The virtual reality headset Oculus Rift has made quite a journey. From its origins on Kickstarter in 2012 to Mark Zuckerberg purchasing the the company for two billion dollars in 2014, virtual reality is here to stay, and is reportedly going to be ready for the public in Q1 2016. Copycats have even emerged, with Sony, Microsoft, Samsung, and even Google creating their own virtual headsets. However, none of these competitors have anything like the Oculus Touch, a wireless controller to better immerse oneself in Oculus’ virtual world.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo or “E3” this year, Oculus unveiled “The Toybox Demo” for Oculus Touch, demonstrating how one can stack, destroy, and poke virtual objects like you would with actual blocks. One can even play ping pong or use a slingshot. As expected, tech blogs had only positive things to say; the controls were intuitive, simple, and made the social experience a reality. It almost sounds too good to be true, and unfortunately, it is.

The Oculus Touch will not be shipping with the Oculus Rift, but instead an Xbox One controller due to a deal between Microsoft and Oculus. Whether or not this will be a deal breaker depends on the prices of both the Rift and Touch, and it’s possible that the Xbox One gamepad will be a comparable substitute to the Touch. In the meantime, competitors will stand a chance against Oculus’ VR headset. Sony’s Project Morpheus will have the benefit of being compatible with the Playstation 4, which is king among video game consoles, and the HTC Vive has a lead on the PC market with their partnership with Valve. Next year is going to be an exhilarating race between these major tech companies, but I imagine the Oculus Touch may give Oculus the push it needs to reign supreme in the virtual reality market.

            If you couldn’t tell by now, the science fiction has always fascinated me. As a result, it may not be surprising to discover that I am also an avid fan of the Halo series: a sci-fi epic drama with video games, books, comics, and TV series to bring this universe to life. My journey in this world began with the video game’s third installment Halo 3 in August of 2008, and after hundreds of hours sinking my teeth into every story mission competitive matches, I’ve been able to see the game grow throughout its development. Now in 2015, Halo 5: Guardians offers the next step in the protagonist Master Chief’s journey, and my excitement cannot be concealed as a result of developer 343 Industries’ incredible advertising campaign.

Most advertising campaigns for video games are similar; they all have a few trailers, a hashtag, a demonstration at a video game conference, and that’s it. However, 343 Industries goes above and beyond other video game developers. One way in particular 343 achieves this is through an audio fictional series, similar to an old classic radio show, called Hunt the Truth. Through twenty minute episodes of pure audio, an individual’s ears are exposed to the history of the Master Chief, and whether or not he is the hero the public views him as. The response of this series has been overwhelmingly positive among the internet, and any sore ear that gives it a listen is likely to have their anticipation grow for the new game. Additionally, 343 Industries cleverly uses the tagline “#HuntTheTruth” in all of their trailers, so consequently those who search the tag will undoubtedly stumble across the audio series.

With Hunt the Truth, 343 has the potential of setting a trend in the video game industry beyond trailers and tag-lines. By adding a promotional story to an upcoming game, fans of the series have something to keep themselves excited while waiting for the release, and I’m curious to know the impact the series will have on sales. I myself have been invested in the Hunt the Truth audio series, and am eagerly awaiting the release of Halo 5: Guardians on October 27, 2015.

Last night, I unexpectedly got a glimpse of home. My friend Seth decided to drive down to UIUC for the day to visit my roommates and me. While shoving Legend’s burgers into our mouths as ketchup dripped from our lips, we caught up on old times and life in different colleges. Seth decided to study criminal justice at a community college near home in order to save money, so getting a glimpse of the campus life here at UIUC felt strange and uneasy for him. Cups of alcohol and boxes of chicken wings littered the streets on campus, and walking through Green Street while passing high-rise buildings was an unfamiliar experience for Seth. It was only six weeks ago when I arrived at UIUC, but I never realized just how much I had adapted to the college life.

As an attempt to reduce Seth’s tension, my roommates and I suggested we see a movie due to the availability of Seth’s car. Seth agreed, and we ended up at the Goodrich theatre in Savoy, Illinois. Entering that movie theatre was like opening the door to my house in Lincolnshire. I was greeted with a familiar atmosphere; the smell of popcorn, elderly couples complaining at the box office, and a small corner where kids could play arcade games almost made me homesick. After sitting in the theater eating a box of Twizzlers with my friends from high school, there was no way to tell whether I was at a college or not.

In the end though, it was simply reassuring to know that wherever I go, I’ll always have a small taste of home not too far away. College has been, is, and will be unpredictable. In fact, during the same night, three girls barged into my dorm room looking for their purse even though we didn’t know them. A short visit to a movie theater, though, and home is right on campus.

Life, Water, Mars! 

Well, if you haven’t already heard, NASA discovered evidence of flowing water on Mars! Exciting, isn’t it? But wait! There’s still so many questions: if there’s water, is there life? Will humans be able to live there? If so, when? Fortunately, we have some answers!

For those unaware, Reddit has a category called /r/IAmA (AmA standing for “Ask me Anything”) where many celebrities and professionals come to answer questions from the public. Today, NASA posted their own AmA, responding to the questions we’ve been dying to know, and to make it easier on the lazy, I’m going to cover some of the highlights!

The most fascinating question asked comes from user DarkContractor, questioning when humans will be able to reach Mars. Chief Scientist of the NASA Mars Program Office Rich Zurek replies “presently, NASA is looking into the possibility of sending humans to the vicinity of Mars in the early 2030s. In this scenario, the earliest humans to the surface would be in the late 2030s”. 2030? I’ll only be in my thirties when newborns could be born on another planet. Adding to the excitement, water on Mars begs the question for potential species, and even though the water only seems to appear during specific times of the year, Deputy Project Scientist Leslie K. Tamppari suggests that hibernation is a possibility for these species to survive. Unfortunately, she and the team are unsure how life reacts on a planet like Mars, but regardless, it’s becoming more apparent that extraterrestrials are likely more fact than science-fiction.

If you’re interested in reading more responses from NASA, check it out here! You will not regret it.

Today, the media is a part of everyone’s lives. Whether you’re sending an e-mail for school, reading a book on a tablet, or checking the time on your phone, the media is right there with you.  According to my self-study, media takes up eleven hours of my day on average, and with a new iPhone being announced every other week, it seems almost impossible for developing children to ignore this world of information. The real question is, though, is all of this media consumption a bad thing for children and does it even matter?

In 2013, Common Sense Media committed a study on the overall media use of children ages 0-8 and discovered that the older the child was, the more media he or she consumed. Media consumption from 0-1 years old was only an hour a day, but by 5-8 years old that consumption grew to almost two and a half hours. A trend like this suggests that the amount of time children spend with the media would only continue to grow. However, it may be surprising to note that no apparent benefits or hindrances were recorded in the study. In a recent Huffington Post article, the editor reaches out to two doctors trying to examining the cognitive effects media has on developing children, but neither experts are positive of the long term effects.

Honestly, that’s probably a good thing. Let us say hypothetically that these doctors report that the media is beneficial for cognitive development. The result would then cause lazier parenting; if a simple iPad game or app could keep a child entertained for hours with no damage to their brains, what would be the point of spending time with the child? Alternatively, if the doctors report that the media is harmful, a parent would then struggle with keeping their child away from a media-infested world.

Without knowing whether media is harmful or not, it allows parents to remain cautious, which is the best route a parent could take. If a parent is cautious, he or she can make sure their child is receiving a healthy balance of media and interaction with the outside world. Balance is absolutely the key here, and with that parents do not need a study to determine media’s long term effects. Instead they can focus on what’s really important: spending time with their child and making their child happy.