81: The percentage of all iOS smartphones and tablets currently in use that are running the latest version of iOS.
Cargo-Bot
A long time ago in a personal computing environment that now seems very far away, there was a game called Core War. Two players would each write a “program” in a stripped-down kind of assembly language and the goal was to try and crash the other player’s code while protecting your own program from whatever cyber nastiness the other guy was doling out. Both programs would be loaded into a virtual computer and run simultaneously, and whichever one kept running longest was the winner. It was great fun for hardcore geeks but completely unapproachable by anyone else, and that’s a shame because the learning opportunities in that sort of thing are innumerable.
That, however, was then and this is now and now we have Cargo-Bot. Cargo-Bot is free (as in beer) for the iPad and is the latest in a long line of “programmable” puzzle games that owe their genetic roots to Core War. Take the original idea of writing a program to win a game, give it a dash of the all-time classic Sokoban, and wrap it all up in fun graphics with an easy-to-grok drag and drop “programming” interface and you have a definite winner.
If you have an iPad and have even the faintest interest in puzzle games you should grab this now and take a peek. Cargo-Bot is approachable, fun, and has a lot of depth for a seemingly simple concept. Anyone can have a good time with this, but for younger kids it has the added bonus of being an excellent way to teach both logic construction and process analysis. Interestingly, it was also completely created and coded on the iPad itself with a wildly intriguing new programming app called Codea. Methinks that is a bit of a peek into the future right there.
And did I mention that it’s free? Free, fun, and educational. Sort of like Sesame Street without all the touchy-feely bits. Enjoy.
Category: Game Life, Geek Stuff |
Smartie 0365.2
9: The number of runs scored by the winning team, regardless of number of innings, that defined a complete game of baseball prior to March 7, 1857.
Category: Smarties |
Research In Marketing
If you have been paying attention to the ongoing disaster that is Research In Motion, you will know that one of the more interesting developments in recent months has seen the top executives blaming of the marketing department for the majority of the company’s sales woes. This, of course, is patently absurd. If you make a product that nobody really wants, all the marketing in the world isn’t going to put you back on top.
Repeat after me: The product is the problem.
However, that doesn’t completely absolve the sales creeps of responsibility. While all the clever marketing in the world probably can’t help a shitty product, it’s a fact that really bad marketing will tank the thing even more. RIM’s current advertising campaigns are decidedly shitty – and no, I am not talking about the Power Rangers over there. I am talking about the double whammy of RIM’s mainstream ad campaigns being two decades behind the times and targeting a group of people who doesn’t generally make the purchasing decisions when it comes to high-end smartphones.
Compare the latest Blackberry commercials to those of the company who came in and changed the smartphone market forever and kicked RIM’s corporate teeth out. Apple commercials show little more than what you can do with the product. There are no thumpa-thumpa soundtracks, no cutting-edge fashions, just actual screen shots of things like “removing red-eye from a photo” and “sending a video to a friend” and “buying a movie and having it already on your computer when you get home”. Simple things that normal people generally want to do.
RIM’s latest 30-second wankfests, on the other hand, show cool people doing cool and trendy things while carrying their Blackberries around. And the screen images are, of course, “simulated”. So if you are an average Joe who wants to invest his money in a smartphone and get maximum use from the purchase, which image is more appealing to you? Actual footage of the phone actually performing a fast that you actually want to do? Or a bunch of hipsters riding glow in the dark bikes?
The only people who could possibly be swayed by this sort of smoke-n-mirrors campaign are 14-year olds. And despite all the changes in the world, those kids generally don’t have 400 bucks to drop on a phone. For every teen who does have that kind of dough, there are a few thousand grown-ups who are going to spend that money based on actual utility and not the DJ stylings of LL Kool Moe Diplo Kiki Dee. The head honchos at RIM have to sit down and decide which market they actually want – one kid, or 10,000 adults.
Category: Crackberries, Geek Stuff |
Smartie 0365.1
1857: The year that the length of a complete baseball game was set to 9 innings.
Category: Smarties |
iPad 3 Event Tomorrow
It’s no real secret that the iPad 3 will hit tomorrow. Which, if you weren’t paying attention means that you can get an iPad 2 for the next few days for a few bucks off. And for a lot of people, that might be all the iPad they need for the near future.
However, if you are jonesing for the latest gear, here is what you will see tomorrow:
A new iPad with an upgraded processor and longer battery life. Also, expect it to have the new smaller connector that will be showing up in the iPhone 4GS or iPhone 5 this summer.
The same prices for the same specs as we saw for the first two generations of iPad.
iOS 5.1, which should include some expanded management features for iCloud, including full control of the PhotoStream.
A new AppleTV or some goodies and an update for the existing AppleTV. But the smart money is on “new”.
Those three items are pretty much a gien. What you might also see tomorrow is Siri in the new iPad – but that is a serious maybe. What you probably won’t see is 4G support for the iPad. Apple has no need to get into the 4G game at this point. The network optimization features in iOS 5 mean that 3G download speeds are close enough to 4G to make the difference imperceptible, and until someone figures out a way to make 4G networking less of a battery suck, Apple will gladly trade off that imperceptible difference for all-week battery life.
That, of course, is a trade-off that every clear-thinking person on the planet will happily take. So you know that the internet whiners and haters will be complaining about it in droves, and saying that this will kill the iPad.
Right.
It’s also worth mentioning that you definitely won’t see a smaller iPad. 7 inch tables are stupid in the extreme – too small to be a decent tablet, too big to put in your pocket, too sucky on the battery front to be useful, and too expensive to make people seriously consider them despite the wretched limitations. Companies tossing out tiny tablets are just playing the desperation game.
Category: Geek Stuff |
Hero Academy Redux – Enter The Dwarves
The fine folks at Robot Entertainment have released another excellent update to the already-excellent Hero Academy. They have added a third team – the gadget-loving Dwarves – to the roster and they have done some rebalancing of the existing teams to keep the gameplay both interesting and fair. Adding a new team is great … but taking the time to manage and tweak the existing content is definitely going the extra mile. This is not something that purveyors of free games usually do. Full-scale props to the gang at Robot for decidedly exemplary behaviour.
They have also ginned up an excellent how-to-play and strategy guide, and have added a full slate of GameCentre achievements including the awesome (but only if you have seen this comic) “Three Minutes” entry.
If you haven’t grabbed this game yet and you have any interest at all in turn-based online player .vs. player strategy gaming, get it now. It’s free – free to download, free to try, and free to play if you are content with the starting team. But now that the “Dark Elves” expansion is on sale for a measly ninety-nine cents (sorry, Lifehacker users, I know that is way to expensive for you) there is no reason not to grab at least one expansion – for less than a buck you get a top-quality game with endless replay value, double the base functionality with the addition of the Elves, and no ads or distractions.
You could do a lot worse for a buck.
Get the game, get the Dark Elves, and then get online and start playing. I’ll be out there waiting …
Category: Game Life, Geek Stuff |
Realistic Umbilical Cord iPhone Charger
I have no idea what to say about this. It’s an iPhone charging cord shaped in the form of an ultra-realistic umbilical cord with the phone embedded in a throbbing placenta.
Really. Click on the link if you want to see more, including pulsating video.
Yikes.
Category: Geek Stuff, Visual Evidence |
We Are Not The Dead
This is photojournalism at its absolute best. Raw portraits of soldiers before, during, and after their deployments to Iraq. Powerful enough on their own, but when combined with the near-forgotten art of real journalism – recording the thoughts of the subjects and letting them stand on their own – this moves into the realm of truly outstanding. Everyone who tries to understand anything about the Afghan conflict should start with this and look long and hard at the eyes in the “after” photos.
Bloody brilliant.
Category: Visual Evidence |
Google .vs. Facebook – The Money Game
This photo via Instagram made the rounds last week – I know that I was one of many that either reposted or tweeted a link to this – and was met with both delight and sage nodding of heads. It’s funny, to the point, and true. But what I noticed afterwards in the assorted discussions that it spawned was a complete lack of awareness as to how social media services (in particular) and online services (in general) actually make money. Especially interesting were the large number of otherwise intelligent and tech-savvy people who have the wildly mistaken impression that Google is in the business of search results and/or online tools
So I thought I would make my own easy-to-grok chart of the money side of this stuff, explained. And, since there are really only two players in this game who actually make any money worth counting, the chart is much shorter than the original. To wit:
Google makes money by selling you to advertisers based on your personal data and information.
Facebook makes money by selling your personal data and information directly.
You’re welcome.
Category: General Drivel |