No more E3 to steal the thunder from the iPhone this week, and now Apple's smartphone is poised to make its own headlines, especially after starring in the event where it shines brighter than the gaming scene - the World Wide Developers Conference. Under the spotlight this week is the newly-unveiled iPhone 3G, and you can learn all about it in this edition of the iPhone Weekend Warrior. And yes, there are games in the recap too.

Even though it already has one Second Life island, it seems Microsoft has come up with a new island in the world of Second Life. This new island is apparently devoted to Visual Studio and contains some pretty cool stuff for Second Life players who visit it.

There are a series of hidden logic puzzles on the island, and if you solve them all you'll get an invite into Second Life's top VIP room where the grand prize waits. The event happens today, May 10, at 6 P.M. PST/6 P.M. Second Life time. To get access to the island, just visit the Visual Studio Island registration page at https://www.visualstudioisland.com/registrations.

The Microsoft blimp that's been seen in Second Life looks like it's also part of the whole event. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the video below.

Our last update on SEGA Genesis Collection discussed similarities among the numerous games included in this collection; however, this post won't be talking about the same thing. We're actually going to highlight and take pride in the fact that these two games we're featuring now have nothing in common - well, maybe except for being real classics and for being cool and fun games.

Virtua Fighter 2 or VF2 is a versus fighting arcade game that had been released back in 1994. At that time, the game was considered groundbreaking as it runs at 60 frames per second. In this version, there will be other exciting features added including adjustments of the size of the arena and adjustments made to the physical energy meter.

 

Bonanza Brothers is a platform game which involves the characters Robo and Mobo. This game is a little older than VF2. It appeared first in 1990 and has been ported to other consoles a couple of times. The objective of the game is to stealthily move inside a house avoiding guards, retrieve several objects until players reach the rooftop where a blimp is waiting.

So if you're a fan of either versus and platform games and love classics, these titles should satisfy your craving. By the way, we also attached some of the games' trailers for you to reminisce and enjoy the good old days of playing these games. SEGA Genesis Collection is a compilation of 22 games which will be released this fall.

Download: [Virtua Fighter 2]
Download: [Bonanza Brothers]

Bags of hot air (well, bags of lighter-than-air gas, to be exact) may one day provide a cost-effective alternative (or complement) to coverage-limited terrestrial cell sites and out-of-this-world satellites with an out-of-this-world price tag. A former NASA engineer and an Arizona-based firm are working on prototypes of airships designed to provide cellular service to large coverage areas, and to remote areas out of reach from traditional cell sites.

Bob Jones' prototype for what he calls the Stratellite weighs in at 750 pounds, has five separate helium lift cells contained within a rigid carbon composite airframe, cost about $3 million to build, and bears little resemblance to the Goodyear blimp (the Stratellite has a broad, tapered nose like a shark's head). But the Stratellite is designed not as a leisurely-paced tourist vehicle, or as an ad-in-the-sky, but to go much higher, thirteen miles above ground, and for longer, up to eighteen months at a time. At that height, Jones believes the Stratellite can provide cell service to an area the size of Texas. The prototype's scheduled for test flights beginning later this month at Palmdale.

Space Data's vision for a similar service is based off the more familiar - and proven - weather balloon, carrying to the stratosphere not barometers and thermometers but the equipment to receive, boost, and transmit cell phone signals. Unlike the Stratellite, the 125 foot-long Sanswire 2 targets areas too remote from cellular service, or where cell signals cannot reach them due to terrain features. They've got plans to float a test "tech-demo" balloon over a remote part of North Dakota to demonstrate the tech and the service, and company is already in negotiations with several unidentified cell service providers. If all goes well, they expect to float their first operational and commercial gas bag as early as next year, over western Texas.

After being relegated to the attic of aviation history (especially after great strides in the development of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and the memory of the Hindenburg and other similar airship disasters), airships are making a comeback to the skies of the 21st century. Besides being used as communications platforms - an idea that was toyed with by dot-com companies back before the bubble burst - there are plans to use them for heavy freight too bulky or too heavy for their heavier-than-air cousins, and even a return to passenger service (though as a "cruise ship" service rather than high-speed air passenger transport).

It has been quite a while since we have given you an update on the Bethesda Softworks-published and Mad Doc Software-developed Star Trek: Legacy. So now, we are going to try and make up for that with this Q&A with Mad Doc Software Associate Producer, Gary Conti.

In case you have no clue on just what you'll be doing in this game, you'll be tasked with commanding Federation starships in glorious battle on either the PC or the Xbox 360. Also, don't be surprised if you'll see ships from every era of the franchise since Legacy is also a game that will tie together the five Star Trek television series. Here's Mr. Conti to shed more light about the game.

When asked about Legacy's linear mission structure and how much time will we get to spend in each Star Trek era before moving on to the next, he mentions that the players will have enough time to explore the different ships and get a feel for the era through the different mission styles and gameplay objectives. And for the length, he says that "we are looking to develop about 15 hours of gameplay in the campaign. That's pretty evenly broken up amongst the eras. So it's roughly five hours in each era."

He was a bit mum about story-related topics but he did mention some snippets of Legacy's story. He mentions that "the episode "Contagion" involving the Iconians is no longer relative to the plot. Our current storyline is much more ingenious in the way we span the eras and cover all of Trek history, and it was written by one of the original Star Trek writers."

He was also very much concerned on how detailed the game is going to be so as to further please Star Trek fans who could spot the smallest of changes like a blimp in a snowstorm. He says that they were fortunate to have Rick Knox on their team who is one of the biggest names in Trek modeling and a true ship guru. So he is somewhat complacent that Star Trek fans won't criticize the game.

When asked how damage modeling is being handled, he gamely answered that "damage modeling is handled procedurally. If you get hit in a certain area, it will show damage. As the enemies unload on your hull, phaser burns will appear; smoke, plasma, and fire will be thrown about...When a ship is destroyed, it breaks apart into random chunks, letting off multiple stage explosions and unleashing the great power within these ships."

He also mentioned that there is a possibility of ship upgrades but it will not be  outward modifications. "Upgrades are mostly internal components, boosting stats, weapon arrays and ranges, and system capabilities. Ship registrations and names are set by the game as per the storyline."

While most folks think of the era of flight as starting in 1903 with the Wright Brothers, they forget that humans have been flying in lighter-than-air craft for over two hundred years. For the first several decades, these were confined to hot-air balloons, but by 1850, a Frenchman named Pierre Jullien devised the first powered dirigible using a wound-spring clock work motor. Fifty years after that, the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin built his first rigid-frame airship of a type that would bomb London during the First World War and go on to carry passengers until 1937.

The age of the commercial, passenger-carrying airship came to an end when the Hindenburg exploded while docking at Hazelhurst, New Jersey. The cause was the gas used for lift - extremely flammable hydrogen. Meanwhile, the U.S. military - fortunate in having a nearly inexhaustible supply of an inert alternative, helium - continued using airships for a time. Such craft are still used for commercial promotions by a certain tire company, who flies their famous blimp over major sporting events.

Today, with the fossil fuel source of jet fuel quickly running out and highways so jammed with vehicles no-one can move, both the military and commercial enterprise are taking a new look at an old concept.

While incapable of the speeds achieved by powered, heavier-than-air craft, blimps and dirigibles are far more stable in bad weather. Among other applications under consideration are the uses of high-altitude (40,000 meters/120,000 ft.) airships as platforms for space telescopes, observatories and surveillance equipment. At least one "hybrid" design that uses stubby wings for lift is being tested as a freight carrying alternative to trucks, while at least one company - Aeros - is planning to bring back the era of airship travel with an 850 foot-long luxury liner capable of ferrying 200 passengers. One enterprising Frenchman has come up with a single-passenger model, and NASA has even proposed one design that can be carried to other planets, inflated, and piloted  remotely for exploration

Below are several proposed designs we may be seeing in the skies before too much longer.

  

Read the Full Article for more airship images and concepts!