Well today Microsoft announced their Surface technology, so I have posted a video (below) and a gallery to whet your appetite.

 

I think the video and pictures more or less speak for themselves, so I'll just add; coooooooool!

 

I have been playing Virtua Tennis 3 on my PSP. It's pretty good and kept me entertained on a lengthy journey BUT being a PSP /PS2 game does mean that the cracks are beginning to show on the graphics.

 

Below is a (bad) phone picture of what Martina Hingis looks like in the game. A bizarre zombie-like creature. Lindsay Davenport, on the other hand, looks better in the game...

 

I've been given the go ahead to do more gaming stuff on T&G which is fun. Look out for interviews with the likes of Doug Lombardi of Valve, Rock* on GTA IV, Blizzard on WoW and Starcraft and, I hope, gaming royalty John Carmack, the man behind Doom, Quake etc etc.

 

 

Today I have been mostly assembling a gallery of camping gadgets, from wind-up phones to wind-up radios. But one thing that isn't a wind-up (see what I did?) is that I found a portable microwave.

 

Let me just re-state that for people who are still considering it. A 'PORTABLE MICROWAVE'. Now I spent a good proportion of my life as a bachelor before discovering that food didn't always come packets, but I think even in the days I considered a microwave burger as a meal I would have baulked at taking a microwave with me on my travels.

 

Of course it got in the gallery, purely because any company who came up with something like this deserve their name in lights for pure audacity.

 

The other big news of the day is that the 'setlist' for Guitar Hero III has been partially announced and it contains:

 

Well, the whole social networking thing is old hat now...Okay I'll admit it, I'm an addict. I been browsing through other people's friend lists in a vain attempt to find anyone I might possibly have ever met.

 

There's definitely a bit of an age thing creeping in though, only five pages of people are admitting to having been at Sheffield University in 1996, as opposed to the current years where, it appears, if you're not on facebook/myspace then you don't exist.

 

It's a little odd that we are so entirely free with our information these days, we love telling the world exactly what we're doing, be it through twitter, facebook, msn or blog. I think the phrase 'none of your business' will be redundant soon enough and questions like 'How are you?' will be met with a web address.

 

I was in the kind of social network 'my generation'* really does understand last night to watch the football. It was great, information was free flowing, I found out about a whole range of things - some of which I couldn't even categorise (Why the BA Baracus Snickers ad is great, why everyone hates 'SuperPippo' Inzaghi, why £3.50 for a burger in a bun is a shock to Londoners etc etc).

 

And best of all, the whole social network (let's call it Pub 1.3 for expediency's sake) was 'facilitated' by beer.

 

On a tech level, most of the pub was squinting at the dim, murky and grainy big screen for the footy; a wise few turned round and watched it on the much smaller but much nicer plasma screen at the other end of the room. Size ISN'T everything people...

 

 

As a technology 'expert' I like to think that I am fairly modern-minded, so it occured to me that I should probably get involved with the whole social networking doolally.

 

To that end, I signed up for facebook yesterday, and found that - to my surprise - I already have friends that are a) social networking without my knowledge b) that have obviously been doing so for sometime. This is a sorry state of affairs and some rather pointed questions will be addressed to aformentioned friends. (Mainly involving their prior claims that they didn't use computers so couldn't read my blog - I did find this rather fishy at the time)

 

But, anyway I am now a fully paid up member of the 21st century, and I have tied my blog into my facebook entry, which made me feel a little less of a luddite.

 

Have spent the day digging out photos for a gallery of the hottest gadgets around AND finishing off an article on why video games are not blame for violence (which will go up tomorrow) . The latter will no doubt provoke a debate in which I will be labelled a moron / idiot / dimwit etc etc etc, but that's the name of the game.

 

My luddite piece got a fair amount of message board response, some good and some labelling me a moron / idiot / dim... you get the idea.

 

 

One of the true joys of being a writer is that sometimes you are given an opportunity to put across a view that you feel passionately about.

 

After a few days off, the first thing I saw in the papers this morning (that's a lie - I mean, of course, the first thing I actually engaged with) was a picture of the Merseyside police's new toy; the Hi Cam Microdrone AKA spybot. Would a rose by any other name smell so sweet?

 

This is an extension of something that I feel very strongly about; namely the steady erosion of our privacy. 

 

Read An Orwellian nightmare?

 

The argument often goes: 'If I haven't done anything wrong, why should I worry about cctv/identity cards/the steady yet scary erosion of my civil rights?' 

 

My opinion is that these people don't read enough fiction books, history books or have the imaginations to wonder what happens if things don't continue in their merry way.

 

History is littered with examples of identity cards being used as a means to control the populace and limit/record movement (Nazi Germany, communist Russia/China) or even to mark out those of differing religions. Equally, the constant tracking of people is similarly scary for those who have read 1984 and realise how powerful an all seeing/all knowing Big Brother regime could be.

 

Anyway, my article should be hitting the main page of MSN today at 4:30, so we'll see what kind of feedback I get.

 

Obviously I included a gallery of the drone because, although it's scary, it is pretty darn cool...

 

On a lighter note, I think interactivity is spreading into the non-computer realms. I should have, but failed to get a picture of an advertising hoarding from Euston station.

 

The advert was for Virgin trains and said 'TAKE THE TRAIN - IT'S GREENER'

 

Some wag had written 'OR CYCLE INSTEAD' beneath it in marker pen.

 

But an official Virgin sticker was underneath the grafitti, saying: 'WHAT, ALL THE WAY TO BIRMINGHAM????'

 

It's like a low tech message board. First class (ahem).

Woohoo! It's finally done; and I can tell you that boiling down a huge conversation over several hours is no mean feat.

 

So much of what we spoke about continued long after the tape had run-out, and trying to make the early questions tech oriented enough to justify the interview mean that any piece was likely to be tinged with regrets, but it is tempered by the knowledge that an awful lot of post four pint conversation was always likely to fall short of a coherent question and answer session.

 

From a technical point of view, and awful lot of what I said is cut out, on the understanding that my musings aren't actually all that interesting (*looks at blog*) but I have tried to keep the majority of Michael's statements as they were rather than try to convert them into neat little journalistic sound-bites.

 

It isn't often that you finish an interview both elated and also regretful that the three hours wasn't enough.

 

On a similar note, I re-read 'Hell hath enlarged herself' last night from the short story collection What you make it and I honestly think it could be an awesome film. There's a couple of brilliant visuals noted in the text - a seance and a burning city - that are both iconic to make it into the final production, and the relationships between the characters should translate well.

 

I'm away until Tuesday - more then.

With the news coming that Halo 3 will be hitting the UK on September 26 (a whole day after the US!) I've been thinking about the games that I'm really, really looking forward to.

 

I'll be honest - and it's not much of a surprise to those that have read some of my articles - it's Half Life 2 episode 2 that is really floating my boat - but of all the console fps Halo is superb and GTA is positively better on consoles than PC (one day I'll get used to auto aim).

Some technical problems yesterday so I couldn't blog - apologies.

 

I've put up a couple of articles that are very different in tone this week - firstly the 'Why we need more than one search engine' piece. This, somewhat inevitably, stirred up a little bit of a discussion about bias and things like that (and not just externally) - but I hope that I make clear in the article what point I am making.

 

Basically, any monopoly of how we access information on the internet is something that has to be considered in depth - a monopoly of information is, for me, one of the scariest potential problems with the internet. Would I have written the article is Live search was dominant? I'd like to think I would; it's something I feel passionate about and I hope it made a few people think.

 

A slightly frothier article is my 'Whatever happened to robot slaves?' article. It's a follow up, or sorts, to my jet pack piece that seemed to go down pretty well (not least the pictures), and asks why the domestic robots we expected to be doing the ironing and dusting whilst we could take it easy don't exist.

I know, I know. I should have had the MMS interview up by today. Apologies - it's been tougher distinguishing between the sounds of clinking pints/other people/tube trains than I thought which has meant more transcribing than I hoped. I shall make sure that it's up and available as soon as I possibly can (neatly avoiding giving a firm date).

 

Some of this weeks highlights should* include:

 

'what ever happened to robot slaves?' My look at why we don't all have an C3P0 in our lives...yet.

'Why we need more than one search engine.' An opinion piece explaining why I think monopoly of search is a dangerous thing.

'Hands on with the Navman F30'. Which should be 'Man meets sat-nav, falls in love, drives to death over cliff.' but that would have been a lie.** 

 

Finally, I shall be blogging about evil Bert (ace) and Camel Spiders, meeting Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor Ed Gibson and people sticking 'sic' after things I write CORRECTLY >:(.

 

* Unless finishing this interview takes up all my time :)   

** And not an 'interview ready by Monday' lie either

Long-term T&G fans may well have spotted that have something of a passion for books, so when I got the chance to interview my favourite author I jumped at the chance.

 

I read my first Michael Marshall Smith book, Only Forward, aged 16, after I plucked it off the shelf because it had a cool cover. To this day I don't think I have read a book that quite so immediately resonated with me. His second book Spares runs Only Forward close in my top books list and his current crop of contemporary books (written as Michael Marshall) have all the MMS hall-marks of rants, noir, humour and world class dialogue.

 

His latest (brilliant) book is The Intruders - which has been optioned by the BBC, and, as far as I'm concerned, that completely justifies why I think the licence fee should stay. One of his short stories 'Hell hath enlarged herself...' is being developed as a film by the British film council.

 

Basically, if you haven't read his books then just go and buy them...go on. And his short stories....and...

 

Anyway, I ended up sat in a pub in Kentish Town and had a brilliant evening with Michael - I'll be publishing the more tech based questions (see I DID make it relevant) on the site, but my transcript from the first half of the tape run runs to over 2000 words so I've got some editing to do!

 

The good side of interviewing someone in a pub is that it's a nice relaxed atmosphere, the downside is that translating my tape is proving something of a nightmare! I drank too much, and probably talked too much - but I'd jump at the chance to do it again. Sometimes meeting people you admire DOES work out.

 

Oh and he said something that I completely agree with: 'The book is as close to a perfect technology as we have ever managed.'

 

Spot on. I should be publishing the article on Monday.

 

 

So*, I've spent a few days gallavanting around the Peak district, ostensibly to plan a wedding, but really because I was trialing a NavMan F30 entry level sat-nav.

 

Now, I'll be honest, I know I like the IDEA of sat-navs, but I am one of those people who actually would end up blindly driving off a cliff I came to actually rely on GPS, and frankly I would prefer to spend a few hundred squiddles on something a little bit more...well exciting.

 

Nonetheless, the NavMan was pretty darn cool. It sulked a very little bit on a couple of occasions, but reacted admirably when asked to recalculate after we ignored its original suggestions.

 

Best moment, however, came when we were driving down the Via Gellia - or so we thought. According to the sat-nav, we were wading through the adjoining fields and rivers gleefully ignoring its increasingly frantic suggestions that we return to the nearest road. Eventually, of course, it realised that our old fashioned non-GPS enabled sensors (eyes) were right all the time and got back to telling us which junction we should be taking.

 

I'm a little sad to be giving up my little friend now I've written the review - but you can read more about my brief affair with sat-nav later in the week.

 

*So, you know when you find a whole company picking up a little speech quirk? Well at MSN it is starting sentences with 'so'. There's probably some kind of research that shows this is a 'facilitating' word that 'enables' us to be included in the conversation or something - but I'm sticking to my guns and refusing to use it (apart from when I'm being wry).

 

Instead I shall mostly be starting my sentences with 'By golly'. Possibly... 

I'm going to be toddling off on my hols for a few days, but - being the diligent and caring fella I am - I have left a whole host of top notch content for you.

 

Whatever happened to the jet pack is now live, and I had a great time researching it. I am going to write a whole series about gadgets that we thought would be with us but aren't, even though - in the course of my jet pack article - I stumbled across a book called: Where's my jet pack? A guide to amazing science fiction that never arrived.

 

First of all - I am VERY upset that this guy stole my idea before I'd even thought of it (I've contacted my lawyers) and secondly I am making a big effort not to read one more thing about the book so that I don't replicate any of his 'whatever happened to...' stories.

 

Saying that, if I find out that he's done the hoverboard, why I'll...*shakes fist*

 

 

Anyway - back to jet packs. Found the whole story of their development interesting - and some of the stories behind the story are worthy of further investigation themselves. One of the latest big name attempts to do a jet pack ended up with one businessman kidnapping his partner and running off with the device (which has never been recovered)

 

The guy who developed the classic James Bond jet pack broke his knee cap testing it, and the army watched umpteen demonstrations before deciding that they'd wasted a lot of money on an impractical toy.

 

Personally, I think the concept of someone taking off over enemy soldiers, dodging RPGs but then moving his leg funny and crashing down to earth would have an important effect - namely showing everyone that war is pointless but ridiculous toys will always be entertaining.

 

My computer games that sold consoles got a nice response, although I got some fairly regular vitriol from one fella in particular - who i responded to in the thread.

 

Bit naughty really, I should stay well out of the discussion after launching it, but he was arguing that MotorStorm is a game good enough to sell PS3s and that Super Mario Bros 3 should be the SNES' most important game (it came out on the NES unless my memory is very much eroded).

 

One other point of note - I love the 'hilarious' way of turning an s in a big company's name is persisting. I used to work for $ky and now I work for M$. One day I hope to be working for nobody but my$elf.

 

 

 

I'm writing an article called 'whatever happened to the jet pack' and happened across the attached photo. How good is that!?

I've been watching Ask's current advertising campaign with real interest.

 

For those who haven't seen the search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves is putting on a major advertising effort to get their search engine back amongst the big hitters.

 

Their approach is to suggest that they have been forced underground in order to take back the internet, with Che Guevara-style guerilla warfare stylings and a them-and-us vibe. (I'm still waiting to see their old butler logo dressed up in a headscarf with an AK 47)

 

Thie is manipulative but pretty clever - for two specific reasons (I'm sure there are more, but I'm talking from my own jaded non-advertising view)

 

First, they are actually subverting what people think about their competitors - making them out to be the 'establishment' and suggesting that you should be railing for freedom. There's no suggestion (from what I've seen) that they are better, just that they are not 'the enemy'.

 

Secondly, they are reducing, or at least attempting to reduce, the competitors in the field to two - with Google the obvious target. Phrases such as 'the internet deserves a second opinion' suggests that they are in second place battling against an 800 pound gorilla.

 

This is a tactic that Apple use pretty effectively - most recently in their current campaign where they are fairly directly targeting Windows PCs as their only competitor, not choosing to acknowledge linux etc. Novell actually did an advert mocking this approach which was well received on the internet.

 

This approach is a famous technique used by Pepsi when they wanted to establish themselves as clear second place ahead of the plethora rivals, behind Coca Cola. John Sculley - the man behind the campaign, used it again when he wanted to make Apple second to IBM - turning a cluttered market into a duality.  

 

It's a tough search world out there, with Google more of a 800-ton Kraken than an 800lb Gorilla in the industry - but different search engines do still have a market share; not least Microsoft's Live search.

 

I actually agree with some of Ask's assertions; it is VITAL that google are not the only source of information, because their choices then shape the way that people access the world wide web and that is completely against what the internet is for.

 

I'm just not sure I will be going to a search provider that killed off an innocent butler with their guerilla tactics...

Phew! I'm away for a long weekend so it's all hands to the pumps to get everything done for Thursday here.

 

One of the articles I have just finished is my 'Games that sold consoles' piece, which should be published on Thursday or so. Was a really nice nostalgia piece that meant I could talk about Super Mario Bros, Tetris, GTA, Gran Turismo, Halo etc etc.

 

Also been talking about Neighbours for a piece that Colleen, our TV and Celeb guru is doing. I can't believe that so many people have forgotten about not only the greatest so-bad-it's-good moment of not just the soap but possibly of television - namely: Bouncer's Day dream.

 

For those that missed this genius moment: Bouncer is/was a dog who, in one episode, had a day dream about what it would be like if he was married to another dog. Genius!

 

I looked it up and found this site which is a little bit scary, but has an ace picture of the moment.