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One Windows Platform for every form factor. (credit: Microsoft)

Windows developers will be able to build Universal Windows Platform apps for the Xbox One this summer, Microsoft finally confirmed at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today.

One way or another, Microsoft has been telling Windows developers to think about running apps on a TV screen using an Xbox for more than seven years now, first as part of the "three screens and a cloud" vision, and more recently as part of the Universal Windows Platform. Microsoft also said that the Windows Store and Xbox Store would be merged.

Developing for phones, desktops, and tablets has always been more or less open, with even the gatekept phone platform easy to access with no particular entry requirements. But the Xbox has always been treated differently. Building traditional Xbox games meant buying expensive Xbox development units (which aren't available on the open market), with Microsoft exercising tight control over the finished game and being deeply involved in things such as the delivery of patches.

SAN FRANCISCO—At a GDC keynote presentation Wednesday, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney showed off plenty of Unreal Engine-powered games and highlighted how developers would soon be able to build those games in a fully virtual reality editor. But the more surprising focus of his talk was the growing use of Unreal Engine 4 outside of gaming for everything from film editing to architectural planning.

"What the camera was to the 20th century, the engine is today," Sweeney said. "The media world is converging into a digital content industry... where the engine is the thing that links [different media] together in an interoperable world."

The most stunning example of this cross-media collaboration came in a gripping cut scene from Hellblade developer Ninja Theory. The highly detailed shot highlighted Celtic warrior protagonist Senua, fighting through deep psychosis and trauma on a vision quest into a Viking heartland. As Senua tried to shake off disturbing, fiery visions of hanging corpses, the camera zoomed in on her face, illuminating every tiny mouth twitch and body shiver that served as an outward sign of her internal struggle.

Sean McMahon

Reconstruction of the Tully Monster as it would have looked 300 million years ago, swimming in the Carboniferous seas. Notice the jointed proboscis, the multiple rows of teeth, and the dorsal eye bar.

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The "Tully monster," a mysterious animal that swam in the inland oceans of Illinois more than 300 million years ago, left behind a tantalizingly detailed map of its body in a well-preserved package of fossils. Unfortunately, nobody could figure out what the creature was for half a century—until now.

Francis Tully found the remains of the tiny beast (it's only about 10 centimeters long) in Illinois in 1958 and gave it the whimsical scientific name Tullimonstrum (nickname: Tully monster). A long stalk extends from the front of its body, which ends in a toothy orifice called a buccal apparatus. Its body is covered in gills and narrows down into a powerful tail that it probably used for propulsion. Its eyes peer out from either end of a long, rigid bar attached to the animal's back.

The Tully monster lived during the Carboniferous period, when the North American Great Basin was an enormous inland sea. Trees were colonizing the land for the first time, transforming the soil and filling the atmosphere with higher levels of oxygen than Earth had known before or since. Giant arthropods, like the 8-foot-long millipede known as Arthropleura, crawled through the new forests. It was a good time to be a weird animal, and the Tully monster probably fit right in.

(credit: Uber)

The nation's second-largest rapid transit system is shut down today, and ride-hailing service Uber has assured users it will cap its "surge" pricing at 3.9x.

The Uber app automatically imposes surge pricing based on the ratio of riders to drivers, but that algorithm gets very controversial during times of extreme stress. When residents of downtown Sydney were fleeing a hostage situation in 2014, a 4x surge turned into a storm of criticism. (Uber quickly refunded those high-priced rides and began offering free rides in the city.)

In early 2015, Uber adopted a policy of limiting surges during natural disasters and other emergencies. However, a Metro outage in DC in May caused spikes in prices again, since Uber didn't consider that event an emergency. This time, it will impose the surge cap.

Chevrolet

The 2017 Camaro ZL1 looks rather angry, doesn't it?

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2017 is a big year for Chevrolet when it comes to electric vehicles. Between the second-generation Volt and the forthcoming Bolt, the company is in a race with Tesla to see which manufacturer will be the first to sell 200,000 EVs and lose the IRS tax credit. But lest you think that GM only cares about efficiency and being kind to the environment, think again. Today, it took the wraps off a new track monster—the 2017 Camaro ZL1. Under the hood is a supercharged V8 (the 640hp/477kW 6.2L LT4) and General Motors' all-new 10-speed automatic transmission.

The ZL1 has also been on a significant weight loss program. It's 200lbs (91kg) lighter than the previous ZL1, but the new car has an extra 60hp (45kW) and 80ft-lbs (109Nm) to play with. Although you can get the ZL1 with a conventional six-speed, the new automatic gearbox sounds rather interesting. Several years ago, Ford and GM decided to collaborate on a new generation of automatic transmissions for rear-wheel drive cars and trucks—this is the first application of that project to come from Chevrolet, although with some parts and software unique to the ZL1.

The car has also had an aerodynamic facelift to distinguish it from lesser Camaros—but more importantly, to aid high-speed stability and improve cooling. Chevrolet's Corvette Z06 supercar has faced criticism that it overheats too quickly on track—a shame given that it's so ludicrously fast that the track is the only real place it has to stretch its legs. GM will be hoping the same isn't true for the ZL1, which uses the same engine.

Charter's footprint after the proposed merger. (credit: Charter)

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is likely to support Charter's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC) and may circulate a proposal to approve the merger with conditions "as soon as this week," The Wall Street Journal reported last night, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Wheeler would be circulating a draft order to fellow commissioners, a preliminary step to approving the deal.

"The order would impose a number of conditions on the transaction, many of them aimed at boosting online video as a competitor to cable," the Journal reported. "One condition would bar Charter from including clauses in its pay-TV contracts that restrict a content company’s ability to offer its programming online or to new entrants, the people said. FCC officials worry those clauses, which are thought to be widespread in the pay-TV marketplace, could be impeding the growth of online video."