Alexoid

New Blog, New Domain, New Feed

2005-08-29T15:46:00.000+03:00

Everyone, listen up. I've moved everything to TypePad and started redirecting all incoming traffic to the new domain (http://www.alexoid.com) -- There's also a new feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Alexoid So update your feed readers. The new design will happen over time and I've just updated the current design slightly to work better and fit with the way TypePad works. I'm still getting the hang of it so bear with me while I iron out the kinks.

Flash, Virals & Alcohol

2005-08-26T16:26:00.000+03:00

I love virals and while I found it to be borderline disturbing I enjoyed this Snickers effort (thanks, George). Interesting concept which isn't new but I appreciate the simplicity and how it's tied into the marketing message. It never hurts to connect simple emotions to your brand but to me the eyebrow plucking thing means "pain" more than "satisfaction". And while we're at it here's a pants pulling viral by A&E TV (thanks, Dimitri). Love the production values on that one. Some more great Flash artistry can be found over at Grey Goose. This isn't the only pretty spirit site however. Mmm, mojitos.

Google Chat Application

2005-08-23T18:13:00.000+03:00

Word on the street (thanks, William) is that the now $4 billion richer Google will be announcing its Jabber-based instant messaging application tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how Google will change the IM market, they're bound to do much more than a little ripple especially since they're the first big player to opt for an open standard. Their new Google Desktop release is great (although I won't use the sidebar much) and I'm in love with the Google Toolbar for Firefox. But that's not all, We're now hearing rumours that they might be planning a host of buyouts and expansions including a massive WiFi network. I showed someone around Google's offering a couple of weeks ago and was myself reminded how much bloody cool stuff these guys are constantly churning out. Update: It's out! (Thanks, Howard) Gmail integration, voice chatting and they link to compatible IM clients. Feature wise, this is much more Skype than MSN Messenger. Voice quality seems good enough and latency low. Very simple, very solid and we could connect to everyone already using a Jabber-friendly IM client. Lovely.

A List Apart 4.0

2005-08-23T13:41:00.000+03:00

Zeldman and co launch the brand spanking new A List Apart. I love it, it's gorgeous. Just look at it, don't you want to just squeeze it till it pops? Well done everyone. New design. New structure. New server. New publishing system powered by Ruby on Rails. As the dog days of summer draw to a close, we present A List Apart 4.0. I badly need to redesign this piece of crap blog. Can't wait till I get some time (hum) to make it not only pretty but finally standards compliant. Speaking of blogging, Blogger users can now post using a plug-in for Microsoft Word. Shame, I've been seriously considering leaving Blogger for my own hosted solution or Typepad for ages but then again I use WBloggar anyway.

Dells & Whistles

2005-08-22T10:40:00.000+03:00

It would seem that Mr. Jarvis has found his true calling in going against Dell. In this open letter to Michael Dell he implores the former poster-boy for quality & affordability to stop ignoring the current negative buzz and admit that they cocked up. A good recap of what's been going on in the past few months. Your customer satisfaction is plummeting, your marketshare is shrinking, and your stock price is deflating. I used to recommend Dell to everyone as it pretty much used to stand for peace of mind but today I would think twice as there have been too many dissapointments and an attitude that just gets on my nerves.

Yes

2005-08-22T10:04:00.000+03:00

I've just returned from a great 5 day stay in Paris. Great because Paris is still one of the most spectacular places on earth but mostly because Sophie, best friend and partner of nine years said 'yes' on Saturday. The best day of my life.

Zotob Worm Hits Windows Fast

2005-08-17T01:03:00.000+03:00

Just watching Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room and the big news is this new Zotob worm. I don't have much time to research it but it seems to shut down your computer. Pretty much every version of Windows is vulnerable. Lovely. Checking Windows Update for a patch now. If you're not sure, disconnect your machine until there's more information. I just heard Wolf list out the OSes that Zotob targets and he mentioned something called Windows NE. NE? Could it be ANY windows or just a typo. Tokyo-based Trend Micro stated, that "ZOTOB" exploits holes in Microsoft Windows platforms such as 2000, NE, ME, 98, 95 and XP and can give an attacker remote access to infected systems. Apparently, there is a Windows NE somewhere. Has anyone heard of it before? Google ain't helping.

The Big Moo

2005-08-16T00:59:00.000+03:00

Well, Seth Godin's latest project is finally upon us. The Big Moo is not only Seth's last traditional book project but is also a 100% charitable & collaborative effort (32 co-authors ain't bad). As always, he's got some new ideas on how to promote the book so if you think you're eligible you might want to take a stab at the galley offer. With the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters and Dan Pink involved you could do a lot worse than order this book today. And as the book says... Stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable.

MacOS X Running on a Standard PC

2005-08-15T20:31:00.000+03:00

As a hacked developer/x86 version of OSX was floating about it was only a matter of time until someone would figure out a way of running it on garden-variety PCs. Here's the guide to succesfully installing and running MacOS X on a standard Vaio notebook. Did anyone really expect this wouldn't happen? It may be a good idea for Apple to just give in and sell OSX for standard PCs. Heck, I'd buy it. Maybe select partners (Dell? HP?) could release MacOS-ready PCs. An other interesting outcome of Apple's move to Intel processors could be the possibility of running Windows on a Apple machine. This would make buying hardware from Apple extremelly attractive to a whole lot of people. Dual boot Windows/MacOSX machine anyone?

Helios Airlines Plane from Cyprus Crashes into Greek Mountains

2005-08-14T12:42:00.000+03:00

A local airliner has just crashed on a flight from Larnaca to Athens. Very little news is available. There were 120 people on board. From AP: The airport lost all contact with the plane which should have landed in the late morning, and two air force planes sent up in econaissance found it flying above the Euboea peninsula, but they saw the pilots doubled up in the cabin. From Reuters: State television said there was an unconfirmed report that one of the pilots of the Helios Airlines plane had collapsed with illness just before the crash.

Flickr for Voyeurs

2005-08-12T13:14:00.000+03:00

Random people, random moments... This is what BIT-101's Flash Flickr Screensaver is all about. A great snapshot of people's daily lives captured straight from Flickr's RSS feed. Strangely addictive.

Friday Linkage

2005-08-12T11:17:00.000+03:00

If you like robots, kittens and pretty girls (and who doesn't) why not visit Ashley Wood's site. It's filled with great work including the mighty PopBot. Gasp, shock! Big agencies launch great sites done by third-parties! BBDO does the right thing and gets WeFail to build their primary site. They're not the first to have seen the light however as Fallon London had the brilliant insight of getting the crazy robots at Hi-Res! to build their presence and what an awesome job they did to. My favourite however has to be Interone's breathtaking site. Who's responsible for this one? Is it an in-house job? These guys should be next. Macromedia's Scott Fegette is posting a new Studio 8 Feature every day on his blog. Dreamweaver background file transfer? Code collapse? I might stand the risk of sounding like a fanboy but this looks set to be the release we've all been waiting for.

Drivey!

2005-08-10T17:25:00.000+03:00

Oh, Drivey sure is purty (thanks, William). Download it, enjoy it. Clean smooth vectors. Lovely lovely stuff.

Flash 8's Other Features

2005-08-10T11:17:00.000+03:00

Macromedia's Mike Downey posts about The lesser-known new features of Flash Professional 8. Very exciting stuff including: Library enhancements: First of all, the library now stays where you left it when you re-launch the application! Woo-hoo! It is also now saved when you create your own custom panel sets. But we didn't stop there. We also introduced a solution to the, "Oh my God, I have way too many docked library panels right now!" problem by consolidating all open libraries into a single panel that uses a drop down box to switch to a different library. For people who like to have multiple library panels open, however, we still support doing so by using the "Clone" button at the top of the library panel. We also allow you to pin the open library so it does not switch when you tab to a different open FLA file. Woo-hoo indeed.

The 10 Greatest Inventions

2005-08-10T10:36:00.000+03:00

Encarta's Tamim Ansary posts his 10 Greatest Inventions (thanks, Vanja). A good read, quite witty overall. He gives the computer the number 9 spot and let's it all out... Okay, look. I'll come clean: my deepest, richest, most diverse, and rewarding relationship is with my computer. It plays games with me, tells me jokes, plays music to me, and does my taxes. I have great conversations with it, too. These conversations appear as e-mail and take on the personalities of supposed 'friends,' but the human embodiments of those 'friends' are rarely with me. My concrete relationship is with this object on my desk (or in my lap). It's good to share.

VoipBuster!

2005-08-10T10:17:00.000+03:00

Update: Tried it a few times, bought the 1 nominal credit and I have to say VOIPBuster works brilliantly. All countries not listed as free are reachable at cheap rates. The fact that it's cheap/free is one thing, the fact that it works so bloody well is what really does it for me. Connecting for the first time was one of those holy shit moments people talk about. This is pretty amazing, a free PC to landline application that actually works. I was sceptical at first but Engadget has also tested it. Is it a scam? I don't think so but "to good to be true" does spring to mind. Current supported countries Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom & theUnited States. VoipBuster only gives you one minute per call until you pay a nominal one euro fee, this is bound to be replaced with some sort of tariff but for now it works perfectly and you get unlimited calltime. First impression is that it's more seemless and responsive than SkypeOut. The nifty speaker phone button (to switch between headset and speakers) is a great idea. One to watch...

102 Free Games

2005-08-09T10:52:00.000+03:00

1UP has a list of 102 "free" games. Some are free free while some are free to try (which is a bit cheeky but hey). The great thing is that most of these are games coming from indy developers. Great to see the amount of originality and creativity floating about. There's a version of Maniac Maniac in there which survives gracefully after nearly 20 years. If you haven't played it you really ought to. In other news: FlashGuru's collection of Flash 8 demos is one of the best I've seen. Power Goo is just too cool.

The Aristocrats

2005-08-08T16:16:00.000+03:00

Kottke reviews The Aristocrats and kind of likes it. I had just seen the trailer and the premise seemed amusing but can I really be bothered to hear 100 people tell the same joke over and over again while trying to be as filthy as possible? I mean, I can get that kind of entertainment going for a beer with friends. After some research I found out that the joke is something comedians improvise to backstage. I might be the last person on earth to have heard about this but the joke goes something like this: A guy walks into an agent's office with his family (dog, grandma, wife, son, etc...) and says they have a family act. The agent says he isn't interested in a family act as they're too "cute". The guy says to watch them once so he can change his mind. They do all sorts of unspeakable stuff to each other and when the stunned agent asks what this crazy act is called the guy answers "The Aristocrats"! Now the horrible stuff in the middle is what the comedian is supposed to come up with. The filthier the better. Not sure how that can be enough for an entire feature's worth of entertainment but it's interesting none-the-less. It does sound like watching this movie could be like listening to an in-joke where you "just had to be there". Like Kottke says the joke isn't really that funny but this isn't really the point. I don't quite know what the point is however and I'm still undecided as to weather I'm going to sit through that one. Here's South Park's filthy, unsafe, insane version of it. This is really, really offensive, I do warn you. Really... I've warned you. I mean, I was pretty shocked and I've heard plenty. On another note I always enjoy reading things like this brilliant write-up found in IMDB: Comedy veterans and co-creators Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on their insider status and invite over 100 of their closest friends--who happen to be some of the biggest names in entertainment, from George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Cary to Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Paul Reiser and Sarah Silverman--to reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their their own versions of world's dirtiest joke, an old burlesque, too extreme to be performed in public, called The Aristocrats. 100 of their closest friends? God, this must mean millions of mere acquaintances.

Studio 8 Pre-Ordering

2005-08-08T11:45:00.000+03:00

You can now pre-order Macromedia Studio 8 which includes Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8 and Fireworks 8 (it seems that 8 is the new black) for a mid-september delivery.

The Reason why Microsoft isn't Completely Adopting Standards in IE7

2005-08-04T18:52:00.000+03:00

Update: Jeffrey Zeldman, world famous web standards & facial hair advocate seems (& generally a very cool guy) quite optimistic about IE7. Makes me feel better. Update 2: I for one am not angry at Molly. (Thanks Alex) I am also not angry at anyone else than the people who make the decisions at Microsoft. I'm sure people wanted to work on IE7 the second 6 was released. The developers look as camera shy and unhealthily obsessed about RSS than the rest of us. Bless. So we're all pondering how the biggest software company in the world doesn't find the resources to shut everyone up and fully adopt standards for IE7. Does anyone remember "developers, developers, developers"? Properly implementing standards isn't easy but when you've got the resources to go head-to-head with Sony in the console war you can bloody do this. Does it not make financial sense? Is it a move to keep some IE7 not completely compatible so they can use its ubiquity to push Microsoft-only technologies? I can't think of a single reason. I mean, buy Opera and integrate their code or something. There are legions of geeks currently indoctrinating thousands people and making them move to Firefox. Give them a reason to stop. Stop dissapointing everyone. RSS? Thanks, that's nice. Tabs? Wooh! You could have tabs with IE 2 years ago when this lone dude decided to build a new GUI for IE. Fixed bugs? Thank you. Another reason could be that the decision makers are simply completely out of their minds. Until someone gives me a valid reason I might just stick with that. You've seen it a hundred times before but here's a good collection of Steve Balmer going insane. I think it's a good indication of the reasoning behind the "no complete standards compliance after 7 years of doing nothing" decision.

Transparent Screens

2005-08-04T17:15:00.000+03:00

Oh, this is just great (thanks, Ant). Snapshots of a background placed properly can make your screen look transparent. It's one of those "why the hell didn't I think of that" things (you know like airplanes and croissants with chocolate in them) but you could take the concept quite a bit further. Here's my idea, and you're welcome to build an empire from it as long as you call it Alexoid-something, send me a free unit, royalty payments and a limo: a camera that sticks to the back of screens with piece of software that transforms the feed into a desktop background. It could simply be done with a standard webcam and Flash. Admittedly, you'd need some sort of tracking device in front of the screen that moves the camera according to where you're looking at the screen from to give a better illusion of transparency. That would bring the price up from 50 bucks to about 5 grand. Worth it? I think so.

Falling Women, Flash 8 & Mojitos

2005-08-04T16:41:00.000+03:00

Ho-hum. I guess it happens to all of us and I do talk about it a lot but I find weirdness of search engine traffic one of the most appealing thing about running a blog. Interested or not... Here's the top 10: "amazing falling woman", "alexoid", "mojitos", "flash 8 performance beta", "wulffmorgenthaler", "falling woman flash", "bit-101 inverse kinematics", "flash 8 release", "to cool for ie" & last but not least "penises". Amazing falling woman? Sure it relates to that rather excellent IK falling girl Flash thing I posted a while back but I'm surprised it's number one as this thing has been linked about twelve million times. Some other favourites from the top 100: "google hot girls", "jacket potato" and "real doll alternatives". Real doll alternatives? You mean, like er, women?

There's One Born Every Second

2005-08-04T12:57:00.000+03:00

Not an idiot, a blogger (or quite possibly both). At this rate my (tongue-embedded-in-cheek) prediction of blog-writers surpassing blog-readers within the next 5 years could well come true. We could reach a critical mass of incestuous cross-linking which could mean that information just gets redigested over and over again and we'll be reading about the same thing passed on from blog to blog until it reaches full circle. I'd say that at least 30% (I'm using guestimate statistics now, seems to work for this guy) of all posts I read through Bloglines daily are permutations of the same exact story. I know that this is a big part of blogging (and the internet as a whole) but wouldn't you just love a service which binds all similar stories into a single entry, collects all the links (source, other news, Flickr stream, etc...) and provides a single page with a digest and then opinions on this story around the blogosphere. All you need is an artificial intelligence algorithm that understands the subtleties of natural language and can make human-like decisions. I mean come on, how hard could that be? They had one like that in Terminator, I'm sure they could make it work in Linux or something. Look, I just come up with the ideas... In other news: Man, this is cool (and completely irrelevant): uploading and downloading within Flash. Rich goes a bit weird. Seth has something to say about ninjas. I have sent out my own legion of contract ninjas since he just mentioned me as the anonymous "Alex" when giving me kudos for a link and now nobody believes that the most famous bald guy since Kojak actually posted something I sent in. Damn you, generic first name!

Make Friends, Lose Job

2005-08-04T11:32:00.000+03:00

You know something is wrong when someone passes a law that would allow management to legally prohibit getting together for a drink after work. So now that fraternising with co-workers can be banned, what's next? Pats on the back, smiling, picture of your loved ones, using the word "hello"? Is it just me or is everyone else also getting freaked out by all this?

The End of the Printshop?

2005-08-04T11:16:00.000+03:00

Probably not quite yet but Engadget posts about another step towards the complete home printshop: CraftROBO’s Cutter Printer. It prints, it cuts, it dazzles your friends. High-quality devices that print on CDs and edge-to-edge are available for under $100, laser printers are becoming affordable and now we get consumer-grade cutters? Many companies have already moved a lot of their stationary printing to an in-house, on-demand system (brochure covers with a prospective client's name on it anyone?) and while you still get the best quality/price ratio from mass-printing the consistent improvements in DIY printing and the slow and steady migration to digital documents are certainly not welcome news for printshops around the globe. I'm not expecting an extinction of "video rental store" proportions and the print industry has had the insight to continuously update itself in the past decade (digital printers, specialised inks, affordable watermarking, constantly lowering prices, etc...) but with things like CafePress making printing on all sorts of things a no-risk affair and Epson/HP printers consistently delivering more features at a lower price one has to wonder where the craft is heading. Next up, a free Dell 3D printer with every Inspiron.

Exactitudes

2005-08-01T18:26:00.000+03:00

Exactitudes is a photographic experiment inspired by the dress codes adopted by different social groups. Striking, powerful work that exposes the subtle balance between being unique and belonging to a group. The site is simple and perfect. (Thanks, PSFK)

Good News! IE7 Won't Pass Acid 2 Test

2005-08-01T10:59:00.000+03:00

Microsoft's IE team decides to be very upfront about its position on standards-compliance on the IEBlog. This is a bit of a good news/bad news situation as they announce adherance to "appropriate web standards" in future (beta) releases while admitting that IE7 won't pass the Acid 2 test. At least they're working on fixing the "IE/Win Line-height bug". Gosh, if the most powerful software company in the world has so much trouble building a decent browser I wonder how these guys did it. (...) I’ll go ahead and relieve the suspense by saying we will not pass this test when IE7 ships. (...) We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support. We’ve dug through the Acid 2 Test and analyzed IE’s problems with the test in some great detail, and we’ve made sure the bugs and features are on our list - however, there are some fairly large and difficult features to implement, and they will not all sort to the top of the stack in IE7. I believe we are doing a much better service to web developers out there in IE7 by fixing our known bang-your-head-on-the-desk bugs and usability problems first, and prioritizing the most commonly-requested features based on all the feedback we've had.

Dell and the Blog

2005-08-01T10:34:00.000+03:00

Stumbled across this today (noticed that Hugh also posted it, and now Seth, the Alex he's refering to is me, believe it or not). A story about an expensive meal, Jeff Jarvis, two ladies and an overheard conversation which Dell (and many, many others) should really pay attention to. Are we moving towards the Teflon market? You know, the one where bullshit doesn't stick... This 'blogging stuff' is moving mainstream seriously fast. You and your management team had better be watching what's going on because Jeff Jarvis and Aunt Mildred both have blogs and both can call BS on whatever BS you are serving up.

Flash 888

2005-07-29T13:25:00.000+03:00

News.com is stating that Flash 8 will be announced on August the 8th. Now all that date stuff meants they could be sticking to the "8" moniker, as the official vote for the acquisition by Adobe isn't until August the 24th the software will still be most likely be released as Macromedia Flash 8 or Flash MX2005 (and not Adobe Flash CS2, hoom). Official release is expected "a few weeks later". Would have been cooler if they waited for 2008.

IE7 Beta1 out in the Wild

2005-07-29T13:05:00.000+03:00

Slashdot talks of the closed beta (MSDN subscribers only) release of Windows Vista and IE7 Beta1 For Windows XP. IE7 is already out on torrent sites, pretty sure you can find it here. Word on the street is that full-CSS implementation is not on the agenda (yet?) Pretty sure reviews are going to start pouring out right about... now. Update: hands-on reviews of the beta are already floating about. I know it's still early days but it doesn't look good. Huge memory needs, terrible PNG handling, incomplete CSS2 support... Pff.

Ghost in the Shell, for Real

2005-07-28T17:10:00.000+03:00

In my previous post I said that this was the future, but to be honest this (kudos, Ant) might be a better way to go. A human looking android has always been the benchmark of robotics so it was only a matter of time until someone merged a Real Doll with an Aibo. The real aim though is to pass some sort of robotic Turing test: Professor Ishiguro believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for a human, if only for a brief period. -- "An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said. In other news: I try, I really do and while I get good ranking for stuff like Flash and other serious things I post about a lot of my search engine traffic makes me look rather unsavoury. I mean, I'm third on MSN Search for the word "penises" (here's a screenshot if it changes). Really, not like this is a 100% clean blog but it's not exactly Stile Project either.

What's wrong with this picture?

2005-07-27T16:59:00.000+03:00

While video rental stores are going the way of the dodo (Blockbuster, what's your plan?) Netflix, which revolutionised movie rentals with its mail service is gearing up for the launch of its movie download service (source: PSFK). The question is, why is this only happening now and why are the big guys waiting for people like Netflix to steal the market so they can try to emulate them and maybe pick-up some of the crumbs. I would have thought that the "kill Napster, watch it go underground and then watch Apple take over" episode would have surely shown studios, retail and rental companies that delivering the goods by pipe would be an inevitable outcome of the digital revolution. Going to buy/rent a DVD or CD stopped being enjoyable a long time ago. In the long run, there is no option but delivering media over the internet in whatever form it takes. Sure, it could dramatically alter the marketplace but there are no alternatives. I mean this is the future (note: this link is neither pleasant, nor office-safe). Why isn't everyone ready? People blame piracy but why can't I pay Fox to download an episode from The Simpsons for say 1 or 2 bucks while any kid around the world with an ADSL connection can download full episodes and watch them for free on his/her Xbox before they air? Why not expand your market and start delivering digitally to countries where the only real way to watch/listen to your product without months of delay is to download it illegally. For god's sake, here's a way to stamp out piracy: make your product available! Make it a reasonably priced, well thought-out experience. Why do I have to watch 2 minutes of some shitty ad calling me a thief before I watch a DVD which I paid good money for? The guy that downloads the movie illegally doesn't need to sit through that rubbish. And trying to compare watching a pirated movie to "stealing a TV" is simply wrong: when you steal a TV the dude you stole it from doesn't keep it. If it's all about starting a conversation, the media industry is taking the "kid being lectured by the headmaster" route. I think that they should come to terms with the fact that when people are thinking of media execs the vision of some young guy in a $5,000 suit snorting coke through a rolled-up $100 bill off a hooker's chest comes to mind, not a hard-working individual trying to make a living. Sure we're being mean, but damn, there's a lot of work to be done before the general population starts feeling like copying a tape from a friend is actually hurting someone they could care about. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish and the sign of an industry so inflicted with the neutered cat mentality that it has no idea how to treat the people who fund it. Disney blasts you with a flood of unskippable ads everytime you want to watch The Lion King -- wonderful movie, awful way to start it. If the pirated product offers a better experience than an original one you're in deep, deep trouble. But I digress, if your product can be sold digitally, why are you only thinking about it?

Sudoku

2005-07-27T11:19:00.000+03:00

During one of the few relaxing moments of the rather stressful week-end I gave Sudoku a shot to see what all the fuss was about. Sudoku is a number game which originated in the US only to become huge in Japan before it caught on in places like the UK. The Brits have officially gone Sudoku crazy (and yes, I am a bit late with this). All further proof that you can't really predict these types of viral crazes. Maybe the global pick-up was fueled by the new name (Sudoku is better than Number Place), maybe the fact that it was sold as a Japanese puzzle did the trick. An interesting tidbit is that the pick-up in Japan was mostly attributed to the fact that it didn't have to compete with crossword puzzles as they aren't practical in Japanese. I am told that puzzle games, and number games in particular are extremelly popular in Japan. Try a great online version of it here. Sudoku in many respects is the perfect puzzle game; It's easy to understand but hard to master, the difficulty of a table can be as easy or devilishly difficult as you want, they can be generated automatically (unlike crosswords), it travels well (no words) and works as well in print as online. I remember driving towards London from Exeter (don't remember where now) and seeing a giant sudoku grid on a hillside, does anyone know what that was?

Stranded!

2005-07-23T19:26:00.000+03:00

Engine just blew on the way to the beach. Spark plugs popped out (maybe not, after all). Sending the car back but will try to still enjoy the weekend. At least my phone still works. Messed up room booking. Car busted. What a day. Here is a picture of a bunch me people angry at me. Update: Not sure what's wrong with the car yet. Managed to get to beach and a great mexican dinner so it wasn't all bad. -- Car was fixed in a couple of days, water-pump failed. The engine seems fine which is extremelly lucky as it could have blown. Thanks to the people (fix your blog William) who came to pick us up. And the American Express roadside rescue service rocked.

Stella says drink and drive

2005-07-23T01:40:00.000+03:00

Out with friends. Stella Artois has a new campaign that tells you to `drink a classic and drive a legend` Drink and drive? You might want to rethink that message.

Google & Lesbians

2005-07-22T16:00:00.000+03:00

Update: Somebody pointed me to The Lesbian Scene Movie Database. I thought it would be wise to post it. I might be proven wrong. D'ave from Hello World Blog has something to say about lesbians: Lesbians are only hot girls, so the rest of you hunched, leering, badly dressed females (and I use that term in a form more loose than they are) are fakers and frauds. I know this, because I have seen a few movies on the subject, and lesbians, without exception, look like the two in the pic on the left. It is a lovely, wondrous thing. Don't mess it up. While linking this may seem a little gratuitous at first (that and it's pretty fucking funny) I can assure you that this actually is quite a legitimate experiment. You see, while I try my utmost to be informative and up-to-date with in-depth coverage of design, marketing & technology (and a wee bit of gaming), most of the search engine linkage I get seems to be for posts were I mention penises, piercing, mojitos and other such things you wouldn't mention at the dinner table with the local vicar. I'm generally quite tasteful and objective but in the name of higher Google traffic I give you two hot girls kissing. In other news: Tom Peters once again hits the nail right on the head. He's the man. Apparently, MacOS X Flash 8 stuff is much faster because of OpenGL acceleration. We were talking about this kind of acceleration the other day and were wondering if it would be possible for Macromedia to accelerate Flash content using DirectX or OpenGl. Apparently it is.

Longhorn Now Vista

2005-07-22T11:44:00.000+03:00

Update: Longhorn is now officially called Windows Vista. (Thanks, CMD) Funny how this happens. Just yesterday I was wondering when Microsoft would announce their "real" name for Windows Longhorn as the thing has been in development for so long its beta name has spread far beyond geekdom. While many were anticipating Microsoft going back to the "year of release" moniker and call it Windows 2006 or possibly another double letter like XR or XE, some even had anticipated Windows 360. However, Adrian has just informed me that ActiveWin has leaked that the next generation Windows would be called Windows Vista. Odd name, not sure what I make of it yet. Bring on the Windows "Hasta la Vista" jokes. The official new name for the Longhorn operating system is Microsoft Windows Vista, according to our insider sources. The name was mentioned today at the Microsoft sales conference in Atlanta. The official announcement will go live at 6 AM PST. In other news: Aleksandar says the latest build of PearPC (PowerPC emulator for x86) is the shit. Howard gets a brand new kind of Dell experience (read a bad one). Sony finally delivers a web browser for it's PSP. This means being able to use the PSP properly without having to hack the crap out of it apparently.

Is My Elevator Pitch Hot or Not?

2005-07-21T11:03:00.000+03:00

Here's something interesting: a site which lets others rate your Elevator Pitch. If anything this should get people thinking about their 10 second pitch and in the process start thinking objectively about what their 'thing' is. An 'elevator pitch' is a quick and concise way to communicate who you are, what you're trying to do and why you do it better. It's much more than a mission statement, it's understanding your business in a way that gets people excited and thinking. In other news: Download.com redesigns. Clean, dynamic, compliant. Me like. They've gone all bloggy on us too. If you're the type of person that likes to undo knots Planarity is a good way to kill a couple of hours. If you've only got a couple of minutes, why not play around with this cool real-time motion blur thingy in Flash 8.

Intel Macs are Fast

2005-07-21T10:30:00.000+03:00

Engagdet reports that AppleInsider is pretty impressed with the speed of the new Intel Macs. (...) the latest word from AppleInsider is that these boxes — which sport 3.6 GHz P4s, 1GB of RAM and Intel 900 Graphics Media Accelerators — are fast: booting into OSX takes as little as 10 seconds, Web browsers render HTML faster than they do on PowerPC boxes, and apps running under the Rosetta “dynamic binary translator” run almost as fast as they do on PowerPCs. I know that the Intel move and the fact that standard P4's could be faster running OSX then PowerPC chips is not making some Mac evangelists happy. Benchmarks were only run on Intel/Windows vs PPC/OSX but now that the same software will run on the same chip it may become apparent a) how crap Windows is but b) how much better Intel processors are. This could bring the Mac vs PC debate to a whole new ridiculous level, as one of the comments says: Wow I can't wait for all the Apple fans to start screaming about how great Intel is after bashing Microsoft for years for using them. Should be comical at the very least. In other news: Firefox 1.06 is out and JK Rowling relaunches her site using accessible Flash.

Oh No! More Flash 8 Examples

2005-07-20T12:42:00.000+03:00

Flash 8 hackperiments are flooding in. It's amazing what people are managing with the current knowledge and tools. Interactive webcam toys like The Bubble Maker show what can be achieved once you can properly analyze and manipulate live video and audio feeds. This aquatic webcam toy is also rather excellent. I know we should all be doing more constructive things with our time but with nearly 100 Maelstrom experiments out there it's hard to concentrate. I'm already planning some upgrades to previous work made possible by the new effects and performance improvements. And if you thought that wasn't enough much goodness for one day, Google gives us the Moon, it's amazing how detailed the ground is. (Kudos, Shermy - who succesfully blogged his way up three peaks)

Office? What Office?

2005-07-19T14:52:00.000+03:00

When we first moved into our new UK premises Andy and I discussed the theoretical possibility of working from a bench in the park. Unfortunately BT was late delivering the broadband so I couldn't be there to try it. As it turns out, our boys have just succesfully undertaken the first "work in the park" test. Browsing the web with birds and rabbits hopping about is all very Mary Poppins.

First Kid to get Xbox 360

2005-07-19T14:34:00.000+03:00

Not quite but this kid must have had a pretty good time until he realised the trouble he got himself into after posting pictures of him playing with his dad's test Xbox 360 on a public forum. I ask you to pay particular attention to the smug look on his face. Admittedly, I'd have exactly the same look if I got my hands on a toy every other kid in the world wants. Apparently, the 360 is coupled to an enormous power supply; as the unit in the pictures also seems to have a bunch of cables dangling out of it I wouldn't make any conclusions just yet. It’s pretty common for kids to go trolling on game forums and make obnoxious claims such as having a go on the Xbox 360 in their own home. Well, this thread on Gamespot started that way, except the kid actually backed up his claims with these photos.

Phallic Logo Awards

2005-07-15T16:00:00.000+03:00

The B3ta Phallic Logo Awards (kudos William) has more penises than a Disney home video cover. I agree with Seth that sometimes a logo can be good enough and James' thought on corporate identity not being critical but I'd say it is worth investing the extra time to make sure the logo you're putting on the side of your building doesn't look like an erection. We asked our readers to send in the best cock logos from around the world for our team of experts to evaluate. Now we present to you the very cream of the cocks.

A Few Good G-Men

2005-07-15T11:49:00.000+03:00

Tom Cruise is Barney, Jack Nicholson as the G-Man? This can only be A Few Good G-Men the very faithful recreation of the famous A Few Good Men courtroom "you can't handle the truth!" scene. The 6 minute, in-game engine rendered machinima is well worth the 40 megabyte download if only to finally come to terms that "we're getting there" in realism terms, let's hope the technology pushes better storytelling and acting forward.

Bendable Paper Screen

2005-07-15T11:26:00.000+03:00

Fujitsu announced this week that they would develop the world's first bendable colour electronic paper. The picture remains clear and colours vivid even when the screen is being bent. Low power consumption could finally mean the production of a versatile paper-thin electronic paper system that could be used in all types of public information displays (well, ads really). This could also mean that the digital paper map could be closer than we think. The thin and flexible electronic paper uses very low power to change screen images, thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas as a type of new electronic media that can be handled as easily as paper. If anything it could save a couple of trees. The image remains on the canvas without any power running through it, power is only required to change what it's displaying. So one could imagine re-usable paper (think rewritable CDRs) that we could use over and over again or poster boards that could be updated by pluging them into a notebook.

Faux-cets

2005-07-14T15:29:00.000+03:00

Finally, someone else has something to say about separate cold and hot water taps in England. This tap segregation has been bugging me ever since my first visit. While many bathrooms have modern setups you can still be a plush new London hotspot with free Wi-Fi but have to wash your hands by alternating between freezing and burning your fingers. And no, filling up the sink in a public place is not even a consideration at this point. I asked and apparently some new bathrooms are still being kitted up with these evil things. Euro? Forget it. Metric system? It's better but "miles" sounds cooler. But please make the monotap law.

Blogging when High

2005-07-14T13:02:00.000+03:00

My good friend Alex Sherman is going to attempt blogging while climbing the UK's three biggest hills, I mean peaks. He'll be using his Blackberry to update his brand spanking new MountainBlog. Hope the coverage is good. This is the blog for the BP DCT 3 peaks expedition. Check back here for updates on successes, failures, injuries, aches and pains and celebrations. Oh, peril, danger, excitement... And romance perchance? Blog it all my friend, blog it all.

Microsoft Off Scumware (For Now)

2005-07-13T16:40:00.000+03:00

Just caught on MarketingVox that it is believed that Microsoft has ended talks to buy Claria. The behavioural targeting firm (spyware to you and me although Claria is quick to point out their Anti-Spyware Commitment) was formerly known as Gator Corporation and to many this name brings up memories of spending hours cleaning up systems from dubious tracking and advertising applications. ClickZ, citing a Microsoft staffer close to the talks, broke the news that Microsoft has ended acquisition talks with behavioral targeting firm Claria. The source, who asked not to be identified, said concerns that a PR fallout might follow the purchase Claria, which has been associated with spyware in the past but has recently altered course, effectively resulted in ending the discussions. The source told ClickZ that Microsoft would consider buying other companies with behavioral targeting technology. PR fallout? Microsoft buying a spyware company? Really? Nah... I mean, Microsoft and Gator are a match made in heaven. A bit like Darth Vader hooking up with Sauron or lawyer that's also a mime. But surely Microsoft must know what it's doing? They've tried very hard to make people feel safer, "trustworthy computing" and all that... Rumors that the acquisition would go through were fueled when Microsoft's anti-spyware program downgraded the threat risk on the Claria GAIN adware product from "quarantine" to "ignore". Er, hum. OK, let's recap what it sounds like Microsoft is telling us here. "We're commited to stopping all spyware except our own. Since we have you by the balls we can pump you full of ads, track your usage and you'll still buy our software. Now, please love us. While companies like Apple and Google are giving you colour iPods and free world map software we've decided to strip down our next OS and buy a spyware firm. But we really 'heart' RSS." -- Now would be a great time to explain what exactly Microsoft plans to do with behavioral targeting (and this doesn't cut it). Mr. Scoble?

Ultimate Violence

2005-07-13T10:26:00.000+03:00

Angela Lidderdale is a truly versatile designer with an online portfolio showing off a whole range of beautiful works. My favourite piece is an interactive presentation for Benetton's Colors Magazine, a beautiful, thought-provoking journey into the global culture of violence. In the spirit of information sharing, here are the things UFC considers fouls. Eye gouging of any kind. Biting. Hair pulling. Fish hooking. Groin attacks of any kind. Putting a finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent. Small joint manipulation. Striking to the spine or the back of the head. Striking downward using the point of the elbow. Throat strikes of any kind, including, without limitation, grabbing the trachea. Clawing, pinching or twisting the flesh. Grabbing the clavicle. Kicking the head of a grounded opponent. Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent. Stomping a grounded opponent. Kicking to the kidney with the heel. Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck. Throwing an opponent out of the ring or fenced area. Holding the shorts or gloves of an opponent. Spitting at an opponent. Engaging in an unsportsmanlike conduct that causes an injury to an opponent. Holding the ropes or the fence. Using abusive language in the ring or fenced area. Attacking an opponent on or during the break. Attacking an opponent who is under the care of the referee. Attacking an opponent after the bell has sounded the end of the period of unarmed combat. Flagrantly disregarding the instructions of the referee. Timidity, including, without limitation, avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece or faking an injury. Interference by the corner. Throwing in the towel during competition.

What Corporate Identity Isn't

2005-07-12T18:19:00.000+03:00

Strange Brand's James Archer destroys some resilient corporate identity myths in this brilliant post. Here are a couple of my favourite lines. Freeing your identity from the burden of trying to sell your product allows you to develop one that excels at its true job, which is to instantly evoke the experience of interacting with your organization. And... Corporate Identity Isn’t Critical -- I say this not to dissuade you from investing in your identity, but rather to prevent you from thinking that you can succeed simply by following the lead of big brands, because those big brands often thrive not because of their identities, but despite them. How true.

Word of Mouth Marketing Association

2005-07-12T17:55:00.000+03:00

In an effort to broaden its appeal WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) is releasing documents outlining the standards of word-of-mouth marketing. Interesting read an another good example of non-traditional marketing slipping into mainstream. WOMMA is leading the efforts to measure and track the ROI of word of mouth marketing. We're helping marketers quantify, track, plan, and buy all forms of WOM, and get better results when they do. Our work is essential to making WOM a core part of the mainstream marketing mix.

Flash Player 8 Public Beta

2005-07-12T10:13:00.000+03:00

I just read on RocketBoots that there's a Flash Player 8 public beta floating about. Performance increase on the older (6 & 7) content I tested is quite substantial and that's in Firefox. Also, update to the new plug-in was close to automated and fast even in Firefox which could mean rapid adoption. All good. Can we get some test Flash 8 content please? Or some beta tools... Yes, we're never happy. Update: We've done quite a few performance tests of course but we just had to try and hack runtime GIF/PNG loading. It works (after HEX editing the SWF to fake the version). On the performance front, as we noticed yesterday, Flash 6/7 content plays faster (very noticably in Firefox). While we're all supposed to be testing old content people can't help themselves and are trying out new features. More Update: Once again people are tempted to try some of the new F8 features. Here's a drop shadow (try 1, 10, 10, 90) and a demo that highlights the blend modes. I don't know if I can quite contain my exitement, blend modes are basically Flash designer porn. More porn: A comprehensive list of many F8 examples here.

Inverse Kinematics Falling Woman in Flash

2005-07-11T17:06:00.000+03:00

Keith Peters of Bit-101 has found the origin of that amazing Flash "falling woman" ragdoll experiment. While some people find it a bit disturbing I find it mesmerising. The creator also manages to be quite modest about the whole thing: This is easier to do than it looks. You just combine particles, constraints and verlet integration (=a way to calculate particle positions). That's that then.

Tom Cruising Towards Freak Out

2005-07-09T19:42:00.000+03:00

What's happened? A couple of months ago I was actually trying to convince someone that Tom Cruise was actually pretty cool (well, apart for believing in that alien soul snatchers thing) and the first thing he does is prove to everyone the complete opposite. Don't get me wrong I still thing that Tom is a remarkable actor (Born on the 4th of July) but as we all now know he's also a bit imballanced (he would deny that). To celebrate Tom's cruising into insanity we now have The Tom Cruise Blog and Tom Cruise Is Nuts (soon to be sued). Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson & Mel Gibson have all turned a bit silly over the years, proof that fame will, in time, make you completely bonkers. I wonder what would happen if you could jump back in time and show young Tom Cruise what he'd be doing to Oprah's couch in 20 years time or show young MJ what he'd be doing to his face. My guess? No "Invincible" album and no "Mission Impossible 2". To all the up and coming stars out there: get out, get out while you still can.

Terrorist Attacks in London?

2005-07-07T13:12:00.000+03:00

The news is now trickling in. London has been the target of multiple bombings in the subway, in buses... Possibly 90 casualties, many injured (4-5 deaths have been confirmed) and panic everywhere. News is hard to come by and it seems things are still happening. I know many people there, my brother's fiancee was in the underground when it happened. We're all holding our breath. This is unreal, this feels like it's happening all over again. Update: Seems it was a synchronised terrorist attack after all. Rescue services seem to have things under control and the situation seems to be stabilising. A steady stream of pictures are being sent to Flickr (tags: London and Bomb)

London 2012

2005-07-06T14:55:00.000+03:00

So the Brits get the votes and while I'm French, I'm actually pretty happy. I would have loved to see Paris win it but did pick the London bid as my favourite early on. I think, to be fair, London needs the Olympics and the Brits are probably going to do a great job of it. This news should mean an even greater slide in popularity for president Chirac who's comments on British food, while well founded, didn't quite work to his advantage. In a perfect example of not quitting while you're ahead he went on to mention a disease which turns your brain into a sponge. Hah, he's funny... "One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad. The only thing they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease. -- After Finland, it is the country with the worst food." Mocking the Finns in the same sentence can't have helped. Thanks for making it so easy for people to hate the French even more Jacques...

Hogan Rules

2005-07-06T11:12:00.000+03:00

Oh no! Hulk Hogan is the star of a new The Osbournes-like reality show. I must admit that Hollywood Hogan was "the shit" when I was growing up, consistently kicking ass and sending out all the right messages about staying in school (unless you were big enough to do something else) and not doing drugs (in public anyway) so I do hope he does well with this. Is the reality "watch me take a piss and brush my teeth" show the new retirement home for aging stars? The Hogans feel much less dysfunctional than the Osbournes so it will be interesting to see how they keep the audiences up. Hogan's a certainly quite a character but Ozzy's "how the hell is this guy still alive" fumbling, tumbling and mumbling on-screen is going to be hard to beat. There was talk of a possible Jacksons reality show... I don't even want to think about that.

European Software Patents

2005-07-06T10:58:00.000+03:00

The European Parliament is voting on Software Patents today and word on the street is that it won't pass (thanks, George). If you don't know why you should care a visit to the Patented European webshop should open your eyes. Saying 'yes' to Software Patents could turn the internet into a vicious legal minefield so let's hope it gets denied once again and dumped somewhere it can never escape from. Update: word on the street was right, the MPs have seen the light. Software patents are shredder bound (for now).

To Cool for IE?

2005-07-04T18:58:00.000+03:00

This wins my Asshat of the Week award. I'm all for for standard compliance and generally despise Internet Explorer but reading this crap made me laugh. I’m starting a campaign called “Too Cool for Internet Explorer”. This site looks almost* as intended in Safari and Mozilla based browsers, while it looks like ass-crap in Internet Explorer. It uses standard XHTML and CSS set by the W3C and yet Microsoft is a bunch of bitches and they don’t want to follow the rules, so they make up their own. -- As most people are starting to figure out, people who use Internet Explorer shouldn’t even be allowed on the Internet. Some of us would say that people who behave like elitist bigots shouldn't be allowed on the internet. Not everyone has the time to go out and seek a new browser just to make web designers happy so promoting change without judging would be somewhat more useful. Pressuring Microsoft into adopting standards is something the web development community should be consistantly doing but calling them "a bunch of bitches" is not really going to solve anything. Promote standards, promote replacement browsers, even say no to IE but stop acting like the internet belongs to you. And by the way, the site makes my Firefox choke.

TED!

2005-07-04T14:35:00.000+03:00

Oh, our good friend Rich...! is off to TED Global. Lucky bastard. For those not familiar with it, TED's a chance rub elbows (and one could argue, other things) with some of the great thinkers of our time like the Google boys, ZeFrank or Bono. TED's also $4,400 and invite only so it's geared towards the more comfortable thinker. On a budget? You could always try the London Marketing Soiree which will set you back a mere 20 quid.

Aesop's Guide to Business

2005-06-30T12:35:00.000+03:00

Got this in the mail today: A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not?" So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow and rested. All of a sudden a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it. Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Podcasted!

2005-06-29T16:22:00.000+03:00

This is cool: David Coe mentioned my post in PDG's consistently better sounding and always enjoyable podcast. For all I know this is my first podcast exposure so I'll use this as an excuse to drink something expensive tonight. I'd recommend listening to the whole show and not only to hear the term "bollocks" used properly. I'm mentioned towards the end, they left the best for last. Update: We moved into our new UK premises so we celebrated that with a couple of pints at the manor round the corner which qualifies as an expensive drink. Stella Artois is "reassuringly expensive" after all.

Gmail Flood

2005-06-29T12:52:00.000+03:00

That's nice... Check my Gmail account after a couple of days and have 25 or so "delivery failure" e-mails. What's going on? Is someone using my precious e-mail address to spam the planet? Am I sending out mass e-mails in my sleep? Grumble...

The Talented Mr. Heywood

2005-06-29T12:14:00.000+03:00

If you think about it for a moment you know someone who'd be the perfect blogger but for some reason isn't doing it yet. After an evening of 8 ball, good wine and geek talk of the highest order with Andy and Mr. Adrian Heywood, it struck me that if anyone wanted, no needed a blog it was most definetly him. First post? A charged by induction, indistructible, waterproof tablet PC. You can see where this is going. I really liked this little sound-bite: Success is being able to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. Right on.

Leaving on a Jetplane

2005-06-27T16:15:00.000+03:00

Bought the magazines, gum, nasty coffee and overpriced slice of pizza. Boarding should start in about half an hour so I've got some time to kill. Just received Battlefield 2 today so I will try to get some gaming done during the flight if I manage to find some elbow room. I can't wait for in-flight WiFi. Off to try my luck with another cup of mistery coffee. Update: Notebook battery was dead so no in-flight gaming. Instead I had to endure Hitch on the world's worst entertainment system. It's hard to trust the technology that flies the plane when they can't even play a movie without the tape mashing up, yes the tape. I don't know which car boot sale they bought their system from but they'd do well with some maintenance. It was a strange scene, the guy next to me watching The Aviator on a portable DVD player (looked good), a couple of rows ahead someone working on an Excel sheet, me listening to MP3s while the crew is messing with the head tracking of the tape player -- "Go back! It was good a second ago, ah, now you missed it..." I know that times are hard so could someone please buy them a 30 quid DVD player from Maplins? Strangely enough, I'm not talking about a bring-your-own-food, fight over seats, rusty winged, drunken pilot charter carrier either; this was none other than the 200 quid ($450) a seat British Airways flight to Heathrow... The food, however, was surprisingly decent.

Hack a Day

2005-06-22T16:18:00.000+03:00

How cool is this? (Kudos Ant) hack a day serves up a fresh hack each day, every day from around the web and a special how-to hack each week. Perfect if you're the kind of person that gets turned on running Linux in Gmail or building your own tornado machine (I know I am). One for the blogroll then.

Blogebrity Deathmatch

2005-06-21T19:54:00.000+03:00

I was interested to find out that Kottke still gets excited about being mentioned in Time Magazine. Not saying that being mentioned in Time Magazine isn't anything special but we're talking about quite possibly one of the top 10 bloggers on the planet. Speaking of top 10 bloggers... You know that blogging is in trouble when the words blogwatch, blogebrity, blogosphere and blogger all appear in a single paragraph of a mainstream magazine. Add the terms a-list, in crowd, stars, hip factor and TV show and I just don't feel like being part of this anymore... Just imagine, Scoble bearing it all on Oprah, Celebrity Blogger Big Brother where we watch a bunch of people sit at their computers all day secluded from the outside world (not much change there then), or even E! Entertainment's Behind the Blogging where we take an in-depth look at the trials of becoming a famous blogger, "a small town boy - his life was turned upside down when he was linked on Slashdot..."

Microsoft Starts Avalanche

2005-06-20T19:15:00.000+03:00

Microsoft researchers have announced the development of a Bittorrent-like P2P application that is (obviously) better than anything before it. To be honest I thought Google would do it first but I'm glad to see that distributed file transfer is finally gathering corporate support. There is no reason why in 2-3 years 90% of all file downloads could be distributed freeing up valuable bandwidth and decreasing the cost of propagating media across the internet. One server does not have the bandwidth to deal with all that traffic, so you need to find another way of getting the file to everyone who needs it. -- If the file is broken up into smaller pieces, these can be distributed among a smaller number of people, who can then share the pieces to make sure they all eventually have the complete file. While mostly infamous for its shadier uses many legal sites currently offer Bittorrent downloads. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft decides to do with Avalanche to get the momentum it requires to become useful (you can't have distributed downloading without distribution). I think that some sort of integration within the MSN toolbar, Internet Explorer or even at the OS level could definetly help people "chose". (Kudos, Ant)

Lazy Sunday

2005-06-19T17:42:00.000+03:00

Oh, this is nice. After 2 weeks of non-stop work, skipped week-ends, junk food and late nights I can finally stay at home, watch some League of Gentlemen episodes (the only show to ever put me of my food) and play the Battlefield 2 demo online with friends. I'm still amazed of how well this game works, massive 64 player maps, full VOIP communications, self-managed squads and gorgeous graphics. Granted I did just buy a GeForce 6600 to play it properly but it was worth it. Pre-ordered the game from Play.com for 28 quid delivered, not bad. I limited myself to one major online game for this year and picked Battlefield 2 because it's something I could play in quick bursts. Joi Ito picked World of Warcraft, expect him to stop blogging anytime now.

Google targets Paypal

2005-06-19T15:20:00.000+03:00

Gosh, who didn't see that coming? Slashdot posts about Google Wallet and the fact that this "significant expansion beyond online advertising" could directly compete with Ebay's Paypal. More on the WSJ. As always, the Slashdot discussions are a great read, here's an example of what to expect: Don't be silly. Real estate developers are the second lowest form of life. They're followed by radio DJs, people who change lanes without signalling, car subwoofer manufacturers, and the cast of Beverly Hils 90210.

HTML 5 vs. XHTML 2

2005-06-18T18:37:00.000+03:00

Ajaxian Blog has a good rundown of the W3C and WhatWG proposals for the future of mark-up. Datagrids? Yum.

Microsoft Acrylic Beta

2005-06-18T15:04:00.000+03:00

One thing that I find hard to find is an objective review of a Microsoft product and this review proves how far anti-Microsoft bias can be taken. Self-proclaimed "techguru" lambasts Microsoft's foray into the drawing market primarily for not being enough like Photoshop. One could speculate that if they had tried to emulate Photoshop more he would have had a blast telling us how little Microsoft innovates. Here's a taster of what to expect: If MS is trying to target the low-end user market, mainly people who want to do simple photo editing for family pictures and such, then Acrylic is going to be too complicated for them even if its priced much cheaper than Photoshop. Hm, you see the problem with this is that Acrylic is based on Creature House Expression (which Microsoft purchased) and isn't meant to be a Photoshop replacement. What it is however is a fantastic natural drawing tool (Microsoft provides a free download of Expression 3 here and the Acrylic beta here) and Microsoft is quite clear about that: "Acrylic" is the codename for an innovative illustration, painting and graphics tool that provides exciting creative capabilities for designers working in print, web, video, and interactive media. The thing is that Photoshop was never really intended as a drawing tool, Illutrator is. Adobe even calls it "photo editing software". People started using Photoshop to create graphics from scratch and but its primary function still remains image editing. Luckily, Photoshop is perfect for web design but then again Fireworks is actually more focused if that's all you need it for. So if you want cheap photo-editing Acrylic isn't for you, Photoshop isn't even but you might want to give Photoshop Elements a try Basically, comparing Expression to Photoshop is idiotic. Enough of that rubbish then and here's my first-impression of Acrylic (it's a beta so a review would be a bit daft a this point) -- at first glance the interface feels different to what you'd expect but you'll soon get used to the rather intuitive toolset and value sliders. The drawing engine itself is as impressive as ever, Expression blew me away the first time I tried it so it wasn't really a revelation but if this is your first time using this type of tool you might be pleasantly surprised about how it performs. This release requires Windows XP Service Pack 2 to run, I believe this won't change for the final version. I see a lot of people using Paint right now to quickly draw maps or little sketches, using Acrylic is leagues (and leagues) away from that and brings high-end vector editing to the masses (unless Microsoft prices it too high). Microsoft is innovating here (well, it's buying innovation) and this could mean that Acrylic might not work for you. Many people found OneNote too different at first. It won't replace Photoshop (heck, it won't replace Illustrator) but can complement both. To many people it's just going to be a fun, powerful yet simple drawing tool to others (like me) it will become a great addition to the suite of apps I already use. It will be especially interesting to see if Microsoft starts integrating the engine into other applications such as OneNote and PowerPoint.

Fundable.org and the rise of P2P Fundraising

2005-06-17T11:59:00.000+03:00

This is great... Fundable.org is a system that allows groups of people to pool together to gather funds. While donating has become a common practice on the internet it feels very much like throwing money into a big black hole. The way Fundable works is project by project so you'd be sponsoring 5% of a water pump in Cambodia instead of sending $20 bucks into a massive pool not knowing if your money would only be used to pay for one of the admin's electric pencil sharpeners. There is great satisfaction in knowing where your money will be spent and this can make all the difference. Here's a case-study that Fundable uses on their site: say, the creator of the open-source FCK Editor needs to get a Powerbook to develop his WYSIWYG editor for Safari and for that he needs $600. He creates a pool where 6 parties have to donate $100 each by a certain date. If say, only 5 people have donated by then the money gets refunded and the fund raising has failed, if the limit is met the money goes to the fundraiser. This project-based methodology should work because it is clear and honest, there's a direct connection between you parting with your money and the project being succesful, in this case the guy gets a new iBook (which he did by the way). I feel this is going to lead to great things. (Kudos, Rich...!)

You Mean Design is Important?

2005-06-16T12:47:00.000+03:00

Rich (...!) has been ranting and raving about this guy and since I trust his judgement and enjoy his use of swearwords I thought I'd give the blog a try. Once again, he was right Confessions of a Brand Evangelist is worth the read and then some. I particularily enjoyed this post (ironically, Rick disagrees). By the way, knowing that Tom Peters said the following about design makes me like him even more: "Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department."

Savage Chickens

2005-06-16T12:28:00.000+03:00

After the comic strips on business cards come Chicken Cartoons on Sticky Notes by Doug Savage. This is sure to become a classic as the only thing funnier than chickens are monkeys and this strip's got both. Here's my personal favourite. (Found on Drawn!)

Batman Begins

2005-06-15T22:21:00.000+03:00

Just finished watching the latest Batman flick and can confirm that this is quite possibly the best superhero film ever made. Simply awesome. Sending this from my phone so I'll elaborate once I get in front of a computer. Update: just got back home and thought I'd elaborate a bit. I have to admit that I always thought of Batman as my favourite comic book character. In his darker variations (which this movie is based on) his frailty, both physically and mentally, made him a far more tangible than say Superman or Wolverine. But apart for the great hero (and the many fantastic villains) what makes Batman truly special is its setting. Gotham City conjures all kinds of vivid imagery and seems to inspire some of the best stories ever to grace the comics pages. Like many others I absolutely love the first Tim Burton Batman and loathe pretty much everything after that so I was delighted to hear that the latest installment would start on a clean sheet with new actors, a new crew but mostly a new direction. I had a good feeling about this and I wasn't dissapointed. So why is this film so succesful then? Firstly, the cast is ridiculously good. It's not good as in the cast in Ocean's 11 was good (i.e. star-filled), it's good as in they're all top actors that all manage to work together and within the story brilliantly. The script and dialogue is sharp and the dry wit keeps makes sure it never takes itself too seriously. The visuals look stunning and solid, gloriously lacking in CGI everything feels real, stunts, Batmobile, sets, everything. The story is not what you'd expect from a superhero movie with far more time spent on developing the characters as well as the myth that is Batman. Seeing Bruce Wayne before he becomes the dark knight could have been tedious but the director (Nolan) manages to keep the audience immersed. This film has a few things in common with Revenge of the Sith (dude becomes legend) but handles the whole subject far more succesfully and without every resorting to blatant reminders or metaphors. It's subtle and if you pay attention the movie gives you a couple of winks here and there, things the people say, the imagery, etc... While you don't see the caped crusader for nearly the first half of the movie you never forget this is the real deal and, more importantly, never think "get on with it, I want Batman!" If I had to find one weak spot in the film is the occasional odd looking face that Christian Bale pulls when in the batsuit. I noticed that on one or two occasions he looks somewhat uncomfortable but to be honest I just mention that not to sound like the press release for the movie. So all in all a great achievement that easily matches Tim Burton's first Batman. Joel Schummacher showed us how wrong an adaptation could go (Batman & Robin) but thankfully Christopher Nolan has managed to resuscitate the series. My rating? I would have sat through it again if I could have. HowStuffWorks.com has a great piece on the inner workings of the batsuit.

Yahoo! gets into Blogs & Telephony

2005-06-15T17:45:00.000+03:00

Yahoo is trying to even out the playing field by buying itself into blog tracking (blo.gs) and telephony. With Google's acquisition of Blogger, Ask Jeeve's Bloglines and MSN's own venture into (albeit dumbed down) blogging it shows that the major players are taking the whole blogosphere very seriously. This is nothing new, Google got into the whole business pretty early but it's been interesting to see the acquisition of smaller pioneering outfits like Blo.gs or even Flickr (not completely blog-related but I ran out of examples). While being bought out by Yahoo! or Microsoft was often a dream exit strategy during the bubble it will be interesting to see if new blogosphere-based ventures will start with this in mind instead of say, changing the world or simply doing something cool. Technorati, Haloscan, Feedburner, StatCounter and co are surely next. More on MarketinVOX. Regarding the Dialpad acquisition I still remember having one of those "holy shit" moments when I first used it, just like the one I had when I first used Skype. It will be interesting to see how Yahoo! pushes it. They could learn a lot from Skype and their "download, install, talk" process. Some people have mentioned VOIP systems that are technically more advanced, have more features or even more stable than Skype but the fact that it simply works for 99% of the people means that it will remain my first choice for some time.

The Dunktank

2005-06-13T19:05:00.000+03:00

The worker elves over at Netymology & Dig Business Design have just wrapped-up Applebee's Dunktank. Another fun project and proof that water and computers do mix. Some of you may recognise the handsome dude on the front page. Here's one I did earlier: my fellow Austrian the Governator. Not so tough now heh?

Apple and Intel Merging?

2005-06-10T19:49:00.000+03:00

If I would have read this a couple of weeks ago I would have laughed at the prospect, but today Robert Cringely's idea that Apple and Intel might be merging (kudos, Adrian + /.) makes a whole lot of sense. While this is still to be categorized as "undeniably speculative", Cringely does raise a very good issue. Like why the hell would Apple announce this so early? This is the biggest question of all, suggesting Steve Jobs has completely forgotten about Adam Osborne. For those who don't remember him, Osborne was the charismatic founder of Osborne Computer, makers of the world's first luggable computer, the Osborne 1. The company failed in spectacular fashion when Adam pre-announced his next model, the Osborne Executive, several months before it would actually ship. People who would have bought Osborne 1s decided to wait for the Executive, which cost only $200 more and was twice the computer. Osborne sales crashed and the company folded. So why would Steve Jobs -- who knew Adam Osborne and even shared a hot tub with him (Steve's longtime girlfriend back in the day worked as an engineer for Osborne) -- pre-announce this chip change that undercuts not only his present product line but most of the machines he'll be introducing in the next 12 to 18 months? Well, could it be that maybe just maybe that Steve Jobs has gone completely out of his mind. He woke up one morning and this little, tiny, echoing voice inside his head whispered "You know what would be funny? If we started using Intel chips, everyone would pay attention then... Now wouldn't that be funny?" -- I can also imagine some sort of sharp toothed clown and a couple drummer monkeys with rotating heads in there somewhere but that would be going to far.

The Monster Engine

2005-06-10T19:15:00.000+03:00

Just came across Dave Devries's Monster Engine while browsing Drawn! (if you like comics it's worth a visit, I promise). This wonderful experiment on how children's drawings would look if reworked to look realistic is quite simply mesmerizing. Buy the book!

New Technorati Beta

2005-06-10T18:42:00.000+03:00

Joi Ito annouces the launch of the new Technorati's beta launch. I must admit that I love the new design and layout. Everything feels fresh and new yet feels still close to the Technorati we know so well. Great job!

Integrate Damn It!

2005-06-09T01:06:00.000+03:00

MarketingVOX has a short piece about the marketing and media world's reluctance to integrate media types. While consumers easily integrate their media by going to websites they hear about on TV commercials and participating in contests and polls that are part of TV shows, the marketing and media world has yet to embrace integration, reports MediaPost, citing comments made Tuesday by OMMA West panelists. "The marketing and media industries resist integration at every turn," said Cory Treffiletti, senior vice-president, managing director, Carat Interactive, San Francisco, who moderated a panel about integration. But why you ask? Well, like with everything else (war, politics, karaoke) it all basically comes down to greed and egos. "If I'm a TV agency, I want my idea. I might not make as much money on yours. I want my idea advanced. Are we integrating our egos? No, and that's a major problem." The key to integration: stop being an asshat. Well shave my head and call me Seth, I just gave out some sound business advice.

Maelstrom/Flash 8 Imminent?

2005-06-07T11:00:00.000+03:00

Fine this is obviously for "illustrative purposes only" but it definitely shows Maelstrom released on Q1 of 2005 (some more info on that in these comments). I've heard of people holding off their Studio MX 2004 purchases/upgrades because they believe Flash 8's release to be imminent. It makes sense, it's not the nicest thing to buy a piece of software (like say Adobe Creative Suite) only to have to pay the full upgrade price a couple of weeks later for the update. This chart was grabbed from the Flash Platform whitepaper (PDF not Flash Paper). Flash Platform was announced Monday and is basically an initiative to conglomerise Macromedia's Flash offerings under one umbrella. The announcement of the Flash Platform came together with the news that Macromedia is joining the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse universal development platform is, in their own words, "an open extensible IDE for anything and nothing in particular". I firmly believe that with Maelstrom's release Macromedia will finally have a reliable and robust application development platform. With steady stream of developers moving to Ajax for their RIA needs it seems like a good idea for Macromedia to clarify and strengthen its offering.

The Perfect Post

2005-06-06T10:55:00.000+03:00

John Zagula continues the Good vs Perfect debate and brings forward the case against perfection. An excellent, concise read. "The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides." - Henri-Frederic Amiel

Smart People, Dumb Ideas

2005-06-06T10:48:00.000+03:00

Scott Berkun explains why smart people defend bad ideas. Long yes, but definitely worth the read. Here are some Majoring in logic is not the kind of thing that makes people want to talk to you at parties, or read your essays. But one thing I did learn after years of studying advanced logic theory is that proficiency in argument can easily be used to overpower others, even when you are dead wrong. If you learn a few tricks of logic and debate, you can refute the obvious, and defend the ridiculous. If the people you’re arguing with aren’t as comfortable in the tactics of argument, or aren’t as arrogant as you are, they may even give in and agree with you. Everyone that knows me can surely tell you defending the ridiculous is something I never, never (never) do. Never ever. No, never. People worry about the wrong thing at the wrong time and apply their intelligence in ways that doesn’t serve the greater good of whatever they’re trying to achieve. Some call this difference in skill wisdom, in that the wise know what to be thinking about, where as the merely intelligent only know how to think. OK, this happens so much in our industry I thought it was actually normal. In the software industry, the common example of thinking at the wrong level is a team of rock star programmers who can make anything, but don’t really know what to make: so they tend to build whatever things come to mind, never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied. Being a logic major and all, Scott gives us some great ways to fend off smart people wielding bad ideas. So your best defense starts by breaking an argument down into pieces. When they say “it’s obvious we need to execute plan A now.” You say, “hold on. You’re way ahead of me. For me to follow I need to break this down into pieces.” And without waiting for permission, you should go ahead and do so. I think one should always break down an argument into pieces, even if your immediate impression is that it's the right argument. Not that, in the real world, anyone will ever really dissect something they feel is right but that would indeed be a good idea. I for one, enjoy a good argument (preferably when I'm right) but must admit that I'd rather present my case as "this is my opinion, prove me wrong" than "I'm not sure I'm right, what do you think?" so thankfully I work with people who aren't affraid to step in and call me a bullshitter (admittedly many, many times a day).

Storm of the Century

2005-05-31T15:22:00.000+03:00

Cyprus just decided to take part in the monsoon season. It's raining buckets and the streets are flooding. Rushing home to close some windows. Feels very 'Day After Tomorrow' here at the moment. Stuck in the car watching stuff float by.

A Gamers' Manifesto

2005-05-30T19:11:00.000+03:00

Pointless Waste of Time's David Wong and Haimoimoi bring us the fantastic Gamer's Manifesto (kudos: Adrian). This is something every games publisher should read. The Sony Playstation 3 is going to cost $465.00. -- In the desolate economic climate of post-apocalyptic 2006, I'm thinking that's going to be a lot of money. Now, it's true that at E3 Sony was boasting the Playstation 3 could crank out 1.8 TFLOPS, or 1.8 trillion FLOPS. If that many FLOPS were piled together they would fill the Grand Canyon, assuming each FLOP were the size of a muskrat. So what do gamers want from all that money and FLOP? Just ask them. They continue by listing things that gamers really want to see like AI that's actually intelligent, no misleading videos (which, admittedly I've helped promote of late) and mostly less bullshit everywhere. I caught in last month's Edge that at this year's Game Developer Conference Nokia's game guy (sorry, no name in memory) proclaimed "we're all fucked!" This was met with thunderous applause from the crowd (made up mostly of game developers) as they all know it's true. With game development budgets bumping up to eight figures the pressure of making games more imminently marketable is omnipresent. Which basically means misleading graphics, celebrities and less gameplay. Welcome to Hollywood.

Non a la Constitution!

2005-05-30T11:52:00.000+03:00

First of all, I am French so I have a right to meddle. Secondly, merde, merde, merde. France rejects the European Constitution (from Gaping Void strangely enough) and people start talking about the downfall of the European Union. People are sure quick to hit it when it's down forgetting that countries that were invading each other only 60 years ago now have open borders because of it. While listening to the BBC I heard interesting views about why people had voted no, one of them was "we don't want Europe to turn into the USA" -- one has to congratulate the "non" movement for a tremendously succesfull bit of marketing. "Fear of change" remains all powerful. No more politics for a while... What should I write about next? Something light maybe? Genetically modified crops, stem cell research or possibly software patents... Or I might just stick to posting about drinking.

Mod the real-world

2005-05-30T11:18:00.000+03:00

The Long Tail's Chris Anderson goes all fanboy on us and gets extremelly excited about hijacking 3D objects from our favourite games and then turning them into real objects. Now, most games will "let" you export 3D models without much hacking about and this is deffinetly 1337 but I don't know how good a lifesize low-polygon plastic BFG would feel like in your hands.

Apple thinking about Intel Macs?

2005-05-27T14:29:00.000+03:00

First, Intel's head goes on the record saying basically that if you want security you should switch to a Mac and now we hear that Apple might plan on using Intel chips. What the hell is going on? I've managed to obtain a leaked shot of the next Intel-based iPod (now we know what the 'i' stands for). How odd it would be to have Intel-based Macs... How would the flame wars of the future be fought? "Yeah? Well my Mac has an Intel processor which is exactly the same as the one in your PC!!" -- "Oh yeah?! Well my PC uses a GeForce card that's exactly the same as your Mac's!" Welcome to the golden age of homogenization. UPDATE: Kottke offers some views on the fact that a) this has now officially changed status from "word on the street is" to "I read in the news that" and b) that Apple's move to Intel could mean a new non-x86 processor would be used or even a PowerPC chip. From the man himself: Even if Intel isn't going to be making PPC chips for Apple, they'll probably manufacture a modified version of an already produced chip that OS X will be refactored to run on so that the cheapo Wal-Mart PC can't run it. And if that fails, there's always DRM, which could be used by OS X to verify that it runs only on Intel chips sold in Apple hardware. DRM? I guess the week or two before someone hacks a DRMed OSX version to run on standard PCs is worth the effort. OS X can currently be emulated (very slowly) on x86 processors so the use of an x86 based processor would make emulation a lot more efficient if anything. Whatever happens a move to Intel means some interesting times ahead.

Web Designers Make Great UI Designers

2005-05-24T14:56:00.000+03:00

Talk about a great account... It has been announced that the consistently excellent webshop AKQA was in fact responsible for the Xbox 360 interface. While AKQA is obviously branching out I still think the term "webshop" is a fair description as that is primarily what they do and this leads me to something that I've been thinking about for a while: good web designers make great software interface designers. Why? Well here are a few reasons: Focus: web designers (the good ones at least) are focused on driving user experience. The community is large and varied and provides an excellent breeding ground for new ideas. Exposure: web designers are constantly exposed to each other's work and have the luxury of being able to quickly develop and release prototypes. Due to the quick turn-around time and nature of the business many will work on multiple interfaces (websites) in mere weeks or days juggling navigation systems, artwork and code. Flexibility: web designers work in an environment where they can quickly modify, tweak and correct their interface according to direct user feedback even while a site is live. This ability allows them to take more risks and learn more from experience. Know-how: due to the medium's inability to stand still, most web designers have developed an ability to work well within restrictions, become technically fluent and quickly adapt to change. This also makes them adept at quickly assimilating the pitfalls and advantages of various technologies. With Ajax and Flash steadily maturing it is safe to assume that the line between web and application interface design will continue to blur. While not the prettiest thing in the world, Gmail has shown us that web applications don't need to mimick software to be user friendly and the web development community continuously churns out exceptional interfaces at a pace that dwarfs anything the software industry can produce -- the way we interact with computers is being decided right here, on the web, by millions of people.

Spore Website Launched

2005-05-24T14:16:00.000+03:00

As you might already know I'm very excited about Sims creator Will Wright's forthcoming game Spore. The official EA site is up and has an intro that is really worth watching (for once). The rest of the site is a bit weak on content but you might want to check out the screenshots. I don't know how good a game like this is going to perform sales-wise, surely "from the creator of The Sims" should help shift quite a few units but this is definitely a tougher mainstream sell than The Sims or even SimCity. The geek buzz is huge but will the girls want to play it? To hell with sales figures, this is the most ambitious and original game concept to come along in a while and I'll be first in line. More on Spore in this Wired interview.

Embryo Cloned, Stem Cells Grown

2005-05-20T10:07:00.000+03:00

BBC News is all about genetics today. Firstly UK scientists clone a human embryo for the first time then Korean scientists growing patient-specific stem cells. It's also the first time I hear not one but two science stories at the beging of a news show. South Korean scientists say they have made stem cells tailored to match the individual for the first time. (...) The resultant cells were a perfect match for the individual and could mean treatments for diseases like diabetes without problems of rejection. This could mean big changes.

Netscape The Eight

2005-05-19T20:05:00.000+03:00

Netscape 8 is now officially out of beta and now based on Firefox 1.0.3 -- interestingly you can render pages using Mozilla or IE engines which could come in handy when developing websites. I am downloading it now, let's hope it's not as bloated as previous releases. Oh, it's already asking me if I want "FREE Current Local Weather" and "access to over 250 top puzzle, action and arcade style games", this isn't looking good... UPDATE: Actually, it's not all that bad. The IE/Firefox rendering is very useful, the interface quite clean and fast and while quite loaded, fully customizable so with a bit of tweaking it can be pretty lean.

Playstation 3 Unveiledl

2005-05-17T11:05:00.000+03:00

Not much time on my hands but Sony is trying to steal some of Microsoft's thunder with the unveiling of its next generation console. For more please visit Engadget's live coverage of Sony’s PlayStation 3 launch. This is all getting way to exciting. (Thanks, Adrian) UPDATE: Managed to make time and look into some of the hype surrounding the (quite pretty) PS3. It would seem that the Sony marketing machine is now ploughing through the media at full steam. Xbox 360 got some mentions (outside of the specialised press) while Sony's new baby has been everywhere. Heck, it was mentioned on BBC World Service between European constitution referendums and the Chinese textile trade disputes. Indeed, one should not underestimate the power of the Playstation. Many call Sony's new controller sexy, I call it phallic. Having followed both campaigns carefully, it would seem that Sony has managed to steal a lot of the thunder away from Microsoft. While still a year away (which could be the X360's saving grace) the PS3 presentation has the whole world buzzing with anticipation. I believe Sony completely dwarfed Microsoft with its tech demos, while Microsoft was focusing on showing us disposable celebrities playing games on MTV, Sony is showing off breathtaking graphics (pre-rendered probably but still impressive) and talking about beautifully silly things such as dual screen High Def output and support for 7 wireless controllers. While Microsoft is also providing some impressive gameplay videos (in HD here) they haven't been at the forefront of the campaign taking second stage to say, custom faceplates and glowing buttons. Much will be announced in the next few weeks. Some details regarding Nintendo's next console (Revolution) are already floating about but nothing is yet confirmed as to what the predicted "revolutionary" peripheral will be. This is starting to get very interesting. A good side-by-side comparison of the specs is available here.

On2 Acquires Flix

2005-05-16T11:08:00.000+03:00

And the consolidation goes on. Got news today that video codec company On2 has acquired Flix who have been developing Flash video export tools for a while now. On2 is obviously taking its role as Flash 8's new video codec very seriously and hence stepping up against the likes of Sorenson's Squeeze which had benefited from being integrated into Flash. We’re happy to announce that we have entered into a cross-licensing deal with On2 Technologies, the company that created the video codec that will be in Macromedia Flash 8. From now on, On2 will be selling Flix. We will be folding many of the functions of Flix into our new product which is due out this summer. We’re accepting applications for beta testers for our new product. So let us know if you’re keen to give our newest creation a spin. It is likely that Flash 8 will ship with a basic video encoder while On2 will upsell an extended application with more tools, better compression, etc... It will be interesting to see how Macromedia intends on handling FLV (Flash Video) files encoded for previous versions and if other third-party encoders will become available. While unfortunately not an open codec On2 is however extremelly impressive and it will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm especially looking forward the Flash 8's real-time alpha channel blending.

More than meets the eye

2005-05-14T20:04:00.000+03:00

At a local may fair. I am now the proud owner of not one but two nearly new cold cast transformers statuettes. I had to buy the pictured megatron from the world's shrewdest 8 year old but it is all mine now. I also bought a jar of red pepper chutney which looks delicious.

Xbox 360 Unveiled

2005-05-13T11:01:00.000+03:00

It's official, the specs for Microsoft's next Xbox are now pouring into the internet and while many features had already been leaked/guessed it's good to see the confirmation that the machine will come with HD DVD support as well as media playback features. Without further ado here's my list of highlights: It will allow up to four wireless, AAA battery powered controllers. Comes with a removable small harddrive with a capacity of at least 20GB. Built in Media Center Extender to connect to Media Center PCs. HD DVD support. All games will suport High Def TV resolutions (16:9, 1080i, 720p). Able to connect to external media devices such as MP3 players or digital cameras. Xbox Live now with video chatting when coupled with optional camera. Customizable faceplates. Powered by 3 symmetrical cores clocking 3.2 Ghz, a custom 500Mhz ATI GPU and 512MB GDDR3 RAM pumping out 1 terraflop. About 20% smaller than the original Xbox. It is expected to retail at between $300 and $400. More here and here. With the risk of sounding like a fanboy: OMFG! UPDATE: The official Xbox 360 site has launched. You can see some (clumsy) 360 views of the unit and peripherals as well as the opening animation. Xbox.com also has some official specs, game coverage and more. Both sites feel rushed and not particularily polished for some reason. Most useful of all is the 360 game line-up. No big suprises but everything is pointing towards Perfect Dark Zero being the Xbox 360's killer app, like Halo was to the first machine. Pictures of the MTV launch event are available here.

The Jacket Potato

2005-05-13T01:03:00.000+03:00

Just got home from watching a (thankfully) free screening of The Jacket with Adrian Brody (The Pianist), Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Whistler from Blade. Brody plays a Desert Storm vet, wrongly (or is he) accused of a murder, sent to a psychiatric ward and consistently wrapped up in a straight-jacket and dumped into a drawer for hours at a time -- on drugs. Between the freaking out, heavy breathing, mumbling and eye flickering he gets time to jump 15 years into the future, befriend a surprisingly understading Knightley and try to figure out how to avoid his prophecised death. Knightley, while looking lovely as always, becomes the latest British actress to fail miserably at an American accent and consistently has her mouth open for some reason. Brody is great as always but to be honest the script doesn't give him much to do but scream, mumble, talk gibberish, salivate, wander about and salivate some more. The Jacket does a great job at setting up an original intruiging premise only to completely let you down with an uneventful wound-down ending. This film takes itself so seriously you're inclined not to. It tries so hard to be dark that you soon become numb to everything it throws at you -- Not that it throws a lot at you as much of the film is spent rambling on about something or other urging you to think "get on with it". In the end, very little is left to the imagination as most of what you see and hear conspire to remove all the mistery from the story. If you want to see time travel handled better (or at least in a more entertaining manner) watch Donnie Darko, The Butterfly Effect or even Timecop. And yes, I understand this movie wasn't primarily about time travel -- but about Keira Knightley's first topless scene.

DC Comics Changes their Logo

2005-05-10T11:57:00.000+03:00

DC Comics (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) have changed their logo for the first time in 30 years. I never liked the old one much (pictured) but I'm also unsure about that washed out blue the new one is sporting. One could argue that not using red anymore differentiates them from Marvel.