Luke Plunkett

Google Buys Company Famous For Scary Military Robots

From privacy concerns to monopolies, some people have been growing increasingly concerned over some of Google’s business practices for years now. Wonder what those types think now the search giant owns a company that makes military robots. Yes, Google has splashed out and purchased Boston Dynamics, the same company who we’ve featured here a number…

Report: Pirate Bay Founder Being Kept In Solitary Confinement

The mother of imprisoned Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm says that since her son was extradited from Sweden to Denmark, he has been placed in solitary confinement as though he were a “dangerous, violent and aggressive criminal”. Svartholm is in custody – he’s still awaiting a verdict – for allegedly hacking the mainframe systems of…

Turn Your iPad Into The Neverending Story

Paper books? So 20th century. Today’s Neverending Story is a suede cover for your tablet that turns it into the iconic centrepiece of the 1984 children’s classic. Available for around USD$65, they’re hand-made to replicate the “real” thing as closely as possible. And if you don’t have an iPad, that’s cool, because they’re made by…

Track: Unspoken | Album: Ultraviolet | Artist: Kylesa Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

In The 90s, Sega Made This Boy’s Christmas Very Special

The 1990s were Sega’s golden age, but they were also a golden age for those who loved Sega, because every year on December 25 you could bet there’d be millions of kids around the world waking up to find new consoles and hardware under the tree. Kids like Tyler Esposito. Tyler put this video together…

BioShock’s Characters Were Not Born. They Had To Be Made.

Gavin Goulden is a lead character artist at Irrational Games, where he’s most recently worked on both BioShock Infinite and its first major DLC, Burial At Sea. Priot to that, he’s worked on games such as Dead Rising 2, Dragon Age and FEAR 2. You can see more of his work at his personal site…

Epic LEGO Lord Of The Rings Diorama Took 200,000 Bricks To Build

Alice Finch – who earlier this year builtthe world’s biggest LEGO Hogwarts – has teamed up with another builder, David Frank, to recreate The Lord Of The Rings’ Rivendell. Using around 200,000 bricks The complete diorama spans 10 feet x 5 feet (or 3m x 1.5m), with work done not only by Alice and David,…

20 Year-Old Designs A Better Windows Than Microsoft

I like Windows 8, but only because its desktop mode is basically Windows 7 with faster boot times. The thought of using the “tablet” mode, or even swapping between the two, fills me with dread. Unless, that is, future versions of the operating system look like Jay Machalani’s design. The “self-taught user-experience designer” has shared…

Changing A Game’s Story With A Flick Of The Finger

FRAMED is a game where you aren’t just playing, you’re directing the story itself. It’s broken up into, well, frames, as though you’re reading a comic or sitting in an editing suite. You can move these frames around, changing the way the story unfolds. Sort of like Lemmings-meets-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. It’s been playable at various shows, if…

Please Stop Causing Car Accidents, Video Games. Please.

You know, Scott Hoy, maybe video games are to blame for an increase in single-vehicle accidents. Or not. Who cares. I just love that Scott Hoy, lawyer, is channelling Mickey Rooney in the cutest way possible here. Keep it up. [thanks Matt!]

Our Drone-Controlled Future Looks Like A Video Game

Designer Alex Cornell has made this video called Our Drone Future, which gives us a glimpse of a future where fleets of drones monitor our every outdoor activity. It’s as cool as it is a little creepy. There’s a “story” here, which you’ll get to by sticking around to the end, but the really awesome…

There Are Crazy Fans, And Then There Are Awesome Fans

Janice Chu is an artist in the games business. But in her spare time, she’s a fan, just like the rest of us. What makes Janice an awesome fan is that when she finished a couple of Naughty Dog’s finest games, she didn’t just smile and leave some forum posts. She drew these cute posters…

Say Hi To The $1500 Steam Machine

Valve might be aiming for the living room withits idea of the Steam Machine, but that doesn’t mean every “console” released in the family is going to be small and cheap. Digital Storm’s third-party offering, for example, is going to cost a ton. It’ll be showing off a PC at CES next month that it…

NASA Has A Robot, Which Might Die On Mars So We Don’t Have To

Meet Valkyrie. It’s a robot designed for NASA as part of a competition by the organisation’s Johnson Space Center. Don’t get too attached; he’s designed to go to very faraway places we really shouldn’t be going. At least not until we’re ready. Standing nearly two metres tall and weighing in at 125kg, it’s humanoid in…

If A Batman Game Looked Like This, I Would Never Stop Playing

No offence to the guys making the latest Batman games, which look great in their own muscly way, but Batman is a comic book character. Wouldn’t it look cooler if the games looked more like a comic? Especially one this fantastic? These images are the work of Callum Alexander Watt, a British artist who we’ve…

Tom Cruise Blockbuster Looks Like The Best Video Game Movie Of 2014

It’s not actually based on a game, I know. But the face masks, the armour, the aliens, the dropships…this is the visual language of the last decade of video games, turned into a Tom Cruise movie.

Track: Stone Letter | Album: Oddfellows | Artist: Tomahawk Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

We’re So Close To A Wooden PS4, People

The controller looks awful, because it’s half-assed. The rest? Somebody hold me. It’s beautiful. Just when I thought I knew the meaning of excitement after seeingan Atari PS4 skinwith some wood-panelling, along comes this. Dbrand’s wood finish vinyl skin for the PS4. Like I said, the controller gets a pass. But the rest? Very tempting.…

Reminder: Battlefield 4 On PC Is Very, Very Pretty

YouTuber Wintergore is both directing and “starring” in this machinima video as a dirtbike rider on the run from every dirtbike rider’s worst nightmare: a fleet of angry little robots. The action’s fun, but really, this is awesome just to kick up to HD and enjoy just how damn pretty Battlefield 4 on PC is.…

MC Escher, You’re Looking Different. And Gorgeous.

Remember echochrome? Cute PlayStation puzzler that had you guiding a little figure around increasingly-complex maps? Monument Valley is like that. Only a lot prettier. Designed as a tablet experience, it’s coming soon to iPad and “other mobile devices”. You can get in on a beta by signing up at the official site below. Monument Valley…