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The Obligatory E3 Wish List

Posted by Jared Newman on May 29, 2009 at 7:17 pm

The run up to the Electronic Entertainment Expo is always full of predictions, rumors and promises, but I’m tired of peering into the crystal ball. Instead of guesswork, here are my wants and needs for the games industry’s biggest trade show:

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From Microsoft: Word on the street is that the Xbox 360 will get a motion-sensing camera to compete with Nintendo’s Wii. No thanks. I’m pretty happy with the Xbox 360’s thumbstick gaming, and I’d rather see Microsoft wait on motion control until the next console cycle, when the company can gather a full stable of game developers behind it. Instead, lets see Hulu support over Xbox Live. A robust gaming handheld, as rumored, would be cool, too.

From Nintendo: This is a tough one. Conventional wisdom holds that The Big N will focus on games instead of hardware this year, maybe with a Zelda or Mario-related announcement to please the fanboys. I’d like to see something that uses the Wii MotionPlus in a mind-blowing way. If such a game involves any Nintendo icons, so be it.

From Sony: Cut the price of the Playstation 3 already, jeez. Seriously though, the most likely rumor — that of a UMD-less PSP — is the one that I like. I desperately want to see what happens when a game console ditches physical media, and Sony has the chance to be ahead of the curve.

From Game Publishers: It’d be nice to hear that the old way of piling up game releases around the holidays is being phased out. Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera has a story today on why this may not happen — basically, there’s still a market for all those games, so no reason to hold back — but as a gamer it’s frustrating. This spring was fruitful for good games, but I think we’re headed for a dull summer before the usual fall/winter pounding.

I’ll be covering the show here in Los Angeles, starting with Microsoft’s Monday morning press conference. In the meantime, feel free to offer up your own hopes and dreams for the future of gaming.

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Obama’s Cybersecurity Initivate a Step in the Right Direction

Posted by David Worthington on May 29, 2009 at 5:39 pm

Today, U.S. President Barack Obama took the wraps off of a 60-day review of the nation’s electronic infrastructure. The report outlined concrete steps towards achieving better security, called for the creation of a cyber security czar in the White House staff, and emphasized the importance of respecting people’s privacy.

In April, I wrote “Obama gets it,” in an article about how critical U.S.infrastructure was vulnerable to damage and disruption. While some of the details haven’t been shared yet, the initiative that the President announced today does chart the right course.

The report concludes that the federal government needs to its increase investment in achieving security and resiliency in information and communications infrastructures, and calls for a public-private partnership to coordinate responses to cyber attacks in addition to rallying  international cooperation to mitigate security risks.

Another goal is to educate the public about the importance of cyber security, but with incidents such as the U.S Army being hacked in news headlines, reality has already helped there.

Obama’s plan mirrors a bipartisan effort that was championed by U.S. Senators John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The bill that they proposed also called for a White House position to coordinate all Federal security efforts.

Rex Black, a well known security expert and president of Rex Black Consulting Services, told me that it was understandable that Obama would want someone to fill that role. The position should be staffed by the White House rather than the Commerce Department or Military due to the turf wars that would inevitably happen, he added.

The report strikes a political balance: New laws and mandates could come as a consequence, but the White House said that it would avoid imposing new requirements on the private sector if it could be avoided. Privacy was also mentioned more than 60 times in the report, and the President said unequivocally, “Our pursuit of cyber security will not–I repeat, will not include–monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.”

Overall, I am heartened by the high priority that Obama has placed this very serious problem so early on during his Presidency. He is giving credibility to the people that are trying to solve it, and that will only help drive towards a solution–even if we have to walk before we can run.

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The First Palm Pre Review

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 29, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Palm PreThe Boy Genius Report has seen, touched, and tried a pre-release Palm Pre, and published its findings. It’s a long piece with a bunch of photos, but the Pre has been so thoroughly previewed in so many venues that it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. BGR’s verdict? Uninspiring hardware (the keyboard is said to be too small to be pleasing, and the case kind of plasticky) but sensational operating system (although not much software was on the device).

The Pre hits stores on June 6th, so look for gazillions of reviews shortly.

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See You at TWTRCON–or on Twitter

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 29, 2009 at 12:06 pm

TWTRCONI’m looking forward to spending my Sunday at TWTRCON, the Twitter for business conference which I came up with and which Modern Media has done a spectacular job of running with. I know that some of you will be there. But if you’re not coming to the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, you can still participate: I’m going to be tweeting the day’s proceedings at @TWTRCON. I’m thinking it’ll be akin to doing a radio broadcast of a baseball game–listening in won’t be as good as being there in person, but it’ll have pleasures of its own. And I’m going to help relay questions from twitterers to the impressive lineup of speakers at the conference.

It should be a fun experiment–and one way or another, I hope to see you on Sunday.

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US Army Servers May Have Been Hacked

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 29, 2009 at 12:01 pm

An Anti-US hacking group known as “m0sted” has apparently hacked into at least two sensitive Army servers, InformationWeek claims, citing “exclusive” information. The breaches are being investigated by the US Army, although they have not been publicly disclosed.

The two servers known to be hacked were one at the McAlester Ammunition Plant in McAlester, Okla. on January 26, and another U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Transatlantic Center in Winchester, Va which occurred on September 19, 2007.

In the earlier case, the divisions webpage was hacked redirecting to the group’s own site. That site hosts anti-US and anti-Israeli messages. It is not known whether the group was able to access or download any sensitive data.

Both hacking attempts took advantage of SQL injection vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s server software. Even though the Defense Department has put in place tools to prevent such attacks, the hackers have apparently found a way to bypass those measures.

As part of the investigation, search warrants against Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been executed in an effort to reveal the hacker’s identities. The Defense Department is not commenting on the report.

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No Color Kindles for Years Might Mean No Kindles

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 29, 2009 at 11:55 am

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos says that a Kindle e-reader with a color screen won’t show up any time soon:

The Amazon CEO also said a color version of the Kindle was not imminent.

“I know it’s multiple years. I don’t know how many years but it’s years,” he said.

“I’ve seen the color displays in the laboratory and I can assure you they’re not ready for prime time,” Bezos said.

Bezos’s stance sounds like it’s based on the assumption that the Kindle will continue to use a power-miserly E-Ink screen, or at least that Amazon is unwilling to consider the possibility of an LCD Kindle with a battery life measured in hours, not days. I persist in the stubborn notion that we live in a color world, and that the Kindle might have trouble competing with a cool, multipurpose tablet device in a similar form factor from, oh, say, Apple–even if the tablet had a traditional LCD display with traditional uninspiring battery life. I’m also intrigued by alternative display technologies such as that offered by Pixel Qi, which may bridge the gap between the benefits of E-Ink and LCD.

Maybe Bezos is being less than entirely forthcoming–hey, if Amazon is working on color right now, it’s not going to tell us–but if I were him, I’d be formulating plans to have some sort of color Kindle out in months, not years…

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Page’s Law: Why PCs Get Slower, Not Faster

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 29, 2009 at 11:18 am

At Google’s I/O developer conference yesterday, company cofounder Sergey Brin spoke of Page’s Law–defined by his partner Larry Page–which states that software gets twice as slow every eighteen months:

Page’s Law is painfully true. It helps to explain why 2001-era PCs which ran Windows XP just fine are incapable of running Windows XP SP3 well, let alone Windows Vista. Actually, it explains, in part, why so many people feel the need to buy new computers every couple of years. We’re not buying faster machines so we can work faster–we’re buying faster machines to compensate for the speed lot to more bloated, inefficient software.

When I got into computers, circa 1978, many machines had 4KB of RAM (one one-millionth of the capacity of a system today with 4GB). 16KB was considered generous. 48KB was downright sinful. And the TRS-80s we used at school ran at a rip-roaring 1.77-MHz.

Result: Just about anyone who wrote software for any personal computer of the time wrote extremely efficient code–you pretty much didn’t have the option of not being maniacally miserly with bytes and processing cycles. I’ve often thought that if today’s programmers were as diligent as those 1970s hackers, there essentially wouldn’t be such a thing as a slow PC today, or one that ran out of memory.

Among the unexpected benefits of the migration of applications from local machines to the Web is this: Programmers once again have to deal with severely constrained resources. There’s no question that an app like Zoho Writer does Microsoft Word-like things in a more efficient way. I’m also heartened by the fact that the browser wars have lately turned into a speed competition. But I still think we’d get even leaner code if developers pretended they were writing for, say, a Vic-20 with 3.5KB of available RAM and a 1-MHz 6502 CPU.

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Mac Clone Maker (Not Psystar) to Open Retail Store

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 29, 2009 at 10:15 am

Lemonade StandMac clone manufacturer Quo computer said it would be opening a retail location in Los Angeles area on June 1. It will be located at 2401 West Main Street in Alhambra, a locality northeast of LA’s downtown district.

The company plans to offer three models, the Life Q, Pro Q, and Max Q. While Quo has not released details of what each model would entail, the company is using Apple’s current product lineup for guidance.

As with Psystar, the company is installing copies of Mac OS X Leopard on its equipment before shipping it to the consumer. This means Quo is breaking the same part of the EULA that Apple has sued Psystar over. In all likelihood, Quo will be the target of Cupertino’s legal guns next.

Quo is run by Rashantha De Silva, a Sri Lankan immigrant who has used Macs for nearly 25 years. A search on his name shows that he is a fairly frequent contributor to Apple’s support forums, so he’s no stranger to the Apple platform.

Sure to upset Apple even more is Quo’s business strategy: targeting education. This is one of the company’s most lucrative channels, and De Silva wants to put these clones in the hands of teachers and students.

While I commend companies like Psystar and Quo taking on Apple and forcing them to become more open–I am one of those Mac folks that believe allowing quality clones would be a good thing for the platform–they’re still breaking the law.

Apple’s EULA specifically forbids the use of the software on non-Apple machines. Until the courts find this clause illegal, it is pretty much akin to theft and prosecutable.

I’m fairly confident that the courts will rule against Psystar barring some unforeseen circumstance. Maybe future cloners will learn from the Psystar case and apply it to their efforts at breakng Apple’s grip on its OS software.

(Hat tip: CNET)

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Is Wave Bloatware?

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 28, 2009 at 11:27 pm

Google Wave LogoGoogle has published a video of this morning’s demo of Wave–its radically ambitious upcoming service which aims to be what e-mail should be and meld it with IM, allow for real-time document sharing, provide instant photo sharing, revolutionize spell checking,  provide on-the-fly translation, and allow developers to either build on top of the service or replace it with their own underpinnings, among other things. It’s an hour and twenty minutes long, and doesn’t get through all the things one might want to know about Wave. Here, I’ll embed it right here and wait while you watch it:

All finished?

Among the many interesting questions about Wave is this: Is it bloatware? It’s not ready for release yet, and it appears to already be bursting at the seams with functionality. Screenshots show a service that crams dozens of features, options, and snippets of information onto the screen–less an example of Google-esque minimalism and more like a Microsoft app that’s been through a few versions and is shoehorning stuff in.

Unlike my friend Jordan Golson, I don’t see Wave as a sign of breathtaking Google arrogance–at least not if the company comes up with a reasonable game plan to roll it out to the business users who are apparently its primary target. But I do worry about it suffering from Kitchen Sink Disease. I’m looking forward to trying it out soon and forming opinions based on actually using the thing…

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