Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Patrick Dempsey is a Douche)

29 Jun 2011 at 04:12

japtor

Movies

1 Comment

First off, a disclosure about my history with Transfomers. I grew up obsessed with them, not as crazy obsessive like some people, but I was a pretty big fan. That said I can recognize that the original series probably doesn’t stand up well at all, but I’d probably still enjoy them for one reason or another. I didn’t even know about the existence original (animated) movie until my college years but enjoyed it…even if it was essentially a vehicle for new toys (boo, Rodimus Prime).

As for the modern movies, I kind of liked the first one even if it was mostly Autobots hiding from everything (including humans), a few scenes of awesomeness, then Autobots getting beat down with the US military and a human coming to save the day by doing exactly what everyone was trying to prevent in the first place1. Revenge of the Fallen was better in the sense that they threw all sense out the window and was basically “screw logic, TRANSFORMERS!“ Unfortunately it also had way too much forced comedy and as action packed as it was, it didn’t mean much because it was confusing as hell visually.

Now with that out of the way, on to Transformers: Dark of the Moon (in 3D! I’ll get back to that later). The best way I can describe it is less ridiculous than Revenge of the Fallen, but still satisfactorily crazy, while shot and cut better so you can actually tell what the hell is going on in action scenes. There’s still random comedy bits spread throughout but it’s not shoved down your throat like in Fallen.

Basic summary of the movie (light spoilers ahead) is that the moon landing way back was all to check out some alien ship that crashed into the moon. Turns out that this was an Autobot ship that was thought to have failed when attempting to escape Cybertron. On board was another Prime, Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy!2), who apparently has some powers or knowledge to control rod thingys that can open space/time bridges which would transport all the bots and/or planet all over the place. Some tightwad government woman says this is bad, Sentinel says it’s a way to get off the planet. Decepticons want this power for obvious reasons, and chaos ensues.

As for the humans, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is job hunting and has a new girlfriend Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) that Michael Bay exploits of course, while his parents have two or three short scenes (while visiting Sam during their road trip). Simmons (John Turturro) is now rich off exploiting alien bot stories/conspiracies and has a badass/comic relief assistant in Dutch (Alan Tudyk). Lennox (Josh Duhamel) is still doing the fight with Autobots thing, while Epps (Tyrese Gibson) left and is doing shuttle maintenance with some “asshole” Autobots. There are also a crapload more, including John Malkovich as Sam’s wacky department boss, Patrick Dempsey as the douchey company boss (who Carly is an assistant to), Ken Jeong as a crazy coworker, and Terry Tate: Office Linebacker Lester Speight as one of Epps’ buddies.

Put it all together and it’s just as ridiculous as Fallen’s plot but I think it was handled well and turned out ok (this is all on a relative scale of course). I don’t want to get into too much detail with it, god knows it’s wacky enough, I’d just prefer to focus on the really stupid details here and there:

  • Transformer hair. I think Fallen may have had this too, regardless even if it did it’s still ridiculous here. Sentinel has some thick strands that are somewhat metallic at least, but there’s also bots with really thin human like hair (one of which seems to be balding).
  • Transformer blood. Fallen may have had this too, but if it did I don’t think it was as overt. Blood just spews out in many scenes. I guess you could argue that it’s oil…but it has a red tint and just looks like regular blood.
  • Scottish and Italian Transformers. I forget what car the Scot was but the Italian was (drumroll) the Ferrari3, and had an Italian accent. The Scot had an accent too of course, but the real atrocity/triumph was that in robot form he appeared to have somehow formed a robot kilt. I think he was a NASCAR car which just makes it all even more confusing.
  • Hobo Megatron. This is a good thing and I don’t have to explain why beyond “Hobo Megatron.”
  • Optimus trapped by some cables. This is during the main battle of the film, he flies through a building and gets caught in some crane cabling. And he’s stuck. A multi ton giant robot with glowing laser sword and axe and jet engines. Stuck enough that the movie goes off to other fights for a while and comes back to him still tangled in there, and only gets out when some other bots come to cut him free.

Back to earth, some basic cool points:

  • Laserbeak is pretty awesome.
  • If you’ve ever seen that web comic where a Transformer crushes the guy inside on accident after transforming, well they handle that situation pretty nicely.
  • Continuing from Fallen, Prime is still a ridiculous badass. Other than that whole stuck in cables thing.
  • All the effects are as crazy/good as ever, particularly now that you can see them.
  • The 3D is done mostly well and provides noticeable depth.

And not so cool:

  • Soundwave doesn’t seem to have much of a part, would’ve been cool to hear his voice more often, particularly considering Laserbeak was featured so much.
  • One of the things Fallen really got right was Starscream, like his high pitched screechy voice and hilarious sycophancy to Megatron. Moon sort of keeps the latter, but changed the voice so he wasn’t as recognizable.
  • Decepticons still have the samey look going on…but on the plus side it’s handled better so there’s not much confusion based on it (unlike Fallen).
  • While the 3D and depth were mostly good, there were still things here and there that just felt weird like the depth was exaggerated too much at times, and/or the depth of focus felt wrong.
  • It was pretty damn long, mostly due to the action scenes. If you like crazy spectacle and don’t tire of it, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

All in all if you like wild movie spectacle and can forgive incredible stupidity, it’s pretty good. Or at least better than the previous two.

HIPPO
Rating system guide

  1. Giving Megatron the Matrix.
  2. Who voiced Galvatron in the original animated movie.
  3. If you’re a car nut and curious, it was a 458 Italia.

Backing up the HD Era

12 May 2011 at 18:16

japtor

Apps, Movies, Tech

No Comments

I have no HDTV1, Blu-ray player/PS3, and the only display I have that can show 1920×1080 is the one attached to my computer…and that one doesn’t support HDCP so I couldn’t even play Blu-rays on it if I had a player. But luckily through the world of computer parts and piracy “backup” focused apps, I can now play them.

Well, sort of.

By “play” I mean I can view videos on them, I can’t actually play the disc and get menus and easily accessible extras and random online crap. The key to everything is a $50 app called MakeMKV, which thankfully has a decent demo period to see whether it actually works, and it does for me. Unfortunately nothing on OS X supports BD playback, so basically you have to rip a disc to play it, or do this convoluted setup to play straight off the disc. I’ve been doing the long rip and convert method because my computer is old and slow. It can play off the disc, but just barely.

I’m using this LG “SUPER MULTI BLUE” drive, does 12x BD-R and has USB and eSATA connections, although for all I know the BD burning capability and eSATA ports are broken since I don’t have 50 gigs to burn or eSATA ports. I’ve only tested BD reading and just recently, CD writing.2

It uses a fairly fat power brick with detachable prongs (international ready I assume), the connection seemed fine enough, but the fatness was annoying. That could just be a sign that I have way too much crap plugged in.

fat plug

The drive itself seems huge, but comparable to other older or larger 5.25″ enclosures. Here it is devouring an iPad 2 with Smart Cover:

fat drive

And one last fun/incredibly obnoxious at first feature, see this eject button?:

stupid eject

Well it’s not a button, it’s a touch sensitive piece. Took me a while to figure that out for some reason, the tray motors got a nice workout from me not knowing what the hell was going on with it. If the drive is located in an area with some high finger traffic (such as some front USB ports) I could see it becoming a massive pain in the ass, but in my case it’s sort of out of the way so it’s not a big deal. And it’s not just because OS X has a convenient soft eject key on the keyboard, cause that doesn’t appear to work with it. Luckily the other manual methods of ejection in the Finder work (contextual menu, sidebar, etc).

Info according to System Profiler:

HL-DT-ST BD-RE BE12LU30:
Firmware Revision: 4261
Interconnect: USB
Burn Support: Yes (Generic Drive Support)
Profile Path: None
Cache: 4096 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RAM, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
BD-Write: -R, -RE
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

All ho hum stuff, but note the “Burn Support: Yes”, because here’s what Disk Utility has to say:

Burn Support : Unsupported

From what I can tell (from my single burning experience), is that this basically just means the Finder doesn’t support it. The blank disc I put in didn’t show up in the Finder, but everything else like whatever burning apps knew the disc was there and writable (I ended up burning it with…Burn).

With all that out of the way, lets move on to the exciting world of BD ripping. As mentioned MakeMKV works, but it’s not exactly a pretty Mac app. Not horribly ugly but just weird looking and out of place I guess:

ewww

But again, it works, and is the only native option that I know of right now. At least it’s pretty simple to use. Stick a disc in, press the big button, then wait as it scans the disc, then presents you with this screen:

lots o crap

Usually you have a big ass title and a bunch of smaller ones, but there are many cases like this where there are multiple similarly huge ones. I know on some other discs I have they are alternate versions, but honestly I have no clue most of the time and just pick the first one, it’s worked out so far. The other titles tend to be other special features, or just filler stuff like trailers or backgrounds for menus.

To rip the selected titles you press that “Make MKV” button and let it go for a while. Around half an hour later you’ll end up with each title as its own fancy MKV file. From there you can watch them directly if your computer is fast enough and/or have hardware acceleration, or transcode to another format for whatever reasons. I do 720p h.264 to watch on my iDevices and eventually Apple TV…and cause it’s much smaller. You can use MKVtoolsto rewrap 1080p h.264 encoded movies, but I’ve had bad luck with them (video corruption, like they’re missing key frames).

Congratulations, you have now entered the seedy world of Blu Ray backups!
Well, 2D backups at least. I haven’t tried ripping the 3D discs because I sure as hell don’t have the equipment to watch that stuff. The only 3D I’m experiencing is the lenticular covers on those.

I should probably just get a PS3 sometime.

LG BE12LU30, MSRP $200:
HIPPO

MakeMKV, $50:
HIPPO

Rating system guide

The drive is nice, albeit huge with a touch sensitive button, but mostly it’s just held back by OS X not being able to play BDs. MakeMKV works…it’s just that it’s kind of ugly and feels like an obvious cross platform app.

  1. Well my family has a few, but none of them I’d consider “mine”, none in my room at least.
  2. Yes, I still burn CDs. It’s for security camera footage I give to police or victims, I ain’t wasting no USB flash drives on that stuff.

Evolutionary Schmevolutionary

20 Mar 2011 at 18:55

japtor

Tech, Toys

No Comments

Berge Heston

If it ain't white it ain't right

Instead of waiting in line for hours like a sucker, I ordered online at just before 1:00am…and waited four days, like a sucker, but from the comfort of my own home. At least I didn’t have to go through the line wait (again) and/or fail and continue to look every day for one in vain.

Anyways it’s awesome, throw your old iPads in the garbage, because that’s what they are now.


Design

The new form factor is getting a lot of attention, and to an extent the ever so slightly lighter weight (as weighed by this food scale):

Weight (oz) iPad 1 (3G) iPad 2
iPad 25.16 21.12
Case/Cover 6.04 4.90
Total 31.14 26.04

I know the total iPad 1 weight is wrong, but that’s what the scale said (hard to balance large objects on that thing and still see the readout). Whatever the case it’s enough that you can tell the difference, but just barely. Another way to look at it from those numbers is that they basically shaved a case’s weight off the iPad.

The big difference in physical feel mainly comes down to the shape, both with the bare iPad and more so with the original case vs Smart Cover:

Fatter than pre-Subway Jared

Ok maybe that’s a bit exaggerated cause the little holder cutout raises it up, here they are face down:

well it's still fatter

It just feels nicer in the hands and easier to hold. The slanted edge (or lack of edge) has a nice design effect of hiding the buttons when viewing the iPad head on. This can make it difficult to spot the location of the buttons quickly until you get used to it, particularly when it’s bare (with a case you tend to get used to having a “standard” orientation). Another quirk is that it feels sort of weird to press the buttons, probably more so if you’re used to the original iPad. Instead of pressing straight in from the side, you kind of squeeze the buttons in since they feel like they’re almost on the back of the device. The Mossberg had some connectivity issues with the dock port due to the slanted edge, but I haven’t had a problem.


SPEED!

Another part of the new awesomeness is the performance, which was the main reason I got it. The big (BS) spec being thrown around is the 9X graphics, but the biggest thing I wanted was the raw CPU performance for web browsing. Yes, web browsing. The iPad wasn’t horrible, but out of everything it did it was weakest at browsing. If you’re debating between getting an old or new one, the deciding factor should be how much you browse. That is how much of a difference it is, even with the NITRO CONSPIRACY.1 Sure apps and games will be faster (for the most part…), but ultimately they’re going to be mostly written with the original iPad in mind so performance will be ok for a while. Web pages aren’t, unless you want some crappy mobile formatted pages.

As for that “for the most part” thing, I’ve found a few instances of games that appear to be framerate capped, i.e. they run no better. Super Monkey Ball 2, RAGE, and Reckless Racing are some examples, even NBA JAM, an iPhone game! It is quite obnoxious.

It’s more obnoxious with a regular app…curse you SketchBook Pro! The input sampling is limited or something, so drawing still feels a bit laggy, although performance is noticeably better when dealing with multiple layers and doing transforms and stuff.

And one other little but important thing it’s faster at: the keyboard. With the original iPad the keyboard occasionally lagged. It was never as bad as say, the iPhone 3G’s occasional massive lag, but it happened enough that it could be pretty annoying. It seems like a really minor thing to point out, but if you use it a lot, little details like that matter.


Cameras

I guess another big headline feature is cameras. Well like everyone else says, the quality sucks on both, but hey FaceTime and Photo Booth! One difference between Photo Booth on a MacBook and the iPad is that it’s easier to move the camera around, to do stupid stuff like this:

Dog Booth

I’ve heard some people mention “why have a rear camera at all?” cause well yeah, it sucks, but for video it’s ok enough (even if it’s on the crappy end). The main use of it is plain spectacle though, it’s a live video feed to a relatively big ass screen. For shooting video, indeed it’s stupid, but for something like Star Wars: Falcon Gunner (an augmented reality game) the big screen is stupidly awesome.2

If you were hoping to be able to scan in documents with the rear camera (in conjunction with something like Genius Scan)…well it’s a no go. There’s just not enough resolution there and/or the noise is too much to deal with. The live video feed actually looks ok, maybe some CSI: Miami-esque magic like this stuff is possible down the line.


Screen

About the only thing that wasn’t changed was the screen itself…mostly. I know everyone wanted a new super high res screen, while I would’ve been satisfied with a laminated to surface screen (like the iPhone 4). Well we didn’t get any of that. What we did get were some welcome minor changes: the auto brightness seems just a tad more reactive to environment changes, and it can get dimmer. Not as dim as the iPhone 4, but still noticeably dimmer than the original iPad at least:

Damn, one looks fat here too

Now you'll go less blind at night

Mine also has massive backlight bleeding out the ass3, but I haven’t noticed it in normal use yet. One other change I noticed is that the color temperature is warmer, not a huge deal but I prefer the cooler tone of my old iPad just a bit. They’d never add it, but a basic “cool/neutral/warm” color temperature option would be nice.

Loosely related to the screen, a new feature is full mirroring to an external display. I don’t have the fancy new HDMI adapter, but I do have the old VGA one, and the mirroring seems to work fine with it…for the most part. I have a few apps that actually supported the VGA output (no clue if they work with HDMI though), they seem to use their original external screen drawing methods but there doesn’t seem to be a way to switch to the new built in mirroring (I’m assuming this can be addressed with app updates). Not a huge deal, but in the case of RAGE it’s buggy (nothing output over VGA, and only HUD graphics showing on the iPad), and in others it’s just plain slow (likely originally written to compensate for the original slower hardware).


Sound

One nice change (which may be a 4.3 thing) is that when you hold the volume rocker down it now does two quick stops on the way to zero. This is a nice compromise between the old single drop to zero on the old iPad and the slow linear drop on iPhones. However it also seems inconsistent, I’ve noticed in some apps it does the old single drop without any stepping down.

One not so nice change: since it can “ring” (FaceTime), it now has the dual volume travesty from the iPhone, where you have one volume for “ringer and alerts” and a separate volume for everything else, I’ll refer to that as “app volume.”

If you’re not clear on how that works, when nothing is playing (music or app audio) the volume buttons control the ringer volume, and only4 control the app volume when something is playing. This isn’t so annoying except for the fact that the app volume can be maxed out while the ringer is low…and that you may not realize it until your nephew wants to play Pac-Man C.E. in church…and that apps can ignore the silent switch.

There’s an option to lock the ringer volume so the buttons always control the app volume…but then the only way to control the ringer volume is in the Settings app, and the only way to quickly mute it is the silent switch…which may be relegated to the app switcher if you happen to prefer the rotation lock as the physical switch.

It is all quite annoying compared to the previous single universal volume. Please feel free to bitch about it on Apple’s iPad feedback page.

And remember how the sides are slanted? Well it seems like the speakers are as well, or at least the sound comes out that way. Basically it shoots sound out of its ass rather than uh, its soles. On a hard surface I guess the sound reflects more off the surface, but on a softer surface (like a blanket), sound is more easily muffled. In your hands it seems easier to cover up the speaker, but I’m comparing to the previous iPad in the Apple case (which always had at least a little separation because of the case itself).


Fuckin Magnets

They work quite decently.

The main difference I’ve noticed between the old case and Smart Cover (other than bulk) is that the case cover was more or less secured when you stuck it in the little holder flap, while the Smart Cover triangle kind of flops around until you place it down (on the other hand its magnets hold it on the screen, while the old case cover was free to flop around). Obviously the solution is more magnets.

Unfortunately more magnets wouldn’t fix the color of my cover (blue, polyurethane). It’s not so bad in natural (or bright white) light, but my room’s warm fluorescent lighting makes it look really bad. I wake up and think “hey it looks pretty nice!” but end up thinking “man, that kinda looks like ass” by the time I go to bed. I’ll exchange for green or orange if it ends up bugging me too much.

On the plus side, in the raised “movie viewing” angle it’s much more stable than the old case was. Granted that doesn’t say much considering how bad the old one was in that position, but it’s pretty solid now. With the old one you also had an unofficial in between angle, where you could flip it over and prop it up on the flap in a floppy yet solid two legged position. Because of the extra segments in the new cover and lack of casing on the opposite edge for friction this isn’t really possible with the Smart Cover and iPad 2.

Ultimately I like the cover, even if it is only a cover. That is both its strength and weakness really, and if anything I don’t feel like a cover is necessary (glass is quite scratch resistant, and I’m not sure how much it’d protect against impacts), its main use is as a prop/stand. The cover form factor makes it into a compact easy to carry design. It won’t protect against drops (vs the original case with its tiny crumple zone) but it won’t burden with extra size and weight either. And a huge difference is that you can just yank it off if you don’t want to deal with it at all (like I did while drawing), vs struggling with the original case’s tightness.5

And if the back gets all scratched up I can hopefully get a replacement because of that light bleeding I have. Or just design some really tacky Gelaskin.


Evolutionary!

So to sum up, again, awesome. Yes the update is “evolutionary” rather than “revolutionary”…but that tends to be the nature of hardware updates. If you want revolutionary, get the original iPad.6 You can find them in the trash these days.

Boxypad

This is how thick7 they would've been 20 years ago

iPad 2, $499-829:
HIPPOTROUBLE

Smart Cover (polyurethane), $39:
HIPPO

iPad (3G), worthless:
BERGE

Rating system guide

For a ridiculously more thorough review, check out Anandtech’s. They review everything, including software. I didn’t bother much with the software side because other than the camera apps (and iMovie and GarageBand in the store), it’s mostly identical to what has been out for months now. I consider the iPad 2 update to be purely a hardware update, while iOS 5 will be the big software brouhaha to talk about. I tend to agree with them on the software issues, basically that it feels too limited for the form factor sometimes. Hopefully iOS 5 brings about some significant changes.

  1. I use iCab which doesn’t benefit from all the new changes, but it’s still a much much better experience because of the new hardware. Something in iOS 4.3 changed the web for all apps for the better (The Big Picture loads fully, even on old devices!), just not the new JavaScript engine.
  2. Sure it looks even more like shit cause it’s an iPhone game and pixel doubled, but the fact that it doesn’t detract from the spectacle shows how awesome it is.
  3. Crotch might be a more accurate description since it’s not actually coming out of the back of the device.
  4. There is one other way, but it’s obnoxious vs using the volume buttons. The volume slider on the left screen of the app switcher controls this music/app volume. It also exists on the iPhone, two screens over.
  5. With the thinness of the iPad 2 you can actually use it in the original case without the tightness. However because of the slanted edges, pushing buttons and inserting cables becomes a pain. And the black case around the white iPad looked pretty bad to me.
  6. Even if it was just a big iPod. I can’t tell if that means it’s evolutionary, or if the new size and software made it revolutionary. Either way it sucked.
  7. See that box? They made the packaging smaller than the original box in every dimension too! Hell the iPad picture on the box face is from the side vs head on to accentuate how thin it is now.

iPad 2 has arrived

15 Mar 2011 at 15:04

japtor

Tech, Toys

No Comments

Quick impressions: this is how I feel about my original iPad now:

Pray for Mojo

Rebooting Windows

26 Jan 2011 at 00:58

japtor

Tech

No Comments

Windows Everywhere

That’s some Microsoft mantra that has existed at least since 1998 and apparently still exists today. Misguided perhaps, but only if they literally mean it.

Normally I wouldn’t really care, but I found the whole Windows on ARM thing interesting. Sure, part of it has to do with me being an ARM shareholder1, but most of it comes from seemingly everyone wondering why the hell they’re putting “real” Windows onto tablets and phones.

The angle that seems to be ignored is the possibility of just rebooting Windows entirely. They can’t do that with x86 cause they’re bound by legacy support there, but on ARM they can do whatever the hell they want and clean out god knows how much unnecessary cruft. They could strip it down to a universal core, build UIs for different devices, lock it down to a secure app store, anything. Sound familiar?

If Apple said “OS X everywhere!” five years ago they’d look insane too. Of course “everywhere” back then was just Macs and iPods, but consider what they have now and they’ve pulled it off. Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Apple TV are all running OS X2. The difference is that they never showed a demo of something two years before the planned release, at most there was a six month delay between show and ship…and they shipped what they showed.

Meanwhile if MS plans to ship other variants with different UIs, they didn’t mention or show them at all. Instead they showed…Windows and Office, and didn’t mention much else, which led to the “what the hell”-ness by everyone. I’m guessing most were expecting something based on Windows Phone rather than a port of real Windows.

On the plus side, if they consider the “Windows” part of “Windows Everywhere” to be stuff like .NET and DirectX and stuff, they could build whatever UIs on top of it and tailor it to each form factor. They already know how to do that3…well, other than for tablets (but give them time there, I’m sure they’ll figure it out. Eventually!).

One form factor that seems to be getting ignored is the plain old computer, even though it was the only one they actually showed. Other than cutting out legacy by going to ARM, the big thing is that it opens up the race to the bottom! That and improving battery life, and cooler, smaller, lighter designs. Intel might get competitive (in price, power, heat, etc) within two years but I sort of doubt they’ll beat ARM designs at it, and performance may suck comparatively while running the real legacy fork Windows. I’m mainly just looking forward to tiny boxes like this one.4

Then again, if they really plan on putting regular Windows everywhere (like they’ve been doing with tablets), they could be boned. Cheaper ARM computers will help to lower the barrier to entry to Windows (and desktop computing as a whole), but they’ll have to compete with increasingly capable mobile platforms with momentum going for them. That could suck.

  1. …wish I thought about picking up NVIDIA too, I already suspected everything was going to go Tegra! Other than Apple stuff I mean.
  2. Well the AirPorts and Time Capsule don’t as far as I know. Or the iPod shuffle. Or nano. But all the important stuff runs OS X!
  3. They have Windows, Media Center, Windows Phone, Xbox, Surface, and god knows what else. May not be perfect but they’re all specifically designed for the form factor.
  4. What can I say, I’m a whore for miniaturization.

The First Impulse Buy of 2011

20 Jan 2011 at 01:51

japtor

Games, Tech, Toys

2 Comments

Possibly the greatest?

dq slime speaker box

After checking my game related RSS feeds one day I ran across this breaking news. I couldn’t risk missing out on the deal so I pulled the trigger. Opening the box gives you the Dragon Quest Slime Speaker in its full glory1:

slime speaker

If you happen to have an older generation Mac mini around, the Slime compliments it quite well:

slime on mini

Let’s say you happen to have other questionable creatively designed speakers around, such as this Ladybug:

ladybug vs slime

Both are battery powered and kinda funky looking, and the Ladybug even has a nice feeling finish to it…but it’s not squishy. I’m pretty sure it sounds better (mainly because it has a sub), has some more connectivity (including an iPod dock), and has speakers that spread out a little for just a little semblance of stereo separation…but again, it’s not squishy.

And that face!

If you’re stuck in a game2 and getting a bit frustrated, would you rather look at some cold emotionless speaker, or this:

smiley

Its value goes beyond plain old performance and features, but in case you care about that stuff I’ll cover that quickly here. Sound wise…well it’s like any other small speaker, not much bass but at least gets a bit louder than the iPad. It has no volume control but handles input pretty well, like no buzz or anything at input lower volumes.

It uses a standard 3.5mm stereo minijack for input on a retractable cable (beat that, Ladybug!) and runs on four AA batteries (no external power option), up to 40 hours according to the box. It’s a stereo speaker, with the speakers located around the cheek area (if slimes even have cheeks). There’s an on/off slider switch in the back (the ass?) where the minijack retracts cleanly.

But who cares! It works! It’s a (mostly) squishy device that looks like a slime and pumps out sound. It’s pretty light and easy to carry around, so it has actual utility as a portable speaker too! Even my dog got excited about it!

dog vs slime

He ran away after I started playing Bebot through it though.

As of this post the price has now skyrocketed to $18.84. Buy now before it jumps up to collector status and becomes impossible to find!

Dragon Quest Slime Speaker Stand, $18.84 (…FOR NOW):
HIPPOTROUBLE
Rating system guide

  1. Technically since the official name is “Dragon Quest Slime Speaker Stand” it’s not in the full glory there, the stand is in the box. The stand takes away a bit in terms of portability and looks, with a big plastic thing hanging off the back. It’s also a kind of a pain to remove once you stick it on…so don’t bother unless you’re really going to use it.
  2. This particular game is Block Rogue (for both iPhone/iPod touch and iPad), I’ll be writing a review later, but until then my quick impression is Hippo.

iPad 2 Specs Outta Nowhere

14 Jan 2011 at 22:35

japtor

Tech

No Comments

My wild guess for weeks (probably months by now!) has been:

  • Cortex A9 CPU
  • Some new PowerVR GPU
  • More RAM

…ok that’s about it. I figured a screen resolution bump (to 2048×1536) was way out there, but only because the screen itself. Most people apparently can’t imagine a mobile chipset being able to power it.

IDIOTS!1

Yes the Apple A4 SoC only came out last year, but ultimately the cores in it, ARM Cortex A82 and PowerVR SGX 535, are designs originally from 2005 and 2007. That crap is old! Granted actual chips based off of them probably didn’t come out until way later, and the ones in the A4 are probably clocked up to hell and all. But still, much better new stuff has been designed and come out since then, such as multicore A9 and SGX3 designs.

And everyone worrying about battery life has a valid concern, but they’re also idiots. Efficiency is apparently a magical foreign concept to them. Intel CPUs are ridiculously faster than older generations, yet take up much less power. The iPhone 4 pushes four times the pixels of the iPhone 3G, is much more powerful, yet gets more battery life.

“WITCHES!”

…is what those kids would say. Maybe I was wrong, the kids aren’t all right. They’re idiots.

  1. Not that I expect it myself…but it looks more likely than I thought.
  2. The Apple SoC naming is going to get confusing once it reaches A8.
  3. SGX 543 you say?

Screen Nipples for iDevices

11 Jan 2011 at 23:50

japtor

Games, Tech, Toys

No Comments

Anyone familiar with touchscreen gaming knows that the controls can range from great and unique, to downright horrid. The good stuff usually deals with direct touch input that is only really possible (or at least vastly ideal) on a touchscreen. The bad stuff tends to have a virtual directional pad or analog stick along with virtual buttons. There have been decent workarounds and implementations, like d-pads that automatically center upon your initial touch, or the (quite decent) “auto correct” d-pad in Mushi Bug Panic.

There’s also physical workarounds, like the controller case add on projects (that will likely never gain much traction), or somewhat ghetto ones like the recent Fling analog stick.

As for me, I’m too cheap for all that stuff so I got the Tactile+Plus for $91 off a goon.

goon mail

This is expected packaging from a goon

…It’s pretty damn ghetto, Fling seems like an engineering masterpiece in comparison. It’s basically a bunch of cutouts that you stick on the screen to give you tactile markers to feel the controls. There are two sets of these “controls” included in the package, each consisting of a d-pad and four buttons. If you have a dual stick game you’ll be good to go with one package.

The cutouts feel like static screen protector products, somewhat hard and durable enough, with little raised sections (or “screen nipples”) acting as the “tactile” portions. They stick pretty securely to any flat slick surface (including these screen protectors) without any adhesive. This includes the iPad bezel or the back of an iPhone 4, so they’re pretty easy to deal with when it comes to carrying them around.

creative solutions

Yes my photo studio is still a Magic Trackpad with Xbox 360 camera

Now the secure hold is nice for keeping them with you, but it’s also the biggest issue once you actually want to play something. It’s just a pain in the ass to pull them off once they’re stuck to something2. The little lift tabs help but not that much, and if anything I’m paranoid about bending them out of shape when trying to pull them off.

The other part of the process is putting the controls in place of course. The d-pad isn’t so bad, but the buttons are a bit annoying because they’re so small. Because they stick well, once you drop them on you can’t really nudge them into place, you have to lift them up a bit first to break the adhesion. And you usually have to do this while the game is running, trigging everything unintentionally, which may be an issue if you’re continuing at some crucial spot in a game. A ghetto workaround is to take a screenshot and set the controls in the Photos app.

Based on all the crap I wrote so far you’re probably thinking “this thing is a disaster!” Well yeah, kinda. I’d say that the whole application and removal process is annoying enough that I can’t recommend it…but for its main purpose (gamin!), it’s surprisingly decent.

Actually I’m not sold on the buttons. I think they might work, but only in particular games/control setups. The main issue is that you either know where the virtual buttons are or you don’t, you either tap them instinctively or you look then tap. With real buttons you might be able to feel around for them first before pushing, whereas with these overlays you’ll “push” the buttons just feeling around for them. That said, I think with an ideal setup they may be useful, like if you have a space to rest your thumb and can slide over to the button.

While the buttons are questionable the d-pad is a small success, albeit with a major caveat or two. To really work well it needs a fixed d-pad and that d-pad needs to be big and far enough from the edge of the screen…I haven’t actually run into a problem with that myself, but I mention it cause some of the games I’ve tried have cut it pretty close.

Anyways if a game meets those criteria the overlay actually feels pretty good. I’m someone that really sucks with fixed d-pads, but with the overlay in place it becomes a viable control scheme. The nipples give you a center reference point and eight directional points, which also collectively work as an edge marker. All those in conjunction with the action on the screen make it pretty easy to immediately recognize where you are on the pad at any time.

One game I couldn’t play at all was Madden because I just couldn’t control where I was going. Now I can! Unfortunately I forgot the rest of the controls so passing and defense is an issue, but at least I can run the ball (just like my favorite team!). I tried it with a few other sports games (such as FIFA, NHL2K3) and the result was similar…albeit not as necessary because those games have a floating d-pad option. Still I think I prefer the feel of the fixed+overlay combo.

I also tried out Pac-Man Championship Edition, which is demanding enough with real physical controls, and quite a bitch on a touchscreen. It has multiple control modes which are playable to varying degrees, but one I could never stand was the virtual d-pad. Well the overlay made it work, to an extent.

pacnips

Surprisingly not horrible

The thing is, other than the (well documented) lack of tactile controls, there’s one really annoying issue I have with touchscreens — friction. The overlays have a similar slick surface as glass, and unfortunately are just as susceptible. In the hot rigorous action of Pac-Man CE it became a noticeable problem down the stretch. I would’ve preferred a matte finish of some sort. Sure it wouldn’t have been as clear, but your thumbs are meant to cover them up most of the time and the nipples already distort the image slightly to begin with.

I also noticed one other issue — I was trying to use it as a real d-pad, meaning that instead of sliding my thumb around I was keeping it centered and rocking it around to push the directions. Part of it was the necessary speed in Pac-Man CE, the other was that it was actually working for a while. That sounds fine (good even), but pushing your thumb against a relatively immovable object for five minutes isn’t too comfortable. I imagine it’s how those old Turbo Touch 360s felt.

So this ghetto piece of crap isn’t completely crap! While testing it out I did notice one more big caveat, which ties into the annoying application and removal process. Whether you use the d-pad, buttons, or both, the main issue is that it seems like no two games have the same controls. Switching between games means moving everything around, which again, sucks.

BERGE
The functionality of the d-pad is really Hippo, but the inconvenience of everything just knocks it down to Berge.
Rating system guide

  1. Other things you can buy for $9: DoDonPachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II.
  2. Well there is one workaround, but it’s even more ghetto — use a piece of tape to lift stuff off the screen. It’s also multipurpose! Clean lint off the overlays to make them stick better, clean the section of the screen you’re applying to, etc.
  3. Actually I have the older versions of these games, for all I know the new ones don’t even have fixed controls!

KINECTMAS

31 Dec 2010 at 17:08

japtor

Games, Tech, Toys

No Comments

I got a Kinect for Christmas. Initial impressions are that it’s kinda cool from a tech standpoint, albeit kinda creepy from the “Xbox is scanning the room with cameras and blasting it with IR dots” perspective.

It also seems a bit laggy from my limited experience with the included game, Kinect Adventures (…which doesn’t appear to use your avatar by default for whatever reason). In the game where you have to hit the bouncing balls it can be a problem, you can adjust to it but it’s pretty annoying. Doesn’t help that it’s 30fps too, no clue if that’s a Kinect input limitation or just this game.

Now the real achilles heels of the Kinect are well publicized by now, one being black people1, and the other physical play space. I’m not black so I got a pass there, but here’s a poorly drawn diagram of my play area:

The green is the IR blast radius, the red is the closest play area, blue is the ideal. I can actually play a bit within the space between my desk and bed (and non humping ottoman), I’m just screwed if I have to do anything within the lower left quadrant of the screen cause I can’t reach there at all.

So as far as Kinect is concerned, I’d rather be a black man.

  1. Black people can play, it’s just the facial recognition that doesn’t work if the lighting isn’t right. I guess they all just look the same to it.

    I know how that feels.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Stylus

29 Sep 2010 at 00:51

japtor

Apps, Design, Tech

No Comments

Styluses feel kinda stupid on a phone1 but with a big ass screen they can be pretty awesome. Unfortunately the iPad uses a capacitive screen which doesn’t work with sharp pointy objects, leading to the proliferation of blunt stubby objects and various oddly shaped ones. The problem is that most of these suck.2

But I found one that doesn’t!

Works on the Magic Trackpad too!

Actually it’s more than one. It’s sold by Acase, Boxwave, Griffin, Targus, and god knows who else. All I can assume is that it’s made by the finest Chinese child laborers in the world. Or some large automated manufacturing line with little human intervention, but I’m sure China and/or children are involved somewhere.

It has a smooth sliding rubber dome that compresses down and generally feels pretty good to use. It’s relatively natural to use, other than the fact that the tip is fairly large versus a standard pen. This is in contrast to the Pogo where you’re dragging a piece of foam on the screen, or the stubby rubber one that is too hard to trigger the screen without a lot of force and isn’t smooth on the glass. Impressions from others around the internets are pretty universal in praise.

…mostly. There are two cons I’ve seen. one is that it can be still hard to be precise with the fat tip. This is true but it’s pretty easy to get used to, particularly with zooming in. Barring a funky flat/ring design (to increase the surface area) I think this might be the best possible design of the “normal” styluses. The other complaint is that it’s too short. It’s around four inches long, an inch or two shorter than most normal pens, right around the length of the iPhone. Depending on your style this may be an issue.

Well there’s one more con, but with stylus drawing on a capacitive screen in general — your hand can still trigger the screen. If you’re all artsy and used to drawing or painting on an easel with your hand off the page you’re good to go. If you rest your hand on the page you might be screwed if you can’t adjust to keep your hand off the screen. Get some gloves.

Now for some exciting samples! (with some quick notes on the apps used).

This is how exciting it is to draw directly on a screen

SketchBook Pro for iPad — Pretty good…but limited. Particularly being stuck at the screen resolution, 1024×768. The performance could stand to be better (it lags slightly behind), but it’s consistent while drawing. It’s the gesture commands that can be flaky. I like them since it allows the interface to disappear but when the wrong gesture happens it is really obnoxious.

You didn't draw Will Smith in the margins back in the day?

Note Taker HD — If you thought “Capacitive touch screen for handwriting…WELL I NEVER!” and walked away I would’ve agreed with you before using Note Taker. DAN BRICKLIN IS A MIRACLE WORKER.3 The input resolution of the iPad kinda sucks for handwriting but he gets around that by that optional adjustable zoom box and a magical auto advance functionality that lets you keep writing along a line somewhat naturally. I can’t go quite full speed on it but I’m close enough that I’ve used it instead of paper for a bunch of stuff recently.

Another awesome part is that the strokes are all saved as vector lines rather than rasters, so you can output a PDF that looks great even when printed out. Not too useful for ugly handwritten pages of notes, but it could be used as a freehand vector drawing app as well (it has colors too!). You can include the faux paper backgrounds or leave it completely blank, like when you scribble out stuff for your site.

FINAL JUDGEMENT(S) (until further notice)
Acase/Boxwave/Griffin/Targus/etc Stylus, $10-20:

SketchBook Pro for iPad, $7.99:

Note Taker HD, $4.99:

Rating system guide

  1. I’d slam styluses on handhelds in general, but I can’t do that cause the Nintendo DS is too awesome.
  2. Well the oStylus is supposedly good, just pretty expensive and might be kinda awkward.
  3. Dude made the first “killer app” ever back in the day, now he does it for iPad. LIGHTING STRIKES TWICE!…although going by his website and older versions of Note Taker, design doesn’t seem to be his thing.
← Older Entries
Newer Entries →