Fully Charged: Portal coming to Android, Kenya catching poachers with drones and Lego unveils Simpsons minifig range

Portal coming to Android and Nvidia Shield

Heart-warming news for Android gamers and owners of the Nvidia Shield handheld console: Portal is coming to Google’s OS.

In a blog post, Nvidia revealed that Valve’s beloved FPS/puzzle hybrid would “soon” be joining the 300-plus Android games fully compatible with the Shield console. We can imagine the Shield’s hardware buttons and pads might come in very handy when navigating the game’s myriad brain-mangling levels, because touchscreen controls might not give you the precision required.

[Source: Nvidia blog]

READ MORE: Nvidia Shield video review

Kenya to catch poachers with the help of drones

Could 2014 be the year when drones shrug off their image as faceless tools of war and government oppression? Well, probably not – but for the first time it seems UAVs are getting press for their many non-creepy uses. First Mark Zuckerburg wants to use solar-powered drones to bring internet access to as-yet unconnected parts of the developing world, and now this: Kenya will be using unmanned surveillance aircraft to fight the poaching of elephants and rhinos.

The Kenya Wildlife Service has announced that it’s to begin a pilot scheme of using drones to patrol Tsavo National Park, one of the world’s largest national parks and home to elephants and rhinos, which are poached for their ivory and horns respectively. So far in 2014, Kenya says it has lost 18 rhinos and 51 elephants to poachers – and there are hopes that the drones will not only put the criminals off but help catch those that persist. The Wildlife Service has not yet revealed which type of drone it’ll be using, how many or the cost of the scheme, but did say they’d be imported from another country.

[Source: Reuters]

Image credit: Ars Electronica

The Lego Simpsons minifigs in all their glory

It seems the £180 Lego Simpsons house was just the beginning of a beautiful brand collaboration. Lego has just pulled the wraps off a full range of Simpsons minifigures, and they’re pretty special (in fact, if you check out the Simpson family themselves, the quality of detail is even better than on those in the house set). Each of the 16 figures will cost US$4 (£2.50) and will be released before a special Lego edition of The Simpsons, airing in the US on 4th May.

[Source: Gizmodo]

Xbox One to tell you when you’re being a jackass online

Microsoft has detailed its plans for Xbox Live’s reputation system on Xbox One – and it’ll give you and everyone who views your Gamercard a quick heads-up to how nice or nasty you are online via a colour system. Green will mean you’re a good player, yellow will mean your attitude “needs work”, while red will mark you out as a player to be avoided.

Your overall reputation will be determined by an algorithm that rewards you for putting in hours of “good play” (in which you’ve been unreported by fellow gamers) and punishes you for disruptive behaviour. However, the odd bad report isn’t going to sour things too much, because it’ll take a concentrated succession of negative feedback from multiple players to do that. This means there should be less scope for butthurt n00bs you’ve just fragged to get their revenge via reporting you.

Players with “avoid me” ratings will begin to experience penalties, such as the revocation of Twitch broadcasting capabilities and reduced matchmaking pairings.

[Source: Xbox.com via Engadget]