Gadgetry

Monday, January 10, 2005

Hoo-hah! MacWorld Predictions

MacWorld is tomorrow in California - bastards. Sunshine and new hardware. So since we’ll not be there it’s time to put my predictions in writing. Some are no brainers, and some wish-fulfillment. But it’s a game, right? So let’s consult the Magic 8-ball:

“Signs point to yes”
- New iPod Flash - unless you’ve been hibernating, this is a fait de complet.  The latest buzz is that it’s a remote-control-type device.

- New QuickTime - the h.264-based video (4 times more efficient than current, if I recall correctly) with AAC Pro (the new audio component to h.264) and support for OGG playback. This will make many a Linux user happy and negate a bit of the iRiver advantage.

- New iTunes - New iPod, new QuickTime…new iTunes. duh.

- Keynote 2 - Long overdue, it has the possibility to be a real PowerPoint killer if Apple can smooth out the rough edges. It needed more transitions and pushes, and the ability to have multiple pushes-per-slide, more clipart and easier bullet-ing. QuickTime export really stands to have great gains on file size.

- Asteroid - Some kind of Firewire DJ control. Kids will like it, I guess. Damn kids - playing music at all hours. And stay off my lawn!


“Reply hazy, try again”
- A Mac Office Suite - Possible, but that would mean either upgrading the AppleWorks codebase, which if I recall wasn’t terribly optimized for OS X to begin with, nor a G5. Building from scratch makes more sense, but we’re also talking about creating a word processor & spreadsheet companions to Keynote, which as I mentioned earlier needed stabilizing itself. Mail competes pretty well with Outlook except for the scheduling component - iCal needs to be integrated better. You also need a competitor for Access, especially since the MS option doesn’t include it and MySQL is built in to OS X. Filemaker makes sense except that they’re doing very well without being bundled but it competes with MySQL. It makes more sense to build a MySQL front-end with the same drag and click ease of Access. Ultimately, I think Keynote 2 will arrive and perhaps a upgraded version of Notepad becomes our new Write application, and when a db and spreadsheet are ready, then the Office app cometh. IMHO, not this show.

- iBook upgrade - yeah, it’s only been a few months since the speed-bump, but Apple really needs to address the coming VRAM issue on the iBook and Tiger. If you say Tiger’s Core Image component requires 64MB VRAM, how long do you continue selling 32MB VRAM hardware? What happens when all these Christmas presents decide that they want to upgrade to Tiger in June, and find that they’re already severely outdated? Sure Core Image scales to older hardware, but seriously - 32MBs? Apple - you really need to address this.


“Outlook not so good”
The Headless Mac - Man, I really doubt the idea of a $500 headless iMac. Unless they’re dropping the eMac from the consumer market, I can’t imagine most non-Apple users heading for it.

So what is the mystery box…?


“Signs point to yes”
iHome - Apple’s PVC and answer to the iPod video issue. Another salvo in the consumer hardware market, I think the iHome will be the Mac Tivo - with the added ability of allowing iPods to shuttle video from project to presentation just by plugging in. iTunes music and iMovie, iDVD projects, the iPod carries it to an iHome which displays it, as well as doing the video recording/scheduling PVRs are known for. I would be surprised if it had a DVD player, but it could happen. I do expect it to be able to link with an Airport Extreme, so you can place your video where you want without having to keep it near the stereo or running wires across the room. Consider also the space-saving quality of h.264 in the new QuickTime. And if the rumor of Apple speakers are true, and they’re wireless speakers, then you begin to see how this can really change the marketplace.

What may separate it from the pack will be price - I think Apple’s on the edge of playing the value game. If iHome comes in under $500, it’ll completely own the market. Even if you have to spend another $200 or so for wireless speakers and an Airport Express, it would still be an amazing value and destroy the competition on price.


“Ask again later…”
Apple chose not to webcast it live (another pointer for me to a QuickTime upgrade) so by tomorrow midnight (Amsterdam-time) we’ll probably know all.

What do you predict?

Posted by Admin on 01/10 at 01:15 AM
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Sunday, January 09, 2005

Updates and MacWorld

It’s slow on this site mostly because 1) this is an experiment to see if I even care to blog, and 2) I sold the old home laptop and I’m waiting for MacWorld before making a decision on a new home computer.

I won’t have another PC in my house - game over on Windows. I work on them all day and I don’t want to be come tech support at home, so now with OS X it’s all Macs at home. The first update will be a new portable and later on in the year I hope to either add a Dual-G5 or, ahem - this is a big “or” - an xServe.

(Yeah, I could run Linux - I’ve done that under Suse and RedHat before on my Sun 5s and the old Pentium II, but now I tend to want to simplify my systems and that means OS X full-time. I just want it to work…Of course, I’m always open to new ideas—and if anyone wants to donate to the “educational fund”, please do.)

But the rumors of MacWorld’s headless Mac systems, home PVRs, new hardware and software makes one just want to wait a little bit more. I’ve got an eye on a new iBook, but the 32MB vram seems a little low when you consider the 64MB video requirements for Tiger…I’m hoping for a slight update on the iBooks.

Posted by Admin on 01/09 at 07:27 AM
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Friday, December 17, 2004

Nintendo Media Player: Hurrah for Open Standards

imageThis is a great slap in the chops of the Sony PSP. “Sure we can do video, and we can do it with Open Standards AND the memory cards you already have…”  Some will call it a reaction to the media player aspect of the PSP, but third-party Nintendo players predates Sony by a few years. Nintendo even sell pre-recorded content in Japan, and now they’re directly in the hardware game.

As my niece in California would say, “it’s hekka cool” - you’ve got a Gameboy SP or a Nintendo DS and you’d like to take your music, yesterday’s podcast or last night’s big TV-of-the-Week movie along on your long, lonely bus trip to Minsk. What to do?

Well, Nintendo’s Media Player is a really decent implementation of a media player—Gizmodo has a nice note on it. There’s a link below—but the big news is that their hardware plays back un-DRM’d MP3 music and MPEG-4 video, at a decent 352 by 288 pixel resolution. You can get 4 hours of video or up to 15 hours of MP3s, depending on the size card you use.

image

But there it is again - you don’t have to use the uber-expensive Sony Memory Stick Duo cards…you use SD ram, likely a memory card you already have for your camera or perhaps an older MP3 player. They’re certainly cheaper than the Sony memory; a quick Google finds 1GB for $75.00 US and you don’t have to worry about someone changing the cards specs later after you’ve bought your card.

For a historical example: I have a Sony Ericsson P800 phone - spent a chunk of change to buy it nearly 2 years ago - and over 100 euros to buy a 128MB Memory when you could buy easily twice that in SD ram for at least half the price. But lo and behold, larger cards came out - 256MB and 512MB - but I can’t use it on my little P800…have to buy a new P900.  Bah!

Sony still uses a razor-and-blades philsophy to push not only their media but also their standards. The problem is that there’s no reasonable competative reason to endorse their proprietary standards while efficient standards exist. Their ATRAC compression scheme is proof of this, and they’re learning their lesson slowly. But while the PSP has taken the first step by adding MP3 and MPEG4, they still use proprietary, expensive memory cards. This will limit how many people do this.

And to add insult to injury, Nintendo’s SD-based media players last twice as long for video. And it works on not only two million or so Nintendo DS systems, but the 21-million-plus Gameboy Advances out there. That is a HUGE existing platform for MPEG4 adoption! I could watch last night’s movie and dozens of songs or podcasts on my bus trip…all on one charge.

Carrying multiple SD cards sure beats carrying multiple batteries…
Wonderful. Hurrah for supporting existing technology so well.

Gizmodo::Official Nintendo Game Boy MPEG4 Player

Posted by Admin on 12/17 at 01:48 AM
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Nintendo DS Part 2

image

There are certainly things to like and be annoyed by with the new Nintendo DS. So it’s time for a rundown…

High points:
- Great battery life - plays for about 10 hours, charges in only 4.
- Excellent visability within the first-person field of view.  Screen brightness is quite good.
- Tracking on the screen is highly accurate and fast, making it the perfect analog stick replacement.
- Sound processing is clear and the stereo image - especially for small speakers - is also quite good.  The headphone jack has the volume control placed in the front, just below the user’s viewpoint. You can easily find it if you’re using it, but otherwise it’s not visable and your fingers won’t trip over it.
- Directional pad and buttons are nicely placed for thumb-rocking action as well as direct pressing. Shoulder buttons are large and easily found.

Low Points:
- Less visibility on the screen at a wider angle, but it is a personal player.
- The thumb pad is awkward to orient and then slips in gameplay.
- Power button placed directly over the directional pad can be easy to hit.
The boxed demo of Metroid Prime does a good job of showing off the processing power of the system - it seems more than adequate for 3D animation. Textures shades and colors gradients are handled well but I’d like to see more used of edge filtering across contrast areas like edges. This is a design issue with the program, I believe, and not the hardware since it does filtering in hardware. This would give the impression of less-jaggies, a technique I believe is used in the PSP on its small screen, to give the impression of higher resoltion. (The screens are similar in native PPI across the area, and while the PSP’s single screen is larger, allowing object to be drawn larger in more detail, the number of points of colors across both platforms are similar. Of couorse, as I Google quickly for numbers and find nothing, this could be bollocks).

Posted by Admin on 12/15 at 05:57 AM
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Monday, December 13, 2004

Nintendo DS: Looking at device usebility…

I couldn’t wait once the postman arrived - I cracked-open the box of the DS and, running off the mains, gave it a run. There are some good things to note and some annoyances…

I like it - I do. It’s a fun little box…what I’ve basically always wanted from Nintendo. Sizewise it is *just* a little large, but not so much that an average male’s hands would cramp. I’m just thinking in terms of pocketing the device, which would currently necessitate the use of cargo pants - and I was happy to avoid that fad back in the 90s. Ain’t gonna happen now. But this is more about the usability of the device than an accessory guide.

I hope, very much hope, that Nintendo gets the knack of using the touch-screen wisely. I played that Metroid Prime-thingamajob, basically “the photo that came with the wallet”, and it certainly was fun once you spent some time mastering the controls. Right now this is the only game I have - I’m on backorder until January for Super Mario 64 - and if this is what I have to go by it might take a while before developers deliver the kind of gameplay I’m looking for.

I think many new applications will use the touch-screen in a simple, gimmicky manor. Obviously the touch control is very nice, very fine; in fact, better than any analog stick I’ve ever used. It’s such a natural extension of the experience, to just reach into the game and play, it’s amazing that it’s not been tried before. But if used cheaply, like..ahem, some driving games I could mention...then the touch screen concept will die a quick death.

Right now, my biggest gripe is the dumb thumb-pad on the wrist strap. I think it was some kind of afterthought due to the fact that the game lineup was somewhat weak at launch…it helps to make slightly clumsy game controls easier to maneuver. But for me the pad itself moves around my thumb too much. I have to pause the game occasionally to reposition the strap and thumb, which is not conducive to the maintaining the level of immersion in the experience.

I think the games and their controls will mature, to be sure. I would always argue for sensitivity adjustments to any game that requires the screen to track an “analog” response. Also, either a longer strap or revised curved thumb cap, matching the wrap of the thumb, would be preferential to the existing flat pad. Lastly, a battery indicator showing available charge would be logical too…

Still, it’s a good first-try. I’ll be keeping it a while.

Posted by Admin on 12/13 at 07:30 AM
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