Can Windows 7 Save Microsoft's Reputation?

Windows, in its many and various forms, is installed on somewhere between 88 per cent and 93 per cent of the world's computers; to extrapolate that vague figure even more inaccurately, that's somewhere around a billion machines.

Indeed, Windows is so hilariously dominant in the marketplace that discussions of the merits of relative minnows such as Macintosh, Linux or Google's emerging Android OS sometimes feels as niche as pondering Kettering Town's impressive start to the football season.

Read on

Lemmings - A Complete History

DMA Design, creators of the (in!)famous Lemmings game, which captured hearts in the 90s and broke many little feeble minds in the process have published the Complete History of Lemmings online. The piece mainly talks about the development of the game, some of the political situations and how they came up with those damn puzzles! Well worth a read for any budding games developer.

8000 New Jobs In IT In Next 4 Years

"The global IT industry will spearhead economic recovery, with 5.8 million new jobs in sight. Despite the global recession, some of the most exciting new developments in mobile and internet are still being unleashed, from Twitter, to Facebook, to apps on mobile devices."

Read more

Semester 3 and Beyond

Howdy Folks,
Each student needs to make a decision on their choice of stream for Semester 3 shortly. The powerpoint presentation linked here outlines all the information. If anyone has questions, contact me know via email or call up to the office.

Music Technology Input Devices Demo

Hello Entertainment Systems people. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we're having a bit of a class excursion down to the College St. campus (Good Shepherd) to view a Music Technology demo that's taking place as part of New Music Week here at WIT.

The demo focuses on input devices for controller synthesizer events. There are two main parts:
1. Using Wii Remotes and Nunchucks to control sound, pitch and also trigger sample events.
2. Translating sound generated from a pots and pans drums kit into WAV format, then analysing that WAV and generating MIDI information which can then be fed into a synth.

This is of interest to students of both games and music disciplines. The music side is pretty obvious, but for the games people you will see how a gaming device (Wii Remote) can be co-opted for other purposes. Will this have an effect on games in the future?

ALL students need to be at the Bunker's Hill entrance of the College St. Campus at 11.25am tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The demo is set up in the dance studios.

YouTube Branded Justice?

From the Irish Times: THE INTERNET can be a window to some dreadful cruelty: but physical cruelty always takes place elsewhere. When an anonymous teenager uploaded videos of himself mistreating a small household cat to YouTube, the crime was in what he had done, not that he’d shown the world the evidence. But what happened next was a direct result of that upload. It’s either an illustration that justice can be reached even in the less salubrious parts of the net; or it shows that sometimes the net reaches further into the real world than most people are comfortable with.

Read on.

DJ Phone

A young designer has came up with a phone concept that smashes together design elements from Nintendo's Wiimote, Tonium's Pacemaker Portable DJ, and the iPhone to make an interesting portable music system. Read on ...

Skills Shortages

In a recent report commissioned by UK games industry TIGA, the following was noted:

"Of the 100 UK-based CEOs and managing directors surveyed, 63% had faced skill shortages in the last year, with programmer vacancies as the most challenging to fill by 74% of those respondents. Tax burdens and foreign competition were listed as the top two barriers to expansion. TIGA CEO Richard Wilson hopes that the government will introduce a 20% tax break for local developers so the region can compete against Canada and a growing number of US States with tax incentives."

A quick scan of the web will reveal lots of opportunities for multimedia developers. A bright spot in a gloomy economy!

Read the report here.

PS3 Price Cut 'Imminent'

There's lot of news stories floating around the internet that Sony will be announcing a 100 euro/dollar/pound price cut on PS3s in the next couple of days.

According to Janco analyst Mike Hickey, Sony needs to slash the price of the console to "effectively restart unit velocity at retail." He sees this cut taking effect in "April or by June at the latest." Without the cut, he predicts PS3 sales will continue to steadily decline.

So if you're thinking of getting a PS3, hold off a few days!

Two Sources: Yahoo Tech and Engadget.

How To Make a Game For the iPhone

In 43 seconds (might take the average person a little longer) ....

8-Bit Minutemen Experience

This is a really cool intersection of film, comic book, games and music. Promotional material for the upcoming Watchmen film has been very inventive so far, with fake news report, online magazines and a healthy supply of film-maker video podcasts (Anthony Burgess, could we call these viddycasts?).

Anyway, the best one yet is just out - a playable video game within a film. Veidt Industries have made an 8-bit game of 1940s superheros The Minutemen. This is of interest to students of Entertainment Systems as it shows the intersection of multiple media formats. Musicians - take note of the nostaligic 8-bit music!

I love the Double Dragon-esque feel of this game. Have a go and see who can get the highest score?!

Flash Coming For iPhone (No, Really)

Once thought to be building Flash for the iPhone mostly on its own, Adobe has mentioned at the World Economic Forum that it's not only continuing work on the animation plug-in but has teamed up with Apple to make it a reality.

Read on ...

Microsoft Surface

For those of you who missed Liam Cronin's talk yesterday, he showed a few videos of Microsoft Surface in action. This kind of technology has thousands of possible uses, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Can you think of any entertainment applications? Games? What about using the surface as a musical instrument? Or possibly a controller?

Microsoft Talk at WIT

Liam Cronin, Microsoft Academic Engagement Manager, will be in WIT this coming Wednesday, 4th Feb. He will give a talk to students about some Microsoft initiatives such as the Imagine Cup, Dreamspark and the MSDN Academic Alliance. He will also do some technology demos.

The talk will be in D16 at 1:15pm.

New in Ableton Live 8

The emminent Peter Kirn over at CreateDigitalMusic.com has posted a video playlist outline the new collaborative working facility in Ableton Live 8. Sharing and working on sets via the web looks pretty cool to me and is a genuine step forward. I must investigate the Max for Live package, although maybe not this week!

Excellent Prospects for Technology Graduates

From the Irish Times:
"Ireland has been facing a growing shortage of graduates in technical disciplines, even though computer scientists, electronic engineers, and IT professionals have excellent career options."

This echoes similar statements from the Irish Software Association, ICT Ireland and GameDevelopers.ie

Students graduating the next 2 years will certainly have their pick of jobs. If the government actually implements some of their 'knowledge economy' rhetoric, then the future is certainly bright within the ICT sector for the foreseeable future.

Now, let's get some more indigenous companies going and not have to rely so heavily on multinationalis ....

Are Games Better Value Than DVD/Blu-Ray?

TechRadar poses and interesting question as to the perceived relative value between games and DVD/Blu-Ray movies. Quite simply, if you had EUR40 to spend, do you think you'd get more 'bang for you buck' from a game or a film? Interestingly, where does music fall into all of this? A few years ago, the same question was posed about DVDs against CDs - if you had EUR20 would you get more value from a film or an album? Unfortunately, the record industry doesn't seem to have evolved in any meaningful way - iTunes and other digital services are still using more or less the same model as vinyl sales, just the media and distribution methods have changed.

There are no simple answers to all of this. However, it is of significant importance that we keep a watch on the situation. Without continued sales, there will be a cut-back on new product, which means less jobs.

Also, where do ISPs fit in all of this? Nobody installs a 10Mbit broadband package to send and receive EMail. Do the ISPs owe some responsibility in declining revenues for content generators? Or are they increasing revenues through online stores?

Answers on a postcard to .....

Game Sales Overtake DVD/Blu-ray

"For the first time ever, worldwide videogame revenue had exceeded that of DVD and Blu-Ray sales in 2008 .... global sales of videogame software has risen an encouraging 20 percent in 2008, reaching US$32 billion"
Read the full article over at CVG

Inauguration 2.0

Last week's Inauguration of President Obama was historic for a number of reasons. Whatever about race/society and other impacts, from a purely technical perspective it was pretty groundbreaking. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and many more Web 2.0 technologies were used by mainstream media to broadcast the event.

Silicon Republic summarises some of the technologies used here.

Games On The Up

Here's a link to a very interesting article from the UK Independent about the success enjoyed by the games industry, despite declines in virtually all other market segments.

In a tough consumer market, this is an industry that is one of very few winners. Computer games are enjoying record sales of consoles and software across the globe. Mike Griffith, who heads the video game group Activision, said: "Movies, recorded music and television – these are all stagnating or contracting entertainment sectors. Video games are poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the year ahead."

Read the full piece here.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to Semester 2! I hope you're all suitably refreshed after the Christmas break.

As you can imagine, timetables will change over the next week or so, but the latest copy will always be posted on the notice board outside the School of Science office.