing could have been more impacting and/or expansive; a name would have been nice to have, but it served its purpose; The art is what communicated the story the most.  Lettering was great, the penciling and inking were acceptable as well, but gets a little hard to understand what’s happening during the murder scene.   

The Character: His real name is never revealed, but from how Calico was insultingly called a “Dominican York” translated from Spanish, he is likely Latino. I think the character is less anti-hero and more of a deranged, sociopathic, villain with post-traumatic stress. He’s fed a list of targets by an unknown accomplice, he intends to kill, (and/or violate) which to me is the modus operandi of a serial killer. I couldn’t see the word “Hero” being applicable to this guy in anyway.

The full frontal nude, to me, was unnecessary, but being a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta I’ve drawn male nudes before, so I respect the art, 100%.  That scene only became awkward after the second penis comment. Which helped me to get a better understanding  of the mind of the protagonist as portrayed and communicated by the writer. I think the outfit really is too similar to Black Panther.

As per the multiple male phallus related comments and insults, along with, what I found to be excessive homo-erotic language, it seemed in my humble opinion, as if there’s other unresolved issues besides being bullied that Calico has never addressed.   In one scene, I had to look at one scene under better light to understand that Calico actually violates or rapes his victim with a red hot pipe, all while making references to size; he says to his victim, “Relax! It’s only one-inch thick pipe. In penis size its only four-inch girth. You got this”.  the last unnecessary thing I read that really nailed the coffin shut for me was the statement, “F*** em. Hard. in the @ss. With no vaseline”.

Concept: I personally, don’t think the character could have longevity, and if so possibly as a novelty act; appropriate for an 8-Issue Series. He possibly may develop a fan base, but with a very niche market.  He is not a “Deadpool” type of anti-hero, I’d say this brooding character is damaged psychologically which easily could bleed over into villainy. I couldn’t see the Dark Knight tolerating this character, or working with him in any way, and would probably bring him to justice.  In comparison to other anti-heroes, such as Hulk, Ghost Rider, Blade, or the Punisher, I’d say even Frank Castle wouldn’t see his motivations, means, or ends as acceptable.  I see a more deviant sociopathic “Joker” kind of weirdness from Calico minus the smiles and laughing.

Conclusion:  It’s a comic book, it fits the criteria. I wasn’t left feeling like I want to read more, but I am only one man, with one opinion worth 2 cents.  I endeavor to say it could have been written for a broader appeal to a wider audience; for me, I feel the niche-aspect will leave some put off or uninterested.  But somehow, I’m sure this will pull the targeted audience it was meant for.  In the end, Sigma successfully this debut is a great accomplishment for the creators and production team and for that I salute and respect their creative vision, hard work, and love for the craft.  I’d give it 3 out 5 Stars ★★★☆☆ ~Jack~

Image Sources: > https://sigmacomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/sigma-comics-large.jpg > https://prnewswire2-a.akamaihd.net/p/1893751/sp/189375100/thumbnail/entry_id/1_gapzb7c1/def_height/800/def_width/520/version/100011/type/1

Comic Book Review: Calico was originally published on GIGA: GeekMagazine

[shadyobservationtragedy]

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Search

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Alien

PLEASE NOTE, YOU WILL NEED THE MAIN GAME 'ARMA 3' TO PLAY THIS EXPANSION (DLC). ABOUT THIS GAME What if humanity suddenly encounters extraterrestrial intelligence on Earth? Bohemia Interactive presents: Arma 3 Contact –. Departing from its long-standing tradition as a highly-realistic military-sim, the Arma 3 ‘Contact’ expansion pits players against mysterious aliens. Although one would think that putting aliens as your enemy would degrade your reputation as a military simulator, does it really? After all, considering the unfathomable expanse of the universe, it is highly unlikely that aliens.

Alien Entities (Arma 3: Contact) Alien Grunt; Alien Hominid; Alien Reef (Hungry Shark) Aliens (The Hum) Alimbic; Alkari; Allayi; Allosaurus (FMM-UV 32) Amblyr; Amoeboid; Amorphous Trandicula; Amperi; Amphituber; Andrewsarchus (FMM-UV 32) Category:Android App Species; Angara; Anglerfish (Outer Wilds) Anjellyun; Anode Beetle; Anodite; Antenna Beetle. If you pre-order Arma 3 Contact before the official release date, you can start testing the new terrain as of right now (with the new weapons, vehicles, and gear to follow soon). The expansion's singleplayer campaign will unlock later on Arma 3 Contact's planned release date on July 25.

Arma 3 players patiently waiting for the alien encounter expansion to be rolled out for the online military, simulation, first person shooter, will be pleased to know that it is now available via Steam priced at $27.99, €24.99 or £21.99 depending on your location. Check out the launch trailer below to learn more about what you can expect from the new Arma 3 Contact expansion and the single player campaign.

“What if humanity suddenly encounters extraterrestrial intelligence on Earth? Bohemia Interactive presents: Arma 3 Contact – a spin-off expansion about the most important discovery in the history of mankind. As a soldier deployed to Livonia’s militarized Nadbór region, you will be among the first to study our alien visitors and determine their intentions. However, amid the tension and chaos, armed conflict inevitably unfolds. Arma 3 Contact’s military science fiction campaign arrives together with a massive new terrain, and introduces new factions, weapons, vehicles, outfits, equipment, and more to the wider Arma 3 sandbox.”

If you’re interested in Arma 3 Contact but do not yet own the Arma 3 base game, we recommend purchasing the Arma 3 Contact Edition. This includes the Contact expansion plus the Arma 3 base game at a much lower price than when both are bought separately. For those that don’t delay a 10% launch discount via Steam is available until August 1st, 2019.

Source: Steam

Filed Under: Gaming News, Top News

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Released 25 Jul 2019

I was as skeptical as anyone when the news showed up that the next Arma 3 expansion was going to be about aliens. 'Oh no,' I thought, 'this always goes badly.' And while the game's latest content pack, Contact, winds up being a fun kind of X-Files diversion into what can happen in single player, it's of limited use to anyone who thinks about Arma as a war simulator.

Look: I'll save you the trouble of reading the rest of this review. If you're hoping for weird alien technology that you can work into your warfighting scenarios, this package doesn't have it. For the purposes of general Arma play, what you get with this is basically a couple of robots, and that's about it. When we work this piece of DLC into our master list of 'Arma Stuff You Must Have,'Contact will rank very near the bottom. That being said, I liked this campaign a lot. Contact shows Bohemia and its partners at their most creative, although as ever this weird scenario does come down to a cold war popping off hot in a small regional area that is, strangely enough, cut off from the rest of the world's communications.

Here's the gist: You are Spc. Aiden Rudwell, a linguist-turned-drone operator on a field exercise near the Russian border in a fictional state called Livonia. You're in some comms unit working with local Livonian partners on a combined arms exercise that's definitely not supposed to annoy anyone on the other side of the wire.

Quickly things go pear shaped, thanks in no small part to a PFC you're friends with who was already on latrine duty and has global conspiracy theories on the brain. A routine drone training exercise results in an armed bomb landing within walking distance of your lookout point and, well, guess who gets to check it out?

This all takes place so you can get acquainted with your first bit of new equipment: There's the drone, yes, but what you'll be married to for this entire exercise is the Spectrum Device: A tool that can jam radio, pick up radio signals, and work out where those signals are coming from.

As the campaign progresses, you'll use the Spectrum Device to send spoof missions to enemy command and work out where enemy squads are working. It's not a bad piece of kit, on paper - you can spot-jam enemy communications - but it feels like you're carrying out the most basic of tasks.

Indeed, the campaign has you use this piece of equipment over and over - mainly to make sure the people at an area you want to go to aren't there when you get there. And that's all fine. But even when you get a new antenna for it that lets you 'communicate' with extraterrestrials, its use is strictly limited by the script of the story. Within that story, there are some admittedly clever bits, I should say. Using a recorded 'move left' order from Livonian command on an enemy (look, it's complicated) squad prowling out in the woods at night feels very Cold War Kids, at least once I worked out what it was the game wanted me to do.

The other headline piece of tech that comes with this expansion is the ED-1 UGV, which is a tracked R/C car with an armature, probe, and camera on it. As you might expect, it's a fun little toy to mess around with at first, but it's only useful within the bounds of the story missions Contact sets up for it. Even then, what you're ultimately doing with it most of the time is 'go to location A to poke thing B.'

You could uncharitably say that about most Arma objectives, sure. And it's what Contact does to layer meaning onto those simple tasks that makes it a fun X-Files style diversion. It feels fresh, mostly because instead of shooting things most of the time you're waving a radio antenna around in the woods, trying not to get spotted. The missions open up a bit in the middle acts, and you can choose which order you want to take on objectives, but narratively they all boil down to a core of well-meaning military officers and scientists trusting the future of humanity to an E-4 and his ability to make his way through the woods with a radio jammer. Having spent some time as an E-4 myself, I don't like our odds.

Contact has some truly standout moments baked into the campaign (which I won't spoil), and you've certainly never seen in Arma before. Alien tech makes certain things spookily hover just above the ground sometimes, and the scenario writers were smart enough to keep the actual aliens themselves hidden from you. The rest relies on scary noises and lights in the woods combined with what your own brain makes up for the majority of its runtime. But as diverting as those moments are, it doesn't change the fact that the storyline is a bit hamfisted, and at best might have made for a middling two-episode X-Files arc. That's enough to keep me entertained for a few hours, and I suspect the same is true for quite a few Arma players. Thankfully the payoff, when you get it, is pretty grand.

Arma 3 Contact Communicate With Alien Entity Search

However, that's not near enough to put this on any list of truly ‘essential’ Arma DLC, particularly when you realize that the hardware it introduces is effectively useless outside that scripted story campaign. The Spectrum Device is literally unusable anywhere outside Contact's story missions, and the UGV it brings in is effectively the same - unless modders want to start adding 'probe material at location X,Y' to their list of missions in Arma's sandbox.

A couple other notes worth mentioning: Contact brings with it a new landmass, Livonia, and that's certainly interesting enough. It's some hilly woodland featuring a radar base and steep terrain - it's nothing particularly dramatic, but it's certainly more land on which to do Arma things. I was, however, disappointed to find that Contact seemed to make Arma 3 perform even worse on recommended settings than it had before, and this was after I had installed a brand new RTX 2070 Super graphics card in my PC. This is a game that's feeling its age.

All that said, I hope it's pretty clear where Contact lands in the panoply of Arma 3 add-on content. From a wargamer's perspective it's probably the least essential piece of DLC Bohemia has ever put out for the game. But it's an entertaining and, by Arma standards, unique story experience that's worth playing through once, and that bit at least is characterized by Bohemia's pleasingly authentic ear for military dialogue and characters, even if it can be a bit uneven and cartoony at times.

But Contact is also Arma 3's most expensive piece of DLC, with a price tag that's higher than the massive and game-changing Apex expansion. Contact, sadly, makes almost no impact on the broader game and even at its highest moments never really justifies itself. It's a fun little story, and that's it - unlike almost any other piece of DLC, it doesn't make Arma 3 itself more interesting at all.

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[reallyco0l-blog]

Kano’s latest computer kit for kids doubles down on touch

Learn-to-code startup  Kano , whose products aim to turn kids into digital makers, has taken the wraps off the latest incarnation of its build-it-yourself computer kit.  With the new flagship Kano is doubling down on touch interactions — urging kids to “make your own tablet”. The Computer Kit Touch packs a 10.1″ HD touchscreen, along with Kano’s now familiar bright orange wireless keyboard which comes with a built in trackpad.  While touch is becoming increasingly central to its products, Kano says the keyboard remains an important component of the product — supporting text-based coding apps which its platform also provides access to, as well as the more approachable drag-and-drop block-based coding systems that do really benefit from having a touchscreen to hand.  The kit, which Kano says is generally (but not exclusively) aimed at the 6-13 age range, is on sale from today, priced at $279.99 — via its website (  Kano .me ), as well as from selected retailers and e-tailers.  The Raspberry Pi powered computer is also getting increased storage capacity in this upgrade — of 16GB. But the main refresh is around updating Kano OS, Kano’s kid-friendly Pi topper, with expanded support for touch controls, according to founder  Alex Klein    .  Last year Kano combined touch and keyboard based interaction into a single product, the  Computer Kit Complete  — calling that a DIY laptop.  The 2018 refreshed version looks much the same, with enhancements generally behind the scenes and/or under the hood.     “The big moves this year are advancing the software and content ecosystem,” says Klein. “How it’s all integrated together.”  He points to another coding kit the team has up for pre-order, slated to ship next month — a co-branded Harry Potter gizmo in which kids get to build a motion-sensitive “ coding wand ” and use it to cook up their own digital spells, helped along by Kano’s software — adding: “With the Potter kit we’re bringing Kano code — to create a system, the ability to blend and change physics engines and sounds and particle systems — to tablets. So we’ve now got a touch-based interaction model for that e-product, as well as mouse and keyboard, and so we’ve brought that software system now to the Computer Kit Touch.  “You can code by dragging and dropping blocks with your fingers, you can paint and draw. You can change the pitch of a loop or a melody by running your fingers up and down and then using a change of a parameter mess with how quickly that melody changes, mess with the number of layers, you can make a beat or a loop using a touch-based digital audio workstation style X-Y plane. You can go into any one of our creative coding apps and pull in touch-based interactions, so instead of just using a mouse, a click and point, you can make an app that responds to swipes and taps, and different speeds, and in different locations.”  “On the touch kit itself there’s also a set of new content that demystifies how touchscreens work and peels back the layer of the screen and shows you what’s behind, and you’re kind of touching the intersection of the different copper wires and seeing what’s happening beneath,” he adds.  “There’s obviously a big hardware upgrade with the new ability to touch it, to take it with you. We’ve refined a lot of the components, we’ve improved the speed, the battery life. But really the core of it is this upgraded software that integrates with all the other kit.”  Talking of other kit, the learn-to-code space is now  awash with quasi-educational gizmos , leaving parents in Western markets spoiled for choice of what to buy a budding coder.  Many more of these gizmos will be unboxed as we head into the holiday season. And while Kano was something of a startup pioneer here — a category creator, as Klein tells it — there’s now no shortage of tech for kids promising some kind of STEM-based educational benefit. So it’s facing an ever-growing gaggle of competition.  Kano’s strategy to stand out in an increasingly contested space is to fix on familiar elements, says Stein — flagging for example the popular game Minecraft — which runs on the Kano kit, and for which there’s a whole subsection of the Kano World community given over to  hacking Minecraft .  And, well, aside from block-headed Minecraft characters it’s hard to find a character more familiar to children than the fictional wizard Harry Potter. So you can certainly see where Kano’s trying to get with the coding wand.  “We broke our first month pre-order target in one day,” he says of that forthcoming e-product (RRP ~$130). “There was massive coverage, massive traffic on our site, it was picked up all over the place and we’re very happy with the pre-orders so far. As are our retail partners.”  The Potter co-branding play is certainly Kano trying to make its products cast a wider spell by expanding the appeal of coding from nerdy makers to more mainstream child consumers. But how successful that will be remains to be seen. Not least because we’ve seen this sort of tactic elsewhere in this space.  Sphero, for example, is now rolling back the other way —  shifting away from Star Wars  co-branded bots to a serious education push focused on bringing STEM robotics to schools. (Although Kano would doubtless say a programmable bot that rolls is not the same as a fully fledged kit computer that can run all manner of apps, including familiar and fashionable stuff like Minecraft and YouTube.)  “We’re very pleased to see that this category that we created, with that Kickstarter campaign in 2013 — it’s become more than what some people initially feared it would be which was niche, maker ‘arcanery’; and it���s becoming a major consumer phenomenon,” he says. “This notion that people want to make their own technology, learn how to code and play in that way. And not just kids — people of all ages.”  On the hard sales front, Klein isn’t breaking out numbers for Potter kit pre-sales at this stage. But says the various incarnations of its main computer kit have shipped ~360,000 units since September 2014. So it’s not Lego (which has also moved into programmable kits) — but it’s not bad either.  In recent years Kano has also branched out into offering Internet of Things kits, previewing three code-your-own connected devices in  2016  — and launching Kickstarter campaigns to get the products to market.  It’s since shipped one ( the Pixel kit ) but the other two (a build-it-yourself camera kit and a DIY speaker) remain delayed — leaving crowdfunder backers waiting for their hardware.  Why the delay? Have Kano’s priorities shifted — perhaps because it’s focusing efforts on cobranded products (like the Potter wand) vs creating more of its own standalone devices?  “We are still committed to shipping the speaker kit, the camera kit,” Klein tells TechCrunch. “A big reason for [the delay] is not only the fact that the company is in a position now where we have mass distribution, we have great partners — perennially testing new product ideas — and we want to make sure that products are going to resonate with, not just a small group of people but many, many people, of many different age groups and interests before we release them.”  He also points out that any backers of the two devices who want refunds can get them in full.  Though he also says some are choosing to wait — adding that Kano remains committed to shipping the devices, and saying for those that do wait there will be a few extra bells and whistles than originally specced out in the crowdfunder campaign.  The delay itself looks like the market (and consumer tastes) moving quicker than Kano predicted — and so it finds itself wishing its products could deliver more than it originally planned (but without a wand to wave to instantly achieve that).  This is also a pitfall with previewing anything months or years ahead of time, of course. But the expense and complexity of building hardware makes crowdfunding platforms attractive — even for a relatively established brand like Kano.  “The delay is really unfortunate,” he adds. “We did say they would ship earlier but what we have done is we’ve offered any backer a full refund on the camera and the speaker if they don’t want to wait. But if they do wait they will receive incredible camera, incredible speaker. Both of them are going to benefit from the advancements made in low cost computing in the last year.  “The speaker as well is going to have elements that weren’t even part of the original campaign. On our side it’s critical that we get those products absolutely right and that they feel mass, and that they demystify not only coding and the Internet of Things, which was part of the original purpose, but in the case of the camera and the speaker there are elements that have come to the fore in more recent months like voice interaction and image recognition that we feel if our mandate is to demystify technology and we’re shipping a camera and a speaker… that’s kind of part of it. Make it perfect, make it of the moment. And for any backer who doesn’t want to wait for that, no problem at all — we’ll refund you 100%.”  Beyond reworking its approach with those perhaps overly ambitious connected devices, Kano has additional release plans in its pipeline — with Klein mentioning that additional co-branded products will be coming next year.  He says Kano is also eyeing expanding into more markets. “There’s a significant market for Kano even beyond our traditional leading position amongst 6-13 year olds in the US and the UK. There’s a really strong market for people who are beyond the US and the UK and we’re now at a scale where we can start really investing in these distribution and localization relationships that have come our way since year one,” he says.  And he at least entertains the idea of a future Kano device that does away with a keyboard entirely — and goes all in on touch — when we suggest it.  “Would we move to a place where we have no keyboard in a Kano computer? I think it’s very possible,” he says. “It might be a different form factor, it might be smaller, it might fit in your pocket, it might have connectivity — that kind of stuff.”  Which sort of sounds like Kano’s thinking about making a DIY smartphone. If so, you heard it here first.  The five and a half year old London-based startup is not yet profitable but Klein flags growth he dubs “fast enough” (noting it doubled sales year-over-year last year, a “trend” he says continued in the first half of this year), before adding: “It’s not impossible for us to get to profitability. We have a lot of optionality. But at the moment we are making investments — in software, in team — we have partner products coming out like Harry, we’ll have more coming out next year. So in terms of absolute positive EBITDA not yet but we are profitable on a units basis.”  Kano closed a  $28M Series B last year  — and has raised some $44.5M in all at this stage, according to Crunchbase. Is it raising more funding now? “I think any entrepreneur who is looking to do something big is always in some sense keeping an eye out for sources of capital,” replies Klein. “As well as sources of talent.”  He points by way of a connected aside to  this study of C-suite execs , carried out by Stripe and Harris poll, which found that access to software developers is a bigger constraint than access to capital, saying: “I read that and I thought that that gap — between the 1% of 1% who can develop software or hardware and the rest of us — is exactly the challenge that Kano set out to solve from a consumer and education perspective.”  “In terms of fundraising we do get a lot of inbound, we have great investors at the moment,” he adds. “We do know that the scale of this particular challenge — which is demystify technology, become synonymous with learning to code and making your own computers — that requires significant support and we’ll be continuing to keep our eyes out as we grow.”

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/kanos-latest-computer-kit-for-kids-doubles-down-on-touch/

[romantasyrabbittrail]

Why the Trio in the Sequel Trilogy Won't Be a Trio

I’ve seen a lot of chatter and speculation over last year and a half about who the Trio™ of the sequel trilogy is. There was an assumption that Finn, Rey, and Poe would be, but look at how Rey doesn’t even meet Poe onscreen in TFA. They have a four sentence interaction in the novelization after awkwardly hugging when the map is completed. Then Rey leaves to go find Luke. 

When asked point blank who the trio is in TLJ, Rian Johnson answered by asking if they meant the three on the teaser poster. Clearly, fan expectations are not quite meeting reality when it comes to character dynamics. 

Now to be fair, there is a surfeit of trios running around the new trilogy. Someone compiled a list (sorry guys, I suck at searching tags or I’d link to that here) and found at least ten of them. But none of them mirrors the Original Trilogy Trio™. 

“But wait!” you say, “Star Wars has always had a trio. Han, Luke and Leia. Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan. Why not now?” So, yeah. I’m going to make the argument that the prequel trio is a very different sort of trio from the OT trio. They aren’t comparable. And there is a good reason that we aren’t getting one at all in this new trilogy. 

Three is a Magic Number 

Literature and Film are littered with trios. Three is one of those numbers that just feels good. It can represent all kinds of things from youth, maturity, and old-age, to faith, hope, and charity. Myth gives us the Three Fates, the God-rulers of Heaven, Earth, and Underworld, the judgement of Paris between Wisdom, Rule, and Love. Within the Christian religion there is not only the trinity of the Godhead, but also Christ’s threefold temptation in the desert, and the call to love God with Heart, Mind, and Strength. Pay attention to those last two. They matter here.

In adventure stories, trios make a good party. Look at Conan the Barbarian. The 1982 movie (a pastiche of several of the short stories) has a trio of fighter-thieves on a mission to rescue a princess from the clutches of an evil cult. The trio is Conan, our protagonist, Valeria, his lover, and Subotai, his sidekick/friend. The combination of hero, love interest, and sidekick/best friend is pretty common. And in terms of symbolic significance, it basically states that our hero succeeds through the support of love, both romantic and platonic. This is Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan. 

Another common trio in adventure stories is Mage, Fighter, & Rogue. Does this one sound familiar. It’s only every swords and sorcery movie ever. It’s the a Trio from Wheel of Time, Rand, Perrin, and Mat. (Significantly, the love interests are not part of this trio. It isn’t a necessary component, unlike the previously mentioned one.) And it also is one way to describe Luke the Magic Space Knight, Leia the Warrior Princess, and Han the Rogue.

The third major type of trio, and the one I want to focus on, is the Tripartate Soul Trio. You should recognize this from philosophy or psychology. Id, Ego, and SuperEgo. Intellect, Will/Spiritedness, and Appetite. Guts(Strength), Heart, and Brain(Mind). See, I told you I was bringing that one back. And the temptations in the desert? They were first to bodily needs, than political power, and finally to intellectual and spiritual pride. And four centuries before Christ, Greek philosophers were pondering the same division.

We know plenty of these, but to stick to popular fandom so, think Spock, Kirk, and Bones. Spock is the hyper rational one, always seeking the most logical solution, but not necessarily the most humane. Kirk is the man of action, acting on instinct, but not necessarily emotion. Bones is the emotional one, prone to irritable outbursts and always chafing at how unfeeling Spock is. 

Another example, you ask? Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley. Hermione is the logical, intellectual one, Harry the instinctive man of action, Ron the mess of emotions. This trio does not necessitate a love interest, but if there is one it will be between Brains and Guts, the alchemical marriage that resolves opposites, leaving heart as the third wheel. The protagonist is always Heart. This is because in the integrated man (or woman), the heart is the center of action, spurred to action by the appetites, and moderated in that action by the intellect. 

Funny how Han and Leia end up together and Luke is the third wheel. Yeah, that’s not by accident. Leia is the brains of the operation, Han is all gut, Luke is all heart. Even there companions reinforce this. Han’s best friend communicates in emotionally charged growls, and is a volatile, reactive creature. Leia’s protocol droid is a prissy robot that is forever spouting off the statically likelihood of actions. Luke’s astromech is a droid of action, along with being pretty sassy. 

Are any of these trios showing up so far in the sequel trilogy? I mean with actual screen time together as a team. Nope. Didn’t think so. 

There’s a reason for this. 

Four Elements, Four Humours 

The Tripartate Soul is still going to matter in a big way in the sequels. But it is not going to be represented by people. I’m working on a much bigger post on why I think that it is going to center on the nature of the force. Suffice it to say that Manichean dichotomy of the first film between good and evil is shifting to something much more nuanced. 

There is another literary number that plays very nicely here though, and for which I’m seeing groundwork laid. Four. Four has its own impressive history, from four gospels to four Cardinal virtues, to the four elements. I’m going to focus on the last one. 

Ancient medicine had a number of schools of thought, including one that was outstandingly bad at healing people, but pretty good at personality typing and identifying primary weaknesses and strengths. The melancholic (excess of black bile, treated with enemas) was prone to despair, the choleric (excess of yellow bile, treated with purgatives) to pride, the sanguine (excess of blood, treated by bleeding) to flightiness, the phlegmatic (excess of mucus, treated with decongestants) to disengagement. But melancholic are emotionally intuitive, cholerics are your fiercest ally, sanguines can make anyone smile, and a phlegmatic is a staunch friend and a rock of stability. 

Want to guess what element they relate to? Well, Choleric is obviously Fire. Sanguine is Air, Phlegmatic is Water, and Melancholy is Earth.  Now here is where I would bring in Avatar: The Last Airbender because it would be perfect, but unfortunately I haven’t seen it. So instead I will note how lovely it is that the Hogwarts houses match up with the four elements. Gryffindor, with its fiery red and gold colors and courageous inhabitants represents the best of the choleric temperament. Ravenclaw is situated in the highest tower, represented by a bird, by people who could be described as having their head in the clouds. They are Air, through and through, and have the quick wit and flitting attention of the Sanguine. (Sanguine is also classic attention deficit, either all distraction or hyper focused.) Hufflepuff is Earth, situated below ground, loyal friends, and likely the nicest people because they are emotionally grounded. Slytherin is Water. Their common room is below the lake, they are the most apathetic to concerns of the wider wizarding world, and fiercely devoted to the few friends they have. 

Want another example? Try Wind in the Willows. The Water Rat, all fight and action, is Fire/Choleric, the Toad is Sanguine/Air with his never ending succession of fads and his obsession with motor cars, the Mole is Earth/Melancholy with his tendency to worry and his sensitivity to other’s feelings, and the Badger is Water/Phlegmatic with his disengagement from the world and his devotion to his few friends. 

Bit far afield of Star Wars, though. I’m getting there. What if we don’t have a trio? What if instead, the trilogy begins with the elements out of balance? Fire is raging against Air, Water, and Earth. There is a major confrontation between each of our heroic characters with our primary antagonist. And all four characters happen to perfectly capture one of those elements. 

Fiery Kylo Ren confronts the flippant flyboy Poe Dameron, Air incarnate. Rey not only comes from a planet that is all Earth, but she exhibits the resilience of Earth. There is a compassion in her nature that has not been stomped out by 15 years of harsh survival. And Finn is Water, loyal to his friends, but initially inclined toward just avoiding involvement. 

So, if the elements are out of balance, thus being the source of conflict, resolution comes not through extinguishing fire and removing it from the picture, but from coming into balance with the other elements. If a redemption arc is in the cards, then this becomes a real possibility. And that means that the end game is ultimately a quartet working together to save the Galaxy. Not only is there the theme of balance in the force at work, but balance in the elements that are bound by the force.

The funny thing about these movies is that they didn’t start with the thematic elements. But as the stories come together, these things just start to assert themselves. It only works when the archetypes play their roles. Otherwise things feel forced. When a Tripartate Soul Trio shows up, we know which one should be the hero, and if it’s played to be Intellect, something feels off. When an elemental quartet shows up, we know the end game is for them to work together so that everyone is in good humour. It’s as fundamental as the second act being the place where exposition occurs and something happens that makes you think the happy ending can’t possibly be pulled off.

I’m not saying that Kylo Ren, or even Ben Solo, becomes besties with Poe and Finn. And this scenario doesn’t even necessitate romantic Reylo (though I’m not giving up on that just yet). She matters to Kylo/Ben’s arc immensely. But a movie where they end up platonic soulmates would not clash with this idea. Granted, I could be completely wrong and I’m ready to laugh at just how off base I might be come December. Still, I think I’m closer than trying to shoehorn any of the existing characters into a Trio that doesn’t quite fit with established archetypes.

[mageinabarrel]

We pick up where we left off last time with Shoji Kawamori’s interview on creating AKB0048. In this part, the questions focus primarily on the casting process for the main voice actresses, turning toward some specific questions about the production process near the end.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out part one of the interview!

Shaking from nerves at auditions. Asking Kawamori Shoji about AKB0048: Part 2.

Whether it’s the Senbatsu popularity election or rock-paper-scissors, AKB48’s motto is always “fight hard.” For the voice of the 9 trainee main characters, an audition was held to choose from AKB48 and their sister groups, a total of 200 girls. What goal did Kawamori have with this inconceivable plan of casting the 9 lead roles with new voice actors? This second part of the interview with Shoji Kawamori centers on that voice casting.

— All of the 9 trainees were voiced by new members. They weren’t new to voice acting however, but instead were girls chosen from the AKB48 groups. This seems like it was quite a gamble.

Kawamori: Gambling can be good sometimes (laughs).Voice actresses have their own special set of skills. Acting with your voice is an incredibly difficult thing. Since (Super Dimension Fortress) Macross I’ve discovered many singers-turned-voice-actresses, but never 9 at one time. However, last June I witnessed the Senbatsu popularity election for the first time. After seeing those girls pull punches right out in the open to win, I felt that we would lose the concept of the story if we cast from outside the AKB48 groups. So during the meeting on the way back from the elections I said, “We have to choose from those girls.”

— It’s like you were driven into a corner (laughs). For the first round of auditions you chose through voice recording, correct?

Kawamori: We conducted tape audition in October, but the time until we could review them was filled with sleepless nights. We had asked for girls that were interested in voice acting to be notified, but we told by the AKB48 group, “We’re a group that gives it our all, so we’re all in.” We didn’t really have much time for that, though, so we had a car parked behind a handshake event, called in the girls one by one, handed them a paper and told them to read (laughs).

— What was the impression from those audition tapes?

Kawamori: We had heard that there were anime fans among the members, and this was true; however there were more girls that spoke like anime characters than girls who actually liked anime. If we went with those girls there really wouldn’t be any point in having this audition and choosing from outside of the anime industry. So while those girls did well, we intentionally chose away from that.

— Was the overall level high?

Kawamori: Despite suddenly being told to audition in a place like that, there were a lot of girls that had a good sense of what they were doing. On top of that, it really felt like each one of them had figured out what they needed to stand out as unique. I wondered what made them so independent and have such a good intuition, and then I figured it out. Obviously, when they take the mic on stage, but also at handshake events and variety shows, they train how to be themselves.

— I understand speaking on stage and variety shows, but why handshake events as well?

Kawamori: For many members, they meet with 2000 people in one day. If you think about it, though, they interact with 2000 people in a single day. They have to train themselves to be able to respond to every fan right then and there. There aren’t many groups in the world that do that kind of thing. For example, you would expect a sales person that interacts with many customers to have a firm grasp of communication, wouldn’t you? But for AKB48, they have to train to respond to the love and support of each of their 2000 fans in a matter of seconds in a single day, however many time a month.

— They can’t really respond to that love and support easily either. They have to give back with their best reactions or comments.

Kawamori: Yeah. In a split second they decide what to say, how to express it, and shake their fan’s hand. Doing that with 2000 people is training in itself. There isn’t much criticism of that training at handshake events either. Everyone seems to overlook the work put into it.

— So that’s the result of those handshake events. From that audition taken at the handshake event, you chose 30 girls to participate in the live audition. What was your impression of that?

Kawamori: At the live audition you could see some girls shaking from nerves. Why was it that they were shaking so much after climbing the stage in contrast to the previous audition? They wanted to be voice actors that badly. They felt this was their only chance. Even in this state, though, they were able to properly say their lines. Being able to display such power under all that pressure is really amazing. Another thing, the level at the live audition had already surpassed the level at the first audition.

— Being able to mature that quickly is pretty amazing.

Kawamori: We chose the nine girls from that live audition and continued onto the casting audition. Even at that time, if you gave them even the slightest of directions they would instantly change. Karen Iwata (playing Nagisa Motomiya) in particular was able to improve incredibly fast. If you were to listen to their voices during the first audition I’m sure it would shock you.

— How so?

Kawamori: Listening to the tapes, there is certainly an impression left, but their voices are incredibly gloomy. The first round of auditions left this bad taste in my mouth. I was left thinking there was no way such gloomy voices could take on such cheerful characters. They were still only trainees (just like the characters) after all. But during the second audition they seemed to brighten up a little bit. Meeting with them and listening to them talk, it didn’t seem like they were the types to get fired up and make a lot of noise. But, during the recording and retakes they seemed to get a lot more into it. Every episode their emotional performance gradually changed. That is to say, between every episode they changed. It wasn’t just Iwata either; I’ve never seen a group of girls improve that quickly.

— I was also quite surprised by the trainees’ performance. Especially with how well Amino Sato and Haruka Ishida performed as Yuuka Ichijou and Kanata Shinonome. I thought many of the other castings for the trainees were interesting, but Mayu Watanabe caught my interest. Within the trainee members there was Mayu Watanabe who voiced Chieri Sono; however, there was also the Mayu Watanabe Mk. III. She wasn’t the 3rd generation, she was Mk. III. Why was it that she had missiles shooting out of her arms (laughs)? What was the real Mayu’s response to this?

Kawamori: She was quite pleased with it. The fans asked her on Google+: “Will your arms be shooting missiles and beams from now on?” to which she responded, “Yes.” She just got it (laughs).

— Even if she becomes a robot in the future, she’s good to go (laughs).

Kawamori: I never said she was a robot. That’s a 00 top secret, so please try not to poke your nose into it. Even after you saw beams shoot out of her hands, if you asked her, “Mayuyu, what was that just now?” she’ll just act like she can’t hear you (laughs).

— Now I’m even more interested (laughs)! I’m changing the subject, but can you tell us about the live concert scenes? Similar to Macross F, I feel like AKB0048 places importance on the live scenes. This time you used CG characters for these scenes—what was the purpose of that?

Kawamori: To be exact, it was a CG-hand drawn hybrid. In the case of Macross F, there were only two idols, Sheryl and Ranka. They usually sang solos as well so, despite needing to draw these scenes, it was feasible. However, with AKB0048 there were 16 girls. If we had all of it hand drawn, we would lose focus on the other scenes. We’d be tripping over ourselves. What we really wanted to focus on drawing were the dramatic scenes. So in order to preserve the drawing quality of the dramatic parts, we used CG. There is also a lot more freedom with camera angles when using digital. You can get an single shot from the the audience to the stage for instance.

— I see.

Kawamori: Nowadays it’s normal to have a camera crane grazing over the audiences’ heads. People have grown accustomed to it. If we didn’t show them something more dynamic it would be no good. Although if it had been a show aimed purely at anime fans, we would just have given it our best shot with hand drawing and shown them what we had, but this time we had a wider audience. We made the camera work and formations digital, and used traditional drawing when showing things like expressions or final poses. Making the best of both forms was a key point in the live performances.

— Now, I was very taken with the mechanics of the bike in episode one, as well as the world’s picture book styled art like shown with Akibastar. The mechanical designer, Stanislas Brunet, and the background artists, Thomas Romain and Yann Le Gall, are all from France. What was the purpose in appointing them?

Kawamori: During the production of Basquash we worked together, but they all have a very good sense about them. They have very interesting non-Japanese point of view. Despite this, they love Japanese animation and can thus fight alongside it. I really wanted their out-of-the-box thinking and quality style. Their sense of scale is really good as well and they are over all very reliable staff members.

https://twitter.com/Thomasintokyo/status/594388207657091072

https://twitter.com/Thomasintokyo/status/304001059372818434

— They created a very unique world, didn’t they? With that, we can start to wrap things up. Can you tell us what to look for in the final episode that airs this Sunday (July 22nd)?

Kawamori: The characters’ stories are quickly progressing and as you watch, those individual stories are coming together to shape into something.

—  I feel like your works tend to take your fans by surprise; we’ll be expecting similar this time around.

Kawamori: That’s such a strange way to put it. A show with a surprise ending would definitely be Aquarion EVOL, but AKB0048 will be more straightforward. If I try and go big too often it might be a let down (laughs).

— Is it also because you want others, outside of your fan base, to enjoy the show as well?

Kawamori: I believe so. That and the struggle of the AKB48 members is something very earnest and straightforward. I never thought I would see such straightforward women in this day and age.

— When you first started thinking up an anime for AKB48, did you ever think it would become what it is today?

Kawamori: Before collecting data I thought it would be centered around the successor members and the use of their honed skills. I won’t go as far as to say an action spy theme, but there was  strong push for something around the lines of fighting the entertainment oppression or narrowly escaping live performances. Now, it is purely a story of the girls’ youth. “A story of sweat and tears, that’s all,” kind of deal (laughs). But, just how much sweat and tears will there be? Everyone watching will personally experience it from here on out (laughs).

And that’s all for this interview! Once again, thank you to @chottojolly for translating this interview as a Christmas gift for me and for giving me permission to post it here!

And here's the second part of the translated interview with Shoji Kawamori on AKB0048! We pick up where we left off last time with Shoji Kawamori's interview on creating AKB0048…

[concrete-molds-blog1]

American Computer And Robotic Palletizer Museum

Berkshire Grey helps clients transform the essential method they do business by delivering sport-changing technology that mixes AI and robotics to automate omnichannel fulfillment. Berkshire Grey solutions are a fundamental engine of change that transforms pick, pack, and type operations to deliver aggressive advantage for enterprises serving today's connected consumers. go here Berkshire Grey clients embrace Global a hundred retailers and logistics service suppliers.

Shortest adoption runway, bots on demand, and 500+ prepared-to-obtain bots. Enterprise-grade technology with the intuitive expertise of a consumer application. Continuing the longstanding custom of supporting successful businesses by offering tools for information transfer, remote administration, broadband backup, point-of-sale, and machine-to-machine functions.

The suit was powered by hydraulics and electrical energy and amplified the wearer's strength by a factor of 25, in order that lifting a hundred and ten kilograms would really feel like lifting four.5 kilograms . A characteristic known as drive suggestions enabled the wearer to feel the forces and objects being manipulated.

The method the manufacturing line is ready up is claimed to be impressed by car factories. The industrial robots from Kawasaki are utilized on the unit meeting line, working on gable body meeting, and general meeting to attach the ceiling, ground and gable frames. Automation Anywhere empowers people whose ideas, thought and focus make the companies they work for excellent. We ship the world’s most sophisticated Digital Workforce Platform making work more human by automating business processes and liberating folks. "This work is simply a first step in holistically integrating sound in robotics," Pinto mentioned.

On this site with an space equivalent to 1-and-a-half instances the Tokyo Dome the place it could possibly maintain 55,000 people, sits the Heim Production Building, the place “homes are assembled by robots”. The Kyushu manufacturing facility is positioned in Tosu City, Saga Prefecture in Japan and robots are carried out on the housing unit meeting line. These are industrial robots constructed by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, or Kawasaki. The intention behind this software of robots was to comprehend strict high quality management and to deal with growing older manufacturing unit staff and labor shortage.

Innovative Mechatronic Solutions For Higher Productivity

Pinto and his colleagues are actually planning additional research exploring the potential of sound analysis for creating robots with more advanced capabilities. "One thrilling preliminary result of our study was that from sound alone you'll be able to acknowledge the type of object with near eighty% accuracy," Pinto explained. The researchers collected each visual and audio knowledge for over 15,000 Tilt-Bot interactions with 60 totally different objects. This allowed them to compile a brand new picture and audio dataset that might help to coach robots to make associations between actions, pictures, and sounds.

It is essential to at all times speak together with your surgeon about your choices as there could also be circumstances during which robotic surgery may not be indicated. Costs associated with robotic surgical procedure usually are not any more expensive for sufferers than that of open or minimally-invasive procedures.

As we are able to see around us now, the health of our neighborhood is much too essential and requires a scientific and meticulous method, a task that only robots can perform successfully. He's an actual-life robot such as you've only seen in motion pictures, with a one-of-a-kind character that evolves the more you hang around. Frost & Sullivan also lauded Berkshire Grey for its AI-guided automated picking capabilities, which proceed to enhance in efficiency the longer the system is in use. Berkshire Grey options excel at figuring out, perceiving, and grasping whereas attaining the attain, velocity, and conveyance essential to automate correct choosing at excessive pace and with great effectivity. Berkshire Grey’s choices are full techniques that reimagine crucial workflows and processes somewhat than piece parts that organizations should source and combine to construct methods that automate precise work.

One of the biggest problems dealing with engineers and designers of powered exoskeletons is the facility provide. This is a particular problem if the exoskeleton is intended to be worn "in the area", i.e. exterior a context in which the exoskeleton could be tethered to a power supply. Batteries require frequent substitute or recharging, and may danger explosion as a result of thermal runaway. In 2018, Spanish exoskeleton provider Gogoa Mobility was the primary European firm to get a CE approval for his or her powered decrease physique HANK exoskeleton for medical use.

Industry-main, enterprise-grade backup, sync and sharing options to simplify the protection and accessibility of valuable knowledge. Observation Post articles replicate creator observations or attempts at humor. It doesn’t know if it’s a Marianas Trench or if it’s two inches deep,” Army Maj. Corey Wallace advised reporters within the call. By applying new waveforms for radios, which Coffman credited to private business, they’re in a position to hold the usual ranges, even in difficult environments, and perhaps push them farther. "Taking that technology off road and into the woods presents a new set of challenges no one has mastered."

We create good automation options that rework industrial processing, worker safety and full sectors.

With a really international footprint, we apply market main technology and robotics to revolutionise complete industries.

By doing so we make life better for folks, corporations and their wider communities.

The Ekso GT, made by Ekso Bionics, is the primary exoskeleton to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for stroke sufferers.

Exoskeletons—that could be referred to as "step rehabilitation robots"—may also help with the rehabilitation from stroke, spinal cord injury or during getting older.

Powered exoskeletons can enhance the standard of life of people who've misplaced the usage of their legs by enabling system-assisted strolling

Compact Robotic Palletising

Since its introduction in 2016, Neo’s gross sales have roughly doubled every year, said Faizan Sheikh, the chief executive and a co-founding father of Avidbots, the Canadian start-up that created the robotic. This 12 months, nevertheless, demand has shot up 100 percent just for the reason that pandemic-induced shutdown in March. Suddenly, the necessity for thorough, reliable and frequent cleansing is entrance and middle.

I’m pretty glossy and shiny, and the way I can move all my physique segments so smoothly in so many instructions, it actually lets me work together with the world and specific how I’m feeling. No matter what I’m doing, I’m at all times making an attempt to do good on the planet—and meaning for you too. A really nice staff of people is helping me reach my full potential so I can do all kinds of good for people around the world. Boston Dynamics is creating a disinfecting answer that may be mounted atop its Spot robotic.

Could You Explain The Reasoning Behind Introducing Robots?

I agree with receiving newsletters about current provides, events, and other information from the corporate.I agree with receiving newsletters about current presents, occasions, and other news from the company. I agree with receiving newsletters about current offers, events, and different news from the corporate.

Reed claims to have set the velocity document for strolling in robot fits by completing the four.8-kilometre race at a median pace of four kilometres per hour (2.5 mph). The Lifesuit prototype 14 can walk 1.6 km on a full cost and lift ninety two kg for the wearer.

Local News

During the previous 14 years, greater than 1.seventy five million robotic surgeries have been performed in the United States alone, across a myriad of surgical specialties. The surgical robot, PUMA 560, was a robotic arm used in a stereotaxic procedure by which computed tomography, (X-rays) have been used to guide the robotic as it inserted a needle into the brain for biopsy. During the previous 14 years, more than 1.75 million robotic surgeries have been carried out within the United States alone.

The RBR50 firm launched its OnRobot Screwdriver finish-of-arm device that handles quite a lot of screws. The Cobot Expo from Universal Robots will characteristic a spread of cobot information and demos, including 30 booths, insightful keynotes, interactive Q&As and stay chats with specialists.

[computerguideworld-blog]

Kanos latest computer kit for kids doubles down on touch

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/must-see/kanos-latest-computer-kit-for-kids-doubles-down-on-touch/

Kanos latest computer kit for kids doubles down on touch

Learn-to-code startup Kano, whose products aim to turn kids into digital makers, has taken the wraps off the latest incarnation of its build-it-yourself computer kit.

With the new flagship Kano is doubling down on touch interactions — urging kids to “make your own tablet”. The Computer Kit Touch packs a 10.1″ HD touchscreen, along with Kano’s now familiar bright orange wireless keyboard which comes with a built in trackpad.

While touch is becoming increasingly central to its products, Kano says the keyboard remains an important component of the product — supporting text-based coding apps which its platform also provides access to, as well as the more approachable drag-and-drop block-based coding systems that do really benefit from having a touchscreen to hand.

The kit, which Kano says is generally (but not exclusively) aimed at the 6-13 age range, is on sale from today, priced at $279.99 — via its website (Kano.me), as well as from selected retailers and e-tailers.

The Raspberry Pi powered computer is also getting increased storage capacity in this upgrade — of 16GB. But the main refresh is around updating Kano OS, Kano’s kid-friendly Pi topper, with expanded support for touch controls, according to founder Alex Klein .

Last year Kano combined touch and keyboard based interaction into a single product, the Computer Kit Complete — calling that a DIY laptop.

The 2018 refreshed version looks much the same, with enhancements generally behind the scenes and/or under the hood.

“The big moves this year are advancing the software and content ecosystem,” says Klein. “How it’s all integrated together.”

He points to another coding kit the team has up for pre-order, slated to ship next month — a co-branded Harry Potter gizmo in which kids get to build a motion-sensitive “coding wand” and use it to cook up their own digital spells, helped along by Kano’s software — adding: “With the Potter kit we’re bringing Kano code — to create a system, the ability to blend and change physics engines and sounds and particle systems — to tablets. So we’ve now got a touch-based interaction model for that e-product, as well as mouse and keyboard, and so we’ve brought that software system now to the Computer Kit Touch.

“You can code by dragging and dropping blocks with your fingers, you can paint and draw. You can change the pitch of a loop or a melody by running your fingers up and down and then using a change of a parameter mess with how quickly that melody changes, mess with the number of layers, you can make a beat or a loop using a touch-based digital audio workstation style X-Y plane. You can go into any one of our creative coding apps and pull in touch-based interactions, so instead of just using a mouse, a click and point, you can make an app that responds to swipes and taps, and different speeds, and in different locations.”

“On the touch kit itself there’s also a set of new content that demystifies how touchscreens work and peels back the layer of the screen and shows you what’s behind, and you’re kind of touching the intersection of the different copper wires and seeing what’s happening beneath,” he adds.

“There’s obviously a big hardware upgrade with the new ability to touch it, to take it with you. We’ve refined a lot of the components, we’ve improved the speed, the battery life. But really the core of it is this upgraded software that integrates with all the other kit.”

Talking of other kit, the learn-to-code space is now awash with quasi-educational gizmos, leaving parents in Western markets spoiled for choice of what to buy a budding coder.

Many more of these gizmos will be unboxed as we head into the holiday season. And while Kano was something of a startup pioneer here — a category creator, as Klein tells it — there’s now no shortage of tech for kids promising some kind of STEM-based educational benefit. So it’s facing an ever-growing gaggle of competition.

Kano’s strategy to stand out in an increasingly contested space is to fix on familiar elements, says Stein — flagging for example the popular game Minecraft — which runs on the Kano kit, and for which there’s a whole subsection of the Kano World community given over to hacking Minecraft.

And, well, aside from block-headed Minecraft characters it’s hard to find a character more familiar to children than the fictional wizard Harry Potter. So you can certainly see where Kano’s trying to get with the coding wand.

“We broke our first month pre-order target in one day,” he says of that forthcoming e-product (RRP ~$130). “There was massive coverage, massive traffic on our site, it was picked up all over the place and we’re very happy with the pre-orders so far. As are our retail partners.”

The Potter co-branding play is certainly Kano trying to make its products cast a wider spell by expanding the appeal of coding from nerdy makers to more mainstream child consumers. But how successful that will be remains to be seen. Not least because we’ve seen this sort of tactic elsewhere in this space.

Sphero, for example, is now rolling back the other way — shifting away from Star Wars co-branded bots to a serious education push focused on bringing STEM robotics to schools. (Although Kano would doubtless say a programmable bot that rolls is not the same as a fully fledged kit computer that can run all manner of apps, including familiar and fashionable stuff like Minecraft and YouTube.)

“We’re very pleased to see that this category that we created, with that Kickstarter campaign in 2013 — it’s become more than what some people initially feared it would be which was niche, maker ‘arcanery’; and it’s becoming a major consumer phenomenon,” he says. “This notion that people want to make their own technology, learn how to code and play in that way. And not just kids — people of all ages.”

On the hard sales front, Klein isn’t breaking out numbers for Potter kit pre-sales at this stage. But says the various incarnations of its main computer kit have shipped ~360,000 units since September 2014. So it’s not Lego (which has also moved into programmable kits) — but it’s not bad either.

In recent years Kano has also branched out into offering Internet of Things kits, previewing three code-your-own connected devices in 2016 — and launching Kickstarter campaigns to get the products to market.

It’s since shipped one (the Pixel kit) but the other two (a build-it-yourself camera kit and a DIY speaker) remain delayed — leaving crowdfunder backers waiting for their hardware.

Why the delay? Have Kano’s priorities shifted — perhaps because it’s focusing efforts on cobranded products (like the Potter wand) vs creating more of its own standalone devices?

“We are still committed to shipping the speaker kit, the camera kit,” Klein tells TechCrunch. “A big reason for [the delay] is not only the fact that the company is in a position now where we have mass distribution, we have great partners — perennially testing new product ideas — and we want to make sure that products are going to resonate with, not just a small group of people but many, many people, of many different age groups and interests before we release them.”

He also points out that any backers of the two devices who want refunds can get them in full.

Though he also says some are choosing to wait — adding that Kano remains committed to shipping the devices, and saying for those that do wait there will be a few extra bells and whistles than originally specced out in the crowdfunder campaign.

The delay itself looks like the market (and consumer tastes) moving quicker than Kano predicted — and so it finds itself wishing its products could deliver more than it originally planned (but without a wand to wave to instantly achieve that).

This is also a pitfall with previewing anything months or years ahead of time, of course. But the expense and complexity of building hardware makes crowdfunding platforms attractive — even for a relatively established brand like Kano.

“The delay is really unfortunate,” he adds. “We did say they would ship earlier but what we have done is we’ve offered any backer a full refund on the camera and the speaker if they don’t want to wait. But if they do wait they will receive incredible camera, incredible speaker. Both of them are going to benefit from the advancements made in low cost computing in the last year.

“The speaker as well is going to have elements that weren’t even part of the original campaign. On our side it’s critical that we get those products absolutely right and that they feel mass, and that they demystify not only coding and the Internet of Things, which was part of the original purpose, but in the case of the camera and the speaker there are elements that have come to the fore in more recent months like voice interaction and image recognition that we feel if our mandate is to demystify technology and we’re shipping a camera and a speaker… that’s kind of part of it. Make it perfect, make it of the moment. And for any backer who doesn’t want to wait for that, no problem at all — we’ll refund you 100%.”

Beyond reworking its approach with those perhaps overly ambitious connected devices, Kano has additional release plans in its pipeline — with Klein mentioning that additional co-branded products will be coming next year.

He says Kano is also eyeing expanding into more markets. “There’s a significant market for Kano even beyond our traditional leading position amongst 6-13 year olds in the US and the UK. There’s a really strong market for people who are beyond the US and the UK and we’re now at a scale where we can start really investing in these distribution and localization relationships that have come our way since year one,” he says.

And he at least entertains the idea of a future Kano device that does away with a keyboard entirely — and goes all in on touch — when we suggest it.

“Would we move to a place where we have no keyboard in a Kano computer? I think it’s very possible,” he says. “It might be a different form factor, it might be smaller, it might fit in your pocket, it might have connectivity — that kind of stuff.”

Which sort of sounds like Kano’s thinking about making a DIY smartphone. If so, you heard it here first.

The five and a half year old London-based startup is not yet profitable but Klein flags growth he dubs “fast enough” (noting it doubled sales year-over-year last year, a “trend” he says continued in the first half of this year), before adding: “It’s not impossible for us to get to profitability. We have a lot of optionality. But at the moment we are making investments — in software, in team — we have partner products coming out like Harry, we’ll have more coming out next year. So in terms of absolute positive EBITDA not yet but we are profitable on a units basis.”

Kano closed a $28M Series B last year — and has raised some $44.5M in all at this stage, according to Crunchbase. Is it raising more funding now? “I think any entrepreneur who is looking to do something big is always in some sense keeping an eye out for sources of capital,” replies Klein. “As well as sources of talent.”

He points by way of a connected aside to this study of C-suite execs, carried out by Stripe and Harris poll, which found that access to software developers is a bigger constraint than access to capital, saying: “I read that and I thought that that gap — between the 1% of 1% who can develop software or hardware and the rest of us — is exactly the challenge that Kano set out to solve from a consumer and education perspective.”

“In terms of fundraising we do get a lot of inbound, we have great investors at the moment,” he adds. “We do know that the scale of this particular challenge — which is demystify technology, become synonymous with learning to code and making your own computers — that requires significant support and we’ll be continuing to keep our eyes out as we grow.”

Read more: https://techcrunch.com

[endenogatai]

Kano’s latest computer kit for kids doubles down on touch

Learn-to-code startup Kano, whose products aim to turn kids into digital makers, has taken the wraps off the latest incarnation of its build-it-yourself computer kit.

With the new flagship Kano is doubling down on touch interactions — urging kids to “make your own tablet”. The Computer Kit Touch packs a 10.1″ HD touchscreen, along with Kano’s now familiar bright orange wireless keyboard which comes with a built in trackpad.

While touch is becoming increasingly central to its products, Kano says the keyboard remains an important component of the product — supporting text-based coding apps which its platform also provides access to, as well as the more approachable drag-and-drop block-based coding systems that do really benefit from having a touchscreen to hand.

The kit, which Kano says is generally (but not exclusively) aimed at the 6-13 age range, is on sale from today, priced at $279.99 — via its website (Kano.me), as well as from selected retailers and e-tailers.

The Raspberry Pi powered computer is also getting increased storage capacity in this upgrade — of 16GB. But the main refresh is around updating Kano OS, Kano’s kid-friendly Pi topper, with expanded support for touch controls, according to founder Alex Klein .

Last year Kano combined touch and keyboard based interaction into a single product, the Computer Kit Complete — calling that a DIY laptop.

The 2018 refreshed version looks much the same, with enhancements generally behind the scenes and/or under the hood.

“The big moves this year are advancing the software and content ecosystem,” says Klein. “How it’s all integrated together.”

He points to another coding kit the team has up for pre-order, slated to ship next month — a co-branded Harry Potter gizmo in which kids get to build a motion-sensitive “coding wand” and use it to cook up their own digital spells, helped along by Kano’s software — adding: “With the Potter kit we’re bringing Kano code — to create a system, the ability to blend and change physics engines and sounds and particle systems — to tablets. So we’ve now got a touch-based interaction model for that e-product, as well as mouse and keyboard, and so we’ve brought that software system now to the Computer Kit Touch.

“You can code by dragging and dropping blocks with your fingers, you can paint and draw. You can change the pitch of a loop or a melody by running your fingers up and down and then using a change of a parameter mess with how quickly that melody changes, mess with the number of layers, you can make a beat or a loop using a touch-based digital audio workstation style X-Y plane. You can go into any one of our creative coding apps and pull in touch-based interactions, so instead of just using a mouse, a click and point, you can make an app that responds to swipes and taps, and different speeds, and in different locations.”

“On the touch kit itself there’s also a set of new content that demystifies how touchscreens work and peels back the layer of the screen and shows you what’s behind, and you’re kind of touching the intersection of the different copper wires and seeing what’s happening beneath,” he adds.

“There’s obviously a big hardware upgrade with the new ability to touch it, to take it with you. We’ve refined a lot of the components, we’ve improved the speed, the battery life. But really the core of it is this upgraded software that integrates with all the other kit.”

Talking of other kit, the learn-to-code space is now awash with quasi-educational gizmos, leaving parents in Western markets spoiled for choice of what to buy a budding coder.

Many more of these gizmos will be unboxed as we head into the holiday season. And while Kano was something of a startup pioneer here — a category creator, as Klein tells it — there’s now no shortage of tech for kids promising some kind of STEM-based educational benefit. So it’s facing an ever-growing gaggle of competition.

Kano’s strategy to stand out in an increasingly contested space is to fix on familiar elements, says Stein — flagging for example the popular game Minecraft — which runs on the Kano kit, and for which there’s a whole subsection of the Kano World community given over to hacking Minecraft.

And, well, aside from block-headed Minecraft characters it’s hard to find a character more familiar to children than the fictional wizard Harry Potter. So you can certainly see where Kano’s trying to get with the coding wand.

“We broke our first month pre-order target in one day,” he says of that forthcoming e-product (RRP ~$130). “There was massive coverage, massive traffic on our site, it was picked up all over the place and we’re very happy with the pre-orders so far. As are our retail partners.”

The Potter co-branding play is certainly Kano trying to make its products cast a wider spell by expanding the appeal of coding from nerdy makers to more mainstream child consumers. But how successful that will be remains to be seen. Not least because we’ve seen this sort of tactic elsewhere in this space.

Sphero, for example, is now rolling back the other way — shifting away from Star Wars co-branded bots to a serious education push focused on bringing STEM robotics to schools. (Although Kano would doubtless say a programmable bot that rolls is not the same as a fully fledged kit computer that can run all manner of apps, including familiar and fashionable stuff like Minecraft and YouTube.)

“We’re very pleased to see that this category that we created, with that Kickstarter campaign in 2013 — it’s become more than what some people initially feared it would be which was niche, maker ‘arcanery’; and it’s becoming a major consumer phenomenon,” he says. “This notion that people want to make their own technology, learn how to code and play in that way. And not just kids — people of all ages.”

On the hard sales front, Klein isn’t breaking out numbers for Potter kit pre-sales at this stage. But says the various incarnations of its main computer kit have shipped ~360,000 units since September 2014. So it’s not Lego (which has also moved into programmable kits) — but it’s not bad either.

In recent years Kano has also branched out into offering Internet of Things kits, previewing three code-your-own connected devices in 2016 — and launching Kickstarter campaigns to get the products to market.

It’s since shipped one (the Pixel kit) but the other two (a build-it-yourself camera kit and a DIY speaker) remain delayed — leaving crowdfunder backers waiting for their hardware.

Why the delay? Have Kano’s priorities shifted — perhaps because it’s focusing efforts on cobranded products (like the Potter wand) vs creating more of its own standalone devices?

“We are still committed to shipping the speaker kit, the camera kit,” Klein tells TechCrunch. “A big reason for [the delay] is not only the fact that the company is in a position now where we have mass distribution, we have great partners — perennially testing new product ideas — and we want to make sure that products are going to resonate with, not just a small group of people but many, many people, of many different age groups and interests before we release them.”

He also points out that any backers of the two devices who want refunds can get them in full.

Though he also says some are choosing to wait — adding that Kano remains committed to shipping the devices, and saying for those that do wait there will be a few extra bells and whistles than originally specced out in the crowdfunder campaign.

The delay itself looks like the market (and consumer tastes) moving quicker than Kano predicted — and so it finds itself wishing its products could deliver more than it originally planned (but without a wand to wave to instantly achieve that).

This is also a pitfall with previewing anything months or years ahead of time, of course. But the expense and complexity of building hardware makes crowdfunding platforms attractive — even for a relatively established brand like Kano.

“The delay is really unfortunate,” he adds. “We did say they would ship earlier but what we have done is we’ve offered any backer a full refund on the camera and the speaker if they don’t want to wait. But if they do wait they will receive incredible camera, incredible speaker. Both of them are going to benefit from the advancements made in low cost computing in the last year.

“The speaker as well is going to have elements that weren’t even part of the original campaign. On our side it’s critical that we get those products absolutely right and that they feel mass, and that they demystify not only coding and the Internet of Things, which was part of the original purpose, but in the case of the camera and the speaker there are elements that have come to the fore in more recent months like voice interaction and image recognition that we feel if our mandate is to demystify technology and we’re shipping a camera and a speaker… that’s kind of part of it. Make it perfect, make it of the moment. And for any backer who doesn’t want to wait for that, no problem at all — we’ll refund you 100%.”

Beyond reworking its approach with those perhaps overly ambitious connected devices, Kano has additional release plans in its pipeline — with Klein mentioning that additional co-branded products will be coming next year.

He says Kano is also eyeing expanding into more markets. “There’s a significant market for Kano even beyond our traditional leading position amongst 6-13 year olds in the US and the UK. There’s a really strong market for people who are beyond the US and the UK and we’re now at a scale where we can start really investing in these distribution and localization relationships that have come our way since year one,” he says.

And he at least entertains the idea of a future Kano device that does away with a keyboard entirely — and goes all in on touch — when we suggest it.

“Would we move to a place where we have no keyboard in a Kano computer? I think it’s very possible,” he says. “It might be a different form factor, it might be smaller, it might fit in your pocket, it might have connectivity — that kind of stuff.”

Which sort of sounds like Kano’s thinking about making a DIY smartphone. If so, you heard it here first.

The five and a half year old London-based startup is not yet profitable but Klein flags growth he dubs “fast enough” (noting it doubled sales year-over-year last year, a “trend” he says continued in the first half of this year), before adding: “It’s not impossible for us to get to profitability. We have a lot of optionality. But at the moment we are making investments — in software, in team — we have partner products coming out like Harry, we’ll have more coming out next year. So in terms of absolute positive EBITDA not yet but we are profitable on a units basis.”

Kano closed a $28M Series B last year — and has raised some $44.5M in all at this stage, according to Crunchbase. Is it raising more funding now? “I think any entrepreneur who is looking to do something big is always in some sense keeping an eye out for sources of capital,” replies Klein. “As well as sources of talent.”

He points by way of a connected aside to this study of C-suite execs, carried out by Stripe and Harris poll, which found that access to software developers is a bigger constraint than access to capital, saying: “I read that and I thought that that gap — between the 1% of 1% who can develop software or hardware and the rest of us — is exactly the challenge that Kano set out to solve from a consumer and education perspective.”

“In terms of fundraising we do get a lot of inbound, we have great investors at the moment,” he adds. “We do know that the scale of this particular challenge — which is demystify technology, become synonymous with learning to code and making your own computers — that requires significant support and we’ll be continuing to keep our eyes out as we grow.”

  from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/2CQX6dF via IFTTT

[theinvinciblenoob]

Learn-to-code startup Kano, whose products aim to turn kids into digital makers, has taken the wraps off the latest incarnation of its build-it-yourself computer kit.

With the new flagship Kano is doubling down on touch interactions — urging kids to “make your own tablet”. The Computer Kit Touch packs a 10.1″ HD touchscreen, along with Kano’s now familiar bright orange wireless keyboard which comes with a built in trackpad.

While touch is becoming increasingly central to its products, Kano says the keyboard remains an important component of the product — supporting text-based coding apps which its platform also provides access to, as well as the more approachable drag-and-drop block-based coding systems that do really benefit from having a touchscreen to hand.

The kit, which Kano says is generally (but not exclusively) aimed at the 6-13 age range, is on sale from today, priced at $279.99 — via its website (Kano.me), as well as from selected retailers and e-tailers.

The Raspberry Pi powered computer is also getting increased storage capacity in this upgrade — of 16GB. But the main refresh is around updating Kano OS, Kano’s kid-friendly Pi topper, with expanded support for touch controls, according to founder Alex Klein .

Last year Kano combined touch and keyboard based interaction into a single product, the Computer Kit Complete — calling that a DIY laptop.

The 2018 refreshed version looks much the same, with enhancements generally behind the scenes and/or under the hood.

“The big moves this year are advancing the software and content ecosystem,” says Klein. “How it’s all integrated together.”

He points to another coding kit the team has up for pre-order, slated to ship next month — a co-branded Harry Potter gizmo in which kids get to build a motion-sensitive “coding wand” and use it to cook up their own digital spells, helped along by Kano’s software — adding: “With the Potter kit we’re bringing Kano code — to create a system, the ability to blend and change physics engines and sounds and particle systems — to tablets. So we’ve now got a touch-based interaction model for that e-product, as well as mouse and keyboard, and so we’ve brought that software system now to the Computer Kit Touch.

“You can code by dragging and dropping blocks with your fingers, you can paint and draw. You can change the pitch of a loop or a melody by running your fingers up and down and then using a change of a parameter mess with how quickly that melody changes, mess with the number of layers, you can make a beat or a loop using a touch-based digital audio workstation style X-Y plane. You can go into any one of our creative coding apps and pull in touch-based interactions, so instead of just using a mouse, a click and point, you can make an app that responds to swipes and taps, and different speeds, and in different locations.”

“On the touch kit itself there’s also a set of new content that demystifies how touchscreens work and peels back the layer of the screen and shows you what’s behind, and you’re kind of touching the intersection of the different copper wires and seeing what’s happening beneath,” he adds.

“There’s obviously a big hardware upgrade with the new ability to touch it, to take it with you. We’ve refined a lot of the components, we’ve improved the speed, the battery life. But really the core of it is this upgraded software that integrates with all the other kit.”

Talking of other kit, the learn-to-code space is now awash with quasi-educational gizmos, leaving parents in Western markets spoiled for choice of what to buy a budding coder.

Many more of these gizmos will be unboxed as we head into the holiday season. And while Kano was something of a startup pioneer here — a category creator, as Klein tells it — there’s now no shortage of tech for kids promising some kind of STEM-based educational benefit. So it’s facing an ever-growing gaggle of competition.

Kano’s strategy to stand out in an increasingly contested space is to fix on familiar elements, says Stein — flagging for example the popular game Minecraft — which runs on the Kano kit, and for which there’s a whole subsection of the Kano World community given over to hacking Minecraft.

And, well, aside from block-headed Minecraft characters it’s hard to find a character more familiar to children than the fictional wizard Harry Potter. So you can certainly see where Kano’s trying to get with the coding wand.

“We broke our first month pre-order target in one day,” he says of that forthcoming e-product (RRP ~$130). “There was massive coverage, massive traffic on our site, it was picked up all over the place and we’re very happy with the pre-orders so far. As are our retail partners.”

The Potter co-branding play is certainly Kano trying to make its products cast a wider spell by expanding the appeal of coding from nerdy makers to more mainstream child consumers. But how successful that will be remains to be seen. Not least because we’ve seen this sort of tactic elsewhere in this space.

Sphero, for example, is now rolling back the other way — shifting away from Star Wars co-branded bots to a serious education push focused on bringing STEM robotics to schools. (Although Kano would doubtless say a programmable bot that rolls is not the same as a fully fledged kit computer that can run all manner of apps, including familiar and fashionable stuff like Minecraft and YouTube.)

“We’re very pleased to see that this category that we created, with that Kickstarter campaign in 2013 — it’s become more than what some people initially feared it would be which was niche, maker ‘arcanery’; and it’s becoming a major consumer phenomenon,” he says. “This notion that people want to make their own technology, learn how to code and play in that way. And not just kids — people of all ages.”

On the hard sales front, Klein isn’t breaking out numbers for Potter kit pre-sales at this stage. But says the various incarnations of its main computer kit have shipped ~360,000 units since September 2014. So it’s not Lego (which has also moved into programmable kits) — but it’s not bad either.

In recent years Kano has also branched out into offering Internet of Things kits, previewing three code-your-own connected devices in 2016 — and launching Kickstarter campaigns to get the products to market.

It’s since shipped one (the Pixel kit) but the other two (a build-it-yourself camera kit and a DIY speaker) remain delayed — leaving crowdfunder backers waiting for their hardware.

Why the delay? Have Kano’s priorities shifted — perhaps because it’s focusing efforts on cobranded products (like the Potter wand) vs creating more of its own standalone devices?

“We are still committed to shipping the speaker kit, the camera kit,” Klein tells TechCrunch. “A big reason for [the delay] is not only the fact that the company is in a position now where we have mass distribution, we have great partners — perennially testing new product ideas — and we want to make sure that products are going to resonate with, not just a small group of people but many, many people, of many different age groups and interests before we release them.”

He also points out that any backers of the two devices who want refunds can get them in full.

Though he also says some are choosing to wait — adding that Kano remains committed to shipping the devices, and saying for those that do wait there will be a few extra bells and whistles than originally specced out in the crowdfunder campaign.

The delay itself looks like the market (and consumer tastes) moving quicker than Kano predicted — and so it finds itself wishing its products could deliver more than it originally planned (but without a wand to wave to instantly achieve that).

This is also a pitfall with previewing anything months or years ahead of time, of course. But the expense and complexity of building hardware makes crowdfunding platforms attractive — even for a relatively established brand like Kano.

“The delay is really unfortunate,” he adds. “We did say they would ship earlier but what we have done is we’ve offered any backer a full refund on the camera and the speaker if they don’t want to wait. But if they do wait they will receive incredible camera, incredible speaker. Both of them are going to benefit from the advancements made in low cost computing in the last year.

“The speaker as well is going to have elements that weren’t even part of the original campaign. On our side it’s critical that we get those products absolutely right and that they feel mass, and that they demystify not only coding and the Internet of Things, which was part of the original purpose, but in the case of the camera and the speaker there are elements that have come to the fore in more recent months like voice interaction and image recognition that we feel if our mandate is to demystify technology and we’re shipping a camera and a speaker… that’s kind of part of it. Make it perfect, make it of the moment. And for any backer who doesn’t want to wait for that, no problem at all — we’ll refund you 100%.”

Beyond reworking its approach with those perhaps overly ambitious connected devices, Kano has additional release plans in its pipeline — with Klein mentioning that additional co-branded products will be coming next year.

He says Kano is also eyeing expanding into more markets. “There’s a significant market for Kano even beyond our traditional leading position amongst 6-13 year olds in the US and the UK. There’s a really strong market for people who are beyond the US and the UK and we’re now at a scale where we can start really investing in these distribution and localization relationships that have come our way since year one,” he says.

And he at least entertains the idea of a future Kano device that does away with a keyboard entirely — and goes all in on touch — when we suggest it.

“Would we move to a place where we have no keyboard in a Kano computer? I think it’s very possible,” he says. “It might be a different form factor, it might be smaller, it might fit in your pocket, it might have connectivity — that kind of stuff.”

Which sort of sounds like Kano’s thinking about making a DIY smartphone. If so, you heard it here first.

The five and a half year old London-based startup is not yet profitable but Klein flags growth he dubs “fast enough” (noting it doubled sales year-over-year last year, a “trend” he says continued in the first half of this year), before adding: “It’s not impossible for us to get to profitability. We have a lot of optionality. But at the moment we are making investments — in software, in team — we have partner products coming out like Harry, we’ll have more coming out next year. So in terms of absolute positive EBITDA not yet but we are profitable on a units basis.”

Kano closed a $28M Series B last year — and has raised some $44.5M in all at this stage, according to Crunchbase. Is it raising more funding now? “I think any entrepreneur who is looking to do something big is always in some sense keeping an eye out for sources of capital,” replies Klein. “As well as sources of talent.”

He points by way of a connected aside to this study of C-suite execs, carried out by Stripe and Harris poll, which found that access to software developers is a bigger constraint than access to capital, saying: “I read that and I thought that that gap — between the 1% of 1% who can develop software or hardware and the rest of us — is exactly the challenge that Kano set out to solve from a consumer and education perspective.”

“In terms of fundraising we do get a lot of inbound, we have great investors at the moment,” he adds. “We do know that the scale of this particular challenge — which is demystify technology, become synonymous with learning to code and making your own computers — that requires significant support and we’ll be continuing to keep our eyes out as we grow.”

  via TechCrunch