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Good evening and welcome again, to another pulse-racing update of earth-shaking technology news, the ONLY news that the Sunday cartoons don’t tell you, all wrapped in a taco shell.
Would you like a Salsa dip with that? Before we begin, I would like everyone to observe a moment of silence in respect to the passing of a good friend: the game manual. Recently, a certain French video game manufacturer (it’s Ubisoft! Ubisoft!) has made the decision to stop producing and including video game manuals in games that they sell for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. They are opting for in-game manuals, which Ubisoft claims will allow gamers easier access to gameplay-related information, something which I strongly suspect is called “The Tutorial Mission” – which nobody plays anyway. Now, there will probably be two sorts of reaction invokes from this news: One, you’re probably a gamer who aspires to sail the 7 seas one day in a black-sail ship, thus obtaining your games from “sources” which do not come with a game manual – thus you probably don’t see the fuss. Two, you’re one of those gamers who lovingly reads a game manual from front to back, savoring the mint-smelling pages, telling you how to play a game – something you probably already know. Thus, the loss of a manual is like a loss of a part of the new game experience itself.
Storming a barn in a rainbow airplane. Now THAT’s a game! I guess it’s probably a matter of time before a game producer announces that they are not making disc versions of games anymore and gamers are expected to download the game after they pay for it.
I want my discs! Breaking news! Microsoft will be entering the phone market with the Microsoft KIN, set for a May 2010 release. The US-based Microsoft-designed phone is produced by Japan’s Sharp paired with Vodafone as the service provider for Europe. Sounds like globalization to me. Available in 2 models, the KIN One and KIN Two – folks at Microsoft are creative. These phones are targeted at “lifecasters” or in layman terms: “those who have the uncontrollable impulse to tell everyone their each and every nonsensical thought, random sight and whatever on Earth that they are listening to. Give that a thought. And tell me that’s a good idea.
'Nuff said The home screen of the KIN is called Loop, and serves as a 'summary’ for social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, MySpace, and also stuff such as web feeds and web contents. With that, one look at your KIN and you would know immediately who is posting emo messages on Facebook again, and get Rick-Rolled on web feeds. The reason the Internet exists To show you how serious this idea of Microsoft is to the social net-worker (not social worker, mind you), there is a special Green button completely dedicated to the sharing experience. Any content can be dragged into the Green button (named Spot) and with one press of that button, whatever needless detail of your life you need broadcasted will be, well, broadcasted for all your contacts to see via SMS, MMS, email, Facebook, Myspace, and Windows Live. See the green button? Surprisingly the Microsoft KIN does not come with an app store. No third-party apps can be installed on the KIN. No. Seriously. You can’t. In addition, KIN does not come with Flash support for browsers, so flash games and flashy websites are out of the question, and there are no games for KIN. However, the most baffling part of this phone is the utter lack of an Instant Messenger client with the KIN, considering that KIN is being marketed as a “socializing phone”. Go figure.
When one isn’t enough Well, that’s all the time we have for this week, back to you Red XIII. |
