Doctor Who - Rakhee Thakrar rumoured to be the new companion

Ever since Jenna Coleman announced that she was leaving Doctor Who for ITV’s new period drama Victoria, Whovians around the world have been scratching their heads over who may step into the TARDIS next beside Peter Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor.

According to a British website (http://www.standard.co.uk) a new rumour has surfaced which suggests that a companion might have been found – and it may be former EastEnders star Rakhee Thakrar.

Rakhee Thakrar

The actress played Shabnam Masood in the BBC soap, and left the show abruptly at the beginning of February.

If this rumour proves true that would mean she will become the first non-white companion for the Doctor since Freema Agyeman’s Martha Jones in 2007.
 

Facebook & VR: What's up?

Lately, the Internet is raving about "on how Ser Mark Zuckerberg walks among his VR-troops in Godlike postures". An Orwellian scene, some would go as far to say - albeit an exaggeration - "the future is now". Will the technology ever be able to shake of its gimmicky image and will it ever have use outside the gaming branche? Has Facebook's acquisition of Oculus actually softened the idea of VR to acquire acceptance of the general public. Lets look at the history of Oculus and Facebook.

Mobile World Congress 2016, Barcelona.

Oculus and VR, a brief history

Wikipedia: An oculus (plural oculi, from Latin oculus, 'eye') is a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall. Originating in antiquity, it is a feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture.

VR has been around for decades, as the favorite brainchild of SciFi - duh, but also as a practical everyday object. The principles used in Viewmasters are actually pretty similar to the basic features used in the likes of oculus; stereoscopic 3D simulation by the use of 2 (fish-eye) lenses, through which 2 - slightly ofset - versions of exactly the same scene are projected. The similarities end there, but you get the idea.

Perhaps Sensei Palmer Lucky had been toying around with his childhood's viewmaster when the idea of Oculus sprung up in his mind, back in 2011. Whatever the incentive was, it didn't take him long to jumble together a working prototype in his parent's garage. Another successive classic IT "we-built-it-in-my-parent's-garage" - innovation miracle, proof it's not just a nostalgic 20th century thing.

P.L. had been displeased with the sparsely available VR-tech for years. The ones that were on sale were - according to him - technically inferior. Low res, low contrast, low field of view, nighly any forms of head-tracking. He wanted to build something that would please gamers and would be on a  sale for a reasonable price.

Palmer conceived of the idea whilst being a member and moderater of the Meant To Be Seen (MTBS) VR's enthusiast Forum. He presented his idea, members provided him with feedback, which enabled him to build a viable prototype. Lucky is his name because he also managed to gather attention from major developpers and studios;

Source:  Los Angeles Times & Eurogamer.net

"He (Palmer Lucky, sic) showed an early prototype to Brendan Iribe, a former executive of Gaikai and Scaleform, who described it as "dangling wires and circuit boards and duct tape and hot glue all over the place" and invested "a few hundred thousand" U.S. dollars in the Rift's Kickstarter campaign.^[1] Iribe joined as Oculus VR's CEO, and Michael Antonov (former CTO of Scaleform) joined as chief software architect. Luckey also demoed the unit to Valve, and received Kickstarter endorsements from Valve's managing director Gabe Newell and prominent veteran Michael Abrash (now Chief Scientist at Oculus VR). During the Kickstarter campaign, Luckey demoed the Rift atQuakeCon 2012.^[6]"

With enough backup, advice from major industry pioneers, enough resources (and guts) were gathered to present a prototype at the 2012's E3 in La.

2011-2012, sounds like last yesteryear but in the 5 years between then and now, Oculus went through a thunderous evolution, a history on its own. In those 5 years it went from a weird, honed contraption, passed the status of every  gamer's favorite underground dingbat and eventually got barfed out again by those same gamers "because Facebook made it an actual business, we hate business, boohoo".

Oculus did some PR mending after the facebook takeover, massaged the idea to the masses. Whatever Lucky was thinking, Facebook did provide him with the means - and PR networks - to be able to come out with a consumer ready version of the Oculus (May 6th, 2015).

Before the Facebook takeover, a multitude of prototypes had been presented, for developers but also for curious tech fans and gamers who couldn't wait to take on VR and started modding.

Oculus Rift Development Kit 1

The versions released before the Consumer Model.

• The earliest proptype: a direct rendition of Palmer's personal vision, backed up by ID Software through the provision of a Doom 3 special edition with exceptional VR support. Presented at E3 2012
• Rift Dev Kit 1: released by Oculus, only 2 months after it became an official company. DK1 went on sale for 300$ and was provided for "free" to the initial crowdfunders who donated 300$ or more. The model featured major technical improvements on a 7-inch screen, 250hz-1000hz  refresh rates, accelerometers, magnetometers and gyro-tracker to provide near-natural headtracking , a 1280-800 res (640 per eye) and 110° field of fiew (double the FOV of comparable, previously available consumer headsets). An instant succes, Oculus sold on average 4 to 5 units per minute in the first week of its release. 2012
• HD-protype. Presented at the E3 of 2013. It tackled DK1's biggest issue, the resolution. It doubled the number pixles, rendering them nearly invisible, resulting in more life-like virtual scenes. Altough presented publicly, it never became a publicly avaible DEV-kit.
• Rift Dev Kit 2: it featured an OLED display which came with a 960 to 1080 resolution, higher refresh-rates, positional tracking, the omission of the external control unit. It used Samsung Galaxy Note parts, the first bread-crumbs to the Future Samsung Co-op. Shipped in mid 2014
• Crescent Bay Dev Kit 2 upate: a version of of the forementioned which uses 2 separate screens instead of 1, has an option for built in audio, features LED on the back of the headset to support 360° FOV position-tracking. Also shipped in late 2014.
• About the Consumer Model: Shipped early in january 2016. It provides the same specs as the Crescent Update, featuring some technical fine-tuning on the 360° FOV and tracking capabilities. The main focus went to consumer ready ergonomics and aesthetics. Many improvements over the Dev-version have been installed to tackle sensations of dizziness that many users experience after long sessions.
• The Future: Oculus released a statement in which they intend to release a successive version of the Consumer Rift  "with 2 to 3 years". Source: gameinformer.com.

The Facebook Acquisition.

In 2014, Zuckerberg posted a statement of his personal FB-page, explaining the motivations behind the acquisition. There, Mark states he felt like;  
"we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.".

At that time, many users and supporters from the first hours, feared that through FB, the focus of Oculus would shift from gaming to other media.

Zuckerberg emphasized that they would never do such a thing; 
"Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform." 

However, FB wouldn't be FB if they didn't provide motivations in the directions of a social shift. Besides a gaming platform, FB sees the Oculus foremostly as a "communications device".
"This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."

Mark also has a dream:
"One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people."

Facebook eventually bought Oculus for 400 USD in hard cash, and 1.6 billion USD in FB stock shares. A hefty sum for a company that had yet to release its first consumer product. The deal was sealed on the patio of Mark Zuckerbergs Palo Alto the day after Ocolus's Board of Directors (Lucky, Antonov, Iribe, and Marc Andreessen) had a late night meeting.

The Source Engine: a brief history, Part 1

In the summer of 2014, Valve publicly announced  a successor to their renowned Source Engine.. At that time, 2014 could already be seen as a special year for the Source family, as the original Source engine was released to the public in 2004, after itself being the spiritual successor to Valve's GoldSrc Engine (Half Life 1). The Source engine gave birth to world famous titles like;

• Counter Strike: Source (2004), 
• Half-Life 2 (2004), 
• HL2 Episode 1 (2006)
• HL2 Episode 2 (2007),
• The Orange Box (including all the forementioned + Portal & Team Fortress 2, 2007),
• Left4Dead 1 & 2 (2009).
• Portal 2 (2011)  

Despite the excellent reputation of these in-house Valve Titles, Third Party interest in the engine has always been sparse. Most of the non-Valve titles started out their lifes as (free) mods, generally using the Half Life 2 SDK. As modularity has always been the Engine's strong suit, many of these Mods released since 2006, were made by gamers who had no previous experience in modding whatsoever, using the limited hardware of the day. (more about that later). Some of the Third Party titles that are still successful today were once simple Half Life 2 mods; 

• Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (no mod, Ubisoft, 2006),
• Garry's Mod (mod, Garry, Valve, 2006),
• Nuclear Dawn (mod, 2011
• The Stanley Parabel (mod, Galactic Café, 2013), 
• No More Room in Hell (mod, 2013)
• Titanfall (no mod, Respawn Entertainment, 2014).

(Gold)Source's Origins

Some may wonder how it is that only now, more than 12 years after its original release, a successor  to the engine is in the making. The answer is simple, Source is modular and it came to be so almost by an accumulation of circumstances. As mentioned before, Source is a successor to the (also quite famous) GoldSrc Engine, which in turn was a modified version of the original Quake Engine. Before the development and release of Source, GoldSrc was simply known as "the Half Life Engine".

Valve started development on Source during the final check-ups in the weeks before the release of Half Life (1998). During that time, new projects were being hauled in and new challenges were presenting itself to the GoldSrc engine (and the development team).

Valve employees and programmers tackled these quasi Force Majeurs by implementing new bits of code into GoldSrc. Risky and experimental, as the new lines of code envisioned a higher level of programming (C++) and targeted a standard of hardware that was not readily available to the general public. To prevent this new codebase from contaminating the release versions of Half Life and its episodic content, a fork was launched.

 From that point, internal communication referred to GoldSrc, used in commercial releases, and Src, used internally for experimentation and future projects. 

The GldSrc and Src branch of the engine, existed side by side. As time evolved the gap betweem them, would grow ever wider.

From Fork to Engine.

Over the next years, as time passed and technology evolved, Valve continued to implement experimental features in the Src-branch, replacing bits and pieces with newer standards while ensuring compatibility to the original codebase. Over the years there would be less and less of Gold in Source. So it came to be that Valve, unwittingly, gave birth to the modular nature of Source. From pet-project to a unique and fully standardized gaming engine.

As Valve continued work on the engine, and its first release-titles (CS: Source & Half Life 2), GoldSrc was used for the development of new titles, most of them in relation to Half Life. Third Party interest in GldSrc remained, despite the development of Source, as new titles using the engine were released up into the second half of the 2000's

Valve discontinued the use of the engine in new titles, but continued to optimize it for compatibility on newer OS's and hardware. Second Party titles (developped with the supervision of Valve) in the Counter Strike Series, still use GldSrc.

Valve's original vision on Source and how the engine changed gaming.

Source came into existence as an engine that was intended to evolve incrementally, as technology and even the concept of gaming itself evolved. As changes and needs presented themselves, Valve answered by implementing new code, develope in-house and/or using external Middleware. Miles Sound System and Havok Physics are two examples of Middleware which have been around since the origins of the engine, as they were key to Half Life 2's gameplay. (This may sound as a fait divers but back into the 90's and early 2000's, most gaming engines were mostly a strictly in-house thing).

Essentially, this means that games developped in the old days, grow along with the engine, quality-wise. Along the years Shaders were introduced, HDR, dynamic lighting effects, advanced physics, optimised rendering, volumetric particle effects... Games developped and released in Source, years ago, have survived long past their predicted expiring date and almost always look far better than their colleagues of a similar age, developped in another engine.

As Valve gradually updated and improved elements of Source, there has never been any real need for version numbers. There have never been any grand-scale release events involving a new edition of the Engine (like Unreal 1, 2, 3, 4...).  The Source that's around today is officially still the same Source that was released in 2004.
Valve Envisioned that each title or project that was once released in the Source Engine, should still work in the newest version of the software, without developers having to rewrite their code or update their project. They kept true to that promise, mostly.

Full version of Black Mesa Source, to be released in 2016

Check the awesome trailer, recorded on authentic VHS!

Visceral working on Star Wars?

I was about to say: "This is probably going to be another Battlefront Galactic Disappointment"...until the name "Visceral" came up. I'm still conducting sceances, trying to lay a curse on EA for pulling the studio away of Dead Space, pretty much cancelling that franchise along the way. With visceral returing to SciFi, it may be very well the grittiest rendition of Star Wars so far. Keeping an eye on this one.

The Witcher 3 - It's a Gem

Why you should check back on the Witcher 3 after you've spent 80+ hours on Fallout 4.

Blast from the past: Rurouni Kenshin

Sharing is caring, and thus I will share one of my favourite Anime series to this date. I am of course talking about Rurouni Kenshin (or Samurai X as it was known in the Western world). Rurouni Kenshin first aired in Japan, but was also dubbed in English. This anime has since become one of the classics.

Himura Kenshin and Kaoru

The series was written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The fictional setting is grounded in history and takes place during the early Meiji period in Japan. The story is about a fictional assassin named Himura Kenshin, or often referred to as Himura Battousai as he was called during the revolution, from the Bakumatsu who becomes a wanderer to protect the people of Japan. Watsuki wrote this series upon his desire of making a shōnen manga different from the other ones that were published in that time, with Kenshin being a former assassin and the story taking a more serious tone as it continued. Although the tragic tone was highly expanded as the manga advanced, Watsuki became determined to give it a happy ending as it was aimed at teenagers.

The manga was adapted into an anime series which aired in Japan from January 10, 1996 to September 8, 1998. Besides an animated film, two series of original video animations (OVAs) were also produced.  Several video games have also been released for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles. In 2012 a full length live-action feature film was released which was also quite enjoyable, even if it didn’t quite manage to capture the same feeling as the anime (and how could it?)

The story of Rurouni Kenshin takes place during the early Meiji era in Japan, which was shortly after the revolution. The series features a peaceful wanderer named Himura Kenshin, who was known as Hitokiri Battousai during the revolution. After fighting in the Bakumatsu war, Kenshin wanders all around Japan offering protection to those who need it, as a way to atone for all the people he murder back when he was an assassin. The series starts when he arrives in Tokyo in the 11th year of Meiji (1878), where he meets a young woman by the name of Kamiya Kaoru who is in the middle of a fight with a man who claims to be the legendary Hitokiri Battousai. Kenshin jumps in and defeats the fake Battousai. Kaoru offers him a place to stay at her dojo. Kenshin accepts and begins to establish relationships with people such as Sagara Sanosuke. Myojin Yahiko, Takani Megumi, Shinomori Aoshi and his life-long rival Saito Hajime.

After several months of living at the dojo and fighting off small-time villains who threaten his new friends he discovers that his successor as assassin, Shishio Makoto, has set a devious plan to take control of Japan in motion. Kenshin goes off to meet Shishio alone in order to defeat him, however, a couple of his friends race after him to help him in his fight against Sishio and his band of homicidal followers. In the end he beats Shishio, who dies as a result of his wounds and a dramatic rise in body temperature.

There are a couple of other story arcs, but I really recommend stopping at the Shishio one, because it gets kind of boring after with the introduction of a story line about Christians and one that features Feng Shui for some reason.

Moving on to the OVAs, of which there are 2 series. The first one, Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal, collectively known in Japan as Tsuiokuhen. It is set during the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate and during Kenshin’s job as an assassin.

The second one, Samurai X: Reflection, acts a sequel to the manga’s plot various years after its end. It follows a Kenshin who has left Kaoru in order to protect the Japanese people, by medicating them rather than fighting. As the First Sino-Japanese War ends, Kenshin is suffering from an unknown disease which is weakening his body and forgets about his identity. Sanosuke finds Kenshin and takes him to Kaoru, where Kenshin gently passes away in her arms.

I must say that the OVAs are simply sublime. The art style has been changed to be more realistic, the setting is darker and emotions are much more present. Opposed to the anime, the atmosphere is a lot darker and more serious.

The anime series and the OVAs are characterized by their romanticized scenery and in the case of the anime, often lighthearted and humorus dialogues. If you’re interested in this anime I recommend watching the anime series first, and then move on to the OVAs. Also, I recommend watching it in Japanese as I think the voice acting is better, and offers more realism than the English version. 

Just to give you a taste, you'll find a Youtube-video showcasing one of the most memorable sword fights in the anime.