If you’ve got a little time to kill at work today, play the 8-bit Mad Men choose your own adventure game after the break. The objective is to help Don Draper complete three tasks to save the company (as you simultaneously lower productivity in your own real-life company). There are three possible endings to the game, so you might want to play through multiple times. Check it out after the break.
gaming
It’s kind of amazing that mundane tasks like farming virtual crops could explode into an addictive game like FarmVille. However, since this is the case, you have to wonder whether game mechanics based around teamwork, innovation and performance could also be applied to jobs to make workers more productive and happy. In order to address this question, social software company Socialcast created the 8-bit inspired infographic shown after the break.
Contour Aerospace and Factorydesign unveiled their “Not For Wimps” airline seat, designed specifically for in-flight gaming, at the Aircraft Interiors Expo at the Hamburg Messe in Germany this week. The seat boasts “speakers integrated into the top edges of the seat, the ability to create a bubble of active noise cancellation around the gamer and a large monitor suspended in front of each seat by a Kevlar-coated carbon fiber arm.”
The design is still in the concept stage, and there doesn’t seem to be any information regarding which airlines may be interested in installing the seat, but surely gamers will be pushing for them if they become a reality.
(via Kotaku)
From Fashionably Geek: Just remember to boost your armor and agility to defend against performance reports and dodge flying pink slips.
Product Page ($12)
The stack of modified PS3s you see here is actually the 33rd largest computer in the world—and it’s the fastest in the entire Defense Department.
The Condor Cluster, as the group of systems is known, also includes 168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers in an parallel array capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (500 TFLOPS), according to AFRL Director of High Power Computing Mark Barnell.
The cluster will be used for quick processing of high-res satellite imagery as well as research into artificial intelligence and radar enhancement. It currently takes up an assload of space at Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York.
(Cleveland.com via Gamasutra)
This new shift keyboard from SteelSeries offers interchangeable keysets for FPSs, MMOs, RTSs or whatever other gaming acronym you care to use. You may remember the concept from the Zboard, whose manufacturer was acquired by SteelSeries, but the shift is apparently much more solid and of higher quality. Besides its key mapping capability, the shift also offers a built-in microphone and audio-out port, as well as two USB ports, one of which is powered.
When it is released, the $90 purchase price will only cover one standard keyset, however, you will be able to purchase additional keysets for $25 each.
Product Page: (via Gizmodo and CrunchGear)
When you’re involved with corporate games and entertainment like IGN, you may look at indie game developers as being competition, but apparently that’s not the case. IGN has offered these developers free use of their offices, conference rooms, kitchens, and staff 24/7, with no obligation. In addition to a number of other perks, IGN-owned GameSpy will also offer free technical consultation services, and allow access to their open development platforms.
Since Space Invaders typically attack in horizontal lines, they are the perfect subject for tape, which is great news for any retro gaming fan in a cubicle. However, if the tape is exposed to the dreaded laser cannon, it could spell disaster for anything it’s used on.
Product Page: ($4.79 via Foolish Gadgets)
