Hasta La Gadget!

If you love playing RPGs, perhaps you’ve imagined what skills and prerequisites you’d need to have in the real world to reach your desired job or level of success. The folks at web development agency 352 Media thought of doing the same thing to their profession and created Dungeons & Developers, an RPG-style skill tree that outlines what you need to learn to become a master web developer.

As with a typical RPG, each icon in the tree represents a skill. The skills involve learning about things like CSS, AJAX & APIs and Advanced DB Management. When you learn a skill, your character gains stats and unlocks more advanced skills. But 352 Media took their geeky project a step further and made it possible so you could actually use the skill tree to help you learn about web development and keep track of your progress while you’re learning. Each skill contains a link to an educational resource such as a tutorial. Your skill tree is tied to a unique URL, so you can bookmark it to save your progress, then check back to see if you’re bound to level up.

Once you’ve learned a skill, simply left click its icon to add a point into it. Right-click on a learned skill to subtract a point. You cheater. Speaking of cheating, Dungeons & Developers also has a god mode. 352 Media says you can unlock 100% completion if you “go old school.”

Head to Dungeons & Developers to check out the skill tree. As a fan of RPGs I can’t help but point out that the tree is misleading. It’s missing a few arrows for the other prerequisites needed to unlock the ultimate skill. It’s no biggie though, just know that all of the skills at the second to the last row need to be learned before you can unlock Web Development Mastery. The earliest you can do that is at level 26, so get grinding!

[via Boing Boing]

Earlier this year Sony released a pair of waterproof and tiny earphones that were also mp3 players. Today they announced two more versatile headphones called the WH Series, aka the 3-in-1 Walkman. These headphones also have built-in mp3 players, but you can also plug them into other media players as normal headphones. Finally, the headphones can supposedly also be used as personal speakers, although I think Sony may have cheated with a bit with this claim.

The 3-in-1 Walkman comes in two models. The NWZ-WH303 has 4GB of storage and a 30mm headphone driver, while the NWZ-WH505 has 16GB of storage and a 40mm headphone driver. The WH303 will be available in black and white while the higher end WH505 will only come in black. Both models can play music for up to 20 hours on their rechargeable battery. But as I said, even if they run out of power, you can still use these as normal headphones using a supplied cable.

Finally, by swiveling the ear cups outward and activating its “surround sound” mode, you’ll be able to listen to your music without wearing the headphones. Then again, you can do that with any pair of headphones with swiveling cups. The difference here would be the quality of the sound. Sadly Sony didn’t demo this feature in their product video.

According to Sony Europe, the 3-in-1 Walkman should be available in the UK 10/2013. The NWZ-WH303 will sell for £99 (~$160 USD) while the NWZ-WH505 will sell for £179 (~$280 USD). Barring any problems with their sound quality, these seem to be practical gadgets to have. But I think they’d be more enticing if, instead of the gimmicky speaker mode, you could wirelessly transfer music between the headphones and your media player.

[via Sony via Geeky Gadgets & Engadget]

Wireless chargers already exist, but I’m not a big fan of the current setup because it’s not convenient at all. Sure, you don’t have to plug anything to your device, but today’s inductive chargers require that the device being charged remain in contact with the charging dock or platform. That leaves your device more tethered than if you used a charging cable. But what if wireless charging worked like Wi-Fi? That’s what a company called Ossia is working on.

Founded by physicist Hatem Zeine, Ossia is working on a wireless charging technology that it calls Cota. Like today’s inductive charging systems, Cota requires a power transmitter as well as a receiver on the device to be charged. Zeine claims that the receiver can be made small enough to fit inside gadgets and even AAA batteries. Best of all – and this is the trillion dollar claim of Ossia – the Cota transmitter can supposedly power devices up to 30 ft. away. Furthermore, Zeine claims that Cota is as harmless as Wi-Fi, it works through walls and it can charge multiple devices at once. In other words, it’s just like having a Wi-Fi router except this one sends electricity. You can skip to around 2:30 in the video below to see Zeine demonstrate Cota:

Wow. If Cota takes off, future mobile devices won’t need high capacity batteries, because we’ll be able to charge them all the time. Just imagine how convenient that would be.

[via TechCrunch via Engadget]

If you’ve ever been to Disneyland and envisioned the throngs of tourists and snot-nosed children roaming the park as zombies, here’s something you’ll like. This crazy mod for Left for Dead 2 recreates some of the most iconic locales at Disneyland for you to play out your zombiepocalypse fantasies on.

The mod, created by Dives and SM Sith Lord is entitled Journey to Splash Mountain and includes accurate models of Adventureland, New Orleans Square, Splash Mountain, Critter Country and Main Street. Yes, you can even visit the Tiki Room. Check out a quick overview of the maps in the video below:

Here’s a much lengthier look at the gameplay below:

You can grab all five parts of the mod over on the Steam Community or at L4DMaps. Now if only they had models of Goofy, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck as zombie NPCs, it’d be perfect.

It doesn’t seem like dungeon masters are going to get their hands on the Surfacescape anytime soon, but Brendon Duncan may have an affordable alternative. His 3D Virtual Tabletop app gives you access to digital maps and creature tokens on your mobile device or desktop computer through a browser.

Aside from helping you visualize your adventure, 3D Virtual Tabletop makes it easy to add maps and characters. If you can copy an image, you can import it to the app, although I’m not sure how well its automatic cropping function works. The app will be available on iOS, Android and Kindle devices, as well as through Mac and PC via a web app.

Some of the other neat features of the 3D Virtual Tabletop include saving the setup of the map, status indicators and fog of war. You can try out demo versions of these apps right now. You can use the final version of the app offline, but if you pay $0.99 (USD) a month you’ll have access to its cross-platform feature. That means you and your party members can see and interact on the same map across multiple devices and platforms. Brendan said the app can handle at least 20 simultaneous users on the same virtual tabletop.

Pledge at least $9(USD) on Kickstarter to get a 1 year (or more) subscription to 3D Virtual Tabletop’s online services. When it launches, Brendan will also setup an online market where you can buy more maps and character images. It seems like a convenient alternative to physical maps, especially since its compatible with different devices. But if all of your playmates have access to a PC, you might be better off with Roll20.