This Week's Recap : the JC3 fail, Seeing Wi-Fi Signals Through an App, Mozilla Wants to Drop Thunderbird, Verizon and Star Wars, and the Internet Carbon Footprint

JC3: What the Heck is Happening?

The Just Cause 3, or JC3, game has been released and gamers say it's pretty solid... that is if you can actually play. Indeed, the newest edition of the popular game is apparently full of "brillant" cliffhangers, with unreal graphics, and even a few well-thought "pathos" moments. But the thing is... it's really hard to get there. Because the game is SO FULL of bugs and glitches as frustrating as they are puzzling: screen that freezes for minutes at a time on a regular basis, desynchronized audio, numerous controls that suddenly stop working... The issues occur on both PCs and game consoles, with the Xbox One experience reportedly being the worst. Even more mind-boggling when you consider that the game requirements are super intense. http://bit.ly/1TkqZQE

« Seeing » Wi-Fi Signals

So the human eye is pretty good, but there are still a lot of different fondamental things it can't see, for instance microbes and... wavefront signals. A new augmented reality app called Architecture of Radio offers to use your screens (iPhone and iPad for now, Android launch next month) to finally perceive this invisible world. It makes different things visible such as the mesmerizing presence of wireless routers, cell towers, and even satellites. So the info is compiled from several databases, and not actually detected by your device in real time, but it's still quite fascinating. $2.50 on the App Store. http://bit.ly/1ln3pYz

Mozilla Wants to Drop Thunderbird

A lot of people can relate Mozilla to its popular Firefox browser, but did you know the company also developed a mail tool, called Thunderbird? Both products actually run on the same technology. But Thunderbird is a little ill-loved, and this week the Mozilla CEO, Mitchell Baker, stated that they wanted to part with it. She even described it as a "tax" on the development of the more important Firefox. Mozilla plans to continue maintaining the product, but wishes to find Thunderbird a new home in the mid- to long term. http://bit.ly/1OuRt2C

Verizon and Star Wars

The buzz around Star Wars: The Force Awakens is quite high, and oh do we think a lot of people would LOVE to be Verizon customers right now... The telecom company is currently giving away a fun gizmo to its clients: the Google Cardboard Viewer. It is to be used along with the free Star Wars Android app, and makes it possible to view 360-degree short features such as Jakku Spy, the first one released this week. Critics say that the experience is pretty "substance-less," but really who cares? The movie will be released on December 18. http://on.mash.to/1Iro0FC

Internet and its Carbon Footprint

Heard during the really cool Radio-Canada La Sphère program (the French equivalent to the CBC's The Spark) over the weekend: about 10% of the global electricity consumption is used to power... the Internet! Wowza! We often tend to think that the Internet is something fairly abstract, residing somehwere in the cloud, but in fact, everything runs on actual servers, wires, and computers that consume energy (lots of it). The IT industry as a whole is even responsible for 2% of total carbon release in the atmosphere. If Apple can rightfully claim that it entirely runs on renewable energy, it's a pretty lonely party for the Cupertino company. Facebook comes 2nd with 49%, then Google with 46%, and then Amazon with a dismal 15%... A little extra effort please?  http://bit.ly/1PA0p88