Technology Internet News Blog

I bought the Palm Pre Plus in February and was pleased with the webOS 1.4 update, but then in March at CTIA the Sprint HTC EVO 4G was announced and I posted that my Verizon Palm Pre Plus was likely headed back to the Verizon store. However, with the EVO 4G not coming out for a few months and my mobile device history starting with Palm in 1997 I just couldn’t return the Pre Plus and ended up keeping it.

I have now come to another decision time after purchasing my own Sprint HTC EVO 4G and considering the Pre Plus, EVO 4G, or new Apple iPhone 4. I was able to knock out the Palm Pre Plus this weekend and just paid the extremely high Verizon ETF to end that contract. I also just read an excellent article on Android Central that compares the Sprint EVO 4G and Palm Pre from a couple of long time Palm users, Craig Froehle and Don Ferguson.

They go into quite a few details about the various aspects of the devices from a users point of view and the comparison just confirmed that my decision to cancel my Palm Pre Plus contract was the right choice. I do think that Palm’s webOS is very intuitive and user friendly, but going head-to-head with Android showed me that I prefer a more customizable and feature packed operating system.

I still have a few more days before the iPhone 4 is available and I do have a reservation at my local Apple store. At this time I am leaning heavily towards sticking with Sprint and the HTC EVO 4G. I already have an iPhone 3GS and can eventually load it up with iOS 4 so the need for the iPhone 4 is not as great. I know the hardware of the new iPhone will be excellent and pretty compelling, but I think I will miss the customizable home screens with glanceable information, easy WiFi tethering, superb Gmail support, included Sprint services, outstanding free GPS navigation solutions, and more found in Android.

I will continue to consider the EVO 4G and iPhone 4 this week and we will see what happens on Thursday.

Nintendo may be the reigning video game hardware sales champ, but you may be surprised to learn it’s also the record-holder for longest rock steady pricing.

That’s about to change, at least in Japan. Nintendo says it plans to slash the price of the DSi by one fifth on June 19, according to Bloomberg, to revive sagging domestic sales.

Expect a DSi price drop from 18,900 yen ($205) to 15,000 yen ($163), or 21 percent, reports Bloomberg, adding that the Japanese DSi LL–equivalent to the U.S. extra-large DSi XL (PCW Rating: 3 out of 5)–should see a price cut of 10 percent, landing at 18,000 yen ($196). Sales of the DS have fallen in Japan since last year, down 1.5 percent to 4 million for the 12 month period ending March 31.

The original Nintendo DS launched in the U.S. back in November 2004 for $150, then dropped to $130 in August 2005. It’s held there since, even after the slimmed down, camera-clad DSi launched at $170 in April 2009.

Analysts expect Nintendo to follow suit in overseas markets, e.g. the U.S., in anticipation of Nintendo’s next generation 3D model, expected in Japan by early next year and elsewhere shortly thereafter. Nintendo’s declining comment on followup international price relief, but DS sales are down in all markets, so the writing’s more or less on the wall. In fact with E3 around the corner, I’m betting Nintendo drops the bomb at its June 18th press show.

The company says it wants to put “a DS in every home.” It’s certainly nearing its goal, with roughly 130 million DS handhelds sold worldwide and 30 million of those in Japan alone. According to a 2003 Japanese Statistics Bureau estimate, the number of households in Japan is around 47 million.

17 million to go? Should be a snap, once the Nintendo 3DS arrives.

Follow me on Twitter (@game_on)

Share

Video-gamers know about heartbreak.

You finally get your hands on that game you’ve been hearing about for years. You dive in and … well, sure, the beginning’s a little slow, but it’ll heat up. But as you dig further in, it slowly dawns on you that the more you play, the worse it gets. And in just a few hours, excitement turns to despair — not just over the $60 you wasted, but also the idea that something so promising could turn out to be so worthless.

Last year, “Brutal Legend” nearly destroyed my faith in everything I thought I liked about games. Earlier this year, my Twitter feed exploded with the howls of angry “Final Fantasy” fans who felt betrayed by the radical changes in that series’ latest installment.

The failure of “Alpha Protocol” (Sega, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $59.99) is nearly as crushing. It combines two of my favorite genres — role-playing game and spy thriller — and the developers at Obsidian Entertainment have contributed to some of the best-loved RPGs of the last 20 years.

What could go wrong? Nearly everything.

The titular Alpha Protocol is one of those top-secret government agencies that takes on the jobs that are too hot for anyone else to handle. Its current goal is the assassination of a Middle Eastern terrorist, and the agent on the case is a cocky recruit named Michael Thorton. You can adjust some of Thorton’s traits at the start — you can make him a gunslinger or a tech expert, or give him a beard and glasses — but he’s essentially a charmless creep.

You’d think contemporary spy craft would put a premium on stealth, but most of the missions in “Alpha Protocol” devolve into mindless shooting. That might be tolerable if the shootouts were well-executed; instead, they’re bogged down by glitches, from sloppily programmed opponents to an inconsistent cover system that leaves you all too open to enemy fire.

Early in the game, Michael isn’t supposed to be that sharp a marksman, which leads to one weird effect: Even if you shoot a villain in the head at close range, it takes four or five bullets to bring him down. It’s easier to kill an enemy by running straight at him — even if he’s armed — and punching him.

That doesn’t mean the hand-to-hand combat is satisfying, since it consists of simply pounding one button as quickly as possible. And “Alpha Protocol” is further bogged down by hacking and lock-picking minigames that seem designed for maximum tedium.

“Alpha Protocol” does live up to its promise of giving you choices that have substantial impact on the rest of the game. For example, early on you have the choice of killing an arms dealer or letting him escape, in the hope that he’ll lead you to bigger fish, and either option leads to surprising consequences.

But that’s about all “Alpha Protocol” gets right. From its dated graphics to its confused story to its two-dimensional characters, it bears all the signs of a project that never had a strong guiding hand. The Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON – The Entertainment Software Association, a trade group for video game companies, spent $1.2 million during the first quarter to lobby on the regulation of video game content, First Amendment protection, copyright enforcement and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report.

This is up 23 percent from $980,000 spent in the same quarter a year earlier and even with the amount it spent in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The group, whose members include Microsoft Corp., Disney Interactive Studios Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Nintendo of America, among others, also lobbied on piracy, industry ratings and immigration.

The ESA opposes efforts to regulate the content of entertainment media, including the creation of government-sanctioned ratings systems. The video game industry has its own ratings system run by the nonprofit Entertainment Software Rating Board, which was established in 1994 by the ESA.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a California case that pits free speech rights against a state law, which never took effect, banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

In the January-March period, the ESA also lobbied on broadband deployment, green cards for skilled foreign workers and the H1-B visa program, which allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized and advanced-degree positions. Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Barber Nick Barber – Fri Jun 4, 1:20 pm ET Steve Spohn is wheelchair-bound, on a ventilator and can barely move because of muscular dystrophy, but he’s still able to play video games. He participated in last week’s Games for Health conference in Boston, where the AbleGamers Foundation hosted the Hardware Hackers Challenge, a contest to build a handicap-accessible game controller in under two hours.

The result was a very rough, but functioning prototype of an Xbox 360 controller that had buttons and joysticks that could be moved around and assigned functions.

To see a video report, click here.

“I think the controller itself is important because when you’re disabled, sometimes you’re bed-bound … and really, video games are your escape and controllers allow you to get to them,” said Spohn.

The prototype, built from Xbox 360 controller parts, duct tape, Velcro and a bag of rice, was designed with Spohn’s limited range of motion in mind.

“The real benefit is that all these buttons are actually considered blank, so you can assign any function you want to them,” said Adam Coe, president of Evil Controllers, an Arizona-based company that modifies existing controllers to bring more functionally and flexibility to gaming. “You can make them all the ‘A’ button, you can make them all the ‘B’ button, you can do whatever you want.”

Coe helped build the controller along with Ben Heckendorn and Suzanne Papajohn.

The controller also included a T-shirt that had buttons in the shoulders so that when a user shrugs, buttons are activated. Read the rest of this entry »

By Barry Collins

Posted on 27 Apr 2010 at 10:49

The UK security industry is launching a series of online games in a bid to identify the next generation of security experts.

The scheme is being run by Cyber Security Challenge UK, a consortium of security organisations that include the Metropolitan Police and the Institute of Information Security Professionals. The scheme is supported by the Cabinet Office.

The challenge hopes to identify young people who have the necessary skills to forge a career in IT security.

Judy Baker, the director of the Cyber Security Challenge, told PC Pro that there’s a desperate shortage of IT security experts in the UK. “Companies can’t get the people they need, they’re just not good enough,” she said. “Raising awareness [of IT security] is part of our aspiration to draw in talented people.”

The Challenge will consist of two stages. The first round involves a series of online games designed to identify candidates with specific security skills. The games will concentrate on topics such as network defence, forensics and identifying website vulnerabilities.

The winners of the first round will progress to face-to-face challenges at a yet unnamed venue. Prizes for the eventual winners will include scholarships with security companies or IT training courses. “It has been suggested that we’re blind dating here!” said Baker, noting how the scheme matches up future security professionals with companies.

“We’re targeting people from age 16 upwards. Younger people often do better than experienced professionals [at solving security problems],” she added.

The challenge is expected to start in the autumn.

Sticklers for journalistic propriety have always frowned upon checkbook journalism, which is far more rampant now thanks to the internet. Thankfully for checkbook journalists though, their critics can do little more than protest. But buying a story is one thing, and flouting the law in doing so a totally different affair.

Last week, when Gizmodo proudly flaunted what it claimed to be a misplaced prototype of the next iPhone, it prompted many to question the legality of the way in which the phone was acquired – the blog’s editors avowedly paid $5000 for the misplaced phone. Under state law, a finder of goods who can determine the owner of lost property is under legal obligation to return it to its original owner, and the failure to do so makes him guilty of theft.

It has now emerged that cops investigating the matter raided Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house on Friday and confiscated four computers and two servers. According to Jason Chen, cops bust into his house in his absence and were busy scouring the place for evidence when he and his wife arrived from dinner at around 9:45PM. The cops were carrying a search warrant issued by the Superior Court of the County of San Mateo, California.

Gawker Media COO Gaby Darbyshire believes that the search warrant against Gizmodo’s editor contravened section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code, which states that “a publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication” can not be forced to make any disclosures with regards to the source of any information obtained by them in their official capacity.

Darbyshire isn’t the only one raising a stink, though. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press told CNET that the search warrant was issued in violation of the federal Privacy Protection Act. “This is such an incredibly clear violation of state and federal law it takes my breath away. The only thing left for the authorities to do is return everything immediately and issue one of hell of an apology,” she said.