DigitalOutbox Episode 122

DigitalOutbox Episode 122
DigitalOutbox Episode 122 – WWDC

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:32 – WWDC Retina Macbook Pro
400 million store accounts, 650,000 apps, 30billion downloads – lots of other ‘facts’
– Notebook changes
– Macbook Air – new cpus up to 2ghz dual core, up to 8GB of ram, 512 of flash, USB 3, 720p camera, 1366*768
– Macbook Pro’s – 13 – new cpu’s up to 2.7ghz, Nvidia GeForce GT 650m graphics, USB 3, 1280*800 – 15 – quad core – 1440*900 – both shipping today
– New model – Next Gen Macbook pro – 2880 x 1800 – retina – better than my 27” imac in a15 inch screen, 75% less glare!, as thin as a macbook air, updated version of Lion to support display – will it be less buggy? Apps updated too as well as professional apps, wow – Adobe Photoshop updated for new display, Diablo 3, quad i5 or i7, 8gb ram, 256gb of flash, $2199 – out today – truely a top spec laptop
9:32 – WWDC – Mountain Lion
– OS X
– Detail 8 new features
– iCloud
– With Mountain Lion we built support for iCloud right in. When you sign in with your account, we configure all of your apps and your content is up to date across devices.
– “And we introduce three new apps: messages, reminders, and notes
– “We’re also bringing integration with your documents, with a feature we’re calling Documents in the Cloud.”
– “When you launch Pages, it shows all the docs you have in the cloud. And it makes these available across all of your devices.”

– Notification Centre
– Messages
– Dictation
– Sharing
– New Safari – unified smart search just like Chrome – sue them google! iCloud tabs, tabview – if the speed is good I may be switching back to Safari
– Power Nap (Apple really do like cheesy names) – Wouldn’t it be great if our computers still worked for us when we weren’t working? Now it can.” – Keeps your Mac up to date while it sleeps. Oh thank heavens — will backup while sleeping. – Automatically refreshes data, silent, power efficient. Works with MacBook Airs and the new MBP. Thats impressive. So the new Macbooks work like iOS devices doing ‘stuff’ in the background!
– Airplay Mirroring
– Game Centre
– “We support turn based and head-to-head gaming, across platforms.” More new apps I guess – Words with Friends for the mac 🙂
– $19.99, ships July!
17:03 – WWDC – iOS6
– iOS
– 1 1/2 trillion push notifications, 7 billion a day, 1 billion messages a day
– iOS 6
– Siri – whole load of american sports questions, yelp, opentable, movies (rotten tomatoes) – all american – I fear that nothing will come to UK. Ask about actors, directors. Launch apps via Siri, tweet, english premier league mentioned. Eyes free – We’re working with car manufacturers to include a button that will bring up Siri — so you can keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. A number of manufacturers have committed to delivering this in the next 12 months. Mobile search – US only is now around the world. Looks like commitment is there. Bringing it to the new iPad
– Facebook – Integrated like Twitter with API support – “We’ve also integrated it with Siri. And we’ve taken this deep integration and made it a public API so it’s easy for apps in the app store to integrate with Facebook. We’ve also integrated it in the app store, so you can like apps and see what apps your friends like — same with music, TV shows, and movies.” Contact integration, calendar integration and on the Mac too.
– Phone (low hanging fruit?) – Reply instead of answering – “If you choose reply with message, you can choose any of these, or if you choose remind me later, you can be reminded in an hour… or remind me when I leave, which will set up a geofence and remind you when you leave the building.” Do Not Disturb – “I can see many of you are like me and you’ve been awakened in the middle of the night — this tells your phone not to bother you. The messages will still come to your phone, it just won’t light up the screen or make a sound.””You also get fine grain control over which phone calls you can receive.” This is nice — you can also do groups. “You can also set up repeated calls — if someone calls a second time in 3 mins, it will come through.”
– Facetime – over cellular (not 3g?) – Integrate mobile number and apple ID – “Also, we’re unifying your phone number and Apple ID. So if someone calls you on your phone number for Facetime, you can answer it on your iPad or Mac. And we’re doing the same thing with iMessage.”
– Safari – “We’re adding iCloud tabs, and offline reading list.” Smart App Banners – for publishers – instead of popup you can have users jump right into the app or to download the app. Sync between web activity and app activity.
– Shared Photo Streams – Photo Stream sharing with friends. Choose the photos, choose the friends — friends will get a notification. The photos will appear in an album… and friends can comment. Weird, this is like a Facebook feature. Almost like Apple’s own social network.
– Mail – mark friends as VIP’s, attachments
– Messages – pull to refresh
– Passbook – This is a place to collect boarding passes, store cards, and movie ticket apps. Like a wallet. Geolocate will pull up your card when you’re nearby a store. Like when you get to your local Starbucks.
– Guided Access – “We were surprised at how many kids with autism have been using the phones, but there are controls in apps that you don’t want them hitting.” You can now select parts of apps to disable.
– Maps – “In iOS 6 we’ve built an entirely new mapping solution from the ground up, and it is beautiful. We’re doing all the cartography ourselves… this is a worldwide effort, we’re covering the world.”
– Integrated apps to replicate transit services – so missing transit info that Google supplies
– Traffic service
– Anonymous realtime incident reports.
– Built in turn-by-turn navigation – partnership with tom tom
– Quick Route –
– Siri integration
– 3D maps — very much like Google’s 3D mode on Android.
– Flyover – Wow, Flyover is very visually impressive. Detailed 3D. Huge applause in the room right now. “This is being rendered in realtime.” The level of details is insane.
– No streetview. Quality of maps isn’t as good as Googles. This is a big miss. Question – will Google release a maps app, will Apple approve it?
– Redesigned Stores – interesting. Chomp? New iTunes later in year?
– Beta for iOS 6 – today
– Full wrap smart cover, updated airport express, updated Mac pro – processor bump!
– iPad 1 not supported by iOS 6, iPhone 4 will not support turn by turn and flyover
– A big FU to Google really. Facebook alongside Twitter, no Google+, no Google Maps
44:52 – So Tom Tom and other sat nav providers dead with iOS 6 imminent
– Smartphones have been slowly killing the satnav but they could now revive TomTom, Europe’s largest navigation device company.
– TomTom’s shares soared as high as 16.5% on the Amsterdam stock exchange on Tuesday, after the company said its technology was being used in Apple’s latest phone software.
– “TomTom has signed a global agreement with Apple for maps and related information,” the Dutch company said, while declining to give further information on its deal with the notoriously secretive Californian group.
– According to the following legal notice Waze is included as a source for iOS 6 Maps, in addition to Getchee, Localeze, Urban Mapping, DMTI, MapData Sciences and, of course, TomTom.
46:44 – Android hits 900,000 activations a day
– Andy Rubin, the founder of Android (the company) and head of Android (the mobile software division at Google) is not leaving Google.
– And, simultaneously but unrelated, Android device activations are now running at more than 900,000 per day, according to the latest tweet from Rubin. Based on previously given figures (850,000 activations per day, and 300m devices activated, from the Google Mobile blog in February) that suggests that there have been a total of 390m Android devices activated in total.
47:45 – Three launches unlimited roaming data in Europe for £5 per day
– UK mobile operator Three is launching its new Euro Internet Pass today, offering unlimited roaming data to its customers who travel throughout Europe. For £5 ($8) per day, Three customers can use as much data as they like in most European countries, with some exceptions including The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway.
– The day pass can be activated for £5 ($8) as soon as data roaming is enabled on a handset.
48:51 – Internet trolls targeted
– Major reforms of the libel laws will see a duty placed on internet service providers to try to identify internet trolls without victims needing to resort to costly legal action.
Websites will also be given greater protection from being sued if they help to identify those posting defamatory messages, under government plans.
– The defamation bill, which will be debated in the Commons on Tuesday, will also see would-be claimants having to show they have suffered serious harm to their reputations, or are likely to do so, before they can take a defamation case forward.
– “Our proposed approach will mean that website operators have a defence against libel as long as they comply with a procedure to help identify the authors of allegedly defamatory material.”
– He added: “The government wants a libel regime for the internet that makes it possible for people to protect their reputations effectively but also ensures that information online can’t be easily censored by casual threats of litigation against website operators.
– “It will be very important to ensure that these measures do not inadvertently expose genuine whistleblowers, and we are committed to getting the detail right to minimise this risk.”
51:47 – Icann reveals new internet top-level domain name claims
– The full list of submissions for new internet address endings has been published by the global organisation co-ordinating the expansion.
– Requests to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) include .porn, .ninja, and .ferrari.
– The BBC was among the applicants, applying for .bbc as an alternative to .co.uk and .com.
– Several top-level domains have been applied for by more than one party, including .sex, .home and .diy.
– Both the US drugmaker Merck & Co and its German rival Merck KGaA appear to have applied for the .merck ending, which may trigger an auction process.
– However the .uk manager, Nominet, looks likely to secure .wales and .cymru after no-one filed identical claims.
– Likewise the Dot Scot Registry was the only organisation to apply for .scot and the League of Arab States the only body to claim .arab.
– Coca-Cola and the cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s, which also signed a petition in protest, have abstained.
– By contrast Google has applied for dozens of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) name strings.
– Obvious choices included .google and .youtube, but there were also unexpected inclusions such as .and, .boo, .dad and .new.
– The search giant has also requested .music, which has been claimed by seven other organisations including the online retailer Amazon.
– Other gTLDs attracting multiple requests include .art, .book, .news, .play, .shop and .vip. The most contested name is .app which received 13 applications.
– In the case of the names that have multiple bids, ICANN will evaluate the applicants on technical merits and in some cases have an auction. The applications cost a non-refundable $185,000 each and successful bidders will be obliged to pay high ongoing annual fees to ICANN. Many of the new domain names are expected to go live next year.
– Icann and domain registrars are the only beneficieries here. This will confuse the consumer, and break many assumptions around domain names going forward. What a mess. Icann should have ownership of this stripped and passed to a non profit, multi national owned company.
55:00 – Twitter launches tailored trends
– In order to show emerging topics that matter more to you, today we’re improving our algorithms to tailor Trends based on your location and who you follow on Twitter.
– These Trends lists are tailored for you by default on twitter.com and mobile apps like Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. If you don’t wish to see tailored Trends, but instead want to see a more general list of Trends, just change your location on twitter.com.
55:59 – 4Seven – the TV channel with programs chosen by Facebook
– Channel 4 will launch a new TV channel called 4Seven next month screening repeats of the programmes viewers and critics have most talked about from the previous seven days, prefaced by a snappy selection of their comments, good and bad.
– The channel, which takes its place alongside E4, More4 and Film4, will keep open the weekday 8pm and 10pm slots so that shows that create a critical buzz in newspapers, chatter on social media through Twitter and Facebook, and reaction on the overnight log of comments kept by the broadcaster can be repeated the next day.
– “We think it is the first time a channel has incorporated the views of viewers into what goes on air. We will run a montage of comments before the programme starts, the rough with the smooth, not just propaganda,” said Dan Brooke, Channel 4’s chief marketing and communications officer. The rest of the programmes on 4Seven will be reruns of the most popular ones of the week, with the 9pm slot reserved for the programme shown on Channel 4 at 9pm the previous day. Weekends will be devoted to multiple repeats of the best-rated programmes of the past seven days.
– It is also a recognition by the broadcaster, marking its 30th birthday in November, that although there has been massive growth in people using on-demand services, which accounts for 5% of viewing, and catching up on computers via the iPlayer or 4OD service – where use is up 15% on last year – many more viewers still prefer to watch channels scheduled for them.

Picks

DigitalOutbox Episode 88

DigitalOutbox Episode 88
In this episode the team discuss WWDC, Windows 8, E3 and the most damaging DM mistake ever.

Playback
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Listen via M4A
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Shownotes
1:41 – Windows 8 Revealed
– Appears to be a rethink of what Windows is
– Tiles similar to Windows Phone (Metro) are viewed – bigger so can show more
– Touch based OS – does look very nice
– Applications will be of two types: traditional Windows apps built using existing APIs, and new apps built on Javascript and HTML5. APIs and guidelines for these will be released a little further down the line. There is a big focus on making applications friendly to both touch and mouse/keyboard.
– Can go back to ‘traditional’ windows – almost jarring moving between the two environments
– When in windows the touch Metro environment feels like a skin on top – like a dashboard?
– For touch though I think it’s a bold move from MS and great to see that Javascript and HTML5 are the basis (even though the app’s written for Windows 8 won’t run elsewhere!?!)
– Too early to tell how good this will be
6:52 – Facebook launch face scanning
– Facebook has apologised for the way it rolled-out a new system that recognises users’ faces. The social network said that it should have done more to notify members about the global launch.
Its Tag Suggestions feature scans photos and automatically picks out existing friends.
– Although users have the option to switch it off, some complained that they were not explicitly asked if they wanted it activated.
Facebook said that the system was intended to speed up the process of assigning a name to a picture, known as tagging.
– It was introduced in the US in December 2010 but has only now been launched globally.
9:37 – WWDC
– Lion
– 10 new features that were known already
– App Store only, July, £20.99, 4GB download for Snow Leopard
– 200 new features overall
– App Store updates
– For enhanced security, apps will have a built-in sandbox mode whilst developers will have the ability to send “delta updates”, which are effectively ‘patch based’ updates, meaning the entire app will not have to re-downloaded with every update.Apps will also be able to send push notifications to users and just like iOS apps, can also have in-app purchases
Lots of their new features were really refinements (as always with Apple!). Nice to see development, just seems that the desktop PC is now rather an after-thought…
Full screen apps – finally a way to maximise an app on OSX 🙂
– iOS 5
– 1. Notifications: no more interruptions. Notifications will appear like Android . SLide your finger across the notification and you will go to the app. More information will be visible form the Home screen. You can also click on the X to lea all the notifications.
Quick Android, sue Apple for copying 🙂
2. Newsstand: Newsstand is the place for all your Magazine and newspaper subscriptions. On the iPad, this app will let you read, listen to audio and video as well. Each edition is automatically downloaded to your device.
3. Twitter: Twitter is not integrated into iOS. SIngle sign-on is integrated into the settings and you won’t have to login in for every app. It’s also integrated with Camera and photos so you can upload with a few clicks. Location and thumbnails are also included. As expected, the Twitter integration taps into your contacts.
4. Safari: Safari is the most popular web browser of all time and the basis of 90% of mobile browsing. Apple introduced Safari Reader which will bring an articles content into one page and lets you email the content of the article or tweet about it. Includes full tabbed browsing in Safari on the iPad.
Will be interesting to see how advert driven websites react to this feature! There are tools available already (as covered by Ian in his picks) but this will bring to the masses an ability to cut off revenue streams for site owners!
5. Reminders: Reminders does exactly what it says — remind you od al the important things you need to do. Includes location information and can remind you when you arrive and leave an event. Searchable and will sync with iCal.
6. Camera: The Camera app got a refresh with a new Camera shortcut on the lock screen (yay!). Double-click the home button and the camera app will launch. Will let you take a new picture even if you have a passcode set. You can use the volume up button as a snap for the camera and grid lines to help frame your photos. You can even pinch-to-zoom and set AE/AF lock without losing your previous settings. . Built-in editor will let you crop, rotate, reduce red-eye and more.
After months of stopping hardware buttons for shutter, finally they relent! Feel sorry for those apps that got the chop because of doing just that.
7. Mail: Mail also gets some fresh new features including full text searching, rich text formatting, and flagging. Swipe to add an inbox and new enterprise features that add support for S/MIME. New dictionary will help with your definitions. A new split keyboard will make typing text easier.
8. PC Free: Cut the cord. PC Free gives you the ability to setup and activate your brand new iPhone right on the handset. Software updates are now over the air (double-yay!), even minor patches and little changes like add/delete calendars and add/remove mailboxes can be done from the handset.
9. Game Center: Game Center now includes photos with the profiles, game recommendations, achievement point comparisons. You can also purchase games right through the game center. Support for turn-based games is now added into iOS so games like Scrabble will be easier to build.
10. iMessage: A new messaging service just for iOS 5 owners. It’s BBM for iOS! You can send text, photos, videos contacts, group messaging, delivery receipts and more. iMessages are pushed to all iOS device and it works over 3G and WiFi. And its all encrypted!
– Airplay mirroring – does that mean any app will mirror over Airplay without the app having to support it – thats massive for home and corporate environments
– Many app developers will be feeling the pinch – Instapaper, Camera+, ToDo apps, Messaging apps
– After all the previewed features and great news about iOS 5 (OTA updates, wireless sync, new apps, iMessage), Apple confirmed that iOS 5 will ship this Fall (perhaps with a new iPhone?), with a first developer seed available later today. The best part? Just like iOS 4, iOS 5 will run on your iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS (unlike a previous report claimed, 3GS is supported), iPad and iPad 2, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen
If you have an app in the areas where Apple has now “baked in” functionality, you’ll be cursing at the moment! Always a risk for developers who come up with a great idea.
– iCloud
– http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/apple-details-iclouds-digital-storage-and-syncing-free-5gb-of-storage.ars
– iCloud integrates with a number of apps on both iOS devices and Macs to sync content like pictures, documents, and music between devices, and will provide 5GB of storage free to all users.
– iCloud can wirelessly push content to all the listed devices automatically and integrate with apps like Contacts, Mail, and iCal that were all previously handled by Apple’s old cloud service, MobileMe. Jobs said these apps have been “rebuilt from the ground up” to be iCloud apps.
– The iCloud version of iCal includes calendar sharing, so that an update to a calendar is not only pushed to all of a user’s own devices, but to those who subscribe to the calendar as well. In e-mail, @me.com addresses can sync mail between all devices.
– Jobs also announced a few newly iCloud-optimized apps. Integration with the App Store allows users to see a purchase history of all of their apps and pull one down to a device if they need it, as long as it’s compatible. A newly bought app can be automatically pushed to all devices. Likewise, new books and their bookmarks in iBooks can be auto-synced to all devices, and new Pages document will automatically be backed up to the service, then pushed to all other Pages-enabled devices.
– Another feature, called PhotoStream, pulls images directly from the camera roll of a user’s device, puts them in the cloud, and sends them to any desired devices, including Macs and the Apple TV. The last 1,000 photos are kept for 30 days by default, and moving the pictures to an album keeps them forever.
– iTunes was also primed for iCloud, and lets users pull down songs or albums purchased through the iTunes Store from their purchase history to the device they are using. Jobs noted there is a “switch” where users can tell iCloud to sync all songs bought on any device to up to 10 authorized devices.
– Jobs also described a new feature called iTunes Match, which attempts to match up songs in a user’s library with what is available in the iTunes Store. If a song can be matched, a customer will have access to it via iCloud without having to upload it, though they will be able to upload songs they already own as well. The service has no data caps, but costs $24.99 per year. So Apple’s basically betting you’ll pay $25 a year to legalize all your content, and for the convenience of having it with you everywhere
– Similar to HP’s webOS, iCloud will also allow iOS devices to complete automatic daily backups of your devices to the cloud.
– Jobs said little about how users will control the actions of iCloud (other than through iTunes), which is relevant to those concerned about data usage limits. During a demo, Roger Rosner, VP of iWork, indicated that when he wanted to access a Keynote presentation on his iPad from his iPhone, he first had to give consent for the phone to use the iCloud service.
– APIs for iCloud storage and a beta version will be available to developers starting today, and device owners running iOS 4.3 will also get access to a beta version of iTunes in the cloud. The full version of iCloud will be available with iOS 5, which is due out this fall. Jobs announced that 5GB of storage will be available free to all users for mail, documents, and backup, with the PhotoStream service operating outside that limit.
Another case of end to end control helping Apple to make a service that, in theory, ‘just works’. Extremely impressive stuff – not because we haven’t seen it before, just because it’s so completely realised. The data-centre was impressive!
However, what about people with low/limited upload speeds… Pictures and songs are large beasts and the data-centre is in the US after all. I’m sure they’ve thought about it and if anyone can pull it off, Apple can.
Their push towards delta updates on everything was also evidence that they are on the case.
How long before EU/Competitions commissions start getting involved? We’re talking features and functionality that you don’t have any options over – iCloud as a service for example. Microsoft are still suffering from having to open up their operating system to competition. Will this appen to Apple as well? I don’t think it’s that far away.
56:32 – FT bypass the Apple Tax
– The Financial Times would rather not have Apple take a 30 percent cut of in-app subscriptions for its iOS publications, and has launched a HTML5 Web app that enables readers to access content across tablets and smartphones.
– The browser app enables readers to access content when offline by saving a shortcut to articles, receive automatic updates without the need to download new versions of the app and access content exclusively made for tablets.
– An upcoming feature is ‘Clippings’, a service that will allow users to read articles later, either on their tablet or on their desktop PC. Sound familiar? (look for ‘reading list’)
– FT acknowledges that the Web app has been initially optimized for the iPhone and the iPad, but says it will also be adapted for Android-based devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook.
– Accessing FT content is free for up to ten articles per month, if you register.
– Performance – pretty poor
What have I been bleating on about? Yep, the future is web-based services. Not apps.
1:02:39 – Microsoft Keynote
– Kinect dominated
– Ghost Recon:Future Warrior – kinect gesture and voice support, as will all future Tom Clancy games
– New dashboard this fall, kinect powered, metro’ish design, Bing and Youtube channels controlled by voice
– Bing allows you to search across Xbox content
– TV channel in the Fall – US only?
– Halo:Combat Evolved – Nov 15th – 10 year anniversary – HD graphics, co-op, multiplayer maps as well but you need Halo Reach to play multiplayer – 6 maps – no multiplayer with Halo:CE apart from co-op
– Fable: The Journey – first person journeying via kinect
– Minecraft coming to 360 this winter…with kinect support
– Forza 4 – October 11th – head tracking via kinect, new community features – not much else revealed
– Kinect Fun Labs, Disneyland – Wiitastic games coming to kinect
– Kinect sports 2, Dance Central 2
– Halo 4 – end of 2012 – new 3 parter
– Buried – Cloud storage for game saves and profiles – sign in anywhere to any console
Kinect seems to = games on rails… not exactly the future of gaming as I see it.
Mind you, all the games shows seemed to have massive amounts of “watching” the game rather than actually “playing” it.
1:11:44 – Sony Keynote
– Apologise for outage and hack
– Ico and Shadow of the Colossus to launch September 28
– A TV. And some 3D glasses. Available in one $499 bundle this fall, the 3D-enabled 24-inch television includes a pair of PlayStation-branded 3D glasses (extra glasses are available for $69.99 separately), a six foot HDMI cable and a copy of Resistance 3. Best of all, the screen includes some clever technology which allows two players looking at the display at two different angles to see separate images, effectively eschewing traditional split-screen multiplayer.
– Resistance 3 – September 6
– Dust 514 – spring/summer 2012
– When playing your FPS title of choice, have you ever wished that there was something more to it beyond your rank, weapon unlocks, your kill/death ratio and leaderboard prominence? Those things are all great – but what if those matches you fought in actually meant something? What if your successes and failures against your opponents impacted the course of events in a vast setting, potentially changed a virtual world and the gameplay experience of thousands of other players? More than that, what if that impact was felt across two separate games – one on PS3 and one on PC/Mac – that share the same sci-fi universe?
DUST 514 is that game.
– “Persistence” is the key word here. The world of DUST 514 doesn’t spawn when you fire up your PlayStation 3 — it’s always there and always being experienced and influenced by other players in the EVE universe. When you take part in events in the EVE universe through combat in DUST 514, you’re taking part in something greater than your own individual experience of that world.
– Your fights impact the entire EVE setting, comprised of both DUST 514 mercenaries and EVE Online starship pilots, known as “capsuleers“. When you capture or destroy planetary structures, you are asserting dominance over regions of that planet – perhaps eventually the planet itself. As you profit while wiping out your opposition in DUST 514, the outcomes of these conflicts can affect territorial control of vast regions of space in EVE Online, something of great importance to EVE’s starship pilots.
– Uncharted in september – looks really good
– Sony announce slew of games with Move support
– Saints Row:The Third with move – Nov 15th
– NGP is Playstation Vita
– The NGP PlayStation Vita will feature both Wi-Fi and 3G functionality, with AT&T being named the official wireless carrier of the new handheld. Audible groan and boo’s when AT&T announced. front and rear cams, Wi-Fi with optional 3G, a 5-inch AMOLED display, and touchpads on both sides
– As for pricing, the Wi-Fi model will retail for $249, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will retail for $299 (£229 and £279)
– Launched globally by the end of 2011
– Streetfighter x Tekken a launch title as is Wipeout, Modnation Racers…and of course Ridge Racer
– This is my next hands on
– It’s big. Certainly not very pocket friendly, but not comical. It’s a pretty reasonable size given the fully articulated analog controls and all the other wild stuff going on here. Still, it’s big if you’re used to doing your gaming on a phone or even a recent PSP.
It’s light. Vita actually feels hollow. It’s a little bizarre given the fact that we’re looking at a seriously large display, and takes some getting used to. We’re happy to report, however, that this is some seriously quality craftsmanship. The see-through plastic triggers are big, meaty, and have a whole bunch of finely crafted travel.
The “cheapest” feeling part is probably the back touchscreen. It kind of feels (and looks) like a plastic sticker, and it actually made some tasks requiring rear touch a little sub-par feeling. We’d prefer something a bit more like brushed glass.
This screen is AMAZING. Not only is it amazing in size, color, and resolution, but the games are actually pumping enough pixels to look wonderful on it. Virtua Tennis was especially spectacular, with oodles of polygons available for every nuance of Federer’s face.
The analog sticks are good, but not DualShock or Xbox 360 controller good. We got through most gaming tasks fine, but shooting in Uncharted felt a little sloppy. Of course, there’s always a bit of a learning curve with a new shooter and a new analog stick, so we’re willing to give this one time.
1:18:48 – Nintendo Keynote
– The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will arrive on Wii during Holiday 2011
– 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. Part of the celebration, as announced by Shigeru Miyamoto, includes the release The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the 3DS eShop. And by “release,” we mean that the classic Game Boy title is actually available today.
– Luigi’s Mansion 2 officially announced for 3DS
– Super Mario 3D, the 3DS title briefly teased back at GDC, would launch before year’s end.
– Mario Kart for 3DS – winter
– Starfox 64 for 3DS this fall
– Nintendo Wii U
– The controller features a large, touch-capable screen, paired with two circle pads, a directional pad, face buttons, a camera, a gyroscope and an accelerometer. Nintendo is positioning it as an entertainment sharing device, with video and gameplay working across the controller and your home console.
– You can play games solely on the controller, which handles like a tablet and presumably includes the stylus we saw interacting with it during the reveal. It’s got a 6.2 inch screen, is backward compatible with all Wii games, Wii Remotes and other accessories — a video showed showed it being used with the Balance Board and as a Wii Remote, so it’s got motion controls built in. An example during the reveal showed an individual using it in a golf game, just like a Wiimote.
– It’s got rumble, trigger buttons, touch-screen, microphone and speakers, and an accelerometer. It’s also got a camera built in. Iwata says it’s got support for the “widest variety of games can be supported” and can play games independently of the Wii itself. Oh, and it’s HD.
– Expected 2012
– No games demo’d, just rolling montages – from 360 and PS3 versions of the games
– 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide, 10.5 inches long
Single-touch display
The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus
Up to four Wii Remote (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk controller, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro and Wii Balance Board
A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs
Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite
Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI
The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive
IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor
Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories
1:24:31 – E3 News
– Mass Effect 3 – Mar 6th 2012
– Battlefield 3 – October 25th
– A new social client for FIFA gamers launching with FIFA 12, known as “Football Club”. The service is said to track “status, bragging rights and progression,” allowing players to access their cross-game stats from FIFA titles. Think Bungie Pro or Call of Duty Elite, but, ya know, without the paid part. Thats right — it’s free! Football Club will launch with FIFA 12 this fall
– Tomb Raider – 2012, reimagined in some ways but classic Tomb Raider in many others
– On-Live hits the UK Q3 2011
– http://www.reghardware.com/2011/06/03/onlive_hits_uk_in_autumn/
– After a successful first year in the US, cloud-based game service OnLive is finally heading to the UK this autumn.
– Customers with fast internet connections will be able to stream games such as Borderlands and Prince of Persia straight to their computer or TV set, no download required.
– OnLive’s UK page now shows a countdown set to end June 7 at 8pm. Sign up then and you’ll be given an OnLive UK Founding Member account for early access.
– OnLive will launch in the UK in collaboration with BT
– iPad client also launching in the Autumn
1:28:38 – Finally – most damaging DM mistake yet?
– Rep. Anthony Weiner has confessed at a press conference that he sent via Twitter the picture that has captivated Washington for the past week — and that he lied about his account being hacked.
– “I regret not being honest about this,” Weiner said in a tearful statement. “I was embarrassed, I was humiliated. I was trying to protect my wife. I was trying to protect myself from shame.”
– He claimed to have tweeted the picture on May 27 to Seattle student Gennette Cordova “as a joke” but then “panicked” and removed the tweet from his Twitter account. Cordova, however, doesn’t understand what joke that would be. “Am I the only one still confused?” she tweeted during the press conference.
– “Once I realized I had posted it on Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said I’d been hacked,” Weiner explained.
– Weiner said he has had “cursory direct message contact” with Cordova and that she was not one of the women he was having an online relationship with.

DigitalOutbox Episode 82

DigitalOutbox Episode 82
In this episode the team discuss the Amazon Cloud Player, Google +1 and an expensive fail for Rupert Murdoch.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:21 – WWDC Announced
– June 6-10
– Focus on iOS and Mac OSX
– Rumour – iOS5 preview?
– Lion launch?
– No hardware?
– Sold out in 10 hours – last year took 8 days
7:03 – Amazon Cloud Drive
– Play your media from anywhere – music, video etc
– Cloud Drive is name of media storage space on its servers
– Any album bought through Amazon MP3 is stored for free in your Cloud Drive — a very nice perk.
– If you buy one album from Amazon MP3, they’ll upgrade your Cloud Drive storage to 20 GB for free for a year — another nice perk.
– Normally, 20 GB of Drive storage will cost $20 for a year. 50 GB is $50. 100 GB is $100. And so on. All the way up to 1 TB for $1,000.
– The Cloud Drive storage isn’t just for music — Amazon notes that 1 TB will hold 70 hours of HD video.
– Other files can be uploaded — this includes music, movies, photos, and even documents.
– The MP3 uploader accepts MP3 or AAC files, but they must be DRM-free (.wma, .wav, .ogg and others are not supported)
– Old Amazon MP3 purchases aren’t put in your Cloud Drive, only new purchases going forward (though you can manually upload).
– Cloud Player is name of…the player
– Player for web, Player for Android and player for….nope – none for iOS
– The Android Cloud Player is built into the Amazon MP3 app — it’s in both the Android Market and Amazon’s new Appstore.
– This is for U.S. customers only for the time being.
– Cloud Player for the web works on IE 8 and above, Firefox 3.5 and above, Chrome, and Safari. There is no Opera support. And Flash is required (but for uploads only).
– There’s also a stand-alone uploader app for Mac and PC.
– You can’t upload music from your mobile device “at this time”.
– What about legality? Can upload any DRM free music. Amazon statement – “We don’t need a license to store music. The functionality is the same as an external hard drive”
– Browser doesn’t work from iOS – blocking mobile version of Safari?
– You can play songs via service on iOS by downloading the file to the device – Safari’s built in player will then play file – not ideal
– Another workaround – iCab – http://mashable.com/2011/03/29/cloud-player-ios-guide/
– Amazon out first ahead of rumoured similar services from Google and Apple
12:39 – O2 Tarriff Changes
– new one-year contract allows customers to upgrade their handset too. You pay as much as you do on a monthly basis for an 18-month contract. If you want lower monthly payments, you’ll need to take out a new two-year plan.
– Standard packages run from 50 minutes of airtime and 250 text messages – £15.50 per month for 12- and 18-month deals, £10.50pm for a 24-month contract – to unlimited messages and minutes for £62pm and £57pm, respectively.
– You can opt to pay an extra £3, £6 or £10 per month for 100MB, 500MB or 1GB, respectively, of data, which now includes phone tethering a no extra cost. Until now, it cost you £7.65 extra. That’s handy for folk who want to use their iPhone 4’s newly gained Wi-Fi hotspot feature, or the same on an Android handset.
17:42 – Google +1
– +1 is a small button that will reside next to each and every Google Search result. If you like the result, you click the +1 button and it gets shared with your social circle — and the public (more on that in a bit).
– The button also works on the ads that appear in Google Search. If you like those and think they can be useful to friends, you can also hit the button there to highlight them
– Google’s Like button
– If you’ve upgraded to the new Google Profile, you will have a new +1 tab that will keep track of all the results you’ve clicked the button for. From here you can easily remove any result as well if you no longer want to publicly indicate that you like it. And when you’re adding +1 to search and your profile (it will be opt-in at first), you’ll notice that there’s a check box to opt-out of using your +1 information to “personalize content and ads across the web.”
– +1 is an easy way to recommend things to the world
Your profile and +1’s appear publicly in search, on ads, and across the web.
– Trying to make ad’s social – and better targeted to your and your graph
– +1’s will also spread to sites – just like the like button has.
Problem is, the like button works because there are a great many people linked to their friends on Facebook… In reality, this will be a great resource for Google’s use but the benefits to a userbase that’s not linked together as fully (people just using Google search without a Google associated account) is limited.
21:47 – RadioPlayer
– Radioplayer, BBC backed internet radioservice launched Thursday 31st March
– All BBC stations, 140 commercial stations from one place
– Within a year, all 400 stations in UK will be available
– Makes a more level playing field for all stations
– Search by station, location, programme, presenter or interest
23:44 – NY Times spend $40million on a paywall…that doesn’t work
– Last Monday the New York Times finally implemented its content paywall on its website. But at a staggering cost of $40 million, you would be surprised how easy it is to circumvent the security. Guy Daniels reports.
– The site allows access to 20 free stories per month, after which it will prompt you to buy a digital subscription for $15 per month. Two questions were occupying the thoughts of many bloggers last week: one, why bother; and two, how on earth could it cost $40 million?
– Circumvent – unhide CSS style, remove ?gwh=numbers’ from URL, plus many other ways
– Well done Rupert. Well done

Picks
Ian
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery
– Old style graphic adventure for ipad
– Delightful graphics, awesome soundtrack
– Buy it.

DigitalOutbox Episode 1

DigitalOutbox Episode 1
In this episode the team discuss E3, Windows 7, the Palm Pre and WWDC.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
– New iPhone specs – http://theappleblog.com/2009/05/19/rumor-has-it-leaked-iphone-specs-describe-big-improvements/ http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/the_next_iphone
– iPhone launch mid july?,32gb on t-mobile austria, end of life notice in australia
– Palm Pre – http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/24/plethora-of-palm-pre-interface-videos-emerge-from-leaked-emulato/
– http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/26/palm_pre_o2/
– New Zune – iPod touch rival? M$ Project Pink iPhone killer??
– E3
– No new console hardware – two years ago many thought 2010 would be time for new xbox – not any more
– PSP next version, why no mobile Xbox – could it be Zune HD is a game player? – http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/30/sonys-psp-go-leaks-out-before-e3-is-obviously-a-go/
– PS3 – Fat princess, wipeout hd update – at last, uncharted 2, heavy rain, gran turismo
– Microsoft E3 Conference – Rock Band Beatles, Tony Hawks, Modern Warfare 2, ffxiii, crackdown 2 (infamous made me play crackdown again – what a great game), left 4 dead 2 – nov this year – great news, splintercell conviction – fall 09, forza 3 – oct 09, halo 3 odst – sept 09, halo reach – 2010, alan wake – spring 2010, last.fm on xbox live – didn’t see that coming – free for gold members, sky Player on Xbox 360 – http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/first-look-sky-player-on-the-xbox-360-603323 (no new hardware required), zune video – 1080p instant on – doubling countries (uk?) – compression – pixelation – bull?, facebook on the 360 – send game screenshots to your facebook account – tiger woods first to support, twitter on xbox live, last.fm – twitter and facebook – very smart moves by ms, metal gear solid on xbox – mgs rising, Project natal – motion controller where you are the controller – new camera – detects sounds too – facial recognition to sign you into xbox – minority report style navigation of menus – wii style games demo’d – dev kits issued today – no dates though?, really strong keynote from microsoft, who’d have thought they would have beatles on a keynote before apple and got speilberg on stage, mgs and also nintendo’esque type innovation
– Will we see more on the streaming services – OnLive, Gaikai