text: If you read this article last week, then you’ll know that a very special world record attempt took place last night. Swedish non-profit develop MuchDifferent hosted a multiplayer FPS match with the hope of having a 1,000 player battle.
  Yesterday evening didn’t quite see 1,000 players, but it did see 999! Which, in a day and age where MAG had set the previous record with 256 players, that’s not bad going at all.
  The game, Man vs. Machine, was build on the Unity engine – with this event serving also as a means of testing the technology for use in future products (be it games or otherwise). Here’s hoping a 1,000 players battle in Bomberman is not too far from reality.
  Alex Colon FaceTime (for iPhone) Though limited to Wi-Fi and Apple-exclusive, FaceTime is the best video chat app out there.
  There are lots of video chat apps out there, and they all do something different. Fring (Free, 2.5 stars), for instance, allows you to make group video calls, while Qik Video Connect (Free, 2.5 stars) lets you leave video mail. But these, like most of the video chat apps on the market, lack one key ingredient: solid video calls. Apple's free FaceTime may not sport the same bells and whistles as other chat apps, but it delivers the best overall video call experience—by far. It's the next logical step after phone calls, and it succeeds brilliantly, earning it our Editors' Choice for mobile video chat apps.
  FaceTime is available for both iOS and OSX users; for this review, I'm just testing the iOS experience. I did the majority of my testing using an Apple iPhone 4 (4.5 stars, $199-$699), though I also made video calls using an Apple iPad 2 (4.5 stars, $499-$829) and a 4th generation Apple iPod touch (5 stars, $299-$399).
  On the iPhone 4, FaceTime is built directly into the phone's Contacts. When selecting a contact, you are given the option to make a standard voice call, or to make a FaceTime call. For the iPad 2 and iPod Touch, FaceTime comes as a standalone app, since there is no phone interface over which to route it through. On any device, contacts can be added via email address or telephone number.
  FaceTime is the simplest, most intuitive video chat there is. Making a FaceTime call using an iPhone 4 is just as simple as making a regular phone call. Simply select a contact, then tap on FaceTime to initiate the call. The interfaces for both the iPad and iPod touch are similarly intuitive, allowing you to add contacts, view recent calls, add favorites, and make video calls with just a few simple taps. It can all be figured out in seconds, even by first time users.
  I primarily tested FaceTime using an iPhone 4 with a solid wireless connection, making calls to FaceTime users on an iPad 2, iPod touch, and a desktop iMac. Out of all the video chat apps I've tested, FaceTime delivers the best overall video chat experience by far.
  Calls connect almost instantaneously, and are incredibly fluid and smooth. Video quality is great—clean and crisp across every device I tested. Audio quality is good too. Sound is clear and natural, and it stays in sync with the video feed. Video chats over FaceTime feel responsive, and lack the sense of delay that makes chatting over other apps feel awkward.
  I didn't experience any dropped calls, and I rarely experienced any noticeable slowdown in chats. It happened once, but the app quickly brought itself back up to speed, which I attribute to the finicky network I was connected to rather than the app itself. Most importantly, out of all the video chat apps out there, FaceTime is the only one that makes you feel like you can use it for an actual conversation, rather than a neat trick or a novelty. I was recently in a business meeting where FaceTime was used to bring in a third party that couldn't be there, and it really was a seamless experience.
  FaceTime does have two big strikes against it. The first is that it's only compatible with devices running iOS and OSX only. While Apple has taken great care to craft such a usable video chat experience, we don't live in an Apple-only world. Sure, I know plenty of people that have at least one Apple device that supports FaceTime. But my grandmother doesn't, and neither do my cousins that live across the country in California. Secondly, FaceTime is limited to making calls over Wi-Fi only. This is likely because Apple doesn't want to take a hit in video quality or responsiveness. While I've found Wi-Fi to deliver a much better video call experience in my tests of other video chat apps, Skype 3.0 was able to deliver a pretty solid call over a 3G network. It would be nice if FaceTime could do the same, as it would allow iPhone users the ability to make a video call from almost anywhere.
  These small quibbles aside, FaceTime is still the best video chat app out there. Skype 3.0 (Free, 4 stars) is close, but it still doesn't match the fluidity of a FaceTime call. Fring's group video chats are interesting, but its video quality and overall chat performance leave much to be desired. FaceTime is the first video chat app I've used that made me feel like I was doing more than just making a video call—that I was actually communicating with someone, face to face.
  The problem? Apparently, attaching advertising to your YouTube videos of your drone flights suddenly makes the entire thing commercial, which the FAA frowns upon.
  If you're a fan of drones, you might want to be a little bit cautious about how you display your flying footage. According to a few recent reports, the Federal Aviation Administration appears to be cracking down on drone enthusiasts who might not even realize that they're dipping their toes into what constitutes "commercial" flying.
  And commercial drone flying is restricted by the FAA right nowyou'll need the agency's permission to fly your unmanned aircraft for commercial use. That will invariably change at some point in the future, once an FAA proposal goes through that requires commercial drone operators to obtain flying certificates, renew that certificate every two years, and operate within certain flight restrictions.
  Back to the hobbyists. According to Vice's Motherboard magazine, the FAA sent a letter this week to a drone hobbyist who posted his videos on YouTube. Since YouTube comes with advertisingwhich an account holder can toggle on and off for his or her videosthe drone's footage, and thus the drone flight, is considered "commercial."
  "This office has received a complaint regarding your use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (aka drone) for commercial purposes referencing your video on the website youtube.com as evidence," reads a letter sent to drone enthusiast Jayson Hanes, from FAA aviation inspector Michael Singleton.
  The complaint bit is the most interesting part of the letter. It's not as if the FAA is going around YouTube to police drone enthusiasts who forgot to disable the advertising for their videos. Rather, the process that resulted in Hanes receiving a letter appears to have started from someone else tipping off the FAA's Tampa, Florida office about his flying. How they managed to then find him, and ensure they were sending a letter to the correct Jayson Hanes, is another matter entirely.
  "I have never accepted a payment from Google, or YouTube in any shape or form for this. They maybe enabled it to collect page-views, but I'm not getting paid for it. This is not a commercial operation, I'm not selling anything. If anything, it's YouTube trying to recover costs for hosting the content and making it available on their platform," Hanes said in an interview with local news affiliate Fox 13.
  According to an FAA spokesperson, speaking to Vice, the agency is looking into how it might work the subject of advertising into the letters it sends to drone operatorsseeing as the letter Hanes received mostly discusses the nuances of model aircraft regulations, but doesn't really go into detail about the commercialization aspect. We think Hanes would probably like to know how a flight that was intended to be an amateur one ended up becoming a commercial one after-the-fact.
  ION?Glasses are billed as an affordable, simplified alternative to Google Glass. They include a notification LED, buzzer and remote controls, all built into a frame compatible with prescription lenses.
  The company has already received offers for distribution in Europe and the US, but co-creator of the glasses, Ricardo Urias, has told PCR that the talks remain “confidential”.
  “For sure, we will reach an agreement that ensures that the product will be available in opticians and technology stores – the primary channels for the ION Glasses,” he said.
  “Google Glass aims to substitute mobile devices. On the contrary, we think that the mobile devices are very well designed and we just want to complement them to allow users to fully exploit their possibilities."
  “They’re also really wearable. You won’t seem a cyborg with them on; they will look identical to any other glasses. And last but not least, ION Glasses are compatible with any prescription lenses, while Google Glass is not.”
  The glasses are due to launch in February 2014, with Urias expecting RRPs of £80 and £93 for the standalone frame and a set including sunglass lenses, respectively.
  Urias said that improvements are already being looked into. “We are developing a wider range of frames, to make them more wearable,” he added.