Adorable Characters Hack Through Brutally Difficult Dungeons in Persona Q

Atlus

I’ve always been a huge Persona fan. But even I have my limits.

The long-running Japanese role-playing game series traditionally places you in the role of a high school student who’s been gifted with the ability to summon “personas,” monsters and demons that can range from a lowly pixie all the way up to Satan himself.

Your ultimate goal might be to save the world, but you’re still a student and the games run on a system in which you only have a certain amount of free time per in-game day. So you have to balance schoolwork and socializing with monster hunting and dungeon crawling. You could spend all your time beating up baddies, but since your skill in battle is influenced by the relationships you make with your fellow students and town locals, you might have a hard time of it.

Persona Q , available today for Nintendo 3DS, takes some of the fan-favorite characters and settings and puts them in the context of an old-school first-person dungeon crawler. Like publisher Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey series of 3DS games, it’s a throwback to the days of dungeons being so intentionally confusing and difficult that you were forced to draw your own maps to make heads or tails of them. Fortunately, Persona Q has a map-making feature all built in—no graph paper required.

Atlus

I played games like Wizardry and Shining in the Darkness as a kid, and I liked how the brutal challenge and circuitous dungeon layouts required me to constantly rethink my strategies. I had to do the same here. Persona Q is hard. Each character you can use has different weaknesses, and enemies will waste no time exploiting them, resulting in that fighter being knocked down or severely weakened.

All of your characters can equip different personas and switch them out at will, and the game demands you use this to your advantage: More than once I walked into a battle only for the enemy to devastate my forces with just a few casts of magic. When I went over my party to see what I did wrong, I noticed that I had almost exclusively equipped personas with a weakness to fire spells.

I love using the 3DS’ touch screen to plot out virtual maps, even placing icons on them to mark points of interest. As a kid, I would do this all the time while playing games like The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. To me, there was nothing more fun than filling out sheet after sheet of graph paper with shaded squares and icons that only I could decipher. It made me feel like I was a lone explorer. Persona Q captures this feeling dead-on.

I do wish it wouldn’t interrupt my fun so much, though.

Atlus

Since the characters, and the relationships between them, are so paramount to the experience, previous Persona games had plenty of talking and cut-scenes. At their best, these provide a refreshing contrast to the monotonous dungeon exploration. But Persona Q‘s gameplay is much more captivating and engrossing, and so I find myself really wanting these people to just shut the hell up.

It seems like every time is the right time for your characters to decide to have a chat about nothing in particular. Often it’s to make a trite joke that has some superficial relevance to that particular character’s quirks.

Take Chie, for example. Fans loved her in Persona 4 for her spunky, occasionally overly aggressive nature and her love of eating meat. Persona Q hammers this home at every opportunity. Chie gets angry about something trivial in every scene, and there’s some reference to meat every few minutes. Enough is enough.

I still thoroughly enjoyed following Persona Q‘s various twists and turns in the storyline. When the characters are actually talking about plot-related developments and going through character arcs, the writing shines. They play off each other in a way that makes you feel as if you’re among old friends. It reminds me of why I fell in love with the cast in the first place.

Just let me draw my maps in peace!

Surviving the Digital Revolution: IT’s New Role With the C-Suite

Time to break the mold: As this technology revolutions continues to unfold, does your IT teams have a survival plan? bnilsen/Flickr

Technology writer Nicholas Carr caused a stir in 2003 when the Harvard Business Review published his article with the provocative title “IT Doesn’t Matter.” Carr argued that IT had become an industrial infrastructure commodity just like railroads and electric power. Since IT is so widely available, it gives no one company a competitive advantage but as we approach the next economic revolution – the digital economy – can IT play a leading role in advancing the competitive advantage for businesses by closing the gap between customer expectations and their experience, or will it no longer survive?

The spread of the Internet and digital technologies is transforming how businesses operate with customers. With the pervasiveness of digital technologies such as mobile and wearable devices, delivering a seamless and continuous digital experience across multiple platforms requires IT teams to know how to design a website or app that performs in the moments that matter. But, bridging the gap between what customers experience and expect is challenging IT to stretch beyond their traditional model of operation to embrace a new way of measuring app and website performance across the digital channels. To close the distance that IT needs to cross to align with the business to have a measurable impact.

Focus on the end user experience. The language gap between IT and the business has long stifled growth to businesses succeeding. IT professionals talk about bytes, bits and user interfaces, while the businesses talks about conversion rates, sales and profits. In the digital revolution, IT needs to articulate the impact of web and mobile app performance by using common metrics that help the company engage and retain customers. Companies lose between 10-30 percent of the their customers annually, and even more in the online world. As the number of entry points for customers to engage with businesses grows, learning how to turn IT from a tool to a weapon can lower the attrition rate of customers.

Progress to new metric practices that demonstrate value in context of business results. A Gartner survey of CIOs revealed that IT budget increases averaged only 0.2 percent in 2014. The Gartner report, “Taming the Digital Dragon: The 2014 CIO Agenda,” also revealed that 51 percent of CIOs are concerned that “the digital torrent is coming faster than they can cope with” and that 42 percent don’t feel that they have the IT staff needed to face this challenge.

This squeeze means IT has to adopt new capabilities to keep pace with the flow of data and communication as the proliferation of digital tools becomes globally adopted. The digital experience will require IT to drive alongside the business by using common metrics such as customer adoption, engagement and satisfaction to remain relevant.

Get in front of the execs – don’t think like a back office. The proliferation and volume of devices with which consumers can access digital content has converted a niche into a transformative global industry. The use of apps that customers use to purchase goods on devices – such as games or publication subscriptions has become a significant industry. The volume of such purchases was almost zero
in 2009 and by 2013, sales totaled nearly $6 billion.1

As the volume of digital flows, keeping pace with this adoption rate requires the business to negate the lingering, and mistaken, perception that IT is a commodity. The biggest opportunity for the group is to explain to business executives that promoting the company’s brand to consumers are about the effectiveness of the technology serving them.

The proliferation of digital channels presents a battleground for a new generation of customers that choose to interact with content on mobile devices. These new channels depend on behind-the-scenes technology such as cloud computing, big data and application programming interface (API)-enabled systems of record.

While IT still needs to address traditional challenges that come up in the digital experience, including developing the right functionality to interact when and where customers expect to, IT also needs to correlate the data that measures the performance of websites and apps with business activities to measure customer adoption, engagement, satisfaction or loyalty.

As IT and the business get closer to understanding each other, IT will become a partner to the business. They will get a seat at the table with the company’s Chief Digital Officer, they’ll be able to partner with multidisciplinary product teams, and develop an agility that enables creation of new products that have a better chance of being market disruptors.

When IT can speak the language of business, we can communicate how technology design can optimize a very positive user experience that results in digital business outcomes that create brand loyalty and impact to the top the line. Businesses will then know why IT matters.

As this technology revolutions continues to unfold, does your IT teams have a survival plan?

Aaron Rudger is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Keynote.

The FAA’s Drone Rules Are Too Narrow, But They’re Better Than Nothing

SkySpecs

If you’re a drone pilot—or one of many drone entrepreneurs—the good news is that it may soon be legal to fly unmanned aerial vehicles for commercial purposes. The bad news is that the FAA rules may be much more strict than most drone aficionados hoped, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But for Ryan Morton, the CTO of SkySpecs, a company that makes anti-collision software for aerial drones, the good news outweighs the bad. Overly restrictive rules, he says, are better than no rules at all. “It’s better,” he says, “than the way it is now.”

Today, pilots must receives a special exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration to legally fly drones for commercial purposes in the U.S. Many drone operators flaunted this rule, arguing that the FAA didn’t have authority over unmanned craft. But last week, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the agency does indeed have the authority to regulate unmmanned aircraft the same way it regulates manned aircraft. That means everyone who wants to use drones commercially will have to be approved by the FAA, whether they’re construction surveying company SkyCatch or retailers like Amazon who want to use drones for deliveries.

According to the Journal, the new rules will apply to all drones under 55 pounds, including the smallest and lightest of aircrafts, and flights will be limited to daytime hours only. But perhaps the biggest issue is that all drone operators would be required to acquire a pilot’s license from the FAA. That could be a major hurdle for self-taught drone operators with no experience in the cockpit—and an added hassle for drone startups.

The rules may not take effect for years, the paper reports, and will likely undergo many modifications. But even if the most restrictive version of the rules ends up being passed, Morton thinks it will be an improvement over the status quo, which has made it hard for his company—and many others—to enter U.S. markets. “I’d rather they say you have a pilot’s license than the current lack of regulation,” he says. That said, he does have some misgivings.

A pilot’s license, he says, doesn’t necessarily cover the same skills needed to pilot a drone. There are many things a traditional pilot needs to know that aren’t necessarily relevant to a drone pilot, such as how to control a Cessna or emergency land on a short runway, and in similar fashion, there are skills that are unique to drones.

Commercial manned aircraft may fly far above heavily populated areas, but the pilots never need to learn how to hover around buildings and other structures, let alone humans. Meanwhile, a drone pilot tasked with surveying a construction site may need to land close to a lightly populated area, or hover close enough large equipment to take photos for inspection. Drone pilots also need to know how to safely handle lithium batteries, which can catch fire explode if handled incorrectly. A traditional pilot training program won’t cover these sorts of thing.

Ideally, Morton says, the regulations will be more nuanced, with different certification requirements for different types of drones. “A 50 pound drone that can’t fly more than 200 meters is probably less dangerous than a two pound drone that can fly five miles,” he says. But that type of regulation, he admits, will be particularly tricky to write and enforce. Law enforcement can readily verify the size and weight of a machine. But it’s much harder to determine things such as maximum speed and range.

That’s part of why Morton is so forgiving of regulators at this point in the process. “The FAA does have a daunting task on their hands,” Morton says. “They’re being pulled in a lot of directions. They’re getting a bad name in the process. In my view is that they’re doing it the way they should.”

What’s important now, he says, is that we get some rules in place so that drone companies can finally bring the businesses to the U.S.—and so that we can find out what works and what doesn’t. “We’re not going to get it right the first time,” he says. “We need to keep iterating.”

This Electric Concept Car Could Finally Convince Americans to Buy Mitsubishis

Combined, both electric and combustion engines put out a total of 295 horsepower. Mitsubishi

Combined, both electric and combustion engines put out a total of 295 horsepower.

Mitsubishi

The car is a plug-in hybrid with a tiny 1.1-liter 3-cylinder engine paired with an electric motor and 14 kWh battery. Mitsubishi

The car is a plug-in hybrid with a tiny 1.1-liter 3-cylinder engine paired with an electric motor and 14 kWh battery.

Mitsubishi

Don't expect either the brilliant steering wheel or the red driver's seat to make it to production, but we dig the effect. Mitsubishi

Don't expect either the brilliant steering wheel or the red driver's seat to make it to production, but we dig the effect.

Mitsubishi

Future Mitsubishis will feature the brand's own augmented reality display, rendered here. Mitsubishi

Future Mitsubishis will feature the brand's own augmented reality display, rendered here.

Mitsubishi

The XR-PHEV's two motors put out a combined 295 horsepower.

The XR-PHEV's two motors put out a combined 295 horsepower.

There's no word on when Mitsubishi will bring these designs to production, but we expect new models with these features to show up soon. Mitsubishi

There's no word on when Mitsubishi will bring these designs to production, but we expect new models with these features to show up soon.

Mitsubishi

We still love the Evo, and Mitsubishi has made some quality cars over the years, but the brand just doesn’t sell well in the United States. Naturally, that’s something the company is looking to change, and last week it showed us how it expects to do it: The XR-PHEV is a muscled-out crossover packed with modern tech and an unexpectedly peppy engine setup. It’s just a concept car, but Mitsubishi says it “hints at the future design direction” for the brand.

This Range Rover Evoque look-a-like is a plug-in electric hybrid with all the traits of a cool concept: a funky steering wheel, bright red paint, no side mirrors, the use of futuristic technology (in this case, augmented reality), and impossibly narrow windows. We don’t expect to see anything like it go to production, but by bringing this template to the City of Angels, Mitsubishi says it’s confirming its dedication to bringing new cars to the the US market. They’ve been in the EV game for a while, so we have high hopes.

We’ve seen plenty of concept crossovers in recent years, but this one feels especially Japanese-futuristic. The exterior looks like someone cut it into strips and glued it back together in a hurry. The thin headlights are menacing, the swept-back contours make it look aerodynamic and efficient. Then there’s the highlighted red driver’s seat with a race car-style steering wheel, lest you confuse it for a kid-hauler.

For the camping (or survivalist) inclined, the car’s interior outlets will be able to pump out 1,500 watts of power. That’s enough, Mitsubishi says, to power household appliances for a full day. With a full tank of gas and the engine set to generator mode, you can bank on up to 10 days of appliance-ready power. Everyday-useful? Not really, but it’s a cool feature we’d like to see on the forthcoming vehicles.

The XR-PHEV also has the connected car features we’ve come to expect. There are plans for pedestrian detection and blind spot warning systems, and cameras to detect driver fatigue. Mitsubishi has also been talking about its planned augmented reality (AR) windshield, which would feed data on the car’s surroundings into a display projected onto the windshield. It promises connection to a vehicle information network that will let the car automatically read traffic lights with an onboard camera. (This idea isn’t brand new; the problem is that the infrastructure doesn’t exist on the road yet.)

When it comes to the powertrain, we’re impressed with what’s on show. The three-cylinder turbocharged 1.1-liter gas motor puts out 134 horsepower on its own. Paired with a 121-kilowatt (161 hp) electric motor, the XR-PHEV makes 295 horsepower total. Electricity comes from a 14 kWh battery stored underneath the cabin.

The Mitsu’s powertrain brain divides up responsibilities between the engine and electric motor by detecting the remaining battery reserves and analyzing driving conditions to select the best mode. In full-electric, the default setting, the gas engine runs in the background to keep the battery juiced. Mitsubishi says the car will get about 53 miles on a full charge — if needed, battery save mode cuts back on inessential power-suckers like air conditioning, for extra range (Mitsubishi doesn’t say how much). In hybrid mode, the XR-PHEV will get about 65 mpg. And you can always refill the gas tank if you run out of electricity but want to keep driving. Even without performance specs, we don’t expect this setup to match Tesla’s dual-motor P85D. But for what will likely be an affordable crossover, it’ll likely do just fine.

This isn’t Mitsubishi’s first EV, or even the its first SUV electrified crossover. The Outlander plug-in hybrid goes 32 miles on electricity alone (better than average for this kind of powertrain) and delivers 50-plus mpg. Sure, these numbers aren’t revolutionary, but we’ll be watching to see if the cars that follow are cool enough to make the brand relevant over here. If this concept leads to a brawny, fuel-sipping people-hauler with some radical-looking sheetmetal, our interest will be piqued.

Click through the gallery above to see more of the car.

Adorable Characters Hack Through Brutally Difficult Dungeons in Persona Q

Atlus

I’ve always been a huge Persona fan. But even I have my limits.

The long-running Japanese role-playing game series traditionally places you in the role of a high school student who’s been gifted with the ability to summon “personas,” monsters and demons that can range from a lowly pixie all the way up to Satan himself.

Your ultimate goal might be to save the world, but you’re still a student and the games run on a system in which you only have a certain amount of free time per in-game day. So you have to balance schoolwork and socializing with monster hunting and dungeon crawling. You could spend all your time beating up baddies, but since your skill in battle is influenced by the relationships you make with your fellow students and town locals, you might have a hard time of it.

Persona Q , available today for Nintendo 3DS, takes some of the fan-favorite characters and settings and puts them in the context of an old-school first-person dungeon crawler. Like publisher Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey series of 3DS games, it’s a throwback to the days of dungeons being so intentionally confusing and difficult that you were forced to draw your own maps to make heads or tails of them. Fortunately, Persona Q has a map-making feature all built in—no graph paper required.

Atlus

I played games like Wizardry and Shining in the Darkness as a kid, and I liked how the brutal challenge and circuitous dungeon layouts required me to constantly rethink my strategies. I had to do the same here. Persona Q is hard. Each character you can use has different weaknesses, and enemies will waste no time exploiting them, resulting in that fighter being knocked down or severely weakened.

All of your characters can equip different personas and switch them out at will, and the game demands you use this to your advantage: More than once I walked into a battle only for the enemy to devastate my forces with just a few casts of magic. When I went over my party to see what I did wrong, I noticed that I had almost exclusively equipped personas with a weakness to fire spells.

I love using the 3DS’ touch screen to plot out virtual maps, even placing icons on them to mark points of interest. As a kid, I would do this all the time while playing games like The Legend of Zelda or Metroid. To me, there was nothing more fun than filling out sheet after sheet of graph paper with shaded squares and icons that only I could decipher. It made me feel like I was a lone explorer. Persona Q captures this feeling dead-on.

I do wish it wouldn’t interrupt my fun so much, though.

Atlus

Since the characters, and the relationships between them, are so paramount to the experience, previous Persona games had plenty of talking and cut-scenes. At their best, these provide a refreshing contrast to the monotonous dungeon exploration. But Persona Q‘s gameplay is much more captivating and engrossing, and so I find myself really wanting these people to just shut the hell up.

It seems like every time is the right time for your characters to decide to have a chat about nothing in particular. Often it’s to make a trite joke that has some superficial relevance to that particular character’s quirks.

Take Chie, for example. Fans loved her in Persona 4 for her spunky, occasionally overly aggresive nature and her love of eating meat. Persona Q hammers this home at every opportunity. Chie gets angry about something trivial in every scene, and there’s some reference to meat every few minutes. Enough is enough.

I still thoroughly enjoyed following Persona Q‘s various twists and turns in the storyline. When the characters are actually talking about plot-related developments and going through character arcs, the writing shines. They play off each other in a way that makes you feel as if you’re among old friends. It reminds me of why I fell in love with the cast in the first place.

Just let me draw my maps in peace!