SFO Wi-Fi Goes Free

Looks like the general trend at U.S. airports is to stop charging for Wi-Fi. Good. Now they just need to start offering more than one AC outlet per terminal…

Nook Gets Cheaper…and Even Cheaper

Barnes & Noble has knocked the price of its Nook e-reader down from $259 to $199–and announced a Nook with Wi-Fi but no 3G connection for $149. The $199 model is the lowest-cost e-reader with 3G; the $149 one matches the price of the Kobo from B&N retail archrival Borders. (The Kobo doesn’t even have Wi-Fi–you download books to a computer, then sync them over via USB cable.)

Amazon.com’s Kindle is still $259 as I write, but Amazon has had plenty of time to decide how to respond to a B&N-initiated price war, and presumably has a strategy in place already. Seems like the general post-iPad trend is for E-Ink e-readers to get dive down below $200 in price; it’ll be surprising if the Kindle–the current model, anyhow–is an exception.

California Considers Platevertising

The scariest California disaster at the moment has nothing to do with earthquakes, mudslides, or brushfires–it’s the state’s financial crisis. I spend my share of time stressing out over it, and appreciate the need for extraordinary responses. But I still have my doubts about a bill which would roll out electronic license plates to Californian motorists–ones which could display ads when cars were stopped at red lights or otherwise temporarily out of motion.

This article on the proposed technoplates doesn’t provide much detail, other than that the ads would kick in only when a car was stopped for at least four seconds, and that a company called Smart Plate might be involved. But even if you aren’t worried about the potential for the plates being dangerously distracting, the government mandating that we put ads on our cars doesn’t sound wildly different from insisting that we install neong signs in our living-room windows. (No, Governor Schwarzenegger, that wasn’t a suggestion.)

Howsabout this: What if the plates were strictly optional–but driver who elected to use them got a cut of the ad revenue? Each citizen could choose whether to go commercial or keep his or her car a commercial-free zone. Or raise auto-related fees but offer the plate ads as a way of avoiding the hikes. Or something. Your ideas welcome…

Toshiba’s 25th Anniversary Portables: An Affordable Status Symbol and a Concept Machine

Toshiba is celebrating the 25th anniversary of laptops this year–it counts its own 1985 T1100 as the first one. A pedant might quibble with its definition of “first laptop personal computer,” but it’s announced two celebratory portables–and they’re both noteworthy. I got an in-person look at them during a recent briefing with the company.
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OnLive’s Online, But What About Gaikai?

On the opposite side of the Los Angeles Convention Center from OnLive’s glitzy E3 booth, Dave Perry held a small briefing in a cubicle to talk about his own cloud gaming service, Gaikai.

Perry wanted to clarify that Gaikai is “the ultimate lead ever for a publisher,” as opposed to a full-blown gaming service for consumers. He’s positioning Gaikai as a try before you buy service, kind of like the InstantAction service that debuted in April, but with all the heavy graphics processing done on remote servers, allowing for immediate access to the latest PC games. The idea is to let publishers, and eventually gaming websites, embed video games directly into the browser, so readers can instantly try the game instead of watching trailers or looking at screenshots.

This stands in stark contrast to OnLive, which on Thursday launched its subscription service. Though OnLive subscribers can play demos for free, the service is less of a promotional tool for publishers and more of a final stop for gamers who have committed to spending money.

In my meetings with OnLive and Gaikai, each company displayed a gentle animosity toward the other. Perry said his data centers are going to “end up in rings around [OnLive's],” and claimed that each of his servers can run many more virtualizations. He also questioned OnLive’s subscription model; Gaikai won’t charge anything to consumers, and will instead charge publishers, likening server time to advertising.

OnLive’s director of games and media development, Joe Bentley, said he has yet to see Gaikai in action. Though Perry showed embedded streaming games — along with software such as Adobe Photoshop — on a PC and an Xbox 360, the server was in the same room. OnLive’s E3 demos were running on a server in Silicon Valley.

My problem with Gaikai is the disconnect between trying a game and buying it. Let’s say you play the first 20 minutes of a game through your Web browser and are persuaded to buy. Then what? Do you start a lengthy download through Steam? Run to GameStop to buy the boxed version? The ideal solution would be a full cloud gaming service that players could easily jump to once their trials end, because once you’ve experienced instant gratification, it’s hard to go back.

That’s why I think Gaikai’s advertising service and OnLive’s subscription package would work wonderfully together, if only they could stop sniping at each other.

Sony Looks to Playstation 3 for MMOs

Massive multiplayer online games never held my interest for long, but perhaps that’s because I’m a console gamer, and MMOs are mostly relegated to the computer. At E3, Sony Online Entertainment showed a slow crawl towards the console with a few upcoming MMORPGs for Playstation 3.

Only one of these games, DC Universe Online, was actually playable on the PS3. It’s a third-person beat-em-up that lets players build their own super powers and interact with famous DC heroes and villains, and it’ll be out November 2. The Agency, a first-person shooter with an open world for players to interact , also arrives this year, but only the PC version was on the show floor. Free Realms, out now as a free-to-play PC game for kids, is scheduled for next year.

Separately, Square Enix is working on Final Fantasy XIV, a subscription-based MMO under the brand of its most popular role-playing game franchise.

If you want to play MMOs on a game console now, the options are limited. Square released Final Fantasy XI to North America in 2004 for Playstation 2 and 2006 for Xbox 360. Everquest Online Adventures for PS2, a watered-down version of its PC counterpart, launched in 2003. Then there was 2006′s Phantasy Star Universe for PS2 and Xbox 360. And I suppose you grant MMO status to MAG, a large-scale shooter with ever-evolving factions that launched for PS3 this year.

But the games Sony Online Entertainment is working on now break the tired fantasy genre mold, and they should all be up and running in 2011. Console MMOs have their naysayers, but the PS3 may find success by seeking a broader audience than the World of Warcraft crowd.

The big question going forward is pricing. SOE spokeswoman Taina Rodriguez wasn’t ready to give specifics, saying that microtransactions, monthly subscriptions and tie-ins to the Playstation Plus online service are all on the table. But if Sony brought the popular free-to-play model of Free Realms to the Playstation 3? I could become an MMO fan in a hurry.

Dell Rolls Out More Usable Inspiron Laptops

Dell today announced U.S. availability of the sleek new Inspiron R laptops first launched a few months ago in parts of the world such as Australia and India.

Like Dell’s existing 14-, 15- and 17-inch Inspirons, the new R models are geared to carrying out multiple roles, ranging from replacing desktop PCs, to serving up multimedia home entertainment, to acting as take-along workstations on visits to Starbuck’s. Yet the Inspirson Rs bring a cooler look and a smoother feel.

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E3′s Video Game Remakes: Faithful or Not?

With the games industry in a downturn, the time is right for publishers to bring back forgotten games or return long-running franchises to simpler roots. Indeed, the lure of the reboot was strong at E3, with classics such as NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat making comebacks.

But how true do these games stick to their 8-bit, 16-bit and 64-bit roots? Do they preserve the feel of their ancestors, or merely capitalize off name recognition and cheap nostalgia? Here are my impressions:

NBA Jam: The game felt a little funky with the Wii remote and Nunchuk combination, but once I flipped the remote on its side and used it as a classic controller, I was back in the 90s. Bonus points for bringing back Tim Kitzrow, voice of the original game’s signature boomshakalakas. Faithful.

Goldeneye 007: Better referred to as Call of Goldeneye. Activision’s Wii remake looks like the Nintendo 64 classic, but feels a lot like the Call of Duty series, with twitchy instant kills instead of drawn out gunfights. On that note, the original GoldenEye’s distinctive red health and blue armor indicators are gone — who needs them with action this fast? — and the demonstrator had no idea what I was talking about when I asked whether they’d appear in the final game. Unfaithful.

Mortal Kombat: The gory fighter went astray in recent years with 3D arenas and a tedious system of lengthy combos to memorize. The new Mortal Kombat returns to 2D with sky-high jumps, crazy uppercuts and sone truly gruesome fatalities. the addition of a power meter for extra special moves doesn’t sit well, but otherwise this is the MK you remember politicians screaming about. Faithful.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Sega’s been churning out Sonic games for years; the number 4 signifies that we’re picking up from the last old Sega Genesis platformer. The physics are way off — there’s a jarring lack of momentum when you turn Sonic around in mid-air — and a new ability ball up and home in on enemies when falling takes some the danger out of moving too fast. But it looks like old Sonic games, and I’m told physics are subject to change. Somewhat Faithful.

Rush’n Attack: Ex-Patriot: Why Konami is rebooting this forgettable platformer as a downloadable Xbox 360/PSN game is a mystery to me. The old game was like Contra with knives, and the new one is more of a stealth game in 2D. There are some homages, like the occasional blaring siren and gun pickup with limited ammo, but otherwise the game feels nothing like the original. Unfaithful, but probably for the best.

The Straight Skinny on HDTV Calibration

A while back I gave you some advice for calibrating your PC monitor or high-definition TV. I thought it was pretty good stuff, but the very foundations of the Internet began to rumble and experts started writing. (I never know who’s reading my newsletter.) Here’s what I learned.

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Kinect for Xbox 360 vs. Playstation Move

The more time I spent with Playstation Move and Kinect for Xbox 360, the more I’m convinced that they’re both hitting the market about six months too early.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the hardware. Kinect, a special camera that tracks motion, worked fine — if not a tad laggy — in the games I played on the show floor. Same goes for the Move, which behaves a lot like a Wii remote, but also with a camera that traces the positioning of the controller in 3D space, and of course the benefit of better graphics. But before the show, I vowed to be skeptical without killer software, and neither the Move nor Kinect have it — yet.

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Organization Launches Stolen Data Reporting Service

The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) has launched a service called Internet Fraud Alert, which aims to act as a central location for researchers to report stolen data that they may find online. Microsoft developed the backend of the website, and then donated it to the NCFTA. While companies often perform internal investigations, it is common to find data that is actually stolen from another company. Until now, there was no way to share these findings easily.

Several companies including Microsoft, eBay, Paypal, Citizens Bank, and Accuity have partnered to offer support, and the service also has the blessing of the American Bankers Association, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, as well as the Federal Trade Commission. Approved organizations will be able to begin submitting found data immediately.

Apple Sneaks in Malware Protection in Mac OS X 10.6.4

It’s no secret that Apple prides itself on OS X being “much more secure” than its Windows counterpart, so the fact that the company didn’t publicize the fact that it has added some additional malware protection in Mac OS X 10.6.4 shouldn’t be that surprising. Security firm Sophos discovered the changes while peering around the code of Cupertino’s latest update.

The additional protection was found in a file called XProtect.plist, a list of threats to Apple’s operating system. It is intended to protect against what they call HellRTS, a Trojan horse that comes disgused as iPhoto. Infected computers could find their computers sending out spam, have screenshots taken of their computer activity, and access files among other issues.

Sophos was not too happy that Apple did not announce these changes, saying Mac users should know about this potentially dangerous Trojan. “You have to wonder whether their keeping quiet about an anti-malware security update like this was for marketing reasons,” senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said. He added many users are oblivious to the fact that Mac viruses do indeed exist.

I do not run anti-virus software on my Mac, as I like many have felt that the operating system is pretty much impervious to attack. However, it seems as time goes on, and Macs gets much more popular, so could writing viruses and malware for the OS.

Maybe its time to invest in some protection?

Mobile Me Mail Makeover

Totally Web-based applications don’t exactly spring to mind when you think about Apple. But that’s true in part because of its shockingly archaic approach to them: It wants you to–gasp!–pay $99 a year for Mobile Me, a bundle of mail, calendaring, photo sharing, storage, and “Find My iPhone.” Except for Find My iPhone, all of these services have solid free competitors; I’ve never been sure why anyone would pay Apple for something as readily available as e-mail.

Except…Apple has released a nice new version of Mobile Me Mail. Like its predecessors it has a nicely Apple-esque user interface. But it’s reasonably powerful, too, with features such as rules and the ability to handle external accounts. As before, it’s ad-free, which adds to the clutter-free feel. It feels like what Gmail might be if it were designed by Apple, and it’s worth checking out if you like slick Web apps. (Mobile Me offers a 60-day free trial.)

That’s a Long Wait for a Phone

A Dallas man has started an unusual week-long “vacation”: He’s already outside an Apple Store waiting to buy an iPhone 4.

OnLive: It’s Live!

Today, I played Unreal Tournament III on an iPad, thanks to OnLive. It was impossible to control, of course — it’s just a proof of concept that’s not available in the App Store — but it worked, proving that OnLive’s cloud gaming service can stream modern PC games to just about anything — but just Mac or PC for now.

Today, the service goes live, and at a price that’s making me eat my words.

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Nintendo 3DS Impressions: Cool With Caveat

Judging by intimidatingly long lines alone, Nintendo’s 3DS was the star of E3. Crowds made a beeline to Nintendo’s booth every morning and formed a queue that snaked around the booth for the remainder of the day. Fortunately, the crowd thinned in E3′s final hours, and I finally got a better picture of Nintendo’s 3D handheld hardware.

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