Lagavulin is one hard whisky to find, for some reason. Similarly, it appears that a mobile data application that actually works is a rare beast indeed. This is sent with a Nokia 6600 cameraphone with its internal email client, via Saunalahti (operator), into Flickr mail-to-blog service, which automatically posts it into Blogger, which uploads these pages into my personal server via SFTP. Still cannot really believe the damned thing works…
Category: technology
anything technology related, not fitting into other categories
phillips and 'ambient gaming'
Now this is something that interests us in Tampere Game Research Lab, and me personally, since in addition to working in future-oriented game research projects, I have been involved with a three-year project researching the future of home from the perspective of proactive computing (which pretty much means combining embedded, distributed systems with autonomous behaviours) — the Phillips AmBX group claims to incorporate a scripting language, software engine and architecture, designed to deliver feedback through enabled devices such as LED colour-controlled lights, active furniture, fans, heaters, audio and video”, according to this story. This is all very fine; but how about an open standard for “smart home” functionalities first, letting a large developer community to come up with this kind of means for designing orchestrated experiences?
See http://www.ambx.com/ for more.
gonzalo roadshow; picoblogger failing
This Tuesday, Gonzalo Frasca visited us to make his Games and Storytelling lecture on serial micro-games. I even took a nice picture with my Picoblogger of our Game Research Lab team with him, before the local Eastern Orthodox Church. But but: this time it is Picoblogger failing me. And despite installing new Bluetooth software and trying to hack into the memory of my Nokia 6600 camera phone, it seems that I am unable to get into that picture before Picoblogger decides to work again. And they do not answer my mails or web form inquiries — is there something wrong with them, or is this just normal?
Meta-note: I have been told that inordinate amount of my blog space is dedicated to whining about dysfunctional technology, and I do agree. The point being that as long as these tools, hardware and software, do not work even in the hands of a one who actually even enjoys some minor tweaking with one’s systems, how can it ever reach out and become a truly popular and mainstream phenomenon? The problems are still just too large: unreliability, non-compatibility and un-usability are there, to counterbalance all these fascinating possibilities new technologies and media offer us.
life, and life in WoW; Blogger failing again
My working life and other such trivial things have been getting into my way, and keeping me from spending all my time in World of Warcraft, like any proper MMORPG addict should do. I have realised that you actually do need some hours of sleep too (at least if you are closing on to your fortieth birthday, like I do). But the design of WoW is not ideal for such concerns. Many quests are structured to be achieved by teamwork, and social collaboration and joint adventuring with your friends is that little thing which makes all the difference between mindless grinding or endless running through of FedEx quests. But what to do, when you are falling behind in experience, due to spending less time in that achievement-rewarding environment? At some point it becomes apparent that you are so much lower in levels that it is not worth hanging in the same adventuring party any more.
We have been investigating “socially adaptable game design” within IPerG with Interactive Institute, Nokia and other partners, and the ability to stop and return to game as needed, without social punishment is one important criteria to consider.
And now I just have to run; I am severely behind in all those 20 quests that my quest log can hold…
Edit: Actually my Saturday night was spoilt by Blogger.com. I tried three hours to post these notes, reloading the screen, and only getting message “Error. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.” Or the even more common variant: “Not Found. Error 404.” And I had only reserved three hours to use for online access, total, so there was my adventuring time, gone. Apparently they are upgrading their network access in Blogger.com this Saturday; it is just unfortunate that you get no such explanation when you are trying to use the service. – I have just got so tired of Blogger, there has been too many of this kind of incidents lately. But the move into Movable Type or similar system would in practice mean that I’d also have to do the transfer into a Linux server (because of PHP, Perl, MySQL, and similar basic services, that I can currently do without, running all from this Windows XP Pro machine). Surely, that could be done, but I just do not have the time; already, the hours used for debugging technology and these unreliable network services are just taking way too much time. (Update: It is now 4 am – the case closed.)
epos experiments, nvidia power trouble
My curious experiment in connecting a pair of hi-fi speakers with really cheap amplifier moved forward today, as I got my pair of M5s. With their polished cherry-tree, hand-made feeling they are easily the most beautiful thing I have possessed. No doubt serious high-end is something else completely, but I am happy for my ignorance. Experimenting with some nicely produced CDs (Pink Floyd, Chris Rea, some classics and other acoustic music), I finally conclude that it is not so much the T-Amp (which seems to be doing surprisingly good work) but the portable CD player I have hooked up in this bedroom extravaganza. Finally, I will give up and dig my old “heavy” system out of hibernation and plug the M5s with a decent mid-range amplifier, and hi-fi LP & CD player set (NAD & Sony). It is not only the sound quality though; the mobile equipment are designed primarily for battery use, and using them regularly indoors will conclude plugging in couple of power converters, and without remote controls, the usability just isn’t up to it. Nice experiment, though.
My other week-end operation was replacing my old PC power source with Antec TruePower 2.0 ATX 430W. But I ran out of power connectors: the Nvidia GeForce/3D Blaster 5600 FX Ultra I use seems to require its own dedicated 12V power cable, and I ran out of 12V connectors – the other free cables in Antec are SATA connectors, I suppose. Wonder if there is an adapter to use them for connecting regular 12V CD-ROM and DVD-ROM units? And the original problem remains, despite this power source update: I am constantly kicked off from WoW and other games by the Nvidia “sentinel” which claims to do this to protect the graphics card, “because it cannot get enough power”. Well, it got its dedicated cable from Antec now, and I have even plugged off all CD-ROM and DVD-ROM units for debugging this — how much more power can it demand! I am coming to suspect this is some kind of bug. Perhaps the 5600 Ultra’s bios needs to be flashed… but where to get a new bios? Questions, questions. And this is just a weekend in a life with IT. 
neverending cable spaghetti
enter the super audio?
There are many things that have happened in the digital visuals over the last years, regardless if you are looking at the new games consoles, PCs, or home theatre LCDs, plasma screens or digital projection in general. However, there is the emotionally affective field of audio, where equally interesting opportunities and developments are waiting. In many games there is already some use of surround audio, and in game types like “first person sneakers” (the style of Thief) it is even meaningfully applied to gameplay purposes. But great audio does not only consist of spatial differentiation of soundscape, it also involves high quality resolution and timbre of sound. And to reach that, you need the full sound processing chain, concluding to speakers, to fulfil certain high fidelity requirements.
There has been couple of developments going on in my home lately, as I have studied the opportunities of sound in action. Firstly, I decided to experiment by installing a decent pair of loudspeakers in my bedroom, since I enjoy listening to music while reading in bed. After making some quick compares, I ordered a black-and-dark-cherry pair of Epos M5 speakers, as I really liked their sound when testing it with a Stockfish Records Super Audio CD album (Closer to Music, a sampler worth checking out). The really interesting part is the amplifier, which is a Sonic Impact’s Portable T-Amp model TA2024, which I ordered from a net store, based on some rave reviews. It is really a toy by appearance, very small, light-weight plastic box with only one control knob; but since it has got some people so exited by its sound quality, and it is so cheap, I am waiting to get those M5s connected and make some testing.
Another process was started as my old Philips DVP-720SA broke down (a fault in the optical out, I suppose), and since there was no similarly featured model in Gigantti’s collection any more, I got my money back finally, and now am without a DVD/SACD player and free to invest. After various investigations, there are currently two major candidates left: the first is a Samsung DVD HD950, [see the manual, a 3MB download] which is competitively priced and according to some discussion forums has nice picture (via HDMI connection) and sound. But it appears weak in usability features, and cannot compete with more expensive players in image & sound quality either. The other candidate is Sony DVP-NS92, which is almost double in price, and is so new that I find no reviews, but Sony players get generally higher claims in overall quality, as could be expected, if one thinks what it the common perception of Sony and Samsung as manufacturers of quality home electronics. But I have not made my decision yet; the availability is also a factor. I have several new movies and the entire Peter Gabriel catalog in SACD waiting for the new player.
rpg maker?
There has been some experimentation lately in our lab on the Game Maker, for quickly constructing simple gameplay / game concept prototypes which could then be used for research purposes. But I noticed that there is also this PS2 software, titled Rpg Maker 3 — I’d be interested in user experiences if you have been playing around with this one?
wi-fi: worthless technology and bad service?
I am not sure if I am just incredibly unlucky, or if Wi-Fi (WLAN) is just inherently unstable and dysfunctional technology? During the last couple of years, I have bought and tried to set up four different Wi-Fi routers/base stations, and all of them have proved to be failures. First I got a Belkin wireless USB adapter that I used for peer-to-peer connection from my laptop to workstation (very poor performance, no signal if I went as far as to bedroom), then I invested into another Belkin product, a wireless 802.11g router thinking it would be the fix. Hah. For some reason, it drops the connection every 60 seconds or so for a period of c. 15 seconds. But as the system was so complex to configure and I had so little time to troubleshoot it, the guarantee period expired before I could sort out that the problem was indeed with the device rather than with some error of mine. Enter the third device, a Netgear router with its new 108MB speed technology and salesperson’s reassurance that this would certainly solve my problems. Amazingly, it actually worked rather fine for nine months (after I had first spent two hours straight in phone with the Netgear helpline, which by the way connects your calls to India, to set it up). It was only this week that the network suddenly vanished. After some debugging, it became apparent that everything else still worked, but the wireless part of Netgear had failed. Well, there was still some guarantee left, and I took couple of hours off my work to drive to Gigantti where I had bought the machine and sort it out. Oh yes… It is now 48 hours later, and my WLAN is not yet working. I have been instructed to call Netgear helpline to get my router replaced, spent half an hour explaining to the Indian helpdesk person same things over and over, calling to the Gigantti helpdesk, spending time hanging on and hearing them slowly type email to the Gigantti store personnel to inquire them about the situation, driving then despaired personally to Gigantti because no-one (of course) returned to my inquiry, asked by the store personnel to phone back to Gigantti helpdesk, and then finally (grudgingly, and after some testing whether I had indeed diagnosed the failure right) given a replacement product, a Philips SNB6500 which has roughly similar technology like the Netgear device it replaced. The only problem is, that now, after more than six hours tonight spend sorting this out, the Philips is still not connecting to internet. It appears to be unable to acquire a dynamic IP from the Zyxel ADSL modem, even if all the other devices in my LAN are perfectly able to do so. Well, I suppose you cannot always win. It is just surprising to see all these things failing with this 100 % consistency. That is reliability in a way, after all.
a perfect moblogging device?
When your work is mostly oriented towards the theoretical and general, having something concrete and tangible at hand is somehow relaxing. (Just trying to rationalize being a gadget freak here, of course.) Anyways, I have been trying to think about a perfect moblogging device lately. Currently, my T43 handles nicely the more robust work tasks, but I also carry a Nokia 9210 Communicator because of its solid synchronization with the Outlook calendar, and keyboard, which is essential for note taking and text messaging. And would also be for email and blog writing, except that the mobile data connection (HSCSD) is so slow that I never use it to access anything online. And to fill the holes, I carry another Nokia product (ain’t it great living here in the nokialand), a Nokia 6600 camera phone, which is where PicoBlogger and Agile Messanger software are installed. But oh damn, it is missing the full keyboard. And there is not so much to brag about in the camera, either. So, how to fit these together: fast connectivity, good keyboard, hi-quality camera? I have been thinking about a Treo, or some of the new Windows Mobile/Phone Edition handhelds, but with our Finnish language requiring all these weird characters in our keyboards, it very well might be that I need to stick to the Nokia branded ones, since they at least keep on offering multi-language support and localized keyboards. There is some talk that the forthcoming Nokia 770 “Internet Tablet” would be the “perfect device” — for some uses at least. (I cannot rely on Wi-Fi connectivity only, and this will also miss the camera and keyboard.) They also recently announced a Blackberry style E61, but I am suspicious about the keyboard. And it does not have camera, either. E70 on the other hand might make it: it features fast GPRS/EGPRS/WCDMA connections, plus Wi-Fi, plus a 2 megapixel camera. And it has a full keyboard (well, sort of). And it is small, which is a big plus, as the model I have been forced into considering before, Communicator 9500, is just as bulky as the 9210 I am currently hauling around. Oh dear…
frans goes blog 
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