Japan Wants to Build a City Under the Sea
As rising sea levels pose an increasing threat to island dwellers, a Japanese civil engineering company has come up with an ambitious solution: an underwater city.
The proposed Ocean Spiral would consist of a large sphere just below the surface and about 546 yards in diameter, occupied by homes, businesses, and hotels.
Under that, a spiraling structure leading down to the sea floor would provide a way for scientists to extract resources for energy.
In a statement to The Guardian, Shimizu Corp spokesman Hideo Imamura said, "This is a real goal, not a pipe dream."
Comedy Central to Roast Justin Bieber
Comedy Central is set on taking the piss out of pop singer Justin Bieber. The network announced today that Bieber will be this year’s Roastee.
The Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber (#BieberRoast) will tape in Los Angeles. Tape and airdate to be announced shortly.
“Justin has been asking us for a few years to roast him, and we just kept telling him to go create more source material first. We’re thrilled he listened,” said Kent Alterman, President, Content Development & Original Programming, Comedy Central.
Past Roastees include Bob Saget, Pamela Anderson, James Franco, and Donald Trump.
Justin Bieber.
New LEGO RPG Announced
Nexon Korea has partnered with Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment and TT Games to publish a LEGO RPG with several LEGO properties.
So far, Nexon has only announced LEGO Ninjago as one of the properties featured in the mobile game. It's unclear whether the RPG will include some of the major LEGO properties, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, but Nexon said in a press release that more announcements are coming. The game is scheduled for a 2016 release –– initially in Asia –– on iOS and Android devices.
LEGO Ninjago has proven successful since the property's 2011 introduction, garnering a movie deal that will include some of the talent behind the recent The LEGO Movie. The upcoming film, which is also scheduled for a 2016 release date, is part of Warner Bros.' attempt to expand the LEGO cinematic universe.
If Your Password is One of These – Seriously, Please Change It
Security firm SplashData has released its list of the worst passwords in 2014, many of which remain unchanged from prior years.
According to SplashData's fourth annual report, "123456" and "password" were once again the top ranking terrible passwords. Among the new entries were sports references "baseball" and "football," "696969" and "batman."
Other popular bad passwords follow sequential figures, like "qwerty." Still others take the password rather literally and request access with phrases like "letmein" or "access." One returning favorite is the ironically unsafe "trustno1."
"The bad news from my research is that this year's most commonly used passwords are pretty consistent with prior years," security expert Mark Burnett said. "The good news is that it appears that more people are moving away from using these passwords."
Blizzard Looking Into Reports of ‘Unplayable’ Latency in Diablo 3
Following reports of "major lag" contributing to a game-breaking experience for a portion of the Diablo 3 community, Blizzard is probing for more information on possible causes.
As spotted by PCGamer, claims from players that they are experiencing both severe lag spikes and sustained latency anywhere from several hundred to several thousand milliseconds (ms) began surfacing on Blizzard's technical support forum over the weekend.
While some players have continued to file complaints as recently as this afternoon, others are reporting their issues have passed, including IGN's own efforts to replicate the lag.
New Trailer for The Walking Dead’s Return
We're still a few weeks out from The Walking Dead's midseason premiere - on Sunday, February 8th - but to tide us over, here's a new trailer for the back half of Season 5.
The Walking Dead's New Midseason Poster
Titled "Another Day," the video shows Rick explaining his more recent hardline stance against strangers. That harsh decisions are necessary until everyone's safe. Meanwhile, the survivors are all back out on the open road, clinging to hope that they'll find a new sanctuary.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity.
Former Retro Studios Developer Opens Squarehead Studios
An industry veteran whose resume includes games like Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has announced the formation of a new development company, Squarehead Studios.
Located in South Wales, Squarehead Studios is lead by Rhys Lewis, a former AI Lead at Nintendo's Retro Studios. Lewis has also spent time at Rare and 3D Realms, where he worked on games like Banjo-Kazooie and Duke Nukem Forever.
"Although Squarehead will be operating on a much smaller scale," Lewis said in his announcement, "I am extremely excited to try and bring the same level of quality and attention to detail to our games, whatever platform they may be on."
Ori and the Blind Forest Release Date Announced
Action platformer Ori and the Blind Forest is scheduled to release on March 11, 2015 for Xbox One and PC.
Originally announced during E3 2014, this highly-stylized action platformer is currently being developed by Moon Studios and published by Microsoft.
As Ori the last spirit guardian, players will solve puzzles and use platforming skills to combat the dark owl Kuro and save the blind forest. Much of the platforming involved consists of gravitational shifts and twitch-based mechanics.
To learn more, check out IGN's preview of Ori and the Blind Forest.
The 100 Returns and the Dead Will be Remembered
Note: Spoilers for last month's The 100’s midseason finale follow.
With The 100 back Wednesday night from its mid-season break, IGN has an exclusive clip from this week’s episode, “Remember Me.”
The title is fitting, of course, given we recently saw a traumatic farewell occur on the series in the midseason finale, as Clarke (Eliza Taylor) was forced to kill Finn (Thomas McDonell), rather than see him go through a much more horrific, prolonged death at the hands of the Grounders.
In this scene, Clarke and the Grounder Commander, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) have a conversation about loss. While Lexa reveals she too has lost someone she loved, she and Clarke express very different viewpoints about what it means to mourn somebody and how to move on after they die.
Marvel Is Making a Huge Announcement Today
Marvel Comics has a special announcement coming today at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET concerning April's big eight-part Secret Wars event by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic.
The news will come out of a live kick-off event held at Midtown Comics in New York City where Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort will be making a presentation for the fans and press in attendance. Given that the press release promised that the news will "shake the very foundations of the Marvel Universe as you know it," we are expecting some pretty big reveals today. Or maybe it's just the debut of an Uncanny Howard the Duck comic. The event will be live-streamed on Marvel's site.