Short Shorts

Babes in ToIP-land

Mike — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 18:00:00 PST

BACKGROUND: The Wi-Fi function of the Nintendo DS handheld made lots of waves in '05, not only as a tool for wireless proximity multiplayer, but also for the "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection" (NWC) that allows wireless multiplayer over the Internet and its DSpeak VoIP tech demo at E3.

SET-UP: What if two twelve-year olds from Ohio and France could not only be connected via the DS (including VoIP headsets), but have physical two-player toys (also controlled wirelessly by the DS) in front of them with their partner's playing piece a physical representation of the moves he makes half-way around the world.

Perhaps something similar to the robotic chess sets Milton Bradley and others made in the 80's (video, video), or more generalized robotic boardgame, or Rock'em Sock'em Robots, or even slot cars. Anything with a defined playing field and reasonably simple mechanics of recreating player movement. It would be a first foray into telepresence toys, or "Telepresence over IP".

"OK. I'm getting set over here."

"Did you hear the new Animal Crossing WW is out?"

"Yup. Are you gonna get it?"

"Thinking about it. Don't have any money left, though. Spent it on a pair of '88 Batman comic books."

"Whoa! How were they?"

"Awesome."

"Did you get 'em on eBay?"

"Yeah. From a guy in New York."

"Ouch. Wasn't the shipping super expensive?"

"Sure was. Totally worth it."

"You ready?"

"Yeah. You?"

"All set. How about we play from move 10 of the 1972 Spassky/Fischer match?"

"OK, but then speed chess."

"Alright."

"I'm selecting the scenario now."

"Love the way this thing moves stuff into place for us."

"Yeah. I keep showing my friends over here. Totally excellent ... OK. Your move."

"Here goes."

"Ahh, so that's how you're gonna play it."

"You won't see it comin', my friend."

"Oh, but I will. Hey, did you see that SNL Narnia rap?"

"Yeah, pretty funny. Did you catch the 'You can call me Aarn Burr by the way I'm dropping Hamiltons'? You know what that means, dontcha?"

"Not really."

"Hamilton is on our $10 bills."

"Oooh, that is funny."

"Heh! Bb5+ Bd7 ... that'll be the end of you."

"Not so fast. Suck on my rook, dude. I owned you..."

"No way! OK. Let's play speed chess."

PS3 in the wild

Mike — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 20:00:00 PST

BACKGROUND: Now that Xbox 360 is so "last year", it's time to start fawning over the PS3.

SET-UP: What would you do if you found a PS3 on your doorstep? Travis Parker found out. Here's how he captured the experience on his blog. Last entry first.

Hauled off
Posted Wednesday Jan 10th 2006, 4:01AM

writing from treo ... siting in cop car. am ok. they took the box -- last entry

Calling the cops
Posted Wednesday Jan 10th 2006, 2:42AM

Dont feel safe. Have called police. Auction is off. Not posting anymore. Disconnecting phone.

Received threatening phone call
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006, 11:49PM

This isn't funny. Someone just called, recited my SSN, VISA card number, mortgage id and the number of lights on in my house and demanded I ship the box to a PO box in Orange County.

High bidder J Allard?
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006, 8:29PM

The high bid on eBay has gone up to $42,000 from an anonymous bidder. I have anonymized e-mail from someone claiming to work at M$, who says they have information that the bidder is Xbox 360 impresario J Allard

Sony legal department strong-arming tactics
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006, 3:12PM

SCEA called me this afternoon to threaten legal action if I do not cease and decist with this blog and the auction.

I reject this claim, as there is no indication of ownership on the equipment or software and as I have signed no binding agreements with Sony.

In addition, I am countering these strong-arm tactics by offering to donate the entire proceeds of the auction to the charity of the winner's choice. Since then, the bidding price has gone north of $11,000.

STOP sending me e-mail or calling me.

PS3 now up on eBay
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006 1:52PM

Have had over 100K hits since yesterday and I'm flooded with e-mail and--much worse--phone calls after one of you decided to reverse engineer my phone number and post it on your blog.

I am not interested in this kind of attention. Many posters in the comments section have suggested I put the PS3 up for auction, and I have decided that's what I will do.

Please stop contacting me for reasons other than the auction.

SF TV station called
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006 8:27AM

Got a call from local TV station wanting to come over and do an interview. I said no thanks. Getting run over with communication...

Video up on Google
Posted Tuesday Jan 9th 2006 10:02PM

People continue to doubt I'm for real, so I have put up about five minutes of video I took of the console UI and the games. Quality is poor. Sorry about that.

Got digg'd
Posted Monday Jan 8th 2006, 8:34PM

Apparently I got digg'd (as well as Slashdot'd, Gamespot'd, Joystiq'd, Gizmodo'd and a variety of others). 8K hits in last hour. Thanks for the visits!!!

PS3 Impressions: MGS4:GotP, VGT and Killzone
Posted Monday Jan 8th 2006, 7:47PM

I have had a chance to play the system since 11am this morning.

As background, I should say I'm a gamer. Not the 10-hours-a-day kind, but I'm interested and had been looking forward to the PS3.

Let me just say: THIS THING IS SMOKIN'!!!

All the video we've seen of Metal Gear Solid 4 (including the Hideo Kojima real-time demo), Killzone (especially the controversial is-it-or-isn't-it-real-time E3 trailer) and VGT (a.k.a. Gran Turismo 5) were accurate. IT REALLY DOES LOOK THAT GOOD.

According to the hand-written labels on the Blu-Ray discs (!!!), the games are alpha pre-certification builds, and they do occasionally crash/hang, but it's all there!

MGS4: Once you get over the fact that Solid Snake looks like the elderly man down the street, the cinematic nature of this stealth action shooter overcomes you. Muted earth tones, depth of field and shadows abound everywhere and will instantly make this the new standard bearer of the genre. Most interesting are the Solid Eye overlay targeting system, the Otacon help bot and the roof-top sniper sequences.

Killzone 2: Yes, Virginia, that E3 trailer was in-game footage. Draw distance, explosions, character animation and the feeling of speed in the land- and air-based vehicles make this thing an edge-of-the-seat, sweaty-palm, fingers-cramped-around-the-controller shooter. This is to Half Life 2, what Half Life 2 was to nothing ... and I love Half Life 2!!!

VGT: There are some areas where you will have PGR3 flashbacks, but you've never seen (or heard) anything like the F1 race in the streets of Monte Carlo, or the Rally driving through the towns of coastal France and Greece.

Lots of screenshots below (any lack of quality is mostly due to bad photography on my part). Believe me, it's X-mas in January at my house ... :-)

PS3 in the wild
Posted Monday Jan 8th 2005, 7:00PM

I have started this blog to document my experiences with a beta retail version of Sony's Playstation 3.

Yes, that is not a typo. Due to circumstances beyond my control (the sender appears to have transposed Sony's E. Hillsdale Blvd address in Foster City with my address on W. Hillsdale Blvd in Menlo Park) I have received a package containing what appears to be a retail version of Sony's Playstation 3 and alpha builds of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Vision Gran Turismo and Killzone (below are pictures of the items, this is NOT a hoax).

The package was not addressed to Sony, the equipment is not identified as Sony's property, and there is no other claim to ownership, so I consider myself the legitimate owner of this equipment.

Will post impressions very soon.

Creative launches Portable Media Center [ Podcast ]

Mike — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:49:48 PDT

Creative launched their Portable Media Center today:

Sitting next to her in coach, he wasn't sure she was eyeing his handheld video player, but it sure felt like it. Felt like she had been eyeing it since they had passed over Santa Barbara.

Not that he had noticed, but that was also when her slingback pump had started resting against his calf.

"I'm sorry, but what is that thing?" she finally asked.
"It's a media player."
"What's it playing?"
"Last night's Sex in the City."
"Sex in the City, did you say?"
He nodded.
"Hmmm..."
She was smiling.