Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > December
December 2008
Guest post: first impressions from a U-verse customer
Given that some Time Warner customers might be a little — is “peeved” the right word? — that they might be losing 19 channels tonight, it’s natural that some of them might be looking at other services right now.
All over Twitter today, I’m hearing about people exploring other options like Grande, Dish or just forgoing cable altogether and seeking out their favorite shows online instead.
Dale Roe, who is our features design guru, family movie critic and all-around tech-savvy smart guy, sent me an e-mail offering his first impressions of AT&T’s U-Verse TV service, which he just had installed yesterday. His family previously had service with Dish for TV and AT&T for Internet. Here’s what he had to say about his experiences so far:
- Download and upload is definitely faster than it was with our old AT&T service (checked this by downloading a few things from iTunes Music Store and uploading to my FTP server). Browsing and connecting to Internet seems snappier, especially on our iPod Touches.
- On-screen TV program guide is going to take some getting used to. With Dish Network, I could set up multiple favorites lists. With U-verse, as far as I can tell, there is only the ability to make one. Also, Dish Network would let me create a list that was only those channels I subscribed to with just one button push; U-verse doesn’t seem to have any option for creating a list of only those channels I subscribe to (except for selecting channels one by one out of some 400 and saving it as my one and only favorites list).
- Phone quality seems fine and we haven’t seen any slowdown on any devices with 2-3 TV streams running as well as gaming systems and handheld devices. Of course, we’re not running HD, which would eat up a lot more of our bandwidth.
- Volume on TV sets is problematic. On one TV I hooked wall to U-verse box to DVD to TV. On another, it’s wall to U-verse box to VCR to TV. Each successive device chained in makes the audio signal to the TV weaker, which is just strange. The result is that you have to turn the volume WAY up on the TV to get decent sound and then you pick up some audible static-y noise, which is annoying.
- With Dish Network, we had two TVs hooked up to DVR. With U-verse we have three. BUT … with Dish, I could initiate recordings and pause/rewind live TV on either DVR TV. With U-verse, all recording has to be set up from the main TV, and only that TV can pause or rewind a live signal. That is a major bummer. On the plus side, we have the ability to record four shows at once; we used to only be able to do two. Then again, I can’t ever remember when I’ve wanted to record four shows at once.
- On the plus plus side, U-verse’s bundle is much cheaper than my old AT&T/Dish Network service combined.
Are any of you switching from Time Warner or waiting to see how their dispute with Viacom plays out? Post your thoughts in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, TV
The Linkdown for Friday, Dec. 19
Ah, we have arrived. It’s the end of my week and the end of my year at the Statesman (at least until Dec. 31 when I make a brief appearance and then disappear again until Jan. 2).
It’s been a pretty incredible year and I owe much of it to you readers who have been nothing short of awesome. (I’m not always as curmudgeonly as yesterday, I assure you). Thanks for a great year — I wish you all a lovely holiday, no matter where you’ll be or what you’re doing.
Here’s the last Linkdown for 2008, your list of happy-happy, joy-joy links you should check out before you head to the airport or cuddle around a pot of hot cocoa:
- Hey, it’s Postmaster Santa! I didn’t even know he got promoted!
- Konami is bring “Metal Gear Solid,” “Frogger,” “Hellboy” and other hot properties to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
- Slacker.com has introduced a budget $3.99-a-month pricing option called Slacker Radio Plus.
- You can now mix together your own NPR Podcast. Make sure to include their Technology podcast. I hear that one is absolutely awesome.
- Speaking of which, this week’s All Tech Considered segment was a holiday tech gift guide. I seem to have worked on quite a few of those this year for someone who hasn’t yet bought any Christmas gifts.
- I made these cookies last night. They’re pretty awesome.
- You can now shop directly for some items from Yellowpages.com and see other new features in the site’s redesign. Ever wanted to see streaming video for “MAIL SERVICES - MATTRESS?” Now may be your chance.
- I got a lot of questions about MagicJack, which I included in our holiday gift guide. Now another service, Calling America, promises Web-based calling without any software or extra hardware to install. Skeptical? Try it out and let me know what you think
- A new online magazine for nerds like you and me, EnlightenNext. They tell me it’s for “Early adapters.” Quick! Adapt!
- Wanna know how 3G service stacks up in Austin? Gizmodo is on the case.
- Of course it had to happen: the presidential shoe-throwing incident is now a fun Flash game.
- NCSoft (oh, NCSoft; don’t go!) is rolling out “City of Heroes” for the Mac. You can read about the beta..
- The Statesman is launching its Texas Social Media Awards and you can nominate someone (Texans only). Much to the annoyance of my co-workers, I am dubbing it the “TSmackies” (with a silent “T”). Come on, TSmackies! Let’s make this thing happen! The winning will culminate in a big bash during South by Southwest Interactive.
- AOL presents yet another Web award: The URLies!
- UT alum Felicia Day of “Dr. Horrible” and “The Guild” has had her show added to Xbox Live. Yay, Felicia!
And that’s it! Be safe. Talk to you very soon.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Internet, Phones, SXSW 2009, Shopping, Videogames
What Not To Tweet (or, Twitter-Me-Nots)
I will admit it: after nearly two years of using Twitter, I’ve gotten a bit set in my ways. I have all kinds of unwritten rules in my head for why I do or don’t follow specific people. That’s because I’ve tried very hard to keep the list of people I follow small, as I explained in my post on how I use Twitter.
Despite the number of people I follow growing past 350, I still try to read every Twitter post from every person I follow, even if that means skimming through 20 or 30 pages of overnight posts every morning. It’s doable. People don’t all post at the same time. In fact, a lot of people I follow rarely post at all.
I can imagine the day will soon some when I can’t continue to read everything. It’s happened a few times. But so far I’ve been able to keep it under control by making snap judgments about whether to follow back people who add me to their list and when to cut the cord on someone whose posts have annoyed me or no longer seem worth reading.
It’s harsh. I never feel good about it. But it’s necessary. For me, at least.
So, what determines whether I unfollow someone (or choose not to follow them when I glance at their profile page, which I do for every person who adds me)? Here’s the list of things people do on Twitter that annoy me. They don’t all warrant an unfollow (and I’m guilty of committing some of them myself), but it’s the things that keep coming up that weigh into my decision to drop someone. It’s followed by a list of things Twitter friends sent in that annoy them as well. There’s definitely some overlap.
Things people do that annoy me on Twitter
- The biggest is rapid-fire posting to no particular end. Tech blogger Robert Scoble used to be the worst perpetrator this, but he’s calmed down quite a bit. He still does it on occasion, usually late at night when he’s traveling abroad, but his blue moon news scoops make up for it to me, so I’ve kept him in my Following list.
- Twitter accounts that are just RSS feeds or links to blog posts. I don’t ever bother to follow those accounts in the first place. My only exception is Amazon’s list of daily MP3 deals.
- “Please nominate me for (Internet award nobody’s heard of!” I’m skeptical of Web awards to begin with, but I will be blunt: If you truly deserve to be nominated for a particular award, someone will nominate you without your having to ask.
- Constant, overly sexual posts. Hey, I’ve dropped a double-entendre or three (a triple-entendre?) but constant smutty pillow talk gets tiring on Twitter. It just makes you sound like you’re starved for attention. Take it to LiveJournal or MySpace.
- Multiple pimpin’ tweets asking people to check out the same blog post. At some point, wily marketers convinced some bloggers that since not everyone is on Twitter at the same time, it’s OK to mention the same content over and over so nobody misses it. That’s exactly what a marketer would think. One tweet per blog post unless the blog post itself has new information or something significant has been updated.
- I won’t follow people who have these words in their bios: “SEO,” “maven,” “imagineer, “dating,” “sales,” “Web 2.0.”
- Those who try to make me feel guilty for not following them or for unfollowing. Trust me, I have my reasons.
- On that note, complaining that you can’t direct message someone because they’re not following you. Yeah, we know that trick. That’s why we have e-mail.
- Getting @replies is great, but not when people ask questions that the most basic Google search would easily answer. (“What does ‘ftw’ mean?”)
- Welcoming every new follower you get. If I see a post like this: “Welcome, @john, @steve, @tracy, @wholefoods, etc…” I will generally unfollow. Oddly, the people who do this the most are the ones with so many followers that they have to post four or five of these shout-outs a day. Annnoying. Stop.
- Retweeting without attribution. I’ve unfollowed people for repeating something I just posted when they didn’t say where they got the info. It’s just good manners.
- Posting a continuous stream of @replies to the same person, especially when it’s something that should be discussed over private messages. That will usually cause me to unfollow one or both of the conversationalists just to break the stream.
- When someone posts a stream of posts from a conference, trying to quote what people on a panel are saying. Usually, the information is out of context and way too obvious to be very useful: “Panelist says the Internet is changing the way we all work. #techbore.” I’ve done this myself and I am ashamed.
- The dreaded Brightkite auto-post. I don’t really care that you just arrived in Austin from wherever you were driving that day. And, also, nobody uses Brightkite anymore.
- Ignorant, racist posts. This should go without saying, but I was amazed when someone I followed posted something so ridiculously stupid and racist that I wanted to not only not-follow them, but block them as well. They ended up unfollowing me a few days later. I was glad.
- Politically shrill posts. Often, the worst offenders are preaching to the choir. And preaching badly. I unfollowed a lot of people during the presidential debates.
- Private Twitter accounts. Nothing personal. I just can’t read anything to determine whether I should try to follow or not if I don’t already know you. I usually just move on.
- Twitter accounts with no bio information or link to a person’s Web site. I won’t follow someone if I can’t figure out who they are or where they’re from. I try to keep most of the people I follow in the Austin area unless I already know them.
- Sucking up to popular Twitter personalities in the hopes they’ll reply or follow back.
- Those who follow large numbers of people then unfollow everyone who doesn’t follow back right away. We know what you’re doing. It ain’t classy.
Yes, it’s quite a cranky list. I am quite the curmudgeon, I know.
Here is a list of similar complaints from others on Twitter:
- I get cranky with epic-length entries that spill over into three or more posts! You have to read upwards, piecing them together, and often they’re interrupted by someone else’s tweet. It completely defeats the purpose of Twitter.
- People who tweet (is that the word?) about 5 times in a row, like, all the time (especially if I don’t know them). These tweeters complete monopolize my feed and that’s just bad.
- The last couple of folks I unfollowed were because they were tweeting holier-than-thou “shame on you for not thinking/voting/believing the way I do” kinds of messages. I love twitter for allowing us to converse and all have our own opinions; I don’t have time for someone who doesn’t respect the thoughts and beliefs of the others around them.
- Anyone who makes a discriminatory statement (race, ethnicity, gender, religion) gets dropped like a rock. This has happened a couple of times and I immediately wonder why in the heck I followed those folks in the first place!
- Telling us what they are eating and even linking with a pic. I mean, really?
- Constantly ripping on something I enjoy; being way too damn serious all the time.
- Automatic “thanks for following” dms are my current top Twitter annoyance.
- Ponder their bodily functions, or brag that they are Twittering while on the toilet. I do not need the visual aid.
- My #1 criteria for unfollowing is machine-gun posting: posting piles of tweets in a v. short time, drowning out all other voices.
- I unfollow when people say “Good morning, Tweeps” and “Good night, Tweeps” (or “Tweeples”). It reminds me of the damn Meet Markets @ Television Without Pity.
- I also unfollow when people Tweet 7-8 times in a row and when their Tweets start talking continuously about their personal monetary debt.
- Twitter things that annoy me: advertising (alltop, magpie, or other kinds of repetitive ad tweets). I haven’t unfollowed anyone yet, though.
- When people update every five seconds and have nothing interesting and/or funny to say or just say inside jokes that I don’t get.
- Re: unfolllowing, if a tweeter sends out 17 pages of tweets in less than 12 hours, I unfollow.
- It’s hard to quantify but there is such a thing as too much tweeting. When home page at any given time is 80 percent one person.
- Begging: twitting a blog post, then subsequently tweeting ‘0 comments’ ‘0 comments’ ‘0 comments’. So sad.
- You’ve probably already gotten “carrying on a conversation for more than two tweets with the same person” or something similar.
- Using twitter regularly as an announcement service for posts to your blog, Flickr page, Facebook, Brightkite location change, etc.
- 1.) name drop 2.) post links with no context 3.) talk (brag) about how many followers they have 4.) link to Rickroll
- I’ll unfollow some1 who’s every post is a news “link” or RT. If I wanted news I’d read it.unless it’s a special account like statesman
- How about when peole nominate themselves and ask everyone to nominate them?
- Twitter gripe: When people angrily or sarcastically note whenever they get unfollowed, despite having hundreds of followers.
- Recently unfollowed a fellow author because all her tweets were self-promos, but poorly designed to look like they weren’t.
- Marketing drones trying to pass for genuine people; personal trivia before I’ve decided you’re an interesting person; Magpie; excess volume.
- Twitter peeve: when someone makes up a hash tag and uses it to express an aside insted of a real topic #reallyannoying
- Twitter tick off # 109: links with no explanation. just www.wtf.com/buildingmyhits.html
- I unfollowed Guy Kawasaki cuz I hated all the “alltop” biz tweets. I unfollow those who signed up for his automatic retweeting, too.
- When they say “DM me” but with the implied “if you’re important enough to be followed by me. [Note from Omar: this was in reference to my asking people to DM items for this list. Hey, thanks!]
- Anyone who makes discriminatory statements gets dropped like a rock & makes me wonder why in the heck I followed them in the 1st place!
- Nothing but ads in their tweets. don’t follow back. never @reply back. talk only about themselves.
- Constant twitter with just links in them nothing else, once in a while is okay, but if thats all they tweet then its bye bye.
- Crossposting on Facebook.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Got more? Post them in the comments.
(And a special note of thanks to everyone who contributed to that second list.)
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
Review: Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition for iPhone
By Robert Quigley
Thanks to a few gift certificates to iTunes, I have probably bought 10 times as many iPhone applications than the average iPhone owner. Like most most people, I tend to buy video games over productivity software. Go figure.
After rolling through several good games, including “Ms. Pac-Man” and “Brothers In Arms,” I think I’ve found my favorite iPhone (and iPod Touch) application: “Monopoly.”
Now, this is the way to kill a long plane flight.
Electronic Arts put some effort into this application, which costs $7.99, but is worth it. The gameplay is fun and the graphics are good enough — the game pieces animate around the board and everything runs smoothly.
The only drawback to this game is that it does not have the traditional Atlantic City locations. Instead, it is the “Go Global” version of Monopoly, which means you have to buy Kyiv instead of St. Charles Place and Hong Kong instead of Marven Gardens. Also, prices are inflated. Most properties cost in the millions (luckily, you’re loaded before the game begins). The gameplay is still the same as the original Monopoly game otherwise.
When it’s your turn to roll the dice, you shake your entire device to make it happen (similar in quality to the “MotionX dice app”) which is free and also worth a download.
What’s fun about this app is that the animations are smooth, the gameplay is engaging and the AI is relatively smart. You’ll find yourself tapping away on this iPhone app over most of the others you’ve downloaded. Buy Montreal (Boardwalk) and watch the dough roll in on your iPhone or IPod touch.
Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition
$7.99, for iPhone and iPod Touch (2nd generation)
Rating pending
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Phones, Videogames
Behind the venting
Today’s Life & Arts story about places people go online to vent about their jobs was lengthy, but there was still lots of information I wasn’t able to include in the story for space reasons from my reporting.
I thought a few of them might be worth mentioning here. Some notes and thoughts, in no particular order:
- Robert Hohman of Glassdoor.com told me his company is very interested in data mining the reviews posted on his site to seek out trends in the workplace or signs of trouble at specific companies. He said that before the recent financial institution collapse, one review pointed to trouble at AIG: “There was at least one review that said that management doesn’t understand the sub-prime crisis in our books,” Hohman said, “they were predicting there was going to be trouble down the road.”
- One Facebook group I wasn’t able to mention: “I hate Dairy Queen and yes, I used to work there.”
- 13 members of a Virgin Atlantic flight crew were fired after they criticized the company and insulted passengers on a Facebook group.
- The iHateDell.net moderator identified in the story as “Jim” told me he and his wife now live in Tennessee (he previously worked at Dell’s Round Rock headquarters) and that they are both military contractors. “There is life after Dell and some of it pays pretty good,” he said. He also said that when people post how great it is to work at Dell on the site, they are often shouted down. “They pretty much get ridiculed,” Jim said, “People are, ‘Are you HR?’ or something like that.”
- The comments on Slashdot.org are a very good place to hear IT people vent about their jobs, employers and co-workers.
- Craig Spitzkoff, the founder of JobVent.com took the time to speak with me for the story, but unfortunately I was not able to include him in the piece. His site, which also posts anonymous reviews of companies from employees, started in 2004 and now has over 30,000 reviews of over 8,000 companies. He said he receives several requests a day from companies who seek to have negative reviews taken down.
Lastly, I wanted to point out that if you only read the story online, you missed a fantastic illustration by Statesman staffer Don Tate II. I’m posting it here so you can see his great work:
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet
Gibson brings the technology with Dark Fire guitar
I know very little about guitars beyond the words “frets” “strings” and “capos” (they still use those, right?), but I was still pretty blown away by the technology behind Dark Fire, a new guitar from Gibson that’s making its debut today.
A launch party for the guitar is going on as I type this at Antone’s (including a proclamation from the mayor for “Dark Fire Day,” which sounds much more apocalyptic than it actually is). But I got a chance to sneak a peek at the guitar (though nobody let me get anywhere close to playing it; they are wise) at the Gibson private show room in South Austin. Rick and Mark Del Castillo of the band Del Castillo and Gregg White of the north Austin Guitar Center were kind enough to demo the fiery red instrument for me and I shot some video.
Auto-tuning guitars aren’t new, but having the flexibility to re-tune on the fly to different presets without restringing is. The guitar can also interface with a computer over FireWire and can even isolate what’s playing on each string in the studio in a room full of musicians.
The guitar sells for $3,400 and you can find more info about it here.
Peep the video below. Maybe if I get really, really good at “Rock Band 2” I can step up to one of these someday.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets
AISD director of technology ‘Embarrassed’ about bad Linux publicity
Gray Salada, the executive director of technology for the Austin Independent School District, said he was “Kinda embarrassed, actually,” when he read Web posts about a local middle school teacher who was said to have confiscated Linux operated system discs from a student, then fired off a an angry e-mail to Austin HeliOS founder Ken Starks.
As of late Thursday afternoon, it was not clear who the middle school teacher was who created a chain events that has led to worldwide publicity about the exchange. Salada said he has spoken to Starks, but as of yet, AISD did not know the identity of the middle school teacher or, in fact, whether the incident occurred as described on Starks’ blog. Salada says he was only told that the teacher doesn’t teach technology.
“He doesn’t want any harm to come to the teacher and the district,” Salada said of Starks, “he won’t give me the name or the school.”
Salada said that AISD received several e-mails after the blog post was referenced on popular tech blogs like Boing Boing and Slashdot. He said some e-mails were merely letting the district know that the story was floating around online while others were less-than-supportive. “We got e-mail from people who were very indignant there was a teacher who could be totally clueless like this,” he said. Others were more constructive: “Some said that somebody needs to go talk to this teacher (about Linux). It’s tough to do because there’s no name.”
The AISD official chalks it up to an e-mail and blog exchange that got too emotional. If the incident did occur, he said, the teacher said things she had no business saying about a topic she clearly didn’t understand. “It’s just giving us a bad name and it’s sad,” Salada said, “it’s so the opposite of what we are and what we’re trying to be.”
Of the district’s 36,000 computers, two-thirds of them run Windows. However, these computers also run Open Office, Google Earth, Google Apps, Firefox and many other free software, much of it open-source. In addition, the district has 100 Linux servers and a lot of its infrastructure runs on that platform, Salada told the American-Statesman.
“We pretty much look at what the best product is to get the job done and we’re very price-sensitive as well,” Salada said.
Salada said that although AISD would love for the whole situation to blow over, they aren’t making a concerted effort to identify the teacher, identified only online as “Karen,” or to discipline her. In fact, Salada says he understands the teacher making sure inappropriate content wasn’t being brought into the classroom. “She was really doing her job,” he said, “I think where this thing melted down was in the interchange (online).”
So there you have it. AISD clueless about open-source? Not quite. At the very least, its technology director certainly understands how things spread online: “I guess it’s just the nature of what the Internet can do,” Salada said, “it happens fast.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet
Breaking: local Linux hero makes nice with flamed AISD teacher
Linux is a free, open-source operating system that is an alternative for many to Mac OS or Microsoft’s Windows. HeliOS is an Austin group that builds computers for kids who can’t afford them which run the Linux operating system.
The e-mail implied that what Starks is doing might be illegal and advised him to work with Microsoft instead. Starks’ fiery response to the e-mail, which he posted in the blog along with an excerpt from the e-mail, was picked up by such heavily trafficked sites as Slashdot and Boing Boing. On Slashdot alone, the item has generated more than 1,470 comments.
Now, Starks says he regrets the whole incident. “I don’t think I’ve ever committed one act that made me feel like such a schmuck,” he said in a phone interview with the American-Statesman today.
Starks says he has spoken with the teacher twice since his Monday post and that “Karen” was crying when they spoke. What she failed to mention in her initial e-mail, he says, is that she gave the Linux discs back to the student and was more concerned that there might be pornography or other suspect material on the discs than about a non-Windows operating system being introduced in the classroom.
“She was beside herself,” Starks said, “I excoriated an entire profession. If I can’t heal that what I want to do is make this lady understand that I’m really and sincerely sorry from the bottom of my heart that I caused her grief.”
Many blog commenters tried to suss out the teacher’s identity as well as her school by trying to decode x’s Starks used in his post to cover up the woman’s last name and her school. He assured me that he didn’t make his masking of the teacher’s identity that easy to decode. And searching the AISD database doesn’t narrow it down much: there are 66 AISD middle school employees named “Karen.”
Starks said a New Zealand newspaper offered to donate $1,000 to his project if he revealed the teacher’s last name and that a U.S. magazine offered $10,000 for the information. He does not plan to divulge Karen’s last name or school.
Starks sounded nervous when he answered his phone today. He said “We’re being litigated,” and added, “my lawyer has stuck a size-12 boot in my mouth.”
Nevertheless, he revealed that after his two conversations with the teacher, “She’s working to stop (the legal action).” He implied that colleagues of the teacher had encouraged her to take to the courts but that they had made progress in their two phone conversations, which the teacher initiated by text messaging Starks.
The brouhaha, Starks figures, has at least put a spotlight on Linux, which he says is his mission in life. Starks says he spoke to an official at AISD who assured him that not only does the district support Linux, but uses it widely. A phone call and e-mail to AISD have not yet elicited an informed response about the matter, but we’ll continue to update this story as more details or comment from the district is received.
Starks says he regrets the pain he says the harsh comments on the tech blogs have caused the teacher. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this bad about something I’ve done in my life,” he said.
Starks plans to follow-up his now-infamous blog post with another one tonight (around 10 p.m., he said) which will update the situation and take a much nicer tone, we can assume.
Nevertheless, there’s a bit of a silver lining in the story of how an angry e-mail could rile the entire Linux world: on Saturday, Starks says, he has been invited to install the Linux operating system on Karen’s home computer.
(Photo provided by Ken Starks.)
Update: AISD’s director of technology has commented on the story and given his take on the situation.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Internet
Review: ‘Dead Space’
In “Dead Space,” no one can hear you scream. Primarily because the video game has no online mulitplayer mode.
The action horror game, put out in October by Electronic Arts, is a single-player affair and it trades in the loneliness and isolation not only of an abandoned mining ship, but of a game player who doesn’t have a buddy list at the ready.
Set on a dying, infected spacecraft, it’s a first-person shooter that borrows liberally from the genre (and from sci-fi movies aplenty, including “Event Horizon,” “Solaris” and “Aliens”) while trying to change the rules up just enough to make an original game experience. On that note it largely succeeds. As you fight off ugly, disfigured “Necromorphs,” basically spidery mixes of monsters and crew member bodies, you use the weapons you have at hand to dismember the creates instead of shooting for the head or torso like in most shooters.
It’s grisly, bloody gameplay, nothing that a veteran “Doom” or “Quake” player will find too disturbing. But the mood in this game is much more serious and much more somber. Your character, Isaac Clarke (yes, Asimov and Arthur C., we get it Electronic Arts), is trying to repair a mining ship and help discover why its inhabitants are all dead or disappeared. He also has a video of his ex-girlfriend who was aboard the mining colony. We see human deaths, hear about one very disturbing suicide and eventually learn that a driving force of the game may be a ghost or worse.
The gameplay is the main attraction here. There’s not much original to the storyline and the game is so linear and straightforward that it becomes almost extraneous. Isaac takes out gory monsters, fixes parts of the ship, upgrades his equipment and tries to survive with limited resources.
Despite some of its by-the-numbers aspects, though, “Dead Space” shines in a few areas. A few levels that introduce zero gravity combat are breathtaking. While the game’s point-A-to-point-B missions can seem repetitive and rote, at least you never get lost or have to wonder what to do next. The game tries to move you through the action as quickly as possible without too much fuss.
The game’s minimalist interface works well, although controlling it on a Windows PC is extremely clunky. The controls on the console versions of the game hold up much better: this was a game made for gamepad play. Typically, first-person shooters are much more fun to play on a PC, but this is an exception: the controls are unintuitive and distracting. I played the game primarily on a Windows machine, but also gave it a try on an Xbox 360.
Some of the efforts to break up the shooting action in the game just aren’t very good. An asteroids-shooting mini-game isn’t particular compelling, nor is a ship-exterior walk where you have to dodge large flying rocks.
But for every moment like that, there’s a bit of stark beauty. Standing alone in a bit of open space as your oxygen runs out, or floating in zero gravity… these bits are executed very well and benefit from the game’s top notch sound design and graphics.
“Dead Space” is part of a multi-media salvo by EA that included a graphic novel and animated program. I’m not sure the mythology is worth all the fuss, but it’s heartening to see the company, best known for its sports series and endless sequels, take a chance on a new franchise, one that has a lot of potential beyond the industrial corridors and simplistic plot of this first game. Along with another recent release, “Mirror’s Edge” (which I’ll be reviewing soon), EA is making some good moves this holiday season. “Dead Space” is not a perfect game, but it’s a game that does a few things very well and never relents from its grim, dark work.
It’s worth a rental, at least.
“Dead Space”
$50-$60, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs
Rated M for Mature
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Videogames
The Linkdown for Wednesday, Dec. 10
It’s cold, an Illinois governor did something incredibly silly, the economy is flopping around like a fish on a pier and I just found out that the place where I was just starting to get comfortable is having a round of layoffs.
Can anything cut through the gloom and doom? Maybe these hand-chosen links, just a little bit:
- Austin’s photo software company Photodex has just released version 4.0 of its flagship software. You can check out what’s new in ProShow Gold 4.0 here.
- AMD/ATI announced today that its newest Catalyst drivers will include AVIVO transcoding software that will take more quickly advantage of GPU hardware to convert media file formats. If you understood all that, you should check out the video replay of today’s online press conference. And yes, I did watch it.
- Google says it has expanded its Google Maps Street View coverage in Texas to include more areas outside of major cities as well as Beamont, Wichita falls and many highway routes in between.
- If you care about the Webby Awards (I don’t), you can see five original videos promoting the affair this week at this site. I am told You Suck at Photoshop and our old pal (who thinks we are uncool) Obama Girl will have videos on the site by week’s end. I’ve seen the Obama Girl video. She does a cartwheel.
- Dallas will be the site of a (perhaps) huge gaming expo in November 2009.
- Austin game company Steel Penny Games has introduced a game this week called “Bruiser & Scratch” to the WiiWare store. It costs 1,000 Wii points ($10).
- Austin’s Mobile Loaves & Fishes is offering holiday eCards for a good cause.
- This week’s NPR All Tech Considered segment was about Webcams. You can listen to it in two parts here and here.
- Austin’s Show Initiative has renamed its March 10-11 virtual worlds conference in New York City to “Engage! Expo.” More details here.
- Tomorrow night’s Statesman Tweetup is at 6 p.m., Opal Divine’s Penn Field. More details can be found at this page.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Videogames
Review: ‘Sonic Unleashed’ for Xbox 360 and PS3
Sonic sells. Despite some truly horrible games over the past decade, Sega can always depend on the little blue guy to bring in the numbers, and the consequences of this attitude came to a head two years ago with the deceptively titled “Sonic the Hedgehog” for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Now, “Sonic Unleashed” is out for the Xbox 360, and fans have every reason to be cautious. Thankfully, Sonic Team has finally made a Sonic game that is actually a lot of fun.
For the most part.
“Sonic Unleashed” is split into two gameplay styles. Daytime stages are similar to the excellent “Sonic Rush” series on the Nintendo DS, developed by Dimps. Set in various worldwide locales, the levels switch between 3-D and 2-D almost seamlessly, and are a blast to play. They’re not a return to the classic Genesis games’ momentum-based gameplay, and Sonic controls loosely until you get used to the new controls. But they’re fun, and that’s what matters.
Nighttime stages take a radically different track, with Sonic transforming into a, to use the official term, “Werehog.” This means he’s bigger, meaner looking and plays like a cross between characters from “Kingdom Hearts” and Kratos of “God of War.”
These combat-heavy levels are surprisingly enjoyable if you can get past the fact that Sonic can’t run at 300 mph and has huge, stretchy arms. Said rubbery appendages are never really explained, but they lend themselves to some really solid and inventive platforming amongst all the fisticuffs.
Players access levels through hub worlds straight out of the 3-D “Mario” titles. Each is adjacent to a village full of people with extra missions and a good deal of entertaining banter which can be almost completely ignored. Levels are opened up by collecting medals found in action stages and dotted amongst the hub worlds. This adds replay value to stages, but is maddeningly annoying when you reach a new continent only to be told you need 10, 15, even 20 more medals to play its action stages.
To cushion the blow, “Unleashed” is polished to a graphic and musical mirror sheen. The levels, based loosely on the seven continents, are all absolutely gorgeous during both day and night. The music, which uses instruments from the various regions, is so good I found myself replaying stages just to hear it. I still have the tune from the Chun-Nan (read: China) stage stuck in my head as I write this.
The game’s plot isn’t much to speak of, and one of the more annoying aspects comes in the form of a purple flying chihuahua named Chip. He’s featured prominently in the game’s story, and has a voice that recalls your most annoying distant relatives.
It’s not all bad — mashing the start button five times lets you skips cinemas, and you can change the voice acting to Japanese if hearing Chip channel your creepy uncle Larry is too much.
“Sonic Unleashed” is a solid game… right up until the last few hours. The final stage, Eggmanland, is a marathon session of grueling, swear-inducing frustration. Filled with cheap deaths at every turn, it claimed all 50 of the lives I had stocked up during the rest of the game. Combined with the agonizing final boss, the endgame of Sonic Unleashed took me upwards of three hours to complete.
(Not including a day off to recover from swearing myself hoarse.)
“Sonic Unleashed” is fun until it’s not. Thankfully the “not” only comes in during the last section of the game, during which you can still go back and enjoy the bits that won’t drive you into a frothing rage. It’s these levels that make the game worth at least a rental, and maybe even a purchase.
It has flaws enough to grate on any gamer’s nerves, but “Sonic Unleashed” shows promise. After a decade of missteps Sonic Team may finally be on track to once again create truly great games.
Plus, I finally get to utter seven words I haven’t said about a Sonic game since 1999: I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
“Sonic Unleashed”
$50 for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3; $30 for PlayStation 2 (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 version reviewed)
Rated E-10 for Everyone 10+
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Videogames
From the DVR to the computer: TV bliss
A few weeks ago, I installed a very early version of DirectTV’s new DirectTV2PC software, which allows you to access whatever’s on your home DVRs from a Windows PC on the same network.
Sure, the name could use a little work, but the program itself worked great once I got it installed. (I had a major all-day headache trying to get the program activated, but once I found this information on a forum it worked for me.)
Once it was installed, though, the application did what it was supposed to: it accessed both of our home DVRs (we have the HR20 HD DVRs) and allowed me to watch programs from either box, even HD programs.
What are the limitations? HD video is very stuttery if your box or computer is hooked up via a Wi-Fi network. My living room box is connected via a wireless bridge and while SD video worked fine, anything HD was very tough to watch.
On the other hand, the DVR we have in the bedroom streamed HD video fine using a Powerline Ethernet connection, which is faster than the Wi-Fi. So if you plan to do something like this, make sure your DVR and your computer are hooked up on a good wired network or that your Wi-Fi network has enough bandwidth to handle the streaming.
You also can’t use DirecTV2PC while multiple monitors are running. This is awful because I’d love to be able to have a DVR show running on a second monitor while Web browsing or doing other stuff on my primary monitor. But for now, the program will tell you that you can only have one monitor running in order to watch shows. There’s also no way to delete shows on your DVR from the computer (maybe that’s a good thing; it would be easy to do it accidentally) or to set recordings from within the program.
I know this is nothing new for people who have TiVo boxes. TiVo has offered this capability for years and it’s a shame that satellite and cable providers are just getting around to implementing these features. For that matter, I’d really love to be able to access the contents of one DVR from the other DVR so we don’t have to guess which programs have been recorded in which room and adjust our viewing accordingly. AT&T already offers this with their U-verse service, but that’s because all the boxes in the house are sharing the same hard drive.
Competition has not let up in the war to earn your TV viewing dollar, so you can expect more innovations like this on every new DVR being offered out there. In fact, maybe we should come up with a set of requirements that every DVR should have: I’d start with the ability to set recordings remotely, place-shift recordings to your computer of mobile device and the ability to be able to offload programs onto an online service when your DVR gets too full in lieu of having to delete things you still want to watch.
It’s a start, at least. What new features would you like to see on your DVR?
Edited to add: Here’s where to find the DirecTV2PC application. It’s a beta program and you’ll have to provide a valid e-mail to receive a download code.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Computers, Movies & DVDs, TV
Review: ‘Sonic Chronices’ for Nintendo DS
Here’s a challenge: draw a Venn diagram of A.) Sonic fans and B.) BioWare fans. How big is C.), where the two circles overlap? Thanks to “Sonic Chronicles,” it might be a bigger chunk than you think.
“Sonic Chronicles: the Dark Brotherhood” for the Nintendo DS is an odd duck. BioWare, developer of stat-heavy role-playing games like “Mass Effect” and “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,” hardly seemed the logical choice to helm a game starring Sega’s struggling mascot. But then, “Sonic” and “RPG” hardly seem like a logical combination.
In fact, the best way to enjoy “Chronicles” is to throw bothersome concepts like “logic” and “reason” out the window. It’s not all good, but there’s a lot to like in the developer’s first outing on the DS.
The game uses the DS stylus as the main method of input for pretty much everything, and does it well. Controlling Sonic, while not quite as fast as traditional entries, is speedy enough given the overhead perspective and watercolor backgrounds.
Battles are turn-based, and special attacks use an input method similar to the excellent DS rhythm game, “Elite Beat Agents.” By tapping and following moving circles on the lower screen you can pull off some impressive attacks and have a good time while you’re at it.
“Chronicles” is more linear than most BioWare titles, but dialog trees still have that undeniable polish that fans of the developer have come to expect. It’s generally light in tone and clever enough to warrant getting to the next story event, even if it’s sometimes obvious what will happen next.
The game’s biggest weakness is presentation. The game’s art direction is wildly uneven; jagged character models, pleasant watercolor backgrounds and flash animations used for story events clash awkwardly and make smaller flaws more apparent. The music ranges from decent to tracks that sound 8-bit, and not in the good, nostalgic way.
Also irksome are battle system uncertainties that are never quite cleared up. There seems to be a statistic for each character determining how likely they are to successfully hit an enemy, but it’s never quite clear what it is at any given moment. Foes are visible outside of battle, but are often hard to avoid while trying to figure out how to get to the next area or just find a place to restore your health.
These flaws add up over time, and the game is definitely rough around the edges. It’s not for everyone, but if you can work past the arbitrary and the unreasonable there’s plenty there to enjoy. “Sonic Chronicles: the Dark Brotherhood” is a promising first effort on the DS from BioWare and a decent Sonic game to boot.
Who would’ve guessed?
“Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood”
$35, for Nintendo DS
Rated E for Everyone
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Videogames
The Linkdown for Thursday, Dec. 4
The holidays are almost upon us. Peep these links before things get too crazy and you don’t have time:
- See the Dell Design Studio in action, on video.
- PBS KIDS Island has been awarded an Editor’s Choice Award by the Children’s Technology Review. Congrats to the Island.
- First Lego League is holding qualifying tournaments this weekend. GO LEGO CHAMPS!
- A computer keyboard that you can wash? That’s just CRAZY!
- Texas has the 19th-fastest Internet service in the nation, according to PC Magazine.
- Explore Local Austin helps you figure out which local merchants you should patronize this holiday season.
- Got heart-related questions? Why not ask a heart doctor?
- Are your eyes tired? Gunnar Optiks has pricey glasses that will make you look like one of those cool Eastern European super spies, circa 1986. They look Wonderbar and are said to help if you sit in front of a screen all day.
- One of our previous Masters of their Domains subjects, Andrew Butler of Hill Country Rambling, reports that his site is receiving about 2.5 million hits a month and has expanded to coverage of San Antonio and more of Austin. He’s also covering sporting athletic events now.
- It’s not quite as impressive as OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself, but digital picture frame company Ceiva offers a chance to have your picture and name appear, as if by magic, in a video at sitonstantaslap.com — you can embed a picture of yourself and your name in the video on this site. I had the video of me posted below, but it was set to automatically play every time this blog page loaded and got really annoying, so I removed it. Dear Ceiva: please don’t make your dumb video do autoplay in the embed code. kthxbai!
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Shopping
Vlingo: voice to Twitter or Facebook on BlackBerry, iPhone
I haven’t had a chance to try it out for myself yet (but I’ll let you know when I do), but a new app for the iPhone and BlackBerry will translate your voice to a post to Twitter or Facebook without any typing. Vlingo is a free download and uses speech recognition to translate your voice to text. Other services I’ve tried which have human translators try to type up your words don’t always work the way you’d like them to (especially if you use made-up words and geeky terms like I do a lot of the time).
So far, I’m hearing good things about Vlingo’s voice recognition, which sounds a lot like the surprisingly accurate Google search app that allows you to say what you’re searching for out loud.
Have you tried it? Tell me what you think in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Internet, Phones
Mourning a sick old friend: Palm
In the flurry to keep up with the new T-Mobile G1 and BlackBerry Storm, full touch-screen phones trying to compete with the top-selling Apple iPhone, I had a thought the other day. Whatever happened to Palm, the company that practically pioneered the PDA movement a decade ago?
What’s happening? Not much. In fact, it’s very dark times for the company behind the original Palm Pilot, its many variations and the popular Treo smartphone.
The company has been hit be slowing overall demand for smartphones, from increased competition from Research in Motion (the BlackBerry company), Apple and others. And, put simply, the company failed to innovate. The software that runs its phones has not changed significantly in that decade and a major revision of that software isn’t due out until the middle of 2009.
In all likelihood, it will be too late. Sub-$200 smartphones are going to be big sellers this holiday season, despite our economic woes, and once people switch to a BlackBerry, an iPhone or a Google Android handset, they’re unlikely to ever go back to Palm’s software or its unproven, untested forthcoming operating system.
But that’s the march of technology, right? Survival of the fittest?
This one feels a bit personal to me. I got my first Palm Pilot pro way back in 1998 and used it as my calendar, to-do list and contact database until the day I switched to an iPhone earlier this year. How many pieces of technology do you carry around with you every day for 10 years?
The sheer length of time many of us put up with the increasingly outdated and ugly Palm OS is a testament to how right Palm got it in the first place. It took all of Apple’s design genius to pull me away from my Palm (by this time I was rocking a Palm Tungsten T2), and even then, I fretted about switching over to a new calendar system that I might not be able to sync to my work computer.
Often, we cheer when old, clunky technology falls by the wayside, but for me, the decline of Palm is like hearing that an old friend is on their deathbed. We were no longer close. I hadn’t even thought about Palm in months. But despite my affection for Palm and the years we spent together, I have a hard time visualizing a real recovery and return to health.
Whatever happens, I have warm memories of the Palm OS. It was a good technology for its time and it’ll be a while before the last Treo user gives up their phone.
Fare thee well, Palm.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Phones
Most searched in ‘08: Britney, IRS stimulus, hurricanes Heath Ledger
Yahoo today released its Year in Review (a month early!) spotlighting its top search for 2008. You can see more lists like these at their Year in Review site, but here’s the ones I thought were the most interesting:
Top 10 Overall Searches:
1. Britney Spears
2. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol
Top 10 Economic Searches:
1. IRS Stimulus Checks
2. Oil Prices
3. Gold Prices
4. Gas Prices
5. Dow Jones
6. Sallie Mae
7. Stock Market
8. AIG
9. Foreclosures
10. Debt Consolidation
Top 10 News Stories for 2008:
1. Hurricanes
2. Caylee and Casey Anthony
3. Election 2008
4. Pakistan
5. Pregnant Man
6. China
7. Iraq
8. Shelley Malil
9. Patrick Swayze
10. Afghanistan
Top 10 “Send-Offs” (the dead celebrity list)
1. Heath Ledger
2. Bernie Mac
3. Paul Newman
4. Randy Pausch
5. George Carlin
6. Estelle Getty
7. Tim Russert
8. Brad Renfro
9. Isaac Hayes
10. Boyd Coddington
Why did “WWE” top “Barack Obama?” Why did more people search for “Gold prices” than “Gas prices?” Your guesses are as good as mine.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
