After unboxing the Vudu, I checked out the quick-start guide. The very first thing they tell you to do is slap the batteries into the remote. It melted in my hand (not literally melted, mind), which I’m guessing is due to its snazzy design. I’m hoping the experience of using Vudu is as elegant.
To those that don’t or have yet to play an MMORPG, like Final Fantasy XI or World of Warcraft, you’re missing out on some fun. While you can spend the holidays with friends and family in meatspace (and really, that’s the best way), you can also spend some time in game with friends and family and spread the holiday cheer there.
In World of Warcraft, there are little devices that transforms your character into gnomes wearing festive green or red outfits. You can punk instance bosses for purty green or red santa hats, obtain special items that transforms your mount into a reindeer, craft holiday themed clothing and munch on food stuffs made by players or sold by in game computer characters.
Now why should that replace real life celebrations? It shouldn’t! It’s wonderful little extras that the developers put in for those that want to also party hearty in game. And come Christmas day you can check out certain cities and grab presents! I know I’ll be spending quality time with my family but I’ll also spare some time to visit friends in game and wish them happy holidays, which I couldn’t do normally as nearly all of them reside thousands of miles away (California, Washington, New Zealand!, etc).
In my latest reading binge, I picked up Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. Set years into the future, mankind has begun to mine comets for ice. Instead of breaking chunks off and dismantling these comets, the miners rig up mass driver equipment to steer the comets back to Earth for processing, hence the term “pushing ice.”
One such mining vessel, called the Rockhopper, and its crew are conducting an operation on a comet when they receive a request to drop what they’re doing and follow the Jupiter moon Janus as it has inexplicably left its orbit and begun an acceleration out of the solar system. Well, the speed and direction of the not-moon is such that the Rockhopper has a very slim window of catching up with it, getting any data from it and returning to Earth. Are they able to do it? Will they discover why Janus has sped out of its orbit and will they find out to whom the not-moon is heading to?
Besides being a pretty involved space drama, the technology in the book is pretty nifty. There are items, like a page of paper, that operates as a computer terminal, diagnostics tool and control panel. It also recharges its batteries off the body heat of its owner. Part organic, they have a limited lifespan but still, they last for quite a while. Pushing Ice is a fun read, although I did have some problems with a couple of characters and their developments. The stress of their job and the possibility of never getting back home may be a strong influential source, I still think some of them changed their attitudes and personalities a little too easily. Still, it’s worth a read and I’ve begun to re-read it again as I’m almost done with Spook Country.
Note: Received clarification and what I took to be a translation software is actually just a phrase book.
Did you ever wish you could have a device like a pair of earclips that could be used for real-time translation? Well, that very device was used in Idoru, a book by William Gibson. While not exactly the same, a new technology in Japan is very near that idea. NEC has created an automatic speech translation program and CScout Japan saw a demo version on a mobile device. While the translation happens in real-time, it does take around 16 seconds for the process to complete.
It’ll only be a matter of time before the translation takes under five seconds and when that happens, who knows, it very well may be on earclips.
I recently purchased Blade Runner as the older version I had seems to have disappeared. Along with that, I also got Renaissance and I must say that I’m glad I bought it. Everything in the movie was very well done, from the storyline to the animation.
Renaissance is set in Paris in the year 2054. The story revolves around the kidnapping of a gifted researcher by the name of Ilona Tasuiev where the main protagonist, Barthelemy Karas, is an officer of the police taskforce Section K. He is very good at his job and thus is assigned to find Ilona who is an employee of Avalon, a huge company specializing in beauty products. In his quest to find Ilona he meets her sister, Bislane, as well as other figures that were prominent in Ilona’s life. Everyone seems to have a secret to hide. Will Karas find Ilona before it’s too late? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.
And watching it is a visual treat. While the movie is in a black and white style, the characters and environments are digital 3D models. The characters incorporate motion capturing and move realistically. Paris itself is a beauty. To support the population growth in 2054, new homes are built on top of older structures, with glass being a prominent building component for not only visual appeal in the movie but also in a realistic sense to allow sunlight to filter through to the older buildings. Also, Paris has expanded underground too. Obviously, space is a commodity, which is futher reinforced with architecture being built in every available space (like the 71 dance club being built under a bridge). All of this is in beautiful detail in spite of (or in light of?) the movie being in black and white.
Renaissance does well in following the Blade Runner style, while simultaneously making its own distinct mark in the Cyberpunk genre.
