1.3.2007 - 11:00 AM

Consoles!

I want to talk a little about game consoles. I'm a big video games fan and ever since dad brought home the C64, I've been interested in the things the gaming industry has to offer. I started gaming with computers so I'm not a Nintendo fanboy. We bought a ps1 sometime, but didn't really play with it. Same goes for the gamecube; It has seen some use with Zelda and mario kart, but that's about it. It wasn't until my lovely girlfriend bought me my DS Lite for a present that consoles really made a breakthru in my life.

Like it or not, Ps2 is the most common console in the world right now with about 90 million sold units worldwide. I don't know much about how popular ps1 really was back in the day, but I don't think it was that popular. There was nintendo 64, don't know much about that one either. The nes was a huge success in its time along with C64(which really was a game console rather than a computer). Anyway, the latest generation of consoles consist of Nintendo's Wii, xbox360 and the newly released Ps3.

Nintendo is gaming all the way. Microsoft and sony are both going for the mediacenter type of approach where the console is more and more like a multimedia computer. In my view, ps2 is in every second home because it's a relatively good DVD player. Sony might try to push their bluray format with Ps3 but I think they will fail miserably because the market situation is different than with DVDs. People had their regular tvs when Ps2 was published. Now on the other hand, you will need to buy a HD-ready television in addition to the xbox360 or ps3 to get the benefits of Hi-def graphics. If the Ps2 used to cost 300 bucks, it might have seemed expensive but at least it was all you needed to watch those DVDs on your telly. Nowadays you need a new telly plus a 600-dollar console, which will most likely total up to about 2000 dollars! That's too much for the consumer to handle I say, too much compared to the benefits of HD. There's no HDTV broadcasts in Finland (not yet at least). Regular DVDs aren't going anywhere; they're cheap, they're superior to VHS video casettes, and they look good enough for now. You can buy them for 10 bucks a piece or rent 7 for 9. Who needs HD yet when it's so expensive right now!

Wii has some amazing potential. The motion detection sensors host a goldmine for new controlling innovations. What I'm afraid of is that game developers lack the courage to hop along and try something different. Both ps3 and the new xbox are just more powerful versions of the older ones. The pc-world has proved that more calculating power does not mean better games. Better-looking games perhaps, but graphical improvements haven't had any breakthrus since quake 1 started to support GPUs and you could say goodbye to pixelated textures. Good graphics don't make interesting games. Internet and the online gaming was a huge revolution but we are there already, this is yesterday's news. Nobody knows what the next big step is but I know for sure it ain't better graphics or improved physics engines. What the Wii is missing right now by the way is some online content. Communities are a huge success right now as you can see from all the web 2.0 applications popping out (like youtube, digg, irc-galleria etc.) so why not combine the remote-swinging goodness with some community-based online games? Start by converting the wii play and sports games into their online versions and move on from there.

I like my DS. It's a nice little gadget to have with you all of the time. If I have some spare time to kill, I can play a game of Warioware or tetris and if I'm sitting through a boring lecture, I can play wirelessly with a friend or even online, thanks to the ever-growing numbers of free public hotspots. I love the new controlling innovations the touchscreen brings but I like the oldschool controls as well. I dare not think of what would happen if someone introduced an online MMO game like ragnarok online or wow for the DS. The poor console may or may not have enough cpu power to run such an application, but there are plenty of possibilities for upgrades in the future.

Sorry for the long post, I seem to have said everything that I have to say for now. All in all, It's interesting to see what the future of gaming brings and which consoles(and media formats) reign supreme.

27.2.2007 - 21:00ish

Train ride home

My vacation in Rovaniemi is finally over and I'm taking the night train home. I have school tomorrow morning but I'll have about two hours to get to home from the station to drop off my stuff, take a shower, eat a snack and head to school. I had a nice ski holiday although I didn't go skiing (or do any other form of sports) and I feel refreshed despite the fact that both me and my girl took turns being sick and nursing eachother.

The night cabins at the train are hot and claustrophobic. The cabin has three beds on top of eachother and you don't even have enough room over your head to sit up straight (and maybe it's the whole point). I usually have plenty of activities during the night train trips but I do miss the internet. There is one old electric outlet on the wall, but it doesn't sport enough juice to power my MacBook full-time so I rely on batteries and use the wall socket to charge my Nintendo DS. I was in a hurry to leave today so I couldn't pack on anything to watch on the compy but I do have the Shuffle with me and if all else fails, I have a good book to read (Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King).

These kind of trips would be awesome if I had access to wireless net; I could play wow all night or do something equally useless with my spare time before sleep. There is this wireless broadband project that will open later this spring and it's supposed to cover 95% of Finland by 2009. The idea is to convert the old 450Mhz cellular frequency into wireless internet that is accessible anywhere, anytime, with a proper USB modem. I'm pretty excited about this and if the prices are right, I might purchase the modem to be finally online regardless of where in Finland I happen to be. That's The Future for you.

I don't really have any cool tech news or even narcoleptic poodles, but I do have an awful picture of me taken with iSight. I hope it gives you some idea of how little space there is. I think I'll go read my book now or something. And this thing will go online as soon as I get back home.

26.2.2007 - 12:30ish

Sick!

My holiday here in Rovaniemi draws closer to end, and my throat feels weird. I'm nursing it with some amazingly bitter-tasting instant coffee and select news from Digg. Digg is a fun site that I've lately taken up mostly because it was referred to so often in the fantastic TWIT-podcast that I like to listen to when I walk to and from school. I study computers so I like to keep up with the times.

Anyways, since I can write pretty much whatever the heck I want on here, I thought I'd share some visions of the future with you. First of all, the ultimate aparatus. I didn't bother to research the internets, but I'm not the first one who's thought of this. Automation, robots, industry... The assembly line was the starting point to make a tool that would essentially follow a set of instructions to produce something in a greatly optimized way. The inevitable goal of this development, in my opinion, is a gadget that can take up instructions and then manufacture anything based on those instructions. The way I see the application of this, is a box that accepts programs of real-life objects and then with the raw elements stored in that box, it will build the object. The complexity of the object has no limits except the way atoms can be put together in a stable manner. I'm not talking about some robot that cuts steel parts, I'm talking about a machine that can make warm oatmeal or ipods or gasoline or origamis if you feed it the right attributes.

I thought about what would people do in the world if everything was automated. Well, not everything, but you get the idea. I'm not a big fan of the whole "artificial intelligence" idea. Automation I can understand, even when taken to a totally different level. The need for human hands to actually get down and do something is lessening every day. And while the need of doers is decreasing, the need for all kinds of planning increases. Knowledge and information are more and more critical. We are moving away from pleasing our bodies into pleasing our minds. Internet is the first step into a global information structure where privacy is abandoned and no party is left in the dark. Propaganda is fighting a losing battle and the power is slowly shifting from single hands back to the masses.

Not all people are born to make great discoveries. Not all of us could come up with the things Nikola Tesla or Einstein or Edison or Newton discovered. But I can hardly see a society in which most of it's members don't serve any useful function. If automation rises to a high enough level and most of the things that need doing instead of planning are automated, what will that do to the society? Humans don't like being equals. Will there be like different levels of thinking and intellectual work for different types of people? A robot builds cars, geniuses design new engines and the simple folk design color schemes? Or will it work the way ideas are ground up in general purpose forums like 4chan today, where anonymous masses throw stupid suggestions at eachother, modify them, play with them and post their work to be refined further?

Those are some ideas that are running through my head lately. Maybe next time I'll post something actually sensible, like hot tech news or narcoleptic dogs from youtube.

25.2.2007 - 20:31

Starting things up!

Finally I found the time and the energy to come up with a website. Boy, I haven't had one since the compulsory upper school days. That one really sucked, it was on one of those free geocities pages that offer like 5 megs of space and a million adds to fuck up your site layout. I guess they do the ads in flash these days but all in all, I'm glad there's a domain, a real, good domain to build my site on now. I have my lovely girlfriend to thank for it, she was the one who registered Nekobolt.net for fun and work purposes. Thank you honey, I love you :)

Anyway, I've had the livejournal thing going on for about two years now and I decided it's time to set up a real blog where I can easily link pics and stuff of my own. I don't know if I'll continue to update the old LJ, it may have it's place, but this site will definitely see it's fair share of sneak previews into my life and also hopefully into some fun technology stuff I'm interested in. Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. In closing, here's a recent picture of me at my girlfriend's place. Don't I look like the most bored person in existence?