Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant
Dell would do well to dump XPS (Updated)
Dell Inc. is getting rid of its XPS line of gaming enthusiast computers in favor of supplying gaming PCs and laptops by Alienware, the company it acquired two years ago.
You might be tempted to ask, “What took them so long?” In the two years since the acquisition, Alienware has continued to innovate on the high end of the gaming market, pushing the boundaries of PC graphics, cooling and performance, three areas important to gamers who want to pull every last bit of frame-rate from their games.
Dell’s XPS line has… well, they’ve put out some models in very interesting colors. It’s not that XPS machines were bad. It just never made sense to gamers that Dell would have two completely different lines of computers aimed at gamers.
We come to praise Dell in this space, though: This is a good decision, one that sends a clear vote of confidence about Alienware as the PC gaming industry goes through a tough time. There are some who say PC gaming is dying, or at the very least is becoming an increasingly niche market. EA Sports recently canceled a PC version of its flagship “Madden NFL” game and with all the recent hype about “Grand Theft Auto IV,” PC gamers were left to wonder if they’d ever get to visit the dangerous streets of Liberty City on their computers.
PC games are in a transitional period: for every giant success like “World of Warcraft,” there are dozens of misfires — games that just aren’t selling well on the PC or are selling better on the console side. (One exception: “The Orange Box,” which just flat out plays better on PC.)
There were fears that Alienware might be absorbed into the Dellganism and might become part of the XPS brand. The trouble with that would have been that XPS never cultivated the kind of stellar reputation among gamers that Alienware has maintained for so many years. Sure, some people consider Alienware PCs and laptops to be overpriced, but they are also among the most recognizable PCs in the world, and the brand itself carries a lot of weight in PC circles. If you have an Alienware computer, it says you’re serious about PC gaming.
And this announcement means Dell is serious about it, too.
Update: Dell Inc. posted a message last night saying that the Wall Street Journal story is wrong and that it has no plans to phase out the XPS brand. According to the post, featured on one of Dell’s customers blogs, XPS will continue to exist and will push beyond gaming while the company plans to “invest like crazy in product development, design and engineering to propel Alienware as the premier gaming brand in the future.”
Uh huh. So I guess my praise was given too soon. Dell will continue to push XPS as a premium brand, somewhere between its business/home lines and its Alienware gaming brand? Does it sound to anybody else like this may be one line of computers too many?
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BlackBerry builds buzz with the Bold
Sure, we give the iPhone a lot of love around here: we love pretty, useful things.
But BlackBerry users have their own reason to drool and anticipate today (and no, it’s not the iPhone 2.0). AT&T announced today that it will be the exclusive carrier of the BlackBerry Bold (known more generically in tech gossip circles as the BlackBerry 9000).
There’s no pricing information available yet, or even a launch date (later this year is all we’re told), but we did get a nice visual:
What does the Bold have inside that pretty exterior? It runs on AT&T’s 3G network and can also surf on Wi-Fi networks. It’s got built-in GPS, an improved Web browser, a sharper LCD screen and a faster processor than previous BlackBerry devices. Find a lot more information and technical specs over on Cnet News.com if you’re interested.
At the very least, it’s worth a thought if you’re still on the fence about getting a high-end smartphone, and whether that phone should be an iPhone, a BlackBerry or something else like one of those sparkly Nokia N-series phones I hear such good things about.
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BioShock headed for Hollywood with Gore Verbinski
“BioShock,” my 2007 Game of the Year, is headed for movie screens, according to Variety.
Gore Verbinski, the director of “The Ring” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, will be at the helm, which is good news for those of us who hope a movie version will preserve the unique, steampunked undersea vision of decay that the game created.
Take 2 Games, which has been busy putting out another recent huge hit, “Grand Theft Auto IV,” of late, released more details about the deal and Verbinski himself talks in an interview about the strength of the imaginative vision of the game and his expectations that the film will be R-Rated.
Movies based on video games have traditionally been pathetic, losing affairs, but very few games have such strong, cinematic narratives as “BioShock.” In the game, an eccentric genius creates an undersea utopia (Ayn Rand is a oft-referenced influence in the game), only to have it fall to ruin when genetically modified “Splicers” go insane and the civilization crumbles. The story, which takes place in the ’60s, combines horror, science fiction, several story twists and a strong sense of moral questioning.
If nothing else, the film should be a visual feast. I’m dying to see what the world of Rapture looks like through Verbsinki’s camera lens.
Screenshot from “BioShock”
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Zuckerberg keynote ranks lowest in SXSWi survey
The little cards that South by Southwest Interactive 2008 attendees filled out (or, he said guiltily, failed to fill out) were collected and tabulated. The results of the scoring for all the panels at the festival have been tabulated and on the SXSW Interactive site. (Via SXSW Baby)
The post makes sure to point out that the results are far from scientific, but that doesn’t change the unsurprising outcome: the highly praised Jane McGonigal and Frank Warren keynotes were among the top-ranking panels from the festival, and the trainwrecky Mark Zuckerberg keynote was far and away the lowest-ranking.
Some other observations:
- Sponsored panels were all over the map, with one on angel investing ranking highly and a few on social networking ranking very low. You could conclude that attendees don’t mind sponsorship of panels as long as there’s high quality in the content.
- The top three panels — McGonigal, Warren and a panel about an Iraq military surgeon’s video blog — were emotional, human-driven panels that made a strong connection with their audiences. As we move forward in this barreling train of social networks and mobile communication, SXSWi would do well to remember that it’s these most human of stories that make for memorable festival experiences.
- Panels about branding didn’t score very well.
- Panels related to gaming ranked highly (including the McGonigal keynote).
Other thoughts on the panel feedback? Post them here in the comments.
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Wrestling with PowerPoint
Next week, I’m doing a presentation at work. It’s about journalism and the news potential of new media tools like social networks and microblogs. (Jealous?)
In order to avoid making my face of the center of attention for an hour, I did what people in the corporate world have been doing for decades now: I turned desperately to Microsoft PowerPoint, converting my disparate thoughts into big bulleted text on geometrically tasteful purple backgrounds.
The hours I spent working in PowerPoint reminded me why I have such a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Office products. On the one hand, PowerPoint is one of the easier tools in the Office stable to use. The templates it provides are easy to use. PowerPoint shows you exactly what your work will look like in final form. And even older versions of PowerPoint (like the one I’m using, which dates back to about 2001) are pretty good about allowing you to embed photos, videos and other media to personalize your presentation.
So why does creating anything in PowerPoint still feel like such a drag? Nobody likes it when a PowerPoint gets all cutesy with animated words flying all over the place (that hasn’t been entertaining since about 1998). The Clip Arts libraries contained in the guts of Microsoft Office often look like they were ripped from the headlines of a Reader’s Digest, circa 1968. Especially on the Mac version I’m using, the program just acts strangely: it won’t allow you to drag a slide to a new location in your slide order, but it’s fine with cutting that slide and pasting it elsewhere.
I know there are plenty of other options out there. Google has a presentation application within Google Docs that can import PowerPoint files and allow you to work on your slides online. And Apple has thrown its hat into the ring with Keynote, part of its iWork suite. (My work Mac, which is an old G5 running an older version of Mac OS, doesn’t have Keynote.)
But when the pressure is on, I turn to PowerPoint, the tried-and-true warhorse. I know that for all its quirks, it’s still the Old Faithful of presentation apps. I know that even if I run into a major problem, someone in my workplace will know how to get through it. If not, my trust search engine will lead me to some advice online.
Plus, you can always teach an old program new tricks. I like to think my presentation got a few degrees cooler when I added this image to one of my slides:
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Milkscreen makers and Babble Soft team up on baby offer
Two Austin companies are teaming up to offer a deal for parents of newborns who want to try out each of its products.
Babble Soft, which offers software online for parents to track feedings, diaper changes, vaccinations and to create photo albums, has teamed with UpSpring Baby, which offers several products for babies, including Milkscreen for detecting alcohol in breast milk.
Shoppers at Babies “R” Us and other retailers will be able to try Babble Soft’s software when they buy a $4.99 three-pack of Milkscreens. The three-pack will include a three-month subscription to Babble Soft’s “Baby Insights” and “Baby Say Cheese” services.
Babble Soft and UpSpring are part of a proliferation of parenting-related Web sites, video productions and startups that have taken off in Austin. It’s not surprising that some of them would partner up to continue their baby steps into the national market.
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Next big thing in digital photos: geotagging?
A friend of mine who travels quite a lot recently bought a tiny little gadget that he plans to carry around with him, along with his SLR digital camera, as he walks around cities and explores.
The device is a tiny GPS-enabled device for “Geotagging.” It works like this: as you’re walking around taking digital photos, the Geotagger keeps track of where you are a given time. It uses an internal clock to record this data as you move.
Later, software takes the photos you shot and the data inside the GPS device and synchronizes the information. As long as the clocks are set to the right time on the camera and the geotagger (which pulls its time data down from the satellite automatically), the data should accurately enter data into the photo file that specifies where the shot was taken.
Now comes the fun part: photo sites like Flickr.com and Google’s Picasa Web Albums now support these features. When someone browses your photo, they can also pull up a map that shows exactly where the photo was taken.
If you had an especially eventful day, you could display a map showing where you went:
Some of the devices I’ve seen online that geotag cost anywhere from $60 to $130. As digital cameras evolve, though, I would expect to start seeing this as a built-in feature in cameras, or at least to get cheaper as more people get interested in geotagging.
Here are some resources to get you started if geotagging interests you:
- A quick review of some hardware for geotagging.
- Flickr’s Geotagging group, which also has links to plenty of other resources and tutorials.
- A great blog entry (where the photo came from above) that talks about the basics of geotagging.
- Some geotag devices on Amazon.
- Microsoft on geotagging.
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Colbert, NYTimes.com, Onion among big Webby winners
I’ve previously documented my disdain with the Webby Awards, a contest that nominates literally hundreds of Web sites, then produces a list of winners (plus “People’s Voice” winners) that, contrary to logic, seems just as long as the nominees list.
My gripe with the Webbys is that the nominations are dominated by sites that have been around a long time, leading to a case of the same-old-same-olds. Do TheOnion.com and NYTimes.com really need to be acknowledged for Web greatness at this point? (They were the big multiple winners, with seven and eight awards, respectively.)
Stephen Colbert was named Webby Person of the Year, which seems like it would have been right last year, not this year.
Anyway, I could gripe all day, and I’m probably in the minority in feeling the Webbys are too scattershot to matter.
You can see the full list of winners and judge for yourself. An award ceremony June 9 will feature hipster comedians Seth Meyers and Judah Friedlander.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Internet
Quick thoughts on Microsoft/Yahoo
The big question over the weekend, as the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo fell apart on Saturday, wasn’t just “What happened?” but “What happens next?”
Microsoft found itself walking away over a $4 difference between what price-per-share they were offering and what Yahoo said it would accept. But even if Microsoft had coughed up the billions of dollars that difference represented, you get the feeling Yahoo was going to be an unwilling bride and that the marriage was never going to be harmonious.
Even if Microsoft needed Yahoo (and if they want to be a serious competitor in the next generation of Internet corporate warfare, it would have been a good start), they clearly decided that Yahoo was becoming more trouble than it was worth. Yahoo’s success in attracting millions of users to its Web mail and messenger services has been strange to watch, coming as it did as the company made bad business decisions over the years that eroded its presence in areas like search (where Google now dominates), video and news.
What happens next? If Microsoft feels it needs a large set of eyeballs right now, it could a lot worse than making a serious play for Facebook, which it already invests in, or it could look to AOL, which still has a strong Instant Messenger user base and which has had some success in video.
Expect Microsoft to act very quickly: CEO Steve Ballmer surely had a Plan B, Plan C and Plan D in his head as he was pursuing Yahoo.
The worst thing Microsoft could do at this point is make a second run at Yahoo. That deal has already left a bad taste in the mouths of Yahoo investors and was greeted from the beginning with little more than skepticism from Internet pundits.
The bad news: Yahoo has let the world know what it thinks its value should be, and for as long as its stock price dips below that, they’ll be perceived as a failing company that passed up billions and billions of dollars.
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Build some science, get on a new TV show
A film crew from Discovery Channel Canada is coming to Austin this month, looking for “New, sexy, cool science or technology that’s in the works — not products already available.”
Have you been working on a prototype of a time machine in your basement? Got cold fusion solved in your garage? They’re looking for you. The segments will be for a new show called “Daily Planet,” which is expected to air worldwide.
One caveat: They say they’re not looking for Internet-based technology.
If you’re interested, send “a short overview of the technology along with your company URL” to this e-mail address. The deadline is 5 p.m. Thursday (May 8).
Good luck, technologists!
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iPhone 2.0 status report: rumors, competition and pricing
As everyone waits to see if June will bring the long-rumored iPhone 2.0 upgrades to the market (built-in GPS, 3G wireless network capabilities, more storage), it might be time to take a step back and do a little status report.
The rumor mill has shifted into overdrive as of late. The most pervasive one was reported by Fortune earlier this week (citing only a single anonymous source): that AT&T will introduce a 3G iPhone for $200 next month. The phone, Fortune says, would only be that price through AT&T stores. Apple Stores, the story said, will continue to sell $399 and $499, leading to speculation that the Apple-sold iPhones would be unlocked, allowing them to be used with other wireless carriers.
In theory, AT&T would make back the money it loses subsidizing those $200 iPhones by charging more for 3G wireless access. The Fortune rumor also goes against conflicting Internet reports that the new iPhone would actually be slightly thicker because of its new hardware. (Rumor also has it that the new iPhone could come with a shiny all-black exterior, doing away with the current metal backing.)
Here are a few reasons why the Fortune report sounds fishy to me. For one thing, AT&T and Apple have an exclusivity agreement and AT&T would be suicidal to allow Apple to break that agreement and let the iPhone officially wander to its competitors.
Apple would also find itself in a customer service nightmare as it tried to deal with varying coverage areas and wireless performance caused by offering the iPhone on an array of different networks. Customer satisfaction for phone and data coverage would start to become a huge issue with the iPhone, one that would be harder for Apple to control. (If there’s one thing Apple and Steve Jobs like, it’s being in control of the hardware they make.)
Also, as this New York Times blog points out, I just don’t see Apple charging customers double for an iPhone in their stores than what they’d pay at AT&T. There would have to be some sort of subsidy to match the AT&T store price, and that would mean offering other wireless carrier options in the Apple store and online. And this goes back to AT&T’s need to keep exclusivity.
One way or another, Apple has to help its customers get their phones activated, and this just opens up more problems than it solves. Sure, there are lots of potential iPhone commercials who find the AT&T partnership a dealbreaker, but it just isn’t worth the headaches it would introduce for Apple and the potentially quality issues they would have to answer for.
I think a price cut is definitely in the iPhone’s future, but if Apple and AT&T can continue to sell the phones at a brisk pace while introducing a whole new set of features (3G wireless, GPS), they’ll be golden at least through the latter half of the year.
The danger zone, as I see it, is whether 3G data service will cost significantly more than the current EDGE network unlimited data fees. Nobody’s bothered to ask whether the much-coveted 3G iPhone will end up being too costly, on a monthly basis, for customers who are on the fence about buying an iPhone. If there’s no option for buying an EDGE iPhone (say, Apple and AT&T take them off the market completely in favor of the 3G version), they might get stuck with a great phone with an unpalatable service plan. iPhone customers are not Blackberry customers: they will not be willing to pay $40-$50 for data on top of their regular cell phone bill.
I’m a heavy data user with my iPhone, but I know that would be the major reason not to upgrade to a 3G iPhone. EDGE is pokey, but it gets the job done at a very cheap price.
The iPhone is great, but it’s new-toy appeal won’t last. New phones using the Google Android platform are expected to launch this year, and Blackberrys keep getting sleeker and better (could this be a next-gen Blackberry?). It’s not a foregone conclusion that the iPhone will continue to be the best-of-breed when it comes to sleek smartphones.
What do you think? Heard any good iPhone rumors? Will you buy a 3G iPhone? Post a comment below.
Quick tip: If you get iPhone crashes or freezes (for me, they’re infrequent, but they do happen, especially when browsing data-heavy Web pages), check out these tips from Macworld.
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Video: Big robots power NCsoft’s ‘Exteel’
In honor of this week’s release of, “Iron Man,” I thought I’d share with you a video of some other awesome robot-style action.
Austin’s NCsoft released this video today related to their new giant mech game “Exteel,” which is free-to-play.
Enjoy!
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Digital review: ‘Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds’
At first glance, the PlayStation 3 game “Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds” looks like an overly cartoonish representation of video game golf. You wouldn’t be surprised to see Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog appear in golf pants.
But the cutesy touches — anime-style Bobbleheaded characters and chirpy voice acting — are just window dressing for a challenging and satisfying golf simulation. Taking advantage of the PlayStation 3’s beefy hardware, the game offers gorgeously rendered courses, smooth game play and good online play options.
Even if you’re not a golf fan, there’s still plenty to like. The game’s graphics are impressive, and the controls have been improved over previous “Hot Shots” games to make them even more intuitive. Starting with the single-player Challenge Mode, the game progresses at an easy pace, opening up new options and opponents gradually. A few hours in, the tournaments increase in difficulty, and you’ll need to balance out your character’s strengths with new equipment and power-ups.
Those skills all come into play in multiplayer and online modes. Matches I played online were tough but friendly. Opponents offered encouragement via text messages, but they were also regularly scoring birdies and eagles. You start off in a game lobby, walking around different rooms and striking up conversations with other players with an even more cartoony avatar of yourself. From here, you can find games. One nice touch is that holes are played concurrently. You don’t have to wait around for each opponent to take their turn. Instead, you see ghostly, nearly transparent images of other players tackling the same hole as you play. That structure speeds things up considerably — you can get through a quick nine holes in about 15 minutes.
The most recent “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” games have disappointed some players and critics. For those with a PS3, “Hot Shots” is a surprisingly good alternative. It has enough depth to satisfy golf enthusiasts and casual players alike.
“Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds”
$60, PlayStation 3
Rated E for Everyone
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A (wireless) bridge to tomorrow: Airport Express
When we built our house, we spent some extra money having a home theater specialist run audio wire, coaxial cable and Ethernet lines throughout.
Some of it was money well spent: Having our rear speakers in the living room mounted overhead with no wires showing was great. Some of the other expense was a waste: We’ve never installed speakers on the back patio or upstairs because the A/V receiver in the living room cranks up music loud enough to be heard everywhere.
And in the era of cheap Wi-Fi, creating wired network connections in several rooms doesn’t seem like such a good use of money, either. In one way it’s helpful: Our cable modem is housed in a master bedroom closet and connects through the hard wiring to an Airport Extreme wireless router that’s far away upstairs.
But our installer accidentally installed a phone line connection in our living room instead of Ethernet and I never bothered to have him come back and correct that. So for the past four years, the only way my Xbox 360 or satellite TV set-top box could connect to the Internet was through a wireless bridge.
A wireless bridge connects to an installed Wi-Fi network, but has an Ethernet port that allows you to connect wired Internet devices. In the case of our satellite box, you can only access On Demand features through a high-speed Ethernet connection. Since there’s no Ethernet wall outlet nearby, a wireless bridge allows us to convert Wi-Fi to a wired connection without running more wires through the house.
I’d been using a very old wireless bridge, a D-Link Wireless-B bridge, circa 2002. The device was small, but ugly. It was slow and had annoyingly bright lights, but it got the job done. I could connect to Xbox Live and download TV shows via On Demand, even if the speeds weren’t spectacular.
Recently, the bridge stopped working. It had trouble connecting to the XBox network and wasn’t playing nice with our router. I got tired of disconnecting everything to diagnose weird network settings.
So the hunt was on for a faster bridge. Wireless-G bridges, especially for gaming, are plentiful. But I was holding out for something that could run at the newer Wireless-N standard because my router already broadcasts at that speed. Wireless-N bridges are just starting to appear in the marketplace and some cost as much as $100 or more.
The Express also recently was revamped to run at Wireless-N speeds. For $99 on Amazon, I had my device.
The setup wasn’t Apple-intuitive, but it did take less than an hour. I had to tell both the Extreme router and the Express bridge how to communicate with each other (it involved configuring an obscure protocol called “WDS” in the setup software). But once I got the green light from the Express, I was able to go online with the Xbox and the DirecTV box. Connections were speedier and both my laptop and desktop recognized the new iTunes speaker.
Combining iTunes streaming with the iPhone software “Signal,” I had an iTunes remote control that could change tracks from anywhere in the house (or outside of it).
For some people, this kind of setup might be overkill. It might be cheaper and less time-consuming to run a cable to the living room or have an installer come do it for you.
But I’ve found the Express to be a nice little Wi-Fi marvel, and streaming iTunes music (including copy-protected songs purchased from the iTunes store) is a welcome bonus.
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‘Mario Kart Wii’ scores; ‘GTA IV’ hype is white-hot
Usually we don’t get a glut of high-profile video games in the same week until the holiday season, but on Sunday, Nintendo launched “Mario Kart Wii,” and “Grand Theft Auto IV” launches at midnight tonight.
Because “GTA IV” isn’t available for the Wii, that means everybody (or at least everyone who’s a video gamer) wins. I took “Kart” for a spin a few hours Sunday and found it to be a worthy addition to Nintendo’s racing franchise.
I’m not ready to do a full review yet, but the little I played demonstrated that the goofy white plastic wheel that ships with “Mario Kart Wii” is more useful than I expected. The white wheel, which holds the Wiimote that clips into place, has a nice heft to it. Surprisingly, the racing game responds very well to rotations of the wheel. I thought the wheel might be annoying to hold up in the air and that it would make the game impossible to play. Nintendo must have worried about this too. They’ve made the game compatible with the older GameCube controller, the Wiimote minus the wheel and other Nintendo controllers that don’t require you to hold an object in the air for long periods.
“Kart” has the beautifully rendered, colorful tracks you’d expect from past “Mario Kart” games, but it also has nicely implemented online play. The game shows you where your online opponents hail from. If that sounds worrisome to parents, the game warns you to change your character name before venturing onto the Internet if it identifies your personal information in any way. Also, there’s no voice chatting in the game.
Nevertheless, online play, which has never been Nintendo’s strong suit, is a treat. The matches run smoothly, and it’s not hard to find a race and hop into the action.
I’ll post more about “Mario Kart Wii” as I keep playing, but so far I’m impressed.
As for the other big game, this week, it looks like “Grand Theft Auto IV” might be an even bigger hit than anyone expected. The violent, ambitious game, which we previewed in today’s paper, got a stellar write-up in The New York Times this morning and garnered unheard-of acclaim from the gaming press, scoring perfect and near-perfect reviews from those who played it early.
I don’t have a copy of the game yet, but I’ll be playing it as soon as I get my hands on it. By all indications so far, Rockstar has succeeded on its ambitions. Analysts are expecting the game to sell at least 9 million copies (at $60 a pop). If the game is as good as it sounds, expect it to have a long, long shelf life.
And if the angry e-mail I got this morning (a mass e-mail, but still) from lawyer and anti-“GTA”-crusader Jack Thompson is any indication, the argument about violence in video games (regardless of the quality of the game) is about to make a big comeback in mainstream media.
Some Best Buy stores and Gamestops will be having midnight launches for “GTA IV” tonight. If you have any hard-core gamers in your workplace, expect them to call in sick or to see them stumble in bleary-eyed Tuesday morning. Or, hey, that person might be you.
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Georgetown 8-year-old wins engineering award
I think when I was 8 years old, I was just learning the joys of beating Atari 2600 video games.
Carson Page of Georgetown has instead been playing around with customized circuits. The 8-year-old was written up last year in Electronic Engineering Times after tech company Actel Corp. asked Carson to help test out some of their software.
More recently, he was honored at a gala with an Editor’s Choice award at a recent Creativity in Technology Awards. As you can see below, the kid’s not just talented at technology: He also has impeccable fashion sense.
Congratulations, Carson.
Photo by Trish Tunney
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Still looking for a Wii? Try again Sunday
It seems incredible that there are still shortages of the Nintendo Wii, the $250 game console that debuted way back in November 2006. Nevertheless, this is the world in which we live: not enough Wiis, way too many empty-handed individuals who want to flail their arms in front of their TVs.
Toys ‘R’ Us says it’s getting a big Wii shipment that will be made available on Sunday. That’s also the day that the new racing game “Mario Kart Wii” debuts.
If you’ve been burned by going to a store and standing in line only to come away Wii-less, there’s hope. The retailer is taking $200 down payments on the system. They expect to get about 50 systems per store.
There are three locations in the area, so that means 150 new Wii owners should be getting happy on Sunday.
Here’s a copy of the online ad that got the attention of gaming sites, including this one:
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‘IT Girls’ present computer game showcase Saturday
Last year, we ran a big story about Project IT Girl, a program run by Austin’s Girlstart which trains high school-aged women for careers in math and science-related fields.
The three-year grant-funded program is in its second year and the young women of Project IT Girl are showcasing some of their work Saturday. A Computer Game Showcase in the lobby of Silicon Laboratories (400 W. Cesar Chavez St.) will take place 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The event is free and public. The game designs have been offered up to the One Laptop Per Child program for possibly inclusion. More information about the event is available at Girlstart’s Web site. They’re a hardworking group that we’ve always been proud to support.
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Facebook chats, adds funny cats
Two reasons to revisit Facebook this week — the Web site has added online chat for all users, and there’s a new application you might like.
Facebook Chat, which launched a few weeks ago but was only available to a few users, is now available for all members. The next time you log in, you’ll likely see a little notification telling you about chat. Thereafter, you might have to hunt for the chat application. It appears as a tiny strip on the bottom right of your Web browser window and looks like this:
Clicking on “Online friends” brings up a list of people you know on Facebook who are online. It’s very similar to Gmail’s chat and also gives you the option of making your chat into its own floating window.
The other thing exciting this week on Facebook (perhaps only for me and a few others) is Lolz, a Facebook extension of the Internet “lolcats” phenomenon. It was co-created by our friends at ICanHasCheezburger.com, too.
Using the application, you can upload photos (or select from a few pre-screened ones) and insert your own funny in-photo captions. You can also re-caption other people’s images, browse the funniest ones and share them with friends.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really proud of one of my first efforts:
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Digital review: ‘Patapon’ for the Sony PSP
“Patapon” for the Sony PSP is another cute, oddball game from the Japanese studio that brought us “Loco Roco.”
It mixes elements of real-time strategy games with the controls of rhythm titles such as “Parappa the Rapper” to create a genuinely original mix.
You control the Patapon, a group of animated little warriors who hunt and defend themselves from warring tribes. By equipping your groups of tribesmen with spears, shields and helmets, you prepare them to take down their dinner as well as giant dragons and crabs.
The fun starts on the battlefield: Your troops only respond to commands issued by a drum; using the PSP’s buttons, you tap out rhythms like “Pata-pata-pata-PON!” to move them or to get them to defend and attack.
It’s novel and fun for a few hours, but eventually it’s tiring to keep plugging in those button combinations again and again. The game does progress to allow for new kinds of attacks and spells, but by that point, you might have already checked out.
“Patapon” is best enjoyed in short bursts or as a weekend rental. It’s nearly as cute as “Loco Roco,” which featured singing yellow blobs rolling through a colorful wonderland, but doesn’t quite capture the same kind of magic.
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The Amazon Kindle: back in stock
Like the McRib is prone to do, the Amazon Kindle is making a triumphant return.
The slim, boring-colored e-reader debuted last year and, though skeptics said that a device to read electronic books was a losing proposition, the device has been sold out since November.
It’s now in stock at the Amazon.com store. Still costs $400, still includes free wireless access for downloading books, browsing the Web and e-mailing.
Unlike the Apple rumor mill, there’ve been no indications that a new or improved version of the Kindle is on the way. And if product shortages are any gauge, it sounds like Amazon is doing just fine with the version it’s selling.
And, hey, it looks like you can subscribe to the Statesman via the Kindle for $5.99 a month.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Internet, Shopping
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