Super Mario 64 HD for Browser! Why aren't you playing yet?!?!

Like most of us who grew up playing the N64 console, we all loved the Mario franchise but none more perhaps than Super Mario 64. Finally, it is being released for our browsers and although so far it is only the first Bomb-Omb Battlefield level we are excited for what this will bring in the future.

 We couldn't believe it either, but it has been giving a beautiful makeover to just about every graphic aspect of the game with new up-to-date textures. It was built in Unity by Roystan Ross and we are thankful to him for making this a reality.

If you would like to play this new HD version of Mario 64 or at leas the one map available so far you can find it at Roystan Ross's Website and play to your hearts content. We are so excited for anything else that he is going to bring us in the near future.

Nintendo's Next Gen Console, What do we know?

      So Nintendo is going to be bringing us another game platform and although we don't know much, we know enough to start getting an idea of what they have in store.
     First, the news that Nintendo will make smartphone games was a bombshell on the community as no one has ever though of Nintendo as a mobile game maker, but it does offer some promising ideas with how well they have been able to do with their handheld Nintendo DS.

     However, the bigger bombshell that they announced in the same week was the new platform they plan to create, which is codenamed NX and is set to unveil in 2016.
     Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated that the announcement should be viewed as "proof that Nintendo remains strong enthusiast for the dedicated game system business." and added during a Q&A session "I wanted to communicate that Nintendo will be progressing with videogame-dedicated devices with a passion." and that "We wanted to make it clear that Nintendo will continue with that as our core business."





     After that Nintendo refuses to say much more about the NX other than it will be built as a "brand new concept." So with a massive amount of room for speculation we can think of a plethora of things that Nintendo could be doing. However, looking at Nintendo's history I'm sure we can all be excited about what they could bring to the table. In addition their unification of hardware divisions in 2013 due to "vast technological advances, it became possible to achieve a fair degree of architectural integration." In other words cross-platforming is becoming easier and should be one of their concentrations.
     This was shown with the creation of the WiiU how Nintendo wanted to start combining the idea, and according to Iwata "It will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture. It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately, When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brother in a family of systems."

     When trying to interpret all that Iwata is telling us, we realize he wishes to merge home and portable systems while "absorbing the Wii U architecture." So this gives the idea of a portable system that will share a common platform to the Wii U. This makes us think that this could lead us to not only one new console, but also a new handheld as well. We are hopeful for what Nintendo has to offer us in the future and what they really seem to stress is Nintendo is going nowhere and continue their legacy for the years to come.

Amazon Gets Permission for Delivery Drone Testing

     Finally, we may all start seeing Amazon drones overhead as of March 19th, 2015 after Amazon had threatened to take their business overseas the FAA has issued them an "experimental airworthiness certificate" 

After Amazon had announced it's drone plans in December 2013, it seemed that the FAA regulations would not allow this to be a reality though. A year later in 2014 Amazon then threatens to move its operations overseas. The FAA had not made any progress on the matter until just recently when last month it published a proposal with new rules which would help legalize commercial drone flight, and have granted a number of exemptions to other companies that wanted to begin field testing with flying robots.
     These new rules however, including the exemption granted to Amazon today, require the drones remain within line of sight of the pilot at all times, and in Amazon's case the driver must also have "a private pilot's certificate and current medical certification" and although these restrictions will allow for initial testing, it is hard to picture how they would ever be able to go commercial with the severely limited distance available.

     It is extremely promising that they are working together now or at least trying to. So we will have to see what Amazon's drone project has in store.