Category: Uncategorized

PlayStation 3 delayed a year?

Post ImageLots of PlayStation 3 news lately, and most of it is not good if you’re pulling for Sony in the gaming wars. Apparently Sony is planning a Hub service to compete with Xbox Live, but confirmations have been difficult to get, leading me to believe it may just be posturing on Sony’s part. The worst news though is about extremely high prices and potential delays:

Sony’s next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console might not appear in key markets this year and could cost the company $900 per unit to produce initially, according to Merrill Lynch analysts quoted in the Financial Times on Sunday.

Merrill Lynch analysts in San Francisco have estimated that the initial bill of materials for PS3 could approach $900, falling to $320 by three years after launch, the FT said.

Keep in mind those figures are in US dollars. I said a long time ago that the PS3 would likely cost an arm and a leg, so this story is validation. You just can’t introduce so many new components and expect the price to remain the same – the cell processor, coupled with Blu-ray drives are going to drive the cost of manufacturing quite high.

I don’t think Sony has extremely deep pockets like Microsoft, so I can’t see them taking a massive loss on each console. Hopefully we’ll find out more soon.

Read: CNET News.com

iBuzz – music activated iPod sex toy!

Post ImageIt’s hard to think of a device that has spawned as many third party accessories as the iPod. And when you consider that Apple isn’t known for being open or willing to make things easier on partners, the huge pool of gear is even more amazing. The iBuzz from Love Labs is the most interesting accessory I have seen in a while though (hat tip: Podcasting News):

Steve Jobs, we salute you! iBuzz USA celebrates your birthday with the launch of the iBuzz music-activated vibrator in the US.

We love the iPod and we love it even more when an iBuzz is attached.

And Steve, don’t forget to check your mail on your birthday for a surprise from us!

iBuzz is the musical orgasm machine! The music-activated vibrating bullet stimulates you in time with your favourite music. Which song pushes your butttons?

I can’t be sure, but everything looks legit. Too bad they didn’t have this out for Valentine’s Day, I am sure they would have attracted quite a bit of traffic! Apparently the device has a “bullet” that vibrates in time with the music and gets stronger as the volume goes up. And now I am going to end this post, because just the thought of someone getting off to William Hung is too much for me.

Read: iBuzz

Family Day

Today is Family Day in Alberta – hope you are spending some time with your family! I went for lunch with my extended family of friends today at Red Robin’s downtown. Here are a few pictures.

According to my Dad, we may be giving up Family Day if the Conservatives are successful in declaring a national “flag day” holiday. I personally don’t see the point in having a flag day. We don’t have separate holidays for our anthem, or national sport, etc. Seems to me “flag day” is really just part of Canada Day!

Edmonton Rush take first win in Calgary!

Last night can only be described as sweet! The Edmonton Rush organized a bus to take fans from Edmonton down to Calgary to watch the Rush take on the Roughnecks, so Tom and I bought tickets to go. In all there was about thirty people on the bus, give or take, but there were far more fans in the Rush section (which was section 210 if you know the Saddledome). And man am I ever glad we decided to go – seeing the Rush record their first ever franchise win, and in Calgary no less, was awesome! Sure it would have been nice to win at home, but if you have to win elsewhere, might as well keep the Battle of Alberta alive while you’re at it.

The first half of the game was actually very tight, with no more than a goal separating the teams. Eventually we took a four goal lead (our first such lead ever) only to see it wash away almost as quickly. We were up by one goal with about 30 seconds left, and Calgary overturned the ball. Our goalie Campbell, who played an amazing game stopping 67 shots, got the ball and instead of killing time, decided to throw it up the middle! If you know how bad that is in hockey, trust me, it’s worse in lacrosse, and sure enough they tied the game with about 10 seconds left. We thought we were going to OT, but Bergman somehow saved the day:

Bergman scooped up a loose ball at centre and, with time running out, ran down the floor and fired a shot at Calgary goaltender Curtis Palidwor. The ball bounced straight out off Palidwor’s pad, hit Calgary’s Andrew Biers on the leg and bounced into the net as the final buzzer sounded.

It was crazy! I really didn’t think there was enough time left, but the goal was reviewed and it stood, and we’ll take it. Everyone in the Rush section went crazy, and Calgary fans started to leave and throw things on the field.

Some other things of note:

  • There was about 12,000 people at the game last night.
  • When the Roughnecks come on the field, they run through a small, crappy version of the Oiler’s famous oil derrick.
  • Even though we had some penalties, the game looked like one of our most disciplined this season. We need to stay out of the penalty box!
  • The dance team in Calgary is called the Drill Crew, and they are pretty good. Our Crush girls even did one dance at the game.
  • The screen at the Saddledome is not nearly as nice as ours, but they have little TV’s above all the urinals in the washrooms! And they have Tim Horton’s and Subway inside the concourse too!
  • Tom and I were sitting one row behind, and about 6 or 7 seats to the right of some of the Crush girls. With about three minutes left in the game they started looking back at us provocatively! As Tom said, “have the gods shone down upon me?” Turned out they just wanted someone to go buy them more beer – sorry girls, not when we’re about to win the game!
  • I was surprised that we were on an ordinary old bus. I kind of expected the Rush to have some fancy barbed wire bus plastered with Rush logos! I guess they have set expectations high with all of their other marketing stuff.
  • The Edmonton guys do a much better job of keeping things interesting, keeping the tempo up in the stadium as the game goes on. Rush home games seem like much more of an event!

The bus ride home was much more high energy than the ride to the game. As we drove away from the stadium, everyone started chanting “one and six, one and six!”

The Rush take on Colorado on March 3rd, where hopefully we’ll get our second win and move one step closer to the playoffs!

Read: Edmonton Rush

Office 2007 Announced

Post ImageMicrosoft announced yesterday some new details on Office 12, which will officially be named Office 2007. Most interestingly, pricing will not change significantly, and the Student & Teacher edition is being replaced by a Home and Student edition. There are lots of new features in Office 12, which is probably why Microsoft’s Parri Munsell described it as “the most significant advance in over a decade.”

Munsell said the new Office will offer a bevy of new features, including an all-new user interface and new XML-based file formats.

Microsoft released an initial beta of Office 2007 in November, with a second beta planned for this spring.

I can see why people think Microsoft has confusing marketing. They describe both Vista and Office 2007 as the most significant releases in a decade, yet they don’t qualify that. Office 2007 is a significant release in terms of user interface, but not too much else (XML file formats aside). Vista on the other hand is a significant release in terms of “under the hood” (despite the new 3D capabilities, it looks more or less like Windows XP).

You’ve got to pay attention with Microsoft lately, they seem to throw around the cliches and superlatives like there’s no tomorrow!

Read: CNET News.com

Windows Defender (Beta 2)

Post ImageMicrosoft released Windows Defender (formerly Microsoft Antispyware, hence the Beta 2) yesterday, making it available as a free download and I just installed it. Apparently existing Antispyware users will be notified about the update, but I hadn’t received anything before I installed Defender. Fortunately it appears to have upgraded or removed Antispyware for me. Here’s Microsoft’s description of the software:

Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Some of the main changes/features include a redesigned interface, improved detection and removal, support for 64 bit platforms, and the most important one of all: Windows Defender can be run by all users on a computer, with or without administrative privileges.

Some other things I noticed:

  • Checking for updates seemed to take a long time, and the UI for it is ugly compared to Antispyware.
  • The red and yellow target icon has been replaced by a grey, plain looking brick wall. The icon doesn’t appear to stay in the status bar anymore.
  • The logo is using the new Vista graphic for Windows (this makes it the first application I have installed that uses the graphic).
  • There’s a lot of wasted whitespace on the “Home” screen.
  • Software Explorer is a new feature that lets you manage software permissions. Also shows you a bunch of information about each program.
  • I need to test it out a little more, but so far it seems to use more memory than Antispyware.

If you want to give it a try, you can download it from Microsoft.

Read: Windows Defender

TextPayMe

Post ImageCame across an article at Wired talking about TextPayMe, a service that lets you send money to someone simply by using your cell phone! I like the way reporter Rachel Metz sets it up:

When a group of people dine out together, someone always lacks cash. They forgot to go to the ATM, but they’ll pay you back ASAP. Right.

Funny, though, how people rarely forget their cell phones. Philip Yuen put these two observations together and came up with TextPayMe to let people send money using text messaging.

Ain’t that the truth!

Seems like a pretty good idea, though I don’t expect the company to last very long. As the article points out, PayPal is rumored to be working on something similar. There are already millions upon millions of people using PayPal, and I already have established accounts there – why would I or anyone else use TextPayMe instead? That’s what the company needs to be focusing on. I guess one reason is that the service is currently free, but certainly that can’t last forever.

I don’t think the service is available to us Canadians yet either (sign up form only has states and zip code, no country option).

Read: Wired

St. Valentine's Day

Post ImageToday is Valentine’s Day, where everything you see and everywhere you go is red, pink, white, or some shade in between. I remember giving cards to classmates when I was in primary school, and I remember candygrams in high school, but that’s about when my mass valentine sending stopped. As you get older, you send less and less valentines I guess! From Wikipedia:

The day is now most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “valentines.” Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, the practice of hand writing notes has largely given way to the exchange of mass-produced greeting cards. The Greeting Card Association estimates that, world-wide, approximately one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association also estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

I wonder how long it will be until this text is updated to say that the practice of sending greeting cards has largely given way to the exchange of email or IMs or blog posts or something! And on that note, Happy Valentine’s Day – I’m back to mass valentines!

Sunday Recap & Notes for 2/13/2006

On Sunday we spent the entire day in Vancouver hanging out. We went for brunch at Red Robin’s where we had an interesting discussion about whether or not figure skating should be an Olympic sport and then headed towards Stanley Park. We spent the afternoon at the Vancouver Aquarium which was awesome! We even got to see a Beluga Whale show. After the show we walked all the way back to Canada Place to the IMAX theatre where we watched “Roving Mars” – all about the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. It was a really fascinating video, if you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. After walking back to the hotel to get our bags we headed for the airport.

I got back to Edmonton last night around 10:15 PM along with Dickson and we went directly to Denny’s from the airport! I had to drop off some stuff at the office, so we came here (yep still at the office tonight), but didn’t stay long.

This week is looking pretty damn busy, so here’s some notes:

  • I think Northern Voice went very well this year! There’s lots of great information out there, just look for posts and pictures and podcasts tagged “northernvoice”.
  • Did a bunch of shopping today, mostly for furniture-related stuff for the office. We’re revamping our server room as we prepare to launch our podcast stuff. Just waiting on a few more items now!
  • Two midterms on Thursday does not make me happy. I have a lot of studying to do 😦
  • Have you been watching the Olympics? I haven’t. Highlights and recaps are the only things I’m going to watch besides the hockey games.