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Monthly Archives: April 2010

Video Killed the Mobility Star

(I will say I was tempted to do an article about Apple’s Flash-Bashing Session, but really it’s just another case of the Apple pot calling the Adobe kettle black.  Really, one just needs to bring up Quicktime and trailers.apple.com to prove the point that Apple doesn’t really care about open web standards.)

If there’s one new trend that appears to be coming in mobile devices that I really don’t understand the practical use of, it’s front-facing cameras for video calling.  Taking a look at some of the new phones coming out in the next year, I see a fair few of them with front facing phones, and I can’t see a non-novelty use for them right now.

Mobile devices are made for portability and convenience – the ability to be able to walk down the street or be driving down the road and talking to someone is the whole purpose of cell phones.  When you add video to the equation, you need to eliminate the portability aspect to some degree for it to work well.  What do I mean?  Picture yourself walking down the street trying to do a video call with someone.  You’ll have to hold the phone a couple of feet away from your body, try to angle the camera so the person on the other end can see you clearly, and still focus on walking down the street without running into someone or into the middle of traffic.  Trust me, people are stupid enough with cell phones as it is right now that it wouldn’t surprise me to hear about some genius with a video phone running into traffic.

And that’s only half the problem.  Most carriers are going to limit video calls to Wi-Fi only, which ruins the whole concept of portability for these things anyways.  It’s really kind of amusing how carriers are having to limit bandwidth as much as possible now considering the amount of devices around. Speeds are bad enough as it is, and with some of the reports of really bad networks around the globe *coughAT&Tcough*, it’s going to take a fair bit of time until telcom companies upgrade to get faster speeds and greater reliability.  More than likely, it’ll be once everyone switches over to UTMS.  But even with the speed, you’ve never going to be able to have a practical option for making video calls portable.

I’m not dismissing video calling at all, as there are a lot of cases where it’s highly practical and useful to have, but they all involved being in a stationary position and, most often than not, tied to a computer.  Business meetings, conference calls, even communicating with family members (Especially with young children) are all great things to do with video calling.  However, they are all usually when you’re in one stationary place tied to a good internet connection.  It really makes me wonder why Apple didn’t include a camera with their iPad, since that would be a fantastic use of the device and a potentially major selling point for it.

The point is, there’s really no good way to implement video calling in a mobile setting.  While video calling does have good applications, it’s incredibly limited.  If mobile manufacturers want to give us new features in their devices, give us more storage.  No one can argue with the need for that.

Sworn to Secrecy

The whole Apple iPhone 4 controversy has grown from an interesting news story to a perfect example of what not to do as a tech journalism/blogging site.  Honestly, it went from being a story that initially seemed like a legitimate find to an admission that it was bought from someone else (Which was technically illegal) for a high price in order to get page views.  And after hearing the latest chapter, I’m on the side against Gizmodo and for Apple and their lawyers.  Let’s look at Gizmodo’s claims, and why they’re full of crap.

“Just so you know, we didn’t know this was stolen [as they might have claimed. meaning, real and truly from Apple. It was found, and to be of unproven origin] when we bought it.”

Gizmodo obviously knew what they were doing, and for them to claim that they were “unsure of the legitimacy of the device” is pure crap.  If they were going to spend five grand on the device without seeing it or having some kind of evidence that it was a real prototype, they wouldn’t have bought it.  They must have at least seen shots from the original finder if not seen the device in person, and the markings on the back were alone probably enough for people to understand that it’s certainly not just cheap knock-off.  Spending that kind of money to play “prototype lottery” just doesn’t make sense, no matter how large a company you are.

“And as we reported before, that’s exactly what happened—our source started dialing Apple contact and support numbers. He was turned away, and given a support ticket number.”

A good general rule of thumb is that people in support and retail know about as much as the average consumer.  Yes, they may be Apple employees, but if everyone within the company was to know about every device in development, odds are leaks would be much more frequent then they are now (Or in the case of Apple, would actually happen once in a while).  A device under R&D still will only be known about by a few selective people – upper management, and the actually people working on the device.  I find it perfectly acceptable that the support rep would dismiss someone claiming that they had the new iPhone as either a prank caller or someone wildly misinformed.

Now, in the case of Apple, when you see the CEO of Apple make the news daily for actually replying to emails that regular customers send him, you’d think a light would turn on above your head.  Why wouldn’t you try to contact him directly, explain the situation in detail to show proof that you actually have it, and make arrangements to return the device to whoever it belongs to?  To try one option that’s so incredibly weak and to justify it as “We tried to return the device to you, honest!” is again just a bad attempt to try to gain some credibility.

“While the outing of Apple engineer Gray Powell was inevitable—his name was going to come out anyway, and there is a real if slight chance that foisting him into the public eye might help him keep his job at Apple—I think the way we did it was incredibly tacky.”

At least I can agree with this.  Press or not, Apple will deal with him according to various clauses in his contract.  Another tech site pointed out that more than likely, his contract covers intentional breaches as opposed to accidental breaches caused by human error.  People are human, and people do on occasion lose items whether they want to or not.  I don’t think Apple would have fired him whether his name was released to the public or not, and all putting him in the public eye has done is made him a spectacle and a joke among the tech industry.  Is that fair to him?  I’d say not.

“Do bloggers count as journalists?”

I find it really amusing that they tend to flip their position from being a “tech news site” to a “blogging site” whenever it’s most convenient for them.  When saying why it wasn’t a planned leak, they group themselves into the tech press crowd to make themselves look like one of the “big boys”, but as soon as they want to fight written law they claim that they’re simply bloggers and nothing more.  As far as I’m concerned, you guys are a tech site whether you want to be or not.  If you’re doing reviews, covering the most recent events in the tech industry by presenting all fact and no commentary, you’re a tech news site.

With the current development that a Gizmodo’s house was raided by the police (With a court-signed warrant), it seems that Gawker is paying the price for outing something the way they did.  Apple isn’t stupid – they’re wanting to find out who they bought the iPhone prototype from and then start looking at pressing charges on either/both parties involved in this.  Serves you right – you knew what you were up against, and you thought you could get away with it.

While I admittedly fault Apple for a lot of things, the way they handle information about new devices is great simply because it’s unique.  Even hating Apple, I have to admit that I enjoy watching their keynotes simply to learn everything they’re doing after all the suspense building up to it.  Gawker and Gizmodo is aware of this, and they wanted to grab the bull by the horns.  Moral of the story guys – you knew what you’re doing would get you in trouble, so don’t start playing the martyr card.  No one’s gonna sympathize except the truly anti-Apple.

Crops and Robbers

Kotaku published an amazingly well-written essay about Farmville yesterday evening, and after reading it and realizing it wasn’t the usual “Farmville is bad, don’t play it” simplicity but rather an in-depth examination of all the problems that Farmville has created on our society, it creates a sad realization.

I’ll start of by saying the article is in the reference section of this post, and I do recommend reading it entirely before you read this post. However, if you don’t feel like reading it entirely I’ll copy the biggest point this article had and casually reference anything else I want to talk about throughout.

Indeed, when one measures Farmville against Roger Caillois’ six criteria for defining games, Farmville fails to satisfy each and every one. Caillois stated that games must be free from obligation, separate from ‘real life,’ uncertain in outcome, an unproductive activity, governed by rules, and make-believe.[12] In comparison:

(1) Farmville is defined by obligation, routine, and responsibility;
(2) Farmville encroaches and depends upon real life, and is never entirely separate from it;
(3) Farmville is always certain in outcome, and involves neither chance nor skill;
(4) Farmville is a productive activity, in that it adds to the social capital upon which Facebook and Zynga depend for their wealth;
(5) Farmville is governed not by rules, but by habits, and simple cause-and-effect;
(6) Farmville is not make-believe, in that it requires neither immersion nor suspension of disbelief.

The obvious thing I should clear up here is that gaming by itself is not bad or even counter-productive.  Games, when balanced out with everything else in life are a great form of entertainment and even social interaction.  The big point to get out of those six rules in my mind is the second point – this game isn’t an escape from reality at all, but rather becomes more of a “chore” that people psychologically feel the need to complete, similar to cleaning or making food.  This isn’t a game at all, it turns into a second job for most people.

With over twenty-six million people playing this game (More than WoW, which was a shocking statistic), one can certainly draw similarities between the two games.  As people know, I’ve had a longstanding tradition of mocking both World of Warcraft itself, and the players that play the game for being the stereotypical “basement dwellers” like you see in all the comics.  While I do know people who play the game very casually, it is very easy to get immersed in the game setting as well as all the tasks that you need to complete in the game.  Farmville takes that exact approach as well – events are timed and need to be completed within a certain period of time, and because the game doesn’t stop when you stop playing it, you are in some degrees at its mercy in terms of deciding when you need to play it.  Both of these games focus on grinding, a skill I’ve never been able to understand how people can get so much enjoyment from.

But this isn’t what the original point of video games was supposed to be.  I know personally, I play videogames for two sole reasons – to escape from reality where I can relieve stress, and to have interaction with people as well, mostly via voice communication that most games have.  While Farmville does have interaction, it’s very minimal and not even one-on-one.  Gifting people things, encouraging them to play the game and getting them to watch your farm isn’t true social interaction – it’s simply one-sided gains and/or one-sided interaction.  You’re only using other people to personally benefit and gain something from it.

The point is, as soon as you start feeling the need to play a game and have to schedule your life around it, you’re not too far away from video game addiction (If you aren’t there already).  The most important thing is to have that distinct barrier between reality and fantasy, and be able to walk away from it without the need to commit to it again.  Games like this really aren’t fun, they’re just a way to eat up time.  Once you’ve become so desperate to kill time you’re planning your day around planting and harvesting a virtual crop, then you need to take a step back and see who’s really in control – you, or the game?

The Crapware Epidemic

There are a lot of good reasons to never buy a computer OEM (Prebuilt by a known manufacturer). Aside from the obvious reasons like price, satisfaction of building something by yourself, and the ability to get exactly what you want, the biggest reason why I’ve never liked prebuilt machines is the vast amount of “crapware” that comes preinstalled on them. Ranging from Acer’s “Game/Media Center” to all the various free trials of MS Office/Money, they’re both an eyesore and a waste of space and memory.

If there’s one thing I have to compliment Apple on, it’s the fact that they ship legitimate, full versions of their applications on their computer. Yes, you’re paying the price for it, but the ability to load the computer up for the first time and have everything you need on there right off the bat without having to download any additional programs is a great feeling. Open up a brand-new laptop from a company like Acer, and you probably already have over a dozen icons on your desktop, and about ten various programs running in your system tray. How many of those will you actually use? I would bet none if it wasn’t for the fact that these programs set themselves to be the default program for various files.

Moving away from desktops for a moment though, some documents detailing Windows Phone 7 got released today, and while a lot of the information in it seemed fairly predictable (Centralized, non-OEM updates; requirements; hardware specs; etc.), what I found most interesting was the section relating to OEM customization of the device. With this new phone OS, Microsoft is going to be keeping a tight leash on OEMs, something that in my mind should have happened long ago. OEMs are allowed only six applications to be preinstalled, and they all have to be approved by Microsoft beforehand. As well, changing search is only allowed via the web browser – overall search is still done through Bing. As for aspects of the OS allowed drastic changes, they seem to be limited to the boot screen, wallpaper, ringtones, and most importantly camera settings.

I applaud Microsoft for this strategy. On paper at least, it seems like they’re aiming to control user experience of the operating system while at the same time still allowing OEMs to individualize to compete with each other. How this will actually turn out only time will tell, but this seems to be the right step that they need to make WinPhone 7 a contender. My hope is that this method brings great success to them, and makes them take a look at their approach for a desktop/laptop environment as well. While OEMs do get money from bundling all this crapware into the OS, I’m sure Microsoft can find a happy medium to satisfy both consumers and OEMs. Putting a cap on programs that automatically run off a default install and controlling default file association would be great starts in my mind. Start off slow, and then start to look at possibly limiting the amount of programs an OEM can install.

It’s fully possible, and I wouldn’t consider it unrealistic a dream. Microsoft’s a company I’ve come to expect surprising things from on occasion, and the day I can install a computer at work and not have to spend fifteen minutes of my time uninstalling Dell programs will be a very happy day.

When Real Is Too Real

I recently bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 due to what I’m deeming peer pressure and the fact I could get it about $20 cheaper than normal.  I don’t want to give an official rule on whether I actually like the game or not since I haven’t actually played anything other than two maps of single player, but after the twenty minutes I’ve put into it I had a realisation as to why I will most likely not like the game, and the genre as a whole.

I should start off by saying that when I mean “genre”, I refer to realistic shooters, not FPS’ in general.  At  least in my mind, there’s a large difference – realistic shooters aim to recreate a time, place, or moment in history and be as historically accurate as possible.  Yes, people will argue with me that BC2 “isn’t a realistic shooter because of this and that”, and I could really care less.  It’s recreating an actual even in history, all the weapons are realistic, and it’s generally geared towards that crowd.  So honestly, if you’re going to read all this and use that as your logic as to why I’m wrong, then stop right now.

Usually, at the end of a hard day, I use video games as a way to escape reality.  That’s what they’re there for.  But when the alternate reality is a recreation of a former or current event in the world right now, I just find it both depressing and uninteresting.  Part of it stems from the fact that I enjoy having humour and interesting story in my games, but another is just a personal belief that gamers who enjoy realism and gamers who do not are in entirely separate categories.  Consider it harsh, but I consider the people who like realistic games to be in the same category as people who enjoy The Sims series – people who feel the need to create a simulation of real life in order to geel better about themselves and change their personal view of their life, even if it’s only temporary.  I’m not saying non-realistic gamers never do that, but it’s my belief that it isn’t as common as realistic gamers (Excluding the MMO/RPG crowd…..that’s a whole other story).

TF2, Unreal Tournament, those kind of games are the ones I enjoy.  That said, games in general have been kind of boring me recently, so I’ve been getting into better things to do anyways.  I will probably give BC2 a little more playtime to see if it does have any redeeming qualities, but I’m guessing that odds are low of that.

Update on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10:50AM

After seeing a couple of the comments, I feel the need to clarify what I wrote.

I was generalizing a lot when I was talking about realism fans versus non-realism fans.  Yes, stereotyping is a bad thing to do (And perhaps most of the people who are reading this don’t fall into the categories I was setting), but in a few cases stereotyping is accurate.  Perhaps I should have phrased the types of gamers into “arcade” and “simulation” as opposed to using realism.

Arcade people do, generally, play for the fun, light environment that a game creates even if it means adding things that would never happen in real life for some exciting gameplay.  Take Team Fortress 2 for example, where crits are a way to balance out skill and talent for the sake of keeping the playing field even, as well as having a couple of very non-serious weapons at your disposal to kill people with.  Accuracy of weapons varies, and you are for the most part diving into the action and getting up close to your enemy (Something that would be a very unwise choice in real life).

Simulation aims to do exactly what it claims – simulate a real-life experience.  This means that in a FPS you’re spending a lot of time taking cover, sneaking up towards enemy lines, and waiting for a possible target.  The goal of a simulation is to make it feel like you’re actually in whatever situation the game has you placed in and to make you feel like you could, for example, join the military and do very well on the front lines. They don’t necessarily need an accurate to history story, but they need to be very believable as if it could have happened.

The reason why most people are into those two specific camps are the different appeals they have like I said.  Yes, some games do a decent job of crossing over (Admittedly, The Sims is probably one of those games), but the people who enjoy simulations are the kind of people who would want to see as much detail as possible in a game in order to make it as realistic and immerse you in the situation as much as possible.  Arcade gamers are the ones who will sacrifice graphics and other details in order for a more fun overall gameplay experience.

With that, I can also admit that crossover is a little more common that I made it out to be, but I’m also going to say that I believe it’s a lot harder for someone who’s played arcade style games in one genre his entire life to move on to a simulation game in the same genre and legitimately have fun, at least for the start.  That’s more than likely the problem that I have with Bad Company 2 – I’ve played arcade games for so long and have learned to love their quirkiness that simulation games now just seem boring.  Still, know that I stand by the fact that there is a divide in players similar to the divide in genres.