Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > September
September 2009
The Linkdown for Tuesday, Sept. 29
The Linkdown already has Fall TV fatigue and it’s only been about a week of new shows. The DVR just can’t keep up. In other technology challenges and opportunities:
- AT&T is launching a texting-while-driving education initiative. (They are against it, in case you’re wondering.) It coincides with a big texting/driving summit that starts tomorrow. We couldn’t agree more.
- “Hi, How Are You?” is now an iPhone app. Daniel Johnston fans rejoice.
- Disney has launched a digital initiative for children’s books, including this snazzy Web site.
- “Ultima Online” is turning 12 and EA has cranked up another “Return to Britannia” campaign.
- The Nintendo Wii dropped to $199 on Sunday. It’s a holiday game console price war!
- On NPR’s All Tech Considered this week: an amazing Carl Sagan Auto-Tune video, iPhone MMS, a Facebook movie and Microsoft’s awful house party video.
- Yahoo! continues to make big search tweaks.
- Another site embraces online music learning — this site teacher piano.
- Austin’s Gendai Games offers an early-access program for would-be iPhone game developers, GameSalad.
- The Round Rock Public Library has added a new digital map collection for its patrons.
- It’s a mustache. For your dog!
- The ChannelAustin Digital Fusion Fest is coming up on Oct. 10.
- An easy way to turn your YouTube videos into animated GIFs.
- Dropped an electronic device into water? Here’s a way to dry it out for $20.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Computers, Internet, Phones, Shopping, Videogames
Overprepared or just smart upgrading? Prepping for Windows 7
I have come out the other side of the Windows XP-to-Windows 7 transition unscathed, happy and completely safe.
This might not seem like a big deal to Windows power users who routinely tweak their systems for maximum performance and regularly perform hardware upgrades or clean installations of Windows every few months to make sure things are running optimally.
That’s not me. My wife and I both use our desktop computer and though it’s been three years since we last upgraded the hardware on the machine, it was still running like a champ at speeds of 3.2-Gigahertz (via a dual-core processor) using Windows XP.
I approached Windows 7 cautiously, installing it first as a Boot Camp partition on my Apple Macbook. It ran smoothly and I liked it so much I decided that I would make the leap to it on the desktop machine, something I’d resisted during the long, dark time PC users call the Windows Vista era.
When Microsoft sent me an early copy of the final software and I decided to review it for work (I’ll be writing something up closer to the October 22 launch), the die was cast. It was time to upgrade. I was terrified.
Installing Windows 7 on a Windows Vista machine is simply a matter of upgrading. But coming from Windows XP requires a completely fresh installation (if you want to make sure you don’t run into major problems down the road), something Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg called “Frustrating, tedious and painful.”
So I prepared for pain. Over-prepared, perhaps. Here’s what I did:
Clear out the deadwood: The first thing I did was start uninstalling old video games and applications I haven’t used in ages. Some programs were so old they wouldn’t even uninstall properly, so I just deleted folders and did my best to get rid of anything that wasn’t vital and that wasn’t going to get reinstalled in Windows 7.
Do a full backup: Once I got my computer to a state relatively close to what I wanted on Windows 7, I used my backup software to do a complete backup of my computer’s hard drives. Only the C: drive would be wiped out in my migration, but I backed up everything anyway just to be safe. Everything was duplicated in full file/folder structure to my Drobo backup device. Some backup programs compress your files, but I wanted complete access to all the files and folders in case anything should go wrong.
Make a list: I made a list on a sheet of paper of every program that would need to be re-installed in Windows 7, from Microsoft Office 2007 to iTunes to games. The list took up almost a whole page. Some programs — like Studio 12, a video-editing program I use — allow you to find an activation number of product key in their help menu. For any numbers like that, I wrote them down on the paper. After Windows 7 was up and running, I crossed off each program as I reinstalled them one at a time.
Backup to the backup: Some programs, including iTunes and Google’s Picasa photo software, allow you to make a backup of your program’s library. iTunes 9 allows you consolidate all your music, TV shows and other files into one big iTunes directory. Once you’ve done that, you can backup that entire library to a CD or DVD. If your library is bigger than what will fit on one of those devices (mine was), you can just copy the entire iTunes directory to an external hard drive. I used such a drive (separate from the Drobo) to backup iTunes, my playlists and iTunes library files. I also did that for my Picasa photo library and for a few other programs that create their own database (like the program I use to scan in business cards, NeatWorks.) I also backed up browser bookmarks, e-mail and any other files I thought I might need right away to that second external drive. Overkill, maybe, but I was making sure I had a plan in case anything happened with the Drobo (say, if Windows 7 had trouble recognizing it).
Uninstall/deactivate more programs: I deauthorized iTunes on my computer, uninstalled Office 2007 and cleared out any other program I could think of that might have a licensing issue upon reinstallation. This process took a while and was the point of no return.
Use the Windows Migration Tool: The Windows 7 disc comes with a very handy application called Windows Easy Transfer (it’s “migsetup.exe” in the support\Migwiz directory). Using that program, you can transfer Windows profiles, data files, program settings, browser bookmarks and other information. I used this to transfer just my basic settings and user profiles to the external drives. It worked well. Once Windows 7 was up, even my desktop wallpaper was back, along with my desktop files, browser settings and my wife’s separate Windows account. This might have been overkill given the other steps I’d taken, but it made me feel better to have those files and settings available.
Take a deep breath: Once all that was done, I took a long, deep breath, slipped in the Windows 7 disc and installed. I cleared out the entire hard drive (you can choose to let the old files co-exist with Windows on the drive, but it’s not recommended) and waited. Just 30 minutes later, Windows 7 was up and I started putting everything back in place.
And… it wasn’t a disaster! I’ll go into more detail about my experiences with Win7 in my full review, but I can report that the steps I took were more than adequate to get everything back in order. My wife’s Thunderbird e-mails and account were restored without fuss. iTunes re-imported all my music and files. Picasa didn’t lose any vital family photos and the Windows Easy Transfer program worked a little too well — it restored some clutter I probably should have left behind in Windows XP.
Yes, it was a little painful. Yes, it was time consuming. I’d say the whole process took several days of off-and-on work.
But so far, I can say the effort was worth it. Nothing was lost, things are working better than they were before and most importantly, all the work I did on the front end eliminated some major stress I might have faced later if anything hadn’t gone completely according to plan.
I’m sure there are simpler ways to do it and many people wouldn’t hesitate to wipe their main drive since they keep most of their files online, but that wasn’t our situation. Maybe I worked too hard to do something pretty basic, but I’m happy nonetheless with the results.
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My robot dreams, which conflict with certain realities
A man has dreams. Fantasies. Sometimes those fantasies involve controlling a powerful robot. Who could blame a man for that?
Last week, I got an invitation to go see a new product called U:bot being rolled out by Games2U, an Austin-based company. Games2U has grown quite a bit since we wrote about them in June. They now have franchises in 20 states for their mobile gaming trucks, which bring Xbox, Wii and PlayStation 3 games to parties.
The company is expanding its wares (hey, giant hamster balls!) and the new robot sounded exciting. The company created the 6’8” robot itself at a cost of about $10,000 per robot. But that was all secondary to the promise that I would get to enter the robot and control it, shooting lasers and talking in a sexy robot voice. (“Hey ladies: let us breakdance, at which moment I will perform the robot. Bleep bleem 011101.”)
It sounds better in robot-speak.
By the time the actual event rolled around, I had full-on “Iron Man” delusions of grandeur. Could I figure out a way to fly the robot, perhaps to a tropical island where I would defy natural law by finding a way for a robot to get a tan?
When I showed up at Games2U’s northwest Austin headquarters, the robot was under wraps in a large warehouse area. Kids were gathered, giddy with excitement, and that should have been my first clue that something might be amiss. Who lets kids near a destructive force of robotic justice? They were going to cramp my crime-fighting style!
And then, I got hit with the bombshell: the robot is meant for kids and to climb inside the robot, you have to be below a certain height. That certain height is shorter than me. It looked like a small, child-sized space in there.
I could have wept. My robot dreams were dashed. O, cruel genetics!
I watched several kids climb into the robot and drive it around, controlling the U:bot with a joystick inside. The robot can fire off fog, shoot simulated lasers and modulate your voice to make you sound like a robot. (“Ha ha, Omar, you are too tall, bleep bleep 011101.”)
Games2U co-founder David Pikoff told me that the robot is part of a line of new products they’ll be rolling out in the near future. That’s great, but might I suggest a new project? A robot twice as big, built for the discriminating adult who dreams of being a gigantic, awe-inducing robot.
I think it would do really well.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Videogames
AT&T opens up about SXSW, future of 3G network
At the AT&T Austin human factors lab. Omar L. Gallaga/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Yesterday, I had a chance to visit AT&T’s Austin lab, where it tests out new wireless products, makes improvements to its U-verse TV service through human interaction testing and makes decisions that will affect many of the products and network services we’ll be using in the coming years. It’s one of six labs the company has in the U.S.
My colleague Kirk Ladendorf was there and wrote an excellent piece for today’s paper about the lab’s 175 workers and the veil of secrecy that surrounds much of its work. (The original iPhone was tested here, as well as in Apple’s own facilities, and it was absolutely top secret. We asked if they’d show us an Apple tablet computer. Can you believe they politely declined to even acknowledge it exists!?)
In addition to what Kirk wrote in his story, we had a lot of discussion about the future of AT&Ts wireless network, the problems they had meeting iPhone data demands at South by Southwest Interactive in March and emerging services they expect will be popular like two-way video and, eventually, voice over its data network.
Jeff Johnson, executive director of services and platform planning, said the company’s current 3G network — as hammered as its been by the multitude of apps and data-intensive smartphone use — simply isn’t ready for services like that, but that we’ll see them as AT&T migrates its devices to a faster 4G network in the coming years.
As for South by Southwest 2010, the company all but guaranteed there wouldn’t be the same network meltdown and said they’ll be steering iPhone users to beefed-up Wi-Fi networks, something it’s more equipped to do since its November purchase of Wayport. AT&T is hoping more people will use Wi-Fi for video and data, freeing up its voice network for voicemail and calls.
The company didn’t say how soon we might see its faster 7.2 Mbps HSPA 3G network in Austin (it’s launched in Dallas and Houston among a handful of other cities) and whether it would be active before next March’s festival. Of its iPhone lineup, only the iPhone 3GS has the hardware technology to access those speeds.
One interesting tidbit: although I’d heard previously that there was plenty of overhead in the 3G spectrum before the company transitions to a next-generation 4G network, what I got from yesterday’s meeting was that AT&T believes 4G will be here before there’s a need to squeeze more bandwidth out of 3G. That seemed a bit contrary to what I’d been told at a recent broadband meet-up at a Capitol Mac User Group meeting.
Other highlights of the day were a truly cool usability lab where about 2,000 people a year are brought through to test out U-verse remote controls and video quality, phones, DSL install kits and other products. We saw the control room where users are monitored and the level of detail in the testing was pretty inspiring. One major project the company is working on is self-install kits for its U-verse service, but Jeff Brandt, head of the Human Factors lab, said it’s a large-scale project fraught with all kinds of complications inherent in how people’s homes are set up. Nevertheless, it’s a project that could save AT&T millions of dollars in labor a year. A similar project for self-install DSL kits saved AT&T $450 million a year based on work done out of the Austin lab.
Here’s a few photos from the day:
Steve Harbin is the director of subscription engineering at AT&T’s Austin lab. In addition to new and unreleased wireless devices, the lab tests human factors and usability of products the company already offers. Larry Kolvoord/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunpreet Kaur is an engineer at AT&T’s wireless lab in Austin. The lab has eight copper encased rooms - to block interference from existing cell phone networks in the area - testing unreleased products such as netbooks and GPS devices. Larry Kolvoord/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
One of the copper-encased rooms used to block interference for testing wireless products. Omar L. Gallaga/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Detail of the outside of one of the copper-encased lab rooms. Omar L. Gallaga/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
A peek at an AT&T microcell device, which boosts 3G signals in the home. It’s been introduced in Charlotte, North Carolina, for $150. Omar L. Gallaga/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Phones, SXSW 2009, SXSW 2010
Digital Contrarian: texting while driving
A few years ago, a tech company sent me a new phone to try out for a review. It was shiny and new, with some of the next-gen features we take for granted today like the ability to play video and surf the Web.
I was so excited to try the phone out that I pulled it out of the box and started playing with it even as I was getting ready for my long commute home. I reversed my car out of its parking space in the American-Statesman lot and began rolling toward the Riverside Drive exit.
I don’t remember if I was logging in to Gmail or trying to get to a Web site on the tiny screen’s Web browser, but I do remember my hand locked in that digital/numerical clutch, punching up letters on the keypad. My eyes were firmly fixed on the screen as I typed on the unfamiliar interface. My driving slowed and slowed until I suddenly stopped; something caught my attention as it appeared my peripheral vision.
A black car’s bumper was inches from mine. My Prius was wedged awkwardly in a unnatural diagonal, having drifted from my unmarked side of the road. The driver in the black car was staring at me angrily, jaw dropped. They obviously couldn’t believe what had almost happened. Neither could I. I put the phone down in the passenger seat and drove away, my hands shaking all the way home.
I learned my lesson, but I wish I could say it was the last time I ever used a cell phone while driving. I have an iPhone now and on my nearly one-hour commute I’ve given in to the temptation to glance at the screen when the phone buzzed an incoming text message or e-mail subject line. But I don’t text and drive; I like to think I’m pretty coordinated, but even the time it takes to open up an iPhone app is long enough to drift out of your lane when you’re driving at 70 mph down IH-35. It’s hard, sitting for so long, disconnected, when the entire world of Twitter and RSS feeds is right at your fingertips. But it’s one of the rare instances where the risks are truly life or death.
Texting and driving is dumb, pure and simple. It’s a hard thing to rationalize, especially when you’ve already had a near-miss like I have.
When the City of Austin moved to ban texting while driving, it was surprising to see people arguing against it not because it’s dangerous (clearly, it is), but on a principle of supposed civil liberties, as if the Founding Fathers someone wanted us to crash into each other at high speeds as an expression of our hard-earned freedoms.
One Statesman story commenter wrote:
“If its not texting then the people who are irresponsible drivers will do something else thats (sic) dangerous, maybe they will cook pankakes (sic) on a portable cooker on the way to work, are we going to ban Portable cookers?”
Right. Because if we ban texting, a good substitute for information gratification will be the emerging craze of making ham and eggs lighter-adapter-powered car griddles. Good argument.
The parallel argument that applying makeup, fiddling with the radio or arguing with your kids is just as distracting as texting has a certain logic to it. But when I’m driving on 35 and see someone drifting off their lane, invariably it’s someone with a cell phone stuck to the side of their face or with the phone in their hand, not someone with a mascara tube or a hand stretched out to adjust a volume knob.
A more stunning point represented in two other Statesman story comments was that only the untalented pose a danger and that texting could actually improve your driving because driving texters are concentrating harder on what they’re doing:
“For those of us who can use our phones and you would never know because it does not affect our driving, we might represent the minority. But we will be punished along with all of the mindless masses out there who can not use their phones and drive.”
“Well, here’s one way - studies have shown that people that are talking on their cell phone while driving, drive slower and change lanes less often. Who knows, maybe DWT actually makes us drive safer???”
Right study, wrong conclusion. The University of Utah study from last year actually says that cell phone users can actually cause traffic congestion, which is another danger they pose.
One popular Austin blog, Grits for Breakfast, expressed not only skepticism about the the proposed Austin law, but the idea that because the practice has become part of “People’s routine life habits” that a law against it is unenforceable. The blog’s author Scott Henson wrote:
“Though I’m lucky enough to live close to downtown, I know a lot of Austin commuters who use their Blackberry that way, and it’s not as though the city has provided adequate mass transit to give those folks other options.”
Excusing people’s dangerous driving habits because there’s a lack of mass transit is like saying that neglecting a child is permissible because the state doesn’t provide affordable childcare programs.
I’m usually happy to argue the opposing view on a tech policy topic and play devil’s advocate, but I spend enough time on the road every week to see how things are actually playing out. People are driving erratically and putting us all in danger, cell phone in hand, fingers texting.
If there’s to be any debate, it should be about ways to make it stop, not whether it should be stopped at all.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones
Net neutrality gets a boost in Austin FCC visit
I wasn’t able to make it to this morning’s public broadband Internet hearing, but was happy to see it reported on in multiple outlets.
The biggest news, which we were hearing drips and drabs about over the weekend, is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled a proposal for net neutrality the same morning as this Austin public hearing. The proposal is for a policy that would keep Internet carriers like Time Warner Cable and AT&T from blocking or capping Internet traffic based on content. (Further reading on what net neutrality is can be found here.)
Here are a few more articles about today’s events, which sound like major progress for advocates of an open, free Internet.
More reading:
The new Web site OpenInternet.gov.
Dow Jones article on industry reaction.
Exciting times! Post your thoughts in the comments or links to other articles and information on the subject.
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Two game bummers, one game bright spot
First, the worst news: a free massively multiplayer online game developed in Austin, “Dungeon Runners,” has been given the ax.
NCsoft, which has had a rough year (at least in the U.S.), will kill the game on Jan. 1., 2010.
Developed in Austin, the game didn’t have the flashiest graphics or the biggest budget, but it had a refreshing sense of humor and some very entertaining voice work. It wasn’t a game that held my own attention very long (admittedly, I have an incredibly short attention span for online games), but it was nice to see a scrappy, low-budget game hold its own against the big dogs.
A while back, NCsoft sent us a completely inappropriate Bling Gnome doll that I had to hide on my desk lest I get fired. It was just the kind of silliness the game was known for; sad to see it go.
Speaking of disappointments, I attended the second keynote at the Game Developers Conference Thursday morning. It was delivered by two senior-ranking workers at Blizzard who’ve helped make “World of Warcraft” the phenomenon it is today.
Slam-dunk speech, right? Not so much. The two joked about being hungover and stretching the presentation to avoid doing a Q&A with the audience. That stopped being funny the moment the presentation ended without a Q&A and the lights came up.
The Blizzard-themed presentation was simply a breakdown of how the massive amount of labor on such a big game is divided. There were thrilling chain-of-command flow charts and big chunks of time devoted to how many people work in data centers for the company.
It was fascinating, briefly, to hear how much work it takes beyond simply game design to pull off such a huge game. The company has grown from about 400 employees to over 4,600 largely because of “WoW.” But did the entire hour-long keynote have to be devoted to a corporate structure breakdown?
Maybe it would have been more interesting to hear about what it is that has made “World of Warcraft” so successful; what’s the magic sauce behind Blizzard’s amazing level of polish and how do they find the best talent? How has the game reduced its difficulty over time to sustain growth to bring on new players?
We got none of that. It’s one thing to protect your trade secrets, but quite another to deliver such an uninspired keynote to such a large audience.
(You can hear the speech in its entirety [good luck with that!]) on this site.
And finally, some good gaming news: “BioShock 2” will be out in February, earlier than had been anticipated after a delay had been announced earlier this year. It was originally due this holiday season.
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The Linkdown for Thursday, Sept. 17
The Linkdown is hoping the gorgeous Austin cool weather sticks around until at least early November… of 2010.
If you happen to be stuck inside, though, here are some good online links you should check out:
- U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s site was hit with a Denial of Service attack last weekend. Austin angle? Local political Web company Piryx hosts his site.
- As mentioned in the previous post, Maker Faire will not happen in Austin this year. Attendance numbers for 2007 and 2008 were 20,000 and 32,000, respectively, according to this Make magazine blog post.
- The deadline for the $5 million 2010 Knight News Challenge is Oct. 15. Save our industry so that I get paid and can continue to afford frivolous things!
- Hey, iPhone keyboard! Down side: makes it look like a BlackBerry.
- Internet pioneer Bob Taylor speaks at UT today.
- Cyberchase exhibit opens this weekend at the Austin Children’s Museum. Fun!
- Sigh… Webby Awards are open for nominations until Oct. 30. Jimmy Fallon and Ariana Huffington star in this video promoting it. I feel like I have to wash out my eyes now.
- Austin’s Pixel Mine has another iPhone game: “Space Dock.”
And here are a few photos from the Austin Game Developers Conference expo floor:
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No Maker Faire for Austin this year
I was very sad to hear, from Pat Beach who wrote about last year’s spectacular event, that Maker Faire Austin will not be held this year, according to an August 31 post on the Maker Faire site.
It sounds like there may still be plans for a 2010 fest, which is great, because the October 2008 Maker Faire was a great gathering of geeks, crafters and entertainers.
It’s the kind of event that Austin frankly needs and here’s hoping the economy will rebound enough for a Maker Faire Austin to become a reality next year.
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Sony Online president talks kids, women and MMOs
John Smedley, whose company employs about 1,000 in the very competitive online game industry, was speaking about “FreeRealms,” a massively multiplayer title targeted more toward young players and women than the company’s usual fare. His keynote remarks kicked off this week’s Austin Game Developers Conference, which brings together video game publishers, social media game creators and others for mixers, panels and networking.
In creating a big online game that moved the company away from its typically male-centric demographic, Smeldey said, the company continues to tweak and redefine “FreeRealms,” a whimsical, colorful fantasy game. Though he did not say how much the company is making on so-called “micro-transactions” it charges for content within the game, “FreeRealms” passed the 5-million-subscriber mark last month. The game launched in April.
The most popular U.S.-based online multiplayer game, “World of Warcraft” has recorded about 12 million paying subscribers at its peak. “Warcraft” is a cash cow for its company, Activision Blizzard, as it charges a monthly fee for players in addition to the retail price of the game. “FreeRealms,” on the other hand, is free to play for any new subscriber. Sony plans to make money on small fees for items like virtual clothing, potions and trading cards used in the game.
“FreeRealms,” on the other hand, is free to play for any new subscriber. Sony plans to make money on items like virtual clothing, potions and trading cards used in the game.
Smedley said that the the company tried to bust through the typical demographics for games it has developed like “Everquest”; he said Sony’s games typically have about 85 percent male players averaging 33 years of age.
About 51 percent of “FreeRealms” players are under 13 and the game’s population is 33 percent female. Designing for kids, however, has presented its own unique set of challenges, he said. An initial sign-in screen proved too difficult for many kids to master (many, he said, don’t know what year they were born), kids have much shorter attention spans than older players (“Like 5-minutes kind of short,” he said), and younger players typically don’t spend money online as readily as adults.
Sony Online, Smedley said, is refining the way the company handles chat conversations. All chats are monitored by software that flags inappropriate language and does not allow numbers to be transmitted in the interest of protecting young players. While that’s been working well, he said, the company erred early on in giving too much free content away when the game launched. “I would urge all of you not to do that,” Smedley joked to his game developer audience, “we make mistakes. We’re trying things.”
The game’s success, he said, comes from learning from data mining to see how the game is being played and tweaking constantly. The game is partially designed to emulate the Mac OS operating system, which many kids use in school, and offers many mini games like racing and card duels to satisfy those short attention spans. Sony is also partnering with retail chains, paying them to distribute “FreeRealms” to new players, and is having success launching French, German, Spanish, Latin American and U.K. versions of the game.
Smeldey revealed that the company is working on a PlayStation 3 console version of “FreeRealms” due out sometime in the middle of 2010 and is also planning a Facebook-based online game. The company said in July it laid off about 5 percent of its work force, 41 employees.
Details were scant about the Austin studio’s upcoming comic-book themed “DC Universe Online,” but Smedley did tout the 10-year run of the company’s flagship game “EverQuest.”
“It’s one of only a few games to hit that mark,” he said, “How many of you are still playing ‘Madden’ from 1999?”
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First set of solo SXSW Interactive speakers announced
South by Southwest Interactive has announced its opening speaker for its March 2010 festival, as well as other solo presenters.
While many a Twitter account boasts of a person’s “Social media expert” credentials, danah boyd has the bona fides to back it up. She works for Microsoft’s research division and is a fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internat and Society. She’ll presumably be speaking about social networks 2 p.m, Saturday March 13 at the fest.
Other presenters announced today include author and MIT professor Dan Ariely, Web design expert Paul Boag, Ruby on Rails expert Heinemeir Hansson, author Molly E. Holzschlag, Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito, social tech expert Clay Shirky and wine video blogger Gary Vaynerchuk, who was a big hit at last year’s fest and was recently profiled in the New York Times.
According to the official site, more than 700 speakers will be announced for more than 200 sessions at the fest.
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Mint and Intuit get their finances together
Back in July, when I interviewed Aaron Patzer, the CEO of hot financial start-up Mint.com, a marriage with Intuit seemed like the furthest thing from his mind.
But maybe my radar was a little off. Today, rumors what the company behind Quicken was purchasing Mint.com for $170 million proved true.
Patzer, a former Austinite, came up with the idea for Mint after a frustrating experience using Intuit’s services. The two companies even had a public dust-up a while back over Mint’s sizable growth. Mint rode a wave of positive buzz about its Web-based service and its extremely popular iPhone app, both of which make it easier to track your finances and see trends in your spending.
That aside, the deal makes a lot of sense. Quicken is still an established brand trusted by many and Mint has some great technology that will nicely complement Intuit’s financial products.
(Pictured at right: Mint CEO Aaron Patzer. Photo provided by Mint.)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Internet
The Linkdown for Friday, Sept. 11
The Linkdown is trying to stay dry as the Austin Summer of Dry Heat suddenly becomes the Austin Late Summer of Torrential Flooding. It’s feast or famine around here, isn’t it?
Here are some Internet links worth not only a click, but also a read and a rumination:
- Austin’s second Twestival is 5 p.m. Sunday at Buffalo Billiards. The first Twestival raised money for Charity: Water. This one will benefit Mobile Loaves & Fishes. It’s a family-friendly event.
- Courtney Love and surviving members of Nirvana are not thrilled that a computer-animated Kurt Cobain is singing Bon Jovi and hip hop songs in the latest “Guitar Hero” game. What’s the fuss about? See video at the end of this entry.
- The Austin Game Developers Conference is next week!
- Whoah, Blu-ray media server! Me WANT!
- Austin’s Heatwave Interactive worked with superstar T.I. on the game “Platinum Life.”
- Do you know anything about real-time search data visualization? You could win $1,500 from OneRiot.
- Chris Brogan will be speaking in town again next week to talk about his book, “Trust Agents” with Julien Smith.
- Austin’s BAE Systems is making all-weather vehicles for the Army and Marines.
- Lawyer much? You can get a 7-day free trial of LSAT prep courses from Knewton. Who would object to that?
- Another apps review site. This one’s got some pretty good content. It’s called Appolicious
- Yahoo! has launched iPhone and BlackBerry apps for Finance, Fantasy Football and an iPhone-only app for Flickr.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Videogames
Video: Digital Savant’s Magical Mystery Meetup
We had fun!
The first Digital Savant meetup was also a showcase for “The Beatles: Rock Band.” A copy of the game was given away by the American-Statesman and the game was available for play by an enthusiastic group of players.
Thanks to everyone who came out, to Game Over Videogames and the Video Game Doctor for contributing prizes, to the Statesman’s marketing department for making it all happen, to Opal Divine’s Marina for their hospitality and to Harmonix for making a video game that seemingly has universal appeal. Check out the video from Jenni Jones, below:
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Live Chat: Apple’s big music day, ‘Beatles: Rock Band’ and more
The live chat has begun. Jump in to participate! We’ll be going until about 1:30 p.m. CST.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Shopping, Videogames
In the air, tech-overloaded
I don’t travel very often (babies will do that to you), but when I go somewhere, I try to make sure I’m stocked up like a proper mobile warrior.
That means carrying the right cell phone/laptop charger in the smallest and lightest form you can get it. It means buying a Mophie Juice Pack Air for my iPhone for those long days of walking that I did over the weekend in New York City.
It means having small game console like the Nintendo DS, which also has very tiny game cartridges. You can easily fit a dozen of them in a small laptop bag pocket.
What I wasn’t expecting was that the travel apparatus itself was going to take care of me, rendering many of my preparations unnecessary. We flew Jet Blue for the first time and everything they say about the airline is right: it’s a different experience. Although there was no in-flight Wi-Fi, there was free wireless Internet in the JFK airport terminal. In the air, XM radio and DirecTV were on offer. We did watch two episodes of DVDs, but mostly my eyes were glued to episodes of “The Sopranos” on A&E. Sure, they’re the edited versions, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to see the classic “Long Term Parking” episode again.
In a weird way, it was an embarrassment of tech riches. Instead of busting out my iPhone or laptop during the flight, I just kicked back and enjoyed what was there. I even had time to read an actual book. The kind with pages and a binding.
As for New York City, it was great to see the Apple Store cube in midtown Manhattan and to be able to have a real use for all those GPS apps and Google Maps. We were never too far away from a restaurant we were looking for.
And, I’m not saying you should jump the gun and tether your iPhone 3G to enable your laptop to avoid expensive hotel wireless charges, but let us just say that if you did happen to do that, it actually works very well. So I’ve heard.
A few quick orders of business — tomorrow night is the big Digital Savant “Beatles: Rock Band” meetup. My story about the game ran in today’s paper and there was a fantastic interactive feature by Rob Villalpando you should definitely check out.
At the event, we’ll be giving away a copy of the limited edition “Beatles: Rock Band” set and Video Game Doctor will be giving away a refurbished Nintendo Wii system.
Hope to see you there!
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, TV, Videogames
The Linkdown for Wednesday, Sept. 2
The Linkdown goes on vacation tomorrow for a much needed trip to New York City, but will return next week to bring you more Internet goodness. Also, did you hear we’re having a “Beatles: Rock Band” meetup on Wednesday? You should RSVP for that.
- Today is the 40th anniversary of the Internet. It’s almost enough to make you a little nostalgic.
- Texting and driving is so bad they’re having a summit about it. For goodness sake, don’t text and drive on the way there!
- Ubiquity eMarketing Summit is tomorrow, which isn’t exactly something I’d normally mention, but blogging superstar Chris Brogan will be there.
- Texas Department of Agriculture and Connected Nation have launched a Web site to get your feedback about broadband and about Internet access. Go check it out.
- AT&T fixes state capitol cell phone dead zones. Even legislators hate dead zones!
- Opera 10, the free Web browser now featuring turbo speeds has been released.
- Nintendo announces Oct. 4 date for “Wii Fit Plus” plus black Wiimotes and Nunchuck controllers.
- In-flight Wi-Fi is more beloved than peanuts.
- Round Rock libraries will have “Mario Kart Double Dash” tournaments starting Sept. 12. YES! This is a fantastic tournament game.
Have a fun week and Labor Day weekend!
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Do not panic: Gmail is down
Many many people are reporting that they’re having trouble accessing Google’s Gmail service, a fact that Google is aware of and is working to correct, according to the company’s Twitter feed and status page.
Rather than being a temporary blip, the outage has lasted several hours, sending users to access their mail via mobile phones or through a separate e-mail program’s IMAP import function (which Google is advising).
If Gmail is your secondary e-mail, you’re probably not too worried, but if your business uses Gmail as its e-mail server and it’s mission critical for you… well, you have my sympathies.
Hey, there’s always Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Mail.
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CableCard leads to unwanted cable box for Time Warner customer
A few months ago, Bob Bledsoe began to notice that some of his high-definition cable channels were disappearing.
He called his service provider, Time Warner Cable looking for answers. The technician couldn’t figure out the problem, but after several more phone calls and some Internet research, Bledsoe discovered the problem: A Sony HDTV he purchased about three years go and its CableCard technology were no longer compatible with some of Time Warner’s programming.
Introduced several years ago, CableCard was supposed to help eliminate the set-top boxes that commonly deliver our cable content to our TVs. TVs equipped with a CableCARD slot could instead view and record shows within the TV. Bledsoe said he paid about $1,800 for the television and had Time Warner come out to install the card; he was satisfied with his programming.
Until a few months ago. “The bottom line when all is said and done, I found out that the cable card I had in there, because Time Warner was switching over to another technical way they get HD and can do it, I lost half of all the HD channels. I couldn’t get ‘em,” Bledsoe said.
As this KansasaCity.com blog post explains, it appears that Time Warner’s switch to a new kind of digital TV delivery service, “Switched Digital Video,” is the culprit. CableCard is a one-way technology that can receive and record cable signals. Switched Digital Video is, instead, a two-way interactive format that does not work with the old CableCard standard.
TiVO Series 3 and TiVo HD records used with Time Warner Cable also have CableCard slots, but in a customer letter, Time Warner said they would provide adapters at no charge to circumvent the HD channel loss for those customers. Unfortunately, there’s no such adapter for CableCard TVs.
Of about 45 HD channels he previously could watch, Bledsoe says he lost about 22 of them. Unlike CableCard customers in Kansas City, however, Bledsoe says he was given no advance notice that he would be losing those channels.
A new kind of CableCard technology that does provide two-way access, called Tru2way, is in the wings, but is not available yet and would not help customers like Bledsoe; it is not compatible with earlier CableCard TVs.
“I am sitting here, paying Time Warner a lot of money — $1,500 a year for broadband and cable,” Bledsoe says, “And I’ve got a TV I spent a bunch of money for. I can’t get half of the HD channels they supposedly promised everybody.”
Bledsoe says he was told by the company he could get a cable box to replace the cable card, but he would be paying more than the $2-$3 he pays a month for CableCard access. Eventually, he gave in and had the box installed, but he says that as of Tuesday morning, he still hasn’t gotten a clear answer on how much more he’ll be paying a month.
Bledsoe was pleased with the customer service he received; all were friendly and tried to answer his questions. But, he says he is considering switching to AT&T if Time Warner Cable won’t provide him with the channel lineup he originally had for the same price he was paying with his CableCard setup.
For a time, the Federal Communications Commission was investigating the CableCard situation with Time Warner as well as Cox Communications and calling for customer refunds, but in June appeared to back off, except in the matter of whether the companies should have notified their customers 30 days before the changes went into effect.
We left phone messages for two Time Warner representatives to get comment from the company — one message was left last week, the other on Monday. Neither call was returned.
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