The Smidgen

Image Credit: Edge Online

Martin De Ronde, not a name that you might be immediately familiar with, was co-founder of the games studio Guerrilla Games before it was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2005 and now best known for their Killzone titles.  He’s also the man behind the OneBigGame mini-publishing platform that aims to be the Band Aid of the games industry.

What the hell does that all mean?  It’s a charity, or rather, a non-profit organization with the goal of getting well-known game developers to create titles to be sold under the OneBigGame label having the proceeds go to charity, much like Band Aid.  And it’s working.  The first title Chime has already been released on Xbox Live Arcade.

Edge Online has a very nice, three-page article detailing the history of the OneBigGame project that you can check out in the source link but I’ll just summarize the whole deal here.  OBG (as I’m going to call it because I’m lazy) gets developers to donate their time and creativity to making games to sell with the proceeds going to charity, rather than asking companies to just fork over cash directly.

Why would developers want to spend their precious time creating a game instead?  Well first of all, the license with OGB only ranges from 4 to 12 months (flash games near the latter, XBLA games the former) after which the developer will receive the revenue.  Additionally, the developer retains the IP, it’s fully theirs and after the OBG exclusive period they are free to create a new title or an enhanced version of the first.  They can use OBG as a proving ground of sorts for new and radical ideas.

The way De Ronde has it worked out right now some larger and well known game studios are working with indie studios on projects.  In this way the big name guys act as creative consultant taking less of their time while the indie studio builds relationships, experience and a portfolio based off what the larger studio’s creative team came up with.  This concept actually allows big name houses to come up with some more creative and risky titles and in the end, the charities win with a quarterly check from the revenue.  Other games are coming from academia where students can use the game as a class project and then in the end, actually have something to release into the world.  Lot’s of wins all around.

At the moment OBG’s charity partners are Save the Children and the Starlight Children’s Foundation.  De Ronde hopes the one day give them more than just money too such as a game that’s tailored to give Starlight help to their children with problems.  While that will have to wait for later, here’s wishing De Ronde and OBG lots of success.  Now that the games industry is on par with movies, music and television, it’s nice to see a desire to give back in some way.

Source: Edge Online

Despite the fact that I have yet to really find a good reason to use Twitter (yes I use TweetMeme, no I don’t think it’s cool) the cover letter on their latest TPS report (that’s tweets per second, didn’t you get the memo?) is showing around 600 microblog babbles per second.  That comes in at over 51 million per day which is no small feat.

For comparison’s sake so 50 million has some meaning, in 2007 Twitter averaged about 5,000 per day, jumping to 300,000 per day in 2008 and then up again to 2.5 million in 2009 with about 35 million a day by the end of the year.  That’s some impressive numbers there especially considering that they supposedly do not include tweets from accounts labeled as spam.

Well, good onya Twitter, now please go away as I prefer complete sentences.

Original Post: AppScout

I’ll be honest, when Microsoft revealed Bing I was glad to see something that might finally give Google a little competition to keep things interesting but I really didn’t expect too much.  I use Bing now but of course I still use Google as well, moreso in fact, and iGoogle is still my homepage.  When Bing Maps unveiled some cool new tech a while back using Photosynth for a Streetview like display I took some more interest but it still wasn’t quite a “game changer” or anything to steal the thunder from the Googs.

Well with yet another TED conference to unleash the cool involved with Silverlight, Dragon and Photosynth here, Bing Maps has just really blown my mind.  Augmented Reality photos from Flickr, live video that is photo-stitched into the streetview image and the full night’s sky viewable from wherever you are in the street level view courtesy of WorldWide Telescope.  Watch the presentation video after the break, you shan’t be disappointed. continue reading…

For anyone who somewhat actively follows the mobile phone world (especially of the smart phone variety) it should come as no surprise that Microsoft has finally officially announced and revealed it’s new smart phone OS, Windows Phone 7 Series, at the MWC (Mobile World Conference) in Barcelona today.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of different portals on the interwebs where you can read the details of what 7 Series has to offer, read the liveblog of Microsoft’s announcement at MWC or check out a 22 minute long demonstration of the new OS, so I’m just going to summarize here and give you what you really want, my take.

The Quick (Details and such)

So what’s new, short and sweet?  I know it sounds trite but seriously, what isn’t new?  Hell even the OS’s name has changed from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7 Series (not exactly roll-off-the-tongue good but, hey).  Now if you take a quick look you’ll see that it looks nothing like WinMo 6.5.3 or any other previous MS Mobile OS, however, you will think right away (if you’re me or an equally techie webnerd) that it does look strikingly similar to the Zune HD.  Coincidence?  Not even remotely.  The interface theme is called Metro and it actually started with the refresh to Windows Media Player a while back, moved on to the Zune and has now found a new home in the 7 Series.  Large, bold text and lacking the ‘chrome’ or flashy graphics from other systems.  Simple, clean, wholly un-MS like from the start … except now it’s part of one of their main OSes, which is some sort of paradox I don’t want to think about right now.  If you stop to think about it (and you are actually interested in that sort of thing), it’s pretty impressive that MS, as big and unwieldy as it seems, was able to shed the WinMo skin so completely, though of course they desperately needed to. continue reading…

So I’m reading a BBC News article and firstly, there’s no author that I can see so the part of my rage the would be directed at said author goes unfulfilled, crafty British.  Anywho, the article is about “Raz”, a “massive Xbox gamer” who uses his console every day after work and all day on the weekends.  You know, a socialite.  Well it appears that after “acquiring” the latest record setting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, he was “gutted” to learn that Microsoft has banned him from playing games online.

Why, you might ask?  Well he’s a theif, plain and simple.  Raz has a modded Xbox and pirates his games.  Now no one get all uppity about pirating software one way or the other, I don’t care how you feel about it if you don’t realize that a company or person will be disinclined to let you use a product they’re trying to sell for free, you’re a friggen idiot.  Anyway I would ordinarily think nothing of this article, that kind of thing happens fairly frequently, people steal games and sometimes they get caught, boo-hoo, he’s not getting some sort of ridiculous RIAA fine or jail time, just no more online gaming because you’re a criminal, whaaan.

What sets me off on this is that this guy is literally flabbergasted by this fact.  He’s astounded to learn that his openly admitted, publicly communicated theft of £600 worth of games (just under $1,000 to us Yanks) has earned him a ban.  Furthermore he states that, while he won’t mod another console, he’s unsure if he will buy another Xbox or get a PS3 now instead.

Let me get this straight, you essentially stole one large worth of games, got a slap on the hand and now you’re so mad at Microsoft you’re going to get a PS3 instead?  Wow, guess what chief, I don’t think they’re going to miss you.  Maybe Sony can use this for some creative marketing, “Xbox Live won’t let you play because you’re a dirty criminal, welcome PSHome!”  Somehow I don’t think Sony will exactly be thrilled with that sort of support either.

Some good quotes from the article after the break:

continue reading…

Got that spiffy new Zune HD but feel like your squandering your Tegra powered goodness?  Well fret no more as the latest firmware update 4.3 (released last Friday) opened up the world of 3D gaming to Microsoft’s plucky little PMP.

Along with fixing that odd little playcount issue, the 4.3 player update added support for upcoming 3D games and apps which have now arrived on the Marketplace.  Though the list is still rather small the good part is that all the games are (as promised) free!

On a personal note I seriously hope this means that support for full-on community development, and a paid marketplace to encourage said community, is on the way.  The day of Xbox Live Arcade merging with the Zune Marketplace is coming, I can feel it.

Here’s the game list:

• PGR: ferrari edition, a 3d racegame
• Lucky lane bowling, a 3d bowling game
• Vans Sk8: Pool service, a 3d Skate game
• Piano, a simple piano where you can play your own tunes on
• Audio Surf: Tilt, ride your music – you choose a song that the game will turn into a roller coaster track for you to ride
• Checkers, I don’t think you’ll need a description for this one

Update: Engadget fired up PGR on their Zune HD, uploaded a video and had this to say about it.

That Tegra chip is no joke — the graphics in PGR: Ferrari Edition are easily on par with the PSP and quite possibly better, with intricate textures, high-quality reflections, and smooth framerates. The other games aren’t nearly as intense, but they’re just as smooth.

John McCain, presidential candidate and self professed technology curmudgeon, who admitted during his presidential campaign to having little or no knowledge or interest in modern technologies like email or the Internet, seems to suddenly be very interested in it’s ‘freedom‘.

His new bill, the ‘Internet Freedom Act’ sets out to stop the FCC from going forward with any sort of Net Neutrality regulations after the FCC has unanimously voted to go ahead with talks to formalize net neutrality guidelines.  In the bill the FCC “shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.”  Now I have to echo Tony Bradley of PC World’s statement here and ask, isn’t that what the FCC is supposed to do?

Now McCain certainly knows nothing about the internet but he does know about removing regulations in the thought that the free market will police themselves, just like AT&T did when they blocked VoIP services or Comcast did when they throttled peer-to-peer networking on the down-low, both of which only retracted after threat of FCC net neutrality rules.  Go team “Honest and Fair”!

You know guys, if there is a legitimate reason to block net neutrality guidelines you have 120 days to gather your data and present your case in the debate the FCC has just voted to have.  No guidelines have actually been set yet so perhaps waving around legislation like a torch to scare off ‘the beast’ is a bit premature.  Remember, 120 days, and since you’re probably not good at math that’s about four months to prepare to defend the internet’s ‘freedom’.  Which I supposed would be the ‘god’ given freedom to rape and pillage, right?

It’s been a long, long time coming but if the rumors are true the next handheld system from Nintendo may get a significant performance boost thanks to the Tegra in the form of the tentatively named Nintendo TS (Tegra System?).  Yup, that’s right, the same multi-core ARM based chip that powers the new Zune HD could give Nintendo a portable system that is on par with the Wii in terms of processing power and graphics output.  Moreover, it could actually compete with the feature set of its closest rival, the PSP.

The news gets even better when you consider that the previous generations of DS hardware were based around 16 and then 32-bit ARM cores, making the leap to Tegra painless and, very likely, backwards compatible, which everyone apparently loves.

If true, this design win for the Tegra chip would mean a huge boost in revenue for Nvidia knowing that they power the new version of Nintendo’s 100 million selling DS system.

Conversely, this could be dire news for Microsoft if it ever plans on getting into the handheld market with their Zune hardware.  The Zune HD currently uses the same Tegra chip and therefore is currently sitting idly on the processing honchos to deliver a great gaming experience.  That is, of course, if MS can ever get off it’s backside and integrate the Xbox Live Arcade into the Zune and vice versa.  Delay too long and Nintendo will swoop in with a Tegra of it’s own and a long history of success in the handheld market to swing around like a 10 ton hammer.

The handheld market just got a whole lot more interesting for me.  Look for this rumored device to land sometime in late winter of 2010.

Big old rumor alert here so grab that chunk of salt you keep laying around for just such an occasion.  It seems that SquareEnix head, Yoichi Wada, is predicting that Nintendo will unleash a Wii HD with graphic capabilities similar to the current PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.

This of course would not be the first time for such a rumor but it is the first one I know of coming from the head of a major game development studio.

An HD Wii that supports HDMI and 1080p with actual current gen graphics would go a long way toward swinging my attention back to the big N.  Of course playing catchup in 2011 is all fine and dandy until the next Xbox releases in 2012 (another rumor, that one).

Yeah ... looks real comfortable alright ...

Oh Japan, how I love you and your crazy sh*t.  See that thing on the left there with the suit precariously balanced on it?  Yeah, that’s Honda’s answer to the Segway.  A self propelled, self balancing, 3.7mph traveling unicycle that moves in the direction you lean.  Tightrope not included.

The U3-X weighs in at just under 22lbs and though it’s just “a proposal” right now, it’s designed with the elderly as a first thought, world takeover a close second (like all of Japan’s robots).  The wheel is actually comprised of many tiny motor-controlled wheels that allow it to swerve around in any direction when you lean that way.

I’m not really sure how the less mobile and coordinated elderly (you know, the ones that need a device to move them around) would fair with something like this but hey, that’s not the point, the point is it’s cool and weird right?  Right!?  Want to see some more pictures (you know you do), check out the Daily Mail article.