Ever wanted to helm a starship, roam the galaxy and square off with alien ships while protecting the human race?
Well, you’re in luck, because Urban Logic Games has released a pre-alpha video preview of Flagship, and we must say, it looks like a lot of fun. Flagship puts you in command of a space battle cruiser and gameplay is from a first-person point of view. That’s awesome because it’s also native to the Oculus Rift VR headset for some serious immersion.
Urban Logic says the video preview is from actual gaming action and while graphics and other dynamics will of course be improved, it already looks like you’re heading up the human fleet for a battle with the Cylons. Expect Flagship to hit shelves sometime next year.
As high-tech weapons go, firearms are still pretty low-tech devices. Despite their mechanical complexity, guns still use gunpowder and bullets, just like they did 1,000 years.
But big-time tech has now come to the science of aiming a weapon, and one result is the Precision Guided Firearm system from Tracking Point. Using laser rangefinders, motion sensors and more, the system is so accurate one user was able to put three rounds into a smartphone from over 1100 yards away. That’s well over half a mile! How does the system work? A number of sensors measure wind speed, incline, even the effect of the earth’s rotation, and much more.
Shooters simply line up a laser tag in the viewfind and pull the trigger – but the weapon won’t fire until the computerized scope deems the shot is dead-on accurate – and it seems to work very reliably. There’s also video recording of the shot, the ability to stream video to a nearby device like a smartphone or tablet, USB connections and much more. It can even help hit moving targets.
The US Army is now taking a closer look at deploying the system and it could be a game changer on the battlefield. Cost? About ten grand and up depending on options.
No doubt about it: today’s smartphones are highly addicting tech – just look at the popularity of that Look Up anti-phone video. So, how to break your small-screen addiction? Well, now there’s an app for that, of course.
It’s called Break Free and it’s available now for Android phones with an iOS version due soon. The app tracks how many times you check email, zone out on Facebook and use other apps, and even lets you set usage limits for your smartphone-hogging kids. A friendly Buddha-like guide named Sato gives you friendly reminders to rejoin the real world and the app can even send contacts a message that you’re taking a break from your phone if they call or text.
Of course, we can’t think of anything much more ironic than checking a smartphone app that tells us how addicted we are to our smartphone, but if it get’s people unglued from their handsets for at least a short while, we guess it’s a good thing.
Your host today is Digital Trends Home Theater and Audio Editor Caleb Denison.
