Posts Tagged: character

Boeing’s Starliner carried a ‘Kerbal Space Program’ character to the ISS

After two-and-a-half years of delays, Boeing’s Starliner capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station. It was an important milestone for a company that has, at least in the popular imagination, struggled to catch up with SpaceX. So it’s fitting how Boeing decided it would celebrate a successful mission.

When the crew of the ISS opened the hatch to Starliner, they found a surprise inside the spacecraft. Floating next to Orbital Flight Test-2’s seated test dummy was a plush toy representing Jebediah Kerman, one of four original “Kerbonauts” featured in Kerbal Space Program. Jeb, as he’s better known by the KSP community, served as the flight’s zero-g indicator. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took a small doll with him on the first-ever human spaceflight, and ever since it has become a tradition for most space crews to carry plush toys with them to make it easy to see when they've entered a microgravity environment.

If you’ve ever played Kerbal Space Program, you have a sense of why it was so fitting Boeing decided to send Jeb to space. In KSP, designing spacecraft that will carry your Kerbonauts to orbit and beyond is no easy task. Often your initial designs will fall and crash as they struggle to fly free of Kerbin’s gravity. But you go back to the drawing board and tweak your designs until you find one that works. In a way, that’s exactly what Boeing’s engineers had to do after Starliner’s first test flight in 2019 failed due to a software issue, and its second one was delayed following an unexpected valve problem.

Boeing kept Jeb’s presence on OFT-2 secret until the spacecraft docked with the ISS. A spokesperson for the company told collectSPACE that Starliner’s engineering team chose the mascot in part because of the science, technology, engineering and math lessons KSP has to teach players. Jeb will spend the next few days with the crew of the ISS before they place him back in the spacecraft for its return trip to Earth.

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Kamala Khan will be a main character in the ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ game

After a few years of waiting, the Marvel's Avengers game from Crystal Dynamics is almost ready for release. During a panel at New York Comic-Con, the company revealed one more bit of information, announcing that Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, will be i…
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‘Apex Legends’ teases its newest playable character with in-game cameo

In one of the more elaborate and novel teasers for a new playable character in an online game, you can already see Apex Legends' newest star. You just can't play him. Over the last few days, players have spotted Crypto, Apex's long-rumored hacker cha…
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‘Apex Legends’ second season debuts July 2nd with an engineer character

There's finally some concrete details about the second season of Apex Legends, and it's heartening news if you're either a defensive player or particularly competitive. The next phase of the game will add Wattson, an engineer character who thrives o…
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Double up on Tweets with Twitter’s new 280 character limit

Social media platform Twitter distinguished itself early on when it imposed a limit of 140 characters on the messages – tweets – posted by users. This resulted in much creativity on the part of users and help spur a drive for brevity when posting messages. Over time that limit turned into a bit of a […]

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‘Left 4 Dead’ character returns to haunt ‘Dead by Daylight’

Dead by Daylight, the hit survival-horror game that pits a team of four players against a dangerous killer, is getting a new character as part of the title's free "Left Behind" DLC. Players of Valve's successful Left 4 Dead series of zombie games wil…
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Google Now may soon have ‘character’ with a backstory

Not long ago, Google changed the voice tone of its Google Search assistant. At Google I/O, the tech giant announced ‘Google Assistant,’ which will soon answer one’s follow-up questions, be able to play mini games, and provide users with more accurate and detailed information. A new report from yesterday suggests Google Now will soon have […]

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Viber for Android updated with public group chats, 7,000 character limit & more!

Viber

Earlier today, mobile messaging platform Viber took delivery of a rather nifty update via the Play Store. In terms of added functionality, the upgrade carries the facility for user to like individual messages, join public group chats and send text up to 7,000 characters long.

The full changelog can be seen below:

  • Group Likes – ‘like’ messages in group chats and see who’s loving your vibe
  • Forward Public Chat messages – share content with your friends more easily
  • Write freely – text messages can now be up to 7,000 characters long
  • Better video messaging – new features improve the experience
  • Public Chats – now available on Android

To install the update, simply open up the Play Store, toggle the hamburger menu by swiping in from the left-hand side of the screen, select ‘My Apps’ and click on ‘Viber, then hit the update button.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Viber for Android updated with public group chats, 7,000 character limit & more!

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