Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > May
May 2008
Time Warner bringing Internet video to your TV
Time Warner Cable announced today that it’s planning to release an “Internet video” device that will allow subscribers to view Internet video on their TVs.
It’s no surprise that the cable giant is entering the crowded convergence party, but the almost-detail-free announcement raises many more questions than it answers. Will it be a hub for paid TV and movie content, like Apple TV? Will it be a simple media streamer that takes content from your PC and shoots it to your TV? And what kind of Internet video are we talking about? Premium HD content? Sub-YouTube-quality junk? Broadcast network TV shows and Hollywood studio movies?
And most importantly, was Time Warner’s Glenn Britt serious when he said this would take a year or two to roll out to the marketplace? Sure, Time Warner has a huge installed base of customers who may be willing to give it a try, but the time to introduce a “Networked home” device that simplifies the process is now, not two years from now.
Given the positive reviews we’re seeing for Netflix’s $99 Roku Internet movie player, Amazon’s Unbox partnership with TiVo and the increasing capabilities that video game consoles and streaming video devices are bringing to the home, it just seems like Time Warner is going to be late to the party. I’d be a lot more excited if this mystery device was being announced with some content partners at least or a ballpark on pricing.
It’s an underwhelming, vague announcement and one I wouldn’t put much stock into until we get more details and a better idea of what this device is going to be.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Movies & DVDs, TV
A weekend without broadband
We were traveling over the weekend, visiting family for a big event involving my baby daughter. Even though I packed up my bags with gadgets galore (iPhone, loaner Nokia smartphone, laptop, camcorder, DSLR camera), I knew I’d be hamstrung in one big way: where we were going, there wasn’t much high-speed Internet and next to no Wi-Fi.
In South Texas, where I grew up, there’s fast Internet. But it’s in houses and businesses, not freely available in the air and for free as I’ve become accustomed to seeing it in Austin. My in-laws are still on dial-up Internet, and I found myself on a late Friday night feeling the pangs of the addicted Internet user. Sure, I still had access to the online world: I used my iPhone on AT&T’s slow, but still usable EDGE network.
But my laptop was left in its bag like a hibernating squirrel, unable to frolic and detour on the fast Web. And the Nokia smartphone, which does run on AT&T’s faster 3G wireless network, was rendered almost useless: though the company is expanding 3G quickly, it still hasn’t reached much further south than Corpus Christi, from the testing I did. I briefly considered running to McDonald’s, Burger King or Starbucks to see if there might not be some snack-subsidized Wi-Fi I could corral to feed my parched Macbook. I resisted the impulse. Instead, I stayed up late reading a book.
By Saturday, as we headed to South Padre Island for my daughter’s first visit to a beach, I still carried around a camcorder and digital camera, but I was getting used to not checking my e-mail, not lurking around Twitter, not bothering to check out the link to a particularly funny YouTube video someone had sent me.
Sure, it was Memorial Day weekend and the Web was slowing down anyway, but by the time we were driving back on Monday, I had stopped missing the Internet. I didn’t care what the latest tech blogs were saying about a fresh round of Apple rumors. If there were friend invites for me on Facebook, they weren’t being answered by me.
By Tuesday, of course, the Weekend of No Broadband was already a memory. I caught up on my RSS feeds, answered pending e-mails and groused with other users about recent Twitter.com outages. Things were back to normal.
As our wireless networks expand, as Wi-Fi spreads everywhere, as we find the very air around us surrounded in all directions by pure Internet signal, these breaks from the online world will become increasingly rare. I’m learning to savor the breaks. I don’t know when the next one will happen.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Baby-daddy, Internet
This week’s Twitter post roundup
Recent posts of mine from Twitter, related to the tech beat (with added links for clarity):
- I thought it was common knowledge that Gamefly opened a distribution center in Austin, but it was never officially announced, says the company. Huh.
- I liked the Penny Arcade game demo OK, accepting that it’s really just the tutorial of the real game. I dig the combat system. Looks nice.
- Reuters headline writer, you’re just trying too hard: “Steven Tyler walks this way to rehab.”
- Finally catching up on the whole NYT/Emily Gould mess. Never in my life have I been happier not to be a hipster online writer living in NYC.
- Clearing out photo/video SD cards for the trip. The import/organizing AVCHD software that came with the Canon camcorder = surprisingly good.
- I miss you, broadband. I miss you so much.
- South south south Texas = dial-upville.
- Stress, depression or hatred based upon Twitter- or Twitter API-related outages = “Twangst.”
- One of our much-older aunts is on MySpace, apparently. She has 40 friends. Oh my.
- Desperately want Mr. T to join Twitter so he can tell us all to “Quit’cher Twitter jibber jabber!”
- And now Facebook is being all slow and sludgy. I think I liked it better when we only had 1.0 Webs.
- Lots of co-workers jumping on Facebook all of a sudden. It happens in waves, but sometimes it signals that a social network is about to jump the shark.
- Things that need never appear in my New York Times Arts RSS feeds again: “Dance Review:” “Bridge:” “Arts, Briefly:” “XX dies at 95.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Videogames
‘Red vs. Blue’ crew returns with ‘Reconstruction’
The machinima filmmakers behind the popular “Red vs. Blue” online series are back with a new show.
Rooster Teeth Productions, which ended their long-running series “The Blood Gulch Chronicles” after 100 episodes last year, launched the new show over the weekend.
Called “Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction,” the show kicks off with a much more serious tone than the freewheeling “Blood Gulch Chronicles.” But characters from the original series return and you can bet that Rooster Teeth won’t shy away from throwing in some dirty jokes when the time comes.
Rooster Teeth has been working on promoting its “Blood Gulch Chronicles” DVD set and doing spots for companies like EA Sports and for Microsoft’s “Halo” games. Last year, the team moved its headquarters from an apartment in Buda to an office near Sixth Street and Congress Avenue in downtown Austin.
New episodes of “Reconstruction” are expected to be posted on Mondays.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Movies & DVDs
Post-Memorial Day Web catch-up!
Do you think the Internet rests when you’re grilling tasty Texas meats or lying on the beach during the Memorial Day weekend?
Of course not! The Internet hates the sun and is a vegan. So here’s some of what you might have missed over the weekend if you were unplugged:
- On Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran a very long, very bloggily written story by former Gawker writer Emily Gould about her experiences at that gossipy Web site and the phenomenon of “Oversharing.” Bloggers have been dissecting the story since it was posted online last week, and the story has earned, as of this writing, more than 1,200 comments on the site. The comment feature for the story was turned off at one point, but is apparently back online. I don’t read Gawker regularly, so this story fascinated me last week, but I am, like, SO OVER IT NOW.
- CNET featured a video interview with Loren Feldman, who is becoming a one-man Mad Magazine for the Web 2.0 age. Using videos shot on a variety of different services and a growing stable of puppets, Feldman has been viciously (and sometimes hilariously) attacking some of the most well-known bloggers and tech gurus on his site 1938 Media. Worth a viewing, for sure.
- Austin tech-assisted parenting company Babble Soft is offering its services for free to active-duty military personnel through eMail Our Military. You can read the details here.
- While skimming Gawker about the Emily Gould story, I found a link to this very handy search engine for Muxtape.com, which features MP3 mix tapes uploaded by users. There’s an amazing depth and variety of music on the site.
- Twitter has been having major outages lately and, rather than fixing them, they’ve taken to stripping out features. Now, users can’t access anything older than their main page of recent tweets and are finding the site down entirely on a regular basis. Major growing pains. The company responded to complaints by posting a blog entry explaining what’s happening.
- Sick of “Indiana Jones” already? Don’t be. “Lego Indiana Jones” comes out next Tuesday!
- And, lastly, I leave you with the new Weezer video for their song “Pork and Beans.” It dropped over the weekend and it’s basically “YouTube: The Video.” Like a recent “South Park” episode (but less animated), it features Internet stars such as Tay Zonday and the “Leave Britney Alone!” guy. It’s very well done, but we’re getting a little meme’d out, frankly. You can find behind-the-scenes extras on their YouTube page, youtube.com/weezer.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
Dell, Pixel Mine get in the game
Two local tech companies are kicking off the summer by trying some unconventional ways to get video games into gamers’ hands.
Pixel Mine, Inc., which we’ve written about here before, recently launched Pixel Mine Portal, where PC gamers can download a launcher to play games from the company. Launch games include “Ashen Empires” and “Dransik,” both massively multiplayer online games, as well as beta versions of “Fireteam Reloaded” and “Secondhand Lands.”
Some games on the site are free, but others will rely on “micropayments.” Players purchase tokens that can be used for any games on the site. In the future, players will be able to earn game points and use them for prizes and store items.
Competition for gamers’ eyeballs is at an all-time high, so here’s hoping Pixel Mine can carve its own little niche out there.
Dell Inc. is also trying to get gamers excited. The company’s College Gaming League is partnering with the Championship Gaming Series for an amateur league.
Geared toward PC and Xbox 360 players, the College Gaming League offers educational discounts to all college students on PC bundles as well as access to tournaments for university teams.
Expect to see this partnership play out on campuses with competitions leading to national video game tourneys, which are expected to be televised.
Professional video-game leagues haven’t really taken off in the U.S. the way they have in South Korea and other countries, but if anyone’s in a position to put some hardware muscle behind the movement, it’s Dell.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet, Videogames
Recent tech-related Twitter posts
Here are my recent tech-related posts from my Twitter feed. The nice thing about Twitter is that you can post quick items (the limit is 140 characters) and you can say a surprising amount in such a limited space:
- Retweet from @scobleizer — New York Times’ “Times Machine” custom newspaper, other neat ideas: http://tinyurl.com/5de8rl.
- Just had a meeting with some reps from Yahoo. Interesting stuff they’re doing with Shine, Tech Ticker and mobile search.
- Got a letter from the United Way that was addressed to Mr. Jesus Omar Gallaga. I guess that’s me. Sort of?
- To release a set of PC gaming benchmarks and not include “Crysis” makes it look like you’re hiding something. I’m looking at you, AMD GAME!.
- Very impressed with Qik on the road. Bring on the iPhone 3G version!
- It’s cool that Variety used Qik to interview Michael Moore (from Cannes, even), but only 616 views? Yikes.
- The N95 is hot but I will never buy one after spending over an hour trying to get it to connect to a simple Wi-Fi network. (Unsuccessfully)
- Can’t get N95 to connect to a home wireless network (even one with only WEP security). At least the 3G part works.
- This is stupid blog hit-trolling, nothing more. As Glark said, “Good luck with that, CBS.”
- Dell’s marketing name went from Project DaVinci to “Synarchy.” Is that supposed to be like “Snarky?” Mmm, Snarky!
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones
The days ahead: gadgets I’m playing with
The last few days, I’ve been playing with a number of tech toys I’ll be writing about soon. I spent Sunday and part of Monday in Dallas for a Radiohead concert and got to try out a few things on the road (how long has it been since I’ve traveled? Too long.) and have also had a few things at home I’ve been trying out. Here’s a few of them and some quick first impressions (longer reviews/write-ups will follow):
- Nokia’s N95 superphone. It’s a very pricey, very robust next-generation phone that runs on a fast 3G wireless network. It’s got an impressive video camera that can live-stream to the Internet using the Web site Qik, but I found the keyboard annoying, the Web browser pitiful and the 3G network to be great for video, but not so great for Web browsing. I took some video at the concert and was impressed that it was able to stream in a crowded location:
- The Intelliscanner Mini allows you to catalog your books, CDs, wine, groceries and other household products by scanning bar codes using a small handheld scanner. (Software costs extra for each package, however.) It’s a brilliant idea, but I had trouble getting it to recognize comic books and some CDs. For people who like to catalog their media collections, it’s great, but I need to spend some more time with it to see if the quirks I noticed have more to do with the device’s shortcomings or my weird collection of household items I’m trying to scan.
- The Flip Video Ultra camera takes surprisingly good video considering its size and price (about $140), but the video editing/importing software is practically unusable. I couldn’t get the software to run in Windows or Mac OS. Luckily you can easily drag video off the camera and use iMovie or some other software for editing, but the bundled software was so bad it put me off of using the camera entirely.
- I’m still playing “Grand Theft Auto IV” and just started on “Boom Blox” for the Wii for future reviews.
I’m also thinking about posting tech-related posts I make on Twitter here, kind of a “Best of Twitter” feed so you won’t have to wade through my various personal and entertainment-related posts. I’ll give that some more thought, but I may try to experiment with that this week and see how it goes.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Gadgets, Phones, Videogames
AMD tries to raise gamer awareness with AMD Game
AMD is trying to woo PC gamers again with a branding campaign it hopes will demystify the process of buying a computer for gaming.
“AMD GAME!” is a branding initiative launched today, not unlike the old chestnut “Intel Inside.” PCs that have been vetted for hardware compatibility will earn an “AMD GAME!” or “AMD GAME! Ultra” sticker. The goal, the company said in an interview Friday, is to give shoppers a clear indication of whether a PC will play their favorite games without having to pore over an alphabet soup of processor and graphic card specs.
Partners in the initiative include Microsoft, Austin’s game developer NCsoft and Dell’s Alienware game hardware division.
What will a PC with “AMD GAME!” get you? For an AMD-based system, here are the minimum specs:
- For “AMD GAME!”: A minimum of an AMD Athlon X2 5600+ processor, an ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card and 2 gigabytes of DDR2 memory. They’ll typically be priced about $699-$999, says AMD.
- For “AMD GAME! Ultra”: A minimum of an AMD Phenom X4 9650 processor, an ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics card and 2 gigabytes of DDR2 memory. Typical PC prices for a system like this will be about $999-$1,299, the company said.
For specs below that, PCs would be considered by AMD to cater more to casual users while machines amped up far beyond “Ultra” would be using what the company calls “CrossfireX,” a configuration of multiple graphics card that only hardcore gamers tend to want to deal with.
What will “AMD GAME!” do for gaming? In my experience, games couldn’t care less about the stickers and branding that accompany a new PC. But they will pore over the specs of a system to make sure the graphics card and processor is to their liking, so a little shorthand to avoid the alphabet soup of processors and graphics products might be a good thing.
On the other hand, we’ve all seen what happens when a large-scale branding campaign like Intel’s Viiv is met with the shrugging of shoulders. Does it mean much in the big scheme of the PC market?
AMD is hoping that the world’s 263 million PC gamers worldwide will at least make “AMD GAME!” a factor in future purchases.
One disturbing note, though: In a presentation on which games were solid performers on “AMD GAME!” and “AMD GAME! Ultra” systems, AMD neglected to include the game that most gamers consider the true test of a system’s hardware: “Crysis.” Sure, lots of people play “World of Warcraft” and “Lineage 2,” but “Crysis” is the real torture test and benchmark these days for gaming performance. Its absence in AMD’s pretty frame-rate measurement chart is disturbing, to say the least.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping, Videogames
(Virtual) Drums overload!
If you love playing drums in “Rock Band,” you’re going to have a few more options to get your beats on. Two more drum kit peripherals are coming out for competing games. Does anyone have enough room in their game room for three different drum sets?
It’s not surprising that “Guitar Hero IV” will add on a microphone and drum set. The set adds two cymbals to the mix and, given the compatibility wrangling that plagued “Guitar Hero III” with “Rock Band,” nobody’s expecting these drums will work properly with “Rock Band.” Activision, the company that puts out the “Guitar Hero” games has taken an isolationist approach to making its instruments compatible with games like “Rock Band,” which may be great for Activision, but lousy for gamers who shell out hundreds of dollars for games from both series.
The drum set for “Guitar Hero IV” will look like this: (image from Engadget.com, via Game Informer magazine.)
The third drum set will come from Konami, which will debut a game later this year called “Rock Revolution.” The company behind the popular “Dance Dance Revolution” is surprisingly late to the party, but at least their drum peripheral is promised to be compatible with “Rock Band,” which is more than you can say about “Guitar Hero IV.”
The MTV Multiplayer blog snagged a photo of the Konami drum set and it looks like this:
Huh… that’s… kind of… ugly. But if it’s got a good beat you can rock out to, we’ll forgive the aesthetics. Both games add cymbals to the mix, which sounds great in theory, but I’m still trying to master four pads and a bass pedal. Could it be, in the words of the Red Stripe spokesman, “Too much of a good thing?”
No pricing info yet, but I wouldn’t expect any of these sets to cost more than the $160 that “Rock Band” charges for the entire microphone/guitar/drum set/game disc kit. Because trying to charge more against such a strong game would just be silly.
Plus, there’s more to these games than the hardware. What songs are available, download options and general playability will determine how these games do. We’ll be keeping our drum sticks warm in the meantime playing “Rock Band.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Videogames
Amazon in its Prime (and tax-free till when?)
Almost a month ago, I got an offer on Amazon.com to upgrade my account to “Amazon Prime” as a free 30-day trial.
I’d been leery of Prime since the site began offering it in 2005. For $79 a year, you get free two-day shipping on items that Amazon sells and relatively cheap $3.99 shipping for one-day.
For me, it didn’t seem like a service I’d use enough to make worthwhile. I make most of my Amazon purchases around the holidays, buying gifts for far-flung friends or items I can’t find in stores for family members. The rest of the year, I usually use Amazon for a few major electronics purchases (most recently an HD camcorder; before that we bought an HDTV via the site). The rest of the time, I might buy a CD or DVD or baby-related item, but that’s about it. No way would I save $79 worth of shipping a year, especially when I usually opt for the slow, but perfectly reliable Free Super Saver Shipping typically available for orders over $25.
But having used Prime for the last few weeks, I can definitely see the appeal. Like crossing to the front of the first class passenger row at the airport arrivals area, you suddenly feel like a slightly higher class of Amazon shopper.
If you’re a procrastinator who frequently misses birthdays by a day or two, you suddenly have some help. Gifts arrive much more quickly with free two-day shipping, or next-day shipping for a few dollars more. (You can spend the cash you would have spent on speedier guilt-shipping on Amazon’s gift wrapping.)
But even with the option for super-fast arrival at little or no cost, I didn’t find myself ordering any more items than I usually would. It allowed me to make smaller, sub-$25 purchases without guilt, but I’m not an impulse shopper and Prime didn’t make me a more frequent buyer.
Also, Prime has one big flaw: If you order items from Amazon Marketplace sellers, the shipping discounts don’t apply at all. I found this out when I ordered our camcorder: Amazon didn’t have the item in stock. I’d have had to wait more than four weeks, the estimated time before the camera would be back in stock. My kid was about to start crawling. I didn’t want to wait another month. On the other hand, a highly rated Amazon Marketplace partner had the same camera even cheaper than Amazon’s list price in stock. The shipping price was low, but could take up to five business days. That was still better than where I would have ended up with Amazon and its Prime service.
For readily available commodities — CDs, books, DVDs — Prime is a great deal for frequent shoppers. But for big-ticket items, rarities or stuff only offered by Marketplace vendors, not Amazon itself, Prime becomes useless.
Why don’t I shop locally instead of buying such items on Amazon? Well, I have a 9-month old baby and I don’t go out during the week, for shopping or anything else. On weekends, we rarely make it to San Antonio or Austin and the stores in New Braunfels aren’t typically stuffed with the kinds of items I buy on Amazon.
For things like gift certificates, I usually do make the extra effort to hit local stores. A gift certificate for Waterloo Records or Book People is infinitely cooler than one for Best Buy or Target. And I buy all my greeting cards at Sparks.
But when you take into account free shipping, no taxes and almost unlimited selection, Amazon almost always wins, especially in electronics and entertainment.
Which brings us to a sticky topic: How long will Amazon continue to be able to offer goods in Texas without making its customers pay taxes? Amazon has a distribution center in Texas, leading some to believe that they should be forced to pay taxes, like other online business with storefronts in the state.
One company has already dumped an online affiliates program in order to plead its case for a tax exemption in New York state. Will Amazon have to make a similar move in Texas?
If you’ve been thinking about a major purchase from Amazon, you may want to do it now before the tax issue puts it out of your price range.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Baby-daddy, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Shopping
Dell would do well to dump XPS (Updated)
Dell Inc. is getting rid of its XPS line of gaming enthusiast computers in favor of supplying gaming PCs and laptops by Alienware, the company it acquired two years ago.
You might be tempted to ask, “What took them so long?” In the two years since the acquisition, Alienware has continued to innovate on the high end of the gaming market, pushing the boundaries of PC graphics, cooling and performance, three areas important to gamers who want to pull every last bit of frame-rate from their games.
Dell’s XPS line has… well, they’ve put out some models in very interesting colors. It’s not that XPS machines were bad. It just never made sense to gamers that Dell would have two completely different lines of computers aimed at gamers.
We come to praise Dell in this space, though: This is a good decision, one that sends a clear vote of confidence about Alienware as the PC gaming industry goes through a tough time. There are some who say PC gaming is dying, or at the very least is becoming an increasingly niche market. EA Sports recently canceled a PC version of its flagship “Madden NFL” game and with all the recent hype about “Grand Theft Auto IV,” PC gamers were left to wonder if they’d ever get to visit the dangerous streets of Liberty City on their computers.
PC games are in a transitional period: for every giant success like “World of Warcraft,” there are dozens of misfires — games that just aren’t selling well on the PC or are selling better on the console side. (One exception: “The Orange Box,” which just flat out plays better on PC.)
There were fears that Alienware might be absorbed into the Dellganism and might become part of the XPS brand. The trouble with that would have been that XPS never cultivated the kind of stellar reputation among gamers that Alienware has maintained for so many years. Sure, some people consider Alienware PCs and laptops to be overpriced, but they are also among the most recognizable PCs in the world, and the brand itself carries a lot of weight in PC circles. If you have an Alienware computer, it says you’re serious about PC gaming.
And this announcement means Dell is serious about it, too.
Update: Dell Inc. posted a message last night saying that the Wall Street Journal story is wrong and that it has no plans to phase out the XPS brand. According to the post, featured on one of Dell’s customers blogs, XPS will continue to exist and will push beyond gaming while the company plans to “invest like crazy in product development, design and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future.”
Uh huh. So I guess my praise was given too soon. Dell will continue to push XPS as a premium brand, somewhere between its business/home lines and its Alienware gaming brand? Does it sound to anybody else like this may be one line of computers too many?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Shopping, Videogames
BlackBerry builds buzz with the Bold
Sure, we give the iPhone a lot of love around here: we love pretty, useful things.
But BlackBerry users have their own reason to drool and anticipate today (and no, it’s not the iPhone 2.0). AT&T announced today that it will be the exclusive carrier of the BlackBerry Bold (known more generically in tech gossip circles as the BlackBerry 9000).
There’s no pricing information available yet, or even a launch date (later this year is all we’re told), but we did get a nice visual:
What does the Bold have inside that pretty exterior? It runs on AT&T’s 3G network and can also surf on Wi-Fi networks. It’s got built-in GPS, an improved Web browser, a sharper LCD screen and a faster processor than previous BlackBerry devices. Find a lot more information and technical specs over on Cnet News.com if you’re interested.
At the very least, it’s worth a thought if you’re still on the fence about getting a high-end smartphone, and whether that phone should be an iPhone, a BlackBerry or something else like one of those sparkly Nokia N-series phones I hear such good things about.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Phones, Shopping
BioShock headed for Hollywood with Gore Verbinski
“BioShock,” my 2007 Game of the Year, is headed for movie screens, according to Variety.
Gore Verbinski, the director of “The Ring” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, will be at the helm, which is good news for those of us who hope a movie version will preserve the unique, steampunked undersea vision of decay that the game created.
Take 2 Games, which has been busy putting out another recent huge hit, “Grand Theft Auto IV,” of late, released more details about the deal and Verbinski himself talks in an interview about the strength of the imaginative vision of the game and his expectations that the film will be R-Rated.
Movies based on video games have traditionally been pathetic, losing affairs, but very few games have such strong, cinematic narratives as “BioShock.” In the game, an eccentric genius creates an undersea utopia (Ayn Rand is a oft-referenced influence in the game), only to have it fall to ruin when genetically modified “Splicers” go insane and the civilization crumbles. The story, which takes place in the ’60s, combines horror, science fiction, several story twists and a strong sense of moral questioning.
If nothing else, the film should be a visual feast. I’m dying to see what the world of Rapture looks like through Verbsinki’s camera lens.
Screenshot from “BioShock”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Movies & DVDs, Videogames
Zuckerberg keynote ranks lowest in SXSWi survey
The little cards that South by Southwest Interactive 2008 attendees filled out (or, he said guiltily, failed to fill out) were collected and tabulated. The results of the scoring for all the panels at the festival have been tabulated and on the SXSW Interactive site. (Via SXSW Baby)
The post makes sure to point out that the results are far from scientific, but that doesn’t change the unsurprising outcome: the highly praised Jane McGonigal and Frank Warren keynotes were among the top-ranking panels from the festival, and the trainwrecky Mark Zuckerberg keynote was far and away the lowest-ranking.
Some other observations:
- Sponsored panels were all over the map, with one on angel investing ranking highly and a few on social networking ranking very low. You could conclude that attendees don’t mind sponsorship of panels as long as there’s high quality in the content.
- The top three panels — McGonigal, Warren and a panel about an Iraq military surgeon’s video blog — were emotional, human-driven panels that made a strong connection with their audiences. As we move forward in this barreling train of social networks and mobile communication, SXSWi would do well to remember that it’s these most human of stories that make for memorable festival experiences.
- Panels about branding didn’t score very well.
- Panels related to gaming ranked highly (including the McGonigal keynote).
Other thoughts on the panel feedback? Post them here in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Wrestling with PowerPoint
Next week, I’m doing a presentation at work. It’s about journalism and the news potential of new media tools like social networks and microblogs. (Jealous?)
In order to avoid making my face of the center of attention for an hour, I did what people in the corporate world have been doing for decades now: I turned desperately to Microsoft PowerPoint, converting my disparate thoughts into big bulleted text on geometrically tasteful purple backgrounds.
The hours I spent working in PowerPoint reminded me why I have such a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Office products. On the one hand, PowerPoint is one of the easier tools in the Office stable to use. The templates it provides are easy to use. PowerPoint shows you exactly what your work will look like in final form. And even older versions of PowerPoint (like the one I’m using, which dates back to about 2001) are pretty good about allowing you to embed photos, videos and other media to personalize your presentation.
So why does creating anything in PowerPoint still feel like such a drag? Nobody likes it when a PowerPoint gets all cutesy with animated words flying all over the place (that hasn’t been entertaining since about 1998). The Clip Arts libraries contained in the guts of Microsoft Office often look like they were ripped from the headlines of a Reader’s Digest, circa 1968. Especially on the Mac version I’m using, the program just acts strangely: it won’t allow you to drag a slide to a new location in your slide order, but it’s fine with cutting that slide and pasting it elsewhere.
I know there are plenty of other options out there. Google has a presentation application within Google Docs that can import PowerPoint files and allow you to work on your slides online. And Apple has thrown its hat into the ring with Keynote, part of its iWork suite. (My work Mac, which is an old G5 running an older version of Mac OS, doesn’t have Keynote.)
But when the pressure is on, I turn to PowerPoint, the tried-and-true warhorse. I know that for all its quirks, it’s still the Old Faithful of presentation apps. I know that even if I run into a major problem, someone in my workplace will know how to get through it. If not, my trust search engine will lead me to some advice online.
Plus, you can always teach an old program new tricks. I like to think my presentation got a few degrees cooler when I added this image to one of my slides:
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Internet
Milkscreen makers and Babble Soft team up on baby offer
Two Austin companies are teaming up to offer a deal for parents of newborns who want to try out each of its products.
Babble Soft, which offers software online for parents to track feedings, diaper changes, vaccinations and to create photo albums, has teamed with UpSpring Baby, which offers several products for babies, including Milkscreen for detecting alcohol in breast milk.
Shoppers at Babies “R” Us and other retailers will be able to try Babble Soft’s software when they buy a $4.99 three-pack of Milkscreens. The three-pack will include a three-month subscription to Babble Soft’s “Baby Insights” and “Baby Say Cheese” services.
Babble Soft and UpSpring are part of a proliferation of parenting-related Web sites, video productions and startups that have taken off in Austin. It’s not surprising that some of them would partner up to continue their baby steps into the national market.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Baby-daddy, Gadgets, Internet
Next big thing in digital photos: geotagging?
A friend of mine who travels quite a lot recently bought a tiny little gadget that he plans to carry around with him, along with his SLR digital camera, as he walks around cities and explores.
The device is a tiny GPS-enabled device for “Geotagging.” It works like this: as you’re walking around taking digital photos, the Geotagger keeps track of where you are a given time. It uses an internal clock to record this data as you move.
Later, software takes the photos you shot and the data inside the GPS device and synchronizes the information. As long as the clocks are set to the right time on the camera and the geotagger (which pulls its time data down from the satellite automatically), the data should accurately enter data into the photo file that specifies where the shot was taken.
Now comes the fun part: photo sites like Flickr.com and Google’s Picasa Web Albums now support these features. When someone browses your photo, they can also pull up a map that shows exactly where the photo was taken.
If you had an especially eventful day, you could display a map showing where you went:
Some of the devices I’ve seen online that geotag cost anywhere from $60 to $130. As digital cameras evolve, though, I would expect to start seeing this as a built-in feature in cameras, or at least to get cheaper as more people get interested in geotagging.
Here are some resources to get you started if geotagging interests you:
- A quick review of some hardware for geotagging.
- Flickr’s Geotagging group, which also has links to plenty of other resources and tutorials.
- A great blog entry (where the photo came from above) that talks about the basics of geotagging.
- Some geotag devices on Amazon.
- Microsoft on geotagging.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Internet, Shopping
Colbert, NYTimes.com, Onion among big Webby winners
I’ve previously documented my disdain with the Webby Awards, a contest that nominates literally hundreds of Web sites, then produces a list of winners (plus “People’s Voice” winners) that, contrary to logic, seems just as long as the nominees list.
My gripe with the Webbys is that the nominations are dominated by sites that have been around a long time, leading to a case of the same-old-same-olds. Do TheOnion.com and NYTimes.com really need to be acknowledged for Web greatness at this point? (They were the big multiple winners, with seven and eight awards, respectively.)
Stephen Colbert was named Webby Person of the Year, which seems like it would have been right last year, not this year.
Anyway, I could gripe all day, and I’m probably in the minority in feeling the Webbys are too scattershot to matter.
You can see the full list of winners and judge for yourself. An award ceremony June 9 will feature hipster comedians Seth Meyers and Judah Friedlander.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
Quick thoughts on Microsoft/Yahoo
The big question over the weekend, as the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo fell apart on Saturday, wasn’t just “What happened?” but “What happens next?”
Microsoft found itself walking away over a $4 difference between what price-per-share they were offering and what Yahoo said it would accept. But even if Microsoft had coughed up the billions of dollars that difference represented, you get the feeling Yahoo was going to be an unwilling bride and that the marriage was never going to be harmonious.
Even if Microsoft needed Yahoo (and if they want to be a serious competitor in the next generation of Internet corporate warfare, it would have been a good start), they clearly decided that Yahoo was becoming more trouble than it was worth. Yahoo’s success in attracting millions of users to its Web mail and messenger services has been strange to watch, coming as it did as the company made bad business decisions over the years that eroded its presence in areas like search (where Google now dominates), video and news.
What happens next? If Microsoft feels it needs a large set of eyeballs right now, it could a lot worse than making a serious play for Facebook, which it already invests in, or it could look to AOL, which still has a strong Instant Messenger user base and which has had some success in video.
Expect Microsoft to act very quickly: CEO Steve Ballmer surely had a Plan B, Plan C and Plan D in his head as he was pursuing Yahoo.
The worst thing Microsoft could do at this point is make a second run at Yahoo. That deal has already left a bad taste in the mouths of Yahoo investors and was greeted from the beginning with little more than skepticism from Internet pundits.
The bad news: Yahoo has let the world know what it thinks its value should be, and for as long as its stock price dips below that, they’ll be perceived as a failing company that passed up billions and billions of dollars.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
Build some science, get on a new TV show
A film crew from Discovery Channel Canada is coming to Austin this month, looking for “New, sexy, cool science or technology that’s in the works — not products already available.”
Have you been working on a prototype of a time machine in your basement? Got cold fusion solved in your garage? They’re looking for you. The segments will be for a new show called “Daily Planet,” which is expected to air worldwide.
One caveat: They say they’re not looking for Internet-based technology.
If you’re interested, send “a short overview of the technology along with your company URL” to this e-mail address. The deadline is 5 p.m. Thursday (May 8).
Good luck, technologists!
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, TV
iPhone 2.0 status report: rumors, competition and pricing
As everyone waits to see if June will bring the long-rumored iPhone 2.0 upgrades to the market (built-in GPS, 3G wireless network capabilities, more storage), it might be time to take a step back and do a little status report.
The rumor mill has shifted into overdrive as of late. The most pervasive one was reported by Fortune earlier this week (citing only a single anonymous source): that AT&T will introduce a 3G iPhone for $200 next month. The phone, Fortune says, would only be that price through AT&T stores. Apple Stores, the story said, will continue to sell $399 and $499, leading to speculation that the Apple-sold iPhones would be unlocked, allowing them to be used with other wireless carriers.
In theory, AT&T would make back the money it loses subsidizing those $200 iPhones by charging more for 3G wireless access. The Fortune rumor also goes against conflicting Internet reports that the new iPhone would actually be slightly thicker because of its new hardware. (Rumor also has it that the new iPhone could come with a shiny all-black exterior, doing away with the current metal backing.)
Here are a few reasons why the Fortune report sounds fishy to me. For one thing, AT&T and Apple have an exclusivity agreement and AT&T would be suicidal to allow Apple to break that agreement and let the iPhone officially wander to its competitors.
Apple would also find itself in a customer service nightmare as it tried to deal with varying coverage areas and wireless performance caused by offering the iPhone on an array of different networks. Customer satisfaction for phone and data coverage would start to become a huge issue with the iPhone, one that would be harder for Apple to control. (If there’s one thing Apple and Steve Jobs like, it’s being in control of the hardware they make.)
Also, as this New York Times blog points out, I just don’t see Apple charging customers double for an iPhone in their stores than what they’d pay at AT&T. There would have to be some sort of subsidy to match the AT&T store price, and that would mean offering other wireless carrier options in the Apple store and online. And this goes back to AT&T’s need to keep exclusivity.
One way or another, Apple has to help its customers get their phones activated, and this just opens up more problems than it solves. Sure, there are lots of potential iPhone commercials who find the AT&T partnership a dealbreaker, but it just isn’t worth the headaches it would introduce for Apple and the potentially quality issues they would have to answer for.
I think a price cut is definitely in the iPhone’s future, but if Apple and AT&T can continue to sell the phones at a brisk pace while introducing a whole new set of features (3G wireless, GPS), they’ll be golden at least through the latter half of the year.
The danger zone, as I see it, is whether 3G data service will cost significantly more than the current EDGE network unlimited data fees. Nobody’s bothered to ask whether the much-coveted 3G iPhone will end up being too costly, on a monthly basis, for customers who are on the fence about buying an iPhone. If there’s no option for buying an EDGE iPhone (say, Apple and AT&T take them off the market completely in favor of the 3G version), they might get stuck with a great phone with an unpalatable service plan. iPhone customers are not Blackberry customers: they will not be willing to pay $40-$50 for data on top of their regular cell phone bill.
I’m a heavy data user with my iPhone, but I know that would be the major reason not to upgrade to a 3G iPhone. EDGE is pokey, but it gets the job done at a very cheap price.
The iPhone is great, but it’s new-toy appeal won’t last. New phones using the Google Android platform are expected to launch this year, and Blackberrys keep getting sleeker and better (could this be a next-gen Blackberry?). It’s not a foregone conclusion that the iPhone will continue to be the best-of-breed when it comes to sleek smartphones.
What do you think? Heard any good iPhone rumors? Will you buy a 3G iPhone? Post a comment below.
Quick tip: If you get iPhone crashes or freezes (for me, they’re infrequent, but they do happen, especially when browsing data-heavy Web pages), check out these tips from Macworld.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Shopping
