World of Warcraft, Google Glass and Other Updates!

Happy Fall!

Bring Warcraft Characters Back to Life!

A few days ago, the official World of Warcraft blog announced that in an upcoming patch, players will be able to reverse the deletion of characters! The patch release is expected sometime before the launch of Warlords of Draenor, the newest World of Warcraft expansion scheduled to be available on November 13^th.

Of course, this feature won’t work for everyone: characters need to be above at least a level 10 and death knights need to be above level 55. But there are time limits depending on levels, and the higher the level the more leeway you have with bringing people back. So how does it all break down?

Characters at:

• Level 50 and above: recoverable at any time
• Levels 30 and 49: recoverable within 120 days
• Levels 10 and 29: recoverable within 90 days

Death knights over level 55 can also be recovered at any time. But knights lower than that are out of luck.

Once recovered, the characters will come back with all of their enchantments, items and gems intact. This means you don’t have to rebuild anything, and you can engage your brought-back-from-the-dead character as soon as you hit the recover button. However, you can only recover one character every 30 days, so make sure you think your choice through before you act!

Google Glass Update: New Visual Search App

Google Glass is slowly making its way to the mainstream, and developers are starting to jump on board. Most notable recently is a startup called Image Searcher, which has created a version of CamFind, their smartphone app, which works with Google Glass.

Once installed, the app can identify anything you look at within a matter of seconds (about 12, to be exact, according to testing) utilizing artificial intelligence combined with crowdsourcing, where humans go through and identify images not currently in the database. It can identify brands of clothing and shoes, a specific animal and more. And in the future, CamFind plans to expand the app so that you can purchase an item you see when you’re out and about directly through the Glass using the app.

CamFind works through verbal command: once set in motion, it has the Glass take a picture and then searches its database for matching images. You’ll see the results as a row of text on the glass eyepiece, and if for some reason the app can’t identify an object, it sends the question to a live human who helps figure it out. Each time a human answers the query, the app stores the information for future usage, slowly building a reliable, super-fast database. In short, the app will only get better over time!

The app isn’t quite available yet for Google Glass, but the original mobile version has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times. Stay tuned!

So What’s Google Cardboard?

Are you looking for a super inexpensive way to play around with a virtual reality hardware set? Google Cardboard could fit the bill! Made of cardboard (obviously), Velcro and plastic lenses, it allows you to download apps from the Google Play store and interact with various services via the headset.

Google Cardboard takes affordable VR to an entirely new level, with a kit costing around $25 or free directions from Google for building your own (either way, you will have to build it – the kit requires assembly). The device works with your Android smartphone, and allows you to tour various cities, watch YouTube (limited videos), examine cultural artifacts and explore Google Earth.

Developers are quickly catching on to the possibilities and working to create even more applications. You can view everything available at the Google Play store!

PlayStation Home: Sad News

Back in August, we reported that PlayStation was planning to shut down its Asia version of Home, it’s take on virtual life and billed as a free version of Second Life. At the time, there wasn’t a concrete plan to shut down the North American and European version, but that’s changed in the last few days.

PlayStation broke the news on the forums, and said they would cease publishing any new content starting this November, save for a series for freebies right before the official closure on March 31, 2015; if you’re in Europe, Canada or the US, you’ll be able to download content until December 3^rd of this year.

Although this isn’t a huge surprise, it’s still one less virtual world out there to enjoy. And because at one point there was hope that PlayStation would bring the world to its consoles, this announcement is even more disappointing. If you play PlayStation Home, will you keep going until the end? Let us know in the comments below!