Blog

Space in video games

14 Comments

Space combat in all its explosive glory in Sins Of A Solar Empire

Online video game magazine The Escapist, home to the hilariously funny animated review column Zero Punctuation, has the theme of space for its 136th issue. They talk about why the starfighter genre appears to have died down since the heyday of X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and Wing Commander and about how science fiction is, although often set in the future, a commentary about now.

Although the space combat genre is in a lull right now, space strategy and so called ‘4X’ civilisation games are enjoying some underground success thanks to the efforts of indie games publisher Stardock, which produced the critically acclaimed Galactic Civilisations II last year. Its latest release, Sins of a Solar Empire, came out this month and combines Real Time Strategy elements of controlling fleets of spacecraft as well as exploration and colonisation. Currently holding a very respectable 87% average on Metacritic and impressing this writer enough to squeeze it into my schedule, games like this and Will Wright’s forthcoming evolutionary Spore are showing that maybe there’s a future for space in video games after all.

[Sins Of A Solar Empire screenshot via IGN]

Blog

A soft spot for hardware – the future of human/robot intercourse

4 Comments

robot-masks The robotic love-slave- it’s a science fiction trope as old as the hills, but that doesn’t stop it getting dragged out of retirement by the occasional academic … not to mention science and technology websites looking for a humorous Valentines Day item. Ahem. [Image by kaibara87]

Cosmos Magazine talks to David Levy, a professor of gender studies and artificial intelligence, about what he sees as the inevitability of robot lovers:

“[He] is convinced the demand is there and that market forces will provide the financial drive to overcome any technical – or psychological – obstacles. “It is only a matter of time before someone in the adult entertainment industry, which is awash in money, thinks, ‘Gee, I could make a pile of money’,” he says.”

The less charitable might possibly conclude that a similar line of thought may have given rise to Levy’s book …

I’m particularly fond of The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett, a science fiction novel that deals with a man falling in love with an android prostitute; it also has a whole lot to say about the conflict between science and religion, and a redemptive ending with zero schmaltz.

Any robot romance reading recommendations from the audience?

Blog

The search for life on Europa begins here on Earth

2 Comments

Europa

Although the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system has focused on Mars for many years (and it still might be found there), increasing attention is now being paid to Jupiter’s moon Europa. That’s because the scientific consensus now is that Europa almost certainly boasts an ocean, hidden beneath a shell of ice.

Life on Earth originated in the ocean. Could life have similarly arisen in Europa’s ocean?

We’ll have to go there to find out. Both NASA and the European Space Agency are actively studying launching a mission to Europa within the next decade, but even before that happens, technologies that could help us explore beneath the ice shell are being tested here on Earth. (Via Universe Today.)

This week–February 11 to 15–researchers are testing the NASA-funded ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer), a robotic probe designed to swim on its own under ice, creating 3D maps of the underwater environment, collecting data on environmental conditions, and taking samples of microbial life. The testing is taking place in Lake Mendota on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison; later this year, the probe will be shipped to Antarctica for tests in permanently frozen Lake Bonney.

Manwhile, a team of U.S., Russian and Asutrian scientists are already heading to Australia to look for life in another Antarctic lake, Lake Untersee. Always covered in ice, Lake Untersee has a pH level closer to that of bleach than regular lake water. It’s also the planet’s single largest natural source of methane. All of these things mean conditions there may well resemble conditions in Europa’s ocean and other locations in the outer solar system.

One question: is life found on Europa European, or Europaen? Copy editors want to know!

(Image: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.)

[tags]solar system, NASA, space exploration, extraterrestrial life, Europa[/tags]

Blog

Carbon nanotube radio fits on the head of a pin

Oh, carbon nanotubes, is there anything you can’t do?  Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have come up with a radio, all of whose reception components are made of carbon nanotubes.  This is pretty much just a proof-of-concept, no one’s going to be mass-producing nano-radios anytime soon, and the actual amplifier and headphone jack can’t really be scaled down, limiting the lower size limit. 

What it does show is that nanotubes can be grown in arranged structures and the conductive properties are good enough that they may be a suitable replacement for silicon.  This is good news for solar manufacturers worried about a silicon shortage.  Not to mention it’d help with that pesky ewaste problem.  Listen to an interview with one of the researchers here.

(via Science Friday) (photo from flickr user jschneid)

Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001