January 2009
12 posts
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“Boy/Girl Split: 94% Boys, 6% Girls”
– Penny Arcade’s survey of 38000 gamers
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2009: Year of the lonely geek
First, Apple decided to end an era of exciting keynotes, childlike expectation and reality distortion fields with a final, lukewarm showing at MacWorld 2009. Then Apple’s own Insomnia festival was relegated to history. Now, it’s the Leipzig Games Convention’s turn to bite the dust.
Natural consequences of an uncertain economy? Perhaps, but the cancellation of these events may...
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It's a feature, not a bug →
When confronted with user reports that the User Account Control (UAC) dialog in Windows 7 could be turned off by a simple piece of malware, Microsoft responded that this was “by design.”
That’s right. UAC was too ‘noisy’ in Vista, so Microsoft has allowed more user control of the feature. So much so, in fact, that now a simple VBScript can turn it off without the...
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Enter the replicants →
Their creepy Einstein robot may be their most famous creation, but for my money Hanson Robotics’ ‘Jules’ android is a far more intriguing beast.
Some of the other videos on the page are also worth watching, if you don’t mind spending a few minutes traveling the robotic version of the uncanny valley.
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What Bethesda Learned From Fallout 3 →
Bethesda, the creators of 2008’s best game, are once again leading by example by listening to their fans.
Makes a nice change from the arrogance shown by the majority of game publishers when dealing with criticism.
“I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were...”
– Editor’s Corner - Yahoo! News UK
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When 9.4/10 is a grave insult
Whether or not you find value in ranking media along an arbitrary point scale, you’ll probably agree that a 9.4/10 review score is generally seen as positive.
Not so if you’re a Playstation 3 owner, apparently. On the contrary, it would seem that giving a 9.4/10 review score to PS3 exclusive title a is an insult worthy of the most severe outrage.
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Please say, "911, Emergency"
I came across an idea proposal for a way to prevent accidental dialing of 911 “by children who are allowed to play with their parent’s cellphones.”
The idea? Add voice verification to confirm the 911 call, by requiring the user to calmly state “911, emergency” into the handset.
Genius. Let’s see you try that when your house is on fire.