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Llamasoft Visualiser Built Into XBox 360
Wooargh! The lights! The shapes…the colours….all that swirling…and moving…have I gone back in time to a chemically assisted squat rave?
Sadly not: instead, I’m being mesmerised by Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft graphics, a cutting edge music visualisation system designed for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
Based on Neon, Llamasoft’s proprietary graphics technology, the Llamasoft Visualiser comes pre-installed on Xbox360s and it’s “capable of generating anything from soothing ambient swirls to strobing multicolour explosions.”
The mind-melding visual feasts are driven by beat detection or joypad control, letting users take interactive control of the camera, patterns and effect generators, to create their own psychedelic wig-outs.
The results are pretty damn amazing, with the silky smooth, rock-solid rendering engine creating a brain-troubling swathe of swirling, abstract, multi-layered psychotropic imagery.
The effect is so convincing, that all you’d need is some 2,000 watt techno blasting out, a floor covered in spent beer cans, a few ‘funny’ cigarettes and you could recreate the perfect rave in your bedroom.
We’ve liked Jeff Minter’s stuff ever since the days when an Amiga 1200 (RIP) with 4meg of RAM was considered positively ostentatious. Even then his Llamatron was streets ahead of the competition, so it’s great it see the spliff-consuming, loveable hippy still producing such great work.
“Without giving any secrets away and getting myself into trouble with Microsoft,” enthused Minter, “I can tell you that the Xbox 360 can bring to bear an absolutely staggering amount of computational power on each and every pixel, and never drop below 60 frames a second.”
And he’s still got his principles too, writing on his bulletin board: “And we haven’t sold our souls, or our IP, to Microsoft either. We’ve created for them an interactive visualiser for the Xbox360, and we’ll not do a visualiser for the rival consoles for this coming generation. But if someone were to ring me up tomorrow and say “Blimey Yak mate, that Neon’s a bit tasty, any chance of a bit of that for the next “not_a_console_visualiser_app” I could quite legitimately say “abso-smegging-lutely!” and we could be delivering working code in a few weeks. We can use it in games on *any* platform. The engine is small, efficient and portable.”
Bless him.
Llamasoft
Jeff Minter’s forum
18 May, 2005
Game Boy Micro Launched by Nintendo
Although Nintendo’s Revolution launch yesterday was a bit thin on detail, the company have now released full details of their itsy-bitsy addition to the Game Boy family, Game Boy Micro.
Sizing up at a diminutive four inches wide, two inches tall, and 0.7 inches thick, Nintendo are billing the Game Boy Micro as the “smallest and sleekest Game Boy product” they’ve created, claiming that it will fit comfortably into the pocket of your “tightest jeans.”
We’re not quite sure that they’ll find space in the straining waistband of Billy “20 Pints” McQuaffer, but it is a wee thing with dimensions only slightly larger than an iPod Mini and weighing just 2.8 ounces (“the same weight as 80 paper clips” as Nintendo bizarrely informed us).
The Game Boy Micro offers the same processing power as the Game Boy Advance SP models and plays all the same titles while, apparently, lending you an air of “industrial-hip cool.”
“We’re making the gorgeous Game Boy Micro for image-conscious folks who love video games, the ones who want the look of their system to be as cool as the games they play on it,” waffled George Harrison, who has one of the longest job descriptions we’ve seen for a while: Nintendo Of America’s Senior Vice President Of Marketing And Corporate Communications.
But Harrison (NOASVPOMACC) wasn’t quite finished with the ludicrous marketing tosh: “Because of its diminutive size and industrial-hip look, Game Boy Micro immediately identifies the person playing it as a trendsetter with discriminating style.”
So there you have it: any hopeless buffoon walking around with a Micro will automatically be transformed into a style icon….
Back in the real world, Nintendo are well chuffed with their new two-inch backlit screen – “the best Game Boy screen ever” – which lets users adjust the brightness of the screen to adapt to indoor lights or outdoor sunshine.
Wrapping up the feature list, the Game Boy Micro comes with a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, supports standard headphones and comes with a removable face plate for that all-important customisation thang.
Game Boy Micro is expected to be released this autumn.
Nintendo
18 May, 2005
Sony Unveils World’s Smallest and Lightest HD Consumer Camcorder
Pausing briefly for breath after announcing the new PlayStation today, the busy bees in the Sony hive have announced the world’s smallest and lightest high definition consumer camcorder with full HD resolution based on HDV 1080i.
The HDR-HC1 is the second consumer HD camcorder from Sony with the company hoping its lower price and size will help popularise the HD video recording format.
With some skilful spatial jiggery-pokery, Sony have managed to squeeze the camcorder’s size down to less than half that of their current model, the HDR-FX1, with the price falling substantially too.
The price and size economies were brought about by replacing the 3 CCD sensors with a single CMOS image sensor – a cheaper, simpler optical system that doesn’t require a bulky prism to split the image to each of the sensors.
The new camera also uses a smaller and more compact Carl Zeiss lens, with a diameter of 60mm compared to 92 mm on the previous model.
The lens offers a 10X optical and 120X digital zoom, zoom ring, zebra pattern and spot focus with manually adjustable white balance, shutter speed and focus.
Depending on the recording mode, the camcorder can provide around 90 minutes of continuous recording.
A 2.7in wide hybrid, touch-panel LCD screen allows access to menu options, with an option to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios (in DV mode) to see exactly how the content might look on television.
There’s also a built-in microphone, pop-up flash, Super SteadyShot image stabilisation and Sony’s Super NightShot Plus Infrared System for filming in low/no light conditions.
A Memory Stick PRO Duo media slot is provided for transferring images captured on the camcorder’s 2.8-megapixel still camera.
Even with all these features, Sony’s engineers have managed to reduce the size of the camera’s electronics, cutting the 5 circuit boards down to 2 and reducing the total component count from 3,000 to 2,000.
This has been achieved with some nifty integration of components into chips, said Sony.
All of this has made the HDR-HC1 into a tiny little puppy, measuring just 71 x 94 x 188mm, and weighing a mere 680g without the battery – compare that with the previous bruiser of a camcorder that measured 151 x 181 x365 mm and weighed a muscle building 2kg.
Like its predecessor, the HDR-HC1 is based on the HDV format, which uses current-generation DV tapes to store high-definition video.
DV tapes are completely compatible and can hold the same amount of video under HDV as they can under standard definition, offering advantages to current DV camcorder users looking to preserve their investment in recording media.
HD video connectivity comes in the shape of Y/Pb/Pr component video signal, Japanese D3/D4 format signal and a 4-pin iLink interface.
This output can be streamed to high-definition compatible monitors and televisions with an HDV iLink interface.
The HDR-HC1 will be launched in Japan in early July and in North America, Europe and Asia around the same time. Although costing is not confirmed, it’s expected to roll out for 180,000 Yen in Japan. (~£915 ~US$1,680 ~€1,328).
Sony
18 May, 2005
Strategy Analytics: Nokia 6680 ‘Best’ 3G WCDMA Device
The Nokia 6680 imaging smartphone has been declared the new ‘Best in Class’ 3G device according to a report by Strategy Analytics.
Four of the best 3G devices currently available in Western European were put under the microscope by Strategy Analytics’ Advanced Wireless Laboratory (AWL) panels in London, UK and Milan, Italy.
All of the phones were assessed on four categories: Video Features, User Interface & Input, Display, and Style/Design, with the Nokia reigning supreme in two categories, Display and Style/Design, as well as registering a joint highest score for User Interface.
When the white-coated, clipboard-toting boffins had finished tallying up the scores, the Nokia 6680 was also the only device to score above the mean score across all four categories.
The 6680 achieved a composite mean rating of 73, compared with 71 for the Sony Ericsson V800, 69 for the Motorola E1000 and 64 for the NEC e338.
The report noted strong deviations (oo-er!) in the results of these evaluations by gender with the lay-deees preferring the Sony Ericsson and NEC devices, whereas the geezers exhibited a strong preference for the Nokia and Motorola handsets.
“This acknowledgment underscores Nokia’s leadership in 3G devices,” purred Joe Coles, Director of imaging product marketing at Nokia. “The Nokia 6680 is an example of an engineering masterpiece that offers very sophisticated technology combined with ease of use and extremely desirable design. Devices like it pave the way for transforming the way people live, work, play and communicate.”
The Nokia scored particularly well in the Style/Design category, with 98% of participants nominating the phone as the ‘coolest’.
Users were also mightily impressed with the clarity, resolution and brightness of the Nokia 6680 smartphone’s display.
The phone’s User Interface and menu system was considered “logical and easy to use” by the majority of users, with the smartphone scoring highest in the exciting sounding categories of ‘Configuration and Usability of Hot-Buttons’ and ‘Ease of switching between text options’ (who dreams these things up?).
Kevin Nolan, Director of Strategy Analytics’ Advanced Wireless Laboratory commented: “As handset manufacturers compete to launch compelling devices that will meet the demands of the advanced buyers who will drive multimedia content consumption across 3G networks, the Nokia 6680 has set a new standard for performance in terms of usability and device size and style.”
As we announced in March, the Nokia 6680 imaging smartphone comes with a shedload of features including two integrated cameras, a flash, the Nokia XpressPrint printing solution, an active slide for easy camera activation and a bright screen of up to 262,144 colours.
All the vogue Smartphone features are present and correct, with the Nokia sporting an organiser, video streaming, Internet browser, email and 3G-enabled services, such as two-way video calling and video sharing.
As competing handset manufacturers try to catch the eye of consumers by ramping up the gizmos and widgets, it’s important that the phones remain easy to use.
Nokia have acquired a well earned reputation for the simplicity of their interfaces and this writer still rues the day he moved from his Nokia phone to a fiddly-tastic Sony Ericsson.
Strategy Analytics
Nokia 6680
17 May, 2005
MSN Search Toolbar Required For MSN Desktop Search
Microsoft has released the final version of MSN Desktop Search, offering new features based on extensive user feedback and boasting extended support for file types.
Along with Internet Explorer, search toolbars reside in Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office Outlook, with desktop searches available via a toolbar in the Windows taskbar.
The free 5.5Mb download (in contrast to Google’s 700K) can index over 200 types of files, ranging from Office 2003 documents to Outlook contacts, calendar files and emails including attachments, with add-ins available for specialised files, such as PDF, DWF and ZIP files.
The new toolbar has ramped up multimedia file support, including GIF, JPEG, Adobe files and MP3, with browser-style “search as you type” input fields to speed up searching.
It’s now possible to select which items should be indexed, with a dialog box letting users choose specific files and locations.
These advanced indexing options also let users specify file types to be indexed as text, create a list of file types that should not be indexed, decide the location of the index file and boost the priority of the indexing process (although this may cause some PCs to run as slow as a tired sloth on Mogadons, but at least it can be turned off).
The new version lets users customise how the program sorts different files — by date, size, author or sender etc – with Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN Search, gleefully boasting, “You can really slice and dice the results any way you want.”
Search results are now accompanied by a preview pane that displays a summary of a selected results with the option to launch the targeted file’s native application.
As with the beta release, the MSN desktop search application positively demands that the MSN Search Toolbar be installed, with the product parking itself inside Internet Explorer.
Although users must have MSN Search Toolbar installed to use MSN Desktop search, it’s possible to select which features are enabled on the toolbar, and to hide MSN navigation links to services such as Hotmail, Messenger etc.
Conveniently, users can also change the default search engine from MSN Search to any other search engine.
As is the norm with search toolbars, there’s a pop up blocker and form-filler installed, although there’s still no Firefox-style tabbed browsing on offer, although MSN says it will be added soon.
MSN also is launching a new Web site, addins.msn.com, serving up a selection of third-party developer additions to the desktop search toolbar.
The competition for the desktop search market is getting hotter than Justin Timberlake’s underpants, with Google and Yahoo already off to a flying start.
Although Microsoft’s offering may not have enough features to tempt those using rival services, it may prove perfect for regular users of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.
MSN Desktop Search
17 May, 2005
PS3 Launching Spring 2006: Sony At E3
Sony has unveiled prototypes of their new Playstation 3 console at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.
Not so much a games console as a mo’fo’ media machine, the PS3 contains a veritable beast in the box, with the Cell processor – jointly developed by IBM, Sony Group and Toshiba – capable of producing two teraflops of computing power. That’s twice that of the Xbox 360.
Like the XBox, home entertainment convergence is the big story here, with the PlayStation3 offering high quality TV output and the ability to play digital music, Blu-ray high-definition DVD, as well as show off home movies and digital pictures.
The powerful new microprocessor allows many of the functions to be carried out at the same time, allowing gamers to record TV shows or listen to music while playing a game.
Sony’s curvy silver unit comes with more connections than the StereoMCs, serving up six USB sockets; Ethernet and Wi-Fi wireless technology; BlueTooth support for up to seven wireless controllers and a removable hard drive.
The new BD-ROM (Blu-ray Disc ROM) offers a thumping great 54 GB (dual layer) storage capacity providing ample space for storing full high-definition (HD) quality movies with two HDMI high-definition sockets allowing games to be played on one screen and video conferencing on a second.
With an almighty 2 teraflops of computing power on call, the box should be capable of rendering landscapes and virtual worlds in real-time with super-smooth characters and object motion.
Sony are currently collaborating with the world’s leading tools and middleware companies, to provide developers with extensive tools and libraries to make the best of the Cell processor and enable efficient software development.
As is now the custom, every new product has to represent a ‘new era’ in something or another. Last week, Microsoft was describing their XBox launch as “a dawn of a new era in entertainment.”
Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc was ready to go a little bit further: “Empowered by the Cell processor with super computer like performance, a new age of PLAYSTATION 3 is about to begin. Together with content creators from all over the world, SCEI will accelerate the arrival of a new era in computer entertainment.”
Sony’s announcement came with a long, long list of partners enthusiastically effervescing about the new Playstation. We can sum up their opinions thus: “We think it’s great!”
Consumers will be able to find out for themselves when the PS3 launches “in the spring of 2006,” although old-school gamers will be pleased to learn that PS3 will offer backward compatibility for the 13,000-title strong PS and PS2 back catalogue.
With the two big guns XBox and PS3 showing their hands, all eyes are on Nintendo’s next-generation machine, code-named ‘Revolution,’ which will be revealed at E3 later today. We’ll be filing a report shortly.
Watch the amazing PS3 technical demos: 1UP
Sony Playstation
17 May, 2005
BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In September
BBC New Media is to extend trials of its interactive Media Player (iMP), allowing viewers to download material from 500 hours of its television and radio programming.
The latest phase of trials for BBC New Media’s interactive Media Player is scheduled to begin in September 2005 and will run for three months.
The interactive Media Player lets viewers catch up with TV and radio programmes up to seven days after they have been broadcast, with the BBC offering legal Internet download programmes to their PCs.
The latest road test follows smaller trials last summer where the BBC used a limited number of people and a small amount of rights-cleared programmes to test the concept of using peer-to-peer technology and digital rights management (DRM) to protect rights holders.
This time around, the BBC is offering around 190 hours of TV programmes and 310 radio programmes, in addition to local programming and rights-cleared feature films.
The 5,000 trialists will be able to search for programmes they want to watch, filter programmes by channel, select subtitles and, in the case of some series, to collect and watch episodes that they may otherwise have missed.
Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media and technology, effloresced with a curious mix of similes: “iMP could just be the iTunes for the broadcast industry, enabling our audience to access our TV and radio programmes on their terms — anytime, any place, any how – Martini Media.”
“We’ll see what programmes appeal in this new world and how people search, sort, snack and savour our content in the broadband world,” he added.
Currently, issues with rights, distribution and navigation are limiting the menu, leading to fears that without the necessary killer content to attract audiences, take-up of the service may stall.
Highfield has stated that the BBC was looking to tackle these issues through services like Creative Archive and iMP, and called on the industry to do the same.
The pilot will use DRM software to delete programmes seven days after the programme has aired on TV, ensuring that users can no longer watch the content after that time. The digital rights system will also prevent users emailing the files to their chums or sharing it via disc.
The BBC iMP pilot will use peer-to-peer distribution technology to distribute the content and Geo-IP technology to restrict the service to UK Internet users only, with Siemens Business Services, BBC Broadcast and Kontiki, assisting with the technical and play-out elements of the trial.
The Kontiki system is already being beta-tested by the Open Media Foundation in trials of a public service allowing controlled peer-to-peer distribution of rights cleared audio and video.
BBC iMP
Kontiki
16 May, 2005
AOL Talk Phone Service Challenges BT UK Landlines
AOL today trumpeted its intention to muscle into the UK phone business with the launch of a home service offering unlimited calls for an introductory flat rate of £7.99 (~US$14, ~€11) per month.
AOL UK – which has more than 2.3 million subscribers, including more than one million on AOL Broadband – will be the launching the AOL Talk service for its AOL Internet subscribers tomorrow, with the standalone product going on sale later this year.
The service will include unlimited UK local and national calls of any duration, day or night.
By tempting its users to dump BT and take advantage of their cheaper phone bills, AOL UK is following the lead taken by Tele2, TalkTalk, Tesco, and a host of other providers.
The introductory flat rate, valid until 30 June 2005, applies for the first 12 months of an AOL Talk subscription, after which customers will shell out for the standard subscription fee of £9.99 (~US$5.5, ~€8) per month.
Johnny-come-lately subscribers signing up after 30 June 2005 will pay this standard monthly subscription fee.
AOL claimed that the package also includes “competitive” mobile and international rates, offering an example tariff of 5p/min weekend calls to Vodafone.
Chief executive Karen Thomson said she wanted to give home phone users “competitive, easy-to-use services, with costs that are genuinely transparent and highly competitive”, adding that the flat rate package offers no hidden charges or limits on the time customers can spend calling UK landlines.
AOL Talk is based on Carrier Pre-Select, allowing customers with a BT landline to switch home phone providers without changing their phone number or line.
BT line rental fees will continue to apply to users of AOL Talk, but the ISP may offer wholesale line rental (WLR) at a later date giving consumers the option of incorporating line rental and call charges on the same bill.
AOL UK
AOL And Wanadoo VoIP Services Overview
16 May, 2005
OneCare From Microsoft Gives Live PC Health Check
Microsoft has announced that it would begin testing OneCare Live – a PC-health care fix-it all application – with a general release sometime next year.
Battered by Window’s less-than-glowing reputation as the des res of choice for viruses, Trojans, spyware apps and a host of other lurking undesirables, Microsoft is trying to soothe the worried brows of its consumers and make home PCs safer.
Microsoft says that OneCare, a security-software product, will do more than just battle against malicious attacks that flood inboxes with spam and spawn screenfulls of evil pop up ads.
The company intends to make it a preventive tool that will keep personal computers healthy with an easy-peasy automated system that takes all the guesswork and hassle away from the computer user.
As well as virus, firewall and spyware protection, the program will include performance and reliability tools offering automated maintenance tasks such as disk cleanup, hard-drive defragmentation and file repair.
Windows OneCare will also offer backup and restore capabilities, enabling automated backup of files by category on CD and DVD
“Customers don’t differentiate between security issues, maintenance issues and support issues,” observed Dennis Bonsall, Group Program Manager for Microsoft’s Technology, Care and Safety group. “They just want someone to take care of it.”
OneCare is a separately sold subscription-based service designed to work as a mainly “hands-off” application, quietly doing its good deeds in the background while sending security updates to users’ computer systems without them having to download or install the fixes.
From this week onward, Microsoft will begin testing the OneCare service amongst its own employees, before launching an invitation-only beta version for consumers in the summer
You’d think that the entry of the world’s biggest software maker into the anti-virus and security market would send feathers flying amongst established big names like McAfee and Symantec, but McAfee President Gene Hodges was all chilled out: “For people buying security software, it’s typically all about trust. Who do they trust to secure their computers and do this on a reliable basis? Microsoft, even though it’s a huge, powerful company, is going to have to prove to people that it can build good products and do the job well.”
Symantec were quick to throw an equally nonchalant shrug, issuing a statement last Friday saying that it was ready to compete with Microsoft, while confidently pointing out “the strength of the relationships we have with tens of millions of consumers around the world.”
We remain a little less-than-convinced that Microsoft haven’t the potential to seriously torpedo the profits of the current security big guns, and Van Baker, an analyst at researcher Gartner seems to agree,
Commenting that the Microsoft product could be attractive to less tech-savvy users, Baker opined; “Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro all offer a fairly complex offering and customers don’t know what else they need to worry about,” Baker said. “Microsoft is simplifying what is right now a mess, and in addition to protecting you, it’s also going to make sure that your computer runs well.”
Windows OneCare Live
16 May, 2005
BBC Backstage Lets Developers Fiddle About With Their Innards
The BBC has let rip with a new beta service that invites Web developers and designers outside of the organisation to start fiddling about with their content and “create cool new things”.
Launching in the summer, the BBC Backstage site gives code monkeys, app writers and graphics types the opportunity to bend and twist BBC digital content into new shapes.
The project lets developers get their greasy mitts on a collection of feeds and other tools for “re-mixing” and re-purposing the BBC’s offerings in different ways.
“We want to promote innovation and creativity on the net by opening access to some of BBC’s content and services,” enthused co-project leader Ben Metcalfe.
“Essentially, backstage.bbc.co.uk is enabling developers to create new contexts and user experiences around BBC content, like creating alternative ways to navigate, or remixing it with content and services from other providers like Yahoo,” he continued.
The UK broadcasting goliath made a commitment to support social innovation in response to last year’s Graf Report, and this is echoed in their plans to develop an open community where people can share expertise, ideas, and collaborative efforts.
Contributors can join an email discussion and chat away with technical and design staff from the BBC’s new media departments.
The BBC is hoping that by letting creatives fiddle about with their innards, fun, innovative and just plain bonkers new ways of presenting content may emerge, with the possible spin-off of stimulating a UK market for creative venture capital.
By opening up its content feeds and its “API” – application program interface – the BBC hopes that anyone with the right skills can use the digital content to create new search tools, or groovy ways of displaying that content.
An API is essentially a set of computer protocols and tools for building software applications, and the BBC intends to release new APIs gradually, as negotiations with other parts of the BBC take place.
The project is open to just about anyone, and if some bright spark comes up with a particularly cunning idea, the BBC might take it further in collaboration with the developer.
It’s not all about profit though, with the BBC hoping that contributors will create prototypes on their Web sites to be freely shared with others for non-commercial use.
Users won’t be tied to the BBC either, so if a proposal looks interesting to a third party company, they are free to take them further too.
This approach makes particular sense for applications designed for a specific device – such as a PDA – on which the BBC couldn’t justify dishing out their precious licence fee money.
The beta launch this week is designed to get developers to come up with suggestions about the kind of material they’d like to fiddle about with.
Although it is a significant move for a major content provider like the BBC to publicly offer their APIs, Web big boys like Google and Yahoo have already taken the step of making their APIs available for programmers to create applications.
Opening up material to communities of developers can drive real innovation, although it should be noted that it’s not a free for all, with rules in place detailing what is permitted under the agreement.
“We want to identify online talent and exciting propositions that use that talent and showcase that to the world. We want people to have fun with our content as well,” explained Mr Metcalfe.
BBC Backstage
Graf Report
BBC news cover Backstage
13 May, 2005