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ACL Festival
October 11, 2010
Short takes: Windows Phone 7 and Dell's new wares, ACL's AT&T problem, GDC Online
There is much tech ground to cover today; rather than just give you links (like on The Linkdown) or flood you with a bunch of blog entries, here’s some short bits on what’s happening:
At a launch event today, the company introduced nine handsets for North America across the major wireless carriers, some of which will be in stores as early as November 9. It’ll also have AT&T U-Verse integration like Microsoft’s Xbox.
You can’t quibble with what Microsoft is trying to do and how far it’s trying to move away from Windows Mobile’s staid, boring legacy. The Phone 7 OS looks good and may perform admirably. But the problem with this launch is its timing; Android, RIM (BlackBerry) and Apple’s iOS have a huge head start and Windows Phone 7 will have to offer some pretty clear advantages for someone to give up their current purchased apps and abandon ship. Add to that Microsoft’s history of introducing products that on paper might be superior but that in practice are overly complicated and user-unfriendly and I’m not convinced they’re going to make huge headway in the mobile space, at least in the first year.
Then again, I didn’t think Bing as a search engine was going to be a huge success.
Clearest evidence that the software isn’t fully baked: you won’t be able to copy/paste with it until January. But, hey, it took a few years for Apple to introduce that feature for its iPhone.
As Kirk Ladendorf’s story points out in today’s Tech Monday, these new Dell devices haven’t exactly caught fire yet and I’m not sure a phone on T-Mobile competing against the rest of the new Widows Phone 7 lineup, iPhone and Android is going to either. But we’ll see. Maybe Dell knows something about the smart phone market that analysts and the rest of us clearly don’t.
As for their tablets, mini or otherwise, is it too late to catch up to the iPad already, which could sell 45 million units next year?
ACL and iPhone woes: In case you missed it, the comments on my blog post about cell phone data connectivity at Austin City Limits Festival were illuminating. It seems Sprint 4G users did well, as did users of Verizon MiFi devices, but AT&T iPhone users fared the worst.
Silver lightning: the fest is moving to mid-September next year, so it’ll be too hot for anyone to worry about late voice mails and data blackouts.
GDC Online: Because of some other work commitments I was only able to attend the Game Developers Conference Online for a few sessions and a keynote from Brian Reynolds of Zynga, but I was encouraged by what felt like a renewed emphasis on the world of online and social gaming and the presence of lots of young, growing Austin game studios.
Because the conference is geared to game developers, it’s not always something worth writing about for consumers of games, but I had some great short meetings with some game developers and saw more excitement and enthusiasm for new games than I have at previous GDC conferences.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Videogames
October 9, 2010
ACL for iPhone owners: our troubles begin again (UPDATED)
SECOND UPDATE: (11 p.m., Saturday): The Austin Cap Mac User Group adds a new wrinkle to the situation by telling readers that AT&T was blocked from setting up Wi-Fi hotspots at ACL Fest, which seems to make sense given that Clear 4G had a stage at the festival this year and AT&T didn’t.
Cap Mac blames the fest itself for the iPhone/AT&T network headaches, but given that AT&T’s 3G network seemed hobbled even before the full crush of people showed up, that Clear’s Wi-Fi networks didn’t compensate and that the festival itself doesn’t provide its own Wi-Fi (like, say, South by Southwest does at the Austin Convention Center to ease the pain), I’d say there’s plenty of blame to go around.
UPDATE (8 p.m., Saturday): You won’t find any surprises in it, but AT&T has released an official statesman about the connectivity situation at Austin City Limits Fest. Spokesman Mike Barger sent us this from the company:
“We have taken steps to increase network capacity around ACL this weekend, however, some customers may see sporadic network congestion due to the large crowds. We are on the ground in Austin and our network engineers continue to monitor network performance.”
End of update. Original entry from Friday night follows:
Another year, another Austin City Limits Festival, another set of data woes for iPhone users.
Just as with last year’s festival, ACL’s first day was marred by extremely erratic 3G service and practically non-existent Wi-Fi for the many who own iPhones. On the AMD Stage side of the fest where I spent most of my time, 3G service would appear for a few minutes, disappear entirely, revert to EDGE and then come back to 3G in the space of a half hour or so. Texting seemed to work most of the time except when 3G and EDGE were gone entirely and my iPhone 3GS was searching for service.
A not uncommon sight was seeing iPhone users trying to reload Web pages under no-network conditions or griping about their inability to connect with friends they’d planned to meet up with inside the Zilker Park grounds.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry users tapped away at their e-mail, Verizon and Sprint users seemed to have fewer problems (I saw some Tweets, when I was able to connect, saying that 3G for Sprint was struggling, but 4G was holding up well). Michael Barnes, a fellow iPhone user, reported on Twitter that he was able to catch some Wi-Fi at the sports tent where football was being broadcast, but said later that the Wi-Fi got spottier at the day went on.
I was never able to connect to the Clear Wi-Fi network, although to be fair I never got close to the side of the park with that stage.
Since AT&T doesn’t have a stage at this year’s festival, some wondered aloud to me if the company wasn’t putting their best efforts behind ensuring wireless connectivity for its iPhone customers at the fest.
One thing’s clear, though: it will probably get worse. It’s expected that there’ll be many more festgoers at ACL on Saturday and Sunday. If you have an iPhone, have a backup plan since you won’t likely have consistent data service once you’re in the park.
What were your experiences at the fest trying to get online? Should people just put their smart phones away and enjoy the music or should paying customers expect to be able to get online, even with thousands of phone users competing for bandwidth?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Internet, Phones
October 5, 2009
AMD and Dell show off new tech backstage at ACL
While Austin City Limits festgoers were preoccupied with mud and music, Dell and AMD were both schmoozing clients and showing off some of their wares behind the scenes at their respective stages.
As reported previously, Dell early on Friday kicked off the fest by announcing a partnership with Napster to provide a year of streaming music and free MP3 downloads on certain laptops sold this holiday season.
The company also talked up its Design Studio and gave a sneak peek (but allowed no photos or video) of the next generation of its Adamo slim laptop. Dell reps hinted that the new version could be here sooner than anyone thinks, perhaps before the end of the year. The silver prototype I saw was certainly thin and light, but the company didn’t allow any hands-on time.
Over at the AMD area, the company touted its new generation of video cards which will allow up to six monitors to be hooked up at once. The current gen is a mix of DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI connections. On hand was a three-monitor setup (video below) showing off what such a setup can do for flight and racing games.
There was also a home theater setup using an AMD-powered home theater PC (HTPC), powering Windows Media Center.
Below are some snapshots from the fest:
Reps from Dell discuss Design Studio (designs from it are posted behind them).
Dell laptops of all sizes adorned the tables backstage.
Winners of Dell’s Sound and the Jury band competition, Bright Light Social Hour.
AMD shows off a home theater PC powered by its hardware.
Three-monitor setup and a racing wheel. Fun!
One of AMD/ATI’s newest video card is exposed to the world, naked and powerful, in this gaming rig.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Movies & DVDs, TV, Videogames
October 2, 2009
Sorry, iPhoners: AT&T networks not holding up at ACL
I was optimistic that the cell and data networks would hold up for Austin City Limits Festival based on what we were told on Wednesday, but if my experience so far today at Zilker Park is any indication, it’s going to be a miserable weekend for Twitterholics and mobile warriors who favor the iPhone.
AT&T’s services started off well this morning with Wi-Fi and 3G both holding steady. By noon, though, Wi-Fi was beginning to get flaky on my iPhone 3GS, working less and less. I turned off Wi-Fi and used 3G to post Twitter updates, check e-mail and upload photos. Soon, that was becoming flaky, too.
AT&T is encouraging fest-goers to rely on the Wi-Fi hotspots it has set up, but long before 2:30 p.m., when a mass of new people came into the park, they had become unusable.
By the time I set up camp for The Walkmen at the Xbox 360 stage, both networks (3G and Wi-Fi) were completely gone and even text messaging, my fallback for Twitter posts, was warning me that my texts weren’t going through.
It went on that way, with a complete lack of connectivity, until I left the park and was halfway down Barton Springs Road toward the American-Statesman building.
Every now and then, e-mails would pop through or a text would be sent successfully, or 3G would suddenly spring back to life, but I expended a big chunk of battery life simply trying to connect. If you don’t have a spare battery pack to juice up your phone, you’re going to have a hard time making it through a whole day at the fest with your iPhone still working. My advice is to turn off Wi-Fi if you can’t connect right away and maybe even 3G when you’re in a big crowd.
Not working? Try walking all the way across the park. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.
Bear in mind, this was early afternoon, before the big rush of people who show up for the evening headliners and who’ll further congest the data network.
It’s disappointing, to say the least. Was it too much to hope that the iPhone’s wireless carrier could keep up with the data demands of ACL weekend?
It seems, from everything I’ve seen the first day of the fest, that it was.
I wish I wasn’t having flashbacks of South by Southwest Interactive.
How are the other networks holding up? If you can read this and have info, let us know in the comments.
Below: three screens of defeat.
Permalink | Comments (42) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Internet, Phones
Dell intros Napster service for PC buyers
Backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival, Dell Inc. announced a deal with Napster to provide a year of streaming music service and 60 free MP3s from the music company’s library on some new PCs.
Dell said the deal with begin in late October with computers purchased at Best Buy and will be rolled out on Dell.com in November. Inspiron and Studio laptops will be included, but the company didn’t specify if it will be included on cheaper laptops like the Dell Mini line.
Buyers will be able to stream music for one year from Napster for a year and will be able to download 60 songs from the service. An icon for Napster will be pre-loaded on these PCs.
Also backstage at ACL, Dell gave a sneak peak at the next generation of its super-slim Adamo laptop and touted its Design Studio line. It also talked up Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour, the winner of this year’s Sound and the Jury contest, which the company sponsored.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Applications, Austin, Computers, Shopping
October 1, 2009
What to expect from your cell phone during ACL fest (Updated)
If you’re planning on going to Austin City Limits Festival this weekend, you’re probably wondering how reliable your cell phone calls, texting or Internet browsing might be.
(Traditionally: not so good. Last year was a big improvement, but in past years it’s been difficult to make calls and access any data services within such a huge crowd of people).
Verizon and AT&T both say they’re bolstering their networks to avoid a connectivity crisis. Verizon says it’s expecting 15 times the normal call volume this weekend at the fest and will be rolling in two COWs (Cells on Wheels), each with a 75-foot antenna for data and voice channels.
Verizon said in a release today that it’s increasing coverage and capacity at several cell sites near Zilker Park “We continually invest in the local network to ensure that devices run better on the Verizon Wireless network throughout the Austin area,” said region president Frank Antonacci in the release.
AT&T representative Mike Barger said that AT&T, which is no longer a stage sponsor this year, will be boosting Wi-Fi service for smartphone users, like those with iPhones.
“Fans on the ground at Zilker Park will be able to connect to the Internet using AT&T Wi-Fi via our hotspots covering festival grounds,” Barger said in an e-mail. He said AT&T is also bringing in COWs, but for sending photos, video or other data, Wi-Fi will be the way to go.
“The majority of our customers have AT&T Wi-Fi access included in their service plans. We’re encouraging customers to make sure their smartphone has Wi-Fi turned on so they can use Wi-Fi to send photos of the shows to friends and update their Facebook and Twitter accounts,” he said.
Update: John Taylor, a representative or Sprint, said they’ll handle ACL the way they do for NASCAR events at the Texas Motor Speedway and for their emergency response for Hurricane Ike: with a cell-on-wheels.
“Our experience has been that the crowds for Austin City Limits are well-served by adding one COW,” Taylor said, “the experience for customers should be seamless.
T-Mobile’s engineering team is also deploying a COW specifically for the festival, “which will help T-Mobile customers attending the festival share stories and special moments from Austin City Limits,” a representative from the company said by e-mail.
Post comments here over the weekend (if you’re able to) about your cell/data experiences at the fest.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Phones
March 24, 2009
The Linkdown returns for Tuesday, March 24
You can’t see this (thank goodness), but I’m doing deep knee bends and wrist rotations in order to try to recover some muscle memory of the last time we did a Linkdown around here.
Has it really been that long? It must be because my Linkdown e-mail folder has gotten fat and lazy. It needs some exercise. Here we go:
- Down economy? Job seeking? The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is looking for a Director of Interactive Services. You can find out how to apply here.
- Speaking of which, yesterday’s NPR All Tech Considered segment was about online job hunting and what recruiters are looking for. I had background help from local experts Kim Haynes and Caroline Valentine.
- Although it’s not listed on their Web site, PopCap Games has released a version of the game “Bookworm” for iPhone. If you’re a word nerd and you’ve played it on PC, I don’t have to tell you what this means for your productivity levels. They shall plummet.
- Do you have trouble understanding rap? Well, grandpa, this Web site may help.
- This was pitched to me before South by Southwest Interactive, but it might still be relevant if you go out a lot: an iPhone app called “Have2p” which tells you… well, it tells you where to go when you have to go (image at the bottom of this entry).
- This 8-terrabyte home storage device is like something out of my wildest, most wonderful dreams.
- D.C. Comics and Six Flags are working together on an alternate reality game (ARG) set in the Superman mythos. Web sites involved include Lex Luthor’s Clawshun Industries, Jimmy Olsen’s blog, Jimmy’s Twitter account and The Daily Planet.
- If this OnLive thing for PC gaming on the cheap actually works, it’s going to change everything.
- Yes, Steve Wozniak is still dancing (badly) and surviving on “Dancing With the Stars.” His online support may have something to do with that.
- Rachel Muir has long been one of our favorite Austin tech people with her involvement in Girlstart. We wish her well on her new adventure. Congratulations to new interim executive director Julie Shannan.
- Lively Animoto videos from South by Southwest Interactive.
- iTunes now rents/sells HD movies. Not surprising, but still good news.
- Ever wanted an Undo Send feature in your e-mail? Gmail has got your back (for about five seconds, at least).
- Pearl Jam’s album “Ten” is now on Rock Band.
- Alamo Drafthouse Village wows us with tantalizing 4K digital projection. We are so there, man.
The “Have2P” iPhone app — good for emergencies.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Computers, Internet, SXSW 2009, Videogames
November 25, 2008
On 'All Tech': streaming audio, Black Friday deals
This week on my NPR segment for “All Tech Considered,” I talked about what to watch out for when you use social networking in the workplace and answered a reader’s questions about streaming audio wirelessly in the home.
You can also check out some blog posts about Black Friday online deals and a lot of listener comments on their streaming audio setups on the ATC community blog.
Yesterday’s chat about electronics for the holidays went fairly well. To see our Sunday package, “Tech toys for tough times,” click here.
I’ll be posting gadget and video game reviews through the holidays. If you have suggestions or want to recommend items you’ve come across or own and love, post them in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Applications, Gadgets, Shopping
September 27, 2008
Write your own ACL review! Just fill in the blanks!
We all want to post a review of the Austin City Limits Fest show we just saw and get it up on the Web before every other blogger and alternative media outlet in town, but who has the time!?
While I don’t have the skills to make a widget or script generator, I do have the knowledge to do it old-school: cut and paste this handy review text and fill in the blanks and you’re on your way to fest punditry glory!
(Begin cutting/pasting here)
(Name of band/performer) rocks ACL
(Name of band/performer) kept their cool, performing before a packed (name of stage) crowd in the traditional ACL Festival blazing afternoon heat. [Note: for a night performance, substitute “blazing afternoon heat” for “breezy, but balmy night air.”]
Fans and newcomers to (Name of band/performer)’s music both had a lot to (rock/groove/swing/pop lock) to: they played songs from their new album, “(name of most recent album),” as well as a few hits like “(names of hits, if any).”
(Name of band/performer) kicked off their set with “(name of first song),” getting the crowd going, before settling into a groove that kept the parched crowd entertained. For a (band/performer) who has (never/only once/always) played ACL, you’d think it was their first time playing anywhere, given the heart and energy of the performance. The (soulful/rocking/funky/computer-generated) tunes reverberated across the (name of stage) audience, pleasing ears and making some in the crowd get up and dance. This continued for (length of performance), until (name of band/performer) thanked Austin and finished off their set with “(name of last song performed).”
While a few had already streamed away from the (name of stage), the faithful and recently converted stuck around till the end, many singing along with every word. (Name of band/performer) also made a bit of a political statement, implying that the president is (awful/awesome/not worth commenting upon). That got the audience riled up.
Overall, it was a tight set by a (new/veteran/mid-career) (band/performer) that many who braved the (heat/night breeze) at ACL this year won’t soon forget.
— (Your name)
(End cut/pasting here.)
You don’t have to thank me, just remember me when you’re a big, fancy critic for a well-known rock magazine or music site.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin
September 18, 2008
Richard Garriott to guest on 'Colbert Report' tonight
Austin’s soon-to-be-spacefaring game developer Richard Garriott is scheduled to appear on “The Colbert Report” tonight.
The show airs at 10:30 p.m., right after “The Daily Show.”
Will Garriott talk about the history of “Ultima,” or maybe about the many cool things to be found in the House of Garriott?
More likely, he’ll be discussing Operation Immortality (sorry, still not sold on it), his quest to take the best and brightest Earth DNA into the heavens in case we should, you know, blow ourselves up or something. It was recently announced that Stephen Colbert’s DNA would be part of the “Immortality Drive” to go into space with Garriott in October.
He will also likely be promoting his latest game creation, “Tabula Rasa” and to totally not talk about recent layoffs and headquarter relocations of NC Soft.
We’ll let you know what goes down after it airs.
Edited to add: I’ve asked Garriott’s peeps to please confirm that he’ll be on tonight since the Colbert Nation Web site says tonight’s guest is Maria Bartiromo, and they assure me he’ll be on. So instead of the main guest, maybe he’s part of an extended comedic bit? Even better!
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, TV, Videogames
September 13, 2007
Hndy txt msgs 4 ACL
There’s nothing more annoying than spending $600 on a phone (all right, $400; still …) and finding out you can’t make a voice call when you’re hanging out with tens of thousands of people at a music festival.
In past years, I’ve found that text messaging seems to work a lot better than trying to make calls (plus you don’t have to scream to be heard). Here’s a few handy text messages you may want to program into your phone in advance for use this weekend:
wheres ur flag? im lost
which 1s ptr? bjrn? jn?
bjrk wering wht!?!
get me 3 swt lf teas, mint
allrges actng up. gng hm
r they clp yr hnds say yeah or r they clp yr hnds AND sy yah?
‘acut &xiety?’ sht up, meg
dylan: oooold
swtng lk a mnky. gng 2 mist fence
kddy stg: surprisingly ossm
cnt typ n this ifone
M.I.A. is MIA. whr is she?
thot bmi stg wuz 4: bdy mass ndx
jmba juce!!!
vrybdy smlz, ew,
chrs n my way. HATE
mcconahy httng on me
ethn hwk 2
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Phones
