E3: Let's Get Physical

Seems like the latest E3 was full of surprises... or maybe not. With Nintendo's raging success in the video game market due to its unconvential Wii, you'd have to expect that both Microsoft and Sony would have to respond. They are now officially playing catch-up, and introduced their takes on the genre at the electronics tradeshow.

Microsoft gave a rather bold live demo of its newly acquired Project Natal, a smart camera that can motion-capture participants using a single camera device. This may sound like a gimmick, but the demos are surprising and effective. Included in the system are both image and voice recognition systems that are used to recognize the current user and interpret commands, respectively. I think the possibilities just for the social and device browsing features are pretty cool - built in voice and video chat, voice-activated, as well as being able to browse to your favourite downloaded media using hand motions. Kind of makes Minority Report seem a little clunky, actually.

Probably the most impressive demonstration of the technology is the Milo video, featuring Lionhead and Peter Molyneux.

Thanks to Trevor, who pointed out that Penny Arcade has the best take on Natal:

And then there was the PS3, that stayed with the conventional, and yet refined Nintendo's motion controller with one that appears to be much, much more sensitive. I think this is actually a pretty smart move on their part, since they are now working with a refinement on a proven technology. It remains to be seen whether they can get these controllers to the 15 million or so install base that the PS3 currently enjoys.

I found the handwritting demo to be the most effective. I mentioned to a collegue that the token Sony Demo Geek could write better in virtual space than I can on paper.

And finally, there was Nintendo. You'd think that the company that revolutionized and galvanized the gaming industry would want to follow that up with something that would keep them one step ahead of the competition. With that in mind, Nintendo unveiled Vitality, which is basically a heartbeat sensor that attaches to your finger. “...Intends to have you see the information relating to the inner world of your body," is the quote from Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo. At this rate, you can soon expect an electronic rectal thermometer from the esteemed "gaming" company in the coming years. With force feedback.

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I'm a Doctor, Jim, not a Horse Lord of Rohan!

I was reading an interview with JJ Abrams on aintitcool.com and had my mind blown. I knew the guy who played Bones in the fantastic new Star Trek film looked familiar, but I hadn't bothered to look him up.

However, this quote from JJ certainly opened my eyes:

"When Karl Urban came in, quite frankly I felt that it would be unlikely that that guy from BOURNE or the hunk from LORD OF THE RINGS was going to be Bones. I knew he was from New Zealand. I just didn’t see the connection, even though I liked his work very much, but I thought “Well, he doesn’t seem right for this, but I’m a fan.” He came in and blew my mind so fast. It was one of those great things where it’s a great lesson to not be so closed minded, but God he was amazing. He just channeled DeForest Kelley, it was eerie."

The "hunk" from LoTR? Bones?

Holy crap. Eomer from The Two Towers is Bones? What a performance by Karl Urban.

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KarmaTickle

What's the opposite of a Karma Slap? Good things happen to people who tip well. I took a cab today to pick up my car and left the cabby a $4 tip for a $19 ride, for no particular reason. I'd consider that a decent tip. As I was waiting for my car, the cabbie came back and dropped off a small brown bag I'd forgotten in the backseat. The weird thing is I thought I had checked that I had everything because I was also carrying my camera case and a chequebook. The package (which didn't look like much more than a work snack, honestly) actually contained some naturopathy pills, which I had just paid $50 for. So there you go.

The cabbie was obviously a good guy, but I'm guessing he's not turning the car around if I give him a twenty note on the nineteen dollar fare.

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Dept. of Holy Shit This Is Awesome

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Random Tweets

A few tweetbits from my twitter feeds this morning:

An impressive demonstration of the new Wolfram Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine. CNET News reporter Stephen Shankland runs through some sample (and sometimes amusing) searches.

Also, the announcement of the Kindle DX, the long-awaited electronic book solution from Amazon. Its main advantages seem to be the viewing size (large enough that they claim that you won't need to zoom in to any part of a document), its slimness, which would be good for students who want to avoid lugging heavy (computer science) textbooks around with them all day, and its battery life. It can apparently run for days on one charge.

Disadvantages? The price is around 500USD, and... it's in shades of grey. I'm old enough to remember when computers used grey-scale displays. The old Hercules 256-shades-of-grey displays were pretty impressive back when EGA 16 colours was tops (pre-VGA) and the standard was 4-colour CGA for PCs. What was impressive about the Hercules display was the fidelity of the images it produced - like a black-and-white photo, your mind could fill in the missing colours while your eyes bulged at the intricate detail you were seeing on-screen. This would have been in the early 90s, so the display would have been probably twice as crisp as a regular TV at the time.

However, fast-forward 20 years, and I'm not sure how many people are going to want to drop $500 on a device that might be made obsolete by the magical colour Kindle that is likely to come out next year. So I think the device's major disadvantage is the price point vs. the display. If it was $200, then it might be worth it. But at that price, I'll wait for the colour version, thank you very much.

But what's this? Is The Book making a comeback? Don't call it a comeback! Just as the world's forests were heaving a sigh of relief from the downfall of newspapers and books in general, along comes the insta-book ATM, dubbed The Espresso Book Maker. It is billed as the invention that could level the playing field for smaller bookstores that can't afford the space or money to stock the same quantity of books that larger stores can hold. As appealing as that sounds, I have to Call Bullshit on that piece of PR nonsense. If anything, it's another signpost on the long road that leads to Demise, the place where bookstores are heading. Why would I want to lift my fat ass from the couch when I could just as easily order the print online and have it delivered to my door for free? And anyway, leveling the playing field is not a good thing for small stores, because it takes away whatever niche market they had working for them. Want that rare copy of a particular edition of your favourite arcane novel? Why not head over to Chapters and print it up on one of their twenty printers. Beats searching all those old second-hand bookshops for it!

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