Ian – Page 49 – DigitalOutbox

DigitalOutbox Episode 20

DigitalOutbox Episode 20
In this episode the team discuss Windows 7, people power on Twitter, Apple bugs and some great picks.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:20 – Windows 7 Review
– The conclusion? First all of all, you’ll get much better battery life running OS X on Mac laptops than running Windows.
– Secondly, performance-wise, Windows 7 is probably a better choice if you are a gamer (there are more games developed for Windows, anyway), even on Mac hardware.
– Third, if you can get by with just software designed by Apple and if money is not a big issue, you will be happy with a Mac. Examples of these software choices are iTunes, iLife, QuickTime, Safari, iChat, and so on (and you probably won’t need much more than those for daily entertainment and communication needs).
– Finally, if money is not an issue–and it definitely is for most of us–you should get a Mac anyway. It’s the only platform, for now, that can run both Windows and OS X.
5:03 – Family Guy to Promote Windows 7
– Full half-hour show of Family Guy related content with Seth MacFarlane and crew. No ads – other than the huge one of the show itself!
– Is this really a match? Can it work? It will be watched for sure but who’s going to gain? Family Guy probably isn’t.
6:33 – Sidekick Data Found
– Last week we reported about the cloud computing loss of data.
– Statement released by t-mobile/MS warning users not to turn off/hard reset their device otherwise all data would be lost.
– Appears that the data has now been recovered and they are more confident that nobody should lose out.
– Vulnerability of cloud data – out of our control. Hopefully will focus cloud services to ensure redundancy as well as consumers to their responsibility.
8:12 – Guardian Gagged
– Guardian gagged from reporting parliamentary proceedings
– Twitter, blogs go wild
– Most of the info is online anyway
– Trafigura employed legal firm Carter-Ruck, known for it’s media gagging expertese to enforce the ban which stopped the Guardian speaking about this : “To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”
– Parliament order book lists the question – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91014o01.htm – blogs started to piece the story together, spreading the news on twitter
– http://order-order.com/2009/10/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament/
– Later, gag is lifted – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/13/guardian-gagged-parliamentary-question – The existence of a previously secret injunction against the media by oil traders Trafigura can now be revealed.
– Wikileaks has the report – http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006
– Does this highlight the futility of media gag’s?
– To many people can publish, too much information distributed, too easy to spread word quickly and effectively on twitter
12:09 – Jan Moir and Daily Mail
– Links death to unnatural causes and links gay marriage and death
– Spouts shite basically
– Twitter outrage, quite rightly so
– Response from Charlie Brooker
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir
– Daily Mail – orchestrated internet campaign
– PCC (Press Complaints Commission) under severe load – http://www.pcc.org.uk/
– Right wingers bemoan the lack of free speech
– So why did Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand get targeted by the Mail over Sachs comments and where was the freedom of speech there?
– Power of the mob, power of free speech on twitter, mass spread of information
– telegraph’s 50 things killed by the internet – 2) Fear that you are the only person unmoved by a celebrity’s death
– Digital pulse, soapbox for todays generation
– No where to hide for journalists and large corperations when power of the public can be harnessed in this way
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/16/jan-moir-stephen-gately-response
15:40 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee apologises to your fingers
– Sir Tim, inventor of the WWW was asked if there was one thing he would change about the net if he had his time again. He said the “//” after the “http:” are completely unnecessary!
– Bastard!
16:55 – Spotify moving ever closer to iTunes
– You can now buy DRM-free 320Kbs MP3’s direct from within the Spotify app.
– It’s like iTunes with full song/album preview against everything. If you want a track to keep, no problem. If you want to remove adverts and listen on the move, no problem.
18:24 – Sky Songs
– Launches Oct 19th, Can’t buy tracks, subscribe per month
– For £6.49 a month, users can download one “£6.49 album” or ten individual songs and stream as much music as they want for one month.
– For £7.99, users can download a “£7.99” album or 15 songs and have the same access to streamed music.
– All four major music labels on board
– PC only at the moment?
20:01 – 4OD Moves to Youtube
– Channel 4 has come to a deal with YouTube to hold all Channel 4’s back catalogue and stream in High Quality.
– Google and Channel 4 will split the revenue generated from ads on the Channel 4 content.
– 3 year deal, with all content expected available by early 2010.
– Channel 4 have the option to opt out of iPhone streaming but no decision has been made yet.
22:35 – Google Making Money
– $1.6bn profit off a total $6bn revenue for 3rd quater of year. 7% up on 2008.
24:41 – Snow Leopard Deletes All Your data
– Difficult to reproduce but seems linked to upgrade from Leopard and use of the Guest account.
– What happens, according to numerous reports, is that after logging in and out of a Guest account (which, upon logout, wipes out any data stored within the Guest account’s home folder), and then logging in to a regular account, people are finding that their regular account has been wiped too.
– Looks to occur only if you had guest account enabled prior to Snowy upgrade
– Apple, which is notorious for not commenting on these things, made the unusual step of acknowledging the problem to CNET.
– This is serious. It should never happen. Even Vista doesn’t do that!
– To prevent, if the Guest Account was enabled before you upgraded to Snow Leopard, pop in to your System Preferences and disable it. Close System Preferences and restart your computer. When you next log in, you can choose whether or not you want to re-enable the Guest Account. Doing so after following these steps ought to be safe, since the Guest Account will be recreated with all-new Snow Leopard settings which, it’s assumed, won’t delete all your valuable personal data. Note – community fix and not an official Apple policy. You could also just disable guest accounts if you never use them.
27:57 – Time Capsule Memorial Web Site
– Average lifetime of Time Capsule – 17months, 4 days – 212 people registered
– They get hot and capacitors look to be frying
– Not good for a device that’s to be used for backing up your data too
– Apple not acknowledging issue – surprise surprise
31:05 – Jailbreak for 3.1.2
– For Mac and Windows
– Let’s you install Cydia, etc
– Anyone tried it?
– iPhone 3GS now shipping with new bootrom, resistant to current jailbreaking techniques
33:45 – Layar for iPhone
– Augmented reality
– Lot’s of layars
– Works well and is free – 3GS only
40:10 – Radio App from Apple
– Tipped rumour that the FM chip in iPhone/iPod touch will be used for a new Radio app to be developed by Apple.
– Possible “Buy this song” functionality against currently playing track. Perhaps working in background just like iPod app.
43:58 – Dyson Bladeless fan
– uber-cool, uber-efficient but uber-expensive -£199 from Argos.
47:00 – Sky on the 360
– Channels
– G.O.L.D, Sky Real Lives, Sky Arts 1, Sky Movies 1 & 2, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Xtra, Sky Sports News, British Eurosport, ESPN
ESPN Classic, Sky News, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, History, Eden, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Disney Channel
– Oct 27th
– SD only
– Even if you are not a Sky digital customer, you can now subscribe to Sky Player TV from £15/€18 a month for the Entertainment Pack. This includes the live broadcast of over 20 channels including National Geographic, ESPN Classic, G.O.L.D. and Disney Channel. You are also entitled to the free content available from these channels. You can also choose to upgrade this package to include Sky’s premium channels Sky Movies and Sky Sports, making a total of 21 live channels for your delectation. If you subscribe to Sky Multiroom account then you can watch all the live channels in your pack on your Xbox 360, at no extra cost! Sky Multiroom or Sky Broadband Unlimited customers can also watch Live TV on their Xbox 360’s at no extra charge. All other Sky TV customers can subscribe to watch Live TV on Sky Player for £9.75/€14.75 a month.

Picks
Ian
TVCatchup
– Watch 11 channels live on the iphone
– Works well over 3G
– Happy, happy days
– Free

Chris
SpaceSniffer
– A visual representation of space taken up on a disk. Files and folders all represented by blocks on the screen relative to their filesize. Folder blocks contain their constituent files as smaller blocks.
– Hypnotic to watch a scan taking place. Slick ability to zoon in on areas.
– And is very useful in idenfying where you lose all those Gb’s on your once empty HardDrive.
– Going to be useful for clean install of Windows 7.

Henry
Caffeine
– tiny Mac OS X program that sits on the menu bar and stops your mac going to sleep

DigitalOutbox Episode 19

DigitalOutbox Episode 19
In this episode the team discuss Web security, backups and Broadband news for the UK with lot’s of edits. Cheers Skype!

Playback
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Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
2:12 – Web Security
– Phishing scam used to target Google & Hotmail accounts. Account details leaked online. 30,000 accounts.
– How are people still being soooooo stupid as to give out their details to phishing emails?
7:22 – Cloud Issues
– Microsoft/Danger loses all T-Mobile Sidekick customer data
– Statement: Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.
– Where was the backup?
– Shows danger of relying on cloud – what happens if service drops, access restricted, data removed?
– As in local data, you should always have a backup
9:52 – Napster Evolves Again
– Cheaper unlimited download service on offer £5 per month – including 5 permanent downloads every month.
– 8 millions songs to choose from.
– Reaction to Spotify threat?
14:00 – Windows Mobile 6.5
6.5 brings a handful of great features to the same old mess that was Windows Mobile
– very small amount of system has been converted for ‘touch’, mainly the home and start screens
– need to use stylus for everything else ie typing, everything other than launching an app etc
– you CAN type with finger but it’s “like trying to sew with your feet”
– huge IE overhaul …. but still sucks
– pages render incorrectly or stall
– “designed by someone in 2002”
– 6.5 is nothing but a spit and polish job on 6.1
18:33 – UK Mobile Coverage
– Ofcom looking at ensuring consumers who don’t get the coverage they need are not locked into contracts.
21:19 – AT and T Allow VOIP over 3G on iPhone
– Due to FCC investigation?
– What about O2, Orange, Vodafone?
– Skype likes this – http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2009/10/good_move_att.html
– Google Voice rumoured – it’s not VOIP
23:19 – Adobe Flash EveryWhere except
– No surprise but is it an issue?
– Adobe do show app’s developed via flash and packaged for iPhone
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/adobe-shows-off-flash-apps-for-iphone-yes-you-read-that-right/
– Could increase app volume even more and bring more dev’s to the platform
– More app’s of the wrong type?
27:19 – BT push fibre
– BT announced one and a half million copper lines into homes and businesses will be joined by optical cables, initially offering broadband at 100Mbit/s downstream and capable of delivering 1Gbit/s.
– BT had previously only publicly committed to one million FTTP installations on building projects where the civil engineering costs of laying fibre would be low.
– The wider deployment means BT plans to run fibre to two and a half million premises by 2012. A further seven and a half million line will be upgraded to fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) services, delivering up to 40Mbit/s downstream.
– Competitors will be able to buy access to the fibre, although BT will have greater control over pricing than it does over ADSL.
– Virgin Media – will it allow access? Does VM want it? comparitively expensive and it’s running its own 50Mbit/s trials with copper from home to new cabinets and new fibre to rest of network http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/08/vm_cornwall/
– No news on areas to benefit
– My exchange – FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) should be in service form 04/01/2010
– http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/news/productbriefings/nga/nga04309.do
– Up to 40Mb down, up to 10mb up – £88.08 annual rental. What will retail offer? What price?
32:44 – O2 Starts to Throttle
– introduction of management for peer to peer and newsgroup applications will only affect those O2 broadband customers who are not on the firms own unbundled network.
– Par for the course
37:15 – VMWare Fusion 3
– $80, October 27th
– Designed for Snow Leopard, supports 64bit kernel, allows for virtualisation of 64 bit O/S
– Supports Snow Leopard and Windows 7
– Finally add’s aero support – first tool to do so
43:12 – iPhone 3.1.2 Update
– aims to resolve some of the recent issues reported by users
– sporadic issue that prevents iphone from waking up from sleep mode
– occasional crashes when streaming video
– intermittent cellular service interruptions
45:13 – New Tablet Rumours
– 10.6″ panel
– geared towards e-book functionality
47:48 – Kindle Comes to UK
– As expected, the Amazon Kindle will be coming to Europe, including UK.
– Access via 3G – unspecified carrier at this stage.
– No web browsing but the device should roam happily around 99 countries.
– £175
52:33 – Microsoft Mouse Labs
– Some real innovation
56:56 – Eigenharp
– It’s a Theremin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin (as used by Bill Bailey) crossed with a Tenori-on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenori-on (as used by Little Boots)
– Much cheaper are the http://www.smule.com apps on the iphone – leaf trombone and ocarina, plus numerous Tenori-on wannabee apps.
– Never been a better time to inflict your musical talent on the world through digital instruments. We’re a long way from Rolf Harris’s Stylophone http://www.stylophone.com/

Picks
Ian
Tweetie 2
– The best twitter client for the Mac

Chris
Portal T-shirts
– Hopelessly / tragically /desperately geeky but just brilliant!
– T-shirts with in-built cameras and TFT screens come in Portal Orange and Blue pairs and transmit your cameras picture onto the other persons t-shirt – so creating the look of portals!

Henry
Fission
– MP3 splitter
– $32
– Mac only

Canabalt

Canabalt is a simple but addictive game for the iPhone. The aim is to escape by running across randomly generated city rooftops. All you can do is jump by touching the screen. Sounds simple, and it is to play, but it’s got that ‘just one more go’ appeal that’s hard to resist.

The graphics are stylish and fast and the music is awesome. As the game suggests, play with headphones. If you want to try before you buy there is no lite version but you can play the flash game online. So can anyone beat my high score?

Xtranormal.com – everyone’s a movie director

One of this weeks picks was Xtranormal.com – an online interactive movie maker where the only skill you need is the ability to type in a script.

Someone sent me a great little movie during the week that had been created using this new website. It sparked my curiosity, so I went and had a look. I’m glad I did!

What a great concept. Using the web interface, simply choose your scene, choose your virtual actors, set the ambience and then type in the script. When you’re happy, preview your video. Make any amends and when everything’s perfect, publish your masterpiece.

You can sign up for a free account, which offers you all the main features but limits them in well thought out ways. There’s plenty to be using and having fun with, whilst the upgrading to a Premium account adds more choices, more scenes, longer movies, takes off advertising and gives priority rendering of your movies on the xtranormal servers. Premium accounts are either $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year.

The system itself is cleverly put together and is incredibly easy to use. You can add actions, expressions and sounds into your movies along with fine-grained control of camera angles – all using a simply drag and drop environment. Personally, I’ve found the “Magicam” automated cameras are very good at capturing your movie with little fuss. Rendering of preview movies takes a few minutes and the website lets you know what it’s up to along the way. Previews are only low quality renders of the scene, so don’t think that the quality is low – the final rendering makes everything a lot more detailed.

Once you’re happy with your movie, you are given the option to give your movie a title, add tags and a description as well as add it to a series of movies if you so choose.

You have several publishing options, including all the codes you need to embed it in your blog, link to it in an email etc and finally, if you have a YouTube account, you can enter your credentials and upload it there for the world to see.

Of course, I couldn’t leave my review without offing my own little masterpiece into the proceedings. So here it is. Make your own movies at www.xtranormal.com.

DigitalOutbox Episode 18

DigitalOutbox Episode 18
In this episode the team discuss why we’ve grown to 3 1/2 people.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
1:25 – Google Wave
– Biggest news of the week – trending topic on twitter for a couple of days
– EBay auction for an invite going for £20-£60! Madness!
– IM on steroids or really the future for communicating online?
3:17 – ICANN and UK Broadband
– The US Government has relaxed its hands on control of the internet
– Specifically giving ICANN – the body responsible for regulating the internet – autonomy and opening it up to global comment.
– The move recognises the global nature of the Internet and eases worries about impartiality in the EU and other regions.
6:53 – Internet Overtakes TV advertising Money
– The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.
– 4.6% year-on-year increase
– The internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising money spent in the UK, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets.
– TV advertising fell about 17% year on year in the first half, to about £1.6bn
9:05 – Freeview Retune
– The freeview retune has meant that more people can now receive channel 5 – but many have lost ITV 3 and 4…
– 20,000 or so older boxes expected to break completely.
– Retune needed to enable Freeview HD.
– Advice is for people to try and re-tune again to see if the channels come back.
14:34 – Microsoft Security Essentials
– guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software
– Free as long as you’ve bought Windows
– XP, Vista, Windows 7
17:35 – Bing Bust?
– Search market share slipped in September in USA and Globally – now 3.3%
– Google – Gained 2% to 80% of US market, 90.5% of global market
– Competition is good – look at the products and innovations from Google in the last 1-2 months
– Better search options in Google
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/01/google-adds-new-options-to-make-search-more-timely-less-spammy-and-more-personal/
– http://mashable.com/2009/10/01/google-search-options/
– IE 7 & 8 are only there thanks to Firefox! Need competitors to Google.
21:21 – Spotify allows downloads
– Download playlists for offline listening
– Will they be DRM’d?
– Is this really needed?
25:01 – Apple buys PlaceBase
– Is this as protection against Google?
– Will future iPhone OS replace Google maps?
– Whats about the app’s that have been developed using Google Map’s through API’s?
26:58 – iPhone coming to Orange and Vodafone
– No tariff, price or dates yet
– Orange say they will be cheaper than O2, not sure if that’s handset or monthly tariff though
– Orange, which has had 65,000 reservations for the handset in just a couple of days, claims wider, faster 3G coverage than O2, with 93% of the population, compared with O2’s 80%.
– http://www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/group_press_releases/2009/iphone_uk_ire.html
– http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/iphone-3gs
– Vodafone say early 2010 for them to start selling 3G and 3GS
– Virgin Media want iPhone too
30:44 – New iMac’s and Mini’s?
– New iMac’s and Mini’s all but confirmed?
– Further orders of iMacs and low cost Mini will go unhonoured
– Plus, new touch based mighty mouse???????
– http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/02/new-apple-bluetooth-keyboard-arrives-at-the-fcc-new-mouse-rumor/
– New keyboard and mouse
– Adverts released early point to new hardware
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/03/apple_ads_hint_at_thinner_imacs_lighter_macbooks_cheaper_mac_minis.html
– John Gruber bets on new keyboard/mouse showing alongside blu-ray imacs.
– http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/02/engadget-keyboards-mice
37:48 – Tablet and TV Rumours
– Will be announced on or before Jan 19th, released May-Jun 2010
– Currently a 10.7inch screen – 2 models, one with 3g, one without
– Display around 720p
– still has to receive final approval from Steve Jobs, something the source claims only has about an 80 percent chance of right now.
– Apple in discussions with print publications … oo-er – shak
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/30/apple_contacted_print_publications_about_tablet_report.html
– possible new use/reason for the Tablet
– apple reaching out to print publications about releasing content on iTunes
– Tablet been through several iterations and project reset by SJ while Apple decided how people would use the tablet – as we’ve discussed many times
– eventual goal – possibly hybrid content drawing from audio, video, interactive graphics – the next gen of print content??
– Apple TV Update – Rumour Alert!! – shak
– According to Boy Genius Report’s tipster thinks an updated Apple TV could be in development accompanied by a touch screen remote control.
– same tipster who correctly reported on iPhone homescreen organisation and social networking components in iTunes 9
– http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/09/29/apple-working-on-a-touchscreen-remote-for-upcoming-apple-tv/
45:50 – iPhone Appstore – 2 billion downloads
– 9 months to hit 1 billion – number of downloads accelerating
– Just over a year to deliver 1.5 billion, 76 days for the next 1/2 billion
– Issue now is discovery and breaking your app in the store – difficult
– http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-everything/
47:19 – Dropbox for iPhone
– Gives access to your Dropbox account
– Fast, can browse folders, open files, images, music, video
– Can fav files to access them offline
– Can share a file from the app – generate an e-mail to send to friends
– Take photo’s and video’s and store in dropbox
48:00 – PCalc Profanity Filter
– No more boobbies
– From TLA Systems and James Thomson, Glasgow based iphone developer
– believe it when you see it

Picks
Shakeel
Droplitz
– iPhone game
– Addictive, £0.59

Ian
Canabalt
– iPhone game – £1.79
– Based on flash game of same name
– Simple, stylish with great music – perfect

Chris
Xtranormal
– Make movies just by typing in a script. Virtual actors / scenes.
– Seen some great funny vids already.
– Save / share / upload to youtube.

Spotify Launches Offline Mode

Spotify launched a new feature today to it’s desktop client – Offline Mode. Premium users selecting a playlist will now have the ability to click an ‘Available offline’ button which will download the tracks locally for playback when not connected to the internet. I tried the service this afternoon and the results can be seen in the video below.

Spotify are really stepping up and offering something different to the current digital music stores. Stream for free in lower quality with ad’s or pay for great quality music that you can access from anywhere, offline or online. Not only that but with the addition this week of PayPal as a payment option they are making it easier than ever to subscribe to their service. Couple that to 4 million tracks available via search and many great playlists available online and you’ve got a very compelling service. It’s enough to keep me subscribing for another month after the launch of their iPhone app a few weeks ago. Over to you Apple?

Halo 3:ODST

Halo 3:ODST is my most obvious DigitalOutbox pick so far. I loved the original Halo and played countless hours of split screen multiplayer. Halo 2 was a massive step forward due to the multiplayer – simply the best available at the time. Halo 3 took it one step further with improved graphics and the variety of map’s and gameplay that it had to offer. One thing that’s consistent with all those games – I’ve yet to complete the campaign (also called single player) mode in any of them. The campaign’s are good but I put the blame on one thing – The Flood. Quite possibly the worst aspect of the Halo universe is the flood and thankfully they are part of campaign only. Anytime I see The Flood I just yawn – so boring. Anyway, Halo 3:ODST.

This release is probably Halo’s most controversial so far. ODST started off as an extension pack and over the last year has grown into a full campaign story, and a full priced game at the same time. Alongside the campaign you get a new Firefight multiplayer mode (think horde mode from Gears of War 2) and on a second disk every multiplayer map for Halo 3 plus three new multiplayer map’s. I say full price but I paid just over £30 for ODST which is less than most other releases. However, was it good value?

The campaign mode in ODST is rather different than the usual Halo fare. No master chief, instead you play the role of a rookie ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). The game is set a few hours after you have dropped on to New Mombassa and is set around the same timeline as Halo 2. What’s unique is that the missions (8 in total) are accessed as flashbacks as you roam the streets of New Mombassa. The gameplay in Mombassa is also quite different – almost stealth like. You can avoid combat if you like and in some cases you probably need to. Your trooper is not like master chief and some of the enemies are very tough for your character. No dual wielding or running for your smaller and weaker trooper and watch out for heights – no more jumping from tall buildings in ODST! There’s also no vehicles in New Mombassa – better get used to walking. However the missions you access are more standard Halo – lot’s of enemies to fight, warthogs missions a plenty and some amazing set piece moments.

The best way to play campaign is definitely in co-op. Up to four players can play campaign this way and it is far more enjoyable. As for the story itself – usual pap that isn’t worth bothering about in my opinion although something to note is the story makes no account for co-op gamers. it’s told as if one rookie is playing the game, not four which can be jarring. The graphic style in ODST is also quite different. Using the Halo 3 engine, the New Mombassa parts are set at night and in a very neon lit environment that are very atmospheric. This is enhanced when you enable night vision (only in ODST, not Halo 3 multiplayer) which draws a nice red outline around enemies. One thing to note – compared to other games the Halo 3 engine is starting to show it’s age. Compare it to Modern Warfare 2 and it looks quite dated in some ways. Back to the value question – we’ve played through almost all of ODST and it’s take 6-8 hours. We’ve not got stuck apart from a very repetitive last level. And yes, thats without the flood!

The other brand new addition is Firefight mode. If you’ve played the Horde mode in Gears of War 2 then you’ve played Firefight. Select from a choice of 10 maps and fight wave after wave of Halo bad guys. They increase in volume and difficulty after each wave. Again you can play this mode with up to three other friends. I think it’s this mode more than any other so far in Halo that emphasises team work. There are 5 waves to each set and each set shares a number of lives between all players. So one good player won’t get your team through the game if a couple of others keep dying. You need to work together, use weapons wisely and share out the limited health. Another great feature is that if your down to one guy and he manages to survive and get your team through to the next set, all team mates get back into the game and he gets a hero award. It’s a great, tense addition and one we’ve loved playing over the last week, especially listening to Chris singing about being a hero.

Firefight’s biggest problems are a lack of pause function and an inability to invite people in mid game. It’s also a friends only game. No random multiplayer support which is a bit annoying if you’ve only got one or two friends online playing ODST. Sticking to the value theme – I love this mode. A game can last anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours and it’s action packed. Also, every game has felt different so far and the map design has been excellent. That leaves us with disk 2 and Halo 3 multiplayer.

Whether this is good value or not is down to how much you played Halo 3. If you’ve bought all the maps so far then your only getting three new maps. If you didn’t play Halo 3, or didn’t pay for any of the new maps then there are 12 new maps for your enjoyment. In total there are 23 multiplayer maps across the various playlists and custom games that you know and love from Halo 3 multiplayer. For me it was three new maps so not brilliant, but then I still play Halo 3 every week so new maps are good and getting a larger community onto the newer map’s should see some better playlist variety.

[flash url=”http://www.digitaloutbox.com/movies/halo3_multi.swf” w=”500″ h=”282″]

First map I tried was Longshore. Quite large, and has multiple entry and exit points for flag and bomb planting. The movie above was from my first game. We were defending and the blues attacked perfectly. They activated a bridge to drop right on to the bomb plant spot while invisible ‘shotgun guy’ took out out gunner. Round over. Awesome. Really enjoyed this new map. I think it will become a favourite over time. Next new map was Citadel which is a pretty small map with not much cover. At first I was getting picked off with ease as I didn’t expect it to be so open or to be shot from a distance. Expect lot’s of 4vs4 capture the flag on this map. Two or three games already in this mode and it was very enjoyable as the game ebbed and flowed. Well, it was more enjoyable as I started to capture some flags.

Onto the third new map, Heretic. I say new – it’s really the classic Midship from Halo 2. I’ve lost count of the number of games I’ve played on this map. It’s superb for bomb and flag games and a welcome addition to Halo 3. In fact, I’d love a few more map’s from Halo 2 to make the move into 3 but I doubt we’ll see anymore now.

So that’s it, Halo 3:ODST. Oh, almost forgot. You also get exclusive access to the multiplayer demo of Halo Reach, out next year. If you like FPS and haven’t picked up some of the multiplayer map’s then this is a no brainer. If you like Halo and already have the map’s then it’s still a worthwhile purchase. If your not into multiplayer gaming then I’d stay away from ODST. Our co-op games have been good with Firefight standing out as a really good addition. Just remember that Firefight needs friends willing to play as you can’t invite randoms into those games. On that note, it’s back online for me.

Windows 7 Party Time!

I know how excited a whole lot of us – myself included – are about finally getting the retail edition of Windows 7. What better way of celebrating such a tumultuous event than by having a party! We all love a party right? I know I do. Especially parties with truly dorky friends all huddled around a PC enjoying the plethora of exciting new features – like preview popups of windows straight from the doc-bar. I mean, what party have you been to where you haven’t fired up a laptop and enjoyed the delights of the newly reorganised Start menu.

Still, just in case you need some pointers of how your launch party can go with a bang, Microsoft have released some really informative and helpful videos. You’ll feel right at home with these characters. Just like the people you meet everyday… if the people you meet every day are sad muppets who have clearly not managed to get an acting job in years.

Seriously, it would be hugely impressive if this was made to be ironic. Sadly It’s just hugely impressive how utterly geeky and out of touch Microsoft PR is.

But, oh, how the internet is so full of clever people. Take a shockingly bad video and turn it into comedy gold.

RunKeeper

RunKeeper is a GPS based fitness tracking application for the iPhone. It allows the user to track their runs, walks, cycles etc and then upload the session to the RunKeeper website. RunKeeper tracks duration, distance, pace, speed, calories burned, and path traveled on a map. I’ve been using the app for over a year now in anger and it’s never let me down once making it an easy pick that I wanted to share with everyone. I started hill walking at the start of 2009 and it’s been excellent in tracking my walks.

To track an activity launch RunKeeper and wait for a GPS lock. Then press start and the app will track you. During an activity you can pause the app, close the app, take calls and run music in the background. Activities can be resumed from this paused state which works really well. At the end of your activity you save it to the iPhone and you then can upload the activity to the RunKeeper website which open’s up some more options. As RunKeeper uses GPS rather than relying on a stepping motion like Nike+, cycling or rowing can also be tracked.

On the website all your activities can be viewed allowing you to keep a full history. Whats nice is that your activities are drawn on top of Google maps so you can pan around the map and zoom with ease. You can also swap between map, satellite and terrain which is ideal for me when looking back at my walks. One issue I have had (only the once though) is that the GPS went a bit haywire and thought I had walked 20 miles in around 10 seconds – if only!

However a recent addition to the RunKeeper website is the ability to edit your activity. You can zoom in on the map and move points to a more accurate position. What’s nice is the distance, calorie count etc are updated to reflect your changes. Another great feature is that you can export your activity to either Google Earth or GPX format. I’m keeping a track of my walks in Google Earth and RunKeeper makes this really easy to do. You can also share your activity on Twitter or Facebook – the iPhone app will also auto tweet your activity once complete, if you authorise it.

The application comes in two flavours, a free and Pro edition. RunKeeper Free is supported by adverts unlike the Pro edition. RunKeeper Pro has extra features like audio cues which are pace stats via your headphones, and training workouts. Extra features are promised soon for the Pro version which costs £5.99. Early versions did have some issues that have thankfully been resolved. Firstly, battery life on the iPhone gets zapped pretty quickly when using the GPS. Early versions didn’t work with the screen off but frequent updates have seen battery life greatly improved and you can now switch the screen off and the app will still run. I also turn off 3G and wi-fi which helps battery and also helps with GPS signal locking. For long walks (8-10 hours) I did pick up an external battery pack as the iPhone battery just doesn’t last long enough. I also find RunKeeper more reliable than a couple of other app’s I tried, even Trails which I thought would have been a better option for the hill walking.

In summary, RunKeeper is an easy to use GPS activity tracking application for the iPhone. It has a great set of features on the phone and website and it’s good to complete a walk and see the stat’s in detail after the event. In fact some experienced walkers I’ve teamed up with over the year have been very impressed with the graphs and charts with one commenting that for a free or low cost app it was better than many of the dedicated walking GPS devices. The developers are also great at keeping in touch with the user community through blogs, forums and twitter. Highly recommended!

DigitalOutbox Episode 17

DigitalOutbox Episode 17
In this episode the team discuss Microsoft Courier, Pay for your broadband and music, Google innovates and PS3 news from the Tokyo Game Show.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:49 – Digital Britain – time to pay!
– 50p tax on landlines to go ahead
– Presented in bill before christmas
– Is this the right thing to do?
5:17 – Music At War
– Two camps emerging. Those that think that everything possible should be done to eliminate illegal file sharing. Although I can’t find details of what they are suggesting.
– Another camp saying that what’s the point in trying to stop file-sharing – nothing will work anyway.
– And now the two camps are at war.
– Come up with a sensible solution. Fight clever. Work with new technology and the new music listener – don’t fight a losing battle to protect old infrastructure.
– Lily Allen and artists come to some agreement on piracy stance
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/09/lily_unites_musicians_against.html
– http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/showscreen.php?site_id=161&screentype=folder&screenid=2990&newsaction=showitem&newsid=2588&dc=6&sn=News
– We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign to alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry and to condemn the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days.
– Our meeting also voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional.
11:18 – Charge for iPlayer?
– Lorraine Heggessey, chief executive of TV production company Talkback Thames.
– Industry want to charge micro-payments for catch up services but BBC scuppering this.
– BBC have no plans to charge. Licence fee covers this content.
13:31 – Google Chrome Frame
– Plugin for IE 6(and 7 & 8) that replaces rendering engine in IE6 with Chrome
– Will this force Microsoft to be more aggressive on moving from IE6?
– http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10360850-56.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware
– “With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers,” Microsoft said. “Given the security issues with plug-ins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plug-in has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.”
– So, time to remove Silverlight?
18:10 – Google SideWiki
– Commenting for the web?
– Needs google toolbar
– Not original, been tried before and failed but will it be successful due to Google’s brand and market share?
– Yet another comment source – fragmentation of the conversation although there is an api
22:42 – Push GMail
– Google sync now support gmail
– Setup exchange account on iPhone to get push calendar, contacts and gmail
– Google working around Apple’s limitations and choices
– Only 1 exchange account available on iPhone
25:26 – Picasa 3.5
– Face recognition, similar to picasa albums online
– Share albums based on name
– Better geotagging and uploading/sharing options
26:15 – Bing increases market share
– From 8.9 to 9.3% in US market.
– OK it’s only a small increase but considering everyone said it was impossible to even steal a small share away from Google was impossible.
– May mean that Bing is a default choice for some users now.
27:21 – Apple Acknowledges battery concerns
– Users can log battery issues with Apple
– Also can install Battery Life Logging and report issues back to Apple
– http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/09/20/apple-seeking-info-iphone-31-users-reporting-poor-battery-life/
30:01 – USB IF Sides with Apple
– Palm issues dismissed
– Your letter also states that:
“Palm will shortly issue an update of its WebOS operating system that uses Apple’s Vendor ID number for the sole purpose of restoring the Palm media sync functionality.”
I attach for your information the USB-IF’s adopted and published policy regarding Vendor Identification Numbers (VIDs). Under the Policy, Palm may only use the single Vendor ID issued to Palm for Palm’s usage. Usage of any other company’s Vendor ID is specifically precluded. Palm’s expressed intent to use Apple’s VID appears to violate the attached policy.
Please clarify Palm’s intent and respond to this potential violation within seven days.
– GET OUT!
34:48 – iTunes Update
– Resolves issues browsing the iTunes Store.
– Addresses a performance issue where iTunes may become unresponsive.
– Fixes a problem where iTunes may unexpectedly quit.
– Fixes a problem syncing Podcasts in playlists to iPod or iPhone.
– Fixes a problem sorting albums with multiple discs.
– Addresses an issue with the Zoom button not switching to Mini Player.
– Improves application syncing for iPod touch and iPhone.
– Genius is now automatically updated to show Genius Mixes.
41:37 – Tiny Blu Ray PC
– Like a Mac mini – but with BluRay (kind of what we were talking about last week) £650 or £450 without the BluRay.
– Comes with media centre remote.
– Don’t know what kind of storage it has but media centre seems pretty good at streaming.
42:22 – Microsoft Courier
– A booklet, not a tablet
– Late prototype
– Touch and stylus driven,camera,7inch screens
49:24 – Sony at Tokyo Game Show
– Sony Motion Controller
– Japan release March
– Spring 2010 for rest of the world
– 4-5 million units worldwide
– Old games will be adpated to support it
– 250GB PS3 Slim
– Oct 1st
– On Amazon for £285 – bundles on the way
– PS3 Firmware issues – ian
– Tam mentioned this…
– http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/09/25/ps3-3-0-3-01-firmware-update-making-blu-ray-drive-unusable/
– Issues with 3.0 and 3.0.1 for people
– Been perfect for me
– God of War 1 & 2 bundle to include E3 demo of God of War 3
– PS3 Rumour Leaks
– wants to sell all PS2 titles on PSN – PS2 emulator ??
– special “Japanese Import” section for titles only released in Japan – ie Yakuza 3
– leaked document mentions possibility of Dreamcast titles appearing on PSN

Picks
Shakeel
Snippet
– sits on menu bar
– nice and clean interface
– pop-up menus and mini-windows, very little clutter
– easily search for your snippets of code, copy then paste into new projects.
– search by tags
– no need to hunt through previous/old projects
– easily create new snippets from any text
– select type of code, add tags
– primarily designed for programming but just as useful for storing other regularly used information
– for blocks of text, can copy a small selection instead of the whole lot, all from a mini pop-up window
– when code or text is copied, focus automatically returned to the last used app

Ian
Halo 3 ODST
– Co-op
– Firefight
– Multiplayer maps
– Good Value

Chris
MS Windows 7 Parties
– Ooooooo Mmmmmm Ggggggg