I’ve seen a few Wii-mote hacks over the last year, but this one takes the cake I think. This dude is pretty genius and his creative use of the Wii-mote makes me wonder what fun new tech we’ll see in the next 10 years. Freakin Amazing!
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So I was just hangin’ out at work today preparing for the annual Omniture Halloween bash when this slick bit of Steampunk goodness unexpectedly arrived in my inbox courtesy of my good buddy Andy.
“What is it?” you may ask.
Well, let me tell you. It’s the most essential piece of equipment for any 19th century time traveler. Behold the Steampunk Flux Capacitor! This unique piece was apparently part of some nerds Halloween costume last year. And although he doesn’t have any pictures of the complete costume posted, you can only imagine how sweet it must have been by looking at the rest of pictures in this set.
It’s just unfortunate that I don’t posses the necessary set of skillz to create masterpieces such as this. I suppose I’ll just have to continue admiring the work of others.
The Sad State of Smartphone Software
Published by October 17th, 2007 in Gadgets, Random and Software. 0 CommentsI was going through my blogs today and stumbled on a note from the guys at Smartphone Thoughts. I like these guys, but again, it was a plug for a piece of software they hadn’t tried, in the vein of “looks kinda neat - anyone try it?”. This brought me over to the best-seller list on their site, where the current top dog is a clock program. Yeah, a freaking clock program.
<rant>
So what’s going on here? We’ve got a reasonably powerful device with web connectivity, and a clock is the best we can come up? Surely the other top sellers will be better. Let’s see; we’ve got a mediocre home screen customizer with really tiny Windows 95-style graphics. There’s CorePlayer, which is decent, but it used to be free (back when it was still TCPMP). There’s a tweaking app which makes tweaks to the registry for you and may have some other useful features. Next is a notes management app, and then ANOTHER STUPID CLOCK.
I can’t put money down for this stuff, especially when I see some very nice free apps on the market. Google Maps is very well executed. Windows Live Search is very functional and simple to use. Yahoo! Go is a pretty good piece of software, too; a little slow, but it’s a beta still. These are all free.
Where are the professional, useful applications? Where are the real developers hiding?
What about all the wonderful Web 2.0 (forgive me) web apps available? I’m talking about Google Docs, Mint.com, and similar. Where are useful apps like those in a portable format? So far the only strides have been online versions of Gmail and Google Reader ( and a few others). Where is the creativity? Where’s a blog tool that supports WordPress? Where’s an IM tool that works? Where’s a real replacement for Microsoft Reader (MobiPocket really sucks)? Nah, we don’t need that; we need a ringtone manager or seven different weather apps.
</rant>
Here’s my point, in case I haven’t hammered it in enough. Before developing another alarm clock or home screen plugin, step back and see what would REALLY be cool. Until then, I suppose we could always take our agendas to the eXtreme.
Zarch’s Gear: Garmin nüvi® 360 GPS
Published by October 13th, 2007 in Gadget Reviews, Gadgets and Reviews. 0 Comments
I know the question you’re all asking. “Zarch, you live 1.3 miles from your job. You live in Utah, where all the streets are laid out as a numbered grid. You have two other means of GPS navigation. WTH?” To that, I answer, I am a gadget admirer, and I constantly seek the gadget that performs its function perfectly. Enter the Nuvi 360.
Let me begin by saying that the official branding from Garmin is nüvi®, but that’s a pain to type, and it’s stupider than the Wii as far as brand names go (I know. I’m used to Wii, but it’s still pretty dumb, when you think about it). Hereafter I shall refer to the device as the Nuvi 360 like everyone else on the interwebs (except Garmin).
Guild Wars + Third-person Shooter. Those are my first impressions. And you don’t have to aim, really; just hit your mouse button, and you’re shooting at the enemy. I like the mechanics so far, but I’m not sure of a few things.
The story so far is pretty much “Guild Wars in Space”. It starts very much as Guild Wars did, with you cast as a soldier defending your people in a post-cataclysmic world. I thought the Guild Wars story was pretty week, so I don’t know if this one will be any better based on what I saw.
Game play gives you some very third-person shooter style mechanics. Movement is much more free than I’m used to in an RPG-style MMO. Targeting is as simple as pointing and clicking, ala Diablo, but in 3D. Skills and weapons are a left click/right click affair, also much like Diablo, which is actually not a bad way to do it.
Tried out the Call of Duty 4 demo this morning. My first thoughts are that it’s certainly a little more frenetic than 1 or 2, but the feel is very much the same. Graphics are excellent, even on my rig; my video card is a 6800 Ultra, so that holds me back a little bit when I try to run at my LCD’s native 1280×1024.
I got a chance to play with one of these, taking out some enemy armor. The weapons selection seems very close to what’s in the current US arsenal. The vehicles I saw were really well modeled; this is the same attention to details that we saw in the WWII games.
I can see they’re trying to give us a full-scale, near-symmetrical modern conflict. That’s where I’m a little unsure of the realism, because we haven’t had a symmetrical war for more than fifty years, to my knowledge. I can understand the political problems with presenting a game based on our asymmetrical fights in the Middle East, but that’s what we’re familiar with. I see them trying to give us that as well: RPGs were flying everywhere in the demo.
I think I can sum up the challenge this game will have. The original CoD games put you into a historical context where you relived some of the most pivotal, defining, and heroic events in our history. One of the best moments in any game, any platform was that final, frenetic push through the Reichstag. The Volga crossing into Stalingrad is another. Can CoD 4 give us moments like those in a fantasy conflict?
The Orange Box is Portal-rific!
Published by October 12th, 2007 in Game Reviews and Games. 2 Comments
Being the good little Valve fanboy that I am, I went out and picked up The Orange Box at Circuit City Wed evening after work (it’s currently on sale for $37.99 btw). Although I could have pre-ordered the bundle on Steam, I generally like to wait and pick up the discs. I’m not sure why this is, but I imagine it has something to do with the need to have some sort of physical reward for my purchase. Something that can sit on my shelf and collect dust instead of just a digital representation of the money I spent (or flushed down the toilet in my wifes opinion). As a fanboy though, I purchased this bundle with high hopes, and so far, I’m gleefully delighted.
Like many of the rest of you who rushed out to buy this bundle, I’ve already beaten Portal. My initial impressions… I NEED MORE!!! This was a very refreshing romp through a world with physics and graphics that we’re all used to, but with a new twist. Source still looks gorgeous after all these years and I found myself being blown away by this new space-bending aspect they’ve introduced. Like all truly great games, this one has begun to bleed over into my reality and I’ve found myself studying any white wall I encounter to judge whether or not a portal would fit there and where I might place the other end.
In short, Portal is one of the best PC games I’ve played in a good long while. In fact, it’s good enough to have torn me away from Phantom Hourglass these last few days. The only downside to the entire experience was how short it was. The gameplay mechanics, environment and generally humorous tone were all pretty much perfect. Incorporating the Portal gun into the final sequence proved to be a bit challenging and quite rewarding when finished. I don’t want to give anything away here, but the closing credits made it all worth it as well as making me hopeful for another installment. What we really need now are some good old fashioned mod community maps.
In closing, if you currently own the Orange Box and haven’t tried Portal yet… shame on you. Get your butt home (or wherever you happen to game) and give it try right now. You won’t be disappointed.
Oh, come on now - Red Ring of Death strikes
Published by October 11th, 2007 in Consoles and Random. 0 Comments
So it’s an open secret that Microsoft sort of ganked the first-gen Xbox 360. Rudeboy and I were in the local Toys R Us on a lunch break, and wandered over the sad, sad video game section. Even sadder than them having no new PSP slims was the sight of a damaged Xbox 360, proudly showing us the trademark red ring through the shop’s display. Not gonna sell a lot of Xboxes that way, are you, guys?
And I hope he makes a lot of money for Yahoo!, too. Take a look at this article. Basically, he’s saying “no” to any more DRM nonsense from the stupid music unions, which can only mean good things for those of us who like music and the gadgets that play it.
He also has some thoughts about context. A lot of people listen to music and don’t really think about what’s behind it, and that’s fine. But there are a lot of us who want more; we might want to know why Bono thinks it’s stupid to play “One” at a wedding. Guys may not know that Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were all former members of other decent bands: the Byrds, the Hollies, Buffalo Springfield. And it’s even more important to have a local context; my wife and I played “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” at our wedding; if someone is listening to that track, and they’re a friend on Last.fm, they might be amused to see that context.
So there’s the content, and the context, and the next gen of music on the web will hopefully give us more of both.
I took the opportunity to upgrade my Smoothwall to the new version 3 last night, and took some pictures of my “network closet”. I think this serves as an example of how NOT to EVER treat the heart of your home’s connectivity. My network closet is currently just an area of my unfinished basement with a little table set up to hold everything. There’s a big, ancient, 3Com switch, a smaller gigabit switch, my cable modem, my trusty Asus wireless AP, and the router for my VoIP service. Note the huge power strip on the floor, right next to my water heater.
So last night’s project brought up a unique case of jury-rigging. The little Compaq thing I’m using for the Smoothwall used a laptop CD drive, which has gone bad. The power connector wasn’t a standard Molex, and I could not find a splitter anywhere. My power supply supplies have suffered severe losses, so I couldn’t do a dual power supply thing. Luckily, I found a fix.
In my rummaging, I turned up an unused USB-IDE hard drive case. I stole the power from that and plugged the IDE in from the Smoothwall box, and was able to make the upgrade from there. Ugly, but workable.
So how’s Smoothwall 3? It’s a decent upgrade, actually. I wouldn’t run and upgrade if you’ve got a good system going, but the built-in QoS should help when I’m trying to torrent and make a phone call at the same time, and there are many more configuration options right in the GUI. I’d say consider it if you’re needing a little extra bandwidth management or switching from a store-bought router/firewall.