Nokia Snakes on MEGA scale

SNAKE Game in the Student House - video powered by Metacafe

You just knew that students were behind this escapade - programming a modern building's lighting circuits to play a game of Nokia's Snakes! Awesome and yet a complete waste of time. Wish I were young again!

Being charged to make a payment!

The modern world is just ridiculous sometimes. Looking at my latest phone bill from BT, I see they're now charging an extra 'Payment fee' for the privilege of paying them!! Sure, businesses have admin costs, but aren't these suppose to be built into the price you agreed to pay for the service in the first place?

If it wasn't for the 12 month contract I signed with UK Online for Internet access, I'd ditch my BT line right now, out of protest. It's a LOT cheaper to go for a combined Internet/phone deal with any number of cable suppliers - and that's exactly what I'm going to do in 2009.

Too old to rock?

Well, maybe not. But certainly too old for The Gadget Show.

You see, people keep saying that with my phone/smartphone expertise and style, I'd be a natural for The Gadget Show. And, content-wise they're absolutely right. But have you seen what they expect their presenters to do? Snow-boarding, hang-gliding, let's-see-how-dangerous-and-exciting we-can-make-this for each feature. Good example: they were testing multimedia smartphones. So was I. I did it in my home, in painstaking detail, every expense spared. They did it by shooting photos and video from aerobatic planes, no expense spared. Then there are the times when Jason and Suzi end up falling from bikes, rolling down hills or bungee-jumping off bridges.

I'm sorry, but The Gadget Show is not for me. I'm 46 now, I'm starting to feel frailer than when I was Jason and Suzi's age (mid thirties?) and I have a feeling that if I started on The Gadget Show I'd end up with a broken hip...

PlayStation 3 - stunning realism

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a fan of the Nintendo Wii - I just love the sports sims and getting up and involved with my games. But the graphics are very obviously computer-generated and couldn't be mistaken for reality.

Yesterday, I chanced across a demo stand for the Sony PlayStation 3 - and I was blown away. They had the demo sequence running for Gran Turismo 5, with the touring cars screaming around the sun-kissed track and, for a few seconds at least, even on a 48" screen, I thought I was watching a TV picture. The lighting, the textures, the smoothness of the real-time 3D rendering of the cars was utterly spellbinding. Only when the pit scenes were shown, with simulated human beings, was it obvious that this was a virtual world.

Would I now buy a PS3? Before yesterday I'd have said no, but the lure of those shiny engines of steel, glinting in the sun......

Trying to get up to speed with Nokia Sports Tracker

This might all go wrong, but below you should see the new 'urbanista' widget from Nokia, which will display where I've been and what I've been snapping. Well, for test purposes, anyway... 8-)

(By the way, if you see an empty white space, try right-clicking and choosing 'Play')

In order to view the Nseries Widget you need JavaScript and Flash Player 9+ support

The power of Google (again)

It's pretty awesome what Google manage to get done sometimes. Even if in this case it's limited to a few dozen US cities, check out how they've integrated Google Maps and its direction finding with their Street View project. This sort of integration is truly eye-opening. And it's here now. If you live in the right parts of the US, anyway! Enjoy.

Handling petabytes at Google

We all know and love Google. But how exactly do they handle so many billions of users, so much data, without ever losing anything? I was interested to come across this video talking about their infrastructure and philosophy, which explains how things hang together reliably. Worth 10 minutes of your time to watch!

Tribute Bands - don't they ever get fed up?

I saw an excellent tribute band last night. Off The Wall, proclaiming themselves 'The Spirit of Pink Floyd'. And super they were too. Really accurate sounds and a great 2 hours of music and lights. I'd link to their web site but that seems to have gone AWOL....

Anyway, I've seen quite a few tribute acts in the last few years. Fun for the audience, who are transported on a trip down memory lane, but what about the performers? Playing the songs of their heroes is probably fun for the first few months, even the first year, but what about after that? Playing virtually the same songs in the same way, night after night? However tricky and complex they are, boredom must surely set in, and how they to conceal this from the audience?

The temptation is to start changing the songs, adding embellishments, experimenting - that's what all normal bands do. But if a tribute band starts altering the songs of their trademark, they get castigated and scorned. Everything has to be 100% authentic.

It's a tricky situation. Some bands (e.g. the Bootleg Beatles) seem to go on for years with few changes and seem very happy. I'm sure there are others which implode or stagnate, too. I guess a lot comes down to whether you can make a living from it. As the Bootlegs do, for example? In which case, it counts as 'work' and you simply grin and bear it, as most of us do our normal labours!!

Comments welcome!

Lasered by a Dalek

Not every day you bump into a Dalek in the High Street and get shot down in your prime.... Gulp.

Kudos to Waterstones in Guildford for getting one in though!