Thursday, November 30, 2017

Oculus Rift killer game



Ever since its Kickstarter campaign, launch and then Touch-based update, the OCULUS RIFT BUNDLE has been searching for that killer game exclusive, but now it’s found it. Robo Recall is finally an Oculus game that is worth playing.
It’s made by Epic Games, creators of the Unreal engine, which underpins a big chunk of the virtual reality content available on Facebook’s VR platform. Epic started with a solid demo of its engine with Bullet Train, but Robo Recall takes that arcade shooter and turns it up to 11 – and for free to anyone who has Oculus Touch controllers.

At its heart, Robo Recall is a light-gun game dragged kicking and screaming into a 21st century VR world. If you’ve ever played Time Crisis or similar you’ll know the score: shoot anything that moves.

The story is pulled straight from Will Smith vehicle I, Robot: in the future humanoid robots walk the streets, do chores and help people in their day to day lives. They’re all shiny plastic and metal, interconnected and semi-intelligent, but something goes wrong and our helpers go from being nice, friendly, almost charming robotic slaves to leaping machines of death.

That’s where you come in: a recall agent tasked to bring in rogue robots in the only way you know how, blasting them or (more fun) ripping them to bits.

There are three sections of the city with three missions in each for a total of nine separate levels to play. Two missions in each sector are multi-chapter mini-stories, the third is your typical boss battle.

You’re guided through your missions by your robotic-sounding female AI assistant – no one say Siri – and later by a random male AI assistant that sounds like he’s been ripped straight out of a 90s American TV show, who becomes your comedy voiceover.

Broadly speaking there are three different tasks that can constitute a mission. The first is simply shoot everything that moves to clear an area; the second you’re tasked with defending a robo relay (antenna thing) from an onslaught of bots, and the third is a capture-them-alive type mission, where you have to shove intact robots into a big vortex thing that sucks them up for analysis. The third is definitely the most fun.

Each mission is a combination of the three gameplay types, but also has certain challenges to complete to be awarded stars, which unlock weapon upgrades.

There are four standard weapon types in the game. A semi-auto handgun, a more powerful revolver, a shotgun and a plasma rifle. Each starts off fairly standard, but as you play you can unlock attachments and upgrades that add things such as a laser sight, recoil dampeners, fast chargers and magazine extensions.

One of the best things about the game is that the weapons feel like they have real weight to them. Their accuracy is wholly dependent on your accuracy. You have to aim down the sights and pull the trigger gently – or frantically if a hoard of bots are bearing down on you. I even found that closing one eye while aiming down the sights, as you might if you were target shooting with the real thing, helped with my accuracy. Of course, the shotgun is a more point-in-the-general-direction affair, but you get the gist.

The only thing more fun than loading up with two pistols with extended magazines and blasting as fast as your fingers can pull the trigger is the second element to the game – everything has a handle and can be grabbed.

Robo Recall uses a teleport system to move around the place, which helps avoid VR sickness and becomes another weapon in your armoury. Press the thumbstick on the Oculus Touch, point to the place you want to jump to and rotate the stick to point in the direction you want to face. Normally that means jumping to a new location up the street or on top of a building or car, but you can also jump right up to a robot.

Without guns in your hand you can hold anything with a small white circle highlighting grab point and then use and abuse it. You can punch it, bash it into things, use it as a robot shield against your enemy’s gunfire, hurl it at a wall or another robot, or into the vortex if that’s your mission.

Bullets and missiles can also be grabbed and hurled back at any robot in your way, or if you’re skilled with using a gun as a table tennis bat, you can spank the bullets back at the shooter. It’s not quite a lightsaber deflecting blaster fire to kill other storm troopers, but it certainly feels like you’re wielding the force.

Each action is accompanied by a game score announcer-style commentary from your 90s TV host AI, as well as quips from the robots themselves (there are even jokes about the internet and cats), and a pumping high-energy guitar soundtrack of the kind you used to get on games such as N64’s F-Zero X. You score points by recalling robots, but you get a score multiplier by collecting shards that the robots drop when blown up, which rewards getting up close and personal for some more creative kills.

You can’t actually die in the game. You have a life energy that fades to darkness if you get shot too many times in quick succession and then builds back up if you stay out of the line of fire for a little bit. You can also physically dodge bullets if you fancy yourself a bit of a Neo in bullet-time, which is amusing for any onlookers.

Although you have set things you have to do in each level, you don’t have to do it the way the game makes obvious, which means there’s quite a lot of replay value after your initial play through. The arcade elements of the game also lend themselves to pick-up and play – just jump into any mission from the level select map and blast away for a few minutes.

It could also work well as a party game, as a running score sidebar is displayed next to a full-screen view of the action on the monitor attached to your PC. Given you can pull off trick shots, funny moves or straight-up pushes for the high score it’s a potentially interesting game for spectators as well as players.

Robo Recall demonstrates everything that can be good about a great VR experience. The Oculus Touch controllers come into their own in hand-to-robot action as much as they do as gun analogues.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Antigua's well-built PV systems sustain impact of hurricane Irma



The 6th September 2017 will remain as a notable day that all the people of Antigua and Barbuda will remember. Irma, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Caribbean, exceeding category 5, has then hit the twin island state with its devastating power.

The island of Barbuda suffered from the highest impact, with 90% of constructions wiped away by the strong wind blowing at consistently 300 km/h and way above in gusts.

Antigua at only 50 km distance from the eye of the storm and well within the devastating display of natural forces suffered less damage, but was affected seriously as well with sustained winds exceeding at times 275 km/h.

This devastating natural disaster has even more underlined the importance of a diligent and reliable approach in terms of planning and installing PV solar systems (for example: GOAL ZERO NOMAD 13 ) in hurricane-prone regions.

Since the clean energy provider PV Energy has already beforehand adapted the design, mounting and structuring of its solar power racking systems and solar panels to the potential risk of hurricanes almost all solar systems designed and installed by PV Energy sustained the devastation through Irma.

Designed to withstand hurricanes of up to the category 4, each of the 55 solar power installations on Antigua, ranging from several kWp to the 3 MWp and 4 MWp utility scale installations at the international airport of Antigua and in the Lavington/Bethesda region with a total of 38,000 panels mounted, have survived hurricane Irma without damages or substantial system failures.

One of these PV systems, based on a 50 kWp sun2safe hybrid converter, was even able to generate 25% of its maximum expected performance during the worst hours of the hurricane, thanks to its proprietary MPPT tracking algorithm which is able to optimise the production even under extreme weather conditions.

"This experience confirms our commitment to supplying tier one equipment only and adopt proven, reliable and diligently calculated and designed engineering solutions", states PV Energy's Chief Technical Officer Thomas Beindorf.

Load test for racking systems, ramming depths for the pillars of the substructures as well as reinforced frames and modules are just a few key factors to be considered for planning and installing robust solar energy plants.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

YEAR IN REVIEW | BROWNING TRAIL CAMERAS



It was just a few short years ago that Browning trail cameras even came into existence. Although they were blessed with a strong brand name, Browning went from startup to market-mover in less than two years.

We have sold more Browning units in the last three years than any other brand, which is a remarkable feat for one sincere reason:

Our customers do not buy their trail cameras based on fancy advertising.

For this I am thankful. Nearly everyone who comes through our website spends valuable time researching the best trail camera for their needs. Our customers make their purchases based on facts, data, and advice from people who do this for a living. In order to be our #1 selling trail camera brand, you have to have the hard evidence to justify your value.


2016 Browning Trail Cameras


2016 was a banner year for Browning Trail Cameras. The Strike Force Elite and Dark Ops Elite were upgraded in speed and battery efficiency while keeping all the features that made them top wildlife cameras, to begin with. Neither camera is the best at anything, yet they are really good in every area with no apparent weakness.

As a bonus, the Dark Ops Elite is excellent as a quick, easy, and versatile security trail camera.

Maybe it's just from the sheer number of Brownings we have sold, but my inbox is always full of really cool Browning pictures like these:

How can you not love snowy pictures?
The Recon Force Platinum and Spec Ops Platinum are our best video trail cameras under $600. What they lack in picture quality (and speed) they easily make it up with insane video quality. I think they are below average picture cameras, but top-notch video trailcams.

Video resolution on these two models is 1920 x 1080 w/ audio.

2017 Browning Trail Cameras
2017 will bring some changes to the Browning line. Expect to see an internal picture viewer option for the Sub-micro Browning cameras (Strike Force and Dark Ops), increased trigger/recovery speeds, and longer flash range - along with a few other wrinkles.

There may even be a wireless trail camera (wireless, not cellular)... I imagine there could be a long line waiting for that.

As always, though, past performance is not an accurate predictor of future success. These cameras should come out a few months from now and they will still need to be thoroughly tested and reviewed
.
Finally i want to introduce moultrie's one of the best product MOULTRIE MOBILE WIRELESS FIELD MODEM MV1 which designed for your camera to view your images and videos that are on the camera storage, anytime and anywhere.


Thanks for reading!

Friday, March 31, 2017

How to Choose the Right Web Host for Your Small Business



When it comes to hosting your small business website, you may be struggling with all the different options available to you. There are lots of different types of hosting, many companies and varying price ranges too.

In this article we are going to take a look at the main differences between the types of hosting packages on offer so that you can find what works best and what to avoid with your business. Hosting is one of the most important things when it comes to actually turning visitors into customers as a website that is down all the time or slow won’t result in any business at all, so it pays to be prepared.



There are four main types of hosting on offer:


Dedicated

This is your high end hosting designed for websites with thousands of visitors every single day and heavy users. This basically means users that are downloading music, videos or even just watching videos directly on your website in large volumes. Most small businesses won’t need this level of hosting, but it is worth keeping in mind for if your website does get a lot of traffic later on.

VPS

FDC VPS servers are probably your best bet when it comes to hosting for your small business. They provide all the speed, site loading, and SEO (search engine optimization) benefits, and are safe and secure too. Plus VPS servers don’t cost the earth like dedicated servers do, yet they still provide the flexibility to upgrade if your usage does increase or you notice your site is getting a little sluggish to load.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Make a Big Leap with Commercial Property for Your Business



For small business, big leaps mean the difference between propulsion and stagnation. No matter how stringent a bean counter you are, a business stuck in one place will inadvertently head for the financial gutter. Even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as Steinbeck and Burns would agree – but without taking an occasional leap of faith your enterprise is bound to falter.

This isn’t an original viewpoint. In many ways, it’s the foundation upon which capitalism is built. So when you’re a small business, what are some of the bigger choices you’ll have to make?



For a start, you’ll eventually have to consider moving into a commercial property.

Large number of SMEs begin online, whether it’s as a highfalutin media agency or a clothing shop selling bespoke sweaters. But when you’re an up and comer in the marketplace, you’ll eventually need a more professional location than your living room.

Just think – would you really want to entertain high-rolling clients from the dinky kitchen in your home?

Shell out and enjoy


But a new premises is a big purchase. Generally, you’ll be locked into a lease for at least 12 months, and you’ll have to shell out to refurbish your new workspace.

The potential for success, however, far outweighs the cost. A workspace, whether it’s a retail outlet or a small office, is a hub of productivity that’ll motivate you far more than working on your laptop in your bedroom.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Sage Advice for UK Small Business Needs



In today’s economic climate, the world is fast moving, ever changing and incredibly demanding. You just need to be in the tube during rush hour to experience the rush of suits as they hurriedly make their way into the office or to their meetings for the day. The UK startup market is a saturated one with only 6% of startups and SME’s going onto become larger businesses. Managing Directors of small to medium sized businesses are expected to be on top of their company and their offerings in order to compete with the larger corporations.



Without the larger and more intricate financial and operative infrastructure of larger companies, this can be a demanding task and sees many MD’s working late into the night and waking up in the early hours to ensure that their day is planned, their meeting preparation done and their company running as smoothly as it possibly can.

For those SME owners reading this, it is as if we are preaching to the choir as they already know small business statistics. Annually in the UK, more than 500 000 people start their own business. Nearly one in six of the UK workforce is running their own micro-enterprise with 90% of all new jobs being created by new single person, self-employed enterprises. There is a marked 40% increase in micro enterprises for this millennium with numbers growing by ½ million each year.

Oculus Rift killer game

Ever since its Kickstarter campaign, launch and then Touch-based update, the OCULUS RIFT BUNDLE has been searching for that killer game e...