Review of Poker Smash
February 29, 2008
Platform: (XBLM)
Rows of blocks with card ranks (10 through Ace) rise up from the bottom of the well, slowly at first. You use the left stick to move your cursor around, and the right stick lets you slide cards left and right. You can use the triggers to speed up or slow down the rising cards, though your slow-motion ability drains out if you use too much of it. You can also drop bombs on cards, causing them to pop and, if you’re using them properly, setting up fat chain reactions. Bombs also come in a limited supply.
The graphics and sound are OK. The game rotates through music and visual themes in the same way Lumines does, though there are only 11 themes to work through. Also, a lot of the music is pretty hokey. They fit the theme, but every time I listen to the song about poker, I sort of want to just stop playing right there. A custom playlist option lets you cut out themes/songs that annoy you, but you have to unlock the themes first by purchasing them (with in-game earnings) in an online store.
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Robot dreams
February 28, 2008
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, in San Francisco
Google has made no secret of its ambitions in the mobile space. There are mobile versions of all its key services, such as search, e-mail and calendar.
But the company is going much further. At the end of 2007 it lifted the lid on Android, an open mobile operating system that is being used to power a new generation of devices under the Open Handset Alliance, a group which involves firms like HTC and chip designer ARM.
Android is the creation of Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms.
He believes that a lack of openness in the mobile phone space has stifled innovation to date.
“What Android enables for third party developers is the kind of programming we see on the internet,” he says.
“What it enables is agility and rapid innovation and the same kind of innovation that happens on the internet.”
Mr Rubin says that by opening up the phones - from the operating system, released under open source, to the drivers and the application framework - developers will have more freedom to innovate, and more scope also.
But if you talk to Symbian and Microsoft, two companies that also build mobile operating systems, both claim to be open also.
Mr Rubin says: “There’s a distinction we have to make - and it’s an important one - between open source and open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
“APIs are essentially documentation, they’re the way that somebody like Symbian or Microsoft will allow third party developers to develop for their platform.
“Open source is a mechanism by which the source code of the operating system is actually for free and that way the carriers and OEMs are not really locked into a single vendor, nobody really owns this.
“It means they are free to take it into the direction that’s important to them; they can fix bugs, add enhancements so in the end the consumer has a better experience.”
Mr Rubin believes this will lead to greater variety of mobile experiences - driven not by the rules and regulations of an operating system but by the ideas of developers.
In essence, it could lead to greater variety of phones and of what those phones are capable.
Google has formed the Open Handset Alliance, with manufacturing partners like HTC and chip designers like ARM.
At the Mobile World Congress earlier this month the first reference handsets running Android were on show.
Mr Rubin gave BBC News a demo of his handset and while the software was in pre-beta form, it was a good representation of what the phones will be able to do.
The browser was responsive and driven by both touch and a mini-track ball.
Google Maps supported Street View, the ability to see stills of real world locations, which has not been seen on a mobile device before.
Mr Rubin says Android is running on a phone powered by a 300Mhz chip, which puts the device in the mid-range of smartphones.
“A lot of applications we are seeing on phones today, in some of the newest and most powerful phones, are doing internet style web browsing.
"There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can’t access on their cell phone"Andy Rubin
“But that is just one of the components of the internet we need to bring to cellphones. There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can’t access on their cellphone.
Mr Rubin points out that not all net experiences are available through the browser.
“Applications like Google Earth and YouTube have specific functionality that hasn’t yet effectively been brought to mobile.
“Up until Android that wasn’t possible on the phone - you could only access functionality given to you by the operating system.”
Mr Rubin says the open nature of Android will let developers take advantage of the web, of other applications, of the phone’s hardware capabilities, from 3D graphics to multimedia capabilities.
This is not Mr Rubin’s first foray into overturning the “natural order” of things.
A former roboticist and Apple engineer, he created Web TV, and the device which led to the pioneering Sidekick handset.
“One of my passions throughout my whole career is consumer products; making things my mom would use.
“That need wasn’t satisfied doing robotics. that was behind the scenes factory stuff.”
So what does he make of Apple’s first phone to the market?
“It’s a great 1.0 product; I use one.
“Apple has that great balance of being both a hardware and software firms so they have a lot of flexibility.
“One of the things that is a challenge for them is having an incredible footprint worldwide - there are different types of communications standards, regulatory issues, and different language issues.
“I’m hoping that doesn’t limit them.”
With about three billion people using mobile phones worldwide and the number of devices that can access the net climbing rapidly, the future of the web is definitely mobile. And with no one company dominating the mobile arena as yet, the race is very much on.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation
Nokia morphs itself from within
February 27, 2008
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, in San Francisco
Nokia is the world’s largest mobile phone maker and with more than one billion handsets shipped is by extension the world’s largest computing platform.
Every day Nokia sources 329 million parts and builds a million phones in 100 plus handset models and distributes these phones in 70 different languages to 150 countries.
But as phones become less about making calls and more an extension of our connected lives, Nokia is transforming itself from a hardware company into something more converged. It’s not the parts that matter but what use those parts are put to.
“We’re not a cell phone company we’re a software and services company as well,” Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president at Nokia, told BBC News.
He said: “We are already living in the converged world; the spearhead consumers, about 200m people, are using their devices to be present in the internet 24/7, using their handsets as multimedia computers.”
For Mr Vanjoki Nokia’s transformation is just another change in direction for the firm.
“The company was established in 1865 and since then we have changed the course of the company several times from the original wood chip factory, to what is our main business, monetising our software know-how by selling devices.”
He added: “It’s very obvious in a converging internet world that when software, media and hardware come together it allows us to monetise our know-how in multiple ways.”
To aid this latest genesis Nokia has invested in research centres around the world, building relationships with universities and academic institutions.
In the UK Nokia has partnered with Cambridge University and is focusing on the application of nanosciences to the mobile phone market, and has partnered with Professor Mark Welland, one of the world’s leading nano experts.
Earlier this week the firm unveiled Morph, a concept phone that revealed the company’s long-term ambitions; a mixture of high technology and services.
Morph is the product of nanosciences - a handset that can be folded, stretched, used to sense the world around it, and deliver the high end functions of a future communications device.
"Morph is a beguiling vision"Technology editor Darren Waters
Read more on the Dot.Life blog
In the US Nokia has built a research centre in Palo Alto, at the heart of Silicon Valley. This centre is focused on developing internet and web applications, leveraging the local talent and expertise found at Stanford and Berkeley universities.
Professor Henry Tirri, head of System Research Centers, is tasked with fostering the collaborative research between Nokia and partner universities worldwide.
“Our research scope is very wide - but we’re not focusing on display, radio technology or battery life - it goes from nanosciences in the UK to services and software in Palo Alto.”
The research centres work outside the roadmap Nokia has for handsets, looking at future technologies and applications from one to three years ahead, three to eight years and beyond.
“An enormous amount of the patents found in today’s handsets originated in Nokia’s Research Centres - from the interface design to improvements in audio quality on the phones to applications.”
"These devices can connect the physical world with the digital world"Professor Henry Tirri
He added: “A lot of things that you will see in the future, as Nokia moves to be an internet company, willcome from the research labs.”
Mr Tirri said: “Nokia sells 18 phones every second of every day; that is a humungous computing platform.
“Voice is one function of these devices, but we are moving to a data centric world. These devices can connect the physical world with the digital world.
“But what are the services which will marry the two?”
One such project trying to do just that is under development at Palo Alto. Nokia’s researchers are using the GPS technology in some of their phones to help create a real-time picture of traffic flow.
The lab is working with Berkeley University and state authorities to trial software on mobile phones which will hopefully lead to a better understanding of how traffic moves through a system, and ultimately lead to better information for motorists as they drive.
Dr John Shen, head of the Palo Alto Research lab, said his team was helping Nokia’s development as a services company.
“We see the intersecting of the internet and mobility.Nokia has been a device company and that will remain a lucrative business for years to come, but instead of waiting until we have to change, Nokia is looking ahead and making changes now.”
He said the focus for the firm was a “total solution”, encompassing hardware and software, but focusing on a “compelling user experience”.
“The company that understands the end user experience is going to have an edge,” he added.
In Palo Alto 50 researchers are working on future mobile services.
Professor Tirri said the challenge for Nokia as it alters its focus was dealing with the issue of scale, and how best to use the information in the digital world that phones were able to gather in the physical world.
“If one billion devices each produced one message every minute, it would swamp the network capacity.
“And what do we choose to measure in the physical world? We could measure everything, using the camera and sensors like GPS, which is perfectly possible.
“But the challenge then is indexing that data. How do we sort and deliver that data back to people?”
“And then there is a humungous user interface problem - how do keep the experience simple enough for consumers?”
Dr Shen added: “When technology is below the user requirement, technology drives the industry.
“But once you cross over to the mainstream then you have to look at services and the user experience.
“The real focus now is compelling user experiences. It has to be user experience driven rather than technology driven.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation
MP3 for your car horn with HornTones
February 26, 2008
The guys at ThinkGeek have come up with a rtaher cool gadget for all you frustrated drivers out there.I’m talking about the HornTones MP3 Automod that plays 256 megabytes of MP3s and comes with a USB slot so you can add new ones. The device can store up to ten different tones, so you can find one for every occasion.
$300 at Thinkgeek
Video:
February 25, 2008
Your new favorite podcast that is sometimes, tangentially about video games is back! This week beverage enthusiast Jeff Gerstmann, freelance gigolo Alex Navarro, and I bask in the afterglow of GDC, guzzle horrible energy drinks, contemplate legal action against McDonald’s, declare Cobra a 2008 Oscar winner, and so very much more! Join us, won’t you?
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Why the future is in your hands
February 18, 2008
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website
Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer.
Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade.
And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched.
“Converged devices are always with you and always connected,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Last year Nokia sold almost 200m camera phones and about 146m music phones, making it the world’s biggest seller of digital cameras and MP3 players.
In the coming year the firm predicts it will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone.
Form and function
Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: “All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone.”
“We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things,” he said.
Symbian’s operating system shipped on 188 million phones last year and a third of those came with GPS.
“We see mobile phones evolving into multi-functional devices that now support consumer electronics, multimedia entertainment and mobile professional enterprise applications; all converging,” said Luis Pineda, from mobile phone chip firm Qualcomm.
Convergence is being driven by a combination of software, services and hardware.
The first phones powered by a chip running at 1Ghz will hit the market later this year, seven years after the first desktop chip broke the gigahertz barrier.
Qualcomm’s 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset will debut inside a number of handsets, including some from Samsung and HTC
“It’s a first in the industry for a wireless chipset,” said Mr Pineda.
As well as raw horsepower Snapdragon also features a dedicated application processor, as well as the ability to handle 12 megapixel digital photos and up to 720p high definition video imaging.
Mr Clifford from Symbian said the mobile industry had to deliver multi-function devices which did not compromise.
He said: “When we look at what is collapsing on to these devices and people’s expectations with their experiences on single-use specialized devices there is going to be rising expectations.”
Chip shop
More than 90% of the world’s mobile phones are powered by technology created by British firm Arm. It designs chip architectures that it licenses to semiconductors makers such as Qualcomm and Broadcom.
Ian Drew from Arm said future mobile phones demanded ever more processing power.
But building chips with greater processing was not a straightforward, he said.
"The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it’s going to be mobile"
Nigel Clifford, Symbian
“If you look at a typical phone the first thing you have got to do is get within the half a watt envelope.
“It needs to get into your pocket. And there’s no fan. It needs to work for days rather than hours.”
He added: “When you start adding multi media experiences- such as 3D graphics, video, and games - there are two ways to do that: you can get bigger and bigger processors or you have multi core where you can switch off a processor when you don’t need it.”
Arm is demonstrating a chip architecture, called Coretex A9, that will offer four cores, or processors, on a single chip.
Symbian has been working with Arm on future uses for multi-core mobile phones.
“You can use massive amounts of processing if you need it. But if you don’t you can power down the cores that aren’t required,” said Mr Clifford.
Symmetrical Multi Processing will drive the next generation of applications on a phone, he added.
“Silicon vendors are looking very seriously at how they integrate SMP.”
Mr Clifford added: “The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it’s going to be mobile.”
He said gaming would be the next feature to collapse into phones.
“That is one of the next single usage devices that will start feeling the pressure from the mobile device,” he said.
3D graphics acceleration is becoming standard on many of today’s mobile phones and specialists like Nvidia have joined the market.
Mr Clifford said today’s most powerful mobile phones, such as Nokia’s N96 and NTTDoCoMo’s 905 series have the same power as a laptop from 2000.
Nvidia’s APX 2500 chip has enough 3D graphics acceleration to handle Quake 3, a PC game from 1999, on a mobile phone.
Handset owners were also beginning to expect the same online experience they have on their desktop PCs on their mobile phones.
“Web 2.0, social networking and video sharing; that’s a real driver of horsepower,” said Mr Drew from Arm.
He added: “But you need to be able to get data in. The next generation of mobile phones need high performance radios - they will have high data rates that will enable this content to be streamed to you.”
Symbian is working on technology called Freeway to give phones the ability to move seamlessly between wireless networks, like wi-fi and cell networks like 3G and 4G.
“We don’t want people to feel the mobile web is a second class experience.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation
February 18, 2008
Welcome, and thank you for participating in the soft launch of the Arrow Pointing Down Podcast! There’s no explicit format yet, and it probably should’ve been encoded it at a lower bit rate, but hey! Fuck it!
This week, Ryan and Jeff ramble pointlessly over Skype about Gatorade, HD-DVD, GDC, and more!
Next week, there’s apparently going to be another show! And maybe another guest! And prizes?
By listening to this podcast, you may be eligible to win hundreds of millions of gold krugerrand. This is a lie!
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