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As my GameSpy newsletter got delivered (I’ve been subscribed for a couple of years now, actually), I glazed over it just the slightest bit. Scrolling past the GTA IV hype, something piqued my interest. Was that the guy from Assassin’s Creed, or was it just me? I clicked the hyperlink which led me here. I found myself instantly wishing:
I had an Xbox 360.
I had a Playstation 3.
I had a more powerful PC.
From what I’ve made out of the videos so far, Prototype is centered around a single protagonist who has had experiments performed on him by the military, which ended up mutating him and transforming him. He can grow spikes from pretty much anywhere on his body, can generate armour, and is pretty bulletproof. I haven’t even got started about the best parts of the game yet.
The environments: from what I’ve seen, Prototype is something like a modern-day Assassin’s Creed. It’s got the guy in the hood (tip of the tongue, forgot his name), it’s got the melee attacks, and it’s got the really next-generation city interaction where you can kill/absorb pretty much anyone in order to get those goals accomplished. The city is basically a replication of New York City with 110 of their most significant buildings - definitely more than enough for me.
Of course, just watching it won’t sell it. A few more things need to happen:
It needs to break through with a better storyline and less repetitive gameplay than what I’ll now refer to as its ancestor, Assassin’s Creed.
It has better marketing than Assassin’s creed, which was already pretty hyped.
It gets ported to the Wii. For me, if not for the other people who will buy it.
Words can’t describe as well as a video, so watch it. Anyway, that’s enough out of me for one day. I’m going to sit back, relax, and see how this folds out. Hopefully it does get ported, but I’m going to doubt that. Since when does a little blogger like me get listened to?
Two days ago, Nokia released its concept phone, called the Morph. Let’s start with the name before we really break it down: I like it. It’s short and sweet, and it’s just one of those “cool” words. I actually happened to remember the name when I went to Google it today, which was a real surprise. I’m usually not too great with names.
Nanotechnology. Nokia’s making the term a household one. Just like how it pioneered the mobile phone industry, it now strives to revolutionize it again by introducing Morph to the world. The nanotechnology is amazing, and admittedly something that I don’t know too much about. One example of a use of nanotechnology would be to power the phone: it’s nanowire grass will gather the sun energy and (through photosynthesis I’d assume) collect its energy. And that’s just the beginning (I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you).
I’m not going to lie, I can’t explain this phone too well with words. It’s just something that you’re going to have to see for yourself. Nokia has a 46mb version of it, but rather than buffer that I decided to find a nice, optimized version on Youtube. Not the best quality, but it does get the idea across the board very well. Enjoy.
The Archos 605 Wi-fi was ahead of its time - in fact, it may not look the mould, but it’s actually nearing its first birthday. Archos actually has made a solid name for itself as being a pretty popular iPod alternative, and it would very well have been the iPod killer had it not been for one thing hindering it from achieving its full potential.
It’s got a touch screen, already qualifying it to be an iPod Touch competitor. Speaking of its screen, it’s 800×480px, giving it a dramatic boost over the iPod Touch’s meazly 480×320px. It also comes with two styluses, keeping those fingerprints off the screen. Heck, it’s got arguably stronger wi-fi capabilities than the iPod Touch does. It comes in 30GB and 80GB variants - so what the heck is keeping it from stomping on Apple? Two things.
Apple’s ingenius marketing schemes can’t be beat. And you definitely can’t hope to succeed in the Personal Media Player market without a strong marketing campaign; due to the fact that I’ve never seen a single one of Archos’ commercials, I’m going to assume that there is none (pretty ignorant, but I do watch a lot of TV). There also isn’t a major selling point; with the iPod Touch, it’s the gestures and the form factor, but with the Archos 605 wi-fi, it’s…nothing. Speaking of form factor, we come to our second point…
2. Aesthetics
After getting my hands on one of these ducklings, I realized that it was an ugly one. I didn’t actually go out to buy one, mind you - I did it the conspicuous consumer’s way and went to Future Shop to try it out.
It’s huge.
I’m not even the pickiest person here: as long as it fits in any of my pockets, I’ll be fine with it. Too bad it doesn’t - it’s dimensions are amazingly huge and its really thick. Er, AnythingbutiPod would call it “clunky”, and I’m going to have to agree with that.
It’s ugly.
Not that I’m shallow about it, but it really isn’t a looker. The Archos 605 Wi-fi goes for the “retro” 1980s styled look with rectangular buttons on the side. Why the heck would you need buttons if there is a touch screen? You should only need one button, and that’s to get to the iPod Touch menu.
It’s got nothing on the iPod.
Combining these two features and contrasting them with the iPod Touch really kills it. The iPod Touch is well-known for its sleek, slim, flawless design. Where the iPod whispers elegance, the Archos 605 Wi-fi shouts clunk. Where the iPod can be looked upon, the Archos 605 Wi-fi can’t. I’m sorry to be the one to say this, but even if it was a universal remote control that came at half a bill, I’d still have to pass on such a horribly-designed unit.
So will the Archos 605 Wi-fi be a great iPod Touch alternative? Yes, and no. It’s got the stuff on paper, but it really doesn’t have anything that can compare to the iPod Touch in the looks department, I’m afraid. Archos, please revise the design and I think we might have ourselves a winner. Er, if you want, you could send me a sample and I’d be more than happy to help suggest improvements. Haha, stick around for the next iPod Touch alternative, folks.
Oops, forgot to mention, you can usually find this device for less than $300. Not a bad deal, to be honest.
Today, I was invited to a family dinner that was slightly to slow-paced for my taste. The food ended up taking an hour to come, and the conversation dragged on from purchasing glasses to Chinese names. I have hardly any experience in the latter category, so you might imagine I grew quite bored. I drew out my Sony Ericsson w600i, which does happen to be a camera phone like all phones made in the last two years, and began fooling around with the camera. Luckily, the restaurant was very well designed and decorated, so I had many items to try it out on.
Before continuing, I’d like to disclose some information:
My own Sony Ericsson w600i is almost two years old - it has been released for nearly the same amount of time, so as you can imagine, the camera quality will not be as great as one of a w810i or the world-class camera phone complete with Xenon flash, k790i.
I am not a professional photographer - quite the contrary; I’ve got the interest in photography but definitely lack the skill and experience.
I am aware I probably looked like a doofus, especially to people who walked through when I was taking a picture. However, my sense of boredom overcame my sense of shame and I decided to go along with such a scheme anyway.
If you’re looking to put stuff in your portfolio or your school project or even something just as simple as remembering precious family moments, don’t use a camera phone.
We’ll start with my main point: every camera and phone is different, so you’re going to want to experiment. It takes time to find out the optimum settings to take pictures. I realized soon that the maximum resolution was sacrificing response time, so I decided on lowering it to a moderate 640×480 (the w600i has a 1.3mp camera, meaning it has a maximum resolution of 1280×1024). I switched the quality to Fine and mainly tampered with the White Balance, shifting from Incandescent to Fluorescent and then Cloudy. Here were the results; you tell me which one you thought was best.
The next step: how you hold the camera phone will affect the result. If you’re going for the “fly” look and hold it with one hand, it’ll show. If you’re holding it like a normal person with two hands, it’ll show. Some will look much less blurred, some will look like they were taken with a real camera! Because the average human’s got pretty jittery hands, you’re going to want to hold it with both hands, even if it makes you look like a nimrod (unless you’ve got really steady hands). Also, pull the sniper-trick - I read about this in Wired once, if I’m not mistaken: breathe in for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds, and breathe out for five seconds. Repeat. This is supposed to slow your heart rate (assuming I remember correctly) and calm you down a bit, meaning you’ll have steadier hands.
If you’re going to turn a deaf ear to my advice, and want to replace your camera with a camera phone, common sense will tell you to invest your money in a powerful camera phone. Something like a Sony Ericsson k790i, k850i, or a Nokia N95 costs a sure heck lot more than a normal camera, but if you really want results from a camera phone, then this is what you’re going to want. Higher resolutions, Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon flash, and all the trimmings. Not to mention they’re pretty powerful devices that can do pretty much anything you want them to do.
There really aren’t any universal tricks to taking better pictures, as it’s already pretty subjective to compare which photo looks better from a camera phone: you have to take into consideration the focus (or lack thereof) and the colour capture, not to mention a whole mountain-sized pile of other things. To recap, if you’re resolving to take better pictures:
Experiment with your camera phone. Perhaps practise, even.
Throw away your dignity and hold the camera phone like a normal person.
Invest your money in a stronger camera phone.
Thank Herbert Lui for such a wonderful and common-sense filled tutorial.
First up for the list of the iPod Touch alternatives, the M:Robe certainly is nothing new to the game. I’ve wondered to myself why I haven’t heard more about the Olympus M:Robe 500i, I now realize that it is because the M:Robe 500i isn’t being sold by Olympus anymore! What a shame, I think to myself - it certainly is a jack of all trades.
The M:Robe 500i features a 3.7″ display, completely touch-compatible, as opposed to the iPod Touch’s 3.5″ widescreen, crisper-looking display. It’s got a 20GB hard drive, whereas the iPod Touch ranges from 8GB, 16GB, and now 32GB flash drives, which are considerably faster than the hard drive. The M:Robe 500i can play music and photos, but it can’t play videos! Galling, but true. Thanks to the early development of the M:Robe 500i (we’re looking at the iPod Photo days), it’s still stuck with just photo and music compatibility. It definitely does not compare to the iPod Touch in these aspects. So what’s it’s killer feature?
The camera. Yep, the M:Robe 500i features a 1.3MP camera; this was in the age when camera phones were just catching on, so imagine how useful it would’ve been (and still can be). Does your average iPod Touch have a camera? Nope - nor will it ever, I’m afraid.
Asides from that, the iPod Touch definitely dominates the Olympus M:Robe 500i, so we won’t be able to find a competitor here. It’s got a nicer screen, more applications, more features, and faster hard drive speeds with higher capacities. Not to mention it’s an iPod, so it just happens to always be able to get along with consumers very quickly.
Er, I’ll also have to reinforce the fact that the M:Robe 500i isn’t exactly available anymore. So what’s next?
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Haha, stick around for the next iPod Touch alternative, folks.
