Month: October 2005

Xbox 360 Revealed

Post ImageThe November 22nd launch of the Xbox 360 is now in plain view, so naturally more and more details are emerging. Microsoft is opening up too, as evidenced by it’s recent press event that CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman attended:

For all the talk about whether there will be enough games available when the Xbox is released on Nov. 22, few doubt that the games that will be ready will be a cut above anything available for current-generation consoles. And after seeing a handful of Xbox 360 games Monday, I can say with confidence that it’s true.

Over plates of olives, endives, red peppers and other snacks at Dogpatch Studios in this city’s somewhat rundown Dogpatch neighborhood Monday, Microsoft finally pulled back the curtains on the new Xbox for a small crowd of journalists and invited us to try our hands at 12 titles expected to be ready in time for the console launch next month.

Seems as though Daniel left the event feeling confident in the Xbox 360: “I’d tried about five or six games, and have no trouble reporting that the Xbox 360 was the best console experience I’ve ever had.” He also left wondering about the one question those in the gaming industry, and fans of games for that matter, rarely ask:

Yet in the end, I came back once again to wondering if it’s all really necessary. When it comes to enjoying a video game basketball experience, just how real does the sweat have to be?

There’s no question the new Xbox will produce the most realistic games ever. The question then becomes, do more realistic games make for better games? I’m inclined to say yes, but I suppose time will tell. I’m also willing to bet the answer will vary with each person, and each type of game.

Read: CNET News.com

Notes for 10/10/2005

Dickson and I spent many hours trying to solve a programming challenge (there are no problems or impossibilities, only challenges!) last night, part of the 14 hour marathon of work that was my Sunday. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to post my weekly notes, so here they are on a holiday Monday instead!

  • Happy Thanksgiving!
  • Congratulations to Violet & Vincent on your engagement! Pictures from the ceremony are now up on Flickr. Also congrats to Mark & Kim (also recently engaged), my new favorite couple to photograph – they are just so photogenic!
  • I tried the new Starbucks Maple Macchiato yesterday, and I must say it’s pretty good. I don’t think it’ll replace my favorite (Caramel baby!) but it’s very good. And very Canadian now that I think about it. Yep, just checked, it’s not on the lineup on the American site.
  • This Microsoft job posting sounds like my ideal job! I would be quite happy doing what Scoble does!
  • Found this quote from Larry’s blog today – Google’s Sergey Brin: “The No. 1 factor that contributed to our success over the past seven years is luck.” There’s some more good quotes from his talk here.
  • I missed my SOC 300 class last Thursday morning as I took my Grandma to the hospital (she’s fine!) but I talked to some classmates later that day. Apparently the entire class did very poorly on the midterm and there was a big discussion. At one point, the entire class of 400 students was booing and the prof got quite agitated, as you can imagine. I’ve never heard of a class booing the teacher before! I guess I’ll find out more tomorrow morning. For the record, his exam was terrible. Multiple choice questions with answers A through H for some, recorded on a scantron (which only goes to E) and on paper for the others. Ridiculous options too – “all of the above”, “none of the above”, “only a, b, and f” (where F is “none of the above”), etc.
  • Here’s the website for the Toyota Echo’s replacement, the Yaris. Dickson and I decided it looks like a mix of the Echo Hatchback, the Prius, and the Matrix.
  • I’m really digging the new Ricky Martin song “I Don’t Care” which features Fat Joe and Amerie. Maybe it’s just because I love Amerie! She can definitely sing, and let’s face it, she’s beautiful. Ricky Martin and Amerie performed the song on Oprah today.

Yahoo! Podcasts

Post ImageI’ve been so busy lately that I missed the launch of Yahoo’s new podcast directory. I had read about it last week, but only got a chance to finally look today. What can I say? It is very much a directory and nothing else – but at least it’s a very good directory.

The directory has a section where Yahoo! editors pick the podcasts they like and display them. There is also a “what other people like” section that can be viewed by “Most Popular” or “Highly Rated”. Finally, you can browse around on your own if you’d like by category and tag. Once you find a podcast to look at, you can either listen to it or subscribe and download (using a third party application or Yahoo’s Music Engine). You can rate the podcast, add comments and reviews, and also tags.

Yahoo’s Podcasts directory is put together very nicely, I think. The layout and organization make intuitive sense, and the search functionality seems to work quite well also. They currently have an information section called “Publish a Podcast” which contains information on how to get started. Makes me wonder if they might one day add some sort of publication tool.

I’m not sure how many podcast directories we need, but I’d have to say that Yahoo’s is a welcome addition to the bunch.

Read: Yahoo! Podcasts

Google Reader

Post ImageGoogle has released another long awaited and much talked about product into beta – Google Reader. I am not a big fan of online news readers, mostly because I like to be able to take posts offline to read in class, or other places that I don’t have Internet access. That being said, Google Reader is actually quite nice. From the website:

Reader automatically gets the latest news and updates for your favorite sites. You can sort your reading list by relevance, which will guess what’s most relevant to you based on how you use Google Reader (such as which items you decide to actually read).

The amount of information on the web is rapidly increasing. Use Reader to discover new content you don’t want to miss. When you come across something worth sharing, quickly email or blog it from within Reader. Star or labels items you want to save for yourself.

I don’t think it’s as obvious as it should be to add a subscription, but once you have that figured out, the interface is very friendly. I especially like how Reader cycles up and down through the items in a subscription – very cool.

Read: Google Reader

DARPA Race Won!

Post ImageMaybe the title should say “finished” instead of “won”, as DARPA’s race for robots has never before been completed. At least three robots have now completed the harsh race:

Stanford University’s Racing Team has accomplished a historic feat of robotics, finishing first in the DARPA Grand Challenge, a 131.6-mile driverless car race that no artificially intelligent machine has ever conquered before.

“We had a great day,” said Sebastian Thrun, director of Stanford’s artificial intelligence lab and head of the racing team. Stanford’s “Stanley,” a modified Volkswagen Toureg with sensors and radar mountings, crossed the finish line within eight hours and 14 minutes, under the 10 hour requirement, according to times posted on the DARPA race Web site.

Director Dr. Tony Tether had this to say in the press release:

“Its incredible what Stanford and the two Carnegie-Mellon teams did today, and what the
other two teams can still achieve,” Tether said. “We had anticipated from the beginning that we might
have to carry the competition over to a second day.”

“When the Wright Brothers flew their little plane, they proved it could be done,” Tether
continued. “And just as aviation took off after those achievements, so will the very exciting and
promising robotics technologies displayed here today.”

Truer words have never been spoken. I remember how difficult it was to get our robot to move when we were building it, so I have great respect for all the entrants of this competition. I can’t imagine how much ingenuity it would take to build a robot that can travel that distance, all by itself.

Read: CNET News.com

Gennux

Post ImageToday was a busy day for events. This evening Dickson and I attended a presentation at the University of Alberta by Gennux Microsystems Corp., a relatively new Edmonton-based company. They make an anti-spam product called eW@LL Mail which they say is unique in that it does not use content filtering like the vast majority of anti-spam technologies. They describe the product as a messaging firewall.

The developer who wrote most of the application and started the company is Sam Wong, and he gave the majority of the presentation tonight. He seems very smart, and excited about the work he is doing. Sam led us through some reasons for why spam exists, the numbers around how much spam is sent and recieved and the dollar value for related-costs (like lost productivity), the competition, and finally the Gennux solution. Dickson and I asked a bunch of questions about the technology, trying to find ways around it, but the product does seem very solid. They mentioned some statistics about how well it works, but I very much think that it’s one of those “you have to see it to believe it” things.

We didn’t ask them how much it costs, but I would imagine it’s not cheap. If it works like they say though, it would probably be worth it. They have quite a few installations already, including a fairly high profile one with an ISP in Taiwan. It’s good to see an Edmonton software company doing so well!

Read: Gennux

Upside Software

Post ImageThis afternoon the Faculty of Science hosted the first ever Executive Business Seminar for Computing Sciences. These seminars bring real executives from the computer industry to talk to students and faculty about their business, the challenges they have faced, and of course the technology they use. The Faculty of Science has been hosting similar seminars for other disciplines, like Chemistry, and they have apparently been quite successful prompting the start of seminars for CS. The seminars are around an hour in length, and include free pizza and pop.

Today’s speaker was Ashif Mawji, founder, president and CEO of Upside Software Inc., a very successful Edmonton-based software firm. They create software tools that help companies manage contracts. Ashif also brought Rob Brown along for the talk, who is the company’s Director of Team Development. The presentation was really quite interesting, and the success that Upside Software has had is quite impressive. Indeed one look at their customer list will give you an indication of how successful they have been!

After the presentation there was time for Q&A which was probably the most beneficial part of the seminar. Upside Software is looking to hire around 40 people in the coming year, so that was the pitch to students. All of their development is done on the .NET platform using C# – technologies which as you probably know are what I use and promote.

At the end of the session I introduced myself to Ashif and Rob, and invited their developers to attend the .NET Wizards upcoming events. It would be great to have their experience and leadership in our user group! I’d say today’s session was worthwhile, so I am planning to attend the next one too when it is announced.

AOL Buys Weblogs Inc.

Post ImageNews has been circulating since late last night that AOL has purchased Weblogs Inc. which publishes an entire network of blogs, including the very popular Engadget. Terms of the deal aren’t yet known, but various bloggers have been suggesting anywhere from $25 to $40 million USD, which certainly makes sense as the company makes at least $1 million in annual revenue from Google AdSense alone:

Weblogs, a privately held Santa Monica, Calif.-based company, operates 85 blogs with subjects ranging from parents to technology to film. AOL said Thursday that it will integrate the blogs throughout its network, such as within its television, travel and personal-finance channels.

“This…combination allows our audiences to be able to do a ‘deep-dive’ into a vast array of compelling topics that keep them interested and entertained on our network of properties, day after day,” Jim Bankoff, executive vice president of AOL’s programming and products, said in a statement.

While I think it’s a smart purchase for AOL, I am surprised quite frankly. My thoughts are more in line with Nick Denton’s:

Nick Denton, publisher of blogging site Gawker.com, was skeptical of the deal. “The whole point about blogs is that they’re not part of big media. Consolidation defeats the purpose. It’s way too early,” he said, adding that Gawker is not for sale.

That said, the deal will give AOL a very heavily trafficked collection of content properties, which of course is great for advertising dollars. What does this mean for the rumored Microsoft-AOL deal? My guess is that if anything was on the table, this deal won’t have much of an impact.

The downside to the deal is that Engadget and others will probably be peppered with Netscape and AOL advertisements. Not looking forward to that!

Regardless, as Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis posted:

You’ve got…blogs!

Read: CNET News.com

Why the USA needs to cede control of the Internet

Post ImageThere is a potentially major split brewing over control of the Internet, and it has been coming for quite some time. Declan McCullagh has written a great article explaining the problem and what it could mean, so I suggest reading that for some background before you continue with this post. In a nutshell though, the US currently has complete control over the Internet’s root servers and a growing number of countries don’t like it – they think control should be given to an international body like the United Nations. I agree.

Whatever role the United States played in the creation of the Internet doesn’t really matter anymore. The fact that the US Department of Defense created ARPANET which became the Internet we know and love today is irrelevant. What matters most of all is that the Internet has become a truly global network, and it needs to remain that way if we want to continue reaping its benefits.

All we need to do is think about all of the ways in which we use the Internet, and how they would be changed or affected if a split occurred. Things like sending email, or instant messages. Sharing pictures with friends and family around the world. Buying and selling things locally and abroad. Sharing information with others and learning about far away places without the local spin. All of these things would be affected if a major split occurs. All of these things would be affected if the Bush government continues to express arrogance and jealously guard its control of the Internet’s root servers, and the countries that disagree and want more control decide to create their own, incompatible root servers. It could be disastrous.

Even though I support the UN taking over control, I know it isn’t perfect. Scandals like the oil for food program cast a dark light across the organization. At the same time though, I truly believe problems like the oil for food pogram in Iraq would have happened anyway, with or without the UN. And I would point to the many successes of the organization as proof that a UN-run Internet would be better in the long run than a US-run Internet. At they very least, there would be almost no chance of a split occurring.

Many people will be quick to point out that the US has done nothing wrong thus far, and has done a fairly good job of running the Internet – and that’s true. However, the US is very quickly becoming a smaller and smaller part of the Internet as countries around the world bring their vast populations online. They deserve a voice and a hand in how the Internet is governed.

We need to ensure that the Internet continues to function for all citizens of the world, and that is why the USA needs to cede control of the Internet to an international organization.

The Return of Hockey

Post ImageToday is the start of the 2005-2006 NHL regular season, which means that finally, hockey is back. Tonight also marks the NHL debut of Sidney Crosby, and the coaching debut of “The Great One” himself. Gretzky’s Coyotes take on the Canucks tonight whose lineup will feature Todd Bertuzzi. Another “first” tonight will be the Philadelphia and NYR game, which will be the first ever NHL game telecast by OLN. Then there are the new rule changes which for many will be seen for the first time tonight. Lots of excitement!

There’s still a lot of questions surrounding the NHL though too. Are fans going to come back? Is hockey going to be able to recover from the lockout? Will the NHL ever become more popular than poker in the US? Is the game going to be exciting and fresh? Are the teams going to be more evenly matched now? Will Canadians be able to cope with no Hockey Night in Canada? Probably lots more too, most of which can’t be answered just yet. Make no mistake about it, this season is make or break for the NHL.

Here’s the NHL.com preview for tonight’s Oilers versus Avalanche game. I’m going to watch the game with some friends tonight at Boston Pizza on Calgary Trail, so feel free to stop by if you’d like to join us!

Read: NHL is Back