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Awesome New Way To Experience Google Street View

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An amazing little project by Teehan+Lax changes the way we use Street View by creating incredible “Hyper-Lapse” video from the images in google’s Street View database by stringing them all together. The end result is just plain awesome to look at.

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Even better, you can make your own version, although it will be a slightly lower quality version. All you need is a browser that supports WebGL, like Goole Chrome, Safari, Opera, or Firefox and then you can simply head here to set a start and finish point and make your “Hyper-Lapse” video.

Hyper-lapse photography – a technique combining time-lapse and sweeping camera movements typically focused on a point-of-interest – has been a growing trend on video sites. It’s not hard to find stunning examples on Vimeo. Creating them requires precision and many hours stitching together photos taken from carefully mapped locations. We aimed at making the process simpler by using Google Street View as an aid, but quickly discovered that it could be used as the source material. It worked so well, we decided to design a very usable UI around our engine and release Google Street View Hyperlapse.”

To Enable WebGL in Safari on the Mac (Safari 5.1 and Up):

  • In Safari, open the Safari menu and select Preferences.
  • Click the Advanced tab in the Preferences window.
  • At the bottom of the window, check the Show Develop menu in menu bar checkbox.
  • Open the Develop menu in the menu bar and select Enable WebGL.

Firefox (4 and Up) WebGL is on by Default

For Internet Explorer you can use this plugin.

BlizzCon is Back and Ticket Sales Are Soon

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BlizzCon is back this year and soon you will get a chance to buy tickets to attend the event in person at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim California November 8th and 9th.

Tickets for the 2013 event go on sale Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. PDT and Saturday, April 27 at 10 a.m. PDT. Benefit Dinner Tickets go on sale Wednesday, May 1 at 7 p.m. Pacific Time. You can purchase tickets directly from the official BlizzCon website.

You can also watch BlizzCon live from home by purchasing a virtual ticket. Information on how to obtain virtual tickets will become available later. Pricing and other ticket info can be found on the BlizzCon ticket page.

 

 

Blizzard Celebrates 15 Years of StarCraft

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since March 31, 1998, when StarCraft first captured our imaginations and for some of us, became a solid part of our childhood. StarCraft has also greatly contributed to the online competitive gaming world, even though at the time we couldn’t have known how much it would grow.

So, what’s the best part about all of this? Well, we’ve got many years of StarCraft ahead of us!

Blizzard is offering up a feat of strength for StarCraft players that will allow you to unlock 3 new portraits that pay homage to classic StarCraft along with getting a special achievement “15 Years of StarCraft” .

So how do you get the achievement?

Just play one game of StarCraft II in any online mode before 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 17.

Beginning March 31, play one Arcade, Custom, Ranked, Training, Unranked, or Versus A.I. game to earn the StarCraft 15-Year Anniversary Feat of Strength achievement. As soon as you’ve received the achievement, all three portraits will be permanently unlocked in your StarCraft II character profile.

You get see Blizzard’s official post about the anniversary on battle.net.

 

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Unreal Engine 4 Shows Off Infiltrator Demo

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The latest version of the Unreal Engine is showing off some of it’s capabilities in a new “Infiltrator” Demo that is being rendered in real-time.  The demo was unveiled at GDC 2013 earlier and it looks absolutely stunning.

Unreal Engine 4 will be running on the next-gen PlayStation 4 and most likely the next Xbox. Unreal Engine 4 seems to actually have a “wow factor” to it and it helps to remind us that although at times it feels like games can’t get any better looking, they can and will continue to evolve.  The final verdict on the this next-gen technology will only come into play once we see this stuff on our own TV screens. Until then, we have to keeps watching demos of what’s to come. You can see the official announcement at Unreal.

Blizzard Introduces HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft

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Blizzard Entertainment has introduced a brand new game, HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft. The game is a TCG (Trading Card Game) style game that is free-to-play and features all of our favorite Warcraft characters. Build Decks and Challenge players, the core of any good card game, and that’s exactly what HearthStone is all about.

It’s exciting to see Blizzard doing something that shakes things up a bit. I can’t wait to jump in and check it out. The game will be available for Windows PC, Mac, and iPad. You can sign up to be a part of the beta and get even more information by heading to the official site, HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft.

We’ve always loved collectible card games at Blizzard, so it’s been exciting to bring everything we love about the genre to life in Hearthstone, we’re putting a lot of focus into creating a fun new game that’s easy to pick up and play, but also has a lot of depth. We can’t wait to share it with everyone.”– Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment

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HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)