Hasta La Gadget!

Google is trying to ramp up Maps in India by holding its first mapping competition in the country – Mapathon 2013. The mission? For users to add destinations and more to Maps via Google Map Maker. Those who participate could end up being awarded with one of a few different items, including an Android tablet, smartphone, gift voucher, or Google merchandise.

The Mapathon 2013 contest starts on February 12, and will end on March 25. Those who fall within the top 1000 mappers within the country will be eligible for the prizes. Registration is open now, and all users who want to take part must register. Once registered, users can head over to the Map Maker to start mapping locations they’re familiar with.

Map Maker is simple and straight forward to use, with a drop-down menu that allows one to choose between places, roads/rivers/railways, natural figures/political boundaries, and a tool for drawing outlines of structures. In addition, users can also edit existing places, structures, boundaries, and other markings made by other users who didn’t get it quite right.

Additions will then be verified, and as long as no changes need made, will be approved and made live for all to see. It’s only fitting that the tool is used in Google’s first-ever India mapping contest, since Map Maker itself was first thought up in India. Since then, the tool has been rolled out globally for anyone to help improve Maps.

[via Google India Blogspot]

Google announces Mapathon 2013 in India, offers prize incentives is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

OUYA founder and CEO Julie Uhrman announced at the DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit that it has partnered with Words With Friends creator Paul Bettner and Double Fine Productions’ Tim Schafer. Both Bettner’s studio and Double Fine will be bringing two games each to the Android-powered $99 game console.

For its part, Double Fine will be providing two game titles to OUYA – Reds and The Cave. Paul Bettner’s Verse studio will also be bringing two titles to the console, but they are currently unannounced. No other details about the partnerships have been announced, and release dates for the titles won’t be available until a future date.

Said Paul Bettner: “OUYA and Verse are nothing less than The Return Of Console Gaming. The last big wave was mobile … And yet I believe we’re about to see another disruption even bigger than this last. Gamers want the App Store in their living room. OUYA will be the first to deliver it, and it’s going to change everything. Again.”

OUYA is a $99 game console that was a running success on Kickstarter, and that is now available for pre-order. The device is currently expected to ship in the beginning of March to Kickstarter backers, and will then roll out to others, with those who order before February 4 getting theirs in April.

OUYA partners with Paul Bettner and Tim Schafer is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yahoo! announced earlier today that it has penned a deal with Google that will allow the Internet giant to display advertisements on its Web properties. The particularities of the deal weren’t revealed, but nonetheless it’s a big move for both companies, and both are sure to benefit from it. Under the deal, Google’s ads will show up on Yahoo’s various websites.

According to the announcement, the deal is a non-exclusive global agreement between Yahoo! and Google. The Google ads will appear on both co-branded and Yahoo! sites, and will include both Google’s AdMob and AdSense for Content. As a result, Google will have more places around the Web to plant its advertisements, and Yahoo! will have more advertisements to display.

Says Yahoo!, the deal will allow it to expand its network, and in doing so will provide its users with better, more meaningful advertisements. Visitors to various Yahoo! websites won’t notice any changes in advertisements and how they look, the company says. Some of Yahoo’s properties include Yahoo News, Answers, Sports, and Mail.

Back on January 25, Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer, who joined the company in July 2012, gave an interview in which she said that because the company doesn’t make hardware, a browser, social network, or other such things, it is able to form strong partnerships with other companies. She said that forming relationships and partnerships is one of its main focuses.

[via Yahoo! Blog]

Yahoo! pens deal to allow Google ads on its web properties is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After one NeoGAF user spilled the beans on the project, CD Projekt RED has confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is in production. The game is being built on the studio’s new REDengine3, which was unveiled to the world just a few days back. It’ll also be the last Witcher game made by CD Projekt RED, so this is the last hurrah for the series that so many players have fallen in love with.

Those who are subscribed to Game Informer might like to know the game is this month’s cover story. That’s how NeoGAF user INDIGO_CYCLOPS found out about it – his digital copy arrived a bit early and gave away the surprise. Some of the more interesting tidbits from the cover story include the fact that The Witcher 3 will be an open world game, and that it’s in-game world will be around 20% bigger than Skyrim‘s.

In the official announcement, the company didn’t say The Witcher 3‘s world will be bigger than Skyrim‘s, but it did say that it will be 30 times bigger than The Witcher 2′s world. Make no mistake, that’s one massive world to explore. Players will also be treated to a revamped combat system, but at the moment, details on it are slim. The game will be launching in 2014 for “all high-end platforms,” leading some to believe that The Witcher 3 will be releasing for next generation consoles.

After all, REDengine3 has been developed specifically for next generation consoles, and since many are thinking that we’ll see the reveals of the next PlayStation and Xbox this year, it would make sense for CD Projekt RED to put the game on the new platform. We’ll just have to wait and see what the studio announces in the coming days and week, but it’s definitely an exciting time for series fans. Stay tuned.

[via Joystiq]

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt announced, built on REDengine3 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dyson has announced its Airblade Tap, a combination water tap and hand dryer that is completely hands-off and eliminates the need to walk from the sink to the hand dryer, dripping all over the floor on the way there. Utilizing infrared sensors, water turns on automatically when one goes to wash their hands, then the air dryer “blades” activate when the hands are moved slightly outwards. Check out a video of it in action after the jump.

The drying mechanism works via a brushless DC motor, which produces two sheets of air at 420mph, working as a type of squeegee for the liquid on the user’s hands. According to the announcement, the Airblades can dry wet hands in 14 seconds. The motor is said to be one of the smallest fully integrated 1400 watt units in the world.

The air from the airblades is unheated and goes through a HEPA filter, removing nearly all bacteria at 0.3 microns. To keep the contraption from being too noisy, the tap features six Helmholtz silencers to keep the motor noise down. Elements of the units are said to be nearly inaudible. The entire tap is made from stainless steel cut with lasers to create extremely minimal spaces between different parts of the faucet.

The motor was teased back on January 31, when Dyson sent out launch invitations, showing the components of a motor that was the result of seven years of development. We had speculated that the hinted products would be of the Airblade dryer variety. The tap is available as of today, and comes with a 5 year warranty.

Dyson launches Airblade Tap, a hand-drying water faucet is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.